The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-02-13 00:00:00

Metropolitan 6ossip.

BE OCR OWNS CORRESPONDENT.

(The remarks under this head are to be regarded as the ea.
preasion of independent opinion, from the pen of a gentleman
in whom an have the greatest confidence, lout for which wn
nevertheless do not hold ourselves responsible.)

Whatever maybe the result of the Spanish revolution,
so far as forms of government may be concerned, the
world has gained two grand and glorious reforms—the
abolition of slavery anl the freedom of religious
worship. Protestantism is now allowed, permitted,
tolerated, or whatever is the word; and slavery is to
be a thing of the past. The Spaniards are a long time
working out their revolution, but if they effect no more
than these two conquests over tyranny and priestly
intolerance the world will be the happier for it. As
Spain has followed the example of America, it is to be
hoped that Portugal will follow that of Spain.
The poor are always with us, and they occupy a
large space in the ordinary chronicles of the day.
History deals chiefly with the powerful and the rich,
with kings and potentates, but the current history of
the newspaper Lirgely deals with the iwor ; and of late
the newspapers have been especially burdened with the
sad and weary tale of pauperism and with innumerable
schemes for dealing with it. I shall not add much to
this, but will simply note a cheering promise and the
benefit we shall derive from it. Mr. Goschen, the
President of the Poor Law Board, is determined to
deal with the question of metropolitan rating for the
relief of the poor. The inequalities of rating have
been a grievance for many years, and every year it
gets worse. The richer the parish, as a rule, the less
it pays; the poorer the parish the more it pays. We
are taxed for the relief of the poor just in an inverse
proportion to our ability to bear taxation. This is
absurd and unjust enough, but the principle of rating
according to rental alone is cruelly unjust. The rich
nobleman, for instance, with his ten or twenty thou-
sand a year, pays only about i'ouble of the sum con-
tributed by the struggling traile,man. But come lower
down in the social scale, and the inequality, and there-
fore the injustice, is still more glaring. The artisan
and mechanic in poor neighbourhoods pay so largely
to the poor rate and the general rate that they them-
, elves are partly by this means dragged down to the
ranks of pauperism. These main facts are well
known, and they are painfully illustrated every day.
Mr. Goschen might be the means of effecting two
vast reforms— the equalisation of rating according to
renting all over the metropolis, and applying the prin-
ciple of the income tax to the poor rate. This would I
relieve the poor in a double sense, and it would re- I
move all ground of complaint on the score of in-
equality.

Will there be, I wonder, any explanation and ex-
culpation as to this case of "starvation in Bethnal-
green?" A young man, "the only son of his mother,
and she was a widow," lived and died under the most
wretched circumstances. The miserable family of five
persons earned but Is. 6d. a week, and when they had
paid their rent—they starved on the remainder.
Death resulted from disease of the lungs, accelerated
by want of proper food. There is the tale in brief.
And this in a town "whose merchants are princes,
and whose citizens are rulers of the earth."
It has been announced, and apparently with autho-
rity, that the Queen will not open Parliament in
person, as was hoped. Her absence at the cere-
monial is not attrilei"ed to the state of her Majesty's
health, but to a desire to prevent any unfair infer-
ence being drawn from the selection of a time
when subjects likely to evoke strong party feeling
are pending for the first appearance of the Queen
upon such an occasion since the death of her
husband. Political parties are now preparing for
the approaching contest. The supporters of Mr.
Disraeli and of Mr. Gladstone have severally received
circulars from their respective chiefs, reminding them
that business of importance is coming on. The address
in reply to the Queen's speech will be moved, as at
present arranged, by the Hon. H. F. Cowper, member
for Hertfordshire, and seconded by Mr. A. J.
Mundella, member for Sheffield. Now-a-days, how-
ever, the moving and seconding of the Address does
not create the sensation that it used to do, and sinless ,
there is any probability of an amendment to the
Address, these speeches are very much a matter of j
form. There is nevertheless every prospect of the
session comineocing with spirit. Both with regard to
the Trish Church and the policy of retrenchment, there
will 1.0 vigorous opposition on the part of the Con-
servatives, while such measures as the University
Tests Aholition Bill, which will be again brought for.
ward, will no lit 10111 P; it all the force of party
feeling. On the eve of any session of l'arliament we
are apt to think that that particular session is likely to
be more important than ordinary, but there really is
reason to anticivite the coming session in this way.
Leaving. ot all purely political matters, the sweeping
retrenchment that is looming in the immediate future
is such as has never been even thought of by any
previous ministry.

it is probable that next year there will be held in
London a Working Men's International Exhibition.
At preset Fboseheme is merely in embryo and the
only well-known names connected with it are those of
the Hon. Amberon Herbert and Mr. Elihn Burritt,
"the learned blacksmith." Of course everything
must have a beginning, and, SA Emerson says, the
greatest revolution was once but one idea in one man's
mind ; but this project will perhaps grow and prosper.
If to, is is to be hoped that the exhibition will be some-
thing very different to, and on a much larger scale than
any of those numerous industrial exhibitions which
have reminded us that lisar is very much like Pom-
pey, &c.

