The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-12-03 00:00:00

COY- AENTS ON CURRENT NEWS.

WE have had of late a plague of pablic
speaking on things political, addresses
unending from the statesmen and the smaller
fry of the various parties, on platforms
reaching from John o'Groat's to Land's End,
and on platforms all over Ireland also. It
has been a wearisome campaign of iteration,
the same sentiments and ideas being Con-
stantly repeated, filling dreary 'column after
column in the papers, to the exclusion of in-
teresting news. These utterances, except
when they have occasionally been enlivened
with smart and biting personalit:es, have
usually risen only to a monotonous dalness.
True they have been relieved at times by an
important speech from a Salisbnry, a Glad—
stone, a Churchill, or a John Morley, but
even these men of mighty words have had
nothing new to tell. Tuesday's demonstra-
tion of Unionists at Dublin was, however, a
red-letter event in the political calendar of
the Recess, and was marked by such a show
of enthusiasm as to evoke keen interest among
all sorts and conditions of Conservative's and
Liberal Unionists, and also to arouse the
lively antagonism of Gladstoniau and Nation-
alist writers and speakers, great and small.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke.
with characteristic and forcdul eloquence for
the first time in his long political life in
Ireland, and Lord Hartington uttered
weighty and earnest words in the same city
that saw his brother die the death of a
political martyr. What the two said, and
they said some hard things about Home
Rule, has been the text of many a subsequent
speech, pro and can.

So the artistic Jubilee sixpence, which
wanted but the glitter of gilding to pass
muster with any but the wariest for a half-
sovereign, is to give place for an easily-
distinguishable coin with the legend "six-
pence writ upon it so large that he who
runs may read. This is a sensible proceed-
irg, and one which will be generally re-
garded as for the public convenience. If our
minting authorities and their masters at the'
Treasury would have the value of every coin
they issue stamped legibly upon it, and in ,
unmistakeable characters, a good deal of an-
noyance and perplexity, especially to foreign
visitors to this country, would be avoided.

THE deaths of Lord and Lady Da!house,
at Havre, within a few hours of each other,
were sad in the extreme. The Earl and
his good lady had but recently returned to
Europe from an American tour. The
Countess was overtaken byta painful malady
which in a few days proved fatal, and her
attached husband, himself but in delicate
health, was deeply affected The same night
he was seized with an apoplectic fit,
and never rallied. With truth it may be
said of the lamented noble pair that "they
were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and
in their death they were not divided." It is
scarce ten years since Lord Dalhousie, who
was only forty at his demise, led the
youngest daughter of the Earl of Tanker-
ville to the altar. Mr. Gladstone's latest
Secretary of State for Scotland seemed to
have a useful career before him, and there
was no more popular landlord north of the
Tweed than he., who as Lord Ramsay, twice
fought the Liberal battle in Liverpool before
he succeeded to his father's titles.

How often undue haste immediately after
a hearty meal proves fatal- A man engaged
in business remains in bed in a morning
until the latest moment, then rashes down-
stairs to partake of the food awaiting him,
and next, hastily donning hat and overcoat,
starts off at a run to catch train, tram, or
'bus. Having jns: managed to gain his seat,
hot and perspiring, he is for some time quite
out of breath, and painfully conscious of a
heart beating at doable its normal rate.
This is a most dangerous proceeding, as
many a coroner's inquest has testified, for
'not infrequently in the reaction syncope oc-
curs, and a life which was good under ordin-
ary conditions for years to come is lost.
Such was thecase in London last Saturday,
with Mr. Rose, the respected comptroller of
the Stook Department of the Bank of
England. The lesson of all such tragic inci-
dents is never to have a run to catch a late
train, especially just after leaving the table.

TEHRE is an agitation afoot for the exten-
sion of the coming Christmas holidays in all
big plar,es of business over Tuesday,
December 27, as Christmas Day this year
falls on Sunday ; and it seems in most cases
likely to prove successful. As far as shop as-
sistants are concerned, where the employer
refmes to give up his Saturday night's
business because it happens to be Christmas
Eve, unless an understanding is come to that
this year -Boxing-day and the day next
succeeding be reckoned blanks in the maW;r
of work, the Christmas holidays of 1887 will
mean nothing more than one day's absence
from duty. This, we feel sure, will not be gen-
er Illy regarded as satisfactory. There will
be. many manufactories and not a few large
business establishments, in London and the
large provinc*.al towns, closed from the
night of Friday, December 23rd, to the
morning of Wednesday, December 28th.
Whereever this extended vacation is found
practicable, it will be accepted as a boon by
the toilers with hands and head.

"Fel° de ge" is an awful term to apply to
a man who has gone to his "account" with
his sins on his head; awful because of the
revolting way in which the unfortunate's
remains are treated in our vaunted Christian
country. To be buried by night, without
bell or book or any of those reverences
which humanity feels and shows instinctively
in death's presence, the poor. corpse un-
washed and nnstraiglitened and hurried
along in a dust-cart, like a dead dog,
to an unhallowed grave, is certainly a
hocking end to an earthly life, however ill-
ipmt. Not that any post-mortem respect, or
even the grandest dirges or funeral pomp
can at all atTect the spiritless clay, or the
soul of the suicide. But in our era of all the
humanities, surely it is time to drop such
barbarities as we practice on the remains of
the self- slaughterer, if facts-or the influence
of friends do not gain for them the saving
clause of "insanity," in the coroner's verdict.
The thrusting of the body of wretched Job
Warburton into a hole in the ground at
Boltou on Saiuirdey night was a relique of
those darker days of which Tom Hood sang
lin tearful laughter, when "they. buried Ben
at four-cross roads, with a stake in 1-'3
insi;le." Even the felon sentenced to unde.
thc extreme penalty the law has "be:
of clergy" in some si t ; but the no
self-niurderer who hr. • desperation br -on
the lized canon of a ...verlasting" is 1: b.,

to have indignity heaped on the mortal
frame he :ns7lly put an end to. Many a
man and \vot•rm has Christian burial who is
as knowily Incl responsibly guilty of felo
de se as thos3 poor wretches who are occa-
sionally so judged ; and so, for the sake of
fairness and justice alone, we would have
.felo de se, and all its abominable lezal con-
saplences, erased from the statute - books.
And thfre are many who hold that none but
those "mad from lire's history" ever die by
their own hands. In any case it would PI be
well and humane to let the law's war with
our erring fellow-creatures end with d A.ll.
In the heart-whole sentiment of the pal hetic
pen-picturer of the "Bridge of Sighs," we
might gracefully, when the suicide is "past
all dishonour," owning his weakness and
evil behaviour, meekly leave his sins to
, Higher hands.