The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-07-06 00:00:00

HARVEST PROSPECTS.

Mr. J. J. Mechi writing from Tiptree-hall, Kelvedon,
Essex, on June 26, sends the following letter to The Times :
Sir,—Harvest prospects have surprisingly improved
thanks to the recent tropical weather. The wheat
crop now promises to be an average one, for it has shot
into ear and long draw vigorously, and I never saw the
ears more covered with bloom, which, with this
tranquil atmosphere gives promise of perfectly de-
veloped kernels—quite a contrast with the large per-
centage of empty shells blown out by the dressing
machines in the late untoward seasons. Barleys also
have greatly improved, although by no means so pro-
mising a crop as wheat.
But most important is the ample production of
pasture grasses and clovers, for they occupy 30,000,000
acres, whereas our wheat area is under 4,000,01 0 acres.
Much of the hay is already well gotten, and the growth
of after-crop is surprisingly quick under the influence
of ample moisture below and a high temperature
above. We may thus reasonably anticipate a greatly
increased home supply of meat, milk, butter and
cheese, aud, probably, as a natural consequenoa,
diminished prices.

Oats are not a very promising crop in the South,
and peas and beans have been injured by slug and
maggot.

We expect to begin wheat harvest here on or about
the let of August. There will be an ample supply of
labour, for many good workmen have been obliged to
return to this neighbourhood from the North, owing
to the great depression in the coal and iron trades.

Aiy•-otook are koaltiw, with absadwai food„

THE NATIONAL FETE IN PARIS.

On Sunday the National Festival appointed to be held
throughout France passed off with great eclat at Paris, which
was full of visitors from the country and abroad, Several
processions, escorted by troops and bands of music, passed
through the streets, which were everywhere gaily decorated
with flags. The weather was splendid.—The correspondent
,f the Daily News gives the following publications respect-
ing the fate:

--The staple of public fetes in Paris consists always
of early gun firing, distribution of alms to the
indigent, military music, flags hung out • from the
houses, a number of more or less greasy poles,
licenses to refreshment booths a great collection of
giants, dwarfs, three-headed calves, learned pigs, and
other attractions of fairs, illuminations, and fireworks.
These things, however delightful to many classes of
participants. juvenile and others, became so monoton-
ous, that for a time foreign correspondents left off
desci Piing the annual Imperial fête of August
15. There cannot be, in the nature of things,
much novelty in the amusements of the great
national fete of to-day; but they are spread ov--r a
much wider area than anything of the kind in toe Em-
peror's time, and cost a far larger sum of m .ney than
was ever before expended for suoh a purpose. It may
be said of ParNans that they are to-day all with one
accord in different places. Every one of the twenty
arrondisstunents has a distinct programme, and lays it-
self out, if not to prevent its inhabitants from going
away from home, at least to console those who cannot
reaciiiy leave by presenting an entertainment at their
doors. Each arrondi*.sement, moreover, has from the
local poor-box added materially to the funds &lotted
by Government for charity. Every family inscribed
on the pauper list recei% ed this morning two francs
without formality or difficulty.
At nine this morning all toe Ministers except M.
Dufaure, who is slightly indisposed, attended the un-
veiling of Clesinger's splendid statue of the Republic,
in the Champele Mars. Owing to the early hoar the
crowd was not immense, although anybody might get
in for five sous. M. Teisserenc de Bort, regretting
that the statue was not ready for the opening of the
Exhibition, said he hailed it as an emblem of the
country encouraging and protecting ideas of liberty,
concord, and peace, and the union of peoples inlabour,
progress, and the love of humanity. M. de Marcere,
the Minister of the Interior, said the image before
them represented the grand soul of France. The
turmoil produced by the Great Revolution of 1789 had
sometimes produced doubt and hesitation, but now the
fulness of time had come. Written Charters, Constitu-
tions, emphatic oaths, had all failed to give tranquility
to the country so long as it did not entirely enjoy the
rights proclaimed in 1789, but now the Republic had
taken possession, it was no longer a party, but, by a
gradual and successive transformation it had become
the nation itself. It was the real original fete of the
federation held on that very spot, that they were there
celebrating, and the work of their fathers was con-
cluded. There were no longer conquerors nor con-
quered. The French Republic, like the grand sove-
reign t of old, disdained to remember wounds or
insults. She was confident in her right, and remem-
bered the lessons of experience. As she was strong so
she would be clement. He concluded with the cry,
" Vive la France, Vive la Republique." The military
band played the " Marseillaise " in the presence of the
Ministers, and was enthusiastically applauded.

