The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-01-09 00:00:00

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Identify ourselves iv lth our Correspondent's options.]

The new ratliament will be opened in a very
few days, and it will be a subject for regret to
tens of thousands of her Majesty's loyal subjects
that the ceremony will not be performed by the
Queen in person. It is well-known by this time
that a state affair of this kind is a serious physical
ordeal to the Queen, and that, when she has

braced herself to its performance, she has felt the
effects of the unusual excitement and exertion

for some days. It would not be wished that her
Majesty should thus be made to suffer, albeit
the opening of Parliament in Royalstate is-one of
the sights which Londoners like best to see. The
whole limgth of the way from Buckingham Palace
to the Victoria Tower, Westminster, is at such a
time thronged with spectators. The Mall is
crowded, and the steps leading from the park to
the Duke of York's column present a striking sight.
As the carriages of the ambassadors and other
distinguished • personages roll along, the
popular curiosity is raised to a high
point, and when at length the Royal lady her-
self, drawn by eight cream-coloured horses, is
descried, enthusiasm is evoked which finds vent
in lusty cheers, park guns and church bells
adding to the volume of sound which rends the
air. Such a scene has not been witnessed for six
years ; but as session after session passes the
hope will still be aroused that the Queen may
yet again be able to take her old place on the
throne in the House of Lords at the opening of
Parliament.
Politicians with long memories will not need
reminding that this is the fourth successive new
Parliament, the opening ceremony of which the
Queen has not been able to perform.
The reason for her Majesty's absence from
the first ceremony of the series posiesses
melancholy interest for
_ris now. It had been
the Royal wish to open the Reformed Parlia-
ment in the winter of ISCB, but the
indisposition which frequently attac!ied Prince
Leopold (better known to us in later (iay-s as the
Duke of Albany) prevented it from being carried
out. One is reminded of the circumstance by the
notification which has appeared in several
.papers
during the past few days to the effect that among
the peers who are now minors and who will be
entitled to take their seats in Parliament in some
future year, the youngest is the infant Duke of
Albany, who will not, however, be qualified to do
so until 1905. The Sympathy which was so largely
felt for the widowed duchess when the band of
death was unexpectedly laid upon her husband
two years since, will certainly attend her as long
as she remains among us; and it will be generally
hoped that the son and daughter, who are now
but infants, will grow into manhood and woman-
hood as a comfort and Stay to her whose bereave-
ment was so sudden and so sore.

Mention of the year 1905 as that at which
some one now living is likely to enter the House
of Lords is an indication of the comparatively
short time that is left to us in which to talk of
" this boasted nineteenth century." The
twentieth century, in fact, is now within
measureable distance, and its incoming will be
certain to give rise to a number of small
speculations, as well as to a great many large
ones. The first of these is certain to come out
of that old dispute as to what is the year in
which the century should be said to begin.
Many people will jump to the conclusion that
the twentieth century will commence on the Ist
of January, 1900; but their better-informed
friends will point out that the real opening day
will be in 1901, for chronology did not begin
with the year 0, but with the year 1. Another
point which may create some little controversy
and a largo amount of learned talk will be
that although 1806 u ill be a leap year,
as also will 1904, 1900 will not, this,
as the well-taught schoolboy will be able to
explain, being caused by the necessities of the
Gregorian Calendar, which demand that three
out of every four "century years" shall not have
a 29th of ebruary. It will seem singular to find
on the title-page of the almanacs for 1902, for
instance, the statement that that is "the sixth
year after Thssextile or Leap Year;" but we shall
get accustomed to it, as we do to everything else
that at first sight appears uncommon. Another
point which will arise in connection with the
earliest years of the new century is a social one
of no great importance, but of some interest. It
is customary nowadays to talk colloquially of
"8.5" or " 86 " when we mean 1885 or 1886; but
it will obviously be somewhat awkward to refer
to " seven " or "eight" when we shall need to
mention 1907 or 1908. Judging by some ex-
pressions in more than one of Thackeray's works,
it would appear that the correct fashion will be
to speak of "the year seven" or "the year
eight ; " and probably what was done by our
ancestors from 1701 to 1720 and from 1801 to
1820 will be done again when the twentieth
century comes in.
Travellers by our main lines of railway can
scarcely have failed to notice a curious apparatus
which stands adjacent to nearly every small
station, and which they are told upon inquiry is
used for receiving the bags of letters from the
mail trains, as they dash by without stopping or
even so much as slackening speed. The con-
trivance is a most ingenious one, and it is very
seldom that it fails; but now and again we hear
of such an instance, and the destruction among
the letters which is then caused is such as to
render us glad that casualties of the kind are so
infrequent. A few days ago a mail-bag came to
grief at a station not many miles from London,
and New Year's cards and business communications
were alike torn to pieces or scattered to the
winds, fragments of them beingcarried along the
line for miles. Those who know how the appa-
ratus is worked, and what a combination of skill
and sharpness of sight is required to time the
delivery of the bags, will wonder not that this
accident should have occurred, but that we do
not often hear of such. When it is remembered
that the bags have to be hurled from a train
going at its topmost speed into a comparatively
small net, and that this has to be done in the
majority of cases during the night, our admira-
tion for the successful' manner in which it is
generally achieved will cause us to forget the
ex3eedingly few instances in which a failure has
to be recorded.

