The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-07-12 00:00:00

ear Fonbca CorresrAent.

(Alt, ften it riTzlit to ,F.tpte that do not at un
idcWltiry otirselms with eur Correspeztdent's opinions:l

is 'ovicient that th,c con4itutional cri -cis will be
the :principal sulto3ct of ptd•tic attention Throughout
t ,c,ieriing tect,:s. The
.ia,-clecl members 'of the House

of 'Osnamo-trs, vlio 'have vel *through tin intense heat
the doglays, will ri?.,3 from their kgislative laboms
fight the 1 ttle -again on prccincial platfornqs.
- FO r the tE_Ht time 'in more that half a eentur:T the

Lords'uln be engaged in a contest with the ration

* t"
over a question e. ec tag the representation ,of the
Vs
peOple.. There'vre very few svrvivors of the arduous
struggle which'riarked the earlier years of fie reign
of Sing Willitrn IV. We often think that strong
language is used in our own drys; but
our style of controversy is latr.blike and
inincent as ompared with the vituperation which
vzs so common half a century ago. We have no
William Gebbett amongst us now, not only to tear to
_

piece 4 the4-ing's speeches to Parliament, or to qualify
their grammar, but to address great audiences, as he
was accustomed to at Oldham, in a coarse not to say
racy styl3 totally unknown in the present day.

Mr. Molesworth and Mr. Roebuck have told us in
graphic narratives of the fierce excitement of that
time; and of the burning resentment of the great un-
enfranchised towns, such as Birmingham, Manchester,
and Leeds, at being kept out of their political rights,
while uninhabited mounds such as Gatton and Old

Sarum were sending members to the House of
Commons. When the ferment was at its height the
- carriages of the anti-refOrming peers, on making their
,v,ppearanee in the streets of London, were received

with roars of execration which would have drowned
the reverberations of the loudest! thunder. Bristol was
in the hands of the rioters for three, days, and

Nottingham Castle was in flames. There is no
doubt that the anticipations of the people, who were
not so well conducted and informed as are the genera-
tions of to-day, had been raised to an extravagantly
high pitch by the hopes of the results which would
follow the passing of the Reform Bill. As Macaulay
put it, the measure was expected to put a pot on every
working man's fire and a fowl in the pot. Of course, a
reaction followed on the disappointment, and in less
than two years a Conservative administration was in
power.

A great deal is said about Parliamentary obstruc-
tion in these latter days; but this is an institution
wlaich was not unknown even there. When the
Reform Bill was in Committee the more pertinacious
of the Tory Commoners often kept the House sitting
all night dividing upon motions openly and obtru-
sively obstructive. Sir Charles Wetherell, the Re-
corder of Bristol, was one of the most bitter anta-
gonists of the Reform Bill, and having a seat in the
House of Commons, he on one occasion kept that
assembly sitting until half-past seven in the morning.
When the House adjourned, and the wearied members
came out into Palace-yard, the rain was falling heavily.
The Recorder of Bristol exclaimed, " If I had only
known this they should have had a few more
divisions! "

The newspaper reading public has become so
thoroughly sick of Egypt that they hail the prospect
of this struggle with considerable relief as breaking
fresh ground. Something of this feeling was at the
bottom of the decision of the House of Commons when
it declined to discuss Mr. Bruce's Vote of Censure.
On the very first night of the session, the
sth February, Mr. Bourke moved an amend-
ment to the address censuring the Egyptian
policy of the Government, and there had been
one vote of censure after another inter-
mittently, all rejected, and to bring forward
a similiar motion on the eve of the Ist of July, in the
midst of sweltering heat, was what the House could
not stand. It was tired of the subject. There is
some talk of reviving the matter when the Conference
has finished its sittings; but the public interest will
then be centred upon the House Lords, and there
are not many who will be disp., Ito regret that we
have heard the last of the affairs of Egypt in the
House of Commons as a set debate. We have just
now our own affairs to attend to as well as those of
Egypt.
It is satisfactory to note the manner in which the
members of the Royal Family are gradually emerging
from the seclusion into which they withdrew, and
naturally enough, for a time, upon the death of the
Duke of Albany. Last week, on the same day,
Princess Christian laid the foundation-stone of an
orphanage at Lewisham, and Princess Louise took
part in a ceremonial in connection with the addition
of a wing to St. Mary's Hospital at Paddington,
having on the previous day opened a space of ground
for the recreation of the people in Bloomsbury. The
members of the reigning House are so courteous and
obliging, and so ready to assist every good work by
their presence, that they are always most warmly
received by the people. This was particularly the
case at Lewisham, where the streets were gaily
decorated, and the inhabitants turned out in great
numbers to welcome the Queen's second surviving
daughter.

