The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-12-18 00:00:00

eornspodtnt.

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

No incident of the recent "storm which o'ex
Britannia passed" has so powerfully affected the
public as the disaster to the two lifeboats in the
estuary of the Ribble; and it was not surprising
to hear that a fund was at once started for the
relief of the widows and orphans created by a
catastrophe which entailed the loss of nearly a
valuable lives. It is such a disaster which brings
home to everyone the enormous risks encountered
by our lifeboatmen in their frequent errands of
mercy. There is not always sufficient recogni-
tion of the fact that the lifeboat is mainly of
service when the sea is such as to allow nc
ordinary boat to live; and were it not that the
men were possessed of a pluck and endurance
scarcely conceivable by those who live at home
at ease, scores, if not hundreds, of men would
yearly be swept into eternity by th 3 storms on
our coasts. Visitors to the seaside in the
summer or autumn may often see the lifeboat at
practice; but, interesting as the spectacle always
is, it does not convey an idea of the risks that
have to be run jr The plain unvar-
nished tale 1 -,v,0 lifeboats on
the tanct were \ launched at
dead of night ,t in the rpight of the
storm, how they gearly reacheci the wrecked
vessel whose crew they had gonc:s to save, and
how next morning both were fonnd bottom up-
wards and the corpses of their crew were washed
ashore, is the most eloquent description of the
dangers of the lifeboat service which could be put
into words. _ _ _

From various parts of the country it has been
reported that, during the recent storm, the
barometer fell to a point lower than any recorded
for forty years. The fact is so striking, and,
scientifically speaking, so important, that one
would have expected even greater results. In
London, for instance, where the fall in the
barometer was as marked as on the coast, the
-effect did not appear to be abnormal. We had
wind and we had rain, but the atmospheric con-
ditions were not disturbed to the degree which
might have been anticipated. But it is not only
as affecting the weather that such a fall in the
barometer deserved to be noted. It is not gene-
rally known that a descent of that kind is often
the precursor of a very bad colliery accident;
and when the barometer was at its lowest, a few
days since, the men were not allowed to descend
some of the pits lest disaster might befal. Coal-
tnining is sufficiently dangerous at all times to
Inerit the most minute precautions; and as
experience has confirmed what science teaches—
that a falling barometer is a danger to the pit—
it is well that the warning should always be
heeded as promptly as this one was. Of late
years the aid of science has in many ways been
called in to give warning against disaster. The
storm-drums which are hoisted on our coasts,
the weather forecasts which are issued by the
Meteorological Department, are instances in
point; and although we have not yet reached
the stage *hen absolute accuracy in prophesying
the weather has been reached, the careful and
constant observations of the meteorological
authorities enable them to make forecasts with
a much greater approach to accuracy than
hitherto.
Very extensive works are in process of com-
pletion at the Palace of Westminster for the
purpose of making the Houses more tenantable
by the time Parliament has again to meet. Com-
plaints were rife during the whole of last session
that the drainage arrangements were far from.
perfect; and more than one member was ren-
dered unfit for constant attendance to his Par-
liamentary duties because of this fact. A special
committee was appointed, consisting of mem-
bers experienced in medicine and engineering,
with the duty of devising a plan by which such
evils should be prevented; and this body having
reported before the House of Commons rose,
its suggestions were sanctioned, and the work
taken in hand. The whole of the underground
arrangements are being overhauled, with the re-
sult that many an almost unsuspected defect
has been found, and is now in process of being
remedied. As Parliament meets on January 13
—three weeks earlier than usual—the operations
are being pressed forward with dispatch ; and
there is little doubt that their effect will be to
lessen the number of complaints hitherto
so rife. Sanitary science has developed
and improved since Sir Charles Barry's
greatest work was commenced, and some
of the arrangements which passed muster then
appear now to be crude and unsatisfactory. But
it is far from an easy task to reorganise a system
which has so many ramifications under so vast a
building as the Palace ot Westminster; and
members will doubtless have still to rest content
with something which is not quite perfection.
There has lately been uttered a protest by those
Londoners who dwell on the Surrey side of the
Thames against the absorption of all good things
by those who live on the Middlesex bank,
and this is only the echo of a very old com-
plaint. No one who knows London can
fail to be struck by the curious fact that
while in the southern half, the number
of great public institutions can be counted
almost on the finger of one hand, those which
stand in the northern portion can be counted by
the score. In this matter our own capital does
not resemble that of France ; for although
Paris, like London, is bisected by a river,
neither shore has a monopoly of the public insti-
tutions. There is almost as much of interest to
be seen on the southern as on the northern shore
of the Seine; and it is little wonder that the
South Londoner, after a trip across the English
Channel, would come back with the reflection
that the part of the metropolis in which he
dwells is not as well served as it should be. It
is curious to note how this habit of ignorins;
South London extends to almost everything. If
anyone wants to describe a poverty-stricken
portion of the metropolis, it is the East End
which is always laid under contribution; but
those who are well-acquainted with the capital
know that it is not alone in that quarter that
people are abjectly poor. To say nothing of the
district of St. Giles's, which lies between Oxford-
stre:,t and the Strand, there are portions of South
London, which from squalour and utter misery,
could stand side by side with the worst portions
of the East End.

