The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-09-07 00:00:00

THE AMERICAN WHEAT CROP.

The United States Economist of August 17 says
In 1877 the crop was 325,000,000 bushels, from which
we exported 109,000,000 bushels, thus showing that our
requirements for seed and consumption in the year to
Septemberl, 1878, have been ab0ut216,000,000 bushels.
Assuming nowthat our requirements for seed and con-
sumption to September 1, 1879, shall be even as much
as 220,000,000 bushels, and we still have 187,000,000
bushels for export. Great Britain this year will pro-
bably require 60,000,000 bushels from foreign countries.
Other sources of European demand will also abscrb
a large portion of this surplus, so that, discount-
lug all blights and mildews that fell upon the crop
in the north-west, the yield Is the most uuprece
dented ever known in this country. There is there-
fore no room for croaking, but, on the contrary, every
ground to believe that we have entered upon more
hopeful times. There are those, however, who con-
tinually proinoitkate
.ey2k *lid' disaster.- They walla
brightening in obbutectal prolipebtio; and no relief from

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Is the physician to mark himself "in plain figures"
—on his door-plate, for example? It really is not
necessary. Any man who objects to pay two guineas
can always get off scott-free if he will stoop to do BO.;
and if he will not, he has only to pay one uncontem-
plated guinea, and for the rest of his life let him take
to some universal medicine at is. lid, per box. At all
events, he will not have to pay 2e. 3d. for the first
box, no more so than he will have to pay 10s. for
the first hat. But then, perhaps, a physician, after
all, is not so oddly like a hatter as "if. W." views him.
If" H. W." would have two hatters and only one
physician, instead of, at present, two independent and
separate physicians and one hatter' he would be
better both in body and estate. At all events, this
business of a double fee for the first consultation
would not fall BO severely upon him.—l am, Sir,
obediently yours, J. W.

Sir,—lt will be evident to all your readers that a
physician can purchase for a guinea far less than his
predecessor in the 18th century; yet, hitherto, the
doctor's fee has unreasonably remained invariable. A
guinea is a reasonable and fairly remunerative fee per
visit after the first consultation, but it is a very in-
adaquate gnerdon for the trouble involved in the
primary investigation of a case and is not a fair market
equivalent for what is presumably a valued and prob-
ably a momentous opinion. • Quite apart from treat-
ment, on the doctor's verdict may hang a man's future
career. A patient may be condemned to life-long blind-
ness, deafness, or deformity; a mother may learn that
her child is or is not a deaf mute; or a hopeless idiot;
another anxious inquirer may be relieved from the
horrible dread of impending cancer or consumption.
Are the answers to these questions worth two guineas,
or more? The immense distances which people will
travel to obtain a coveted medical interview should
also tend to place a proper value on skilled opinions.
It cannot be wondered at that the confirmed dyspeptic
or the hysterical spinster should object to have to pay
two guineas each time they try the exciting luxury of
an interview with a new consultant,—Yours, faith-
fully, L. T.

Sir,—The physician's fee is a "honorarium," and
ought to remain so. He cannot, if a Fellow of the
College of Physicians, recover it at law. This being
so, he is at liberty to say, "I will receive no less than
two gnineas or one guinea or no fee at all. I rate my
services at a certain value, and the public, knowing
this, will go where they like for an opinion, just as they
employ a Q.C. or a junior, according to their wants."
This liberty as a consulting physician I claim for my-
self, and while I am easily accessible to the needy,
I say to the well•to-do that two guineas for a first
visit is the value I attach to my opinion. I have
lately raised my fee to the rich because my time is
more valuable, and because from my experience and
hospital practice of 20 years (unpaid) I give them a
better article than I did when I started in London,
and because my rent, rates, wages, the hire of my horses,
and the cost of living have neatly doubled in that
time. The same liberty of appraising my services
enables me to send away a poorly-paid clergyman, or
a governess, or small gentleman not the worse in
pocket for the visit, and perhaps cheered and
strengthened for life's work. I notice in my dealings
with all classes that my titled patients without excep-
tion give a sovereign without the shilling, and I think
this a shabby form of gentility, from which I cannot
protect myeelf unless I keep a clerk in my hall to
receive my fees. Whether I have formed too high an
estimate of the value of my examination and opinion I
leave your readers to judge when I tell them that I
write down the whole history of my patient's family
and disorders, examine into the state of every organ in
his body, take a copy of his prescription and often
write a letter to his family attendant and give a sepa-
rate audience to his relative or friend who has accom-
panied him before I have done with him on his first
visit.—l am, Sir, your obedient servant,
A PLUM.

Sir,—Twenty-five years ago my husband, being a
distinguished graduate of the London University, was
advised by his tutors and seniors to start in London.

