The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-03-06 00:00:00

alittropplitan 6ossip.

DV 01:6 CWN CORBESPONDRYT.

(The remarks under this head are to lnaregarded u the ex.
r,oµgnon of indepetelent opinion, from the pen of a gentlemsh
to whom we trace the greatest confidence. hut for which wo
,utvertheless do not hold ourselves responsible.]

With her Majesty once again at Winds Ir, and with
the near prospect if State assemblies at Buckingham
Palace, we may regard the London season as fairly
commenced, and to use the common colloquial phrase,
the town is full. The legislature, too, is hard at work,
the House of Commons having magnanimously given
their loedships of the rpl .1- Tr SOIL, to do,
t lepreesion of Crime Bill to wit. It was :inally
oded that this sues/nue should be intc .1 by
the Home Secretary, but Mr. Bruce haa o-iwed the
yam to Lord Kimberley. The measure is
.5 very itn-
; •Ve 1,40 g been ;ayhig that some-
thing most be dune in respect to our criminal classes,
but wide differem of opinion lac, este. das to
what that POIM 1 h ill be. Thu statistics& of what
we may call the criminal classes at liberty are some-
thing startling. It seems that we have amongst us
22,919 known thieves, 3,095 receivers of stolen goods,
and 29,468 suspects, as the French would call them,
besides which we have 32,938 vagrants and tramps ;
altogether a horrible total of 88,460 people who at least
have been criminals, are connected with criminals, or
who are in a fair way to swell the ranks of the actually
criminal classes. By what means statisticians arrive
at the conclusion for instance that there are 22,959
thieves I do not know: kit, without placing too much
reliance on such statements, there is too much reason
to fear that they are disagreeably near the truth.
Lord Kimberley's, or rather Mr. Bruce's bill is pretty
generally favourably receives!, and if passed it is
earnestly to be hoped that it will tend to the public
good ; but we mud not overlook the many indirect
means of dealing with the suspected or quasi cri-
minal class as well as the actually criminal. Diffuse
education and repress some of the temptath me to drunk-
ennesa, and the criminal classes would not be Bo
numerous, These reforms, however, are a work of
time, and meanwhile some such scheme as that pro-
posed by the Government would work welL But for
the moment of greater interest than any of these ques-
tions is that of the Irish Church, of which I will merci-
fully say nothing. A prominent public topic, too, is
the navy estimates. The reduction of expenditure is
em moos. The total sum voted last year for these
estimates was £11,157,290; and that for the present
year is £9,396,641, showing a diminution of £1,160,649.
This, I believe, exceeds the expectations of all who
have speculated as to the amount of the reduction—at
least, so far as I have observed. If anything ap-
proaching a similar reduction is proposed with regard
to the army, surely the Budget will be a marvellously
favourable one. That great expectations and sanguine
hopes as to the income-tax have arisen is only natural.
Among the many important facts which the election
petition inquiries have brought out, not the least im-
portant is the amount of drunkenness that prevails
dosing the elections. Of course some elections are
much worse than others in this respect, but there is
room for reform in all future election contests. Take
the Salford inquiry as a specimen, and though it is not,
it is to be hoped, a fair specimen, it proves only too
clearly the necessity for some legislative enactment
bearing on the evil. One of the candidates said that he
had been often assaulted and ill-used by drunken men
during the election, and that he was kicked as he
alighted from his carriage. The chairman of this
gentleman's committee said that he (the chairman)
had never seen so many drunken men and women in
the streets before; and an Independent minister (who,
perhaps, unintentionally exaggerates) says he thinks
that eight out of every twelve women were drunk!
Now would it not be well if Parliament were to decree
that during the actual period of an election, public.
houses should be closed? Many will say—certainly ;
close them altogether, and at all times ; but, without !
entering on that question, it is certainly disgraceful 1
that the dignity of a constituency choosing its repre-
sentrtives in the Legislature should be marred and
degraded by scenes of drunkenness unparalleled in
any other country.
About this time of the year a number of companies
—banks, railway companies, and companies of every
imaginable description hold their yearly or half- '
yearly meetings. There is one feature that is common,
if not to all, at least to a large majority, that reference
Is made to the past dullness of trade and commerce,
and to the gradual revival of business. In many
cases good dividends have been declared, the chairman
remarking that but fur the depression, etc., the (Eel-
dend would have been higher; in other cases, the non-
declaration of a dividend is attributable to the same
cause ; but in nearly every meeting of shareholders,
where the subject hall been at all alluded to, the pre-
vailing opinion appears to be that business is reviving,
and that national prosperity is returning. This is
cheering, and there are many incidental circumstances
which corroborate this view of affairs. So far as
London is concerned, employment is becoming more
general with the first warm rays of the sun, and there
is every reason to hope that a new era of business
activity is commencing. From May, 1866, to the
autumn of 1868, was a dull time indeed for finance,
commerce, trade, and therefore a very dull time for the
working classes; but brighter days are evidently ar-
riving.
It must be a relief to all who have watched the case
that at last, after three weeks, the longest, and in some
respects the pettiest, trial on record has been brought
to a close. The court was crowded on the last day,
to hear the summing up of the Lord Chief Justice.
A noticeable figure was that of Miss Saurin, the plain-
tiff, wko sat calm and motionless and closely veiled
nearly all the day, and Father Mathews, Mrs. Starr,
and Mrs. Kennedy were eagerly inquired for by some
visitors and pointed out by others. The appearance
of Sisters of Mercy, nuns, and priests in a court of
justice is very unusual, if not unprecedented, and
necessarily, therefore, threw an element of romance
into the trial. I dare say the summing up of the

