The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-11-06 00:00:00

Tittrapolitan 6ossip.

jr OCR OWN COREESPONDINT.

IThe remarks under this head are to be regarded as the •
pardon of independent opinion, from the pen of a kreutiewin
Wino° we have the greatest confidence, but for which Ife
--„vertheless do not hold ourselves responsible.)

Were anything wanted to prove how much the Queen
s loved and honoured, the interest manifested in her
approaching visit t, the City would clearly prove it.
Although she will not come in state, and although the
visit will be a short one aml as private and unceremoui
cue as possible, still the Londoners and their country
cousins are taking increased interest in the fact itself,
and are determined to make as much out of it as pos.

ble. The day will be a general holiday in London;
Raga and banners will float across the streets and from
the windows; the City will he en fete; thousands on
thousands of people will flock to see the little that is to
be seen ; arrangements will be made that the temporary
Blackfrisrs Bride be not broken down by the
weight, the chief arrangement being the preventing
anybody seeing anything from that cumbersome
structure ? and the police in other parts will have their
plans for preventing people being crushed to death.
All this looks like enthusiastic loyalty, and no doubt it
is, but it shows our vagoionate love of sight-seeing, and
in this instance is all the more remarkable as there
will be no little to see.

Some changes in the Gladstone Government may be
briefly referred to. The appointment of Mr. Layard
to the British Ministry at Ma hid is a good one. The
poet is an important one jog: now in consequence
of the unsettled chwacter of Spain, and a wan
of commanding al ility as well as one
swho

intimately acquainted with foreign politics
and who knows th views of our ministry on
the affairs of Spain, is required for the position. Mr.
Stansfeld's appointment to the postof Financial Secre-
tary to the Treasury is also a good one. He has shown
great ability and unswerving determinatian already in
reducing public expenditure and simplifying the public
accounts, and in his new office he will have ample
scope for exerting the same beneficial qualities. Mr.
Ayrton is to be the First Commissioner of Works.
He is a keen-sighted, clear-headed man, and is, or
ought to be, well acquainted with the wants of
London, and he is a thorough Reformer. I hope he
will carry his love of reform into Ids new position.
There is an immense amount of money squandered in
this department, and the public get very little for it.
Mr. Ayrton has an opportunity of making himself
famous.

Archdeacon Freeman and Mr.J.A. Roebnck have
the honour of a good deal of public attention just
mw,in consequence of speeches that these gentlemen
Ave severally made. " I hate newspapers," rays the
Archdeacon, and he goes on to tell us that newspapers
tell their readers a great deal that don't concern them,
and which will do them no gm.l. "There were no
newspapers," he says, "in St. Panl's time; but had
there been I believe he also would have hated them."
This coupling of the Great Apostle's name with the
speaker is strikingly modest. The Archdeacon also
tweaks in strong language about magazines and periodi-
cals generally, and in such a style as to make us
wonder what he would have people to read. They can
not always be reading theological treatises, scientific
works, and history. The rev, gentleman has the
pleasure of differing lam the rest of the nation, and
doubtless that is a comfort to him. Everybody else
thinks that newspapers are, on the whole, a great
boon to society, and what the world would he without
them it would puzzle even Archdeacon Freeman to
I. y As to Mr. Roebuck, who seems always to blurt
out what he thinks, and who usually offends some one
or other, he has sinned against good taste in alluding
to his wife and daughters as refined and highly-edu-
cated women, and asking why working men do not
also have refined and highly-educated women for their
wives and daughters? Mr. Roebuck puts an un-
pleasant truth very bluntly and plainly when he talks
about "going out to get drunk at the nearest public.
house," but the great mass ~f respectable, steady work.
ing men--who are after all, the great majority—have
great cause to feel indignant at the uncalled-for taunt
at the want of "refinement and high education" while
ignoring the well-known obstacles to them.
Winter has set in early, and snow and frost, bitter
winds, and cold drizzling rains now characterize our
variable climate. Shall we have a long hard winter?
The question is easy to ask, but no man living seems
able to answer it with accuracy. In default of the
existence of what we hear so much, weather wisdom,
it is consolatory to know that as a rule very severe
winters do not begin early. Heaven grant, it may
with reverence be said, that the winter of I';'39-70 be
not exceptionally severe, for there is already a large
amount of distress in the country, and severe weather
deepens and intensifies this distress to a painful ex-
tent. Even now we may call to mind the touching
words of Shakespeare :

