The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-12-20 00:00:00

[We deem it right to state that we do not at all times
Identify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

Every week seems to bring us some new sensation
from the land of Ormuz and of Ind. The unhappy
Yakoob Khan has no sooner been carried off a prisoner
to Peshawur than a number of the tribesmen in the
land over which for a time he nominally ruled, make
a desperate attack upon the British army in posses-
sion of the Afghan capital. Partly in the valley near
the river, and partly in the bills which wall in the
city on the south, the sanguinary struggle was carried
on. It is impossible for us, with our broad and en-
lightened views of religions toleration, to realise the
fanaticism with which these followers of the Prophet
endeavour to exterminate those who differ from
them in polemics. Regarding the English as dogs and
infidels, whose extinction it is a duty to Mahomet to
effect, and which. he would regard with an eye of plea-
sure, these hillmen fall upon our troops with all th-elero-
city which,centoxies ago,distinguished Saracen warfare.
Honours and !rewards innumerable, according to the
Koran, await them in Paradise, in return for the
slaughter of the Giaour ; and as they thoroughly be.
hove in the teachings of their Great Book, no wonder
that their arms are nerved for the conflict with the
Christian, upon whom they look as salt which has
lost its savour, henceforth fit only to be cast out and
trodden under the foot of man.
Simultaneously with the intelligence of the renewed
fighting in Afghanistan came the news of the attempt
on the life of the Viceroy of India. The rapidity with
which this event was communicated to the authorities
in London,and by the newspapers to the public at large,
is strikingly illustrative of the nearly perfect system
of inter-communicatiOn which exists between Great
Britain and the uttermost parts of our great empire.
Lord Lytton described the occurrence as having taken
place in the evening of Friday, the 12th of December,
and by 'ix o'clock that evening the papers containing
his own account of it were selling in the streets of
London. Of course the time in Calcutta is several
hours ahead of that with us, just as the time in New
York Is behind us; but never was there a more com-
plete illustration of its practical annihilation by the
telegraph.

When, a generation ago, Tom Hood wrote of the
"dull December light," he did not in the slightest
degree exaggerate the description of this dark and
gruesome month. But for Christmas and its asso-
ciations, its pleasant family reunions, its abolition for
a few hours of the cares of the outside world, its cele-
bration of a festival recognized in all Christian lands,
and the delight which it beings more especially to the
junior members of our households, it would be difficult
to face this month of December at all with any
degree of equanimity. The Registrar-General tells
WI from time to time how many hours the sun is
above the horizon, and the quantity of registered
sunshine that falls upon the land in each particular
week. Well, it is hard for Londoners to believe that the
sun has not temporarily left these latitudes. Most
of them have now learned to be content with three or
four hours of daylight. One hour before twelve
o'clock and three afterwards now represent the time
of freedom from gaslight—the remaining twenty are,
if not pitch dark, sufficiently so to require the aid of
artificial illumination. Let us, however, be thankful
that in one respect we are better off than our fore-
fathers. They also must have had to face the g103m7
December days; but they had not the appliances we
possess for lightening the Cimmerian darkness with
which they were enshrouded. What,with gas and the
electric light, these dull December days are made the
best of; and there is the consolation of knowing that
December is, after all, only a twelfth part of our time
on earth.

In the severe weather which has passed over Europe,
the intensity of the frost has been even greater than
It was last year. Even in this temperate clime, we
seemed suddenly to have drifted into the frigid zone;
and the accumulation of ice in the tidal streams of our
great rivers was a suEficient testimony to the Arctic
temperature which prevailed. This year the Thames
has been virtually locked up at a much earlier period
than it was last winter. Huge blocks of Know-covered
Ice came down the tideway from the upper reaches of
the stream; one appeared to grasp the other upon
either bank as they floated lazily along the surface of the
current; and so it came to pass that the coagulated
masses, gradually adhering, formed north and south an
impenetrable barrier, extending far out into the middle
of the river, and entirely stopping the navigation
above London Bridge. The spectacle was a curious
and remarkable one, and attracted hundreds of
spectators at high water, when the tide remaining for
a few minutes suspended and in equilibrium, was
nearly covered with this frozen coating. One might
have been looking upon the Neva or the Danube, so
weird was the aspect of the stream, and so complete
was the silence which settled down upon it, thus
strongly contrasting with the scene which it usually
presents as a great commercial highway. To some
the scene might have bordered on the picturesque, but
to those who were suffering from the suspension of the
industries represented by the active life of the river, it
was one of very different import.
The unpurchaseable power wielded by the British
Press iknever put to a better use, or employed for a
nobler purpose than when, once a year and at Christmas
time, it opens its columns to those charitable appeals
which are just now engaging the attention of the
benevolent. A glance through a column of these in
any London paper may well create surprise at the
amount of misery and destitution which exists, and of
which the passing wayfarer can have little but a super-
ficial knowledge—

