The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-08-17 00:00:00

Our I.Conbolt Corrtspanlnnt.

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

Usually the Long Vacation and the thing of ParHa-
lament for the recess take place at about the same
time—the first week in August; but this year the
vacation has the advantage, for the members of the
bar have taken wing before the members of the
legislature. On the 10th of August the law courts
were closed, not to re-open until the 2nd of November;
so that for a period of twelve weeks her Majesty's
lieges can have no redress for grievances from the civil
tribunals of the land. Queen's Bench and COMMOP
Pleas; Chancery and Exchequer, Probate, Divorce,
and Admiralty—all are shut up for three months.
It is singular to note how some institutions
survive the development of progress and the
march of improvements. This Long Vacation,
so venerated to - day, and unlike anything else
which still lives in our midst, is 800 years old.
It is a relic of the Norman Conquest, and its length
wai originally reulatel by the time of the vintage in
France. The Norman nobles were accustomed to
leave the shires of England, return to their native
soil, and enjoy the produce of the vineyards, as little
as possible of work being transacted in England daring
their absence. The Norman nobles have passed
away; their feudal castles are crumbling into dust;
hut the Le n 4 Vacation remains. The Legislature
made an effort to reduce its length some years ago
when debating the provisions of the Judicature Act,
but it was ineffectual.

With respect to Parliament, there is no measure the
progress of which is watched with greater interest and
satisfaction than the Appropriation Bill. It embodies
a list of the whole of the estimates voted by the House
of Commons during the entire Session for the naval,
military, and civil services, a sum of about fifty
millir,ns sterling. Every item is appropriated to a
specific use, and must be applied to no other. When
this measure is brought in, it is known that the days of
the session are numbered. No more discussions in Com-
mittee of Supply; no more wrangles over separate
votes, for all this is over for another year. Seldom
has a session been more heartily wished at
an end than that of 1878. The domestic legislation
which it has produced will never occupy a prominent
place upon the statute-books of the land, and it has so
increased the burthens of the people that many more
like it would be absolutely crushing. In a time of
peace the British Parliament is spending more than
was demanded from the taxpayers during the Crimean
War. It is the interest of every class fervently to hope
that trade may now revive, and so help to enable the
people to meet the augmented claims which the
country is making upon them. The clouds with which
the Session opened have rolled away; for the time, at
all events, there is no danger of war, and commercial
enterprise should now once again flow in its accustomed
channels.

Military reviews at Aldershot by th Queen are of
eommon occurrence. There is always a sufficient
number of soldiers in the camp to make up a respect-
ably-large army, and the spectacle is one of much
nterest to the thousands of civilians who gather to
witness it. But a naval review is a very rare event,
and when it does take place the surroundings are of
such a character that the scene is not easily forgotten.
Rather more than two-and-twenty years ago, just
after the close of the war with Russia, there was a
grand naval demonstration at Spithead, where Her
Majesty and the Prince Consort reviewed the fleets which
had served in the Baltic and Black Seas. The splendid
three-deckers, the stately line-of-battle ships, thegrace-
ful frigates and the handsome corvettes, under both sail
and steam, were the admiration of all beholders. Like
the Peninsular army of the Duke of Wellington, it
was felt that such an armada could go anywhere and
do anything. A couple of decades roll away, and that
magnificent navy, for all practical purposes of war-
fare, has ceased to exist. Those who gazed upon it
with such pride and pleasure could scarcely have con-
ceivd that it would so soon be superseded by vessels
anything but beautiful in shape, but terribly destruc-
tive if brought into action. The finest ship in our
navy was then the Duke of Wellington, 131 guns,
which a very brief pounding from either the Inflexible
or the Thunderer would now send to the bottom.

