The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-11-05 00:00:00

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COMMENTS ON CURRENT' NEWS

NOVEMBER came in like a roaring lion.
The wind and waves which washed a stretch
of railroad war Holyhead away, and snb-
merged a portion of the shore of the land-
locked harbour of Poole, were higher than
we have had for many a long day, and the
rain literally descended in torrents. Many
lives were,sacrificed to the rigour of the
gale, and the damage done to property was
tremendous all over the country.

A GREAT musician is gone. The sudden
demise of Sir. George Macfarren deprives
harmony of one of its foremost leaders, a
worker who could ill be spared. He was a
veteran in almost every corner of the com-
poser's field, as a demonstrator of his much-
loved art he had no superior, as a tutor he
, was beyond praise. With wide knowledge,
he had an acutely cultured. taste, and a
phenomenal memory, with all the other rare
qualities which go to make up the master of
music whom all may revere and each may
love. Yet he had long been physically a
feeler in the dark. "Old and blind, yet I
am not cast down," he might, in truth, have
said with Milton. Sir George's position in
the world of musical culture was a peculiar
-one. An authority on all things harmonic,
he stood higher than everything else as an
inflnencerand moulder of the musical thouThf
.t age la wnicu no Lived. No
man has done more than he to lift the level
of music in our own land. He was
honoured for his good work while yet he
was with us; let us honour him deeply now
that he is no longtr here to lead us.

Mn. WILLIAM O'BRIEN, M.P., entered an
appeal against the dictum of the Court
which condemned him to imprisonment for
defying the law in Ireland; bat when the
hearing of the appeal was to take place in
the higher tribunal, he did not offer any-
thing i its support;, and no he was trans-
ferred, after a final battle with that physical
force which the law, has to use when the
people 'will `not obey its behests, to prison.
The fierY journalist refused to wear the gaol
garb, or engage in auy demeaningtask, aver-
ring that he would rather die than submit to
indignity. He has yet, evidently, to learn
that the best way to effect reforms in the
statutes is to render implicit obedience to
existing laws, no matter bow strongly you
advocate and agitate for their suppression.
Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, whose appeal has still to
come on, seems ,bent also on flying in the
face of authority.

WE have had all sorts of reasons adduced
for the depression in commerce which has
of late been so loudly complained of, and
now agriculturists in council set down the
cause of farming failure to the currency
laws. The battle of bi-metallism and mono-
metallism has thus been carried bodily into
the farm yard. At the Central Chamber of
Agriculture meeting a member also appealed,
reluctantly, be said, for Protection, and so
we have the purely non-political add essen-
tially British industry of tilling the soil
transferred at a bound into the troubled
arena of polities. We hold that, if farmers
be given fair'play they will live, to their own
wellbeing and that of the community; nt
if you make political shuttlecocks of them,
to be hit up and down and hither and thither
by grasping landlords and lazy labourers,
you will braise the backbone of Britain so
seriously that death will result. Industry,
and application, and the steadfast employ-
matt of scieatitic knowledge will be suffi-
cient to emancipate the farmer, if the land-
lord and the State will give him fair play in
the matter of rent and taxes.

THE noisy demonstrations of those "ill-
employed" persons who have been masquer-
ading in London as " unemployed " workmen
have subsided a good deal this week, thanks
largely to the wet weather, which has sup-
plemented the arduous exertions of the
police capital effect. The London
demonstrators were an ill-conditioned lot,
and the Lord Mayor Ilid well to refuse to
open a special relief fund for them. A
Liverpool mob, akin to the Cockney roughs
in nature, disturbed the closing of the ex-
hibition in the Mersey-side city the.other
day. The police turned the fire-hose on the
would-be rioters, and shortly all was peace.
Hint for Sir Charles Warren. If a rain-
storm in London, or the playing of nt india-
rubber pipe in Liverpool, will a:•perse
dangerous aggr.s.;ation of rough:, .t short
notice, why not ; urn on a copie..., ehower
from the fire-p! A whenever ti e agitating
" une.npieyed uuduly menace the public

saey.- it Ns.uuld bi; bolter than breaking
heads, or even arreoting people and taking
theta to police-courts, and it would be as
effective so wild &ghee of Mao mounted