The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-08-29 00:00:00

Our gonbon aorropodent

[We demi it rlght to state that wo do not at all Ur= I
Identify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

The first notes of public thankfulness for the
harvest which is just now being gathered in will
soon be heard in some of our places of worship,
and they will be deeper and fuller than has been
the case in more than one of recent years. The
harvest thanksgiving has become a feature in the
religious observances of nearly every denomi-
nation within a comparatively short period.
Twenty years ago but few were held; now it is
an exceptional circumstance to find an agricul-
tural parish without one—while even in tow7is,
where the harvest can only be heard of through
the newspapers, they have become usual. And
thus, while many of the old customs attached to
the ingathering were fading away, a new one has
arisen which promises to become perpetual. The
sickle is now seldom seen; even the swing of the
scythe has largely ceased to be heard; and the
flail is beginning to be looked upon as a curiosity.
The ceremony of "bringing home the last load"
has been going the way of the other attendants
upon the autumnal season; and even the harvest-
home is not what it was. But, despite new
machinery and new ideas, there continues a feel-
ing that the time immediately succeeding
harvest is one in which to rest and be thankful;
and the thanksgivings now about to be held are
a true realisation of the idea.

Early autumn which, in the agricultural dis-
tricts is the time of hardest work, is to many
thousands of people, especially in the manufac-
turing parts, the season when pleasure is in the
ascendant. Those who have toiled, scarcely
Without intermission, for over eleven months,
then feel that the day has come when they have
a title to enjoy themselves, and they exercise
their right by leaving home for a visit. Not
only the ocean watering places, but those inland
—such as Bath, Buxton, Matlock, and Harrogate
—are full, and in London are plainly to he -dis-
tinguished a large number of visitors on
pleasure bent. Their evident wonder at
all they see, no less than their obvious
enjoyment of what to the jaded City
man appear the commonest London sights,
mark them out as strangers. Your true Lon-
doner will pass St. Paul's every day and scarcely
ever see its dome; he will be near Westminster
each twenty-four hours and could scarcely tell
which was the Victoria Tower and which that of
St. Margaret's Church; and lie will remain
within the metropolitan area all his life, and not
be certain upon many points which his country
cousin will have learnt in a week's visit.
Familiarity with " sights" has the same effect as
familiarity with dangers—it deadens the percep-
tion of them; and visitors from the provinces
should remember this and exercise some forbear-
ance when they find their London friends so
much more ignorant of the most strildng things
in the capital than could possibly have been
expected.
One of the commonest features of the Thames
between London-bridge and Chelsea is the
penny steamboat, and it is so common that few
think of the enjoyment which can be derived
from a trip upon it. The Thames is certainly
not a pellucid stream upon whose bosom one
would care to be lightly cast, but there is no point
from which some of the best known features of
the metropolis can be better. seen than from the
deck of a steamer floating upon its waters. For
a view of the bridges (and these are far from the
least interesting objects in London), there is
naturally no more fitting spot; and it is the
same of the Embankment, the Palace of West-
minster, St. Thomas's Hospital (ono of our most
striking public buildings), or even the soon-to-be-
deseroyed prison of Millbank. Sal erfine people,
who cannot enjoy anything which costs so small
a sum- as a penny, might wax satirical at the
idea that anything. picturesque was to be seen
from a river steamer; but folks of humbler, and
perhaps wiser mind, will be disposed to try the
matter for themselves before passing judgment.
And if they choose a fine day for the experiment
there is very little doubt as to what the judg-
ment will be.

