The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-05-10 00:00:00

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C. ,kiv Onrsolcoo ~rith our CorregcmionCe

Visitor.. to the Houses of Parliament, who, having
btaiiied tickets of admiseion from the Lord Chan.-
erlain's office, enter the False: of the Leilislature by
the Victoria Tower, cud leave it by Westminster Hall,
do not see all the places in the vast building which are
intimately easoclated with the daily Parliamentary
life of the session. Ti ey look upon these two eplendid
esoce3 of the late D iei Maclise, repremtiting the
meeting of Wellington end Bin 'her after the Battle ef
NVoterleo, and the last momenta f Nebo* at the me-
morable naval engagement'lf rare Trafalgar ; they
pass into the House of Lords, epee upon the I.,ileled
throne, contemplate the suit wooleadt, eetimate the
number of peers to be acoolumodited on the scarlet
benches; they move. froui tbe Lord'a corridor into the
grand Central Hall, them* by.more !evacuee into the
Ow:m.os Lobb);, and int, the camparatively unpre•
tending seutalive elmtn.r. There they are
shown tl e nents usually occupied by the rival party
leaden., the Spent...ea choir, the poet of the Sergeant-
ro;eive teplanetions concerning the (Ling way,
rnd are conducted into the Division Labia., to often

the scene of ititense political excizentent. Next they
wander ink, the Crypt, end this is alwiys an object of
close inepectien by those who take an tartest in envie-
siastical bistoly. Torre, however, the visit to the
flutters of Parliament ceases, and it is of those parts of
the !Wet, did pile that are not open to the peokle on
Matraday afternoons, of which I now proceed to speak.
A broad fright of steps kading fawn the Central

Hall takes the visitor from the round floor ef the
structure up to what are known as the Committee
ROMP. There they stretch in long corridors, equally
divided between the Lords and the Commons, and im.
nateliately below their windows is the &mad surface of
the Themes. On a fine day the various de-
scripti us of craft upon the river, the stream
of traffic flowing over Westminster Bridge, and the
wharvee, warehouses, and long lines of human habits-
time stretching away upon the Surrey shore, combine
to make up a very animated scene. Just now these
committee rooms are pretty well occupied, for both
branches of C e Legielatnre are actively engaged in
pushing on the larke number of private bill,. brouoht
before Parliament. Some years ego private bill legit.
laden increased to inch a great extent that it wasditfi.
cult to obtain a sufficient number of members to form
the committees, and each committee wag reduced from
tive members to four. They sit at an elliptical table,
the chairman having the central position ; immediately
teeing them are the c earned practising at the parlia-
mentary bar, and behind is standiug accommodation
for the public. Occasionally a question comes before
one of these boolies which is of more than purely local
interest, or an eminent public man is under examine,.
Son, and then the place becomes crowded to excess.
A few days ago Mr. Gladstone was called as a witness
before a committee, to speak as to the merits of a rail.
way scheme then under discussion, and no sooner was
this known in the Palace of Weetrnimeter than the
room was thronged as if by magic, and scores were us.
able to gain admittance.
One of them, private bill committees of the Houma of
Comm( no has been inquiring into the practicability of
a pr jot which hoe been the subject of long debate in
the capital. All of your readers have heard ef, and
many have P-en, the maguificient Thames Embank-
ment, a broad thoroughfare running from Blockfriars
to Westnnineter, and constructed upon land which has
been reclaimed foot the river at tree sole c-st of the
metropolitan ratepayers. I bilieve the expenditure
upon the work has reached the enormous sum of two
millions sterling. Thromehout is length trees have
been planted on the side nearest the Thames, and in
the coin., of a few years the Embankment will have
become one of the hands, meet Boulevards in Europe.
Even now it is the fav urite walk of thousands
of parsons Curir, tl e berg summer evenings. Yet the
Erabankmel t, made at sue h a great experse,
has Lot an,vered the expectations of those who antici-
pated that it would materially relieve the tea ffic between
Chespdele and Trafalgaresquare. The city authorities,
at an immeme cost, have cot a new street leading
from the Mansion House to Blackfriars, and there
meeting the Embankment. Still the latter presents
A the appearance of a deserted roadway. The Metro-
politan Board of Works contend that this is because
there is no outlet to the Embankment for the vast
amount ef traffic which meets at Charing Cross.
Various plans have been suggested for overcorairg the
difficulty, but it has been obvious from the first that
the only successful means of access from Charing
Cross to the Embankment, lay directly through North-
uw` erland House. In the year 1865 an appl'cation
W 443 made to the la.e Duke of Nertlenrnlerlond to Pell
his manciou, in order to rein a new Wee.; through it,
hut hie Grace refused to sell. The Board then applied
to parliament for compulsory powers, but such was the
Duke's influence that the bill had to be withdra an,
The present owner of the title, however, has, after a
protracted negotiation, agreed to sell his historical old
London ps'ace for half a mibion sterling. The new
thoroughfare is to be 1,000 feet long and 80 wide, the
houses are to be of ban& me elevation, and it is con.
fidently expected that the sale of land will recoup all
the outlay involved in the work. The prom sal of the
Board of Works has met wit', some opposition at the
hands of a few gentlemen whi-ee contention is that the
removal of Northumberland House would be a loss to
the architectural beauties of the capital. The House
of Commons' Committee has, however, declared the
preamble of the measure proved, and as the noble
owner throws no obstacle in the way, it may be con.
fidently looked for that the House of Lords wit pass
the bill, and that by making the Embankment a
great artery of London trail", the crowded streets
will be relieved, and one of the purposes for which it
was called into existence will be attained.

