The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-07-12 00:00:00

our Fonbin Carrespoullent.

[We deem it right to state that we do not at all times
kdentify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

It was a good many years ago that the Royal Agri-
cultural Society pitched its tent near the metropolis,
and it is likely to be a long while before it comes
again. Special efforts, extending over the best part
of twelve months, had been put forth to make this
show a great success. The Prince of Wales was
elected President for the year; the exhibition was to
be visited by the Queen; a splendid prize list was got
together; the Lord Mayor took up the matter and
opened a fund at the Mansion House to cover
the expenses; an accessible and appropriate site
was secured; and an international character was
given ts the whole affair. With all these
favourable surroundings, only one condition was
required to make the Show the greatest success in the
Society's annals. Fine weather was indispensable,
and fine weather might certainly be expected in the
first week of July. As a matter of fact the Show has
been comparatively ruined by the torrents of rain which
fell day after day. The Queen was compelled to postpone
her visit fully half a week on account of the terrible
weather. The first shilling day fell 15,000 short of the
average attendance in great provincial centres of
industry like Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, and
Wolverhampton; whilst the ground was little better
than an enormous quagmire. The Society is dis-
heartened at the result of so much effort; disappointed
at the sum total of so much expectation.
About this time we should be witnessing the very
height of the London season. The papers ought to be
writing of garden-parties and open-air fetes, of a House
of Commons emptied by the desire of its members for
amusement, of a Government wearied by the heat,
and of Society exhausted by the multiplicity of its
numerous engagements. All the elements of one of
the most fashionable years are round about us—enter-
tainers ready to dispense their hospitality, the presence
of the Com6die Francaise, the Royal Agricultural
Show at Kilburn, a dulness in home politics releasing
peers and commoners alike from too close an
attention to business, and a cheapness in prices
which acts as an encouragement to expenditure.
The outward and visible signs of that commercial and
agricultural depression, of which BO much is heard, are
not seen in the West-end of London. Yet the season
has been socially a failure. Everything has been
spoilt by the rain, which prohibits garden parties,
makes out-door gatherings impossible, saturates the
pleasure-seeker wherever he may go, cripples trade, and
threatens a bad harvest. There has been no such
summer since that of 1860, no such wild moist winds
laden with rain from the Atlantic, no such a
lowering of spirits at a time when the days are at
their longest and should be at their brightest.
Meanwhile the Volunteers are preparing for their
annual outing at Wimbledon. The camp opens on
Monday the 14th fruit., and the riflemen are in
hopes that the clouds will have exhausted themstives
before this great national competition comes on.
Many a vicissitude have the marksmen experienced on
this famed Surrey common in the way of weather.
Sometimes, as in 1868, they have had to endure heat
of an equatorial temperature, when people were
falling dead from sunstroke in the streets of Lon-
don. At other times, as in 1875, they have
carried on their labours in the midst of a rain-
fall which has made the camp one of the most
dismal places that it ever entered into the ima-
gination of man to conceive, The tents have been
inches deep in water, the volunteers themselves more
than ankle-deep in mud. The Wimbledon prize
meeting has now become a great national institution;
and yet it does not seem so very long ago that the
Laureate sent forth his stirring appeal of "Riflemen,
form !" It was in the summer of 1859 that the man-
hood of England enrolled itself under the volunteer
banner, just as the Emperor Napoleon had returned
victorious from the Italian war. It is only a couple
of decades ago; but the mighty changes that have
since taken place will fill many a volume of European
history:
The ceremonies observed in conveying the body of
the Prince Imperial of France from South Africa to
England, corresponded in a great degree with those
which accompanied the remains of the First Napoleon
over the same sea nearly forty years ago. It was on
the 9th of May, 1840, that Lord Palmerston, the
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, wrote to Earl
Granville, the British Ambassador in Paris :—" Her
Majesty's Government having taken into consideration
the request made by the Government of France for
permission to remove from St. Helena to France the
remains of Napoleou Donapacte, y ut.4l io u.-
structed to assure M. Thiers that her Majesty's Govern-
ment will, with great pleasure, accede to this request."
On the 30th November following the Belle Poule
frigate, commanded by the Prince de Joinville, one of
the sons of King Louis Philippe, arrived off Cher-
bourg with the remains of the great Captain on board,
and, amid a demonstration of enthusiasm, it was
taken to Paris, where it lies under the gilded dome of
the Invalides, the home of the old soldiers, answering
in some respects to our Chelsea Hospital. It was the
awakening of the Napoleonic fervour at this second
funeral of the famous Emperor in the French capital,
which is said by some writers to have been the cause
of the ultimate fall of the Orleans Dynasty and the
restoration of the Bonaparte iamily to power in the es-
tablishment of the Second Empire, which came to an
end in 1870.