- lt is distinctly cheering that just as winter
has set in, he signs of reviving trade should
become more abundant and more clearly
marked. The most recent Board of Trade
Returns tell a tale which cannot fail to be
pleasing to everyone, for they show a distinct
increase both in imports and exports; and
although an increase in imports is not neces-
sarily a gain to a country, the fact that in this
particular case it represents a growing amount
of manufacture because the increase was
mainly in raw materials which are made here
into finished goods—is eloquent testimony to
the fact that trade is at length shaking off that
lethargy which so long has crippled it and kept
us comparatively poor. The best of it is that
good trade is one of those things which grows
with confidence, and nothing is so likely to in-
spire confidence as signs on every hand that a
more prosperous era is commencing. We have
waited a long time for it, and now that it is likely
to come, one may hope that the best will he made
of it. Millions of money have been lost to this
country because of over-confidence, begotten by a
spell of prosperity. When money is plentiful there
is a temptation to invest it in enterprises of little
worth; and if we attempted to reckon the tre-
mendous loss to England because of a too great
readiness to trust feeble states with huge loans,
the total would seem little less than appalling.
From the time Dickens wrote "Martin Clinz-
zlewit," there have been frequent proofs afforded
that his sketch of Eden, the dismal swamp to
which the hero and Mark Tapley were lured by
the representations of an estate-agent that it
was a paradise, was far from overdrawn. Only
within the past few weeks the experiences of a
gentleman, who was similarly swindled in Cali-
fornia, have been given to the world; and as the
period of the year is approaching when most
emigrants leave our shores, the warning is apropos
in point of time. It is strange, indeed, that so
many should be found willing to implicitly believe
the word of interested parties that the spot to
which they are going only needs their
presence to blossom
.like the rose; and
as long as such trusting. and unreasoning
faith _ prevails, so long will
.there be sharp
personages ready and • willing to take
advantage of it. Perhaps, it is too much to
exped the average emigrant to be ma position
to make all the inquiries that are desirable; but
emigration is such en important step to any
about-to undertake it, that all who are contem-
plating it should be urged by their friends to
spare no pains to get at the truth. In regard to
our colonies, Vie Government, in a new depart-
ment which has not long been established, has
provided means by which intending emigrants
can ii,certain for themselves the resources of the
places to which they wish to go. and can be
satisfied whether the chances of success are
sufficient to tempt them from their own
country. This is a step in the right direction.
and though in the nature of things it can only
be covernmentally applied to the colonies, the-v

should be no insuporable bar to its extension
by private effort to suit the case of those who
wish to go to the United States, which 'is the
destination of by far the larger number of our
emigrants.
"Cattle show week" is once more over, and
the thousands of country friends who have come
up for their annual visit to the Agricultural
Hall have returned to their homes in good time
for Christmas. It is not the least curious of our
London sights, this cattle show at Islington;
and, perhaps, something quite as curious is the
bearing of the average Londoner when he visits
it. You can tell at a glance that he knows
really nothing about animals or machinery, but
he "makes believe" a -good deal, and the self-
satisfied fashion in which he makes the inspection
raises many a smile upon the countenance of
those visitors who really do understand what
they have come to see. But among a large
number of people in London it is the fashion to
attend the cattle show, and, as long as the
fashion remains, the institution is certain to be
patronised by a great many who do not know
barley from oats, and who for their lives could not
tell a turnip from a mangold wurtzel: As for the
farmers and their friends, who naturally form tha
bulk of the visitors, there is little doubt of their
genuine enjoyment of the show. It is a winter
edition of a pleasure they frequently experience
in the summer—that of attending an agricul-
tural exhibition. And it is not only a pleasure,
but a source of profit, in that something is
usually to be learned by those who are observant.
The days of "rule of thumb "farming are well-nigh
over; foreign competition has tolled their knell;
and the agriculturist of these times knows that,
if he is to keep his head above water, it can only
.4E) by posting himself up in all the latest details
if science as applied to farming. A. F. R.