The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-12-29 00:00:00

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the trial of the men charged with the Phcenix Park
assassinations, and on the 13th Joseph Brady was
convicted and sentenced to death—a judgment which
was carriei out on the 14th May. The conviction of
others rapidly followed, five altogether paying with
their lives the penalty of this terrible crime. The
Government kept Carey in Kilmainham several months
in order to shield him from the vengeance of the popu-
lace of the Irish capital. At length, early in July,
Carey with his wife and family left London for the
Cape. On the way thither a man named Patrick
O'Donnell discovered the identity of the informer,
who was travelling under the name of Power ; and
as Carey was about to land at Port Eli7abeth on
the 29th of that month, O'Donnell shot him
three times with a revolver, inflicting such injuries
as very speedily resulted in death. As the murder
was committed on the high seas the Crown exercised
its right of brieging O'Donnell to this country for
trial, which came on at the Central Criminal Court
before Mr. Justice Denman on the 30th November.
The witnesses whose appearance commanded the
greatest amount of interest were• Mrs. Carey and her
eldest son, whose evidence was subjected to a
severe cross-examination, by Mr. Charles Russell,
the leading counsel for the defence, and who on the
second day of the trial made a powerful speech on
behalf of the prisoner. The jury, apparently after
considerable hesitation, found O'Donnell guilty of
wilful murder, and he was sentenced to death—a
doom which was carried into effect within the walla
of Newgate on the morning of the 17th December.
Intimately associated with the subject of Irish dis-
affection have been the outrages by dynamite, more
especially in London. About nine o'clock in the
evening of Thursday, the 15th of March, a terrific
explosion, which was heard over a considerable part
of the metropolis, took place at the offices of the
Local Government Board at Whitehall, which
destroyed an immense amount of property, although
happily causing no loss of life. Almost simul-
taneously with the arrest of one Dr. Thomas Gal-
lagher and some of his associates in the capital for
complicity in this offence, a dynamite manufactory
was, through the acuteness of the detective police,
discovered in Birmingham. The Legislature at
once took measures for rendering of far greater
stringency the law relating to the possession of ex-
plosives, and for this purpose a Bill was passed through
all its stages at a single sitting of both Houses of
Parliament. On the 13th June Gallagher, Whitehead,
Wilson, and Curtin, who had been indicted at the Old
Bailey for conspiracy to blow up the offices of the
Local Government Board, were sentenced to penal
servitude for life. For a few weeks London was per-
mitted to forget the existence of the dynamite cOn-
spirators, when on the evening of the 30th October ex-
plosions took place at almost precisely the same time
at two points on the underground railway, one on the
District line between Charing Cross ac,cl Westminster,
and the other on the Metropolitan proper at Praed-
street Station. These involved not only destruction of
property but serious injuries to many innocent per-
sons travelling on the railways at the time, and, un•
fortunately, no trace of the dastardly authors of this
outrage has yet been procured. More recently the
chief magistrate at Bow-street Police Court has been
occupied in investigating the charge against two men
of having conspired to blow up the German Embassy
on Carlton House•terrace.

Commercially the annals of the year have not been
so bright as those of many of its predecessors. On
the 24th January the Directors of the Bank of Eng.
land reduced the rate of discount from 5 per cent., at
which it had stood during more than four months, to
4 per cent. On the 15th February it was further
reduced to 3i per cent., and on the let March to 3 per
cent. At this the rate remained until the 10th May,
when it was raised tot per cent., and here it rested
until the 2nd September, when it again went
down to 4, and on the 27th to 3. The cheap-
ness of money has been accompanied by some
unpleasant disclosures of breaches of trust upon
the part of men holding high and confidential
positions in the City which have brought back
remembrances of former years. The most prominent
of these was the case of George Warden, the secretary
to the London and River Plate Bank, who gambled
away on the Stock Exchange securities helonging to
his employers to the amount of nearly £150,000. For
this he was brought to trial at the November session
of the Central Criminal Court, and pleading guilty
was sentenced by Mr. Justice Stephen to twelve years'
penal servitude. His confederate, John Davis
Watterp, the broker through whom he bra acted,
was convicted by a jury, and received a similar punish-
ment.

