The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-10-31 00:00:00

Our Youbn toruspenbent.
lWe deem it right to atate that we do not at all times
identity ourselves with our Correspondents opinionaj

The presentation of the freedom of the City of Lon-
don is always an imposing ceremony, but when it is ac-
companied, as in the case of Sir Garnet Wolseley, by
the gift of a magnificent sword of the value of one
hundred guineas, it is invested with more than usual
interest. It always. take place at Guildhall, which
some people compare with the Hotel de 'Ville or Town
Hall of Paris, greatly to the disadvantage of the Eng-
lish structure. Guildhall on such occasions, is certain
to be crowded with a brilliant representative assembly.
There are the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, in their State
r. lies, and wearing the massive gold chains which be-
ing to their office ; the Recorder, in his full-bottomed
wig and flowing gown of black ; the Swordbearer,
in his curious fur bonnet; the Chamberlain, in court
tress; the Town Clerk, with all the dignity of his high
official position ; the City Marikal, keeping the way
clear for the civic procession ; the aldermen, in their
scarlet and fur robes ; the members of the Common
Council, in their n -ins gowns; military officers in
full uniform, a 1 earing their medals and decora-
tions ; great city merchants, who hold the money-
markets of the world in the hollow of their hand. Add
to these the attraction of a host of gaily dressed ladies,
and you may have some slight idea of the glory and
glitter which surround a presentation ceremony in
Guildhall. By universal assent there could have been
no more suitable recipient of civic honours than Sir
Garnet Wolseley. Although a comparatively young
wan, he has been more than twenty years in active
service, and as the chamberlain reminded the dis-
tinguished assembly, has been engaged in warfare in
the four quarters of the globe. As he stood up to re-
eeive the sword, his breast literally glistened with
medals, crosses, and other distinctions won on many a
well-fought field, and seldom have more hearty cheers
echoed under the roof of Guildhall than when the
City of London recognized the services of the hero of
Coommaie.

There is another part of the City, the reputation of
which is not of merely local interest. I speak of
Doctor's Commons, the entrance to which is through
Dean's-yard, on the south side of St. Paul's Cathedral.
Readers of the works of Charles Dickers may re-
member that in one of them—l think David Copperfield
—the abuses which flourished under the system of the
old eclesiastical courts are exposed with pungent and
merciless satire. Pimply-faced apron touts, according
to Mr. Dickens, were accustomed to button-hole the
luckless stranger, who happened to stray through the
archway into Dean's-yard, and carried him off to invest
in a marriage license totally irrespective of the question
whether he wished to get married or not. One by cue
the anomalies of the system have been swept away, and
only last week the final blow of many fell on poor old
Doctor's Commons. As most of your readers know, it
had been long the principal registry of wills in the
kingdom. Many a poor relation in the country
who had a suspicion that he had not received
the whole portion of an estate which should have
come to him by the will of a rich uncle, might
by himself or deputy, ascertain the truth at Doctors'
Commons by the payment of a trifling fee. The glory
of the Commons has now departed. A few days ago
all the last testaments of centuries were removed to
their new I,,zne in Somerset House. Waggon-loads of
wills passed along souse of the most busy thorough-
fares of London—down Ludgate-hill, up Fleet-street,
and along the Strand. Documents of all descriptions
were there—the laconic will of Henry VIII.. the
famous holograph will of Shakespeare, the last testa-
ment of the founder of the moneyed family of Roths-
child, wills of millionaires and of misers, of the Smiths,
the (lawns, the Browns, and the Robinsons of ages.
There they went through London's crowded streets,
many of them having outlived their authors some
hundreds of years, and suggesting to the anxious
thousands who hurried past the truth of the famous
saying of Burke—" What shadows we are, end what
shadows we pursue !" The portion of Somerset House
occupied by the registry is that on the river front,
recently vacated by the Admiralty. The wills are
stored in a long gallery under the terrace which runs
parallel to and overlooks the Thames Embankment.
The room devoted to the public examination of wills
is a large and handsome apartment, conveniently
fitted up for the purpose, and a wonderful improve-
ment on the old search room in the dingy Commons.
It is on the ground floor on the side of the inner
quadrangle of Somerset House, and the doorway
leading into it is exactly opposite the archway opening
into the courtyard from the Strand.
We have new had a little experience of the working
If the new Licensing Act in the metropolis, it hav-
ing come into operation on Saturday, October 10.
In London all premises in which intoxicating liquors
are sold by retail else on Sunday night at eleven; on
Saturday night at twelve; and on other nights at
half-past twelve. So far as general observation goes,
the publicans have availed themselves of the power te
I--op their houses open during the extra half-hour
allowed by the new Act, but in many cases they do so
because they cannot afford to let their custom go to
their neighbours. I believe that, as a body, the
licensed victuallers would rather have been without it,
but if the " Pig and Whistle" is open until half-past
twelve, it does not pay the proprietor of the "Magpie
and Stump," just over the way, to put up his shutters
at twelve. Still, midnight is surely late enough for
people to be up who are empowered by law to open
again at five in the morning, and who are likely to be
disturbed at that untimely hour by the demands of the
early workman, or the toad litle traveller.
While the burgesses in the corporate towns are pre-
m.-Inv with all earnestness for the municipal elections
of Monday, the 2nd of November, dI. Jogai p.rti,aa of
London's world is looking forward also to that slay.
Then it is that Michaelmas Term is opened, and that
means the beginning of the legal year. Once more the
Long Vacation—a twelve weeks' holiday—will be at
an end ; and long enough it is, in all conscience, for
many of those who have to live by the law. Very few
departments of industry in this busy, active land could
survive the stagnation caused by three months of en-
forced rest; and law reformers had looked forward to
the time when this dreary vacation would have been
curtailed. And this would have happened had Perlis,-
insnt found time last session to pass the Judicature
Act Amendment Bill, but it did not, and therefore the