Twelve months ago, when cholera was causing
far greater ravages at Toulon and Marseilles than
it has caused this year (though even this year
the facts have been sad enough), and when all
France was trembling with anxiety lest it might
sweep through the country with resistless force, the
stream of pleasure traffic from England to Paris,
which is always large in the autumn, dwindled to
smallerproportions than in any year since the war.
The Parisian hotel-keepers suffered severely, and,
as theylooked around their emptyrooms, reflected
sadly upon the contrast between the times when
the aristocratip 'Lraitaludtpfitis.."eari ugurtl?B
uir them, and now, when scarcely a British visitor
entered his doors. But this year, although
cholera once more has broken out in the south of
France, there is not the same repulsion exhibited
towards the idea of a journey to Paris as was
shown a twelvemonth since. It may be that
folks have become accustomed to the notion, or
that they are less susceptible to panic, but what-
ever the reason the fact remains that the trains
out of London for Dover, Folkestone, and New-
haven (our three chief ports of departure for
France), do not present the same deserted ap-
pearance now that they did last year.
Although it is a matter upon which, from the
very nature of things, prophecy is impossible, it
would appear as if the hope could now be in-
dulged that England is likely to be free from a
visitation, for this year at least, of the dreaded
disease which has devastated Spain and worked
much mischief in France during the past two
years. The time during which it has been
injuring our neighbo urs has, it may be trusted, been
a time of sanitary preparation with us, for it would
be almost criminal if, after the warning we
have received, a state of unpreparedness were
exhibited should the cholera visit our shores. It
is a mistake to think that this is a matter which
should be spoken of under the breath and not
publicly alluded to. Much of the mischief which
cholera has worked has been owing to the awe
and mystery with which it has been surrounded.
If People only kept their heads cool, and looked
the facts clearly in the face, nothing like so much
devastation would be caused. And as panic
is one of the circumstances which best help
its spread, people should be very careful how
they credit or circulate rumours of its arrival in
our midst.

Those who are disposed to think that the
capital of the Empire should be the first to
adopt the great public improvements which
modern science has afforded for men's use, and
tkus set a good example to lesser places in all
parts of the country, must often be dis-
appointed at the apparent apathy which
London displays in this direction. Sometimes it
would almost seem as if something bold were
about to be done and this was notably the case
in connection with the electric light. For about
two years after the Avenue de l'Opera in Paris
had been provided with the new illuminant, to
the astonishment and admiration of the tens of
thousands of people from all parts of the world
who visited the Exhibition of 1878, London did
not do much; but then the City authorities
resolved to light a portion of their main tho-
roughfares in similar fashion. As far as the
public were concerned, the experiment succeeded,
limit gradually the area in which the lighting took
place began to contract, and now it extends
over scarcely a third of that to which we had
originally been treated. Every now and again
it is promised to be extended, and it may be
that the coming winter will see the promise
fulfilled.

Despite the disappointments which have
attended it, this matter of even the partial in-
troduction of the electric light has not shown
London to disadvantage, inasmuch as an example
has been set which provincial cities have been
slow to imitate. But in one other public con-
cern some of the provincial cities have distinctl
strode ahead of London, and this is in the appli-
cation of steam to tramways. If you converse
with an average Londoner upon this point, he
will be found to laugh with scorn at the idea that
such application is practicable, and he will trium-
phantly point to the fact that it is not SO done
in the metropolis, as if this sufficed to prove that
it could not be done at all. But it is done, and
with great success in more than one of our Eng-
lish towns. The same arguments were brought
against it at first that were brought against
railways—that horses would be frightened, that
the atmosphere for far around would be poisoned
with smoke, and that there would be a large
increase of danget to human life. But the steam
trams have worn down these objections, as the
steam trains did before them, and even London
may come to recognise this before very long.
Although the summer through which we have
just been passing will be long remembered as
having been more than usually dry, little has
been eard of the e
mplaints of a water famine
hto
in our large centres of popuhtion,
rin_,..Which often
accompany a droughty season. This 1.5) 'Perhaps,
the more to be wondered at, inasmuch as our
sources of supply remain very much the same
though thfi number of inhabitants may be con-
stantly lucre a.sing. The problem of providing water
for large populations, especially where, owing to
the presence of manufactures, the consumption

is exceedingly great, is much more complicated
than those who have not practically to deal with
it can imagine. In London it is becoming
increasingly difficult every year, and neither
the Thames nor the Lea can continue
in pc.wi etuity to satisfy an ever-growing demand.
The same difficulty has been felt at Liverpool,
Manchester, Bradford, and other national centres
of industry, and it is one which may be expected
to pros with greater force in the next twenty
years. As it is, the cost of providing reservoirs
is enormous, but that would be borne with com-
parative cheerfulness if it was mrtain that water
could always be provided to fill them. The moor-
lands of Lancashire and Yorkshire have been
largely turned into huge gathering grounds for
the supply of water to the towns of those two
counties; and the question is being eagerly
asked in more than one quarter, "What is to be
done when these are all absorbed ?" London
will have to answer a similar question on her own
account one of these days. G. R.