The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-01-19 00:00:00

fj nr fonton Corrtsponbatt
teem 3 right to state that we do not at all Unit@
<_•Aittlfy ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

Between the opening of Parliament by Her Majesty
in person and a similar ceremony by Royal Commis-
sion, there is a very wide difference. In the first case
the thoroughfares between Buckingham Palace and
the Palace of Westminster are crowded with people.
They gather by tens of thousands in St. James's-park;
they assemble in multitudes along Whitehall; they
cluster like bees in Parliament-street, and are massed
outside the railings in Palace-yard. They have come
to see the Queen, and stand there for hours on a
bitterly cold day for that purpose. The royal
chariot is drawn by the traditional eight cream-
coloured horses, which proceed at a walking
pace through the throngs of spectators, each
animal with an attendant at its head, and leading
it by a bran-new bridle. The equipages of the Prince
and Princess of Wales follow; then come those of
such other members of the Royal family as are to
attend the ceremmial. What with the occupants
of the carriages, the gaily-caparisoned horses, and
the gorgeously-dressed servants, the crowd upon
the pavements, and the on-lookers in the windows
and the balconies have quite enough to do in order
to take in as much of the spectacle as will re-
pay them for the weary hours they have waited in the
cold of a midwinter day. Inside the House of
Lords the scene is one of great splendour. The
galleries which run round three sides of the Chamber
are filledwith peeresses and their daughters, and the
body of the House itself is to a great extent adorned
with row after row of ladies. The Commons never
give up their seats, but the Lords are more gallant.
Every place is taken, and all rise without exception at
the entrance of the Sovereign and at her departure.
On her Majesty's leaving the palace of the legislature
there is a salvo from the guns in St. James's Park,
and the ringing of the bells in the Westminster
churches also adds to the animation of the scene. But
when the opening is by Royal Commission there are
no crowds either in the Park or in the streets, scarcely
a dozen peers attend the House of Lords, the gal-
leries are empty, and when the Speaker of the House of
Commons makes his appearance at the bar, there is
no such rush of members accompanying him as when
hon. gentlemen are so eager to see the Queen. The
proceedings are unmistakeably dull, and the stained-
window light of the Painted Chamber does not tend
to enliven them. Two or three hours later the Address
in answer to the Royal Speech is discussed in both
Houses; and those who are curious in such matters
will not have failed to note that in the Commons the
mover is always:a county member, and the seconder
is invariably the representative of a town constituency.
The depth of emotion produced amongst a civilised
people by the removal of the head of the state has
been well illustrated in the death of the King of Italy.
It was a very long time since Europe had witnessed
the decease of a sovereign ruling over a first-class
Power. In England more than forty years have
elapsed since the demise of a reigning monarch. In
France the time has been even longer, for Charles X.,
Louis Philippe, and the Emperor Napoleon all died
in exile. It is nearly three-and-twenty years since
Russia lost the Czar Nicholas, The Emperor of Austria
has occupied his throne thirty years, and he succeeded
an abdicated ruler. Victor Emmanuel did the same.
The late King of Prussia and the Sultan Abdul Medjid
died in 1860 and in 1861 respectively. But it can
scarcely be Bata of either that he possessed that in-
dividuality which belonged to the King of Italy, who
will stand out as a unique and striking figure in the
history of his country. Succeeding to a heritage of
trouble on the day after the disastrous battle of
Novara, when his father abdicated in his favour, he
found his little kingdom prostrate and bleeding at the
feet of the victorious Austrians. It was then merely
the State of Sardinia, but aided by prudent and
sagacious councillors, it at last developed to a united
Italy, taking rank with the great powers of Europe,
at the various courts of which it is now re-
presented by an Ambassador. Midas in heathen
mythology once turned into gold whatever he
touched; and the misfortunes of other nations all
seemed to turn to the advantage of Victor Emmanuel.
The defeat of Russia in 1855, the defeat of Austria by
France in 1859, the revolt of Tuscany, Parma,
Modena, and the Romagna in 1860, the expedition
of Garibaldi against the two Sicilies in the autumn of
the same year, the defeat of Austria by Prussia in
1666, and the defeat of France by Germany in 1870,
all went in his favour. Whether the Italians were
victorious, as in the Crimea, or beaten, as at Cus-
tozza, did not signify. The result was the same. Italy
grew and expanded, and when Victor Emmanuel's life's
work was done at the comparatively early age of 57, the
news of his death caused a profound sensation. Yet
never was the old saying more truly eiemplified : "The
King is dead! Long live the King !" Within an hour of
his breathing his last, when the streets of Rome were
filled with anxious crowds, the shops were closed, and
the bell.s were being tolled, the new King was pro-
claimed in the squares and open places of that city,
for the business of a great state knows no cessation,
and there can be no interregnum.. A new ruler must
at once be appointed, for the affairs of a country can
no more stand still than the earth can cease to move
upon her axis, or a river can be arrested in its course
towards the sea.