old routine goes on for another twelve months. Ihe
first day of Michaelmas Term is always of great interest
to thousands of the population. In the morning the
new Lord Mayor goes in state from Guildhall to the
residence of the Lord Chancellor, who conveys, in dig-
nified phrases, Her Majesty's approbation of the choice
of a Chief Magistrate which has been made by the
citizens of London. The loving cup—a capacious bowl
containing the choicest wines, and gaily decked with
flowers—is passed round, each of the company pro-
foundly bowing to the Lord Mayor, and taking a deep
draught, wishing him health andlappiness during his
twelve months' tenure of office. No sooner have the
civic dignitaries left than Her Majesty's judges, in all
the glory of their splendid robes, begin to arrive, and
they are speedily followed by the Serleants-at-law and
the Queen's Counsel. All these have been invited to
partake of breakfast with the Lord High Chancellor
of England. About half-past one a carriage proces-
sion is formed, beaded by that of the Chancellor him-
self, and it slowly makes its way through the streets
and squares, to Westminster Hall, where the judges
tile off to their respective courts, and the business of
the year begins. The great space of the Hall itself is
erowded with spectators, a large proportion of whom
are barristers net yet sufficiently eminent in their pro
(elision to be invited to the Chancellor's breakfast.
The robes of the equity judges are resplendent with
gold.; those of the common law dispensers of justice
are of • less dazzling description. As they march
along in the stately dignity of their position, their
trains are borne by stalwart men. The preference
ehown by the public for some of the judges is sure to
be manifested on these occlasion.i. If a new judge has
can appointed in the vacation he is certain to be
cheered, and very often this compliment is paid to one
who has been on the bench for years.
The intelligence of the capture of the Nana Sahib,
which reached London towards the close of lad week,
%owned to reopen the pages of a terrible chapter in
Anglo-11,14in history. One summer day more than
half a generation ago—it was the 21st of August, 1857 ,
news arrived in this country of those awful doings at
Cawnpore, by which nearly a thousand Englishmen,
women, and children had been put to the sword by
order of the monster who has at last fallen within the
reach of the laws avenging arm. The treachery by
which General Sir Hugh Wheeler bad beeu induced to
surrender, the massacre of the British soldiers 6,8 they
were about to cross the river to Allahabad ; the driving
of the women and children back to Cawnpore ; the
horrors of their imprisonment for a fortnight in the
Assembly Room; and the last dread scene of all—
their indiscriminate slaughter in cold blood:when the
gallant Havelock, with the relieving army, came
thundering at the gates of Cawnpore—all these roused
such a feeling of intense indignation such as I have
never witnessed before or 8111881. One poet, echoing
the cry of vengeance which then rang through the land,
wrote in this strain :

Ah who shall comfort England for her daughters and her
1101111,

Her gentle and her generous, and her heroic ones
Pollided—tortured—murdered !—intolerable fate
To be the sport of demons in their lust and in their hate.
Destroy those traitor legions ' Hang every pariah hound!
And hunt them down to death In all the hills and cities
round !"

