The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-06-26 00:00:00

eur Nernbon Gorrtspoubent

• (We deem It right to state that we do not at all Mee
eentiiy ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.

The Queen has now entered upon the jubilee
year of her reign amid the hearty good wishes of
all classes of her people. This forms the fourth
instance of the kind in English history, and a
comparison of the circumstances would show
that the present is the happiest of all. The
story has often been told of the manner in which
the young Queen received the news of her acces-
sion to the throne, now more than forty-nine
years ago; but, though it has been related by a
hundred pens, the points of interest in the
narrative are so many that it has never seemed
to grow wearisome by repetition. For the
tenderness to the feelings of others, which has
over been a characteristic of the Queen, was
shown at the trying moment of her accession in
a manner which endeared her from the very first
to her subjects. When tho Archbishop of Can-
terbury and the Lord Chamberlain hastened to
Kensington Palace early in the morning of June
20, 1837, to arouse. the Princess Victoria from
her sleep and inform her that she had becom
Queen of England, the first impulse of the youth-
ful sovereign in the midst of her agitation was to
ask the Primate to pray for her. And a little lztter
that same momentous morning, when the
widowed Queen Adelaide sent to inform her
Majesty of the death of William IV., she sub-
scribed her reply "To the Queen of England."
Her maid of honour observed, "Your Majesty,
you, are the Queen of England." "Yes,"
answered her Majesty, "but the widowed Queen
is not to be reminded of the fact first by me."
And the same tender regard for the feelings of
others. has marked the Queen's progress through
life, and has greatly endeared her to all.
It is a noteworthy circumstance that, as the
Queen is entering upon her jubilee—a fact which
to modern minds is associated mainly with the
remembrance that George 111. similarly cele-
brated the entrance to the fiftieth year of his
reign—she is about to summon her twelfth Par-
liament, a number which equals those called by
her grandfather within a reign ten years longer.
This is a total which, except in these two
instances, has not been reached in recent
history. George I. called two Parliaments,
his successor five, George 111., as has been stated,
twelve, George IV. two, and William IV. four.
Elizabeth summoned eight, but when we get
back to the early days of Parliaments the total
swells. Edward IT. called sixteen, Richard
eighteen, Henry VI. twenty-one, and Edward
111. as many as thirty-one. But it must be
remembered that, in those days, Parliaments
nnly lasted a single session, and having been
convoked to meet at Westminster, York,
Southampton, Salisbury, or any other place that
suited the pleasure of the Monarch, they were
dissolved immediately their appointed work was
done. But the tendency in later days has been
to lengthen the existence of Parliaments, and
the one which is now dissolved will be note-
worthy in history as among the shortest of
modern times. Formerly, men were accustomed
to give nicknames to Parliaments, and they spoke
of the Long, the Pensionary, the Mad, and the
Short Parliament. The last was a nickname
given more than two centuries ago to a House
which had an unusually brief existence; and it
is strikingly applicable to the one which has
now departed, after a life of little more than
five months.

"Sailors' yarns," have become as proverbial as
"travellers' tales," and when any very striking
narrative of the sea is related, there is often an
incrtitulous shrug of the shoulders, as if it were
really asking too much to be believed. Our old
friend, the sea serpent, is naturally counted
among those things which cannot be credited;
and when any sailor has been sufficiently hardy
to tell his friends that with his own eyes he has
seen confirmation of the legend of the Flying
Dutchman, he has as a rule been bluntly told that
no person in this enlightened age can be expected.
to believe him. But in the future, a seaman so
situated will be able to call as witnesses to his
credibility, Prince Edward and Prince George of
Wales. Their Royal Highnesses, in the narrative
of their travels on many seas, which has just
been issued from the press, relate how a vessel,
bearing a red light, mysteriously appeared
in front of the squadron, of which
their ship, the Bacchante, was one, and as
mysteriously vanished into thin air when they
thought her within hailing distance; and they
go on to tell how the look-out man who first
sighted the weird vessel was killed the next day,
and how other traces of ill-luck followed upon
the encounter. There must have been some Phy-
sical cause—a mirage, most probably—to account
for the apparition; but as the narrative has been
given to the world with a Royal imprimatur, and
as it may stimulate superstition in certain im-
pressionable quarters, it is desirable that it
should be examined by those competent for such
a task, in order that, if it can be thoroughly
explained on physical grounds, the explanation
should be made as widely known as the tale
itself.

