The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-11-03 00:00:00

ca'r,
q;ur onhan Ottartsranlnnt.
rw. deem it right to state that we do not at all Minas
tdejify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

Much has been heard of late resp,cting the "Bitter
Cry of Outcast London," the part of the metropolis
more particularly referred to t eing the eastern portion
thereof, lying beyond the City boundaries at Aldgate,
and on both banks of the winding stream of the river.
Here is a population equal to at least that of Bir-
mingham and Manchester combined, and the Parlia-
mentary boroughs mostly interested are those of the
Tower Hamlets and Hackney. Hera in a district
stretching towards the rising sun and containing a
million people are gathered most of the poverty and
much of the crime of the British capital. The
dens of dissipation and the haunts of vice have
been described by many a graphic pen, but these
they still exist, and the writer of a little
pamphlet issued by the London Congregational
Union has presented to the public this aspect of the
gres city in a very forcible light. Lcrd Salisbury
has taken up the question in a powerful article in the
National Review, and as it is one altogether apart from
polities it well claims the attention of statesmen on
both sides, all of whom have an equal interest in doing
their hest to ameliorate the condition of the poor in a
social reforming age and in the heart of a prosperous
oommunity.

Nothing started in South Kensington, or indeed in
any part of London, of late years has been attended
with such success as the Fisheries Exhibition. From
the 12th May to the 3114 of October is a lang time
to retain an unbroken popularity where there are
Bo many other competitors for the public favour;
but this has been done. The exhibition has not
been merely a show as such ; but its promoters
have combined with it lectures and addresses by the
highest an+horities. An addreos, for instance, by
Professor Huxley, one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of
Titheries, would naturally be of an eminently practical
character ; and it is of such that the lectures at the
Exhibition have chiefly consisted. The public interest
in this is always matched by that which people mani-
fest in the occupants of an aquarium and in the
modes of life of those denizens of the deep whose food
is poison to other created things, and which live and
move in an element which to human life means utter
destruction.

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The Speakersblip of the House of Commons will
become vacant at the end of the present Parliament,
if not before. If Sir Henry Brand consulted his own
wishes and inclinations, he would not resume the
duties of the chair, for in a few months e will have
completed the seventieth year of his age, and the
proper discharge of the Speaker's high functions be-
come more and more laborious. The office is one of
the most distinguished in our representative institn-
Cone, and attached to it is a salary of £5,000 and a
furnished residence within the Palace of Westminster,
Sir Henry Brand will not have held the post as long
as either of his two predecessors, Mr. Shaw-Lefevre
and Mr. Evelyn Denison, the former of whom filled
the chair eighteen years and the latter fifteen. But
he was appointed later in life, and at 70 a man
may well desire rest from a harassing and onerous
post. Mr. Shavr•Lefevre retired in 1857, and as
Viscount Eversley still survives. The venerable peer
Li in his 90th year, and even now often takes part in
the business of the House of Lords.
Michaelmas Term has been altered by the Judioal
ture Act into Michaelmas Sittings, but the date re-

mains unchanged, and so it comes to pass that on the
2nd of November in each year the Long Vacation
comes to an end, and the judges and the bar assemble
in their respective Courts for the beginning of the
legal year. The gathering this time is in the Royal