Another long-contemplated improvement in London
does not appear to make much i rogreee. For at least
five years ax extensive hoarding has concealed a dreary
waste on the north side tf the Strand, lyirg between
Temple Bar and the chuich of St. Clement Danes.
This lithe eight for the new Law Courier, awl in order
to obtain it the dwellings of several hundred poor
people were cleared away. Little, if anything, has,
however, been done, although the Act of Parliament
authoriming the construction of the building WPEI
passed eight years ago, and a specific thin waa
voted for it. Delay has succeeded delay, and tha
country has been annually loping • large amount
in the interest paid upon the purchase-money of a site
which ha, so long lain vacant. It now appears that
tenders for carrying out the work have been received,
but they all exreAl the Parliamentary eetimate, and
the architect', plow; have therefore been referred bark
to him t ) be cut down, PO that the courte may be
erected at the coot which wits fixed in ISfifi. I mei
not say that the price of materials as well as the rate
of wages has considerably increased since then, no that
the remit of the long-continued waiting will be to give
the public a Palace of Judicature of considerably
smaller dimension, than that which would have
adorned the capital had the erection of the building
been proceeded with at once.
Although the scheme of the Metropolitan Beard of
Worl.s for freeing ouch of the London Bridges m are
now liable to toll has been withdrawn, there is every
reason to believe that other immures will be taken for
securing this long desired reform. The plan proposed
by the Board waa to continue the duties now
levied upon all importa of coal and wine brought
Into London from the present date of their
expiration— ten years hence, but this plan of
proximate taxation wee ohjecte.l to by the Corp
and diecouutemated by the Government. The
Board bad, there'ore, no alternative but to abandon
the bill introduced by them info Parliament for
liberating the bridges through the means which they
suggested. The city authorities have, however, since
taken up the matter, and there is little doubt that
something will he done to make locomotion on
both oides ,4 the river in London quite as free as Wig
solver the &Me in Paris. Let any one, for instance,
contrast the rwhing streim of traffic over new Black-
friars with the dwelled appearance of the next bridge
westward—W derloo. 'I he latter ie a eplendid struc-
ture, level as a plane, and it aught to accommodate a
vat population Of, both banks of the Theme,. Yet
the toll for foot }.aeeeogeri end carriages renders it com-
p Iratively of little service, and birge numbers, from
inability or unail'ingta s, to py the tax, make alone
detour and crus 1 the stream at Westminster or Black-
friars. There is every roman) to believo .hat Waterloo
anuld hourly prerent quite am anima' ed an appear-
ance as either nf th um two brldges, were its toll-bars
removed, and a free thoroughfare opened from the
Strand into the heart of Lambeth.

