The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-04-16 00:00:00

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(We deem it right to state that we do not at all timel
identify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.

The week which, in the House of Commons, pre-
ee3ded the adjournment for the Easter holidays, was a
theavy one, for no fewer than three great Ministerialist
measures were laid before Parliament—the Budget,
the Irish Land Bill, and the Bankruptcy Bill. So far
:as the Budget is concerned, the taking off the penny
in the income-tax, which was put OR last year for a
temporary and special purpose, had been generally
anticipated; still, it was no less welcome. The fluctua-
tions in this impost have been very remarkable, and there
are scaxcely two years in succession in which the
;amount in the pound is the same. Every Chancellor

4)f the Exchequer finds it of very great service

'in an emergency, seeing that an extra penny
produces not far short of two millions sterling. Even
at cid. it was a penny less than when it was re-imposed
in 1842 in order to sweep away the excisable duties on
hundreds of articles of daily use and consumption.
The country is far more wealthy than it was forty
years ago, and will not grumble at a fivepenny income
tax when it remembers that a sevenpenny one fell
upon a former generation. The business now before
Parliament, including the Corrupt Practices Preven-
tion Bill, the Irish Land Bill, and the Bankruptcy '
Bill, is.. likely to afford ample occupation fore the
remainder of the session.
Since Mr. Gladstone made his Budget speech, in
which, with a vein of humour, he assured the House
that he did not know what spruce was, inquiries have
been made respecting this article, and the informa-
tion thus obtained may be of some use to the heads
of the Revenue Department. Spruce is simply
black beer, often described as Dantzic beer because
the best qualities are made there. Mixed with
hot rum and lemons, it is said to be an excellent
cure for colds. It is a thick liquid of a consist-
ence something like that of treacle, and is really
the essence of the green tops of the black spruce
procured by boiling in water, which is after-
wards concentrated by another boiling without the
tops. The resinous exudation with which the
young shoots of this fir are ooated, are in this way
dissolved in the water. The beer is made by adding
the essence of spruce to water, in which sugar or
aolasses has been dissolved, in the proportion of about
four ounces to ten pounds of sugar, or three quarts of
treacle and ten or eleven gallons of water with about
half a pint of yeast. The beverage can be flavoured
by spices of various kinds; and when properly pre-
pared there is no doubt that it possesses valuable anti-
soorbutic properties.
The opening of a fund at the Mansion House for
;he relief of the sufferers' by the terrible catastrophe
Chio has already met with a liberal response; and
the accounts which continue to come in respecting
this visitation show that 'it was one of the most terrible
orthe century. These fearful calamities have lately
multiplied in number and intensity; and within the
last few months Agram and Ischia, as well as Chin,
have been thus devastated. "Earthquake weather"
in the isles of Greece is described as dull and threaten-
ing, with no rain, and unhappily there has been a great
deal of it in these islands lately. In severity the
aatastrophe at Chic exceeds everything of which we
had previously heard as happening in the archipelago
during our time. Thousands of lives were destroyed,
and the homeless are reekoned by tens of thousands.
There is only one redeeming aspect in.the melancholy
outlook, and that is presented in the active and ready
help which has been evoked on both sides among the
countrymen of the missed population of the island.
Turkey and Greece, unable to agree on the frontier
question, united to send assistance to the people of
the devastated districts: and within a few hours of
the Mansion House Fund being announced in London,
over £lO,OOO was subscribed.
The Lord Privy Seal—au office which has been ren-
dered vacant byathe resignation of the Duke of Argyll,
is the fourth great office of State, and he must of
necessity be a peer and a Cabinet Minister. The
salary attached to the position is £2,000 a year; and
the duties are so light, that during a part of the late
Administration, Lord Beaconsfield combined them
with those of the Premiership. At times there have
been suggestions for the abolition of the post; but the
very lightness of its duties has hitherto been one great
argument for its retention. Its holder is generally a
statesman of high rank in the political party which
happens to be in power, who, not being engrossed in
heavy departmental work, is enabled to give his col-
leagues in the House of Lords valuable assistance in
debate at critical periods. Sometimes a peer is
assigned to this post because of his long experience in
the counsels of his party which lends particular value
to his advice in Cabinet. He would not care for the
heavy duties of a Secretaryship of State, but the