Writing later in the day the same correspondent says :
Every section of Paris, and almost every street, are
the scene at this moment of materials of public re-
joicing enough to content a small town. The illumi-
nations are splendid, and more general than ever were
seen here before. . . . The poorest garrets vie with
the richest first floors in hanging out flags, and the ex-
hibition of tasteful lanterns. Patriotic decorations at
t,vo sons are cried in the streets, and numbers of people
stick them in their buttonholes.

Every arrondissement has its separate band. Victor
Hugo's Gloire hla France" has been played and sung
in many places, and would stand well in a competition
for an official national air, which at this moment is a
desideratum. The " Printemps " and several great
upholstery houses give a fete of their own, with
highly-paid artists and torchlight processions. The
Second Arrondissement has particularly distin-
guished itself. It started a triumphal car drawn
by six white horses, on who,e heads white, red, and
blue ostrich feathers formed the tricolour. . . . A
peleton of trumpeters on horseback, in scarlet uniforms,
heralad the advance of the car, which, to be quite in
order, was escorted by regular cavalry and police.
There were, however, civil commissioners with Hessian
boots, mounted on costly steeds, from whom the legal
force did not disdain to receive—l will not say orders,
hut useful suggestions as to the order of the march,
for th, re were subsidiary cars and a great following.
The inmates of the Second Arrondissement car, some
fifty gentlemen in evening dress and white cravats,
sang the " Marsellaise " all along the Boulevards,
from the Rue du Luxembourg to the Rue Montmartre,
and were vociferously applauded. They certainly did
imperle the traffic for fully half an hour, and the
travellers in the omnibuses findinc, they could not
make way got out and -walked, and did not even gain
much by thst, for there was a terrP)le block for a long
time, but the utmost good humour prevailed, and I
have not heard of an accident. . .

The acrobats, &c., instead of being concentrated
altogether as under the Empire in the Place des
Inx slides, now occupied by the Dog Show, are
scattered about everywhere, thus diffusing delight
among the juveniles in every quarter.

In the manufacturing quarter of the Rue Graviers
costly lustres, worth fifty ponnos, are hung on cords
across the street. In many streets the inhabitants of
garrets, concerting with opposite neighbours, string
flags and emblems from ,‘ne window to another.
The Imperial tetes were in the main confined be-
tween the Are de Triomphe an; the Tillhetes. Hence
fearful crushes to see the illuminations. I cannot yet
say how far the widely-extended area of the pr:sent
spectacle may have dimislied this crowding, still, and
notwithstanding the vast number of foreigners TIOW
here, I incline to think it will be found that the space
of the Bois de Boulogne defied the countl.ss tln.usands
to fill it. The illuminations of the Champs E.ys4e-,
formerly terminating at the Arc de 'rrioinithe' are
to-night continued all along the Avenue du Bois
44 Boulogne, better known as the Avenue de
l'lmperatrice, to the Bois. li;0,V00 transparent
balloons were studded among the trees on the islands
of the lakes, and 60,000 coloured lamps were placed on
the edge of the water. Besides this blaze there were
numerous electric lights. Happily for the spectators
in the Bois, a great many sightseers were so utterly
uveil up by their exertions in the daytime that car-
riages being prohibited for fear of accidents, they
were unable to go so far in the evening. Many
wishing to get a good view of the fireworks took up
positions early in the evening on the heights of Mout
•Valerien, the Bellevue terrace, and the Plateau of
Chatillon. There were fireworks at great cost on
three other spots, but the Paris which calls itself all
Paris only notices those in the Bois' which were
witnessed by the Marshal and the Shah.

Another of the Paris Correspondents of the Daily News
writes :