One of the most interesting and historic of our
civic monuments has at last disappeared. Many
a country visitor to London will find it difficult to
believe that Temple Bar has been taken down.
No longer does it protect the City of London from
the pushing community of Westminster; no longer
does it cast its shadow over one of the great arteries of
laondon traffic. Much as people may regret the re-
moval of a relic of past ages, there can be no doubt
that during the past three or four years the structure
has well answered to its name. It has been a veritable
bar. Policemen stationed on either side, acting under
orders, would allow no vehicle to proceed through the
archway beyond a walking pace, lest the concussion
should hasten the destruction of the crumbling old
ruin. The loss of time, where time is so valuable, and
the inconvenience have been immense. Such an
anomaly in the heart of the busiest city in the
world became at length too glaring to be tolerated ,
any longer, and now the top of Fleet-street will be
widened, so as to accommodate the enormous
traffic flowhig eastward and westward between the
Bank and Charing Cross. Temple Bar, which has
had to give way before the contingencies called into
existence by the building of the new Law Courts, will
probably be re-erected on a site to be decided upon by
the Court of Common Council. The Thames Em-
bankment entrance to the Temple has been suggested,
and so has Epping Forest, a very different place from
the spot which it has occupied during the past two
centuries—a land of silence amid the works of Na-
ture as distinguished from busy thoroughfares and
crowded streets which have testified to the pushing
energy and the ceaseless activity of man.
The new year has brought us more political life than
had been previously witnessed for months, and several
elections in different parts of the country will serve
to chase away that stagnation in public affairs which
had lasted so many months. Meanwhile the possibili-
ties of a dissolution of the present Parliament are
openly discussed. It must be remembered that on the
sth of March next it will have attained the age of four
years, having been summoned to meet on the sth
March, 1874, after the appeal to the constituencies
which had boen made by Mr. Gladstone. It has
nearly reached the average duration of the Parliaments
of the present reign, which is about four years and a
half. Queen Victoria has summoned nine to her
counsels, and in June next she will have
reigned forty-one years. The questions occupying
the attention of the body politic to-day, are
very different from those of four years ago, as will
be seen at a glance from the fact that on the
23rd January, 1874, the very day that Mr. Gladstone
dated his address to the electors of Greenwich—the
second son of the Queen of England was married to
the only daughter of the Czar in tho Winter Palace of
St. Petersburg. General were the congratulations at
the matrimonial alliance between England and
Russia. The new Parliament was exactly a week old
when the Duchess of Edinburgh made her entry into
London, accompanied by the Queen, the Duke of
Edinburgh, and Princess Beatrice. A few weeks later
the Czar himself was over here. A great deal
has, therefore, happened since the existing Legis-
lature first assembled; the Czar has looked upon
other sights than upon the gazing crowds of London,
for he has witnessed the carnage of the field of battle.
Nor can it be said that the relations between the
Courts of London and St. Petersburg are as cordial
as they were in January, 1874. Looking at the
changed circumstances of the tunes, it would not be
surprising if the Administration resolved to take the
sense of the country upon the totally different issues
now before it.