Those who I.re dieted that the inter et in the rich-
borne case WM exhausted must have b-en und ceived
by the accounts in the newspapers, showing that the
popular excitement, ro far from abating, seems to be
on the increase. So great is the crowd which as-
sembles in Westminster Hall and Palace Yard, that
barriers have been erected to break up the curious
multitude into detached groups, and thus prevent
that rush which is always so dangerous when every
unit in an eager throng simultaneously presses for-
ward and the mass becomes unmanageable. The in-
terest, at any time very great, grew to intensity last
week, when the French witr eases were under ex.
=fixation. One of these, F.ether lele-vre, a yen..
rable-looking ecclesiastic, with hair of snowy white-
ness, and who was formerly young Hager Tichborr.e's
confessor, narrowly escaped maesscre at the bands of
_ _

he Paris Connunnists, two yea', ago this month at the
time when so many unfortunate Domirican friars were
slain In front of the Pantheon.

S very valuable results may be expected from
the researches of Mr. George Smith, of the British
Museum, amongst the mound' which have remained
urolidorbed In Assysia for hundreds, sad even thou-
sands of years. Mr.
_Smith, who has been rent out at

great cost by the Daily Telegraph, has in some excava-
tions near Mosaul, obtained upward of eighty new
Inscriptions bearing date 1,300 years before the Chris-
tian era. Other tablets and meinorials recovered hy
Mr. Smith from the depths of the earth carry the
mind back to the times of Nebuchadnezzar and Darius,
when the grass-grown mounds of to-day were the site
of the great city of Babylon, with its hanging gardens,
its boundary walls of immease extent, atd its hundred
gates of braes. Tht rethey have lain through vichsitudes
extending over 3,000 inane, and are now brought to
light as verifying the truth of those pictucesque Alite
ine,s in the Oil l'estauleut which are as full of intern
now as ',then tie y were that given to the world.

I London is now approaching the briniest part of the
season. The May umetinge command the attention of
the religious and the niallenthrop c ; popular prelates
have as much as they can do between atteeding to
their dthiee in the House of Lorth, and preaching see-
m ms at the principal naetropoliten places of worship
connected with the Church; the more prominent public
men re,dily preside at charitable feetivale ; while
fashionable leitelnn has flocked to the Royal rterdemy
and criticise 1 the works of our most eminent &diets.
The number of pictures rejected from want of room or
lack of merit is placed as high as 3,000, and there is,
consequently, much disappointment in the heart of
many a living painter.
The result of the recent debate in the House of Com-
mons upon the purchase of the Irish Railways by the
state has by no moans iminished the hopes of those
who contend that the railways throughout the kingdom
should be placed undor the control of the Cove nment.
This, however, would mean the dlsosteblishruent ,f
very lore numbers of e fficia's, for, under the preemt
tij stem, it is nothing uncommon to make a j eurney of
no great l-mgth over four or five re-psrate and distinct
systems. Bopp-sing you wish to go from London to
Pere her, a distance of 327 miles, you are carried
over the Great Weetero, Meted and Eater, South
Devon, Cornwall, and West Cornwall liars, each f
course maintaining its own Staff. With the railways
rausferred to the State there would, in all probability,
be one set of offi _late for the entire route, as there is no
Freak of gauge, and, I believe, no change of carriage.
It is evident that a uriferm eyettm of management
would be much more ec monsical, but the disinclina-
tion of the Irish railway cempanies to negotiate for the
sale of their property shows how itrongly the vested
interest upon the d fferent lines would struggle for s If
preeervat