Thackerly once wrote an essay upon the pleasures
of London out of the season, in which he showed
how easy it was for a man with an appreciative eye
to value that which had never been noticed by the
crowd. Let the multitude of fashionable persons
leave London, and the solitary lounger who has been
left behind can see many things which he has never
had time to recognise before in the hurry and press of
every-day life. Those who judge the metropolis by
the close atmosphere of the afternoon, and in the full
tide of its enormous traffic, take but a very super-
ficial view of the many phases of life presented
by the capital. In the streets of London, at
the dawn of an autumnal day, there is a purity
and freshness in the air, a song of birds, and a
scent of flowers, which would surprise those who in-
variably ass, ciate with it a stagnant and a troubled air.
Either of the Parks is an excellent place for watching
the sunlight gradually creep over the metropolis in the
early morning. The trees slowly become alive with the
warble of the birds, the air is full of sweet perfumes,
the sheep stir lazily and crop the grass, every blade of
which sparkles with dew-drops; and as the time rolls
on yen are almost tempted to regret that you cannot
for awhile arrest its inexorable march, for the further
it advances into the morning, the stronger is the truth
brought home to the mind that the stage has become
crowded with figures, and that another day of bustle
has begun.
The demobilization of the reserves, who were called
out four months ago, has left open the question how
the wives and families of the men are to be supported
whilst they are with the colours. The men were
suddenly called upon to discharge an engagement in
which they knew their liabilities as well as their emolu-
ments; but at the same time they urge that whilst
they willingly came forth from their occupations to
serve their country, the provision made by the State
for the maintenance of those whom they had left at
home was insufficient. The bargain made with each re-
serve man is first, that, while he is at home, he receives
3s. 6d. a week ; and secondly, that while with the
colours, he gets his pay as a soldier, while his wife has
3s. Go, a week for herself, and is. 2d. for each child.
Bot when a man rejoins the army, after he has left it
and been earning good wages at home, he is often under
one or two inducements to spend money. Either
missing the quiet and comfort of home life, he makes
up for their absence by such luxuries as a barrack
room can furnish; or appreciating the renewed
freedom and good fellowship of the army, he finds
that such enjoyments cannot be had without pay-
ing for them. At a time when an interest in
military questions has revived amongst us, the man-
ning of the army is a matter for the consideration
of the statesmen as well as of the great mass of the
body politic; for the business of the recruiting
sergeant is essentially a trade amongst many others,
and men will naturally choose that which they can
follow with the least inconvenience to themselves, and
which entails the minimum amount of hardship to
those dependent upon them.
It is just about twelve months ago that Osman
Pasha, issuing forth from the fortress of Widdin,
seized the then open town of Plevna, and held it for
a third of a year, barring the advance of the
Russian army. Meanwhile the people of the
surrounding villages made up a great stream of
fugitives which poured into Adrianople, the second
city in the Turkish empire. There were 60,000 of
them ; and it is only one incident showing that all the
ravages of man are not committed upon the field of
battle when it is mentioned that more than 20,000 of
these unhappy refugees have since died from tyhpus
and other diseases. Several beys who were formerly
rich landed proprietors are now obliged to work for
their daily bread as gardeners, shepherds, or porters;
and crowds of ragged women and children daily
besiege the mosques, begging for food. It is an-
nounced that the survivors are to be sent back to the
villages mad, r escorts of Russian soldiers, to find their
fields a waste and their habitations rendered desolate.
It has been affirmed that the last war created more
misery in Europe than any which had been carried on
upon the Continent for centuries, and even at this
di,tance of tune from its termination illustrations of
this truth are constantly occurring.
It is within the lifetime of many still amongst us
that the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was
opened in 1830, and few at that time could have antici-
pated the enormous development which the railway
system was destined to witness. According to an
official report from the Board of Trade the total
mileage of railways open in the
.United Kingdom
in 1877 was 17,077 miles, the increase over
.the
total of 1876 having been two hundred and five miles.
The total nominal capital of the railway companies
was 675 millions sterling, or only about a hundred
millions leas than the National Debt. Whilst this
vast sum of money is thus invested in one description
of industrial enterprise, it may be noted that the in-
crease of traffic was last year in a lesser rate of pro-
portion than at any time sinee 1856. It would be
difficult to find a more faithful index than this of the
almost stagnant condition in which trade has been,
but from which every one is now hoping that cir-
cumstances will now enable it to recover.

Six months ago Berlin witnessed two Royal mar-
riages, and on Saturday, the 24th instant, another will
be celebrated at Potsdam, where the eldest daughter
of Prince Frederick Charles is to be united to Prince
Henry of the Netherlands. In Prussia it is the custom
for the wedding trousseau of princesses to be paid for
out of the civil list, and for this purpose a sum of

24,r.00 is voted by the Parliament The whole of the
kroussean purchased for the Princess has been of
jerman manufacture, and it is to be displayed in one
4 the drawing-rooms of the Imperial Palace. Mean-
while the fashionable world of London rests content
with the assurance that the sister of the bride-elect,
Princess Louise, who was betrothed a little while ago
to the Duke of Connaught, is not to be married in
Germany, but at St. George's Chapel, Windsor. In
this case the precedent set by the Princo of Wales will
be followed rather than that of the Duke of Edinburgh.
The Heir-Apparent went to Denmark, fetched his in-
tended bride from her father's palace, and the wedding
took place at Windsor; whilst the marriage of the
Duke of Edinburgh was solemnized in the Winter
Palace at St. Petersburg. That is the only case in
hich one of the Queen's children has been married
abroad—the unions of the Princess Royal, the Prince
of Wales, and Princesses Alice, Helena, and Louise
having been celebrated in England. These examples
are now to be followed by the Duke of Connaught,
and February next is the time selected for the mar-
riage. The last Royal wedding at Windsor was that
of Princess Louise in March, 1871, when her Majesty
took a prominent part in the festivities attendant upon
the ceremonial.

CARDINAL MANNING ON THE IRISH
SUNDAY CLOSING BILL. -
In London, on Tower-hill, on Sunday afternoon, a
temperance meeting, convened by the Temperance
League of the Cross, and numbering about 10,000 per-
sons, chiefly Irish, was held, under the presidency of
CardiDal Manning. His Eminence said he had wit-
nessed many a meeting on Tower-hill, but never such
a one as that. Although he was always glad to see
women at these meetings, he reloiced that the greater
part of the present one was composed of men, for it
lay with the men to set the strong example. He had
something to say to them about Ireland. (cheers.)
After a long and hard-fought battle in the House of
Commons, led by The O'Conor Don, who did his part like
a man, supported by Mr. Sullivan and others, the Irish
Sunday-closing Bill was read a third time on Saturday
(Prolonged cheering). He was sorry to be obliged to
add he was afraid there was not time left for the Bill
to be pissed through the other House of the Legisla-
ture this Session, and therefore he feared that all the
labour, all the patience, and all the vigour with which
resistance to the Bill was met, would be lost, for this
year at least. The work would have to be begun over
again. When the Act was once in force in Ireland he
believed the good which would flow from it would
secure its extension to England. (Cheers.) So much
good had been done by the League in London that on the
occasions of great festivals the magistrates had scarcely
to deal with a prisoner bearing an Irish name.
Chesrs.) Other addresses having been delivered the
various branches marched homewards.