Turning to foreign affairs it may be observed that
so far as France is concerned, the year has been
marked by much political disquietude. At a few
minutes before midnight on the 31st December, 1882,
the death of M. Gambetta, at the early age of 45,
took from our nearest neighbour one of her foremost
stateemen, who hal held the office not only of Presi-
dent of the Chamber of Deputies, but also that of
Prime Minister' and who figured prominently as a
member of the Government of National Defence in
the last great war between Fr Ince and Germany.
Gambetta's death we followed within a fortnight by
a manifesto from Prince Napoleon to the citizens of
France, recalling the glory of past Imperial tradition!;
for this he was promptly arresteil and lodged in the
Conciergerie. Then succeeded a brief period of feverish
excitement. The Ministry of M. Duclerc resigned; M.
Jules Ferry declared his inability to form a Cabinet; and
M. Fallibres undertook the task. This Administration
proved to be as feeble as the health of its chief, whose
principal achievement during his few days of office was
that of fainting in the Tribune whilst making a speech.
On the 9th February Prince Napoleon was released
from prison. Meanwhile a Bill had been brought
forward in the French Legislature expelling the
Orleans Princes from the soil of France ; but the
Senate so fa modified this degree of banishment as to
make it apply only on proof of their acting as Pre-
tenders. On this the Mir.istry of M. Fallibres resigned,
after one of the shortest tenures of office which even
France has lately witnessed, M. Ferry once more came
into office, and M. Waddington was appointed the
French Ambassador in London, a choice which, from
his Excellency's antecedents, seems to have been very
acceptable to the people of this country. The Ferry
Government still remains in power, but the incidents
of its existence have been anxious and troubled. One
of the most unpleasant of these happened in the last
week of September. On the 29th of that month the
King of Spain, who had been on a visit to the
Emperor of Germany, arrived in Paris. His Maje4y's
acceptance of the colonelcy of a Uhlan regiment whilst
at Strasburg, a town taken from France by the Ger-
mans in the war, appeared to exasperate the canaille
of the French capital to such an extent that King
Alfonso was grossly insulted in the streets of Paris.
Next day President Grdvy called upon his Majesty
and apologised for this unwonted treatment, and on
the following day King Alfonso left Paris for Madrid.
A Ministerial crisis accompanied this untoward event,
and General Thibaudin, the French Minister of
War, who had declined to be present at the King's re-
ception, resigned his portfolio at the request of the
President. So far as France is concerned directly
here the incident ended; but the State visit of the
Crown Prince of Germany to Madrid has by no means
tended to cement the strained relations between the
Teuton and the Gaul. _

The restless foreign pore), developed by France
during the year has been watched upon this side of the
Channel with some anxiety. It was begun in the life-
time of M. Gambetta, in the direction of Tunis, and
has been cJntinued in Madagascar, and more lately in
Tonquin. In the case of Madagascar, the French
naval commander, Admiral Pierre, ri)t only bom-
barded Tamatave, but captured and kept as a pri-
soner for seven weeks the English consul, Mr. Shaw,
a missionary. Admiral Pierre's conduct has been
explained away on the ground that he was in the
last stages of a mortal disease which affects the brain;
but it would be useless to deny thatthe first intelligence
of this unfortunate business was received in England
with a great deal of indignation. Mr. Shaw arrived in
London on the 24th Sept., and placed his case before
the public at a great meeting held at Exeter Hall. In
the meantime Earl Granville had taken up the matter
and the result of his communications with M. Wad-
dington was a pledge by the French Government to
pay Mr. Shaw £l,OOO as compensation. The dispute
between France and China in relation to Tonquin still
continues, M. Ferry's contention that French foreign
policy is eminently Conservative finding few believers
on this side of the water.

One of the most gorgeous ceremonials which the re-
sources of barbaric splendour could suggest took place
in Moscow, on Sunday, the 27th May. Up to that
time from the date of the assassination of the Czar
Alexander 11. It had been openly proclaimed by the
organs of Nihilism that the coronation of his
successor should never be permitted ; and for a
long while it seemed as though the secluded lire led
by the new Emperor in his palace at Gatschina
lent some colour to the assertion that the new
potentate himself was apprehensive as to his
safety if he ventured into the ancient capital of his
country for the purpose of being crowned. At length,
after more than one postponement, the ceremony was
fixed for the 27th May, the Emperor and Empress
making their state entry into Moscow five days earlier.
The ornate ceremony passed off without the slightest
mishap, to the unmistakeable relief of the august
personages more immediately concerned, and, indeed,
of all who hold in detestation the tenets of anarchy
and the mode adopted for their propagation.