There are croakers who look upon all public holi-
days with a jaundiced eye. Give them the finest
weather, music, illuminations, fireworks, and the glad
bustle of happy crowds whom these things please, and
they, the croakers, take note only of the dust and
noise, of the annoyance of being pushed about, and of
the discomfort of being disturbed for one day in their
usual pursuits. Happily, vulgar persons of this
Port are rare in France, and not the least pleasing
feature of public rejoicings in this festive country is
that all classes take part in them with an equal
zest. The Grand Fête which the Republican Govern.
meat decreed in honour of tho Exhibition was threat-
ened with a little hitch when the Municipal Council
of Paris quarrelled with the Minister of the Interior
on some point of etiquette connected with the prepara-
tions for the festival; but the Councillors wisely
pocketed their dignity sooner than baulk the Parisian
population of its pleasure. For the psst fortnight the
big city has been swarming like a hive with busy work-
men. In a dozen arrondissements out of the twenty,
regular fairs were organized with booths, maypoles and
raree shows; and in all the streets without exception
bunting was displayed with a profusion never yet wit-
nessed in any city. The 221,000 granted by the Cham-
bers and the £12,000 voted by the Municipality would
have gone but a small way towards defraying the ex-
penses of this solemnity had not voluntary subscriptions
poured in from all sides. The French have a very prac-
tical wayof levying subscriptions for public objects ; they
send to your house an official in a white tie escorted by a
pretty young lady with a collection bag. The official
might not gather much alone, but the smile of the
young lady has a metallic attractiveness like that of a
magnet, and it coaxes twenty-franc pieces int, the
collection bag without time or trouble. If lam right
in computing that every quarter in Paris had at least
it's five officials and five ”ting ladies engaged in the
work of collecting, this makes 400 young ladies who
have been scouring the pockets of the public, and no
wonder the result was magnificent. I am afraid to
estimate how much was spent in providing for that
gorgeous illumination of the Bois de Boulogne, the
Champs Elysees, and the Tuileries Gardens. The
contractor's bill will contain such items as 100.01,0
lighted balloons for the trees in the wood; 62,000
coloured cil-lamps to decorate the borders of the
lakes, and 24 electric beacons set up on the rocks
wheie the cascades fall, in the thickest copses, and
at, the points where four roads meet from the
13( is to the Triumphal Arch—that is down the
Avenue de l'lnip4ratrice, 220 lamps, each having
200 luminous globes (total 44,000 globes) were set
up in a double line, and this lavish illumination
was continued beyond the arch for a distance
o • three miles until the vista was clored by
the ruins of the Tuileries Palace, lit up by 35,000
coloured lamps. I am quoting here from the
official programme, so that I cannot be wrong
by a lamp. When the authorities had prepared
their menu of lighting and amusements an unex-
pected but very welcome offer was made them by
the Parisian Socidtd du Cauotage, who volunteered to
organize a night regatta on the Seine. Etonians, who
with their picturesque 4th of June regatta, might have
claimed to have some sort of monopoly in river
pageants, may be surprised to hear that the procession
got up by the Parisian oarsmen consisted of 120 boats
manned by crews in fancy costume, and illuminated
by 12,000 Venetian lanterns fastened to the bows,
sterns, and rowlocks. Moreover these 120 boats were
divided into flotillas, each escorted by a 16-oar barge
containing a band and lit up with lycopodium torches
shedding blue and red fire on the waters. 0 memories
of Surly Hall what an aquatic triumph was her'! It
must be added though that the 120 boats were not all
1
eight oars. I believe there were :2 eights, 18 six oars,
32 fours, while the rest were pairs and single outriggers
for sculling.

The Government decided not to throw open the
theatres for free performances, judging rightly that
actors, scene-shutters, and others ought to have their
holiday, too, and that it was no use attracting
alidiences into the pia), houses when Si) iniich was
to he seen in the streets. Iu truth when every
houee is iilmuinated, when parks, f- (pares, aid gardens
are festooned with lamps, when every public edifice
glitters with gas and electric lights, and when fire-
works are being clischarged in three varts of the city,
every man, woman, and child,,who has legs to walk
with should be out of doors. 'or my humble part I
love, the French crowds who roam about in joyous
thousands whenever the streets are lit up for
.a
nsatieng Imilidey; gaigly la contagious; their

conduct is so orderly, that one need feat neither
jostling nor insult at their hands; while their
appreciation of all they see is so intelligent
and so happily expressed, that one feels satisfied with
the money spent in amusing them has not been laid
out in vain. Public holidays, indeed, have their
detractors among economists, who argue that so many
thousands of pounds diglaursed on sky rockets might
have yielded a more satisfactory return if invested in
drains; but is this so sure? Giving the drains their
due, can one overrate in pecuniary figures the sum of
satisfaction diffused by a festival from which all who
take part in it carry away some pleasing memories
that will long linger? I think that the poor who
work hard and long to earn a holiday should have
it • and that it is good policy to make the
Rats submitted to their eyes as splendid as pos-
sible. By such means their taste of what is beau-
tiful gets refined, and their imagination receives
a stimulus which bears fruit enough iu the graceful
productions which leave the hands of the artist and
mechanic. At ordinary times the sigh's which the poor
witness for money at garish music halls. fl .shly casinos,
and cheap theatres, are the reverse of elevating. Tile
very music heard at these places is sugaestive in its
brazin noisiness of drink and dissipation ; hut this is
an argument the more for making, the sights and
sounds of a public holiday so imposingly grand that the
poor cannot be tempted to confound them with the
tinsel and riot of vulgar shows. Very appropriately
the programme of the Republican fete comprised as its
finale a great to/chlight procession of military
ban, is playing the retraite. Has the English
reader ever heard this " retreat " played of a
nnTilt by a score of picked military orchestras
with their five hundred drummers and as many
trumpeters? If so, he can imagine what must be
its effect on the nerves of the impressionable Parisian
workman. Who would grudge the worthy fellow that
quarter of an hour of ecstacy which he enjoys whilst
that incomparable music is being played amid the
huzzahs of the crowd and the fiery glamour of torches
flashing upon the helmets and brekst.plates of the
mounted link-bearers? For a while the spectator,
whose eyes have already been dazzled by brilliant fire-
work displays, is lifted into a world of rapturous
sensations where all that is good and great in him
kindles into temporary flame. In such a moment
as this every man becomes—if only for an instant
—an artist or a poet. He dreams of things higher
than the sordid cares of daily life ; he as-
pires to be putting forth the best of his talepts, and
he will go home pensive, perhaps carrying with him
the sprouted germ of some idea which will breed a
work of genius, or the throbbing of some impulse which
will lead to a kind act. It is the property of very
beautiful things that they not only ennoble the cha-
racter ha• awhile, but leave a luminous speck in the
mind which may ofttirues serve as a beacon. The poor
man who has taken part in some common carousal
may feel disinclined for his work on the morrow,
and fall to thinking over the ways and means
for carousing again • but if his sensibilities have
been stirred to the utinost by a succession of the most
perfect sights and sounds which money can procure, he
will ratan to his work with the greater ardour, because
the feast he has just had is one beyond the scope of
his envy. He cannot hope to revive it out of his own
pocket, and so he will wait contentedly until it comes
round again at the national cost. And meanwhile he
will find many a bright musing in the remembrance
of it.