Doctors are always discovering new diseases,
and, if all we read in the medical journals had to
be taken seriously, ourselves and the world
generally would evidently be in a very bad state.
The latest complaint which some ingenious phy-
si.Lian has found and given:a name to is "mania
concionabunda," and it seems to be very prevalent
at,such a time as the present when a general elec-
tion is upon us. Stripped of the Latin,the disorder
appears to be simply that liking for popularity
which most politicians possess, but which they
are far from alone in possessing. And,
when the matter is investigated, this will be
found to be no particularly new complaint. As
long as there have been elections, so long has
there ben a desire on the part of a very great
number to acquire popularity and push to the
front. The desire, kept within bounds, is laud-
able enough, and even when it goes somewhat
further than the more sober-minded among us
can praise, it is surely outside the province of
the doctors. These worthy folk can do much to
alleviate our distress of body, but political
ambition, if it be a distress at all, is a distress of
mind. and Shakespere a long time ago pointed
out the difficulty of attempting to minister to a
mind diseased. For which reasons, and for others
*hich a very ordinary exercise of ingenuity
could discover, it is not likely that many doctors
will be consulted for the complaint now known
as mania concionabunda."

One can scarcely take up a"London newspaper
just now without seeing a number of appeals to
those of benevolent mind to assist in giving
various children a "day in the country." This
has .grown to be quite an institution in these
times, and it is one which, thoug,h like most good
things liable to some abuse, is the means of
bringing a great deal of happiness to tens of
thousands of children who dwell within that
"province covered with houses" called London.
It is for the poorer schools that the plea should
be made, since the children who attend them
would never catch a glimpse of the country at
all if it were not for these annual treats. The
trouble and responsibility cast upon the teachers
by the outings are very considerable, 1)4 they
are amply paid by the joy which the excursions
give and the gratitude the children feel for them.
To a very large proportion of the little ones the
sight of the country for the first thne is in the
nature of a revelation. Bred in cpurts and
alleys, into which the sun seldom penetrates,
and having the crowded streets as their only
playground, it may be conceived that the
green fields, the lowing herds, the ripening corn,
and the growing flowers are all wonderfu i l n the
strangeness of their beauty to these untutored
minds, The expressions of surprise which abound
as the train rolls on its way, or the vans traverse
the roads, to the appointed destination tell of the
lessons which are being taught; and the cost is
so small compared with the enjoyment wLi.h it
affords; that itis not much wonder that subscrip-
tions should flow in to the various funds as rapidly
as they do.

A consequence of the General Election, which
was 'not foreseen by a good many persons
intbrested in the fact, is that the volunteers will
temporarily lose their chance of "camping out."
An order has been issued by Lord Wolseley, as
Adjutant General of the forces, directing that no
instruction for volunteers is to be formed in any
electoral district between the date of the issue of
the,-writ for the district, and the day of the
polling : and that any camp in existence at the
tim4 the writ issues must at once be broken up, and
the Volunteers dispersed. Thereis the qualification,
however, that the fact of an election being in
progress in the district in which a regiment's
headquarters are situate will not prevent such
regiment going into camp, provided the camp be
not in the same district, or in any other in which
an eleCtion is proceeding. These orders, of
course, are in consequence of the old Constitu-
tional rule that there shall not be any inter-
ference, or any possibility of interference, between
the nailit4ry authorities and the populace while
~thelattei are engaged in the peaceful exercise of
thelianclqsd:;' Dut. When they are applied to
our civjlialfgoldiers—eitizens themselves in every
:ense—they sem strange, and though necessitated
by the law,will be apt to evoke many a grumble
oecause of the inconveniences to which they
will (rive rise. A temporary pcx.tpcnement is all

chat they seem to mean; but when arrange-
tie have Jeen made for a camp, and the men
have all fixed their holiday for a certain date,
the difficulty caused by a temporary postpone-
ment may he sufficient to turn it into a real one.
It may be hoped, however, for the sake of the
volunteers themselves—to whom an encampment
teaches a great deal—that this will not be the
result in any case.
Fortunately the Wimbledon. meeting had
been fixed for a date that will just enable it to
escape the consequences of Lord Wolseley's
order. It might be a moot point whether it
would properly come within the designation "a
camp of instruction," but the question happily
will not have to be argued. It would have been
a thousand pities if this well-known and ex-
tremely hardy" annual" had had to be post-
poned, and all admirers of the volunteer forco,
to say nothing of all the volunteers themselves,
will be glad to know that the prospects of a
successful meeting are as high as ever. The
scandals which brought some discredit upon it
a few years ago have now been purged; and
though there is still a too frequent appearance
of certain names in almost every prize list
that must remain so as long as the owners
of those names can shoot well, or until a
fair method of handicapping the visitors of
previous years can be brought into use. To the
dweller in the metropolis, the Wimbledon meet-
ing presents itself as an agreeable and easily-
accessible picnic. It is not much of the shooting
that he understands, and the multitude of
targets and firing points are ca'culated to confuse
him. But he likes to cheer a winner, and if he
be so fortunate as to be able to add volume to
the applause which always greets the victor in
the competition for the Queen's Prize, he feels
that he has done his share towards securing the
success of the gathering. A. F. It.