The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-07-24 00:00:00

TEE STOURBRIDGE OBSERVERA

A CITY SAFE.

In London, one of the most remarkable buildings ever
completed, or even conjectured, WM opened afew days since,
the following description of which is from the City Press :

The solid-looking building standing on the triangular
piece of ground on the west of the Mansion House,
that for so long was hemned in with a high hoarding
covered with gaily coloured posters, is now opened as
a gigantic safe, where much of the vast wealth of the
City will doubtless be deposited. To the visitor who
is condleted through the subterranean passages and
alleys underneath that triangular building, and
to whom is explained the intricate ramifications
and extreme solidity of the structure, it ceases to be
a wonder that the building has been some time
before completion, but the wonder seems how it
was possible to complete it at all. The National
Safe Deposit Company at present will only
occupy the ground floor and the series of vaults under-
neath, the upper floors being entirely distinct and in-
tended to be let as offices. The building stands on an
estimated area of 6,500 superficial feet. Excavations
to the extent of 50 feet in depth were made, and a solid
wall, three feet in thickness, composed of hard blue'
Staffordshire brick, with an interior coating of fire
bricks, lined with 4-inch armour plating, enclosing the
safe. Within this 50-feet excavation were built four
floors, with inner dividing walls of two feet in thick-
ness composed of brick, similarly lined with iron.
Under the vaults is a reservoir with seven feet of
water, which can be utilised in case of fire by means
of hydrallic machinery, and, if necessary, sent up in
a flood to a gigantic tank on the top of the building.

-
We shall probably give our readers a better idea of
the building and its marvels if we ask them to accom-
pany us, and enter at the main entrance facing the
Mansion House. We see several private offices for
the officials on our right, and notice that the manager's
private office is doubly guarded by extra doors, &c.,
the particulars of which we will explain presently.
On the left also are a series of compartments, but in
the centre as the one for the entrance of the depositors
or their accredited servants to the safe below. Upon
satisfactory evidence that the right man is about his
proper work, the turnstile is unlocked, and we are
conducted by an official of the company to our own
eompartment of this gigantic safe. We descend a
broad circular staircase, and by the dim light through
the gratings; and the necessary additional light of gas,
we know that we are already underground. Here are a
number of small compartments fitted up as desks and
boxed in, so that after we have proceeded to our own
portion of the safe, we may have leisure to examine
or detach portion of our treasure. Through an aper-
ture in the three-feet wall we emerge into a passage
or gallery, where we perceive lights with reflectors
at stated distances. Opposite these lights are iron-
barred doors, through which the reflected lights shine,
and discover numberless " safes " of various dimensions
in alleys, all of which safes are numbered and closed,
ranging on either side. There are eight of these " strong-
rooms " on each of the four floors, with corresponding
private offices for the use of the depositors. All the
safes are about two feet in depth, and contain iron
trays for the convenience of removing papers, jewels,
&c. They vary in size from about six inches to two feet
square, and vary in price per annum from 50s. to £3O.
There are 672 safes, of various sizes, in each strong-
room; and there are, as before stated, eight strong-
rooms on each floor. Each safe is provided with dis-
tinct keys, different from all the other keys. The safes
are all of Miler's manufacture, and each safe is divided
by iron partitions. No one is permitted to open a
safe under any pretence, except in the presence of an
officer of the company. At night each of these rooms
is secured by 12-inch steel doors weighing four tons
each. These are moved by hydraulic pressure into
grooves, and have a constant pressure on them of 160
tens, and the passages are patrolled night and day
by watchmen formidably armed. It is said that these
doors have been tested by the most skilled experts
in mechanics, but they retired from the em-
bed discomfiltd. It is impossible to open lbws
except by a similar process to that which closed
them. At present, the second floor is the only one
completely fitted. The under vaults are open for all
kinds of valuable property. On the lower floor
without the building are the various engines which
keep the atmosphere wholesome by pumping out the
vitiated and pumping in the fresh air, and also to send
up a volume of water at a minute's notice. All the
machinery is in duplicate, in case of any mishap, and,
it seems to us, so far as human ingenuity and endeavour
can possibly lead men to secure security, it has been
accomplished in this case. It might be thought that,
although all this care and skill has been expended in
defying burglars and fire, there has been no thought of
the possible treachery within doors. Even this has been
thought of, and, to a certain extent, prevented. In the
manager's room is a piece of machinery which can
either close or open the ponderous doors where the trea-
sures are to be stowed. Without a certain key, applied
to this simple bit of mechanism, nothing short of a
Prussian army could open those tight-fitting, obstinate
doors leading to the strong room. The engineer can-
not effectively set his steam to work without the given
consent of the manager or his accredited agent.
Throughout it appears that the greatest pains have
been taken to ensure "security," from whatever source
attack might possibly come. Doubtless the free-
holders of that triangular portion of City land know
full well what they possess, for its area the most valu-
able little slice that there is in the world, the rental
being estimated at £15,000, exclusive of rates and
taxes. It is not beyond conjecture that within that
6,500 superficial feet of City land there will be trea-
sures to an amount that an empire could not purchase.