In other matters relating to foreign affairs quietude
has prevailed. There has been no open declaration
of hostility between Germany and Russia, prepara-
tory to what many believe will be an inevitable
conflict between these two great military monarchies.
Germany loses no opportunity of keeping up the
prestige which she acquired in the course of the tre•
mendous struggle of 1870, and her autumn matceuvres
were carried out with all the precision and care as
though they formed a part of actual warfare. The life
of the agglomeration of peoples owning the rule of the
Emperor of Austria has passed without any indica-
tions of political commotion. In a country of a very
different calibre, the Netherlands, quietude has also
reigned, the people of Amsterdam having SO little
idea of war as to open an international peace exhibi-
tion on the Ist of May. This has been more fortunate
than the exhibition at Pittsburg, in Pennsylvania, the
buildings of which were, on the 3rd October, destroyed
by fire, with a loss estimated to reach not far short of
2200.000.

So fa: as calamities by sea and land are concerned
the year opened badly. On the 7th January there
was a collision.in the Mersey between the Kirby Hall
and the Inman steamer City of Brunds, with a loss of
ten lives. Twelve days later this was eclipsed by a
catasti ophe which even to a maritime people LIC-1118-
towed to such disasters was appalling in its magnitude.
The steamship Cimbria, after leaving the Elbe for New
York, came into collision with the steamer Sultan on
her way from Hull, and upwards of 400 persons were
drowned. On the 7th March the Navarre steamship
of Leith, was sunk on her voyage from Christian•
sand to Leith, having beeen disabled in a
gale, and here again from sixty to seventy peoplelost
their lives. A more shocking 'and heartrending
calamity was that c.f the 16th June, when more than
200 children, who had gone to a ',lace of amusement
at Sunderland, known se the Victoria Hall, were
either suffocated or crushed to death while endeavour.'
ing to ,leave the building during an unfcrtunate
panic. The destruction by fire of a private lunatic
asylum at Southall on the 7th of August, when several
persons were burned to death, was full of distressing
incidents. Another domestic catastrophe was the
capsizing of the Dapline on her being launched from a,

shipyard at Glasgow, the loss of life throwing a gloom
over the busy community on the banks of the Clyde.
Extraordinary volcanic disturbances have been a
conspicuous features of the year's visitations. An
earthquake at Casamicciola, in Ischia, on the 28th
July, is said to have swept away 4,000 lives;
one in Java, a month later, was even more fear-
fully destructive to human life, changing the face of
Nature both by land and sea. In our own annals
unfortunately the working of the great coal industry
has again been marked by a heavy sacrifice of valuable
lives. Like the hecatomb of victims annually
claimed by the sea as a sacrifice to the commercial
enterprise of a great maritime nation, the destruction
of a number of hardworking men in the collieriea of
Great Britain is one of the penalties which we pay for
the high position of prosperity which we -occupy
amongst the peoples of the earth.
The chronicles of calamity would not be compl,ste
without a reference to the extraordinary disaster which
has befallen the Egyptian Army in the Soudan.
After the suppression of the military rising led by
Arabi Pasha in the autumn of 1882, the Egyptian Go-
vernment despatched to the Soudan a force of 10,000
men for the purpose of dealing effectually with a fanatic
known as the Mairdi, or False Prophet, whom re-
pute placed at the head of a vast and indefinite
number of fighting men, all equally fanatical as
himself, and enthusiastic in the cause of the
Mahommedan religion. The expedition sent by
the Government of Cairo to deal with this
overwhelming herde of insurgents was commanded by
General Hicks, an English officer, who had served
under Lord Wolseley in Egypt, and it was accom-
panied by a few Englishmen in the capacity of special
correspondents and artists for some of the London
papers. In the face of obstacles, of which we in this
country "who sit at home in ease" can form no idea,
General Hicks marched into the desert under a sun
which is tl'ere near the equator, and where there was
the utmos \' difficulty in obtaining water. Here the
Egyptians seem to have encountered the mighty army
of the Mandi, estimated at 300,000 men, on
the 3rd November, and the battle which then
began lasted as we have been told until the sth,
when the Egyptians were practically annihilated, but
few escaping to tell the story. The loss to English
journalism in the death of Mr. Edmond O'Donovan,
the Special Correspondent of the Daily News, whose
spirit of adventure led him to penetrate to the mystic
city of Merv, is very considerable. The London Press
has few such men, and can ill afford to lose one who
has done work like that of Edmond O'Donovan.

