The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-11-23 00:00:00

'' • ' "• •-•
• . - •
- - -

?„, .

Our Yoahn Corresportini.

We deem it right to state that we do not a., all times
antify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

As regularly as the years roll round, the Court at
Ilalmoral breaks up in the third week of November,
and the Queen returns to Windsor Castle for a few
weeks preparatory to leaving for Osborne, there to
spend the Christmas holidays, The seers and the
prophets have told us in days long since gone by; that
the further one advances on the journey of life, the
::aster Time seems to fly. " Given at our Court at
Balmoral, in the year of our Lord, cna thousand eight
hundred and seventy-eight, and in the forty-second
year of our Reign," must sometimes read strangely to
the eyes of those who remember the festivities at the
Coronation, when the girl-Queen was invested with the
Crown i Westminster Abbey, and the heartiest
wishes of her people were that the ample State robes
she bore would be the heaviest burden that would
ever fall upon her. But Time in its march
has shown that it is no respecter of persons, and
that it effects changes in the highest as well as in the
humblest household in the land. There was a day,
now more than half a generation ago, and growing
more and more faint and distant in the memory, when
her Majesty's journey southward from Balmoral was
enlivened by the presence of her husband and young
children. Theii came the loss of the Prince Consort,
leaving a blank never again to be filled. The children
have become men and women, and most of them have
taken upon themselves the responsibilities which at-
tend life in this world. They are scattered here and
there. Two of the Queen's daughters are resident in
Germany, and a third has left our shores to preside
over the viceregal court of Canada. Her Majesty's
second son, the Duke of Edinburgh, no longer lives
amongst us; and of all the Queen's children, only the
youngest now remains without a separate establish-
ment. The happy gathering which was so long the
characteristic of one roof-tree, is now dispersed in all
directions.

Making their way over the Atlantic by day and by
night, at a time of year when the fiercest storms sweep
the surface of that tempestuous ocean, the Marquis of
Lorne and the Princess Louise have taken with them the
best wishes of the people of this country to the inhabi-
tants of this vast Canadian dominion. The new Governor-
General and his wife will find the colonist intensely
loyal to the Crown, although two thousand miles of
sea roll between them and the motherland at home.
Living on the borders of the greatest Republic of the
day, and with the working of Republican institutions
constantly before their eyes, the Canadians have
remained firm in their adhesion to the monarchical
system of government which has been a tradition with
us for more than eight hundred years. The Marquis
and the Princess will arrive in Canada just When the
winter is beginning. It is winter there in earnest
while it lasts. When in November, 1861, the news
arrived in this country of the seizure of Messrs.
Mason and Slidell from the British mail-steamer
Trent by an American man-of-war, and ten thousand
troops were at once despatched to Canada, the steer-
ing of the Rinaldo into Halifax Harbour was a work
of the greatest difficulty, such was the intensity of
the frost. Round about our own shores, even in times
of severe weather, no snow lies upon the slopes facing
the sea, because of the warmth which even then per
vades the temperature ef the water; not so in Canada,
where the St. Lawrence is 13cked up for months
together in an impenetrable barrier of ice. But even
a Canadian winter will pass away, and in the days of
returning summer the new Viceroy and the Princess
will find ample stores of interest in the wide extent
and the immense natural resources of a territory
which has so often been described as the Great Lone
Land.

Speaking of Winter is a reminder of the swift and
sudden way in which it has swept down upon our
own islands. For some years there has been no such cold
weather as that which we have been Accustomed to
associate with the name of the darkest quarter of the,
four; but it has been noticed before that a hard winter
often accompanies hard times. The unhappy people
of Paris had a bitter experience of this at the end of
1870, when the German armies, having formed a girdle
of iron round the city, so as to starve the two millions
of inhabitants into submission, winter came to the
assistance of the investing forces, and such was the
saverity of the weather that sentries were frozen to
death by scores at their posts. In London the upper
reaches of the Thames were solid masses of ice,
which when disturbed by the action of a more
than usually boisterous tide, broke loose with a
loud crash, and swept in massive blocks along the
surface of the river, to the imminent danger of the
shipping, and to the risk of life. Since then the metro-
politan stream has presented no such spectacle, but we
are now warned that the coming winter will not be
quite 80 mild as some which have lately passed over us.
We could all have wished it otherwise, looking at the
present state of trade and at our commercial prospects,
which do not seem likely to brighten to any considerable
extent before the return of spring. The picture is not
nowever in all respects a dark one. Work in some
districts is not so plentiful as might be desired; but
both coals and bread are cheaper than they have been
for some sears past; and to scarcity of labour we have
not to add the evils of famine, either in food or in
fuel.