Strong is the force of habit. Viscount Hampden,
the late Speaker of tha House of Con-Imo:is, has been
released from the onerous duty: of pr,siding over
that oft-times turbulent assembly, and in the enjoy-
ment of his pension of £4OOO a year, is now glad to
lend his aid to those institutions which he may think
deserving of the advocacy for which they ask. One
of these is the Metropolitan Association for Befriend-
ing Young Servants, which by permission of the Duke
of Sutherland held its annual meeting one afternoon
last week at Stafford House, St. James's. Lord
Hampden was in the chair, and resolutions were as
usual moved and seconded. In putting each resolu-
tion it was noticed that his lordship did not use that
word, but "the question is," and then going on to
rehd the terms of the motion. Ho imagined himself
back in his old seat, directing the ayes to the right
and the noes to the left, preliminary to the taking of
a great party division.

The first of the Ministerial innocents to be massa-
cred was the Merchant Shipping Bill, the withdrawal
of which was announced by the President of the
Board of Trade. If existing legislation does not, as
Mr. Chamberlain declares, adequately provide for the
protection of the lives of our seamen, the abandon-
ment of such an important measure is to be deeply
regretted. Still, with the prospect of an autumn ses-
sion, it is necessary to sacrifice something, and Mr.
Chamberlain's proposed legislation is not the only
sacrifice which will have to be made. With the re-
jection of the Reform Bill, the affairs of the
present session will be wound up as speedily as pos-
sible, in order to allow of a recess of decent length in
which overworked Ministers may recruit their health,
There is Mr. Gladstone, for instance, who has pro-
mised !to address his constituents in Midlothian in
the coming autumn. But after one long session, and
in the immediate prospect of another which will be
more remarkable for excitement than for length, a
man of 75, with the burden of an empire upon his
shoulders, requires rest. Still we shall have the
Midlothian speeches for all that.
The holding of the annual exhibition of the Royal
Agricultural Society at Shrewsbury comes at a critical
time in the history of an important industry. There
is an old saying that "drought never bred dearth in
England," but the fervent heat which makes the fields
ripe unto the harvest means utter destruction to the
hay and root crops. Day after day London has
resembled one vast furnace, the hot wind resembling
the breath of a sirocco. As the toiling millions have
Perspired under the sun's vertical rays, how they have
longed for a few hours of that cooling rain which has
descended in floods upon Eastern Europe, and for
those invigorating sea breezes which play together ill
spOlyr9fusion on the restless surface of the mighty
• " .Atlantio

Doctoistay,that the people w—ould be healthier if
they ate more onions. Undoubtedly they would. It
would keeitlieni from going out nights.
Ttis LITIIR.OF ,TIIF GOOSE.—The Strasburg "Pate de
foie gras "has a great renown among epicures, and
•the enlarged liver.of, the goose is said to have been
one of the delicacies of •tlioitableafriOii&P the Romans.
The desoriptions given of the method adopted at
Stras-burg to induce the enlargement of the liver of
' the goose ixrellot LenlettlatatWo_mset • with:Abet. _
bation of a ageiety for 'the Preterriion of Cruelty to
Animals. .The wretched creatures are confined in the
dark in sLalteaps, not .larcreso 'enaugh .to allow there
to hum round, and are gorged with Maize And fatten-
ing food till their breathing becomes so oppressed as
, to make it necessary to kill them in order to avoid
death from their diseased condition. The liver of a
goose thus treated will weigh from one to two pounds,
and from the animal itself, when cooked for food, as
much as three or four pounds of fat escapes. It is
said that fowls for the London market are sometimes
fattened in the same cruel manner.—Re Book I,

fTPro- 'l"'