The political changes of the year have not been
numerous. It was only a few days old when Sir
Charles Dilke, upon his appointment as a Cabinet
Minister was re.elected without opposition for Chelsea.
Lord Derby, in the same series of changes had been
taken into the Cabinet as Colonial Secretary.
Besides the President of the Local Government
BJard, the new members of the House of Commons re•
turned in the twelve months have been Mr. W. O'Brien,
Home Ruler, for Mallow; Lord Elcho, Conservative,
for East Lothian ; Mr. Brewster, Conservative,
for Portarlington ; Col. King-Harman, Conservative,
for Dublin county; Mr. John Morley, Liberal. for
Newcastle-on-Tyne; Mr. Harrington, Home Ruler,
for Westmeath ; the Hon. Alan Egerton, Conservative,
for Mid• Cheshire ; Col. Gerard Smith, Liberal, for
High Wycombe; Mr. Mayne, Home Ruler, for
Tipperary ; Mr, Alfred Giles, Conservative, for
Southampton ; Mr. Roe, Liberal, for Derby ;
the Hon. Montague Curzon, Conservative, for
North Leicestershire ; Mr. Small, Home Ruler,
for Wexford county; Mr. Healy, Home Ruler, for
Monaghan; Mr. Sydney Buxton, Liberal, for
Peterborough; Mr. Redmond, Home Ruler, for
the borough of Wexford ; Mr. Ince, Q C,, Liberal,
for Hastings; Mr. Lynch, Home Ruler, for Sligo
county; the Hon. C. H. Strutt, Conservative, for East
Essex; Mr. Lowther, Conservative, for Rutland; Mr,
Houldswortb, Conservative, for Manchester; Mr.
McMahon, Home Ruler, for Limerick city; Sir F.
Milner, Conservative, for York; and Mr. H. W. West,
Liberal, for Ipswich.

