The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-11-06 00:00:00

tWe deem it right to state that we do not at all times
Identify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

Within a few days we shall have changed our
Mayors throughout the kingdom, and those
honourable and eminently useful public servants
who retire will merit and will receive the thanks
of their fellow-citizens for the work they have
done. Even those who live almost in daily con-
tact with their civic chief do not always recog-
nise the amount of labour which the acceptance
of such a post entails. In our largest communi-
ties—in Liverpool, Birmingham, or Manchester,
to say nothing of London—the Mayor has to
resign for a whole year his personal freedom of
action, and has to devote himself to the service
of his fellows. The calls upon his time are well-
nigh innumerable, for, in addition to the strict
duties of his office, he is asked to officiate in
many honorary capacities, his position as chief
magistrate being held to add lustre to the
gatherings, literary, social, philanthropic, and
political, to which he may be invited. And,
if be does hie work so well that it is
difficult to replace him, he is frequently
requested to allow himself to he re elected,
and his work is, therefore, extended for
another year. This record of almost unceasing
toil applies, of course, only to the mayors of our
largest towns, but even in the smallest the
amount of work required is by no means insigni-
ficant. It is a post of honcur, it is true, but it
is also a post of difficulty; and any citizen who
is now elected to fill it deserves the hearty sup-
port of his fellows in the year's work he is called
by their voice to undertake.
So much has lately been talked of a possible
riot on the part of criminal classes of London,
that it may have been assumed by many that
those who dwell in the metropolis have among
them an unusually large proportion of these un-
-0.--4;rable companions. It will be news, therefore,
torMy who think that the capital is exception-
ally marked in this particular to be told that
there is a less proportion of the criminal classes
to the honest inhabitants in London than in
any other district in the country. The
metropolitan area, which covers a radius
of fifteen miles of Charing-cross, shows a pro-
portion of one member of the criminal class in
every 1852 inhabitants. Nearest in approach
to this are the pleasure towns—Bath, Brighton,
Dover, Gravesend, Leamington, Ramsgate, and
Scarborough—where the proportion is one in
1505; the commercial parts—Bristol, Hull,
Liverpool, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Southampton,
South Shields, Sunderland, Swansea, Tynemouth,
and Yarmouth—coming next with one in 992.
The seats of the small and mixed textile fabrics,
of the cotton and linen manufacture, and of the
woollen and worsted manufacture, rank next;
then come the agricultural counties; and worst
on the list appear the seats of the hardware
manufacture—Birmingham, Sheffield, and \Vol
verhampton—where the proportion is one in
404. We in London are so accustomed to be
thought of as dwellers in an especially evil
place that these figures come as a distinct relief ;
and they should certainly do something to break
down the old tradition.
Instances are not infrequently furnished in the
newspapers of the existence to this day of links
with the far past, which can only be described as
astonishing. The latest is that which has be-
come known to us through the death of Captain
the Hon. Francis Maude, whose grandfather
lived for twelve years under the sovereignty of
Charles 11., he having thus died 213 years after
his grandfather was born. The relation of this
fact has necessarily called forth other recollections
of the kind, and two of the more striking may be
noted. One is that of an actor still living who
has played with another who had achieved dis-
tinction on the stage as far back as 130 years
since. The other relates to a discussion which
took place in 1841 at the table of the late
Canon Vaux, of Worcester, as to the place of
execution of Charles I. A banker, named Ricketts,
who was present, startled the company bysaying,
"I can tell you something about it as I had the
story from ray father, who related what was told
him by his father, who was a captain in Crom-
well's army at the surrender 0: Jamaica to the
Parliament." This, in its turn, is a reminder of
what the first Lord Brougham used to relate
that he had talked with a person who had con-
versed with an eye-witness of the ever-famous
execution before the banqueting-house at White-
hall, and as his lordship lived until 1868, three
lives thus covered a period of 219 years.
"Liberty enlightening the world," as the
gigantic statue is called which has just been
erected at the entrance to the harbour of New
York, has been unveiled amid an extraordinary
display of American enthusiasm. Not only was
New York gaily decorated with the French and
American colours, but the land procession num-
bered thirty thousand men, and the river proces-
sion included 137 steamers. M. Bartholdi, the
designer of the new statue—for the word
sculptor in this relation could scarcely be used
—was very warmly welcomed; and he must have
found in the heartiness of the popular acclaim
some compensation for the many disappoint-
ments which have attended the progress of the
work. A statue is not necessarily to be admired
because it is huge, for many of the choicest works
of art are very small; but in the case of
" Liberty " the design certainly has merit, and it
was a happy thought to turn the work to prac-
tical account by placing in the hand an electri-
cally-lighted torch, which will shine forth by
night as a beacon to mariners approaching the
great harbour of "the Empire City," as the
inhabitants of New York delight to call their
dwelling-place. It will, therefore, have a use as
well as be an ornament, and if the question of
stability can be satisfactorily proved, the labours
of M. Bartholdi will be long remembered. But it
. is only the storms of an Atlantic winter, or rather
of a series of Atlantic winters, that can put this
point to the proof; and from the very nature of
things it is not one which can be easily settled.
In the midst of the public rejoicing which
attended upon the dedication of the Bartholdi
statue, there came to New York intelligence of
one of those terrible railway accidents which,
although far from confined to the United States,
present there some features of horror which are
almost unique. In the case under notice, an ex-
press ran into a goods train which was standing
in a siding, and though many passengers thus
were injured, the amount of harm done by the
accident proper was as nothing to that which
ensued. Owing to the overturning of the stoves
which are to be seen in almost every American
railway car, the carriages caught fire, and nearly
twenty persons were burned to death in sight
and hearing of those of their fellows who had
escaped. In the sad list of English railway acci-
dents there is only one which resembles in its
most terrible features that to which reference
has been made, and that was the casualty at
Abergele in 1868, when a quantity of paraffin
in the train was ignited by a collision, and several
passengers perished in the flames. As a rule, our
railway travelling is remarkably free from acci-
dent, for it is safer to travel by a fast express
than to cross Cheapside on a crowded day. But
such fatalities as those to which we have been
referring is a reminder of the risk, infinitesimal
though it be, taken by those who frequent the
rail.

