The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-03-13 00:00:00

Our faithful Correspoatitt.

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

"Much doing in the House to-night?" you ask of a
neighbour who is glancing over the Parliamentary
business set down for that day's consideration. "Oh,
well, Supply is on the paper, and you know what that
means," is very possibly the answer you receive. But
as all your readers may not be so well acquainted with
the interpretation of the term, I will in a few words ex-
plain it. " Supply "is the granting of money wanted
on a.ccouut of the public purposes, and may be classi-
fied into threa great divisions—the Army, the Navy,
and the Civil Service. Between forty and fifty millions
sterling are annually appropriated in this way, and it
is split up into some hundreds of votes, on each of whiji
there may be a discussion, and this is always taken
in committee, in; order-that, members may speak upon
it as often as they please. Hence the term " Com-
mittee of Supply." But it is a fundamental principle
-of the constitution that before any money is granted
to the Sovereign, a person who has a grievance
may bring it forward, so as to give the Sovereign's
advisers an opportunity of explaination. Therefore,
it is not uncommon, when the Speaker puts the
question "That I do leave the chair," in other words
that the House shall go into committee, that one after
another member interposes with a motion upon which
, he wishes for an explanation from Ministers. The
subjects of complaint are the most diverse that can be
imagined. Those who have them in hand may, if they
fill! please, "survey the world from China to Peru ; " but
- this does not matter. Every one of them has to be
disposed of before the representatives of the people will
consent to vote the money asked for by the Ministers.
Then at last, when the whole of them are cleared off,
the Speaker leaves the chair, and retires .f?om the
House; the mace is stowed away under the table, and
the Chairman of Committees presides. He takes his
seat alongside one of the clerks, and not in the Speaker's
canopied seat of authority. Of course he has equal
- , power with that high functionary to maintain order,
and his decisions are treated with the like respect. In
Committee of Supply his duties are comparatively
easy, but when the Committee is discussing the clauses
of a heavy and complicated Bill, his work is often
arduous and difficult. One amendment follows another
in rapid succession; and as clauses are struck out or
amended, he makes the necessary alterations in
red pencil. The committee being at an end, the
.11 Speaker, who is in his furnished residence within the
precincts of the legislative palace, is sent for; the mace
a`l is replaced upon the table as a symbol that the House
itself is once more in Session; and the
proceeds. 'The Budget of the Chancellor of
is always introduced in Committee of Si
times like these, which are of such great
Speaker 'remains to listen to the debate, s
sits wigged and robed upon the Treasury Bench.
Imaginative writers have long dwelt upon the suffer-
ings of those who are compelled to cross the sea
between Dover and Calais, and various expedients
5' have been discussed whereby they might be mitigated.
Plans tor the construction of a tunnel under the
channel were lately placed before the public; and
el- more recently the trial trips of the Bessemer steamship
has attracted considerable attention as promising
some hope that the miseries of sea passengers between
England and France may be very much lessened if not
altogether put an end to. Lord Henry Lennox, the
tti • First Commissioner of Works, was a passenger in the
new ship in her passage from Hull to Gravesend, and
has testified that she certainly proved herself remark-
able for the almost total absence of pitching, and for
the moderation of her rolling. As there was but a
small supply of coal on board, the vessel was not driven
at her full speed; notwithstanding which, however,
for several hours in succession she kept up a rate of
• fourteen to sixteen knots an hour. There was only
. . one drawback, and that was, the hydraulic machinery
for working the suspended saloon was partially in-
complete, and the working of the levers by which the
ship's equilibrium is to be preserved was not quite
understood. The object of the suspended saloon is to
nullify the rolling motion of the ship; and although
from the canses above stated, the results upon this
i• t, occasion were necessarily imperfect, those on board
seem to have considered that the apparatus, when
properly worked, had full power over the saloon.
Apart, however, from this advantage, the size of the
Bessemer is superior to that of any Channel steamer
afloat, and her great speed will materially shorten the
passage to about an hour and a half in time.
A pamphlet by :Mr. Cholniondeley Pennell, the in-
spector of oyster and sea fisheries, does not take a
cheerful view of our prospects in either of these direc-
tions. Mr. Pennell speaks as one possessing a thorough
acquaintance with his subject, and he says that the
oyster, the cod, the sole, and almost all sorts of
fisheries are becoming gradually but steadily ex-
hausted, owing to the indiscriminate and continuous
• drains made upon them by a constantly-increasing
demand, and the absence of any efficient restric-
• tive rules. Mr. Pennell advocates the establish-
-1.1 : meat of such regulations as will give the hope of
