The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-08-21 00:00:00

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DEPARTURE OF AN EMIGRANT SHIP.

111 STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER.

fieraities were 111X01111/o.lllibirtli ill what in ordinary Case
is the steerage.
This is the third voyage which this vessel has made
during the present year, and her 'tween deck accom-
modation, whether respects height or ventilation, has
been very favourably spoken of. She carries a few
cabin passengers.
Mr. Kruse and Mr. Italy, who are connected with
the British and Colonial Emigration Fund, and take
great interest in the proceedings, were present with
some visitors to witness the embarkation, and were
loudly cheered by the emigrants, who seemed greatly to
appreciate the kindness which they had received at
their hands.
For a ehort time everything was confusion and
bustle on board, but hyoiliddaye people began to settle
down, and ling before the dock gates were open the
emigrants had all assembled on deck, and were leaning
over the title of the vessel, exchanging farewells with
their friends on shore. At length the vessel began
slowly to move, and precisely at a quarter past eight
o'clock she dropped into the open river, amid the
cheering of the crowds on the quay, a large party
of whom struck up "Cheer, boys, cheer," which VIM
responded to by those on bard. A few here and there
especially women with children in their arms, seemed
WM. ful at the idea of leaving their country, hut fir
the inwt part the passengers seemed to he in high
spirits, and to look forwaro to the ftvitre with bright
hopea. Indeed, before they reached E ith more than
Ilie little I lancing party had been f •rrue.l ox deck, and
were f sting it away to the music of aconcertina. while
the Mit& of the families lit their pipes and seemed to
loiik on in eilent enjoy°. nt,
The emigration ageit arc impapied the vetiael as far
as Gravesend. and before he left all the crew, 40 in num-
ber, were mustered, and pawied by him and Dr Won-
Or.-ye, in compliance with the terlo4 of the Act. The
rriedicAl inspector and Rollie Hernia went adore at
Erith, and many were the friendly good-byes from the
emigrants as the little boat dropped &Arm.