"Poor naked wretches, wheresee'er ye are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
flow shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these
"Full many a gem," &c.--we all know the rent; and
it ie perhaps a conviction of the truth of Gray's words
that has induced some gentlemen to afford unknown
artists an opportunity of exhibiting their pictures.
The Winter Exhibition of pictures in oil and water
colour', that has just been opened at the Old Bond
Street Gallery is certainly not remarkable for the pro
ductions of men whose names are emblazoned on the
rolls of fame, and the great majority of exhibitors are
hitherto unknown artists. But a thoughtful lounge in
the new gallery in the famous old street convinces me
that many of the names which now are quite un-
familiar to the visitor will, in due time, be found among
the honoured list of celebratet -.minters. There is a good
deal of fashion and fancy in our admiration of paint-
ings as there is in relation to sculpture, or litera-
ture, or music, and some of us would be puzzled
to give any better reason for liking a picture than—
if we would but confess it—that it must be good be-
cause the artist is a celebrated man. Perhaps this
new exhibition will do something to prove the wisdom
of the old saw, "that there are as good fish in the sea as
ever came out of it."

It is at such times as these that society can fully
appri-ciate such efforts as those which Miss Ilye is
making to rescue pauper and orphan female children
from the hopelessness of a worklliuse career,
and carry them to a "land of promise," where they
will be taught and trained for domestic ssrvice, and
placed in a fair way of gaining an honourable
livelihood. All honour to her for this noble work!
But why cannot the sy -item be developed? When will
vestries and guardians of the poor learn that it would
soot less in the long run to enable pauper girls to emi-
gtate than to keep them, as they are now kept, year
after year, in the union? In theory this has been proved
over and over again, but it has been left for a benevo-

lent and common-sense lady to put the theory into
practice. Without ostentation and with very little
publicity, Miss Rye is doing a work of genuine belie.
volence, which will not only tend to reduce pauper-
ism and diminish the temptathm to immorality in
our own country, but will confer a great benefit on
Canada, where female domestics and wives are equally
wanted. As a set-off against the known fact that
there is great distress in London, owing to the want of
employment, a cheering fact lava recently been stated,
that activity in the shipbuilding trades is reviving,
several shipbuilding firms having just received orders
to build vessels. There is one department of labour
which I think might be developed not only in the
metropolis, but in most larger towns. The corps of
commissionaires has been a success, but many more
of these men might be employed. And why could we
not have porters stationed at various places ?
People often want to Bend parcels, luggage, kc., from
one place to another, and can find no one ready
to take it. The system might at least be tried as an
experiment, commencing with our railway stations.
And with this new corps might be combined a young
army of errands boys. Ihdh men and boys might be
registered and numbered, so as to be found in case of
dishonesty or breach of trust, and there would probably
be far less of this than timid people might anticipate.
People are frequently not honest because they find
that an honest livelihood is so terribly difficult.
The Law Times tells ne that in one week three boys
employed as clerks in the office were detected stealing
postage-stamps, and adds that they were tempted to
the crime by the facility with which they could turn
the stamps into money. "It is not too much to say,'
it remarks, "that thousands of thieves are created by.
the readiness with which they are enabled to dispose
of the stolen property." As a remedy it in proposed
that postmasters should he forbidden to purchase lees
than Its. worth of stamps, and that then they should
take the name and adireee of the seller, and that post-
masters almald not be allowed to buy stamps of children
at all. Na doubt this would render robberies of
postage-stamps less frequent, but it would be rather
hard upon the public. Small stuns are now very
frequently paid by postage stamps, and it is a great
convenience, but if we were to have the law thus
altered, what would a poor man do who received, say
Els. in stamps? By-the.bye it is rumoured that the
Poetmaater-General intends to abolish the small posts
offices that are held at shops, and confine the business
to district offices, entirely devoted to Post-office lupi-
ne... This would have one advsntage, that we might
then go to these offices and buy our stamps without
expecting the least modicum of politeness, and so we
ehould not be disappointed, whereas somehow or other
we can't help expecting a little politem•ss of a trades.
man, who almost says "thank you' mechanically,
exaspt when you buy stamps, and then never. But,

seriously, this alteration will never do, and Ido not
believe it will be attempted. Apropos of the Post-
office, there is another rumour—that Mr. Scudamore,
who so long filled an important position in that depart-
ment, and who has latterly been superintending the
arrangements for the Government management of the
telegraphs, is to be made Chairman of the Board of
Inland Revenue. I cannot think this likely, as it has
always been understood that he was to be at the head
of the new Telegraph Department. The rumour
arises from another rumour, that Mr. Stephenson, now
Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, is to be
appointed Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, in
place of Mr. G. A. Hamilton, who vacates that com-
fortable position to become one of the new "Church
Body" under the Irish Church Disestablishment Act.