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

swain must be a tried, trusty, and trusted
old salt, who knows just wLeu to put the
boat broadside, whcn to have the anchor let
go, and how to proceed when the ocean seems
momentarily ready to overwhelm the gallant
lifeboat. Happily there has been little
question of the capacity of coxswains or
other members of lifeboat crews in time past,
and the 'matter has only been raised in view
of the recent sad affair. The National In-
stitution will gather all possible experience
from the lamentable matter, we feel certain,
and its managers will have even more wide-
spread support than heretofore. The twenty-
seven poor fellows who died nobly seeking
the salvation of the lives of their fellow
creatures were sustained and comforted
even as they perished, no one can doubt, by
the assurance that the British public would
look to the wants of the widows ;And father-
less children they have left. Let us, as
Christmas approaches, remember their claim
and so pay a fitting tribute to the twenty-
seven stouthearted ones who will never again,
alas! help to man a lifeboat.

COMMENTS ON CURRENT NEWS
The Pankhurst v. Sowler case is an
evidence of the unsatisfactory state, in one
of many particulars, of the law of newspaper
libel. Without discussing the merits of this
individual action, which will of course have
to be decided upon the readings of the judges
and juries of the law as it stands, we would
submit that an accurate newspaper report
of a bona-fide public meeting should not
render any_person connected with the journal
liable to prosecutions for libel. Such an
understanding would be a sound and
common-sense basis of a statute controlling
the matter. Some would say, IN ith apparent
good reason, that the recognition of such a
principle would facilitate slander, under cer
tam n circumstances. Any irresponsible per-
son, it might be urged, could organise a
public assembly, and traduce people with the
view of obtaining for his attacks wide pUb-
hefty throqgh the press, would slink out of
sight when his end had been accomplished,
and the editors of the newspapers, pleading
privilege, would escape scot-free, though the
person assailed might be irretrievably
damaged. This would be an insuperable
objection to the statute we suggest, if editors
were not required to satisfy themselves of the
bona fides of the promoters of all public
meetings they reported. The editor's in-
intelligence and acumen, and an arrange-
ment for the onus of proof falling on him-
self that all assemblies dealt with by him
were not bogus ones, or illicitly organised,
would be the saving clause of such a simple
law, of newspaper libel, so far as giving
accounts of public meetings were concerned,
as we should like to see enacted.

As to strict law, it is no doubt highly im-
moral that the, State Shot'le share in the spoils
of an illegal avocation. The Queen's Bench
has dftided,however, thid book-makers and
betting men should pay income tax upon the
gains they amass in pursuit of their profession
or vice, cal it what you will. It is a curions
and anoina!ous'ruling, one would think, thus
to exact tribnte from receipts which render
the receiver liable to criminal prosecution.
Wherin lies the concord of this discord

We are glad to note a general belief that
that the result of the iaquiry of Commission
as to the Volunteer Capitation Grant will be
that Government will afford inereated finan-
cial assistance to our citizen soldiers. We
are pleased, too, to be assured that the price
of this is that the authorities will require a
higher standpoint of efficiency. Our volun-
teers will respond readily to the latter de-
mand, we are convinced, if only they can
feel that the War Office big-wigs are disposed
to encourav them. It is official neglect
which has made many a corps of our cheap-
est reserve careless and lukewarm. A chief
point in which improvement it to be exacted
is that of range shooting, and this is precisely
whero amendment is most needed.

The renewed attempt to carry out a so-
called fight for the championship of England
the other day, ended, as it deserved in a
fiasco. The donghty champions of the ig-
noble art were dragged out of th East
London furniture van in which they had
secreted themselves, and received the at-
tention of the preervers of law and order.
Doubtless the interference arose "from in-
formation received," hut this will not be
deplored by people of good taste, who are
quite content that the brutal annals of the
English prize—ring should remain ever hence-
forth a closed book. These depraved exhib-
itions, whenever throagh cunning evasion
they are brought to an issue, are now-a-days
divested of the spice of sport and daring that
was attached to them in the coarser time
past. If a prize-fight occurs by hook or
crook it is simply a low gathering of black-
guards for betting purposes, and the stakes
are not un!requently the cause of an all
round melee ; while those who take part in
the disgusting fixture are generally destitute
of that curious sort of honour which obtains
even among thieves, ad think nothing of
betraying their associates to the police to
to obtain a itriflying advantage ingambling.

Sir John Lubbock's Shop Hours' Act, now
in operation, has brought about one convic-
tion already. A barber of Manchester had
kept a little lad at work frpm eight fa eight
from Monday to Friday, from sight in the
morning till midnight on Saturday, and
from half-past seven on Sunday till two in
the afternoon. The employer was properly
fined, though the lad's work was necessarily
not heavy. Its long duration was quite
sufficient to grind the life and 'spirit out of
one growing and imperatively needing
recreation. Let other over-exacting and
stony-hearted :employers note that the law
is now prepared to protect the young and weak
from oppression.

There was a healthy hopefulness about the
"Locksley Hall" with which the Laureate
charmed his adraireri years ago, despite its
hard words against the world's shams and
deceits, which one misses in the newly-pub-
lished "Sixty Years After" with keen regret.
Tenneyson haa become more and more of a
croaker, a cynic, and a pessimist, and refuses
to See the bright side of humanity. His
passion, sweeping through him, has left him
dry, with palsied and jaundiced eye to adopt
his own simile. There is much that is true
in the unlovely pictures he points to of the
regime under which "city children soak and
blacken soul and sense in city slime," but
we would not ever have our poets brooding
over the:glooms and shadows of life, we
would choose to see them hold up something
also of the gladness and trust and large-
heartedness which, like the sunlight, shoots
ever across even the narrowest pathway . We
would rather have our fresh-hearted Tenny-
son of the old time 'when the crescent promise
of hisspirit had not set," than the grey-
bearded, despairing, peer wilose onl..- song
is a dreary dirge. "Sixty Years After" fills
even the most admiring reader with painful
feelings towards England's chief singer.

A CARD.—To all who aro amterin-y, from the erors
and indiscretions of louth, flrVO; wiaute. early
decay exhausted vit/lity: loss of V 0 tr, n,.rvous fei;ity
dr0.,1 will send a prescrtptiou th-4: will cure yo l (re: of-
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ary in 011 Mexico. Send address3d stamped e.it e !pc
So the REM JOUPH T, oLuEg, Bloom ',bury M U,ion
Bloeulabuti Spare, Lon Jon, W. C.