Various causes have arisen to bring about all these
vacancies. The deaths of members of the House of
Commons have been those of Colonel Taylor, 70;
Major-General Burnaby, 53; Mr. Denis O'Conor,
43; Mr. Birley, 66; Mr. Leeman, 41; Mr. Cobbold,
50; Mr. Knowles, 59. The following have in the
course of the year retired from Parliamentary life—
Mr. Metge, Mr. Fenwick Bisset, Mr. Ashton Dilke
(since deceased), Mr. Gill, Mr. John Dillon, Mr. Byrne,
Mr. Hampden Whalley, Mr. Murray, Mr. Bass, Mr.
Gerard Noel, and Colonel Brise. The Hon. Bernard
Fitzpatrick has become Lord Castletown ; Lord Elcho,
Earl of Wemyse and March; and the Hon. Wilbraleem
Egerton, Lord Egerton of Tatton. The appointments
to offices vacating seats in Parliament have been those
of Mr. Johnson to a judgeship in the Queen's Bench in
Ireland ; Col. Carington, equerry. to Her Majesty ;
Mr. Butt, Q.C. Judge of the Admiralty Court ; Mr.
Glean, Crown golicitor in Kildare and Meath ; Mr.
O'Shaughnessy, Registrar of Irish Petty Sessions ;
and Mr. Porter, Master of the Rolls in Ireland.
Turning to the roll of mortality during the year,
many well-known names will be found to have p ',Reed
from the ranks of the living. They include those
of General Char zy, one of the commanders of the army
of the French National Defence ; Sir Samuel Martin, for
a quarter of a century one of the judges in the Court of
Exchequer; General Sir Richard England, Prince
Charles of Prussia, Gustav Dore, Bishop Suther,
Mr. Frederick Martin, Sir Saler Jung, Richard
Wagner, Prince Gortlchakoff, General Sir Hastings
Doyle, Sir George Jesse], for many years Master of
the Rolls; John Brown, the Queen's private atten-
dant; Dr. William Farr, the Grand Duke of Mecklen-
burg-Schwerin Major-General Scott, Sir Philip
Rose, the Bishop of Argyll and the Isles, Lord
Justice Deasey, Sir William Chambers, the well-
known publisher ; Sir George Bowyer, Bishop
Coleus°, General Sir William Knollye, Sir Edward
Sabine, Mr. William Spettiswoode, President of the
Royal Society: Captain Webb, the famous swimmer;
General Sir William Williams, the heroic defender of
Kars in 1e55 ; Dr. Moffatt, the well-known African
missionary; William Marwood, public executioner ;
Mr. Dutton Cook, Admiral Sir Richard Collinson,
Mr. John Payne Collier, Dr. Begg, Mr. Richard
Doyle, the emirent artist, and Signor Mario.
The passing away of the old year and the dawn of
the new is a time when, in all ages of civilised man,
reflections cross the mind concerning the past, and
hopes are created with respect to the future. Human
liie may well be described as a series of developments,
unfolding at different periods some hidden and un-
known power, the result of experiences which have
been obtained during man's progress along its thorny
pathway. Even to the most thoughtless the fading
vision of the expiring year often enough suggests a
brief pause for contemplation upon the course
hitherto traversed, and for thinking how much in
the heat of life's competition has been neglected or over-
looked, carelessly passed by or intentionally injured ;
how many errors have been perpetrated, miseries in-
flicted, and wrongs endured. There are few indeed who
do not at such a season mentally resolve that if
they had the fleeting months to go over again, how
differently would be the course they would pursue.
Yet in the midst of the serious reverie suggested by
the peaceful gliding away of another distinctly-
marked epoch of Time, there is a disposition not to
linger by the wayside in vain regrets over that which
is gone and is impossible of recall, To some imagina-
tions the departing year might be compared to an aged
man crossing at midnight, unattended and alone, a
desolate piece of moorland, "seeking amid the solitude
some place to die unseen." He receives very little
attention. The hopes, the wishes, the thoughts, the
aspirations, the plans for the wide indefinite unknown
future which opens before us. are not with the past.
The tottering old man who is passing from finite gaze
has had his day and his work is done. True, he has
brought more than one of us many a blessing and
many a happy hour during the days be has been with
us, but he can do no more now—his course is run.
The mind seems scarcely to have lost sight of this
touching spectacle of decrepitude and decay, disappear.
ing amid the clangour of bells heralding the arrival of
the noon of night, when the scene changes. The Old
Year has disappeared as a shadow flees from the
plain, or as the mist in the valley fades when the sun-
beam is poured upon it. In the place of the venerable
man, whose career is at an end, and who has gone
from us forever, there is another representation of the
human form divine. It is a young and tender child,
which we welcome and embrace by instinct. The music
of the past le hushed. The midnight strokes have no
sooner sounded the knell of the Old Year than the joy.
bells in town and country ring out a merry peal of greet-
ing to its young and innocent successor. Alike in the
crowded city and in the calm retreats of nil al life the
• song of joy is heard, awakening the echoes of street and
square in the former, and swelling o'ee hill and dale, cl.y ing
away at length amid the quietude of the peaceful land-
scrape, which has so long listened to the lowing of the
cattle on the hills and the voices of the rivers in the
valleys. With many of us the spectral form which
has vanished in the gloom has had its existence upon
earth associated with mortifications, disappointments,
afflictions, and bereavements. It has been a period
of dreary night through which the soul has passed.
But the advent of the new year introduces to the
mind altogether a different train of thought. There
is a longing in the mental constitution to be
brought acquainted with those joys unknown which
we hope and believe the new year has in its storehouse
for us. Prize as we might the blessings that have
faded away as amid the darkness of the winter night,
our anticipations are full of hope as to the future. The
joyous cry of welcome to the new year is a sound
which does not long linger by the cathedral towers of
our cities, or by the shadows of church steeples in
secluded hamlets. But while it hats it is full of life,
of hope, and of energy, typical of the new year, which
stands before us with a clean page and an unwritten
record. The entries in the volume have all to be
made—it rests with each individually to say what these
shall be, and whether the experiences of the past
will teach wisdom in the time to come. Maturity
brings care and thoughtfulness, with expectations not
unraturaliy founded upon experience that the future
will be brighter than the past. That this may be so is
our earnest hope, and we therefore conclude by cor-
dially wishing our readers one and all