The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-07-22 00:00:00

itiDur Yonboa enruspoubtitt.

[We deem It right to state that we do not at all tbneg
tdontify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

There seams to be leo interest in the war between
Munnlmanland Selavonian than might have been
anticipated, seeing that the east of Europe may be
likened unto a gunpowder magazine, whizh a spark
might set in flames. In the fint place the scene of

hostilities is very much farther away from us thau the

battle fields of 1870, when the echoes of the strife be-
tween the Teuton and the Gaul vibrated with a million
cho:da throughout Europe. Again, we know nothing
personally of the places now mentioned as the theatre
of war, and are at a loss to know how to pronounce
their extraordinary names. But tens of thousands of
Englishmen were well acquainted with the geography
of France and Germany, and from experience could
follow the descriptions of the newspaper correspon-
dents. They, like the Milano, had passed through
the streets of Dieppe, and gazed upon the sea;
had travelled along the fertile vale of Normandy,
past the cathedral towers of antique Rouen;
had lounged in the woods of Vincenniss, in
the immediate neighbourhood of Paris, not long
before the occupation of the German army; had
enjoyed the Eplendid scenery of the Rhine, upon
which the city of Strasburg looks so proudly down.
But beyond the fact that Servia is an hereditary
principality, nominally gni. jeat to Turkey, and lying
south of Hungary, our information respecting it is ofs
very limited character. One thing, however, is clear
enough, and this is—that, decrepit as the Turkish
empire might appear, the Moslem soldier has lost little
of that fighting power which was displayed more than
once in (854, when Omar Pasha successfully coped
wi,h Russia on the banks of the Danube, and which,
indeed, has been manifested for centuries in Europe.
At one time, as the reader of history knows, the Turk
sat down under the walls of Vienna with 300,000 men,
and the Crescent would surely have waved over the
Austrian capital but for the intervention of John
Sobreski, King of Poland, who turned back the
advancing horde of Mussulmans, and thus saved
Austria from the Ottoman yoke. For this service

Austria repaid Poland in 1772 by joining Russia and
Prussia in partitioning that kingdom—one of the basest
acts of national ingratitude which the world ever
witnessed, and deserving a more terrible retribution
than any which has yet fallen upon the empire of
Austria.

Let the competitors at Wimbledon say what they
think of the weather predictions which told us of a
cold wet summer. With the thermometer at 130 de-
grees the heat has been so great that the whole atmos-
phere was blinking and quivering, and the targets at
times seemed to be dancing a hornpipe. The effect of
this was occasionally to produce a mirage similar to
those which sometimes overspread the sea, and present
the appearance of a ship with sails all set passing
through cloudland. So at Wimbledon, it did not re-
quire a very powerful imagination to see the targets all
dim and shadowy, elevated high in air, the aim of
marksmen who were invisible to the dwellers upon the
solid earth. Two years of greater contrasts at the
camp could not have conceived. It was in the
middle of July het year that an extraordinary
tempest of rain passed over the land, St. Swithin's
Day having been about the wettest of the
whole. Now we have had something rt. ore
like the summer weather of old, when people
have scarcely known what to do or where to go, in
order to escape from the fervent heat. In the after-
noon flowers and trees have drooped, and the songs of
birds have been hushed under the fierce temperature.
Those who wish for seasonable weather cannot but
have been gratified this summer. It will prove a
great blessing to our people, and is worth a gift of
millions of money to us. Instead of having to send
abroad for vast quantities of grain to supply the
deficiencies of our own harvest, the money can not
only be devoted to other purposes, but circulated in
our own islands to the benefit of our own trade and
Industry.

When steam was applied to the Navy, many a sea-
man of the old school mourned over the supercession
of sail power as being likely to deteriorate our skill in
navigation, which
,in the last great war with France
had developed to an extraordinary degree of perfection.
Indeed in those naval engagements the French always
aimed at the sails of the British ships, so that their
navigation might be readered difficult if not
impossible; and the discovery of the shattered
sails of the Victory in a loft at Chatham about
twelve months ago showed that they had been rent
almost into shreds at the battle of Trafslor. Indeed,
they were in snah a state that it was a matter for
wonder how the ship, with the dead body of Nelson on
board, ever got to Gibraltar, the nearest point at which
she could be repaired. It would, however, be im-
practicable now to build a navy of sailing vessels; the
_

only thing is to see that when steam is applied every
precaution is taken to ensure the safety of those who
make the ship their home. The terrible accid nt on
board the new ironclad Thunderer has creattd a
painful sensation; for if the British sailor devotee his
life to the service of his country, he does not expect to
be blown to pieces by a steam boiler whilst in the
discharge of his duty. Sailors are, as a class, super-
stitious; and such a fatal occurrence happening at the
very threshold of the Thunderer's career, might, in
the estimation of the gallant tar, cloud the ship's
history for years to come.

