The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-11-26 00:00:00

tut Fonboit Couts,,Aubmt.

[We deem it right to state that we do not at all thlf•
Identify ourselves with our Correspondent's opin:,,us.

The Birthday Book which has been designed by
Princess Beatrice is one of the most favourite presen-

tation volumes yet produced during the present
season. The fact that it contains fifteen illustrations
all from the pencil cf her Royal Highness materially
enhances its interest in the eyes of the public, and
*;hows that like her elder sister Princess Louise,
Marchioness of Lorne, she is an artist of very re-
_ _

pectable merits. The price of the book is two
guineas; but if the publishers had asked five, there
is little doubt that sum would have been willingly

given. The preparation of this Birthday Book has
served to beguile many a leisure hour at Windsor,
Osborne, or Balmoral, where the Queen's youngest

daughter is the constant companion of her Royal
mother. There are monotonous seasons in high as well

as in middle and humble life ; and the tedium of at-
tendance at court ceremonials has, it may well be as-
sured, been agreeably relieved by the time devoted to
this work, the proceeds of which are devoted to the cause
of charity and benevolence. One day laat week her
Royal Highness forwarded to one Lendon Hospital
alone the sum of £4OO out of the profits upon her

Birthday Book.
The time of year has again come round when the
columns of the newspapers are filled with advertise-
ments giving notice of intended applications to Parlia-
ment for private bills in the next session. In the
case of public bills the only notice required is that
given by the membe in charge of the measure after
the House has assembled, in this form —" Mr.

Speaker, 1 beg to give notice that on Monday next
I shall move for leave to bring in a bill to amend

the laws relating to the representation of the people
in England and Wales." That is all; and it is within
the competence of the House to refuse sr to assent to
the introduction. But the perils attending private
Bill legislation are even greater than those surround-
ing public Bills, inasmuch as these preliminary notices
Luetcrially multiply the etas,oe end inoreauo the ehantsee
of failure. The advertisements must be inserted on
specified days, and must quote precisely the sections
of the statutes with which it is proposed to interfere ;
the notices must be at the Board of Trade by eight
o'clock in the evening of the 30th November ; it is
essential that the plans should be deposited by the
23rd December; and after Christmas every private
Bill has to pass the ordeal of the standing orders
before the examiners. With BO many conditions, to be
fulfilled even before Parliament meets at all, the
utmost care and exactitude have to be taken in all the
preparations for priyate Bill legislation.
The night of the 30th of November at theßoard of
Trade is now very different from what it was in the
early years of railway enterprise in this country.
Many amongst us can even now remember the mania
of 1845, when vast sums of money were made and
lost in railway speculations. Indeed it was a time
which no one who experienced it ever can forget. The
closing days of November in that year made up one of
the most hurried and desperate weeks ever known in
railway history, and on the 30th plans were lodged at
the Board of Trade which brought up the total number
of schemes to 788. A large establishment of clerks
was in attendance to register the deposits; but to-
wards midnight the deliveries became BO rapid that

they were unable to keep pace with the work. The

entrance had become inconveniently crowded, and a
general fear prevailed that the necessary formalities
would not be got thraugh before twelve o'clock; this,
however, was allayed by an assurance that admission
into the hall before that hour would be sufficient to
warrant the reception of the documents. Arrivals in
hot haste from various parts of the country took place
until the last moment ; and even after the door was
shut two or three parties sought to project their
plans into the building, but had them thrown back
into the street.

One of the Bills of which notice has now been given

embodies a scheme which if carried out would effect a
wonderful improvernrint in London. It is nothing
less than a Boulevard which would make the circuit of
the metropolis at an average distance from St. Paul's
of five miles east anEl west, narrowing to four miles
north and south, thus passing through a network of

suburbs to the length of about twenty-five miles
East and ncrth it would cover respectively Poplar,
Clapton, Hampstead, and Kensal New Town, then
westward to Hammersmith, where the Thames would
be crossed, then southward to Clapham and Peck-
ham, the new boulevard would take a south-
easterly cpurse to Greenwich, consisting all the
way of a broad thoroughfare ornamented with
trees between the pathways and the pavement. A
tramway, to be worked either with steam or electric
motive power, adds utility to the projects and increases
the chances of its twin; remunerative. Another
sourca from which share.aolders would look for a
r.turn would be the sale of frontages on the new road.
At present the districts to be traversed by the pro-
posed boulevard contain a population of over a million.