This was fearful language, but there can be no doubt
that it accurately enough represented the state of
public opinion at the time. The famous cartoon in
Cunch entitled "The British Lion's Vengeance upon

the Bengal Tiger" will not have been forgotten even
to this day. How the handful of European troop,
under Sir Colin Campbell, Sir Janice Oatram, Sir
Henry Havelock, Sir Henry Barnard, Sir Henry
Laurence, and other English officers, gradually made
headway against the rebellion and at length stamped
it out, is well known. Barnard succumbed to cholera
while investing Delhi; Laurence died of his wounds
at Lucknow ; Campbell and Outram rest in West-
minster Abbey; and the brave and good Havelock
was carried off by dysentery on the 25th of the follow-
ing November, at Alumbagh. Only four months
after he had chased Nana Sahib out of Cawnpore, his
remains were mingling with the sods of an Indian
valley, and it was touchingly written of him at the
time -
,• There rest thee, Christian warrior ; rest from the two-fold

Wife;
The battle fields of India and the battle field of life.

No scorching sun beats down on thy unsheltered head,
Bat the pale moon keeps mournful watch over the 'llene

dead."
The gallant fellow has been gone from us nearly
seventeen years, and throughout the kingdom the
satisfaction that the miscreant of Cawnpore is at
length to be brought to justice is qualified by a feeling
of regret that Havelock is not alive to witness the
retribution which will at last fall upon his cruel foe.
Some statistics which have lately appeared respect-
ing the tide of emigration to the United States con-
tain one or two interesting facts. Of the vast number
which annually settle in the land of promise, about 77
percent. arrive at New York. Since 1847 the average
number of emigrants passing over the Atlantic
has been 200,000 a year. From Germany and
Scandinavia two millions and a quarter have come;
from Ireland nearly two millions ; and from
other countries rather i'iver one million. Both
Germans and Irishmen ShOW a marked dislike of the
late Slave States; for less than four and a halfser
cent of Irish, and only six per cent. of Germans,
make their homes south of the Potomac and of the
Ohio. Thirteen Irish for one German go to the eastern
or manufacturing region, and three Germane for one
Irishman to the agricultural region of the middle,
western, and West Mississippi States. A curious
question has been raised respecting the amount of
money brought into the Union by this class. Placing
it at fifty dollars per head, the States have received
with the emigrants not less than 444,000,000 dollars. But
the true value of those who flock from Germany and
Ireland consists in their labour, not their money, for
they are rapidly building new territories and States
in the far-reaching land of the West.

A French gentlemaa has just given us his experience
of English domestic servants. His conclusions do not
quite accord with those of a numerous class of persons
who seem never to weary of airing their grievances in
the newspapers concerning this useful—l may say
indispensable—portion of the community. This French
author tells his fellow-countrymen that the distinguish-
ing characteristic of our domestic helps is conscientious-
ness, from the little maid in her cotton frock who
washes the door-steps and polishes the bannisters, to
the butler, who is paramount in the servants' hall,
and commands the inmates like the colonel of a regi-
ment. Every one, we are told, does his strict duty
in his own sphere and accomplishes his well-defined
task without the necessity of reminding him of it.
Your readers will observe that the masculine gender
is used; but there is many a materfamilias who would
hesitate before she applied it to the feminine.
This subject reminds me of another intimately con-
nected with it—viz., the operation of the Working
Women's College, Queen's Square, Bloomsbury. That
institution has for about ten years been doing an
excellent work amongst a somewhat neglected class.
The pupils have included domestic servants, milliners,
feather makers, bookbinders, jewel-case liners, laun-
dresses, nurses, and others following a great varietywof
trades in which female labour is employed. After
toiling for eight, nine, or ten hours, girls and women
have regularly attended classes and lectures, many of
them passing searching examinations on various sub-
jects. It has been the aim of the council to provide
for the students a pleasant social life as well as the
means of intellectual cultivation. That body has now
resolved upon a bold experiment, and the college is
open for the joint education of men and women.
Women students must be above fifteen, and men
students above seventeen years of age. The library
is open every evening for study; and the coffee-room,
provided with periodicals, newspapers, Am, is made,
"as far as possible, under proper regulations, the
centre of the social life of the college." The council
is sanguine of the success of this plan.