The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-08-08 00:00:00

TALLOW.

a. d. C d.
Town Tallow, per cwt. 39 0 Rough Stuff, per cwt. 14 9
Rough rat. per Bibs .. 1 9 Graves „ 19 0
Melted Stuff, per cwt. 29 0 Good Dregs „ 6 0
Yellow Ituotu. Oew .113 egl. per cwt.
Ditto ditto old .... 00a. „
Au3tralian Mutton Tallow 40a. 9eL „
Ditto Beef Ditto 39& Od. „
MAY.

WEITECIIAPEL, Saturday, Aug. 1.--With a short supply of
hay and straw on sal; trade at this market has been brisk at
ths following rates. Prime clover. juts. to 120 a ; inferior,
7!"e. to 15s. Yrinte meadow hay, A/s. to 1063. Ott. ; interior
Wk. W ; glad Straw, Ws. With. par lout

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_ . • ;RIDGE OBSERVER.

lion in the /din of the Commons amendment, to get rid of
that, which bore somewhat of an invidious appearance in
allowing an appeal after the Bishop had actually declared his
opinion.
The amendment was opposed by the Bishop of Oxford, and
by Lord Batherley, who at the same time said that he
greatly deplored the insertion of the Comm( ns' amendment,
which expressed distrust of the Episcopal Bench ; and Lord
Salisbury thought that the Lord Chancellor's amendment
made the matter worse than before. .

...-
The Lord Chancellor, perceiving that his amendment had
not been received with the favour he had anticipated, with-
drew it, and the House divided on the Commons' amend-
ment, which was disagreed from by 44 votes against 32.

Clause C, relating to College Chapels, was, on the motion
of the Bishop of Ozford. disagreed from after which the
rest of the Commons' amendments were gone through, and
the other business being disposed of, their lordships ad-
journed.

which we now comprehend under the name of gases I
was entirely unsuspected. Immediately at the com-
mencement of the second half of the last century,
about the year 1755, a most remarkable man, a young
Scotch doctor, Dr. Black, bad made investigations
into the nature of what was called fixed air, and
he had shown that this substance could be combined
with such matter as limes, and such as alkalies, and
could be got out again from them by combustion;
that it was an acid substance, capable of neutralis-
ing the strongest alkali, and that this paved the
way for an air-like body, an aeriform elastic sub-
stance, which would play the part of an in-
dependent existence totally distinct from common
air. Then a little later, in 1766, Henry Cavendish,
one of the most remarkable men who adorned the
science of this or any other country, in his researches
showed the nature of sundry other gases. Shortly
after Cavendish, Priestleycommenced his inquiries, and
scaled the walls of science, without preparation and
from the outside. The number of discoveries he made
was something marvellous, and without limit. He
trebled the number of gases known More his time,
and gave a precision and definition to our knowledge
of their character of which no one before had any
knowledge. It was on the Ist of August, 1774, that
he made that discovery with which his name is more
especially connected. His discovery was taken up
and enlarged by other persons, notably Lavoisier,
the French chemist, who shabbily ignored Priestley's
discovery. The speaker then proceeded to consider
Priestley's philosophical work, and after saying that
there were many things he should have liked to speak
about, be referred to Priestley's contributions to
pditim, which he said were in themselves exceedingly
remarkable. He constantly found observation made
by English political writers that the French were
persons necessarily incompetent to govern themselves,
I because ever since the year 1789 they had been in a
state of chronic revolution. But those Englishmen
who would recollect that the Long Parliament began
in 1640, and that the last Stuart Rebellion was in
1745—a period of 105 years—might be inclined to doubt
whether even a much longer period of political struggle
than that which had been passed through by France
was the slightest indication that the people were not
able to govern themselves efficiently. Priestley and the
men who believed with him had, if the laws were
put in force, no civil rights, or at least none that
were worth having 'by any man who valued civil
rights. His preaching was a crime, and every Sunday
during which he abetained from going to a service
which he abhorred he could have been visited by fine
and imprisonment. As to the material condition of
the country, he need not tell them it .was a time
when no man dared make a journey without being
armed ; when it took several days to get from Bir-
mingham to London, and canals were an invention the
utility of which was greatly doubted. Although they
might have a certain difficulty in holding, as Priestley
did, the ultimate perfe Aibility of mankind, he conf awned,
for his own part, he should be very glad to hold that
doctrine, but, unfortunately, the physicallideas which
were poured into him from other quarters would very
much interfere with his enjoyment of it if he did hold
it. They perceived that the earth was cooling very
slowly ; and if they compared the cooling of the earth
with therate of progress of mankind, the cooling was BO j
much more rapid than the progress, that he was afraid
their perfect man, if they were ever to have him,
would be only a perfect son of Esqtumaux. But the
question was whether any man by vigorous endeavour
could make the world a little better than be found it.
(Applause.) Now, looking at the perfect state of
affairs in this nineteenth century as compared with the
eighteenth, he did not think it could be denied that
this state of things was distinctly, in many obvious
respects, far better than that. (Hear, hear.) In con-
clusion, Professor Huxley proceeded to point out where
Priestley's value lay. It lay, he said, exactly in this—
that he was the exponent of all those tendencies which
had brought about the present state of things, and
that in all respects, and on all occasions, he was the
, champion of free thought.

•
The Mayor expressed his pleasure in completing his
formal acceptance on behalf of the town of the statue
they had just seen unveiled, and he esteemed it a
singular privilege to receive at the hands of Professor
Huxley this monument of a great and worthy man.
They had now statues of Watt and Priestley, as repre-
senting science, Attwood as one of their greatest poli-
tical leaders, and Sturge as one of their most noble-
minded men (applause) ; and he hoped before long they
might add to the list statues of liaskerville and Mathew
Bolton as representing the higher spirit of commercial
enterprise. He then proposed to contrast the condi-
tion of the town in Pnestley's time as regarded insti-
tutions for learning with what it was now, and
expressed his regret that no provision was made and
no aid given by the State for the encouragements of
original research.

Mr. George Dawson commented on the absence of
representatives of the Church of England from the
gathering, and observed that it was a poor record to
read in the local history of the Church that 100 years
after the discoveries made by Priestley, not one of its
members found it possible to come that day and do
honour to the man who made them.

On the motion of Mr. S. Timmins, a vote of thanks
to Professor Huxley for his address was carried by ac•
damation and the proceedings terminated.
A luncheon afterwards was held at the Great
Western Hotel to which 150 ladies and gentlemen sat
down.