The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-05-30 00:00:00

WHIT-MONDAY WITH MISS OCTAVIA
HILL.
The Special Reporter of 77, Hone gives the following in-
teresting particulars of Idis, Hill's philanthropic work in
London

-What

there beats

....
When Mr. Kay-Shntth w F
A
orth, g
early in the present 1
month, drew the attention of the House of Commons ! AD PRE-EMINENCE.— __..., is ,
a ood Wife? A bad Husband.—Punch.
to the condition of the dwellings of the working classes ! WHIT-MosassY IN LIVERPOOL.—ID spite of the
in London, he alluded to the several philanthropic in- , gloomy weather a very large number of excursionists
stitutions whose labours he wished to supplement by : visited Liverpool on Monday, and the Wallasey Ferry
Act of Parliament. These institutions exist to provide steamers were densely crowded. During the day
decentandcommodious housing forthe thousandsousted nearly 4,000 persona arrived by special trains on the
yearly by the incursion of railways into populous die- London and North Western Line. The Lancashire
stricts, and the gradual Hatisniannising of the Metro- and Yorkshire Company brought in 9,700, and the
polio. They do this by purchasing vacant sites, Great Northern, 3,000, in addition to which the
and covering them with blocks id model dwellings. onfinary traffic was very heavy. A number of Welsh
But this is a small part of their aim ; they pre- visitors were also in the town in connection with the
tend to no less an undertaking than the re- Calvanistic Methodist meeting. Theday was observed
generation of our alleys and crowded courts, the as a general holiday by shopkeepers and others.
rebuilding of every existing slum and fever-bed, and TowardOive o'clock the sky, which had been overcast
the inauguration of a religion if health, hi this work all day, became excessively dark and lowering, and
eat
have
turnice;Lw
Miss Octavia Hill's scheme comes prominently to the torrents of rain descended, seriously interfering with
front, outshadowing both in work done and in the the comfort of those excursionists who had not re
ix.4characterytrustees. o thatThese
hweosrekr,
ethuel
tse ffi
no rN;il i
s.e,
vlienill?sf SPAPERS FOR ABROAD INSUFFICIENTLY
now been plainly before the public since 1860, when, PREPAID. Notwithstanding the repeated notices
in Macmillan's Magazine, she sketched her plan of issued by the General Post Office, a very large number
operation. Since then articles in Macmillan anti the of newspapers, addressed to places abroad, is still put
Fortnightf g have from time to time traced the into the post daily bearing postage stamps insufficient
progress of her efforts, and now, after ten years' in amount for their prepayment, and such newspapers
active service, she is able to look about her 011 are, in most cages' necessarily detained. Upon a
a band of zealous volunteers by whose help great proportion of these papers less than a single rate
she controls a tenantry numbering, in round of postage (and, indeed, in many cases only a half -
figures, 3,000. Miss Hill has other work, such , penny) is prepaid. Others bear stamps equivalent in
as that of charitable relief organisation, in which the amount to one rate of postage only, although, being
poor-law guardians in certain parishes own her worth above four ounces in weight, they are liable to two and
in the practical way of consulting her on almost every occasionally to three rates of x,stage. Newspapers
case that comes before them; but her experiment in for places abroad are also frequently stopped in conse-
London landladyism is that for which she is chiefly / uenee of being posted more thin eight days after the
honourable and honoured. The outcome of this ex- date of publication. Such newspapers can only be
periment is 1,..11, .i,;.. 15 :4 oossible to manage forwarded as book-packets and repaid as such.
Lendon cottage property in a ciemos , .. . , „,._..._ . .
,:, , . . . .
,' faverting the -ffisappointian 'OeBlitillAck with a
Christian-like way—in a way, in fact, that can view o ,-
and does actually satisfy, Mr. Ruskin himself, at a non-arrival of newspapers at their destination.
profit of from 1:5 to £8 per cent. on the capital ex -
RATHER HARD.. Paterfamilias (who believes
petaled. Surely this is something when philanthropy
in the employment of Women) writes to ask why young
is in constant abuse as a ruinously bad speculation.
omen should be kept out of the Pulpit while there are
How Mist: Ilill collects her own rents, carries out
sanitary reform with a high hand, organises clubs, T. many o/c/ ones let in i-J-Ptt itch.
flower-shows, excursions, and encouraging self-help in LITERARY HOSSIP.—We (Athennum) under-
every form has already been detailed at length by her stand that Mr. Gladstone is engaged upon a volume
own pen. The success of her first efforts caused to entitled "Thesaurus I4omerikos," a register of matters
flow from willing friends the capital necessary to buy noted from the text of the " Iliad " and "Odyssey."
the fifteen properties over which she now exercises her It will be published by Messrs. Macmillan. Mr.
supervision, and which house the 3,000 tenants already Murray has in preparation, with an original map and
mentioned. The Peabody trustees only account for iilustrations, " The Last J . Journals of Dr. Living-
the hoeing of BS2 families, Miss Hill houses as many, stone," including his researches and wanderings in
or more, at an infinitely less cost What is the secret Eastern Africa, from 18645 to within a few days of his
of her success? She herself puts it in two words—ln- death, edited by his son, Mr. T. Steele Livingstone.
dividual effort. The volgme comprises all the journals sent over by
Dr. Livingstone in charge of Mr. Stanley; also
,the

