The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-08-14 00:00:00

THE OPERATIONS IN BURNAH.

ALLATIABAD, Sunday.
The authorities have decided to grapple firmly with
the difficulties in Burmah, and to put an end to the
unsatisfactory state of things that has so long existed
in that country. A regular campaign is about to be
undertaken, and both old troops and reliefs will be
employed in the operations. General Sir Herbert
Taylor Macpherson will have the supreme command,
and he will have under him 30,000 men, with which
it is hoped he will be able to sweep the country.

CENTENARY OF THE PUBLICATION
OF BURNS' POEMS.
The centenary of the publication of the first edition
of the poems of Burns was celebrated on Saturday
at Kilmarnock. The event was regarded with great
interest throughout the south-west of Scotland, and
the demonstration was attended by 30,000 persons.
The centennial address was delivered by Mr. James
Stoddart, LL.D., Edinburgh, of the Glasgow Herald.
Having briefly alluded to the importance and the
significance in the national life of Scotland of the
first edition of Burn's poems, Dr. Stoddart proceeded
to say that the period from the beginning of the
18th century till Burns's poems appeared in its last
quarter was one of practical deadness in the national.
life of Scotland. There was no enthusiasm, there was
hardly any stir except among the ranks of the theo-
logians. The great mass of the people of Scotland
were living lives untouched by the purer fires of
patriotism and genius. It was one of the dullest
periods of our history. He did not by any means say
it was the most unhappy. While making great ma-
terial progress Scotland was girded round spiritually
and intellectually with fanatical and superstitious
bonds. He could not agree with the late Mr. Buckle
waen he declared that next to Spain Scotland was the
most superstitious and priest-ridden country in
Europe. The man who could make such a statement
knew nothing of the work which Robert Burns ac-
complished for the people of Scotland, But he should
say that before this volume of Burns was published
100 years ago, Mr. Buckle's strong assertion would
then have been worthy of more credence. When this
volume was issued from the Kilmarnock press new
vitality began to invade the old deadness and dulness.
Scotland awoke from her long lethargy, and the in-
tellectual virility and the passionate ardour of her
sons received a new and powerful impetus Burns spoke
from a heart glowing with the hottest passion of love
of patriotism and of detestation of meanness, hypocrisy,
and cant to a people prepared to thrill at every
word, at every boweiy )44 divine line of his verses.
In a few years die poems of Robert Burns were as
well known in tee peasant cottages and the bothies of
Scotland as the shorter catechism, and they had had
a strong educating influence upon the mind of the
peasantry of Scotland. They allayed fanaticism, and
whatever harm some of those poems might have done,
the influence was intellectually and morally stimula-
ting and essentially good. The Kilmarnock publica-
tion did not by any means exhaust the genius of the
great Ayrshire ploughman; some of his best works
followed. But at Kilmarnock the great voice spoke
first, and from that spot Scotland first fell the spell
of his words. It was mete that they should celebrate
such a great centenary, and whatever their critics
might say he thought he might say this much that
the first work, the first hostage that a great man gave
to his country of the work that was in him was as
worthy of commemoration as the day of his birth or
the day of his death. In the evening a banquet was
held in the Corn Exchange.