Mention of one matter connected with rail-
ways leads to another, and that other is of a
pleasanter type. Intimation has just been given
by the general manager of one of the great
southern lines that on and after January 1,
1887, express fares will cease to be charged.
This will seem no great boon to those ;living
north of London, such extra charges having long
been unknown to the trunk lines which run out
from the metropolis towards Scotland; but the
change will be a very tangible one to those who
have frequently complained of the survival of
the system. It was natural enough in the early
days of railways to consider an express train as
something to be charged extra for; but as time
went on and speeds increased, the idea on most
lines. gradually died away. Life, however,
continued to it in some quarters, mainly, if not
wholly, to the south of the Thames; and this
fresh stroke at its existence will be hailed by
thousands who have to travel in that extensive
region. These naturally compare the simplicity
of the northern lines, with their three fares—
first, second, and third—to say nothing of the
one line which carries simplicity further still,
and drops the second, with the complexity of
such of the southern as cling to the old system.
It is quite an exercise for an arithmetician to
deal with the fare problems involved in the exis-
tence of first express, first ordinary, second
express, second ordinary, and third class, and
this was worse when there was added parlia-
mentary to the whole of them. Every step
towards simplicity aids the traveller, and every
advance towards cheapness aids the company,
for many a person journeys for pleasure when
journeying is cheap and free from unnecessary
trouble, who would stay at home were the con-
ditions reversed.
We shall soon learn whether the Germans are
really a colonuang people, for the exertions they
are making to secure a footing in the South-West
of Africa must put to the test the reality of their
aspiratio ss, and the practicability of their being
carried out. Like all pioneers of civilisation, the

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