The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-04-02 00:00:00

Our yonbon Corttsponknt.

rice deem it right to state that we de net at lb times
ittentlfy oureLhes with our correspondenti" oPinielm.l

The proceedings in Committee on the Peace Pre-
servation Bill clearly indicate the prevailing feeling
n the Home of Commons, and in this respect the
House may be said to fairly represent the opinion of
England and Scotland, whatever may be said with re-
gard to Ireland. A very important discussion was
that on the repressive measures to be taken with re-
gard to the treasonable press. As an amendment to
the Government proposal empowering the Lord
Lieutenant to seize newspapers, presses, and type, it
had been proposed to exclude merely " seditious '
writings or engravings, and this amendment was re-
jected by 333 to 56, and successive amendments to
the Government proposals were rejected by large
majorities. Now no one can reasonably believe that
the House of Commons has acted thus with any malice
or any abstract liking for what it has done. The
whole bill has been regarded as a painful necessity,
and there is every reason to hope that when it is got
into working, it will have the most beneficial effects
on Ireland herself, and ere long the Emerald Isle will
probably rejoice that it has been passed. In no sense
will it be a "terror to those who do well" It will
tend to repress crime, aid in tracing crime to the
criminal, and secure the punishment of the offender;
and this surely will be no hardship to the country
generally.
One result of the fruitless endeavours to make an
impression on the (officially) hard heart of the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer will be an agitation for an
inquiry into the advisability of repealing "schedule
I)" of the Income Tax Act; but the success of such an
agitation is very doubtful. The grievance is that a
trader or a professional man is liable to have his books
overhauled—and this perhaps by persons in the same
profession or trade—to see whether the return is cor-
net. Mr. Lowe admita this grievance, but he very
naturally asks what is Government to do for a sub.
stitnte for this portion of the tax should it be remitted,
as some persons advocate. Of this, however, there is
not the slightest chance, for as Mr. Lowe provokingly
observes, no tax is so well calculated to meet
the case of war or any other emergency, for no tax is
so easily and so readily collected. No doubt of it,
and so, whether we object either to the tax itself, or
to the mode of its collection, we must make up our
minds to grin and bear it. If Mr. Lowe will only
take a penny off of it, as it is pleasantly rumoured
that he intends to do, we shall be in better humour to
bear the ills that tax-paying flesh is heir to.
Whatever opinion may be held with regard to the
adoption of the ballot in ordinary elections, I think
it must generally be admitted that at Bristol
the preliminary test ballot has worked well. Instead
of three candidates of much about the same political
faith going to the poll, it is amicably decided which of
the three stands the best chance, and the other two
retire and help their more fortunate brother. A
great deal of electoral excitement is thus obviated,
and fruitless expense to two candidates out of three
is avoided. Why should not the example set in our
large towns be followed elsewhere ? This will probably
be the result. The test ballot at Bristol is not the
only suggestive thing from that town in connection
with the election. The sad accident at the nomination,
and the excitement—not to use a stronger word—which
preceded it, afford another illustration of the evils of
the nomination system. It is said that Government
Intend this session to propose the abolition of the
present nomination proceedings at elections, and this
would certainly be regarded generally as a reform.
The letter of the ex• Queen of Spain to the Pope is
rather an interesting document, whether the lady
wrote it herself, or whether it is a manifesto written
for her by some one who upraises the cause of her
son. The letter illustrates the Shakespearean adage
"Sweet are the uses of adversity." She deplores the
"strife and bloodshed which have so long marked the
career of Spain, and she does not desire that her son
should wade through slaughter to a throne." She
will have him educated away from the factions which
are quarrelling in Spain, so that should the country
which rejected the mother ever call the son to reign,
he may learn that the sovereign must be king of the
Spaniards, and not of this or that party. But is it not
now too late to write thus? What a pity that ex-
Queen Isabella could not, when she was on the throne,
look at political affairs in so broad and liberal a spirit.
An application at Guildhall police-court is of interest
to the whole country. One of the under-sheriffs applied
on behalf of the Commissioners of Sewers to destroy
nine half-chests of tea which had been seized at the
Emit and West India Company's warehouse. The
Commissioners are rather an anomalous body to make
such an application, but in one respect they are ap-
propriate, for the " tea "in question is shown to be
only fit to be thrown into those sewers over which these
gentlemen exercise jurisdiction. Dr. Letheby, halleg
analysed it, says that "a great portion of it is not tea
at all, and the other portion is composed of exhausted
tea-leaves and a little good tea, and in his opinion it is
most unsound, adulterated, and unfit for food." And
yet the alderman to whom the application was made
declines to condemn it ! He no doubt does this con-
scientiously. He thinks it is "really not unfit for food
within the meaning of the Act." And so this " tea "
which is not tea is to be sold for that which it is not,
and the infusion which is made from it will neither
cheer nor inebriate. If this stuff is not unfit for food
within the meaning of the Act, the sooner the Act is
altered the better, and it is consoling to reflect that
this session is not likely to pass away without some
alteration in the law.