are euough tu scare while !toms of goba item the whist
of us. But none of us can have forgotten how strong a hold
II had a few years ago galled upon the public ear, what
minds of the loftiest pretensions it had fascinated, what
strong advocates end what stubborn opponents met in
tierce combat on its account, and hew the disi ute was, if
rot nettled to every man's satisfacti at feat driven from
the whole field of rational speculation by the terse conclu-
cluswes of the late Professor Faraday.
' Proselyte" and all other believers state " facts ;" I op-
pose laws They have seen '' tahes making a dash ;" I de-
nounce the dash wi a breach of a law of usture. Stull a
breach must either be the result of another law, the first
rudiments of which are only now being revealed to us. or of
a power Rupert ir to all law and interested in showing its
superiority. That there mey be a revolving virtue in " melte.
gaily," which, under the influence of a circulating human
fluid, makes it 'urn round, I should not he willing to deny—
provided the turning rouud were a constant phenomenon,
invariably to be reproduced to der the same clrcains'ances.
aid to he established as an invariable rule. Gelvani
Arid Volta hit upon some experiments for which all
previous knowledge could not account ; but science
immediately took possession of them, and the sphere
of nature's action was only enlarged, not disturbed.
But the new powers at work on mahogany tables are
astoeishitigly shy and capricious They are like spoilt
singers with perpetual sore throats. They do not always
perform even when believers are en tamale ; het let only a
sceptic of any other character than " Proselyte' happen to
intrude, and the spell is fir ever broken. Here we have.
therefore, phenom• Ira which half mankind may be ready to
swede by, but which the other half will never acknowledge,
as their stubbore unbelief must fur ever situ them out of
every chance of cooviction. Bet if table-tortilla; does not
fall is Blue the remignised or recognisable laws of nature,
why, it Is asked, should it not lie accepted as a violation of
them? Is there any silence that can pros elite miracles ?
Are there no powers superior to the niece forces that govern
matters? Was there ever a peop` e without relleimi, and is
there any religion that ones not tell of some signal deviation
from nature's laws?
It is on this part of the argument that I would be you
to allow nm to rn ike a few renetrks It is on purely re-
ligious wrompla that I base my unbelief of all magic, anti
especially of modeni magic It is Mill that those who refuse
to believe in God often end by believing in the Bevil. The
Bevil is the God of those who have no other God; but I
think those who admit the co-existence of these two twinge
must needs establish the subordination of one to the other.
Call it by any note you will, there must he—for all hut the
sheerest materialist—a Supreme Power controllitig all other
powers. Any deviation from the laws estsidished by that
Power—i.e any miracle—must either he done by It.
or, at least, with Its consent. But religious miracles,
whether authentic or apocryphal, have a purpose
It is not without an object that Go i as it were,
goes out of his way. But for what glorification to God nu
for what advaittage to man conlii it happen that " a tai
makes ad at, towards the fireplace sod the boy George i
fixed against the mutt?" Of what possible use have been all
the reveletions if the thousands of spirits who have heel, fie
fumy years hovering ebout so malty tea.kettles in Nee
York awl Londoe drawing-rooms ! Is it worth whle to lure
lesion's ghost out of its warm lied in one of the pint's owe
circles, to elii it from him silly amwers to even sillier
tins?yews-
If the grave Ist, be made to give up its secret, could
not slime if the great world's imee es he set at rest ; tame
if the great historical myths De triempliantly expired ?
Could not the yeung ladies who cse see thrieul
milhtreies with their shoulders decipner old u arch
mvnts awl palimpeets, or tit least tell the number of that
£lOO bsokmitte which a liberal patron of the Black Art ha,
tbp sited at, his ha ker's re-ely lor 'toy mail or wen'uti wh.,
will magneticelly or mesmerically tileidfiy it 1 Gateau' and
Volta experimeetalimii. awl to, the voltaic pile, the light'
Ong conductor, the e ec.ric telegraph ! " Proselyte's " yeung
lady friend " suieists the servants to move forward a I.,ur-po. t
bed," and she then suffers 'nee to get it hack to its erginal
place by sheer tmdily strewth. aim irently lucause she had
tiii power to undo her own work, and her gifts c .slit not he
turned even to such mean but useful purposes as removing
heavy furniture.
So it is; we are told, with great modesty, the wonders of
roo tern mimic are not from God. They are the mere pranks
of frolicsome bit harmless sprites, whose ti ittern,. can only
be exercised at the expense of the minor laws of nature, awl
whose performances elm no higher than to give plemureble
excitement to a select and Inuocent riedieece. There is no
more harm in them than in a conjuror's Owlet. But there
is this i mice, banner—that the sleiget-of-hend cow
juror is sure of his trick, and never presumes to team it upon
lIS net mirecle, nav, is Awess ready to show the heglnning
and end of it for a consideration Relieve's of " Proselyte's"
cant of mitid deal ill unexplained stud •nexplicable photo
teems. and give "the names if many perions to satisfy the
world id the truth of very extraordinary eccurrencea." Idu
it. it disbelieve their asei rtiotis but I would disbelieve my
own eyes if I were in their piece, just an I disbelieve the
testimony of my owe setmes when I nee &juggler swallowing
a SW. . ie. paneling a watch in a mortar.
Oa, hut. " There are ne ire things in heaven and earth.
Borah.," & Granted Oar toowledge is limited, anti the
powers of God ere boundlees. Only, an I said, either enlarge
tem knowledge, by positive ineirtnation, or till us for what
purimee Gial chimens to stretch his powers beyond the home
.igrt• sif oar kneeled., There was an old man in our village
who bed het his rght lee. I know not 1 Nom is hat eccidetit. hut
elm was convince., he owed his misfortune to the mil err
id a, web,' W.. Mall ld the neighbourhood Our parson',
wife, a piouamieileil end hiehly-ititeldgmt lady, groaned in
• p, lit at the manie gioss setimatitlon. and worked by the hoer
retteen hint -et of hie sills conceit. "All you Pay may be
very true." sei•l Lim nosh. !Oinking his head at the close of
i very at gument, " but—Where's my lee ? " Aud as the lady
trace his celamity to uaturel causes the old
mot caned bitter, ant mod dined, '• Perhaps we shah hear
next that there never wits such a perwm as the Witch
id En.lor ;" mitt the parmnie wife fell off. rebuked ; but, in
cup opiiiiiin, not juetli so ; for the Witch of Bettor may he
pi estimed to have herb instrumental in working out God's
purpose, while our vill ge witch, in withering the man's leg,
would only have beet, tieing the Devil's ea irk. And the Devil
has too many naturel tneaus of doing mischief at his com-
mand either to need or to be allowed to have recourse to
supernatural agencies.