It is not so very long ago that a soldier entering the
tritish Army found it necessary to complete twenty. one
years of service before he Wal entitled to a pension. It
was found, ho Never, that two-thirds of a generation was
rather too long a term, and it was consequently reduced
to twelve, and then to six. The advocates of the last-
mentioned period support it on the ground that it is
likely to attract men of intelligence into the army who
at the expiration of six years would be qualified for the
police force or for employment in other civil capacities.
Give the soldier something to look forward to, it is
argued, and there will be plertty of men ready to enter
the a, my who would not be satisfied to be discharged
at the end of the term with a small pension. A Select
Committee of the House Commons has been sitting to
inquire how far this principle can be applied, and
they take the subject to be of such importance that
they have asked the House to re-appoint them next
session.

The latest of the Royal visitors to London are the
King and Queen of Greece. The King, as is well known,
is a brother to the Princess of Wales, and the Queen is
a niece to the Emperor of Russia. Another of the
King s sisters is the Czi.revna, the wife of the heir
to the Russian throne, so that in the natural course of
time to King and Queen of Denmark may live to Bee
three of their children the occupants of as many
European Thrones—England, Russia, and Greece.
The interests of the two first-mentioned of these coun-
tries are in many rupees conflicting, and history has
Lhown us that the policy of an empire does not depend
upon a family alliance. Three years ago the Czarevitch
and Czarevna were over here; and the printsellers'
shops to this day contain copies Lf an illustration en-
titled "The Two Sisters," tha future Queen of Eng-
land and the future Empress of Russia, as they were
accustomed to drive
_throngh the streets of London

Beauty, station, wealth, homage—all that can appa-
rently make life agreeable upon earth—was theirs.
We do not know as much of the Czarevna as of the
Princess of Wales, who, by the sweetness of her dis-
position and her winning manner, has BO endeared
herself to. the people of her adopted country, but the
heqrtiest hopes of all must be that the sisters may
always be as happy as they looked then, and that
Great Britain may not have occasion again to go to
war in order to check the advance of Russia south-
ward in Europe. According to her enemies, Russia
Is credtted with designs not only upon Constanti-
n°Ples and India, but upon China as well, so

as to beeome a huge irresistible Power upon
the continents of both Europe and Asia. As
there is no great p3wer in Africa, Russia and
America, supposing these plans to be carried out,
would then be masters of the globe. This arrange-
ment is Lot one, however, which other nations, with
their instinct of self-pmservation, will be likely to
sanction.

Those who are acquidnaed with ancient story' both
sacred and profane, will remember manyg
a time in
which wealth has been typified by refer el to old
and silver. .Vessels made of these pree:ie metals
weve carried off from the Temple at Jerusalem by the
Babylonians, rend were being treated with contempt
by King Belshazzar, on the night when Cyrus the
Persian marched his army over the dry bed of the
Euphrates, the river having been diverted by his
engineers, and entering the City with the Hundred
Gates of Brass, totally subdued it. That the metal
was comparatively scarce at the time of the apostles
may be gathered from St. Peter's declaration to
Elymas the sorcerer, "Silver and gold have I none."
Of late years, however, the supply of silver from South
America has so enormou-ly increased that political
economists are growing doubtful whether the time
will not come when it will cease to retain its
place amongst the precious metals. From one
mine alone in Virginia sllv3r to the value of nearly
seven millions sterling per annum is now being
• taken. Hence the glut in the market which has
lately been the subject of inquiry in the House of
Commons. The peculiarity of the situation is that
nothing can be done in the way of a remedy. The

shareholders In these splendid mines far away across
the sea will of course go on raising ores and dividing
magnificent dividend;; yet for all this it is hard for
us to believe that we shall witnessthe time when silver
will be reduced to the value of brass or steel.

" /5o air," eatd a weary•looking man, at the eta-side,
"1 *ldol marry the best woean alive; I'm been a
drapet' asabstant too lona tor that."