The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-08-13 00:00:00

(Our ISonbolt CorrtspoAcAt,

TIVe deem it rfght to state that we do net at all times
identify mu-selves with our Correspondent's opinions.

The International Medical Congress, which has
been meeting in London, has held its sittings under
the most favourable auspices. In addition to the
_ _ .

representatives of British Medical Science, something
approaching a thousand of the most eminent phy-
sicians and surgeons from nearly every part of the
world were present to discuss questions of the most
vital importance to suffering humanity. The
Medical Congress proved itself practical as well
as international ; indeed it might be described as
a gigantic consultation at which the leading phy-
sicians of Europe and America assisted; and
wherein the patient was humanity at large. The
more prominent part in the proceedings was taken
by the most eminent exponents of medical and
physical science, both British and foreign; and the
greater-number of those who attended were present
. somewhat in the character of students attentively
listening to the expositions of the masters of the pro-
fession. To prevent confusion, every document was
printed in three languages—English, French, and
German—and abstracts of the speeches to be delivered
were printed and previously distributed amongst the
members of the Congress, who combined serious and
searching deliberations with social entertainments,
such as conversaziones at the Guildhall and the South
Kensington Museum, and banquets at the Mansion
House and the Crystal Palace.
The preliminary proceedings of the Rowland Hill
Memorial Committee have almost reached an end so
far as actual business is concerned ; and a decision as
to the statue to the great postal reformer having been
arrived at, there is nothing now to do but to
await the final outcome. That the memmial to Sir
Rowland Hill will be in every way worthy of the 1
City of London there is every guarantee. The
sculptor, Mr. E. Onslow Ford, is busily en-
gaged upon the work, and intent on completing
it at the earliest possible moment. No man of our
generation has done more to deserve a statue than Sir
Rowland Hill ; and appropriately enough it will stand
in the City, in which the General Post Office, where
he spent so many years of his long and useful life, is
one of the most conspicuous of public buildings.
No institution in our day has been worked more
modestly to a great success than the National Portrait
Gallery, which was brought into existence in 18;7
by a Parliamentary vote of £2,000. Its first exhibi-
tion was held in a little room in Great George-
street, Westminster. But from a few chosen portraits
it has enlarged its possessions to one which is likely
at length to be worthy of the nation. In its infancy
it was leteresting ; at South Kensington it 1110nipor-
tant. No fewer than 27)6 portraits have been pre-
sented to the Gallery; 380 have been purchased, a
total of 636, and they are all good. Amongst those
presented this year are a pen-and-ink sketch of Lord
Clyde, the great soldier; a bust, copied from a cast,
in plaster, of Thackeray when a lad, taken by
an Italian at Thackeray's, Devonshire home ;
Bcehm's modern statue of Dr. Johnson, and a half-
length marble figure of Sarah Siddons, prepared for
Westminster Abbey, but set aside for a full-length
statue. Among the pictures bought is a portrait of
the poet Gay, one of the Duke of Cumberland by
Reynolds, one of Queen Catherine, the consort of
Charles 11., and a picture of Queen Anne at a court
ceremonial, surrounded by her lords. A marble
bust of Samuel Lover, poet, musician, and novelist,
by Foley, has also been purchased. time was
when South Kensington. was a distant suburb of
London; but the Metropolitan District Railway has
long since brought it within a quarter of an hour's
run of the busiest part of the capital.
The mar riage- rate in England and Wales, in the latest
quarter for which the RegistraieGeneral's returns
are issued, showed a considerable decliee from
that which prevailed in the corresponding period
of last year, and was 16 below the average rate
in the same period of the previous decade. It
was lower than in the first quarter of any year
since civil registration was'established, except in 1879.
This is a remarkable fact, taken in conjunction with
the assurance of the Registrar-General that a high
naarriage.rate is generally commensurate with national
prosperity, as this is the time when people can best
afford to take upon themselves the additional expense
and responsibility involved in so serious a step. The
rate has increased in Durham and Dorsetshire, whereas
it showed a large decline in Staffordshire, Warwick,
Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, and the great county
. Of York.

