The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-02-06 00:00:00

Our Yonbou otarrtspoubent,

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

On the eve of the opening of Parliament the death
of a man was announced who had lived in the world a
great deal longer than any other member of the Legis-
lature. I refer to Lord St. Leonards, who has just
passed away at the amazing age of ninety-four years.
What a time to be "sailing o'er life's solemn main"—
six years shcntrt of a century What a different world
it must be in February, 1875, from what it, was in
1781, when Lord St. Leonards first saw the light!
The date carrie3 us back to the days when George 111.
was in his prime, and when Charles James Fox and
Edmund Burke were amongst the confidential advisers
ef the Crown. Lord St. Leonards was born before
William Pitt began his administration, which after
lasting eighteen teMpestuous years, was brought to a
close at the beginning of the present century. He was
eleven years old when the great French war was com-
menced in 1792; it lasted three and twenty years, and
terminated- sixty years ago. What a vast range of
evenfs have been compressed into the limits of a single
human life He was old enonath to remember the first
French Revolution, and the thrill of horror inspired by
the ferocities of Robespierre, Danton, and Marat.
He
could tell you of the enthusiasm created by the news
of the Battle of the Nile, where Nelson crushed up the
French fleet like cardboard on the Ist Aagnst, 1798 ; he
' was one of the spectators of the funei al of that heroin St.
Paul's after the great naval victoryat Trafalgar, seventy
years ago. He could tell you how on that occasion
the !King's sons, including the Prince of Wales and
the Duke of Clarence (afterwards George IV. and
William IV. respectively), the peers of England in a
body, the lord mayor and corporation of London, with
thousands of naval and military officers and distin-
guished men followed the funeral car to the great
metropolitan cathedral. He was a peer of England
himself, when Wellington -found his resting-place in
the same building nearly half a century afterwards. He
was at middle life when the first Reform agitation
convulsed the country in 1830. The snows which had
marked the passing away of three generations,
gathered upon his venerable head. Twenty years had
sped away since he occupied the Woolsack, and for a
song time he had passed a peaneful old age at Boyle
Farm, Thames Ditton, his calla, ca:3"-2aal ae
upon the placid surface of a stream, which there winds
its pleasant way through stretches of lovely rural
scenery, and seems to linger amongst the glades of
Middlesex and Surrey, as though reluctant to continue
its onward course toward the vast metropolis,
and to mingle with the murky tide which
bathes alike the feet of grim Milbank, and of the
Palaee of the Legislature; is alternately blackened
Ey the contents of coal barges, and ploughed into
sickly foam by restless steamers; and after washing
out the dirty puddles of the docks, rolls down with
the widening river past Gravesend, and is at length
absorbed into the sea. The progress made by science
and civilis ation during the ninety-four years of one
life can be nothing less than marvellous. Lord St.
Leonards studied in the Temple years and years before
gas was dreamed of, and when the hurrying train and
the electric telegraph were as the phantoms of the
night. Yet he lived to see railways burrowing in all
directions underneath the busy thoroughfares of
London, to read news flashed from the other end of
the globe through thousands of miles of ocean cable,
and to know that a line was in contemplation beneath
the very waves of the English Channel.
"Haste, haste, post haste! let nothing waste! Time cries
out as he rides ;
"The steamboat's prow the waves doth plough, defying
winds and tides;
"On iron rails the train-sped mails like fiery meteors dash;
"Electric fires along their wires their thought quick tidings
flash !"

Such is the legend of to-day, and a strong contrast
it forms to the sentiments of the good old times.
A parer which has just been read before the Society
of Arts gives some idea of the mercantile marine of
Great. Britain. Our seamen are estimated at 200,000,
and our tonnage is equal to that of France, Holland,
Germany, and the -United States. Our sailing ships
number 22,000, and our steamers 2,500; the former
have a tonnage of 5,300,000, and the latter of 1,200,000.
In the sailing ships 150,000 men are at work, and in
the steamers 50,000; while of the total number 25,000
are foreigners. The employment of the latter has
often been objected to on the ground that, possessing
but an imperfect knowledge of the English language,
they are likely either to be misunderstood or to mis-
understand others in a critical moment, when the
safety of a ship depends upon the celerity with which
an order is executed. For instance, supposiog a
foreign seaman is at the wheel when a vessel is in
danger of a collision. The captain hurriedly shouts,
" Hard-a-port !" and perhaps in his excitement does
not speak with that distinctness which ought to
characterise such an instruction. An English-
man, however, would perfectly comprehend him,
but a man of another nationality night naturally fail
to do so. For this he is not to be blamed, but while
he is inquiring and the order is being repeated, precious
time is lost, and a blow is inflicted upon the good ship
which probably sends her to the bottom. Of one thing
I am certain, that if an Englishman were in charge of
a French ship, and received a command in the rapidly-
uttered language of that people, he would find it so
much Sans@rit. I was in Paris two or three years ago,
and everybody talked so fast that, where such a course
was practicable, I was compelled to entreat them to
speak slowly. Their punctiliousness in the matter of
pronunciation is often carried to a length which we
should call extreme. One day I wanted to get to the
Font Neuf, which phonetically would be spelt "Nu."
But I asked a Frenchman in the street for Pent
"Noof." He shook his head as vacantly as though I
had asked him for the whereabouts of the Grand
llama of Thibet. Then it occurred to me that I had
pronounced the word wrongly, so I said "Pont Null—
Pont Nuff ! " He was enlightened in a moment;
exclaimed " Oui monseuir !" and gave the necessary
direction. I could not heip thinking at the time that
if at home a Frenchman had asked me the way to
Lon-Don Breedge, I should have known what he