Just now there is a house for sale in Kensington
Gardens surrounded by associations of wide historical
interest on both sides of the Atlantic. It is a
little red brick structure, with two rows of windows,
and an added billiard-room on one side. In front
there is a little green, with a central walk; and
twenty years ago that was often traversed by a
tall stout man with massive head. That was the
late William Makepeace Thackery, and was built
after his own designs out of the sale of one of his
best-known works, "Philip." Thackeray was a great
admirer of Kensington, and in his lifetime was only
too delighted to gather in this little house some of the
best-known literary celebrities in London. Dickens,
John Forster, Shirley Brooks, Mark Lemon, and
Douglas Jerrold were all amongst those who occa-
sionally speat an evening under Thackeray's roof, and
not one of whom now survives. Very near this little
red two-storey domicile, in which both Thackeray and
John Forster died, is Young-street, where, there is
very little doubt, "Vanity Fair" was written. It
scarcely seems eighteen years since the great satirist
was called to his rest; and yet it was on the morning
of Christmas Eve, 1863, that England heard that
Thackeray was dead.
The suspended negotiations in respect of the French
Treaty have given some interest to the statistics
showing the consumption of the light wines of France
in this country. The Treaty has been in force nearly
22 years, a period which enables the formation of a
tolerably correct judgment as to whether England is
likely to become a wine-consuming hind. In 1859,
the year before the Treaty, the quantity of French
wine consumed here was 695,000 gallons, while in 1880
our consumption amounted to 6,986,000 gallons.
The quantity had thus increased nearly tenfold.
On the other hand, eleven and ten million gallons
of beer and forty million gallons of spirits are
annually consumed in the United Kingdom,
while, inclusive of the wines of France, our yearly
consumption of wines of every kind hardly ex-
ceeds sixteen million gallons. Claret can be bought
in London quite as cheaply as in Paris or in any of
the large towns of France; yet although it is but a
rifle more expensive than good ale or stout, the lower
and lower middle classes have never taken to it ;
while the upper and upper middle classes increasingly
prefer the light wines of France to the heavy and full-
bodied vintages of other countries. The consumption
of beer in England is twenty-five gallons per head of
the population annually, and of wine in France fifteen
gallons per head.
Those who are sufficiently adventurous to ascend to the
top of the monument, or better still, to the cross of St.
loolcupon asceneona fine day thelikeof which is
presented to the huma n human eye in no other city in the
world. The winding Thames presents the appearance of a
tangled skein, the enormous multitude of vehicles in
the streets seems scarcely to move, so great is the
distance and so giddy the height at which the spec-
tator stands, while the people look like ants or
other diminutive insects. Now, in the great cities of
America traffic is made easy in all directions by the
manner in which the thoroughfares runs straight from
end to end of the town, crossing each other at right
angles. But in London for the most part—and this
eature is especially observable from the Monument or
St. Paul's—the streets are without arrangement, which
is not to be wondered at seeing the divided jurisdic-
tions and the conflicting interests which from time to
time have exercised influence in the capital. After
the great fire of 1666, when Sir Christopher Wren
received a commission to prepare plane for a new
Cathedral, he was also instructed to draw up a scheme
of re-construction for the City, which was of a most com-
prehensive character, and which, if carried out, would
have given London a far more symmetrical appearance
than it presents to-day from the cross of his cathe.dral.
But its execution would have taken more time and
more money than the citizens could then afford, and
the result is seen in the want of uniformity which
characterises the arrangement of the London streets
to-day.
A mild winter is predicted, and from a cause which
at first migtit not appear obvious. The unusual
severity of the weather last year seems to have
added to the vast quantities of ice in the Polar regions
to such an extent that the power of the sun, during
the brief Arctic summer, has been insufficient to pro-
duce much impression upper it. Consequently the great
body of intensely cold water in the immediate neigh-
bourhool of the North Pole, which would otherwise
have been let loose, remains where it is, and is thus
prevented from permeating the warmer depths of the
southerm sea. One remarkable fact in support of this
theory is that nothing has for a long time been seen of
floating loeberge in the Atlantic, These inexorable