The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-12-14 00:00:00

our Youbzu Corrspanit.

[We deem 81 right to state that we do not at all times
identify ourselves with our Correspondent's opirdonej

Politics in the provinces, or Parliament out of Ses-
sion, or whatever other description the newspaners
may apply to the speeches of noble lords and honour-
able gentlemen during the recess, has for a time dis-
appeared from the headings in their columns, for Par-
liament is no longer out of session. It has got into the
sixth legislative year of its existence, and from the
number and quality of the speeches delivered, it cer-
tainly shows no sign of that decay which we are accus-
tomed to associate with old age. It is not, however,
by this standard that a moribund House of Commons
can be judged. Lord Beaconsfield, the Prime
Minister, can speak as readily and as forcibly
now as when he entered Parliament forty-one
years ago. Mr. Gladstone has been in the Lower
House forty-six years, and there is no comparison
between the young man of three-and-twenty, fresh from
the Unvieraity of Oxford, and the veteran statesman
who will enter the seventieth year of his age on the
29th instant. It is not in the delivery of speeches, nor
in its power for criticism, that advancing years tell
upon the capacity of a Parliament. It is found in the
lax attendance when matters of ordinary business are
before the House; the novelty of legislative duty has
long worn off; routine has become irksome. Of course,
when a great debate is in progress, and there is an
exciting party issue before the assembly, the triumph-
ant shout of the Ministerialists, and the ringing cheer
of the Opposition, echo in the lobbies and in the

Central lia:11 with all the force of younger days; but

the House of Commons has to apply itself not merely
to debates and discussions. It has to get through an
immense amount of work which does not show for much
in the public eye; and it is this which a new Parlia-
ment transacts with much more cheerfulness and
alacrity than an old one.
The contrast bet ween the prorogation in the third week
of August, and the meeting for the winter Session, In
early December, could scarcely have been more com-
plete, so far as atmospheric conditions were concerned.
Scorching heat had given way to piercing cold; sunlit
_

skies to a firmament of the deepest gloom. A com-
panion picture to Mr. Frith's "Chill October" might
well be one representing dull December. A December
sky in London is one not easily forgotten by those who
live, move and have their being under the sphere of its
influence. The smoketiascending from the homes of
three millions of people forms overhead into a huge
bank of impenetrable gloom, which it is impossible for

_
the oblique rays of amidwinter's sun to penetrate. Occa•
sionally, and at rare3ntervals, there is an hour or two
.of sunshine, and these are faithfully recorded in the
office of the RegistirWGeneral, who told us, not very
long ago, that fourliours of sunshine had passed over
London, in a whole week. The paragraph an-
nouncing this fact was headed by some of the papers
"A Dark Week," and the description cannot cer-

tainly be called a misnomer. Moonlight at halfpast-
three in the afternoon—gas the live-long day in shops
and counting-houses—such are the conditions of
life in London in the month of December. To
this have our legislators come up from their country
mansions, and they will be inclined to make short
work of the pre-Christmas Session. To issue from the
warm and we 1-lighted House at midnight, and to face
the bitter wind which is sweeping up from the east,
laden with the cold damp vapours of the river, is a
matter which, in those of our lawgivers who have
reached 70 or 80 years of age, requires very great
care. Even the sight of the dark-flowing stream, as its
waves lap the base of the Houses of Parliament, is
sufficient to send a shivering shudder through the
frames of much younger men than many of these
who occupy seats upon the benches of the House of
Commons.

The new bells of St. Paula may often be heard of an
evening, as they send out their musical peals over the
City. A voiceless cathedral no longer stands in the
centre of the great capital of the empire. Voice-
less so far as the summoning of the people:to prayer and
praise was concerned, but not on a great occasion of
national mourning. The associations surrounding the
notes of the great bell of St. Paul's, which happily are
not often heard, are of the most sombre description.
Its sonorous tones are flung out upon the air only upon
the death of the sovereign, or of a prominent member
of the Royal family. It has not now sounded forth a
time of trouble in the home of Her Majesty for seven-
teen years. More than half a generation has passed
away since the night of the 14th December, 1861,when it
t made known to the citizens of London the intelligenco
of the Prince Consort's death. It was tolled at mid.

7-1 night so that its effect might be the more solemn and
Impressive. As in the present year the 14th fell on a
Saturday;• and those who, in the early minutes of the
Sabbath morning, hearkened to the voices of the
night, will never forget the awestruck intensity with
which they listened to that funeral dirge. It seemed

to tell them of another world, one Where, we have
been told, "far beyond those voices, there is peace."
And since St. Paul's communicated the news that
night to the startled citizens of London, more than
one half the population of these islands has followed
the Prince Consort to "the undiscovered country from
whose bourne no traveller returns." The active genera-
tion of that time is gradually disappearing, and is being
succeeded by one ready to take its place upon the great
stage of human life.-

Probably few of the readers of the newspapers who
glance cursorily over the news from the seat of war
give as much attention as it deserves to the difficulties
with which our gallant soldiers have had to contend
In Afghanistan. The justice or policy of the war,
upon which, as the Parliamentary debates have shown,
public opinion is somewhat divided, does not affect
the recognition which all parties have willingly
accorded to the bravery displayed by the British
troops in overcoming the obstacles which the con-
figuration of the country had thrown in their way.
To carry on hostilities against a people inured to the
hardships of mountaineering, and at an altitude of
8,000 feet above the level of the sea, is a striking
proof of that heroism and indifference to hardship
which have ever been characteristic of our arms.
The experience in Afghanistan must have been
especially trying to troops accustomed to the
heats of India. A frontier boundary line seems
there to divi e the rigid from the torrid zone. The
hci -ht at which our forces are encountering the army
of th Ameer finds them in a temperature closely ap-
proximating to that of Greenland; and this, after the
heats of the Presidency of Bengal, mast have a very
serious effect upon the constitutions of any but well-
seasoned and highly-disciplined men. In view of such
facts the victory won by General Roberts was every-
where hailed with satisfaction.