As the death of the Prince Imperial is intimately
associated with the war at the Cape, it may be useful
to recall the fact that hostilities have now lasted
exactly half-a-year. The British forces crossed the
frontier stream of the Tugela on the 12th of January;
and ten days afterwards we experienced the terrible
disaster of Isandula. In its catalogue of misfortunes,
not the least of which was the slaying of the Prince on
Whit-Sunday, this war will long stand out conspicuous
In our history. We got over the Afghan difficulty with
very little trouble—the savage tribes in that mountain-
ous region evidently being destitute of military capa-
city, whatever may be their bravery. But the Zulus
have manifested great skill in the defence of their ter-
ritory, and their courage in attack has more than
once been shown. They have exhibited quite as mmla
craft as the Ashantees, who, in Sir Garnet Wolseley's
campaign against them in the beginning of 1874, so
well imitated the bugle calla of the English that it re-
quired an experienced ear to detect their " cease firing"
when our troops were directing their rifles against
them. It is gratifying to know that the memorial to
the departed Prince is already a great success. The
Prince of Wales and the Crown Prince of Sweden and
Norway are its joint-presidents, the Duke of Teck
heads the list of its committee, which includes the
names of many members of both Houses of Parliament.
The demonstration of respect to the memory of Lord
Lawrence, on the occasion of his funeral in West-
miuster Abbey on Saturday, was a striking testimony
to the appreciation in which the services of this dis-
tinguished administrator were held. One by one the
great men who stood forth so conspicuously in the
terrible days of the Indian Mutiny, are passing from
us. Lord Canning, the Viceroy of that day, has been
dead more than half a generation, so have Clyde and
Outram ; Sir Henry Lawrence, Sir Henry Havelock,
and Sir Hugh Wheeler were long since called to their
rest; and now Sir John Lawrence himself has gone to
join the vast army of the majority. In no fitter
place could he lie than in our great national \Valhalla,
where we delight to honour the remaiLs of our
eminent poets, our greatest heroes, our most accom-
plished authors, our most profound philosophers, and
our wisest statesmen. The grave of Lord Lawrence
is close to those of Lord Clyde and Sir James Outran,
who with him bore a share of that tremendous
responsibility that fell upon our public men in India
when the foundations of our Oriental empire were
shaken amid the shock of the Sepoy mutiny. Some,
like Havelock, who died within a few months, were
soon removed from the scene of their labours and their
anxiety; but Lord Lawrence 1111 been spared to the
nation two-and-twenty years; and his funeral has
shown how his unquestionably great public services
were estimated.

The conversion of dinged churchyards into r
ton grounds has made much progress in London
within the past few years, This has been the case
more especially within the products of the city itself,
where the removal of the resident population to the
suburbs at night and also upon Sunday, has left many
a church congregationless, while its churchyard has
too often fallen into desolation and decay. The hand
of improvement has now reacheel St. Paul's itself,
where the laying out of the gardens surrounding the
metropolitan cathedral which for some time hiss
been in progress under the supervision of the
city architect is now nearly completed, thus
giving the churchyard an appearance which
strangely contrasts with its former condition. The
whole of the plants selected for the gardens are ever.
greens. At the north-eastern corner a massive granite
fountain is in course of erection. Our forefathers, in
laying out great cities, were obviously guided more by
considerations of the utilitarian than of the beautiful;
otherwise we should never had such hideous structures
as Newgate in the very heart of the capital, nor
churchyards in our midst without the slightest attempt
at ornament or relief. The last-mentioned defect is
now being rapidly remedied; and Horsemonger.lane
having gone, the day of doom for Newgate ought not
to be far distant.

Six years ago the Shah ef Persia came over here to
learn something of westena civilization, and a meeting
has now been held in London for the purpose of form.
fog a seciety which shall spread anicngst us a little of
the civilization of the East. , While Persia could learn
a great deal from tia, It seems that we, in turn, can

derive a great deal of good from a knowledge of the
arta, literature, and folk-lore of Japan. A wonderful
Itry is Japan, and marvellously clever are its
people. The specimens of Japanese art which come
over to this country certainly cannot be surpassed
here, while Japanese students enter themselves at
our public schools and universities and carry off
prizes in the faces of their English competitors.
Like China, Japan was strictly exclusive until, at the
cannon's mouth, it was made to open its ports and its
commerce to the enterprise of Europe and the United
States. The subjects of Queen Victoria and of the
Tycoon alike reap the benefit of this; and although
the Royal Asiatic Society has hitherto included within
its operations Japan as well as India and China there
are so many features of interest in the art and litera-
ture of the first-mentioned country, that it is in con-
templation to form a separate institution, so as to
bring its products more immediately before the Eng-
lish people.

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