place a semblance of this great spirit, so that the
English people when they pass shall recognise one of
the greatest masters of the English language. (Loud
cheers.)

EArl Sto.nhope' upon whom the chairman called, said
that in moving the resolution which had been placed
in his hands he was sure he only expressed the unani-
mous feelings of every one present when he said that
they were extremely grateful to the Prime Minister
for having so kindly joined them upon that most in-
teresting occasion. That he should have withdrawn
himself for a brief interval from the anxious cares of
State, and from his arduous and continuous labours in
the House of Commons was in itself no slight, tribute
to the genius of Byron, though no less a tribute could
have been expected from the brilliant author of
"Venetia." (Cheers.) The resolution which he was
asked to submit to the meeting ran thus :
"That an appeal be made to the public for funds to assist
in carrying out the proposal of the Byron Memorial Com-
mittee to act a statue to the memory of the poet in same
conspicuo place in the metropolis.'

(Cheers.) He believed that proposition would express
the feelings of them all, and that they might safely
leave the details to the judgment and good taste of the
Committee, in the hope, as Mr. Disraeli felicitously
said, that before long, "a semblance of that great
spirit" might be seen in some notable and conspicuous
spot in England's capital. He hoped they would be
unanimous in that proposal. The first idea, which had
now been withdrawn, was to raise a fund for the ereo-
tion of a national memorial of the Poet in Hucknall
Torkard Church, where he lay buried. He thought
that it had not been sufficiently borne in mind that
there already existed in that church a monument to
Lord Byron, erected by the Hon. Mrs. Leigh, his
sister, and he believed he was right in saying that no
two monuments to the same person ever found place in
the same church. Besides, no monument in a remote.
and small village church could be appropriately des-
cribed as a national memorial of the Poet. (Cheers.)
They desired that a statue of Lord Byron should be
raised in some conspicuous place in the metropolis to
arrest the attention and excite the reverence of all who
passed by, and such a memorial would, he thought, be
the best suited to the object which they had in view.
In Byron's own words, in "The Giaour," it might be
said hereafter--

'There points thy Muse to stranger's eye
The graves of those that cannot die '?"
(Sheers.) Though the grave contained all that was
left of the noble Poet, his was a fame which could not
die, and succeeding ages would only add and increase
it. He trusted the chairman would pardon him aif he
expressed the hope that Her Majesty's Government
would give the yery best site in the metropolis for the
Byron Memorial. (Cheers.) It was he added, not
meant by those proceedings to deny that the character
of Byron had many faults and that his poems contained
many blemishes, but after the lapse of so many years
those blemishes and faults receded to the far distance,
leaving only his virtues 'and his merits conspicuous.
(Cheers.) He had great pleasure in moving the resolu-
tion.