Although the Census returns showed such a sub-
stantial increase in the population of the United
Kingdom,' there can be no doubt that the tide of
4rnieratiat from our shores has within the past three
'years increased to an extraordinary degree. Ihe
recorded r,lumber of emigrants, which did not reach
44,000 in the second quarter of 1878, steadily increased
to nearly 170,000 in the corresponding period of this year.
Excluding the enormous total of 80,000 foreigners,
who having settled in this country, did not find it
quite such an avenue to success in life as they had
,expected and resolved to leave it again, the emi-
grants of British origin were well nigh 89,000. The
proportion of emigrants to a million of the estimated
r;opulation, was respectively 1, 612 from England, 2,468
from Scotland, and 7,200 from Ireland. No less
than 78 per cent. of the whole left for the United
States, while 11 per cent. turned their faces towards
British North America, 6 per cent, to the Australian
Colonies, and 5 per cent, to other places. These
proportions differed but slightly from those that
prevailed in the corresponding quarter of the previous
years.
For purposes of science Greenwich Observatory is
unsurpassed in the world. Whatever may be the
readings of the barometer or the height of the tem-
perature elsewhere, it is to Greenwich that practical
men always look for precision and exactitude. The
information issued from this establishment is always
of interest in a population which talks so much of
the weather, and whose health is so materially
affected by - the fluctuations which have been wit-
nessed since the beginning of the year. A pecu-
liarity of 1881, so far as it has gone, is the
comparatively small amount of rain that has
fallen. The rain measured at Greenwich during the
second quarter of the year was 4'l inches, which was
113 below the average in the corresponding period o
sixty-six years. Each of the three months fell short,
the largest deficiency occurring in April, when rain
was measured on only eight days, the number of wet
days in May being thirteen, and in June nine—in all
on thirty out of the ninety-one days in the quarter.
The hours of bright sunshine recorded in the three
months at the Greenwich Observatory was 514, as
against 352 and 457 in the same quarters of the two
previous years.

Committee on the Irish Land Bill in the House of
Lords was a very different process from the same stage
in the Commons. In the former assembly two nights
were sufficient to dispose of • the bill, while the Com-
mons devoted thirty-three nights to it. In the Lords
the
.tellers, that is to say, the peers who count the
number votir g include themselves in the total,
while in the Commons the tellers: are never reckoned
at all. A division in the Lords is such an un-

common occurrence that to a certain degree a

kind of solemnity attaches to it ; the tellers are
alined with white wands, with which they deliberately
tap on the shoulder every noble lord who votes, as he
passes from the House into the lobby. Formalities of
this kind are, however, dispensed with in the Corn-

mons where divisions are so frequent that they have
to be taken with as little ceremony and loss of time as
possible._ In another way the practice in divisions in

the two Houses varies considerably. In the Commons
the Speaker or Chairman of Committees, as the case
may be, does not vote except when the numbers are
equal, when he gives a casting vote; in the Upper
house the Lord Chancellor and the Chairman vote
with the other peers, and when the numbers are equal
the non-contents prevail.
Last year the Ministerial banquet which it is cus-
tomary for the Lord Mayor to give at the Mansion
House to her Majesty's Ministers at the close of the
session, was abandoned in consequence of the serious
illness f Mr. Gladstone, but no such untoward inci.
dent marked the approaching termination of the
present Parliamentary year. This dinner affords to
Ministers of the Crown an opportunity of reviewing
what has been done, as well as of glancing at what
has remained undone, and of looking forward to being
able to do more in the time to come. It is an
official utterance which is to give the key-note to the
speeches in the recess, and until the 9th of November,
when Ministers gather at the invitation of the new
Lord' Mayor, but not at the Mansion House. The
Egyptian Hall of the civic palace, the largest in the
building, seats about 300 guests, and very beautiful it
looks with its innumerable lights reflected in the
mirrors. But on the 9th of November each of the
Sheriffs has, with the Lord Mayor, the privilege of
inviting 300 guests, and then the feast takes place
in the Guildhall, with Gog and Magog once more
looking down upon the assembled diners.

price
In Scotland fat cattle hive improved In p •
during July; but the trade in store stock, Owing to scar
of grass and poor prospect of turnips, hal been, and is
Inactive, with prices lower than last year. Sheep-and lambs,
whetber fat or lean, continue to sell wcll. •
The steamship Cachapoal, which has been built for
the Pacific line, was launched on Tuesday morning from
Messrs. Laird's yard, Birkenhead. Just as the launch was
about to take place a barque passed up the river in charge
of a tug, and on the Cachapoal taking the water she was
carried towards the barque, and all efforts of the men on
board failed to avert a collision, which resulted in the sink-
ing of the barque. The Cachapoca's stern-post was damaged,
but no person was injured.
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