The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-08-27 00:00:00

INDOI&Co.

Suspensory Bandage and Army

TRUSS MAKERS
327 & 329, Oxford Street,
LONDON.
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our To6on eurrespeattut.
[We deem it right to state that we do not at all times identify
ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

It may have been remarked that about this
season of the year it is a common observation
that London is empty, and that all the people
are out of town. This looks somewhat absurd
when it is remembered that several millions of
people are still left; but, all the same, in public
se • -
• „ resorts there is just at present a noticeable
(falling-off in the attendance. The working
classes who do not frequent places of refresh-
• ment or entertainment, and cannot aflord
holidays at the seaside, are still with us, but
among the professional and clerical classes
there has been a very marked exodus, and
tradesmen of various kinds are complaining
of the dulness of business. The holiday season
among Londoners this year is not compensated
fo-, as in recent seasons, by au incursion to any
great extent of friends from the country. The
American Exhibition, notwithstanding the
novelty of the Wild West Show, has not proved
ench an attraction as the exhibitions which were
held at South Kensington. This, of course, is
largely due to the absence of the cheap railway
excursions which were provided in previous
years. At the same time, the metropolis is well
worth visiting now. After the recent rains the
parks are looking quite fresh, and the show of
flowers is certainly equal to any previous year,
while there are still enough brilliant equipages
about to represent the fashionable world.
Talking of parks suggests that an attempt is
being made, and with a good prospect of suc-
cess, to obtain another large open space for
London. Travellers by the London and South-
Western Railway will have noticed the smoke
from thousands of chimneys as they draw
near the ticket - collecting station at Vaux-
hall, and have noticed how closely built
are the habitations in that locality. At
present the people, and more especially the
children, of this locality have no nearer place of
recreation than the diminutive park at Ken-
nington. On a fine afternoon, and particularly
on a Bank Holiday, the latter is a sight which
ought to be seen. It seems as if there were nearly a,
child hr every blade of grass; so thickly congre-
gated are they that it is almost a difficulty to
walk without stepping on them. Beyond this is
the fine open space known as Clapham-common,
but that is afar cry to people to whom atram fare
is a consideration. It will be good news, there-
fore,if we hear that Vauxhallcan have a park of its
own. The Vestry does not appear to be taking up
the matter with much spirit, although the pur-
chase money is something under fifty thousand
pounds but the representatives of the ratepayers
are probably afraid of the cost of laying out and
the perpetual charge of maintaining the grounds.
Fortunately for the people there is a very strong
feeling outside the Vestry in favour of the pro-
posal, which stands a good chance of being
adopted.
Much conventional nonsense is talked every
year about our tired and worn-out legislators,
and the labours of the House of Commons. It is
true that the House site late into the
night, and is likely to sit unusually late into
the year, but people who imagine that
the members are constantly in their seats and
closely following the debate until two or three
in the morning, make a great mistake. The
House of Commons to many, if not most mem-
bers, is a very agreeable and convenient club.
Thither, in the afternoon, the members resort to
meet their friends and conduct their correspond-
ence. There they can dine; the reading-room is
not largely patronised, but the smoking-room is,
end there the latest gossip and the newest
anecdotes are ciraulated. The terrace overlook-
ing the Thames makes a pleasant promenade on
a hot night, and some of the members occa-
sionally amuse themselves with a tricycle which
an enterprising individual connected with the
refreshment department lets out to them.
' Meanwhile a few members are conducting the
debate or nodding on their benches, and when
the division bells are set ringing all over the
building the members, who know nothing of the
subject, flock into vote, in the words of Mr. W.
S. Gilbert, ".Just as their leaders tell 'm to."
Coestituents in the country should accept with
a grain of salt the tales told by their members at f
agricultural dinners of weary days and sleepless
nights.
Once more the sad associations connected with
Newgate have received an addition; once more
the ominously-named church of St. Sepulchre
hen tolled forth in the heart of the City, just
awakened to life and work, the death-knell of a