May good news be heard of the City of Boston before
this is read, but at the time of writing it seems hoping
against hope. More than eight weeks have elapsed
since she left Halifax, and it is now conjectured that
she may have struck on an iceberg and gone down
with her living freight, leaving not one to tell the sad
tale. If she be lost she will not be the lint good ship
that has disappeared without any living person being
able to say how she met her fate. The President in
1841, the City of Glasgow in 1854, and the Paige in
1856, all went down—so it is supposed—without even
a spar or the smallest fragment of wreck to tell the sad
story.

How strangely distance lessens the importance
of news! A terrible conflagration has occurred
at Compta, which is somewhere in India, destroy.
lug 200 houses and 2,500 bales of cotton, the
loss amounting to about a quarter of a million
sterling. This, indeed, is a " conflagration" to
which the strongest adjective that an imaginative
reporter could think of would be applicable; but then
it is in India, and so it creates little sensation at home.
The news, however, is important, inasmuch as it must
affect the cotton market.

Not a bad book might be made out of the records of
curious incidents indirectly connected with crime.
Here, for example, is a very clever prisoner who has made
several very ingenious, though ineffectual attempts
to escape from Ipswich gaol. At one time he made a
formidable weapon by twisting together the handles of
two cans, and with this clumsy affair he managed to
remove five or six bricks from his cell. Then he was
put in irons and left with nothing but a wooden spoon.
It might have been thought that he could have done
no harm with that, but out of this wooden spoon he
actually made a key and with this wooden key he
positively unlocked his irons and took them off during
the night and replaced them just before the warder
came round in the morning. It is a pity such talent
could not have been better employed.
Two additional clubs are in process of formation in
the metropolis—the Colonial and the Corinthian, the
former intended for gentlemen who are or have been
connected with the colonies, and the latter a popular
club at the moderate:subscription of two guineas a year.
Clubs are decidedly coming more and more into fashion
every year. Within the last two or three years there
must have been ten or a dozen added to the list, and
really to any one who knows the comforts to be had at
• good club—the agreeable society, the quiet rubber,
or the "50 up," and the advantages of pleasant dining-
rooms, reading-rooms, Ac.,—it cannot be wondered at.
But the genuine working-man's club movement does
not make much way here. People scarcely like to
confess it, but the fact is that a comfortable club is
really a question of money, and without the subscrip-
tion is sufficiently high the club must be a failure in
one way or another.

Ileal sea-water baths in London have long been
talked of as possible, and it is surprising that the idea
has never yet been carried out. There is now how-
ever, a prospect of the thing being accomplished. It
is proposed to bring sea-water in tanks from Herne
Bay, by the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway,
and it is said that the cost of a real sea -water bath
would then be so small as to be within the reach of
every one of moderate means. Much, of course, will
depend on the locality of the baths. If near a
terminus or station of the railway the expense of car-
riage would be nearly the whole expense incurred, for
of course the sea belongs to us all. There really is no
difficulty in the matter, but on the other hand the ad-
vantage may be overrated. A sea-water bath in
London will not be the same thing as a 'dip in the
briny" itself. We cannot bring sea-breezes in tanks,
and we shall mins the pleasures of the sea-shore and
the sea view. But still the experiment is worth trying.
If we had a sufficiently large bath-room, we might
have artificial cliffs—real cliffs for that matter—and
real sea sand! It would all be a spurious anbstitute for
the genuine article, of course—like skating with wheels
on a floor—but all this might add to the charm of a
real sea-water bath in London.
The Corps of Commissionaire' are to have barracks

built for them. The cost will be between five and six
thousand pounds, and about half of this has already
been raised, it being intended that the expenses shall
be met by voluntary subscription. The corps has
proved of great service to the public, and a great boon
to the men employed. The system might well be
extended here, and introduced in towns where it has
not yet been tried. And I should like to see a corps
of Cadet Commissionaires—that would be a very fine

name for "errand boy," and the boys would like it
immensely. Such a corps might easily be orgmised,
and thus numbers of now unemployed boys might find
work and pay. And we might have organised porters
—at railway stations especially—men who would be
ready to take parcels, carry your luggage, and so on,
"They would run away with it," it may be objected.
Nothing of the kind. There is more desire to be
honest among the unemployed poor than many of us
give them credit for. In ninetymine cages out of a
hundred it is dire, biting, gnawing poverty that leads
to street robberies. Give to the poor fellows now out
of work the opportunity of gaining an honest living,
and they would be onl oo happy to avail themselves
of it.