The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-11-27 00:00:00

7antage. There are no toll bridges over its river. This
you see, avenges Waterloo, for, as every cop knows,
Waterloo in London is a toll bridge!
Amongst the Parliamentary notices which crowd the
columns of the papers at this time of the year is one
for constructing a second line of railway from London
.to Brighton. It will enable the people of London to
reach the favourite watering-place upon the Sussex
coast, not as now only from London-bridge and
Victoria-stations, but also from Ludgate-hill, Cannon.
street, and Charing-cross. It will also be in connection
with the two underground railways, which will be of
Immense advantage, at all events to tourists, who have
no more luggage than they can carry in trheir hands. It is a
wonderful treat to large numbers of the inhabitants of
the capital to leave their own smoke-laden atmosphere
for a time, and to be enabled within about an hour to enjoy
an atmosphere charged with ozone, absolutely fine air,
and a grand rolling sea. The heaviest gradient in the
proposed new line will not be more than one in 100,
there will be only about half a mile of tunnel, and the
entire cost is estimated a £1,700,000.

I suppose there are but few readers of the news-
papers who have not heard of the Central Crimixal
Court—a tribunal prominently before the public this
week in connection with the trial of the brothers Wain-
wright for what is called the " Whitechapel Tragedy."
This court is situated in the thoroughfare known as the
Old Bailey, which runs between the eastern end of the
Holborn-viaduct and Ludgate-hill, and a very gloomy
place it is on a dark day, without a doubt. Thebuilding
is close to the. grimy prison of Newgate, the archi-
tecture of which tells at a glance the purpose to which it is
appropriated. The Central Criminal Court was esta,b-
-1 ished in 1834, an d commissions are issued to the judges, of
whom three attend in rotation for the periodical delivery
of Newgate, and for the trial of offences of all degrees,
committed in Middlesex and parts of Essex, Kent, and
Surrey. This district is considered as one county for
all criminal purposes—a plan which might be adopted
with advantage in other parts of England. Those who
are accustomed to the splendid assize halls of Leeds
and Manchester would be surprised at the dingy ap-
pearance and the limited accommodation of the Cen-
tral Criminal Court, where the trials of the most
notorious criminals of the centuiy have been conducted.
Courvoisier, the Mannings, William Palmer, the five
pirates of the Flowery Land, and Michael Barrett, one
of the chief actors in the Clerkenwell explosion of 1867,
have all stood in the same dock. The trial of Barrett,
in May, 1868, was the last time that the Lord Chief
Justice of England appeared at the Old Bailey, and
the fact of his presiding in the Wainwright case shows
the extraordinary amount of interest which it com-
mands, and the importance with which it is regarded
by the head of the judicial bench.
The late lamented Canon Kingsley once dedicated
an ode to the north-east wind, in which he expressed
sentiments which, although endorsed heartily enough
by the young and healthy, who delight in skating,
is regarded with very different feelings by those whose
scanty vesture is but a poor protection from the biting
cold:—

Welcome, wild North-Easter!
Shame it is to see
Odes to every zephyr
Ne'er a verse to thee.
Welcome, black North-Easter
O'er the German foam
O'er the Danish moorlands,
From thy frozen home.

But poor Kingsley himself was smitten down by one
of those bleak north-easters which swept over the land
in the early spring, and now sleeps his long Sabbath
of repose in the quiet little country churchyard of
Eversley. Yet never was a north-east wind more wel-
come than that which has just visited a considerable
portion of these Wands. After the long succession of
south-westerly gales, laden as they all were heavily
with the vapo-_rs of the Atlantic, after weeks and
mouths of dripping skies, of pitile4s rain-drops, and
sodden land, a drying wind, even though it came from
ice-bound regions, was especially appreciated in the
submerged valleys; and for once Canon Kingsley's
sentiments found a hearty echo froin many where
the most thoughtless had begun to reflect and the
most hopeful to despair.