In years past we have been congratulating ourselves
on the Thames embankment, and foreigners have con-
gratulated us too. And not without good cause, for it
is a glorious work though executed at a frightful ex-
pense. But having spent a few millions over it, there
is a chance of our losing a great part of the boon that
has cost us so much. We have not yet escaped the
project to have the new Law Courts built on the em-
bankment, and now— oh horror of horrors !—we are
threatened with a viaduct from Charing Cross Bridge
to Waterloo Bridge, the finest part of the splendid
Thames road. If this scheme be carried out, will not
foreigners, will not Americans, laugh consumedly at
our folly?

A remarkable sporting Case is talked of as likely to
be tried. It turns upon the real age of a horse. "It
appears that it has come to the knowledge of the
owner f the colt that, instead of being born on the Ist
of January, as asserted, he was in reality born two or
three days before that time, and this being the case, he
would be a yearling when only three days old !" It
seems that "horses take their ages from the let of
January." No, they don't; it is the wiseacres of the
Mil who give horses their age in this ridiculous way.
Supposing a horse was foaled at midnight on the 31st
of December, he would be born a yearling.
Readers of The Times (by no means synonymous with
that " everybody " of whom we so often talk) will
have noticed a curious innovation—a table of contents
over the first leader, together with the notice that "a
portion of the news is given in the outer sheet." The
leading jonmal is very slow to make changes, and
would not have done this but on mature consideration.
Opinions differ as to the advantage of the addition.
Some think it not worth the space it occupies; others
that it is a great imptovement ; and others that it is
like a chip in porridge, neither good nor harm. The
notice referred to is given, I believe, in deference to the
remonstranee of advertisers, who complain that the
outer sheet of The Tame is too often thrown aside.
The Telegraph long since found out that the only way
to prevent its additional two pages being thrown away
is to mix news with advertisements; and yet it dues
not always do 110.
The "ladies of the corps de ballet," managers of
theatres, and the ladies who visit theatres in what
they facetiously call full dress, evidently pay no regard
to the Lord Chamberlain's recent virtuous protest.
There has been no change whatever either in perform-
ers or audience., and some people gay that the ladies
among the latter need reform more than the ladies of
the stage. I fancy that the Lord Chamberlain must
now be rather sorry for what he has done, for his cir-
cular has drawn an anpleaaant amount of attraction to
his worse than useless other. Why not abolish his
licensing powers altogether, and put all places of
amusement under the control of the local magistrates
with power to act only in cases of public morality
being outraged? l'ublic opinion would be then Pa
wholesome check upon the magistrates going too far.
And if me are to have any licensing at all, why not
• refuse a license to any place that was insufficiently pro-
vided with the means of *whir+ exit? The Lord
Chamberlain's quasi censorship of plays and play-
houses WWI always more or less a mbject of ridicule.
Lord Chesterfield (the nobleman who taught his son
anch curious morality), in 1737 proposed that the
theatrical powers of this functionary should be trans-
ferred to "a committee of Maids of Honour and
Bishops, who shall act in joint commission in this
affair, since the first are the best judges of wit and
modesty, and the latter of religion and morality in
this kingdom." This, of course, was a joke, and the
recent circular is another. We want a real, genuine,
legal censorship of all stage entertainments, whether
at theatres or music-halls, with a public guarantee
that that censorship shall only extend to immorality,
and the Lord Chamberlain could then very well be
Flowed.

There seems to be no limit to the monntronity of
mounter concerts. A concert in to be given in Bonton,
U.S., in June with 1,000 instrumentalists and 10,000

singers, supported by a battery of cannon! The
cannon is not a new idea. I have somewhere read that
cannon were actually used in the "Hallelujah chorus"
on one occasion, though I have in vain searched a
Life of Handel for a confirmation of the statement.
The "Dead March" in Saul would have a fine effect
with cannon, could they be fired in strict mu.sical time.
But leave the cannon out and what is this monster
, concert ?--only twice as powerful as the orchestral
body that assisted at the last Handel Festival. And
' nothing perhaps was more remarkable during that per-
formance than the actual sound as compared with the
anticipations of what it would be. Let 5,000 per-
formers play in discord, and the sound would be tre-
mendous; let them play in harmony, and it is mar-
vellous how the body of sound is toned down and
blended, conveying anything but the idea of noise.