living man, and a crowd of curious folk has
stopped on its way to warehouse and shop to see
the black flag float above the forbidding-looking
building. It is painful enough to be outside,
and to see in fancy the mournful procession on
the way to the scaffold, to imagine the wretched
convict, who has been shut in his cell for many
weary weeks, take a fresh and last look at the
sky; and not many people would like to ex-
change places with those whose duties compel
their attendance inside. But there is one
among the number there, the recognised reporter,
who has witnessed every execution at Newgate
for over thirty years. His recollection comprises
all the most notable criminal cases during that
period, but how many executions he has seen it
is almost impossible for him to say. During his
experience many reforms in carrying out the
capital sentence have been introduced. Public
executions have been abolished, and at Newgate
now the lase hours of the condemned man are
not disturbed by the noise of the workmen en-
gaged in erecting the scaffold. In this prison, so
frequent are the executions that the scaffold is
now a permanent structure, and, terrible to re-
late, large enough to hold several criminals at
once.
It is a painful subject, and so much attention
has recently been devoted to the case of Lipski,
the Polish Jew condemned to death for the
murder of Miriam Angell at Whitechapel, that
it is almost a crime to refer to the matter in
this column. But the case is so singular, and I
throws such a light on the characteristics of the
eremopolitan combination making up the popula-
tion of this huge city, that a mention of some I
further incidents in connection with it may be
pardoned. So firmly did Mr. Haywood, the '
Prisoner's solicitor, believe in his client's
innocence, that up to the last moment almost he
was endeavouring to obtain further evidence to
justify a reprieve. In fact, after Lipski had con- I
fessed a messenger was intercepted on his way
to the Home Office with additional statements
for the defence. Perhaps it occurs more often in
the legal profession than is popularly supposed
that solicitors personally identify themselves
with their clients' interests, but at all events in
the case of Lipski the solicitor not only gave his
time and took unceasing trouble, but must have
spent a very large sum of money out of his
own pocket in endeavouring to establish
the prisoner's innocence. When he was con-
vinced that all his efforts were in vain he
actually gave way to tears. No one can question
the motive which actuated Mr. Hayward, what-
ever opinion may be formed of his judgment or
discretion, and it is refreshing to find, in what
ere considered selfish and cynical days, so much
disinterested zeal in what was thought to be a
righteous cause.
A visit to the East-end in connection with this
case has given the writer a fresh insight into the
strange habits and customs of the people in that
neighbourhood. Street after street is occupied
with nothing but foreigners, mostly Jews
of various nationalities, who know not a
word of English, move just in their
own district, and are as distinct from
the people among whom they dwell as if
the lower quarters of a continental city had aeon
• dropped into the middle of the metropolis. These
people, who meetly talk a jargon of various
languages by which they can understand one
another, have their own clubs and places of
amusement and their own newspapers. The
latter, it must be confessed, circulate views of
the most revolutionary character, while their
readers are many of them proscribed Nihilists
and Socialists of the most advanced kind.
Whether they constitute a danger to society in
Great Britain is an open question, though it
is more than probable that the freeaorn with
which they are allowed to live and ventilate
their opinions, possibly reconcile them to the
form of Government under which they are glad
to live. But from an economic view they con-
stitute a very serious difficulty. They introduce
a competition in an already overburdened labour
market, which means positive starvation to a
• frest number of our own working population.
t has been seriously proposed that the legis!a-
lature should take steps to stop the immigration
of distressed foreigners, but the question is sur-
rounded with difficulties. That a great hardship
is inflicted upon the native-born toiler is without
doubt.
The decision of the Queen to devote the
balance of the Women's Jubilee Offering—a sum
of between seventy and eighty thousand pounds
—to the cause of nursing homes, is one that wili
give universal satisfaction. Happily the type of
nurse exemplified in Mrs. Gamp is dying out,
but it is very slowly. It is singular that with
the difficulty women find in obtaining remune-
rative amployment the occupation of a nurse has
pot beccet* p;ora popular. It is tru9 that