Judge was all that it should be, and perhaps, after
three weeks of evidence and speeches, we could not
expect his lordship to take much less than seven hours
in his summarising of the evidence, but it was tedious
nevertheless. For one thing we have to thank
his lordship—for appealing to the public to re-
frain from any expressicn of feeling, whatever
the verdict might be, and it was to the credit
of the auditory that they acceded to the request; but
the outside crowd were not reticent. When they
heard the verdict they cheered and cheered, Of course,
minion.% widely differ as to the merits of the case.
Doubtless Miss Saurin was badly used, but she was
not exactly the sort of person to be a nun, and it is a
pity that she undertook more than she appears able to
have carried out; and it is a great pity, too, that the
case could not have been settled by arbitration or
ecclesiastical authority, so that it should not have come
into court. Many people are sorry that it was brought
nto court, but most people are glad that it is at last
out of it.

"Strange that such difference should be 'twist
tweedledurn and tweedledee," wrote Pope in reference
to an operatic quarrel "of the period ; " but it is not
strange that there should be such a difference between
the French concert pitch and our own. It is strange,
however, that our leading musicians cannot meet and
that the decision of a musical congress be not taken
as settling the point whether our pitch shall be lowered
or not. We are, however, drifting into discord where
ill should be concord. The National Choral Society
has given one or two oratorios at the lowered pitch,
but Mt. Martin, the conductor, has returned to the
previous diapason; and now it has been decided that
at the Covent Garden opera the new (French) pitch
is to be adopted. If in some places it is lowered and
in others it remains as it was we shall get into a pretty
mess. As Sheridan says, "The quarrel is a very
pretty one as it stands; we should only spoil it by
trying to explain it." I will first add, however, that
the lowering the diapason by a semitone is of far more
importance to the Covent Garden opera, for instance,
than people who have not studied the subject would
have any idea of. It would at once open the operatic
field to a number of foreign and English singers who
cannot sing at the present high pitch ; it would thus
produce greaUr competition among singers, and there-
fore cheapen the cost of an operatic troupe. So that
there is a great difference after all "twixt tweedledum
and tweedleclee!"

We have been for many years talking of tramways in
London, but we have not got them yet. Mr. Train's
defecti% e system, which lasted so 1111,,rt a tivae, threw
us backward, but an improved style of hamway is now
being urged, and there are some hopes that weshall ere
long have them. Under the system proposed by a new
company the rails would otter no inpediment to
ordinary traffic; the company would make and main-
tain the road, thus saving the ratepayers £l,OOO per
mile per year. The maximum charge would be a penny
a mile, and working men's can would he no morning
and evening at a halfpenny a mile. With such
advantages as these it will be strange if we do not have
tramways. Why not such improvements in every
great town?

THE LOGIC OF LIQUOR LAWS.-"Our statute
books pretty plainly show that we have very small
scruple in abridging the liberty of the subject for the
gen.ral good." True, Archbishop of York—most true,
most reverend. But do our statute-books show any
instance of the liberty of the public at large abridged
for the mere sake of restraining a minority from the
abuse thereof? W 0111414 thou deprive them that
shave if razors, lest certain lunatics should slice their
weasanda? If not, why withhold the comforting
draught from all, only to the end of disabling some to
get drunken? Un to I—Punch,