"lii lighted West-end houses see health, and warmth, and
show;
In foul St. Giles's hovels see squalor, want, and woe."

And so the conductors of the journals open their
columns to appeals not so much for relief in all cases
as for assistance to give those who cannot do it for
themselves, some reminder that Christmas has come
once again. It is impossible for the "glad tidings of
great joy" to be appreciated by those who have very
few comforts here on earth, but who, through the
thonghtful care and the generous help of others, are
enabled for a brief space in their lives to enjoy a plea-
surable emotion, and for months afterwards to have
an agreeable recollection of a time which was intended
to spread good-will amongst men. These charitable
appeals are not confined to providing funds for Christ-
mas festivities, but they include also permanent in-
stitutions, such as hospitals and dispensaries, which
feel for months the benefit of the aid thus afforded.

Once a year all the members of the Royal family
who are then in England, are gathered together with
a common object. This family gathering of Royalty
takes place—not in the throne-room of Buckingham
Palace, nor in the festive dining-hall of Windsor
Castle—but, attended with solemn service, around the
beautiful sarcophagus in the Mausoleum at Frogmore,
where repose the mortal remains of the late Prince
Consort. The occasion, now rendered doubly mourn-
ful, was long the anniversary of the death of the Prince
Consort alone; now it is that of the removal not only
of the Queen's hifsband, but also of her second daughter.
The religious service on the occasion is always of a very
impressive character. There rests the remains of
the Prince consort, and there attend her Majesty and
all the members of her family whom she can collect
around her. It is not the family even which was
with her when she was left a widow on the night
of the 14th December, 1861, for her youngest child
was then lees than five years old, and can, in the
nature of things, remember but little of her father.
At that time when muffled bells in many a steeple
throughout the land were flinging out their notes of
mourning upon the dank folds of the wintry air, only
one of the Royal children was married; now there are
but two unmarried. Her Majesty was then 42; she
Is now 60, a lady of mature years, silvered as to hair,
and with an experience of sorrows and bereavements
which has not fallen to the lot of many a humble
cottager. A most interesting Cabinet photograph of
the Queen and Princess Beatrice, which has lately
appeared in some of the London shop windows, shows
more accurately than any words can pourtray the
changes wrought by Time in the personnel of the
Royal household.

The late Duke of Portland, whose funeral took
place a few days ago in Kensal Green Cemetery, was
one of the richest peers in England's realm. We have
.
all heard of the vast auol3 spent by his grace upon
Welbeck Abbey, of the wonderful labyrinthine wind-
ings which have been excavated there, of the magnifi-
cent picture galleries, of the marvellous riding-school,
and of the army of 2,000 men constantly employed
apon the ducal estate. But the property of his grace
did not all lie in the county of Nottingham; a con-
biderable portion of it is in London, Portland-
plavx, Portland • square, and Great Portland-
streat, amply testifying to the ownership of the
land. Indeed, if the area of London were mapped
out, it would be found that a very considerable pro-
portion of the soil belonged to the families of our old
nobility. The Westminster and Bedford properties,
more particularly, are of enormous value, which must
of necessity increase annually; and it is only to take a
stroll through the Strand, and note the names of the
side streets running north and south, to ascertain the
owners of a long stretch of valuable land. The Earl
Of Radnor, the Marquises of Exeter and Salisbury, the
Dukes of Norfolk, Buckingham, Northumberland,
Bedford, and Newcastle, the Earl of Craven, and Lord
Southampton, have either their names or their titles
upon the side thoroughfares, denoting unmistakably
the ownership of the land.
The statue of a great benefactor to his kind is to be
erected on the Thames Embankment. It is not that
of a warrior, a philosopher, or a statesman—not that

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