.....
Whit-Monday was to be celebrated as a holiday in
one of the courts in the neighbourhood of Cavendish-
square over which Miss Hill presides. The owner of
the houses herself supplied the treat—a trip to
Petersham. One side of Wi,more-street was lined
with vans. Blank-court poure3 its inmates to the ex-
tent of :3; 0 into them, and with the club drum-and-
fife band at our head we started. Ten was the ap-
pointed hour; it slipped on to eleven, and we were off.
He who drove the fifth van was gallant beyond belief,
and fuller of chaff than the most typical of omnibus
cads ; consequently the journey down was not without
pleasantries. Every young lady in muslin was Mary
Anne, and those who affected prints went as Jane. All
answered to their names, and the drivers of the other
vans following suit, we made our way to Kew, in most
loving and familiar style. Nor were songs wanting of
a simple and loyal type :
Little boys whistle.
Little boys sing;
ilolloa boys, hellos boys '
God save the Queen.
Hurrah !
And BO our thirteen vans reached Richmond. At
Richmond, the Foresters and Oddfellows, wonderfully
bedizened with impossible horns and emblems that
were Greek to the uninitiated, stopped the way.
Petersham Park received us dusty and hot, but bent
on cricket, croquet, football, and whatever game sug-
gests itself to town mice whose ideas are, truth to
tell, rather poverty-stricken in the matter of country
amusement. Alas for the rain! croquet languished
under an incipient drizzle, cricket succumbed under
a steady downpour. The many had arrayed them-
selves "not wisely but too well," and thought rue-
fully of bedraggled muslins and spoilt silk hats ; the
few were armed with umbrellas and cloaks. But, after
all, country rain is not like town rain, and the turf
smells sweet, even if you can't sit on it. Under one
lime tree she who provided the entertainment sat and
read "Jack and the Bean Stalk to an audience as
large as her voice could reach; under another common
pro perty in babies was the order of the day. These -mon
phew; inarticulate beings were never in greater force
than on Monday at Petersham. Nobody owned them, or
to speak correctly, everybody nursed them, and there was
a scramble among Miss Hills lady rollabor«teuses for the
chubbiest specimen, and a contest as to who could send
the noisiest of them quickest off to sleep. At last, one
child was fairly lout; matronly alarms began. A cry-
ing mother ran from tree to tree under the wet, and
would not be consoled till a mounted policeman
brought back the truant mannikin on his saddle-bow, '
who had wandered, Heaven knows how, into Rich- '
mond. Finer weather might have been more enjoy-
able, but, as it was, there was a stolid determination
to be amused, and amused we were.
Of the three hundred visitants to Petersham Park,
Miss Hill knew every one, and never was a hostess
such a host in herself. One would think it possible
for her with some satisfaction to look upon the :3,000
of which these were a sample, for whom, scattered
about in London courts and alleys, she has found com-
fortable homes. But a forward-looking, spirit is never
content. "this is a mere drop in the ocean," she
says, "said anything private effort can do, with-
out the help of compulsory powers of purchase,
will continue so. There are many houses and
courts I know that, owing to bad titles or complicated
leases, and collateral interests, cannot be bought with-
out such help." And when railway companies and the
Metropolitan Board of Works have granted them the
power to buy and pull down, it is hard logically to re-
fuse the power to buy, refit, and enlarge.
' Whit-Monday with Miss Hill's tenantry is not ill-
' spent if we conclude from these facts that individual
' effort is more potent than all the Peabody bequests in,
, creation, and that it is possible to engage in a work of
the most sterling philanthropy without having " com-
, menial failure" cast in one's teeth.

