The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-05-03 00:00:00

ih ur Xottbott corrtspodent,

(We deem it right to state that we do not at all time,
,idontify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

The gradual advance of the finger-posts of Time in
the history of the present Parliament becomes more
apparent. It met on the 29th of April, 1880, and
judging from the previous Parliaments of Queen
Victoria's reign, has arrived at nearly an average age,
which is four years and a half. The large number of
new members elected to this Parliament made its
assembling one of unusual interest. Night after
night every seat was crowded, and even the members'
galleries were filled because there was no room
on the floor. One evening Mr. Mitchell-Henry
addressed the Speaker from the Gallery, to the
horror of the officials, who regarded the proceeding
as a departure from all recognised Parliamentary
traditions. Mr. Gladstone was entreated to propose
a vote for such a structural change in the House as
wonld really accommodate all its occupants, who
were fresh from the country ardent with a zeal for
work and burning with a desire to get to business.
This, however, was not the first Holm of Commons
of which the veteran Premier had had experience.
It was, in fact, his twelfth Parliament, for he had sat
in two of King William, and this is the tenth of
Queen Victoria. So Mr. Gladstone humorously sug-
gested that, without being in a hurry, they might
perchance, after a little Limo, find room for the greater
number of their members. For this he was gravely
rebuked by 1, London evening paper, which pointed
out the extreme impropriety of the Prime Minister
even suggesting that the anxiety for work on
t,he part of this l'alliament ever could grow
less. Perish the thuught Well, after
four years' experience, the public can see which was
right, Mr. Gladstone or his censor. The greatest
difficulty is experienced in getting the House of Com-
mons tomether tVn. copn on eh fircf wAri„pqdrty
after the Easter recess. The Speaker was ready to
take the chair at noon, but a whole hour elapsed
before a quorum was obtained. That is to say, forty
members were not in attendance out of a total of 658.
No thronging the floor now; no overflowing into the
galleries ; no demand for additional seats. The whole
place has a desolate aspect which is dispiriting to look
upon.

The wave of abnormal cold which has of late swept
over Europe has borne upon its wings illness and
disease not only to the cottage of the humble, but to
the palaces of kings. Happily, in the case of our own
Quern, there was no truth in the report telegraphed
trom Darmstadt that her Majesty was confined to her
room through indisposition, although the fact men-
tioned in the same message that snow was falling
heavily had an ominous look about it. But
both the aged Emperor and Empress of Germany
have been laid up, and indisposition has seized
upon the Crown Princess of Austria. In our
own islands the distinguished invalids have been
numbered almost by the score. Some of these, like
Mr. Charles Reade, who returned from Cannes all
too early, speedily went down before the eastern
blast; others, after lingering for days, and even for
weeks, on the mysterious borderland between life and
death, have manifested a sufficient reserve of strength
to pull through the crisis, and are slowly getting
better,

The English climate must have altered considerably
since the days of Dr. Isaac Watts, who wrote of the
rose that it was "the glory of April and May." In
these more degenerate times we are accustomed to
see the rose in its glory in June and July; so that
either Dr. Watts must have dealt in poetical license,
and used the word May so that it might rhyme with
day; or we have two months more of cold now than
the people had then. Possibly the truth is that at
that distant period the seasons came at their
proper time cold in January, spring in
April, summer in July, autumn in October. This is
not the case now. It was warmer in January than in
April;
.and as to the "merry month of May," de-
scribed by a poet of the olden time as the fairest of
all the year, for a long while past it has been asso-
ciated with memories of frOsty nights and bitterly
cold days, when the north-easterly wind is laying
low the aged and the infirm, and gatheringi.e sickly
young into premature graves.
The fascination Possessed by the mysterious or
the supernatural for the human mind has acain been
illustrated by the interest caused all over these islands
at the intelligence of the recent earthquake shock in
some of the eastern counties. flowerer vast a
calamity may be through fire or water, or even
through a great hurricane, it is obviously produced
by something which ein trace. Fire, water, and
air are familiar to us every day of our lives. But it
is widely different when we are brought suddenly and
unexpectedly acquainted with the mighty forces pent
up in the earth beneath and in the water under
the earth. The people of Java, of Calabria, and of
some parts of South America have had unhappy ex-
perience of the bursting forth of those powerful
gases which have been confined for countless ages
beneath the surface, and, suddenly releasing them-
selves, spread death and devastation for miles around.
And as no one can know when this is going on, or the
particular spot where the earth will next be rent in
twain, it is no wonder that the news of an earthquake
so close home as the eastern counties is not pleasant

reading.
The Budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer
was a very quiet one ; but, as Mr. Childers truly
pointed out, there was not much room for great fiscal
changes with a surplus of Only £263,000. The
announcement of the great loss resulting from nine
months' working of the Parcels Post, came as a sur-
prise, and was received with regret, more especially
as it necessitates the postponement of the introduc-
auction of sixpenny telegrams until next year. Of
course the Parcels Post is a great public convenience,
as will be the sixpenny telegrams; but if the Post
Office has to work at a loss this must be made up by
the taxpayers generally, and to that many of them
might, perchance, have a strong objection.
The Lord Mayor of London throws open the Mansion
House for the advancement of many good causes; but
his lordship never presided over a more worthy object
than that for establishing a home at Cairo for the
reception of freed women slaves in Egypt. It is new
to many in this country that slavery survives in Egypt
at all; but of the existence of the slave market at
Alexandria there is no doubt whatever; and at the
meeting a few days ago the iniquities of the system
were forcibly dwelt upon by Mr. Forster, M.P., Mr.
Arthur Pease, M.P., Mr. Edmund Sturge, and others
who have taken a life-long interest in the suppression
of a traffic which was extinguished in the British
dominions more than half a century ago, and is so
utterly opposed to the instincts of the English people.