OPENING OP A MUSEI7III AT
MANCILESTER.
AA art museum which has been erected by the
City Corporation in Queen's-park, Ilanchest&, was
opened on Saturday by the Right Hon. A. J. Mwa-
&ella, M.P. At the same time Mr. Mundella in-
augurated an exhibition of objects of art and pictures
within the build;ng.
Queen's-park is in a densely-populated part of the
city, and in providing this museum the Corporation
have been a!iided by the desire to carry civilising
and elevating influences to the doors of the people.
The musfram has beer. erected at a cost of about
£6OOO. 'The authorities of the South Kensington
Museuir have activekr assisted in the organisation of
the present exhibition. They have sent down speci-
mens cf the art wcrk of India—in metal, textiles,
ivory, and wood illustrations of the porce-
lain of England, China, and other countries;
and a number of electrotype reproductions of
decorative and other objects of art in British and
other collections Modern pictures, mostly from local
galleries, tapestry, and other things are also exhibited..
Two rooms are occupied by the Manchester Art
Museum Committee—a body quite distinct from the
Corporation--to whom pictures and other works of
art have from time to time been intrusted for the pur-
pose of being displayed in a museum in a populous
district. The committee are to use the rooms for a
couple of years, during which they will demonstrate
the system on which, in their view, a popular museum
should be conducted. They have arranged and labelled
their pictures so that they shall convey as much in-
struction as possible to the visitors. They also illus-
trate in their exhibits a number of the leading art pro-
cesses, such as etching, engraving, and lithography.
Mr. Mundella, in replying to an address, said that
the opening of that museum furnished an additional
illustration of the noble part which Manchester has
taken in the great educational movements of the
time. The establishment of that museum in the
centre of a dense industrial population reflected the
highest honour upon the wisdom and the enlighten-
ment and liberality of the civic authorities of the
city. The home of science and beauty and pictorial
art, it would prove a centre of attraction to the two
millions of people to be found in half an hour of its
doors. It would tend to awaken and educate their
tastes, and would afford them access to pleasures
which refine-1 and elevated, and would wean them
from those which debased and degraded. It had
afforded the great est pleasure to the Lord President
and himself and the officials of the Science and Art
Department to assist the Corporation of Manchester
in that undertaking, and he could promise a con-
tinuance of that assistance to the fullest extent. He
then declared the museum open.
In the evening Mr. Mundella was entertained at a
banquet in the Town Hall by the Corporation, and, in
responding to the toast of his health, proposed by the
Mayor, said that in every department of education
there was intellectual life and vigour and activity
which proved to everyone that England did not mean
to be behind any of the nations of the world in the
matter of education, and he knew from careful obser-
vation and daily experience that in proportion as the
knowledge and intelligence of our people increased so
did their virtue, their temperance, and their religious
sentiments. We were reclaiming from squalor,
misery, and barbarism tens of thousands of children
who but for our voluntary and Board schools and other
kindred institutions would grow up to be a scandal
and danger to our civilisation. But progress was not
made without a good deal of antagonism; a good
deal of opposition, misrepresentation, and prejudice
was met with. We had not yet convinced every one
that education was a good thing; but there could be
no fanaticism so blind, no slatesmanship so rash, no
economy so pitiful as that which would give with one
hand the power to wield the destinies of this Empire
into the hands of the people, and with the other
would stint their education and hinder their acquisi-
tion of intellectual power. The Technical Commis-
sion to which his friend Professor—and shortly to be
Sir Henry—Roscoe did yeoman's service, reported
that wherever they went, and especially in democratic
counties, they found that the rich regarded education
as their greatest safeguard, and the poor as their best
inheritance. It was too late to roll back the tide of
education, the -.vork done could not be undone; and
he congratulated Manchester upon the part it had
taken in that work.