journals tat have been transmitted since, Li'well- an
the papers received by the Foreign Office. Sir Frederick
Pollock has undertakes to edit, and Messrs. Macmillan
to publish, the Autobiography of the late Mr.
Macready, with selections from his copious and in-
tereeting journal.
A CHANcE FOR THE Pi-WM.—One of the car-
riages on a tram which was conveying the Forty-
Second from Aldershot to Portsmouth the other day,
broke an axle, when six carriages ran off the line, to
the serious dame of several of the Regiment. Smash-
ing a Black Watch ought to be almost as effectual in
quickening Railway Regulation as damaging a Direc-
tor.—Penelt.
REMARKABLE CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS.—
Two unusual contributions towards the Bengal Famine
Fund have been left with the sec. (lar. J. R. S. Vine),
at the Mansion House during the week. The first was
a bale of calico weighing 3 cwt., to be disposed of for
the benefit of the fund, and the other was made by a
gentleman who declined to leave his name and address.
It consisted of a large collection of silver coins and
medals, some of them of considerable value. The
coins range over a number of dates from Saxon time
downwards, and are in an excellent state of preservation.
--City Prem.
HAMPTON COURT ON WHIT MONDAY.—
Hampton Court, that most popular of all resorts,
gave early tokens of busy life (says the Daily Mc-
graph). The vendors of ginger-beer and gingerbread,
lemonade and lollipops, sherbert and shrimps, eicoa-
nuts, Barcelona nuts, and every other indigestible
edible began to erect their stalls along the Green, and
to decorate them with those tempting wares; weighing
machines, tea and coffee stalls, and the usual concomi-
tants of a fair, were conspicuous by their presence.
While these preparations were being carried out on the
Green, the Royal Palace itself was already thronged with
early visitors, who continued to pass through itsgatesby
thousands, if not by tens of thousands, during the day.
At half past twelve the Green presented a most lively
appearane,vehicles of every description succeeding
each other rapidly. When the fun and revelry were
at their height, the rain suddenly descended in
torrents, and one or two claps of thunder aided the
general rising and dispersion and discomfiture of the
disconsolate excursionists. The change was a pitiable
one. In a few minutes the bright blue and pink
bonnets donned for the occasion were obscured by damp
cotton handkerchiefs, and the clean cotton dresses and
smart sashes were draggled and damp. The rain
continued to fall during the afternoon, spoiling the
pleasure of the pleasure-seekers, if it did not com-
pletely extinguish it, the majority either seeking refuge
in the Palace or wending their way homewards, with
their horses not less dispirited-looking than them-
selves.
A NEW NEEDLE.—A lady in San Francisco,
the Chronicle of that city says, has invented a new
needle, the improvement consisting in making a needle
of any size without an eye for the thread, but with,
instead, a hole bored longitudinally into the head or
larger end thereof to the depth of a quarter of an
inch or thereabouts, which hole is arranged with a
screw thread. The needle, it is claimed, will carry
any kind of thread, and can be used for every pur-
pose. It is thought that it will be valuable, also, as a
surgical needle, as it will require but one thread, the
advantage I,f which will be that a smaller hole will be
made in passing the needle througn any substance
than would have to be made by the partially doubled
thread of the ordinary eyed needle.
A CHAIR OF GASTRONOMY.—It is whispered
that, in the new National School for Cookery, a
munificent Nobleman intends to found a (Dr.)
Kitchener Professorship.—Peach.
THE KING OF THE JONES'S.—The richest man
in the world is a Mr. Jones. He hails from Nevada,
U.S., and is a senator whose speech on the recent
"Inflation " Bill caused a great sensation. His annual
income is said to be £1,200,000. He is the owner of
the rest productive mine known, a large silver mine,
which gave him recently as his share of the profits,
1:50,000 a month. This amount has been doubled by
the discovery of a new vein.
A TENLER Corarsmr.—ln an account of the
marriage ceremonies of the Esquireaux, given by Dr.
Hayes, he says :- " The match is made by the parents
of the couple. The bridegroom goes and capture a
polar bear as an evidence of his manly courage and
strength. Then he is told he can marry, if so inclined,
and like most bachelors he is generally so inclined.
He sneaks behind the door of his inamorata, and when
she comes out he pounces upon and undertakes to
carry her to his dog sledge. She screams, bites, kicks,
and breaks away from him. He chases her, and the
old women of the settlement conic out with frozen
strips of sealskin and give her a thwack. After run-
ning the gauntlet of these old women she falls down
exhausted and surrenders. The bridegroom then
lashes her to his sledge, and whipping up his dogs they
fly over the frozen snow, and the wedding is con.
summated."
HEAVY ODDS !--Thirteen trumps in one hand
is an event incredible to whist players. Nevertheless.,
it is stated on the authority of the New York Timms
that this piece of good luck absolutely befell a man in
a railway carriage the other day: A doubt having
been expressed concerning the fairness of the deal
which produced this result, our contemporary cal-
culates that the chances of the occurrence of such an
event are about 159,000,000,0 - oto one. Rather heavy
odds, it must be admitted. The statistician of The
Times then informs us that he has carefully worked a
problem in figures which shows that if the entire
population of the earth, taken at 1,000,000,000, were to
play at whist day and night for 100,000,000 years, they
could not exhaust the variety of ways in which the
cards might fall to the respective players. The odds
against the dealer holding thirteen trumps, he says,
may be taken in round figures at 159,000,000,000 to
one.

ANY SENSIBLE PARENT TO ANY TERRIBLE CHILD.
Terrible Child : WHAT is matter
.Senirible Parent: Never wind.
Terrible Child What is mind?
Sensible Parent : No matter—Pooch.