The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-02-12 00:00:00

TEMPERANCE AND EDUCATION.

A public meeting in furtherance of the above objects
was held on Monday evening in Exeter Hall. Amongst
those prePent were the Revs. R. Harley, G. W. Olvar,
G. M. Murphy J. Rogers, and Bevan, Mr. T. M.
I Williams, &c. n the absence of Mr. Morley, M.P.,
who had sent a letter of apology, expressing, however,
warm sympathy with the objects of the meeting, Mr.
John Taylor, chairman of the executive committee of
the Temperance League, presided. He had had, he
said, thirty-eight years' experience of the crusade against
intemperance, and he could say that if that crusade
had been as successful as it ought to have been,
there would have been no need for Mr. Forster's Educa-
tion Act. They always found that when a man had
renounced intemperance his first impulse was to seek
education for his children, whilst the worst conse-
quence of intemperance was that it steeled his heart
against the wants and welfare of his family. The
school was the best place in which to instil into the
youthful mind the blessings of temperance. He had
himself offered school prizes for the best essay on
intemperance and the first priza was won by the son of
a brewer.

The Rev. Mr. Harley next addressed the meeting.
He had himself, he said, been a total abstainer from
all intoxicating liquors for forty years, and during the
three and twenty years he had been a housekeeper, he
had not admitted into his house, except for medicinal
purposes, a single drop. He believed that temperance
and education would mutually help each other, and
therefore he would urge upon his hearers to give their
children the best education they could obtain for them
and at the same time to train them up in a horror of
Intemperance.

Mr. T. M. Williams, Inspector of Schools, had also
for years been a total abstainer. There were more
total abstainers in England now than ever there had
been before, but still the reform was by no means
keeping paoe with the liquor traffic. The greatest
obstacle to the spread of temperance was the belief
entertained by a great number of people that a certain
portion of alcohol was necessary to keep them in
health, but that belief was shown to be fallacious by
all the most modern physiological investigations.
Others objected to temperance on economic grounds,
and a third class opposed total abstinence on the scdre
of morality. He would enrol all the children of the
country in Bands of Hope; and all the teachers into
auxiliary bands to encourage and support the children.
Men talked of the influence of parents over children,
but they must not forget the influence of children.o7(er
parents. Men who could meet the reproacheloNiives
arid the advice of friends with indifference were often
completely subdued by the artless censures of their
children..
The meeting was subsequently addressed by Mr.
Lucraft, the Rev. G. M. Murphy, and one or two
other speakers, and terminated with a vote of thanks
to the chairman.

THE OPENING OF PARLIMEENT:
We take the following interesting article 'eii -the above
subject—which no doubt,will interest many of rtiraders—
from the Daily News
The opening of Parliament by her Majesty in person
for the first time since February, 1871, will invest with
interest the following particulars connected with
former ceremonies of a similar character at different
periods of the present reign.
The first Parliament of Queen Victoria met on the
15th November, 1837, the date at which the writs were
made returnable after the dissolution consequent upon
the death of King William IV. The Lord Chancellor
entered the House of Peers at two o'clock, ani, ad-
dressing their lordships, stated that her Majesty, not
thinking fit to be present that day in person, had been
graciously pleased to cause a Commission to be issued
under the Great Seal for the opening and holding of
that Parliament. The Commission consisted of Lord
Chancellor Cottenham, the Marquis of Lansdowne,
the Marquis of Conyngham, the Earl of Mulgrave, and
Viscount Duncannon ; and the Royal Message was to
the effect that when a Speaker of the House of Com-
mons had been chosen and received the Royal approval,
her Majesty would declare in person the causes
which had moved the calling of the Parlinitient
together. Upon the return of the Commons to
their Chamber, the Right Hon. James Abercromby,
who had presided over the deliberations of the previous