Our rent and taxes then were about £lO under £4OO
a year; now, in the same house, they are about £6OO,
Stabling then was about £2O a year; now it is £6O.
Our butler's wages were £4O; now they are £5O. Our
cook's wages were £t6; now they are £3O, and (with
two less in the family) she will not do the work with-
out a kitehennaid involving an outlay of at least £4O
per annum. • •• a poultry, vegetables, and game have
almost doubled in price. Meat is more than one-third
dearer. All labour for painting and repairs has almost
doubled in price. Our water-rate is raised from seven
to ten guineas; 9ur gas from 3s. 63. to ss. 6d. per
oot.
Surgeons are in a very different position from phy-
sicians. They can recover debts, and they constantly
have fees varying from 19 to 100 guineas, often in-
volving a very few minutes of time; but then they do
something that can be Been, while the poor physician
works away for an hour, deciding often the fate of
families as to marriage, schooling, going to Australia,
Stc., his ability to do this being based on an elaborate
education which had to be paid for, on waiting many
years, which had to be paid for; and, after winning a
reputation which makes him thought worthy to be
consulted on such subjects at the end of 25 years, he is
grudged a fee of two guineas for the first visit, which
is often the last, RB these serious questions have to be
decided at once, while every other profession can regu-
late their fees through their clerks, and have doubled
and trebled them during the last 2.5 years.

_
On what principle is the most self-sacrificing pro-
fession to have no advantage after a quarter of a
century's work?—Your obedient servant,
A LONDON PHYSICIAN'S WIFE.

Tk cotogne Gazette learns front a private source that
the health et the Emperor of Germahy has improved so
Much that it may confidently be hoped that he will be able
In the aUtunan again to take the direttioh -of fhb Govetn.
ment.

The Secretary of State for India is considering pro-
posals for the purchase of all rights and privileges of the East
India Railway, at the expiration of the company's lease of 25
years in February next.
The Manchester Guardian states that the attention
of the military authorities will be called shortly, it it has not
been called already, to a gun somewhat in the nature of a
mitrailleuse, which, if half that is said of it be true, will
excite some astonishment. The inventor states that it will
fire 1,600 rounds per minute, requiring the service of only
one man. It is said also that it will be available equally by
land and by sea.

-
A company has been formed in Cambridge for pro-
viding improved dwellings for the poor, under the style and
title of "The Cambridge Improved Industrial Dwellings
Company, Limited," with a capital of £20,000.

- - -
At a luncheon which followed an art and indus-
trial exhibition in Bideford on Saturday, Sir Thomas
Acland, li,P , who presided, after referring to general
topics, spoke of the great benefit derived from art exhibi-
tions, and of the cheap comforts which reached the homes
of the working classes through the facilities afforded by
modern improvements in machinery for the ready produc-
tion of what would otherwise be expensive luxuries.
Some Roman remains have recently been discovered
during excavations at No. 9, Walbrook, London. The City
Press says that one is a well, about 22 feet in depth, the
upper portion of the circle being constructed with Kentish
rubble, and the lower, to the extent of about 10 feet, being
lined with chalk, without cement or other material between
the courses. A Roman jug, very light and curious, the
lower portion of a wine or water cooler (the latter made of
Purbeck stone), some pieces of tesselated pavement, &0.,
were also discovered.
The latest Italian political cartoon kindly represents
John Ball as drinking out of a bottle, with the word
"Cyprus " written on it. The amiable John is represented
as quite drunk, while all the other Powers are jeering at him
to their hearts' content. Truly the Italians have not seemed
too fond of us since the publication of the famous Turkish
Agreement.—" The Tatler "in Pictorial World.
A page of the "Navy List" is occupied by a list
of officers wearing the medal of the Royal Humane Society.
The introduction of some such record into the "Army List"
would be a fitting tribute to the gallantry of those members
of the land Service who have been instrumental in saving
human life.—Court Journal.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer acknowledges in
The Ttmes (as" Conscience Money ' ) the receipt of a £lOO
bank note from "Z," and of the second halves of bank-notes
for £4OO from "DAV.", and £450, sent anonymously; all for
Inoome•tax.

---- ---
The Right Hon. G. Cavendish Bentinck, M.P., in
performing the ceremony of opening at Lytham a handsome
new Working Men's Institute, which has been erected by
voluntary subscriptions at a cost of £3,000, referred to the
great importance of such institutions to the country, and
strongly urged on his hearers the necessity of thorough
knowledge, and not that superficial knowledge a tendency
to which was only too common in these days. Mr. Hodgson
Pratt, of the Working Men's Club and Institute Union,
London, also spoke on the utility of working men's institu-
tions and on the necessity of working men taking a pr-per
position in social, intellectual, and political life.
The Earl of Haddington laid on Saturday, with
Masonic honours, the memorial stone of a new burgh school
in the town of Haddington, the birthplace of John Knox, the
great Scottish reformer. The school is to have an elementary
department attached to it, and will cost about £9,000, about
£3,000 of which has already been rabid by public subscrip-
tion. The building is to be known as the Knox Memorial
'lnstitute.

