The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-09-11 00:00:00

'Metropolitan QsBssip.

Iff OCR OWN CORRESPOND/2M

"(The ',mars, under this head are tone regarded as the es.
predation .1 ',dependent opinion, from the pen of a gentlemag
•4 whom nave the greatest confidence, bat for which WO
• —do not boll ourselves responsible.)

twang htrelen

In the domain of politics there is yet nothing very
exciting. The health of the Emperor of the French,
the Senatus-Consultum, the Irish Catholic manifesto,
the Irish land question, Indian loans, and some other
topics are discussed, and the element of party politics
is not wanting in these discussions; but purely political
matters are not yet attracting much attention.
Neither Ministers nor their opponents, however, are
idle during the recess. Public events occur with in-
creasing succession, and public opinion, though it may
he comparatively quiescent, never sleeps. The Irish
land question, for example, has been started, and it
will be kept going till Parliament meets, when a plan
which is now merely being slowly formed will be
brooglit forward, and will infallibly excite the whole
country. It is said, too, that Ministers are now s'udy-
jog, and will continue to study how they can effect
further reductions in the national expenditure. People
are looking to Mr. Childers, who is now cruising about.
for reductions in the naval service, and a large scheme
of retirement is expected. We heavily taxed
British ratepayers will be quite prepared to hail any
such scheme with acclamation if it do not mar the
efficiency of a navy of which we are so justly proud.
Statistics are occasionally very telling, and some-
times they are made to tell the reverse of truth, but
they are usually rather wearisome to writer and reader.
T think, however, that some important statistics might
be compiled just now by any one who chose to take a
great deal of trouble, to prove that the condition of
the c iuntry has improved. For myself,! have arrived
at the conclusion, though I will not bore you with the
numerous facts which have led to it. The harvest is
turning out more favourably than was expected; food
generally is getting rather cheaper; employment is
somewhat more plentiful; and pauperism is slightly
on the decrease. I believe these to be facts, and if so,
they are very encouraging.
PK' want of something better to do, perhaps, I have
bees having a meditative ramble in Southwark Park,
as it is at present rather facetiously called. Possibly
the greatest pleasure to be derived from meditation In
the place is from the contrast of what the " park" is
to what the locality was before it. Before this new
pleasure ground was laid out the locality was noted for
its marshy and quagmiry ground, for its canal and its
ditches, for its tanneries and unpleasantly odorous fac-
tories, for its flat, unpicturesque, dreary-looking market
gardens, and its ugly little streets of poor houses. Two
centuries ago this locality was a cheerful one; there
were beautiful orchards and "cherry gardens," the
name if which still clings to the locality; there was a
mill and a mill-pond, and Millpond-lane rec ills what
we may have read in Evelyn's " Diary "—Evelyn lived
hard by—incidentally showing how this locality was
'nice noted for its natural beicities, its orchards and
gardens. But the exigencies I d trade arid the growing
liopulation long aro marred all this, though even thirty
years ago the "Seven Islands" were part of a pie-
turi ei ole suburb. Anil nosy we have been trying to
mod I some of its lost beauty to the neighbour-
hood. At present there is a very sorry result. A
park ! What pleasant thoughts does the word excite.
We think lif eplendid waving trees, and deliciously
fresh arms, of lovely dells and swelling mounds
covered with verdure, of shady avenues, and of the sun
Hooding other parts of the park, with a rich golden
light. But oh, what a different scene is " Southwark
l'ark !" The miserable little trees might be dug up
a trowel and carried away if they were worth it;
they look more ridiculous even than the trees on the
l'ie.tries Embankment. The grass is patchy and
racgeil ; the shrubbery is piteously scanty ; and the
imilosures inclose nothing particular though heavy
penalties will pursue any one that enters them. Add
to this that the paths are stupidly made of large stones
whhili crunch under your feet, and perhaps sprain your
ankle, and it will be admitted that Southwark Park is
not yet a paradise of verdure. But we must give it
time. In ten years it will begin to look like a park,
and, mnanwhile, it is a great improvement on what the
I icality was before even this melancholy " park " was
formed. _ .

The Philanthropic Society's Farm School has
done such good service to society that it might
seem ungracious to say a word in discourage-
ment of it ; but it is with the friendliest
feelings that I would ask whether something more
miiht not be done in the PIM. direction. Up to the
close of the past half-year the receipts were £3,495, and
the payment £2,897, leaving a fair but not too large a
balance to go on with. So far so good, but then the
society has £2,470 invested in the funds, while the
number of boys in the school is only 292. Thousands
of unemployed little rascals swarm about our streets
and if only a few of these could be taken into the Farm
&had it would be a great boon to society.
A horrible and suggestive tale comes to us from
France. "Buried Alive." Those words can seldom
be read vidthent a shudder, and could the grave give up
its secrets we should doubtless learn that these sad
words have a larger application than we may have
thought. One grave has now given up a secret, and
a terrible secret it is. A lady in France recently
died, and as she had expressed a wish to be buried
in the same grave ae her daughter, who had died
about a year previously, preparations were made
to comply with her wishes. The grave was
opened, and then a fearful slght presented itself,
as the lid of the coffin was taken off. 'The
winding-sheet had been torn open; the right hand,
which had disentangled itself from the cerementa, was
deeply marked with bites—as if the unhappy rerenente
had either sought to quench her stifling thirst with her
blood, iv had gnawed her flesh, like Ugolino, in blank
despair; and the lid of the coffin had been indented by
the crucifix which lay on the young lady's breast."
These terrible facts recall Juliet's soliloquy, when
about to take the sleeping-draught which Friar Lau-
rance gave her that she may have the semblance of
death, and so avoid the marriage with Count Paris.
Says the friar to Juliet i---
" Ito-n, as the manner of our country Is,
In thy best robes uncovered on the bier,
'I boo shall be borne to that 55,00 ancient vault
where all the kindred of the Cspulets lie.
In the meantime, against thol shall awake,
",hall Romeo by my letters know uur drift,
ind hither shall he come."
hose who have read this sensational ;day will perhaps
rsillember Juliet's words as she takes the draught :
" flow if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me' There's a fearful point:
Shall I not then he stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth Ito healthful air breathes In,
Awl there die strangled see my Romeo Comm?"

bought this pew, " What mid he do with it?" Keep
it in his drawing-room, or luoiher.room, or what? Dr.
Johnson's pew in St. Clement's, Strand, has been
carefully preserved, and a plate has been let into it,
recording the fact that here the great lexicographer
used to join in the service—a service, by the way,
which he highly admired. That di sensible enough;
hot it would be rather an awkward thing to remove
that pew as a curiosity.