The disposal of a knighthood of the Garter, one of
which lately fell in through the death of the Marquis
of Allesbury, is always an incident of great interest
in the ranks of the aristocracy of this country.
There are knighthoods of the Bath and of the
Thiltle, of the Star of India, and of St. Michael and
St. George, and more recently there has been created
the Imperial Order of the Crown of India; but it is
the Garter which is the most coveted of all. It
is given to none but the most distinguished members
of the nobility; Viscount Palmerston was the first
below the rank of an earl who possessed it, but this
was at her Majesty's desire, and in consideration of
his long and meritorious services to the State. Some-
times it is conferred by special decree upon a

European Sovereign, as in the case of the Sultan of
Turkey in 1856, while his successor was invested
by the Queen herself when he was here in 1867.
Edward 111., who instituted the order of the
Garter, gave it pre•eminence amongst all others,

and this it has since maintained. It is a little
strip of blue velvet bordered with gold, and upon
the death of a knight his successor in the title
seeks an interview with the Sovereign, and per-
sonally delivers up the insignia of the order, so that
in no sense is the distinction hereditary. Indeed this
observation applies to all knighthood; as distinguished
from the peerage and the baronetage. Exclusive of
the Royal Princes, who are members of the order by
virtue of their high position, the number of knights
amongst the aristocracy is 25, and to this it is strictly
limited.

The crossing of the Alps by Hannibal, the famous
Carthaginian general, when he invaded Rome, more
than 200 years before the Christian era, and by
Napoleon in the first year of the present century,
have been regarded as masterpieces of bravery
and endurance which stand out in bold relief
in the long chronicle of military achievements
that mark the history of the world. Recognising
Napoleon as a man of colossal intellect, it will be ad-
mitted that in taking an army across the Alpine range
of mountains, he did but accomplish that which had
been performed by Hannibal 2,000 years before.
Hannibal's army burnt away the rocks that barred
their passage by means of fire and vinegar, and poured
down into the plains of Italy like a torrent, defeat-
ing the Roman legions in battle after battle,
until Hannibal was beaten at Zama, after an
extraordinary display of skill on the sides of
both commanders. Brilliant, however, as was the
passage of the Alps by the Carthaginian and
French armies, the scaling of the Balkans by the
Russians in the depth of winter may well take rank
with it. Even those who love not the Muscovite con-
fess that it was one of the most daring feats which has
been attempted for centuries. To transport a vast
army of cavalry, infantry, and artillery—with stores,
forage, and ammunition, across a gloomy mountain
range thousands of feet in height, would be a hazardous
undertaking in the summer or the autumn, but the
difficulties and the perils of such a journey are in-
finitely increased when the hill-sides are covered with
glaciers, and fifty degrees of frost are in the atmo-
sphere. It is not surprising that the Russians lost
many hundreds of men in crossing the Balkans, but
the thing was done, and the first result was that the
city of Sophia fell into their hands.

Poets and sentimental writers have often told us of
"the genial climes of the sunny south," yet it is an
incontrovertible fact that the south is often colder
than the north. This is a truth which has been irre-
sistibly brought home to us by the accounts of the
condition of the Danube. It is several hundred
miles south of the Thames, yet while our own
Metropolitan river is not only free from ice, but
uniformly possesses a temperature higher than the
air above it, the Danube is filled with vast blocks
of ice, which have carried away the pontoon bridges
of the Russians, whose only hope of eommunica-
tion between Roumania and Bulgaria now lies in
the expectation that the river will be entirely frozen
over. But imagine the severity of a climate which
can freeze over a broad and rapid stream sufficiently
strong to bear the weight which would be thrown upon
a bridge. Again, the Rhine and the Danube rise not
far from each other in the Black Forest; the Rhine
flows northward and falls into the German Ocean; the
Danube flows scutliward and falls into the Black Sea;
yet we never hear of ice in the Rhine, while the
Russians to their cost know that the Danube is
full of it. The climate of Constantinople in the
winter is as cold as that of Copenhagen. The
province of Armenia lies far south of the British
Isles, yet the bitter blasts which sweep down upon its
plains from Siberia would in this country be ruinous
to cattle, and murderous to men. In Khiva people
are frozen to death in April, and scorched to death in
June. Our climate is not everything we could wish,
but we escape such tremendous alternations of heat
and cold as this, for which we have in a great degree
to thank the influence of the sea, that never ceases to
wash the coasts of these islands.