The demand for an immediate summoning of Parlia-
ment, which has been madeby the Afghan Committee,
is based upon the precedent of 1867. On the 19th
November in that year, the Lords spiritual and
temporal, the knights, citizens, and burgesses, and the
commissioners for shires and burghs in the House of
Commons assembled at Westminster, when the
session was opened by commission. The royal
message explained that the Legislature had been
called together at that unusual season mainly to
sanction the expedition which it had been judged
necessary to organize for the purpose of rescuing the
helpless captives in Abyssinia. "I confidently rely
upon the support and co-operation of my Parliament
in my endeavour at once to relieve their countrymen
from an unjust imprisonment and to vindicate the
honour of my Crown." We all know the character of
the response which was made to this appeal. Parlia-
ment voted the necessary supplies; the captives were
released; and King Theodore paid with his life the
penalty of his obstinate conduct. In the present
instance there is no question of rescuing any one from
the grasp of a capricious barbarian, but the honour of
the Crown is declared to be in question in the dispute
with the Ameer of Afghanistan; and, as we have seen,
its being upheld was one of the reasons assigned for
bringing Parliament together eleven years ago.
Although the Executive has an undoubted right to
declare war without consultation with the other
estates of the realm, Parliament must vote the sup-
plies for carrying it on; and the only doubt now is
whether the burden will be cast upon the people of
India or the taxpayers of the United Kingdom.
The November star-showers have long been noted
for their brilliancy, although it is only once in a
generation that there is such a display as in 1833 and
1866. We shall have to wait untill 1899 before there
is a repetition of that which fell to the lot of the
nocturnal spectator to see just twelve years ago. Pro-
fessor Newton, of Yule College, in the United States,
has told us that the number of meteors, large and
small, encountered by the earth in the course of
a year is four hundred millions, and that these
singular bodies form an enormous belt round the sun
represented by nineteen times the distance of our
own world from that luminary. Fortunately for us,
while we are passing through this mass, the meteors are
so intensely heated as they rush through space that
they are converted into the form of vapour, so that
we never encounter them as solid bodies. It is well
indeed that we do not. One of the interesting mes-
sengers from
.the unknown world has occasionally
retained sufficient density to defy the power of our
atmospheie and to descend upon the surface of the
earth. It had been found to contain iron, nickel, and
other minerals, and no one, to look at such a specimen
in one of our museums, could realise without a shudder
the descent of- Soma thousands of these upon the chil-
-ken of men, and the literal fulfilment of the vision of
tho stars of heaNtn falling to the earth as a fig-tree
caateth her untimelY figs, described so graphically by
St. John when he *as an exile in the island of Patmos.
In the closing weeks of November columns of
advertisements, printed in the smallest of type, I
appear in the London papers, the matter contained
in them being the most uninteresting that can possibly
,
be conceived: These are the Parliamentary notices of
private bills which are to be introduced next session,
for the construction of new railways, canals tram-
ways: and other works of public utility. The adver-
tisements are bound to appear three times, in as
neee'y weeks; for if they were published all in one
week, of even in two, it would be a contravention of
the Act, an,..1 he measure could not pass even the
standing orders. The last day for their appearance is
the 30th November, isnd on that night the plans of
every measure proposed to be brought forward in the
ensuing session must be derreeited with the Board of
Trade in Parliament Street. For some years
past there has been a perceptible diminution
in the number of new enterprises. Capitalists
are timid and hesitating, and are afraid to venture
upon projects where their money may be locked
up a long time before it brings in any return. In
the session which immediately preceded the last great
financial collapse-1866--there were 595 private bills
before the House of Commons, and in order to get
through with them the number of members on com-
mittees had to be reduced from five to four. There
is no such inconvenience now; and parliamentary
agents, counsel, contractors, surveyors, and labourers
would be glad to see one half of that nurabor,_or, even

a third of it, Commercial paralysis and industrial
blight are not favourable to the development of
capital, the spread of enterprise, or the employment
of labour; but the sky is not always grey, nor do the
clouds which overcast it continue for ever.
The election of a new President of the Royal
Acalerny is an event of much interest in the world of
art. The Academy is not so old as some other of our
institutions, for its first exhibition was not held until
1763, but it has made a rapid advance both in dignity
and importance. The example set by George 111.
when he knighted its first President, Sir Joshua Rey-
nolds, has since been followed in every case, and Mr.
Frederick Leighton, who has been chosen as Sir
Francis Grants successor, will receive the customary
honour at the hands of her Majesty. To be a
Royal Academician—one of the forty best painters
or sculptors in England—is a distinction aimed
at by many, but from the limited number
attained by comparatively few. The annual
banquet which precedes the opening of the Academy
exhibition, is remarkable for the brilliant company
which is brought together—royal princes, Cabinet
ministers, high dignitaries in the Church, poets and
novelists, philosophers and statesmen, The very best
speech that Charles Dickens ever made was delivered
at an Academy banquet, only six weeks before he
died. Dickens then mourned for Maclise, who had
passed away only a few weeks previously, neither the
bright speaker himself, nor those who listened to him,
thinking for one moment that in another month he
too would be &ailed to his rest, and that the bon-
drawn aisles of Westminster Abbey would so soon
protect the coffined sleep of that fec tile brain.