meant.
In years to come the Thames Embankment will be
one of the handsomest thoroughfares in London.
Since the beginning of this year a splendid new build-
ing, known as the St. Stephen's Club, has been opened
close to the Houses of Parliament, and within the
last few days the Metropolitan Board of Works has
leased a site for the erection of a new Opera House.
This is one of the results of cutting a new street from
Charing Cross on to the Embankment, through
Northumberland House and grounds. The Embank-
ment, one of the most noble works ever constructed,
has hitherto not answered expectation in relieving the
traffic ef Fleet-street and the Strand. Cabmen will
not use it because there are no fares to be picked up;
and omnibus conductors vote it the way to No Place.
It is entirely inaccessible from Fleet-street, and is not
very comeatable from the Strand. Vehicles from
Charing Cross, in order to get on the Embankment,
have to traverse the whole length of Parliament
street, at the bottom of which they have to run the
gauntlet of a sharp curve, with a chance of a collision.
But when the new street is made the traffic will be
poured through it in a direct stream, and as both
sides of the thoroughfare are to be lined with shops,
there will be a very considerable increase in the
attractiveness of that end of the town. There will
then be some hope that the Embankment, which cost
two millions sterling, will fulfil its purpose and relieve
the traffic of the crowded streets.
A strong feeling appears to be rising against the
practice of vivisection, and it is hoped that the depu-
tation to the Royal Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals will not have waited upon that
organization in vain. Vivisection is defended in the
interests of science, and it is not asked that it should
entirely cease. It may be expedient to torture beasts
and birds for human good, and where the gain is clear
it would be unwise to prevent experiments within cer-
tain limits. But competent authorities declare that
it is quite possible to regulate it, so that it
should not be adopted by unskilful hands, and to pre-
vent all unnecessary cruelty. Only a few months ago
the Queen showed her interest in the Prevention
Society's operations by fcrwarding a substantial dona-
tion to its funds, and to the great majority of her
Majesty's subjects the idea of cruelty in any shape is
abhorent. Of course a great deal depends upon the
legal definition of the word "unnecessary," and upon
this some magistrates have already, found a little diffi.

culty.
The fact that the Government intend to bring in a
bill for the consolidat'on of the Sanitary laws will be
natifying to all who take an interest in the preserva-
tion of the public health. Lord Salisbury complained
years ago that there was a tendency on the part of the
Legislature tom scamper" its work. Instead of mak-
ing the laws such as he who runs may read, left even
regar-authorittes puzzled in a labyrinth of amend-
Ments to Amending Acts-.--The- statutes in question
ire about thirty in number-, and it is not surprising
that even the most acute of our judges some-
times and a difficulty in reconciling the conflict-
ing interpretations which may be placed upon the
various sections. It is no matter for astonishment
that the language of our Acts of Parliament should oc-
casionally be hazy. When a bill is in committee of the
House of Commons, any member can speak as often as
he pleases, and the number of amendments moved is
sometimes very considerable. Many of these, perhaps,
aim at the accomplishment of diverse objects, and if
the House has been sitting nine or ten hours, confusion
is frequently the result.
While the death of the Emperor of China has at-
tracted but little notice, the gradual way in which the
Celestial Empire is throwing off the exclusiveness

which so long surrounded it, is worthy of remark.
Even in the childhood of the present generation China
was a place unknown. It was a far-off, mysterious
land, wherein few European feet had trodden. The
stories o ." . civilisation when Great Britain was a
range . less wilds, excited the wonder of all
ho hea ern. Its religion was a puzzle, and its
teeming population were strange and singular figures
which_sDemed to flit like so many phantoms across the
great stage of human life. By degrees; however; the
Chinese, although still regarding us as barbarians,
have entered into commercial intercourse with western
nations, and the more we know of the Chinaman, the
clearer we see in him a capacity for patient work and
a contentment of mind in an age and in a country
which looks upon the struggling to get a higher place
in society as the whole duty of man. For centuries all
emigration from the Chinese Empire was prohibited,
but now the Celestials have begun to enter into competi-
tion with the outer world. The surplus population is
overflowing to San Francisco and the United States,
and becoming the rivals of the Saxon in mining ad-
ventures. Her students are coming to London to learn
science, and to understand the principles which regu-
late European life; and her schools are in future to be
superintended by American or English teachers.
European ambassadors have been admitted to speak
with the Chinese sovereigns on the same terms as
those which govern the granting of audiences in the
western world, and the ceremony is no longer accom-
panied with the prostration which was formerly an
essential part of it.

Military officers seem somewhat disposed to com-
plain that amid the general advance which has taken
place in the prosperity of all classes during the past
twenty years, their position has been a stationary one.
The pay of private soldiers has been increased, and in
other respects their material condition has considerably
improved. Yet the officers declare that their remune-
ration has not been augmented since the time to which
the memory of man does not extend. Prices of neces-
saries have doubled, the wealth of the general commu-
nity has enormously increased, other professional
classes earn larger larger incomes than they did forty
or fifty years ago, but the British officer receives only
the same as heretofore, although his necessary expenses
are immeasurably greater than those of his pre-
decessor. It is not unlikely that this will form the
subject of Parliamentary discussion this session, for the
military officers are very well represented in the
present House of Commons.