In noticing the fetes, The Times of Monday in a
leader remarks :

"Yesterday was a great day for Paris and for France. It
was not enough that the Republic should have its Exhibi-
tion in the Champ de Mars surpassing in splendour and
completeness all that the Empire had been able to show. It
was not enough that Paris should exhibit to ea er and wel-
come visitors from all parts of the world a spectacle of
tranquil prosperity, of assured contentment, of advancing
industry at home, and of amicable rivalry with her neigh-
bours in all the arts of peace. That, perhaps, would have
suiriwed for a staid, demure ration like the English, or
for a mblegmatic race like the Germans; but Frenchmen are
differ t fit from their neighbours, though, perhaps, not less
wise ,and they love to deck out Paris in all the festal bright.
ness which becomes it so sell. The motive now is not alone
the national love of gaiety or of graceful, spontaneous, and
withal simple enjoyment of which Frenchmen, so long as
they understand the secret. and the art of it se well,
have no reason to be ashamed. A deeper purpose was
at work yesterday in Paris. Republicans are anxious,
and rightly anxious, to show to the nation and to the
worn that the Republic with all its simplicity can repre-
sent the genius of the nation, even in its most subtle and
evanescent forms, as truly as the most magnificent of
Monarchies or the most grandiose of Empires. The fete
of yesterday was the peaceful and appropriate consecration
of the Republie, the sign and seal of national reconciliation,
the sjmbot of the restoration of Paris to her place as the
chosen and acknowledged queen of European cities. The
Empire hid had its fetes, and all Europe had witnessed arid
enjoyed them. Paris, like a beautiful woman, not wU hout
touch of the c-ispietry of her nation, never looks so well as in
festal array; she is conscious of the faa, and makes
the hest of it. It is but natural, thereti re, that the Republic,
too, should acknowledge and take advantage of a facs never
Ineghi cted by its predeceQsors, arid we may, therefore, con-
gratulate our neighbours on the proof which yesterday
offered that Frenchmen, and especially Parisians, have not
forgotten in all their troubles the graceful art, which they
alone of modern nations seem to understand, of genuine
national rejoicing and unaffected popular amusement." . . .

TERRIBLE SUFFERING on a JAPANESE
JUNK.
The barque Athelstone, Captain Bayley, on her
voyage from Newcastle N.S,W. to San Francisco
and while in lat. 39.49 N., long, 144.2 W., at 8.30 on
the morning of May 29 fell in with a disabled
Japanese junk which had the appearance of being
abandoned, and from which an offensive smell pro-
ceeded. The chief officer and a boat's crew were sent
to the junk, and a deplorable spectacle was seen. Two
dead bodies lay on the deck, and four other men were
found in the last stage of prostration from hunger and
exposure. These were at once taken off and attended
to on hoard the Athelstone, and from their story it
appeared that the junk was emplol ed in coasting
service at the island of Yesso, or Matsinai, and had
been disabled by a succession of heavy storms which
carried away the mast an the upper deck. There
wtre twenty three persons on board, but the severe
and long-continued privations they had to endure—
the junk having been drifting about in the ocean
since Nev. 17--caused all but the four men taken off
by the Athelstone to succumb. The captain was the
last victim, his death having occurred ten days before
the rescue. _