THE DUN MOW FLITCH.
Trotll the Daily Trieraph.)
A custom, which was originally nothing snore in its
jet?... th in a passing joke, snd which died of
nattiral obi ilge in the year 1772--wl.en one John
Gil ler and his wife elahned the reward of a twelvt-
tb's conjugal tameness, hut were denied the
thinnest ra-her of compensation for so long and tedious
a mutual forts, aratiee—litas not been allowed to slumber
peacefully in the grave of defunct fin. The corpse
was galvanised in 1855 by Mr. Wiliam Harrison
Ainsworth, to whom his conntrymen, and, we might
perhaps to add, countrywomen, owe better things.
To speak holiest truth, this revival was an error
in 'JlM:Anent ; tie will not say an error of taste,
for taste is s, question concerning which more
than concerns any other question, tastes differ.
What, is humorous or whimsical in one age becomes
merely silly in ages that follow, especially when the
Promise of the thing is lost and the end has gone by.
This can hardly be denied of other uiatters than whim
and burnout-. The Eglinton tournav was a splendid
anachrotitm ; the long endurance iif Bartlemv Fair was
a grottsque and antiquated reproach to the City in
whose very midst the nuisance was tolerated ; but we
trt in vain to think of any freak or any recent relic of
I olden country manners that will afford a parallel to the
I croceedings of Monday, in the neighbourhood of

muct-heriac --------r-----performuance of bhylock. Mr E. T. binith,
in scarlet and ermine, presided as judge ; and the op-
posing counsel was Mr. Brooks, of "judge and jury"
notoriety.
Mr. Smith, addressing "Brother Brooks," proposed
to read a letter of apology from the gentleman whose
name had been printed in the bills 88 having consented
to act as judge. The substance of the letter, a very
short one, was a kindly excuse for not accepting the
invitation.
Mr. Smith then proceeded to address the "Court"
on the subject of the ancient custom of Punmow,
'looking at it," as he said, 'from a religious point of
view," and taking strong exception to the Vicar in again
refusing to sanction the ceremony. The trial then pro-
ceeded • two couples-5 Mr. and Mrs. Casson, of Hack-
ney, and a Mr. and Mrs. Leader, of Clerkenwell—
coming forward as claimants. The learned Mr. Brooks,
being on his very best behaviour, was rather less enter-
taining than he was apparently expected to be, and in
fact may fairly be said to have been decorously dull.
Another counsel's pleasantry WSB at first relished by
part of the audience ; lint nearly all present joined in
hissing the advocate when he passed into plain and
positive grossnewf.
When the flitches had been formally adjudged the
prizes of the two couples, a procession was formed,
with banners and horsemen, to parade the town.
Kuights in srmour, squires, pages, and—with what
precise relevancy we were riot able to discover—a per-
sonage representing King Henry the Eighth, were mar-
shalled in a long array, with clowns and beefeaters in-
terspersed, and with the happy couples, chaired On
men's shoulders, in the midst of the motl•-y train. On
some ••f the banners were inscribed the names of
clsitnarits in former times. There were not many such
nsines ; for, as we have already remarked, the old joke
of the monks of Dontnow hardly ever became &regular
custom, and for centuries no wedded pair came forward
•o assert their right to the gammon. It was a gammon,
and not a flitch, that Was bestowed in the early history
•41:hirimow. On a very conspicuous banner was inscribed
" Harrison Ainsworth and E. T. Smith, 1855." When
the procession had gone through the town and returned,
the two flitches were delivered over to their several pro-
prietors and there was an end of the day's amuse-
ments, so for as the " custom of Dunmow" was con-
morned. The rest of the programme was simply
Cremorne, fifty miles away from Chelsea. There was
• display of fireworks to finish with, and then the
return trains were dispatched in as quick succession as
was compatible with safety.
—.—
It is stated that seventeen claimants had entered
'heir names, hut only the two couples above referred
to actually --

.iy
appeared.