The nation has been so absorbed over the Afghani-
stan business that it has overlooked the troubles
in South Africa, which have been in existence so
long. Yet it is clear that these do not grow less
with the progress of time; indeed if we may
judge from the despatch of regiment after regi-
ment to the Cape, they are on the increase. An
interesting incident connected with the departure
of the 2nd Battalion of the Fourth Foot, or King's
Own Regiment for Natal, was the presentation of new
colours by her Majesty in the Quadrangle of Windsor
Castle. The Queen, who was accompanied by the
Princess Beatrice, delivered an address to the men
expressing a hope that the disturbances in South
Africa would be at an end before they reached their
destination, and her assurance that should occasion
arise, they would emulate the deeds of their victorious
comrades upon the mountain heights of Afghanistan.
The "King's Own "Regiment has a history of 200 years
behind it. Raised in 1680, it was so devoted in its loyalty
to the Throne, that King William 111. granted it the
privilege of wearing the Lion of England as a badge, and
George I. gave it the name which it now bears. The
old colours now laid aside were in the thickest of
the fight on the fields of Salamanca and Vittoria,
were borne aloft at the storming of Badajoj, and
were waved in triumph in that long day of thunder
and red flame at Wateri.eo. After forty years of
peace they were carried up the heights of the Alma;
their bearers were in the eanguniary struggle amid the
dreary mists of Inkerman ; they were at Magdala
where as our present Premier declared at the time
"the British army had planted the banner of St.
George upon the mountains of Rasselas." Those who
bore them at Salamanca and at Waterloo have gone;
but so far as the new colours now given by the
Queen are concerned, all re-echo her Majesty's hope
that the South African troubles will soon be over, and
her conviction that the King's Own Regiment of to-
day will be true to its proud and honourable tradi-
tions of the past two centuries.
The Cabinet Ministers will all remain in tow, dur-
ing the winter session, and while Parliament
15 Sitting,
un cocils are frequ i
frequent. The room n whioh the
Ministers assemble in Downing-street is double.
windowed and double-doored, that is to say, there are
windows within windows, and doors within doors, so
that no sound of what is uttered at these confidential
consultations shall possibly escape. The summons es
to attend these councils are signed by the Prime
Minister, who informs each colleague that a meeting
of "Her Majesty's servants" will take place on the
day, and at the hour named in the notice. If it is
found necessary to assemble two days in succession,
it is not sufficient to break up with an under-
standing to meet again to-morrow, Fresh sum-
monses go out the same evening, as tliough there
had been no gathering at all, so important it is
held to be that the deliberations of such a body should
be preceded by due and formal notice which can leave
no possible room for misunderstanding. It might
sometimes happen that a Cabinet is divided, and that

the absence of a single member might make all the
difference in the determination of a question of high
State policy.
Paradoxical as it may seem, there have of late
years been numerous signs of a revival of a love for

the mediEeval in this utilitarian age. The time in which
we live is perhaps the most practical of any which has
been witnessed in the history of man. Materialism and
money-getting have been characterised as the gods of
modern idolatry. Yet amid all the push and hurry and
excitement characteristic of the conditions of existence
now, it is found that in our amusements and recrea-
tions we go back to times long past, and to ages when
the civilisation of to-day was merely in its infancy. In
one of London's most pleasant southern suburbs—
Sydenham, and in the grounds of the Crystal Palace,
the summer afternoons are often diversified by the
recreation of Archery; and few even of its devotees
know the full extent of its great antiquity. Yet this
agreeable way of passing an hour or two on a warm
day is more than 3,800 years old. It is older than
Cleopatra's Needle, which the Londoners have just set
up in their midst, and which antiquarians tell us was
in existence before the Decalogue was given to the
Children of Israel by the Hebrew lawgiver. It is a
curious reflection that almost within sight of the
busiest city in the world, and nearly within sound of
the roar of its enormous traffic, the practice of Archery,
first placed to the credit of Ishmael, carried out with
great effect by the Philistimes against the army of
Saul, and discarded by us centuries ago in the art of
warfare, now forms a happy way of beguiling summer
hours. So much for the warm days; and, in the pro-
longed gloom of winter the revived interest in exhibi-
tions of tapestry testifies to a love for the dim shadows
of the past which many would gladly see return clothed
as substantial realities. Well may it seem like passing
into another and a bygone world to be amid those
woven walls, telling us of the battles, the sieges, and
the fortunes of the past, and of the quietly-prosaic
occupations of quaint Flemish cities in centuries that
have long since grown, waned, and fled away.