. securing a future supply of fish. In support of his
arguments he adduces the example of the Virginian
•
oyster beds in America, and those of Arcachon in
France, where the culture, after rapidly degenerating,
s'a s has been to a great extent restored. On tie other hand
it is worthy of note that the Royal Sea Fishery Cora-
, missioners, in 1866, reported it as their opinion that no
, • s
regulations or restrictions have had and are likely to
have any beneficial effect, and accordingly recom-
mended their abolition. This has to a great extent
been acted upon, and to it Mr. Pennell attributes that
falling-off in our fisheries to which he has called
attention.
Some of the medical journals have lately been dis-
cussing the numbers of hours of sleep necessary to the
maintenance of health in the human frame. Most of
alas us were told in our school days that "nature requires
five; custom gives seven; laziness takes nine; and
▪ wickedness eleven." With this, as with many another
couplet, truth rather suffers at the expense of rhyme.
In the first place, five hours of sleep would suit very
few constitutions, and as to wickedness taking eleven,
that is very far from being the case, at all events in our
convict establishments. It is impossible for one
man to prescribe with mathematical exacti-
tude the quantity of sleep which is requisite
for another. One feels as -fresh after six hours
of repose as his friend does after eight or nine
and it would be madness for him who requires eight
to think of being satisfied with six. The medical
faculty tells us that insomnia—an incipient disease of
the brain arising from sleeplessness—is on the increase
in our midst. Prince Bismarck suffers from it con-
tinually; the brain gets so overwrought during the day
that even when its owner should compose it to rest, he
finds it impossible to do so. The late Horace Greeley
did not have a sound night's rest for years before his
debah. On the other hand it is recorded of John Wes-
ley that he was able to get through his arduous work
of travelling and preaching solely through the power
which he possessed of commanding sleep at will. This,
however, falls to the lot of very few, and some of our
1010 greatest men would make almost any sacrifice if they
could enjoy the precious gift which fell to the lot of
Wesley. I have read somewhere of a Pagan nation
•as which was accustomed to put its worst criminals
to death by keeping them without sleep, one of the
be most exquisite kinds of torture which human ingenuity
Ls ever invented. To the sleepless man, who lies awake
at night., and turns impatiently from side to side in the
hope that the latest change of position will bring him
that for which he so ardently longs, one minute seems
as much as ten in broad daylight. The ticking of his
watch, or of the clock in the hall, smites upon the ear
with monstrous regularity; the very sighing of the
wind outside conduces to irritation; and the musical
quarters, as they are sent forth from the neighbouring
church steeple, are anything but welcome then. All
else is quiet. The populated city is as silent as the
hillside or the glen; the voice of nature is at rest, and
a softer murmur seems to come even from the streams
as they flow towards the sea. Those who habitually
enjoy sound and refreshing sleep can scarcely be too
thankful for it, while those whom the worry of life
will not allow of their taking adequate repose cannot
be but commiserated.
* Some recent train alterations have made a material
difference in the time of the London papers going to
press. Formerly, more especially in the case of the
•
threepenDY journals, 'copy" was taken on emergencies
up to four o'clock in the morning, but while the num-
ber of these has of late years decreased, the penny
newspapers have increased; and these having a much
-- larger circulation, have to go to press considerably
earlier. In the case of the Parliamentary debates,
you often see the papers wind these up in this way
"The other orders were disposed of, and the House ad-
journed," and it is a fact that owing to the necessity
- —or going to press early, much of what now passe:: in
the House of Commons never appears in print at all.
Nor is it easy to see how this can be avoided. One of
.ssy, the great railway companies has just altered the time
alas- of its first train out of London from 6.15 a.m. to 5.15,
and as the newspaper parcels must necessarily go by
.1144 e
that it practically means the cutting off of an hour for
saiss,‘"ssa -
. the preparation of intelligence. Those journals of
large circulation which formerly went to press
gi aat three, have now to go at two, and as time
visais" mnst be allowed for the process of stereotyping,

ordinary

business

generally I

ssiali) this means that the copy is closed up at one, of
14 -ds' within a quarter of an hour of that time.
The explosion which took place upon the Regent's
;slut&
.1, Canal on the 2nd of October last has resulted in the
elaa,i, preparation of a bill by the Home Office for the mann=
facture and sale of explosive substances. This mea-
.Flirrt rare is a very comprehensive one, consisting of 73 folio
pages, and containing 113 clauses, and 4 schedules. A
glance at its provisions shows that the precautions for
the public protection have been very considerably

_
-,stablishment have fraternised
the Exchequer formist sympathisers to pror,-
;upply ; and at movement, which •
I,t interest, the by the religious
and house visitatir