Courts of Justice- in the Strand, a structure upon

which opinion will long be divided as to its merits.
Whether it is possible to combine with the Gothic
style of architecture beauty without and utility within
Is a problem which yet remains to be solved.
The 2nd of November also invariably witnesses a
ceremony, which is of much interest to those who take
a delight in the observance of ancient forma and
customs. Before the Lord Chancellor goes to open
the Law Courts be receives at his residence the Lord
Mayor sleet, to whom be conveys an expression of
her Majesty's approval of the choice of a chief
magistrate which has been made by the citizens of
London. What would happen if this approval
were withheld is not exactly known, but it is
always conveyed by the Keeper of the Queen's
Conscience to the Lord Mayor, of whatever politi-
cal party either or both may happen to be. This
ceremony is invested with all the state with which the
City can surround it., as though It were of Taal im-
portance and significance; and the company gravely
drink to each other out of the loving cup, which is
gaily dressed with flewers for the occasion.
So far as the Lord Mayor's Show is concerned, it
appears that the fact of the civic prozession baying to
go merely to Temple Bar will not materially interfere
with the enjoyment of the vast number of sightseers
who gather in the streets to witness the cavalcade.
Up to this year it has been necessary to proceed to
Weetminster, where the new Lord Mayor was sworn
in before the judges, whom he ievited to the grand
banquet at the Guildhall in the evening; but now
that the Courts at Westminster have been abolished,
and their jurisdiction transferred to the Strand, there
is, of course, no occaeion to go to Westminster at all.
But as the Lord Mayor's Show is the only out door
spectacle whieh Londoners see in the whole twelve
months, the Lord Mayor has decided to continue it
along the old route, or, at all events, through a con-
siderable part of it.
The resources of civilization have as yet been unequal
to the task of devising a means of crossing the Thames
below London Bridge. Here is an enormous popu-
lation which has to get from bank to bank as well
as it can. Various plans have been suggested—a
high level bridge of sufficient altitude for the road-
way to be above the masts of the ships; a swing
bridge opening in the middle to allow ships to pass;
a low level fixed bridge at an immense cost—tunnels.,
subways, and ferries. The Metropolitan Board have
at lenith resolved to apply to Parliament for
power to construct a tunnel between Rotherhithe
and Dockhead at a cost of £1,400,000. The gradients
will be about one in 25, steep enough for heavily-
laden vans of merchandise to go down upon one side
and come up on the other. The Inhabitants of East
London very truly plead that although they have paid
their quota towards the construction and the freeing
of several bridges across the Thames, they are without
any bridge accommodation themselves; and it is much
to be feared that this plan of burrowing under the
stream will not materially diminish the vast traffic
which now makes London Bridge one of the sights of
the world.
The publication of the correspondence which has
taken place between the Chinese and French Govern-
ments, shows that the hope which recently prevailed
of an amicable settlement of the dispute between the
European Republic and the "Celestial Empire" have
well-nieh vanished. The negotiations, in fact, are not
progressing with that smoothness which betokens a
peaceable termination. The prospect of a war be-
tween an European power and the vast and populous
country of the far East will remind many readers
that England has on more than one occasion
been in conflict with the Chinese, our wide-
spreading commerce bringing about complications
which could only be solved by the harsh arbitrament
of the sword. In 1819 the opium dispute led to the
outbreak of hostilities, in which the "Celestials"
were diseornfited, and the advantages gained by the
British were secured by the Treaty of Nankin, in
which it was stipulated that English Consuls should
be permitted to reside at five ports which were thrown
eon to British commerce. In 1856 a further misunder-
standing arose through the boarding of a British lorcha
in the Canton raver. In the effort to obtain redress for
this outrage Canton was twice bombarded, and the
Chinese fleet totally destroyed. Eventually peace
was concluded by the Treaty of Tien-tsin, by which
some important concessions were obtained, which
were extene el to France, Russia, and America. An
attempt to abrogate this treaty led, in 1859, to another
war, in which Pekin, the Chinese capital, was cap-
tured by the allied forces of Great Britain and
France. Ultimately the Treaty of Tien-tsin was
ratified, and the allies retired.
The difficulties under which a war must be carried
on with a country so distant as China are obviously
of a serious character, and it should also be remem-
bered that since the struggles just mentiored, the
Chinese have benefitted by their contact with Western
civilization, and have vastly improved their war
material and the organization of their army and navy.
So it will be seen that, should the present dispute end
in war, the French will enter upon a task which will
probably strain all their resources of men and money,
before they succeed in inflicting a permanent defeat
upon a nation whose territory extends over a million
and a-half square miles, and whose population is four
hundrei millions in r umber.

From returns made up to Oct. let, it would appear
that 7,00 more men have enlisted this year than were
enrolled in the same time in 1882.
According to the report of the Army Medical De.
partnient for the year 1881 recently issned, the
average arrsl Str.tiwth ot the trope serving at honie
and abroad was 173 331 non-commissioned officers a.(l
na,m, and the deaths in this force were for the year
2.260, or 1285 per 1,000 of the average strength of
176 581, which number includes detached men. The
average annual effective strength of the British Army
for the year 1882, according to a Blue-book just issued,
was 189,229 of all ranks.