The Earl of Rosalyn said he had been unexpectedly
requested to second the proposition of his noble friend,
and he felt some diffidence• in doing so in the prqkance
of men so eminent in literature as Mr. Disraeli, Lord
Stanhope, and Lord Houghton. He thought they
had been most fortunate that day in having the praise
of their great poet told them by one who, like Lord
Byron, was a perfect master of the English language.
Even after a lapse of half a century it was something
of which to be proud that the vindication of the public
character of an illustrious Englishman had fallen into
nb less illustrious hands. (Cheers.) The country
owed a debt of fifty years' standing for its forgetful-
ness of the merits of one among its greatest poets; and
if that debt was not worthily paid they, as English-
men, would be doing an injustice to their own feelings
and to their national character. A lapse of half a cen-
tury might well condone all Byron's faults without
obstructing the formation of a true estimate of his
literary merits. Byron, he believed, had said many
things which he did not mean, and which were con-
trary to his own generous nature; and one thing in
which, perhaps, he might not have been serious was
his desire to be forgotten. On the contrary, he
seemed to think that the day would come when his
claims would be recognised by his fellow-countrymen.
As he himself said in " Childe Harold,"—
"But I have lived, and have not lived in vain;
My mind may lose its force, my blood its tire,
And my frame perish even is conquering pain;
But there is that within me which shall tire
Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire;
Something unearthly, which they deem not of,
Like the remember'd tone of a mute lyre,
Shall on their soften'd spirits sink, and move
In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love."
(Cheers.)
The motion was then put and carried unanimously,
amid much cheering.
Mr. Sala said he had no wish to intrude one moment
more than was necessary on the valuable time of the
Chairman, or by making a speech of multiplying
words to darken counsel; but as an early member of
the Byron Memorial Committee he desired to state
something in vindication of their original plan, which
they had now cheerfully abandoned. While in Italy
last year he was asked by the hon. secretary, Mr.
Edgcumbe, to join the committee, and he did so,
not because he found upon it the names of Lord Love-
lace and Lord Houghton, for noblesse oblige, or those
of many literarary confreres, but because he thought he
saw upon that subject a desire for increased charity,
toleration, and peace, and for that better half of
memory which consigned to oblivion the faults and
frailties of the dead, and which only remembered their
genius and their virtues. (Hear.) The Committee
had simply wished to lay a plain marble slab in the.
church of Hucknall Torkard, to point out to the pil-
grim—for many a pilgrim went there from all parts of
the world—the spot where Byron lay. It had been
said that they intended to insult the poet's memory by
putting upon the stone a pompous inscription, and by
interfering with the touching memorial which Mrs.
Leigh had, out of her sisterly affection, caused to be
erected. But that was not so. The slab would only
have upon it the simple word, "Byron," for, as he had
said, "my epitaph shall be my name alone." He took
up the gauntlet which Lord Stanhope had thrown
down to give an instance of two monuments to the
same person in the same church; and he pointed in
reply to the church of Stratford-upon-Avon and to the
two memorials there of Shakespeare. (Lord Stanhope
said he did not call a mere gravestone a monument.)
At all events, their project had been cheerfully relin-
quished, and they were ready to exult over Elie pros-
pect of having a national monument to Lord Byron in
that metropolis. They, however, would claim for
themselves the credit of having prepared the way for
greater and wiser counsels. (Hear, hear.)

Mr. Wheatley called attention to the dilapidated
state of the Byron memorials at Harrow, and sug-
gested that some part of the funds should be expended
in restoring them._ _ _