dignified ease of the Privy Seal enables him to give
both counsel and advice to the party with which he
has so long-been connected. The office has been de-
scribed as a sinecure; but there is no doubt that more
than one Prime Minister has found it extremely
nseful in securing the services of a trusted and an
appreciated colleague who could not undertake the
laborious care of a great public, department.
The Easter recess is not likely to be devoted entirely
to holiday-making by our politicians on either side.
The recess arrives in mid-session, and affords members
an opportunity of reviewing the past and fore-
casting the future. Last year Easter week wit-
nessed the opening of the general election, so
that there was no recess a Parliamentary
sense. Now, however, the new :ouse of Commons
is nearly twelve months.old, a• s has settled down
to steady-going work. It has had a longer spell
of duty before Easter than any 4 its modern
predecessors; and although the older members will be
glad of a little rest from the political turmoil which
characterises the course of public life, there are many
who will adjourn the debate from Westminster to the
paovinces. Xhey will not even seek a warmer climate
in the South of France or in Spain; but upon many&
a provincial platform will fight over again the battles'
that have been waged on the floor of the House of
Commons, and in the presence of more appreciative
audiences than that critical assembly.
The University Boat-race seems to have been rowed
this year in the presence of a materially lessened
number of spectators. This was partially attributable
to the fact that it was rowed on a Friday, instead of
on a Saturday as usual. Last year, when this aquatic
contest had to be postponed from Saturday to Monday,
in consequence of a dense fog, there was no appre-
ciable diminution in the concourse of on-lookers; for
Monday, no less tlian Saturday, is a time of holiday
to a considerable extent in London. But Friday
is a very different matter; hence the falling-off.
In some degree, too, there is a perceptible ebbing
away of the public interest in the event, not so much
amongst the youthful portion of the population as in
the ranks of the
.adults. "Our Boys," no doubt, still
watch with eagerness the fluctuating fortunes of our
seats of learning upon the tideway of the river,
although Oxford and Cambridge are to them but geo-
graphical expressions, and they will never go to
College in their lives, and have no acquaintances at
either University. But this is scarcely the case with
the more mature portion of the community, many
:of whom find the ordinary affairs of life sufficient to
absorb their most earnest attention.
Mr. Edward North Buxton, the vice-chairman of
the London School Board, has been elected to the
Chairmanship, in succession to Sir Charles Reed, Mr.
Freeman becoming vice-chairman. At the meeting at
which these appointments were made, a dissussion
took place upon the propriety of paving the chairman
a salary, but the suggestion was not entertained. The
. office is still to be an honorary one, and therein is
to form an exception to the greater part of the
important posts held by public men. In the State
every servant is paid, from the Viceroy of India,
with his I:39,000 a-yeaal to the humblest tide-
waiter. The Metropolitan Board of Works pays
its chairman, whoever he may be, I:2,000 a year.
The head of such a body, or of the School Board, does
not find his work represented by presiding at the
weekly meetings of his colleagues, which are open to
the Press; there is avast amount of labour performed
in committee; and the chairman is expected to be
acquainted with all the varied details of the great
organization of which he is the head.
Since the new Parliament assembled en the 29th of
April last year eight of its membersshave been removed
by death, in the proportion of four Liberals, three
Conservatives, and one Home Ruler. The average age
of the deceased representatives of the people was 58,1,.
years. The death of Sir Charles Reed, on the Liberal
side of the House, was followed by that of Sir Philip
Egerton, on the Conservative side, and with Sir Philip
has passed away another of the few remaining links
connecting the Parliament of the present with the
political history of the past. With a seat in the House
of Commons as far hack as 1830, he heard Lord John
Russell explain the provisions of the first Reform
Bill, on the night of the 31st of March, 1831,
and was an active spectator of all the incidents a.aso-
ciated with that exciting struggle. Now that Sir
Philip Egerton has gone, of the hundreds of members
who constituted the House of Commons at that
period, one only remains in the assembly now. Ms.
Christopher Talbot may indeed look round and say
• that all things have become new since he first sub-
scribed the roll of Parliament more than half a century
ago.
The intelligent foreigner has often been impressed
with the dignity and splendour of the office of Lord
Mayor of London, who is the representative of a
municipality rich no less in its honourable traditions
than in the contributions which it has made to the