Early in the year as it is, volunteers in and
around the metropolis are beginning to talk of
the Easter Monday Review. This annual outing
is now looked upon with much more favour than
formerly, both by civilians and military men.
The old taunt, which was accustomed to be used
very freely, was that volunteers were only
"feather-bed soldiery ; " and it was fre-
quently asserted that, if the service in-
volved any real hardship, it would not
be as popular as undoubtedly it is.
But that feeling has been forced by the very
logic of facts to disappear, and in regard to the
Easter Monday Review there are now very few
who deny its efficacy as an agent for teaching
military tactics to those who would not other-
wise find an available opportunity for practising I
them. When the series was started, the affair I
undoubtedly bore more the aspect of a pleasant
picnic than of a serious function; but that has
been greatly changed in the progress of events.
In these days it is by no means all the corps
which go down to Brighton or Dover by train in
the morning and come back in the same fashion
at night. A large proportion of the men devote
the whole of their Easter holiday to the task,
and commence marching on the previous Thurs-
. day, with vanguard and rearguard properly set
out, as if the way ran through an enemy's
cluntry, and not through the peaceful villages
of their native land. The whole proceedings are
conducted in the same spirit, and many valuable
essons are thereby learned.
Another means by which our volunteers have
occasionally the chance of strengthening their
knowledge of tactics, is by joining a military
camp for some days during the summer. When
autumn manceuvres used to be held, and the
series was but a short one, volunteers were al-
lowed to form a portion of the troops engaged,
and any who participated in them will be able
to testify to the increased amount of information
they thus obtained. Whether at Dartmoor or '
en Salisbury-plain, there was something at once
exhilaratingand encouraging in this fraternisation
of volunteers and regulars. And c amping out
as thus practised, was no holiday task to be
lightly taken in hand. Wimbledon has been
called a picnic, and not without reason, for tent
1110 Liv,. in hardly any particular what
has to be unaergone in the field. But
at the autumn manoeuvres thel.7l • 2.1%) ncse of
tea luxuries which Wimbledon so lay- ishly ac-
cord?. Everything is done exactly as it
would be in the face of the enemy. Sentry
and picquet duty forms not thg joast
laborious part of the task ---'
bell tent. , the small
or being reserved for two or
three with their iron bedsteads and comfortable
appurtenances, have to accommodate some twelk,
to fourteen, who have nothing between them ad,
the bare ground but a waterproof sheet and the
blanket in which they roll themselves. This ls
true camping,and enthusiastic volunteers enjoyed
it to the full.
It will have been noticed by those who study
thcir newspapers that. after Boxing DU, it was.

r.-xonied that, as far as London police-courts are
concerned, what are known as "holiday charges"
were very few in number, and, in fact, were
fewer than usual. The same pleasing tale has
now to be told after every great public holiday,
and it is a gratifying sign of the progress of the
people in the path of true enjoyment. Formerly,
and that not so very many years since, the de-
votion of an entire day to pleasuremeant to a large
number of people a not particularly respectable
lish,the consequences of which were often lasting.
It would be too much to say that all that is
changed, but certainly a great deal of it is.
Rational amusement is much more sought after
ti an it was, and there has been growing among
the working classes a public opinion which frowns
upon excess as not respectable. When those of
wealthier station set a had example—and it
must be confessed that they often used to in
days not far remote—it could scarcely be ex-
pected that it would not be followed; and the
improvement which has been going on at one
end of the social scale has decidedly been spread-
ing to the other.
One of the periodical controversies which are
started when Parliament is not sitting is as to
whether publishers ought to issue books with
leaves cut or uncut. A gentleman, who
truly signs himself as " A Growler," has
been complaining in some of the papers of
the practice of sending . them forth uncut
to the world ; and the correspondence
which this letter has evoked proves that in this
as in most other disputes, there is much to be
said on both sides. There can be little doubt
that a large number of people enjoy the sensa-
tion of cutting the leaves of a book; they linger
lovingly over the task, and imbibe the essence of
the volume as they daily with the knife. Others
like the practice because it the better enables
them to have their books bound in the uniform
fashion for library purposes. But on the othc r
side are a host of folks who like to have all this
kind of thing done for them, and who obje t
to ragged edges. The obvious moral is that it is
a matter which should continue to be left to the
publishers, who are much more likely to
accurately gauge their customers' wishes than
any outsider, however great a book-parchaser he
maybe. A. F. It.