The Earl of Malmeebury then, in cordial terms,
proposed a vote of thanks to Mr. Disraeli for pre-
siding.
The Earl of Lovelace (Lord Byron's son-in-law),
who was indistinctly heard, said, in seconding the
resolution, he could not find words to express the deep
gratification with which he had listened to all that had
occurred that day. What his great friend and con-
temporary Sir Walter Scott had accomplished for the
Highlands and Lowlands of Sootlan.d by that descrip-
tive invention which he had diffused throughout his
writings, the author of "Childs Harold," by his in-
spired poetry, by his energies, and by the premature
sacrifice of his life, had effected for the more classic
lands of. the South. He had invested with an addi-
tional charm that Greek and Roman story in which
many there that day were conversant, not only by
his brilliant versification, but by his spirited allu-
sions to generations of men long gone by. The
fire, spirit, and influence which he breathed into
the two nations of the Peninsula had in a great
degree enabled them to regain their liberty and
emerge into freedom. (Hear, hear.) Even in those
countries where he could be but imperfectly read,
and only understood by means of inadequate transla-
tions, he was felt by the people to be one of themselves,
both in heart and in aspiration. Wherever the Anglo-
Saxon tongue was spoken..-in England's colonies and
dependencies, and in the North American States—his
works and his writings were almost as popular as in
his own native land. Lord Lovelaoe felt that the suc-
cess of the scheme which had been adopted by the
meeting was insured in a great measure by the presence
of the Prime Minister. He like Lord Byron, owed
his success to literature; and while both were mem-
bers of the Legislature, the one devoted himself exclu-
sively to the Muses from which they derived so much
of their enjoyment and charm, and the other had
caused the rising generation to forget the author in
the statesman. (Cheers.) He was confident that the
sympathy shown in that room would be more than
responded to by the public out of doors, and that the
result would not only be gratifying to the family and
relations of Lord Byron and commensurate with the
objects the meeting had in view, but worthy of the
country which had produced the poet and which still
cherished the creations of his genius. (Cheers.)
The vote of thanks to the chairmala was carried with
enthusiasm, and Mr. Disraeli, in reply, said be
thanked them for the great honour they had done
him.
General J. Grant Wilson, of New York, whom the
chairman introduced to the meeting, said he and his
countrymen claimed a share in Byron, and, therefore,
a right to contribute very considerably towards the
expenses of the proposed statue. He was told the
memorial would cost £2,000, but whatever it was, he
pledged his fellow-countrymen to subscribe one quarter
of the amount. (Cheers.)
M. Neocles G. Mussabini, a Greek, expressed the
interest he took in the scheme, and mentioned that the
Greeks, under the leadership of M. Tricoupi, the Prime
Minister had subscribed £BOO towards the erection of a
statue of Lord Byron at Missolonghi.
Mr. Disraeli announced that subscriptions might be
paid into Messrs. Drummonds to the credit of the
Byron Memorial Fund. With that the proceedings,
which had been very enthusiastic, came to a close.

