The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-12-30 00:00:00

11 I STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER.

represented • and at a Meeting of the *Royal
Geographical Society, on the 12th December, the
Prince of Wales being present, what may be called a
national reception was given to Sir George Nares and
the officers of the Expedition. It was then pointed
out by Sir Henry Rawlinson that the mass of scientific
observations made will prove of infinite value in many
departments of knowledge. A. couple of ships full of
enterprising Englishmen have spent a winter and a
spring deeper in the Polar snow and Arctic night than
any civilized man over stayed before, and the in-
formation thus brought back is well worth the cost at
which it has been gained. When the voyagers turned
their faces homewards they left the English flag flying
on the sea of ancient ice at a point far nearer the Pole
than had ever previously been reached. Long may it
brave the stormy desolation of the frozen ocean in the
same way that it has "braved a thousand years, the
battle and the breeze."

Death, as in former years, has claimed his victims
from the ranks of our legislators as well as from less
exalted circles. The list of members so removed from
the House of o.min:ions has been already given; and,
turning to the Lords, the clronicle is found to be as
follows: the Marquises of Conyngham and Tweed-
dale; E vls Howe, Leven and Melville, Sheffield and
Suffolk; Viscounts Exmouth and Melville; Lords
Harlech, Hylton, Liegar, Lyttelton, Ribblesdale, and
Sandhurst, Of those otherwise distinguished in various
walks of life our obituary Must inelndo Sir Anthony
de Rothschild, the well-known barker; the Right
Hon. T. H. Sotheron-Estcourt, formerly M.P. for
North Wilts, ana president of the Poor Law Board,
and afterwards Home Secretary in the second Ad-
ministration of Lord Derby; Viscount Anaberley, the
eldest son of Earl Russell; Henry Gastineau, the
water-colour painter; Mr. Poulett Scrope, for thirty-
five years M.P. for Stroud; Francis Deak, the
Hungarian patriot and statesman; Dr. Jabez Burns,
Mr. John Forster, the Hon. Reverdy Johnson, at one
time United States' Minister in England; Sir John
Taylor Coleridge, for twenty-three years a judge in
the Court of Queen's Bench; Sir Baldwin Walker,
late surveyor of the Navy; Lady Augusta Stanley,
wife of the Desp of Westminster; the Right Rev. Dr.
Milman, Bishop of Calcutta; Colonel °barks Corn-
wallis Chesney, RE. ; the Dean of Bangor, Dr. Henry
Letheby, the eminent medical analyst; Dr. Wesley,
organist of Gloucester Cathedral; General Sir George
Bowles, Governor of the Tower of London; Mr.
Henry Kingsley; Sir James Weir Hogg, formerly
chairman of the East India Company; the Rev.
Samuel Romilly Hall, President of the Wesleyan
Conference in 1868; the Bishop of Newfoundland; Sir
Thomas Henry, chief magistrate of the Metropolie ;
Mr. Matthew Noble, sculptor ; Miss Harriet
Martineau,!authoress ; Justices Quoin and Archibald;
Dr. George Smith, the Assyrian scholar; Cardinal
Antonelli ; and the Rev. Dr. Waddy, for many years
principal of Wesley College, Sheffield.
Mortality's records are naturally the sequel to a
review of the year. The evanescent basis which forms
the foundation of all earthly things is well typified by
the fleeting character of Plane. The year to which we
bid farewell, with all its chances and its opportunities,
its pleasures mid its hopes, ita sorrows and its joys,
has left its lights and shaaows upon the tablets of the
memory. It does not leave us with such bright and
cheerful reminiscences as some of its predecessors had
bequeathed, and looking towards the Eastern horizon
It may be feared that the shadows preponderate. Over
those lands and seas which catch the first rays of the
morning stmlight clouds have loured for months
which statesmen and diplomatists have endeavoured to
dispel. These precursors of future trouble have long
hovered over Constantinople, have darkened the sur-
face of the tideless Mediterranean, and have rendered
more gloomy than before the tempestuous waters of
the deep Black Sea. All that the nations of Europe
are now enabled to do is to hope that the terrible
scourge of war, which has so often desolated the fairest
portions of the Continent.; may, not again be permitted
to devastate its plains, and that the vast resources of
the different peoples may be turned into those peace-
ful channels which advance the arts of civilization, and
prcmote the happiness of mankind-.