Miskolcz, a town in Hurgary, has been completely
laid waste by a storm. Over four hundred dead bodies have
beer recovered from the ruins of the house, and two
hundred persons are still missing. The town of Erlau has
been also devastated by a storm, rows of houses having been
swept away and many persons killed.

On his journey southwards to Odessa, the Czar
replied to an appeal from the Sultan that he would give
orders which might remedy the dreadful state of thing 3 in
the districts of Roumelia and Bulgaria, where atrocities are
being committed on the Iflussulmans. The Czar says he
thinks the reports which have reached the Sultan must be
exasv.erations, as the Russian °facers have strict orders to
punish such acts.

The Scientific American says :—" American cutlery
now goes largely to Australia, South America, and Europe.
We are pushing England also in pocket cutlery. Of the two
million dollars worth of pocket-knives sold here every year
England supplies only one million dollars' worth, while not
many years ago nobody would look at anything but an Eng-
lish knife. The extent to which machinery has been made
to take tide place of manual labour is the great secret of our
success fn the manufacture of cutlery. The cutting of wood
for the handles, the finishing of the ivory, the cutting of the
steel, the shaping of the knife, the fastening of the handle,
the designing of the ornamental handles, the grinding, the
finishing of the blade, and numerous other minuties, are
all done by machinery, most of which Is also made in the
works."

It is officially stated at Rustchuk that on the 27th
of August the Russian army south of the Balkans had 14,300
sick; the force north of the Balkans, 1 950; and the Reserve
troops, 4,200, making a total of 20,450 men on the sick list.
It is expected that only 7,000 of the lighter cases will be left
In Turkey by the 10th inst., the others being sent to Russia.
The Paris correspondent of The Times sass that
M. du Bois du Baia, son of a prominent member of the Conven-
tion who has just died, has left 40,000 f. and his mother's
diamonds to M. Arles Fevre, and 20,000 f. to M. Bertauld,
another advocate and Senator, who were Ms counsel in an
important case. After legacies to distant relatives, he
bequeaths 20,000 f. to the village where his father is buried,
and 15,000 f. to that where his mother is buried, while the
residue, which is estimated at 2,000,000 f., goes to the poor of
the two poorest Aroudissements of Paris, the interest to
be distributed among them without regard to creed or
opinion.
The dead body of a well-dressed man who is sup-
posed to be a clerk in the Admiralty, was found by a shep-
herd's dog on Saturday evening in Woolmer Forest. The
deceased, who carried a knapsack, had evidently been killed
by lightning. His clothes were nearly burned off, and his
watch was molten into a shapeless mass. The contents of
his knapsack were burned, and only the cane frame re-
mained.

Rides for invalids have been established in some of
the cities across the Atlantic, and we read in the Christian
Union that this charitable movement, inaugurated some
years since by the Boston Young Men's Christian Union., has
grown into an established summer charity. The object is to
provide a few hours of sunlight and genuine recreation for
those among the poorer classes whose lives are sunless and
secluded by reason of disease or feebleness. Last year the
committee were able to furnish carriage rides to nine hundred
and twenty persons, chiefly women and children, selected
from the hospitals, and to contimte the good work by the
distribution of fifteen hundred horse-car tickets, allowing, in
many lust:dices, whole families to make excursions Into the
country by means of the open cars. The example is certainly
well woril following in this country.
The Wurkiug Men's Club and Institute Union. for-
malty opened on Monday a "Seadide Home" which it
e..
thhas
n
Provided at Margate, to supply
-641 4 itr•temilleit- with -,goti e att b chap
W -
,SWP We seascde. members of working

Cremation becomes optional in Gotha on tl.e Ist of
October, and a building has been erected for the purpose.
Mr. Mnndella, M.P., made another attempt at ad-
dressing his constituents on Monday evening, and succeeded.
In consequence of the opposition a week ago the LiberaUAs-
sociation of Sheffield arranged that the address should be
delivered in the Albert Hall, and that admission should be
by ticket. This course was pursued, and the hon. gentle-
man was thereby secured an uninterrupted hearing. After
disposing of various personal matters in connection with the
unsuccessful meeting of last week, Mr. Muudella reviewed
the work of the past Session, dwelling particularly upon the
results of the Berlin Congress. Nobody, he said, could re-
joice more than he that the Treaty of Berlin would realise
all that its authors expected and hoped. Indeed, he was
confident that peace would be the result, because the nations
of Europe desired it. On the whole, he thought that the
people of England had much to rejoice over, and more than
could have been expected two years ago,