upon the unstatesmanlike ideas of faith, hope and
charity, that have generally been held to constitute
the real danger of society. When these things have
been found to answer, or even to do no perceptible
harm, it is a miracle, perhaps more than is deserved.
Twenty-nine years ago we were on the brink of ruin.
Foremost, on the very edge of the precipice, and all
but toppling over, was agriculture, with its noble super-
structure of the landed gentry, the Established Church,
and whatever claims respect for its antiquity and un-
changeableness. The danger was not that millions
were starving, at the point of death or expatriation, or
that our own labourers were dissatisfied, as well as ig-
norant and pauperised. These things could be survived
or endured. Famines are forgotten; to miseries and
baseness men become habituated. About the
time we speak of the labourers in the Eastern
Counties and some other districts had been waging
war with civilization and their own best interests
by destroying machinery and burning ricks and
homesteads upon some indefinite notion that this
was the way to higher wages or more• consideration.
But all this was nothing to Free Trade. That was the
impending avalanche, the volcano, or more destructive
deluge. It was deemed impossible the British farmer,
with his many barlens and close surroundings, ham-
pered, tied hands and feet, strained at every sinew and
drained at every pore, could compete with the foreigner,
whether the Norman peasant just opposite our shores,
or the Russian serf three thousand miles off, or
the American settler in the heart of his vast
continent. Whatever a farmer put his hand to
he was equally sure to be beaten now that all the
world was on his back. Wheat, barley, oats, cattle,
sheep,
.horses, pigs, butter, cheese, vegetables, fruit,
meat, hve or dead, fresh, pickled, or preserved—it was
all the game, for the odds were all the world to the
crowded inhabitants of a small isle, groaning under
taxes and restraints unknown, it was supposed, to more
favoured climes or to freer institutions. So bound up
did Protection seem with all our institutions and the
entire social system, that everybody must be ruined by
a process which primar,ily land simply, was the multi-
plying, facilitating, and cheapening the supply of food.
As profit on home agriculture must disappear, so also
must all who depended on it, including the free
labourer. All wbuld be pauperised, for poverty, of
course, would still have its legal rights and claim its
dues. But the peasantry itself would be a loser when
land could no longer be cultivated with profit. What
really threatened the country was that it would be
covered with manufactories to supply with calico,
hardware, crockery, and other goods, the more for-
tunate nations of the world still cultivating their soil
or tending their flocks and herds.
Now, what is it that we have seen at Taunton, and
that thousands have been flocking up to see from the
primitive dairy farms of the West? We have seen
many things that only a few years ago were regarded
as costly and unprofitable curiosities. Men of fortune,
with a turn for science, looked at them as others of
their rank looked on pictures or race-horses—as toys
proper to their condition' in which they might be al-
lowed to indulge. In this day a much better class of
machines—better in make as well as design—are
minutely and scientifically scanned by people who
have really to depend upon farming—who know it
to be a matter of close calculation, yet capable of
yielding a good livelihood to those who will apply
their whole attention to it. Strange indeed is it to
see exceedingly plain agriculturists, not always easily
distinguishable from their own better class of labour-
ers, giving a minute inspection to a long line of
machines, armed each with a wonderful apparatus of
shares, knives, scissors, or hooks, all intended to en-
able one man and one horse to do the work of two or
three. They will think a visit to the Show very ill-
spent if they do not make a purchase or two, more or
less experimental; and they are pretty sure to find it
the object of jealous comparison on its arrival in the
parish. They will shortly find they have to lend it, or
let it on hire; and, as they go on, they find that wealth
in machines, instruments, and tools is even better than
wealth in money and lands, because more to be depended
on and more directly available. There never was a sea-
son more calculated to bring out this disagreeably to
some people. It avails not to have the best land in
the parish, the best supply of water trickling through
the roots of the growing grass; it avails not to have
manured the ground as far as it will bear; it avails no
even to have the money for the payment of wages at a
high harvest rate; it avails not even to have several
fine days coming at odd times, if the employer have
not the machines ready to utilize the precarious sun-
shine and snatch a prey from the elements. Machines
are the artillery of agricultural warfare in these days;
there is no doing without them. We have heard of a
gentleman with a dozen or two acres of park-like mea-
dow about his house finding that not a labourer was to
be got in the nick of time. Carriages and carriage
horses he had, and that was all, for he had not thought
it necessary to encumber himself with dead stock.
Neither machines nor waggons were to be hired. So
what did he do but turn out his entire house-
hold, and make everybody do what he could. Then,
by the aid of some light carts, he managed to get in
his hay as soon as his neighbours. But what was his
case, and what he could well bear, has been this season
the case of every small and poor farmer not properly
equipped with machines for the economy of labour
The large farmer' with a whole arsenal of machines,
makes the profit, for he commands the elements them-
selves. Like the steamship as contrasted with the
sailing vessel, he can work against the currents, the
winds, and the waves, simply by doing the most in the
least time and making the utmost of his opportunities,
be they ever so rare.
The labourers see all this, and recognise the provi-
dential place of mechanism. They like to see work
well done, and grieve over drowned lands, starved soil,
and ruined crops quite as much as their masters do.
They are proud of a good machine; they feel honoured
in being intrusted with its management, and know
they have a common interest in its well working. We
all know how proud they are of a good team of horses
or of a farm in good condition, and such is the pride
they feel in the new machines which sentimental
people once thought the ruin of old-fashioned hus-
bandry. They are as proud, too, of the best breeds of
cattle and sheep. There is a good deal of prejudice in
our Western dairy districts against the almost mon-
strous proportions to which high feeding brings the
beautiful creatures subjected to the experiment It is
a common saying there that it costs more to make one
of these wonderful objects than it would to feed two
to more useful proportions. But all classes, down to
the labourer, go from shed to shed, and pen to pen,
asking eagerly for the prize animal exhibited by the
squire, the neighbouring baronet, or the county mem-
ber, and quite entering into the theory that this is the
way good meat is made and the profitable varieties are
found out. This, belt observed, is nearly a whole
generation after that dread epoch from which we
were to date the utter rain of agriculture and of all
good old industries, the decay of men and wealth,
the separation and extinction of class after class,
and the final downfall of this country—when true
manliness itself would be gone, and nothing would
remain but machinery, chimneys, and pale artisans.
If there be any drawback, it is the working man
everywhere, whether in town or in country, getting
the whip hand of the employer. We have never
grudged the sons of labour their dear-bought
victories. All weeadvise them is to use their giant
strength gently and wisely. But such is the state of
thines. The game seems for the present in their hands,
and they owe it to two things—Free Trade and Machi-
nery, now as necessary to their own interests as to those
of Capital.