The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-02-05 00:00:00

COMMENTS ON CURRENT NEWS.

ONE of those terrible calamities which
from time to time shock the world, occurred
at three o'clock on the morning of the 26th
of January to the ill-fated emigrant ship
Kapunda, bound from London to Australia,
which, after a collision with a homeward-
bound Belfast boat, sank south of Maceio.
Close on three hundred lives were lost by
this awful "peril of the sea," most of them
those of poor folk who were sailing en familia
to find a new home and a new field for in-
dustry. Only one woman of the many on
board was rescued from the wreck; and the
death-roll would have been largely increased
but for a fortunate failure of a party of
female servants to join the vessel in time
for sailing. All the land is deeply moved
with sympathy for the friends of those who
have thus sunk beneath the wave so far away
from their native shore.

POLITICAL excitement has within the few
days past centered upon two points, so far
as home affairs go. Tho opening of Parlia-
ment, with Lord Randolph Churchill's ex-
planation of his resignation of Ministerial
rank excited very much attention, ES did
also the defeat of the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer in his bold attempt to wrest a seat
from the Gladstonians in Liverpool. Mr.
Goshen's way into the House of Commons
was quickly afterwards, however, smoctlacd
by the resignation by Lord Algernon Percy
of his seat for the aristocratic new borough
of St. George's, Hanover-square. Lord
Algernon, by-the-bye, has just come into
almost a princely fortune for a younger
son—by the death of Lady Rokewood-Gage,
and this and his ill-health decided his lord-
ship to quit the Commons. The ex-member
for Westminster and later for the fashionable
marrying borough is the Duke of Northurc.
berland's sixth son, and married Earl Mount-
Edgeumb's elder daughter, so that a political
peerage might easily fall into less eligible
hands than his. Some of the speeches on
the Address, nc tably those of Col. Saul der-
son, Lord Raneolph Churchill, Mr. Labou-
chere.and Mr. Chaplin, have not failed to
secure attention.

THE news from Afghanistan, telling of the
attack on the Fort of Bala Abdula by Dur-
ants in which 100 of the Quetta Railway
coolies were killed, is sufficiently disturbing
to have created considerable alarm. It is to
be hoped that the outbreak is nothing more
than the result of local fanaticism on the
part of tEe treacherous tribes thereabout, for
anything like an organised intrigue from the
Candahar centre would be full of foreboding
for the future peace. There are rumours of
that sort, bu: if they have any truth Anglo-
India may have to speak a word in the
/ratter. We hope, however, that the Ameer
can manage to settle this trouble speedily
himself, and if the Durani tribe are terrified
at sight of the railroad-making and of the
steam monsters which they cannot compre-
hend, that he will be able to calm their
ignorant fear and frenzy.

TALE of tin swords and oellag bayonets
has perturbed the British soldier not a little
of late, and now the ugly tales are again
afoot. Report says that the weapons distri-
buted for use on her Majesty's ship Indus
have hardly any superiority over hoop iron!
Tested at Devonpert, the deceptively bright
blades bent into a semi-circle, and remained
at the graceful, if not utilitarian:curve long
after the removal of the force of pressure
employed. Is this an outcome of the admin-
istrative economy of which we have heard ?
Prices for arms have been cut down as much
as they will bear, but reductions which de-
crease quality as well as price are far flora
being of a sailing character, ono would
have thought, after the feeling raised by the
recent discoveries of such sadly imperfect
and unreliable weapons in so large a percent-
age among those in the hands of our soldiers
and sailors that the greatest possible care
would have been shown by the responsible
authorities in testing deliveries from the
Government arsenals and factories as well as
from private contracts. Put the bad sword-
bayonets which have this week come to
light at Devonport have only just been is-
sued ! There is need of sweeping reform
somewhere, and the ruthless sacrifice of some
officials who are failing to fulfil their duty.

JUVENILE suicides are happily rare. But
we have to remarkable ones this week.
There was the case of a poor little girl who
drowned herself because she had been scolded
for obtaining sweets on credit; and that of
the determined fourteen-year-old lad who
shot himself in Manchester after being dis-
charged in disgrace from his employment.
These mere children faced death and its
mysterious Hereafter rather than the rebut e,
and, perhaps, punishment of friends ar d
acquaintances; displaying a morbid sensi-
bility of a greater than ccmmon degree,
truly, but of no rare chaicecer nowadays.
In the old time girls or boys v(yho trans-
gressed were soundly thras'hed for their
peccadilloes, obtained absolution, and ulti-
mately had a healthy moral stamina built up
within them. In these degenerate days we
eschew thm rod and spoil the child ; ma-
a moral weakling which flies to destruction
rather than stand the world's censure and
live down-the consequences of error. Arti-
ficial modern society is failing to teach that
boys and girls may rise on "stepping stones
of their dead selves to higher things." Oh!
fur an infus;on of the robuster mental and
physical schooling of a couple of decad( a
back into the polish and culture of our ultra-
educational system!

Apropos of the disastrously fatal fall of a
temporary gallery in a North London work-
house the:other day, the coroner has given
his decision, in effect, that nobody is to
blame. A. workhouse, says the official...dic-
tum, is a private place, and authority cannot
therefore interfere to prevent the erection of
a temporary gallery there any more than it
can step in to prohibit a similar additi_m to
a drawing-room. Tlis is doubtless perfectly
correct " Crowner's Quest Law," but it is
scarcely common sense. Yon may put up a
jimerack stage or platform in some spacious
apartment, and heedlessly invite your ac-
quaintances thereon, with the result that a
collapse occurs and several deaths ensue.
You will be held unworthy of censure so
long as the place is private. But erect a
small greenhouse in your back garden, or
even a potting-shed, and see what the local
authority will have to say to you if you have
not first submitted plans, iu ceremonious .
form, to the district surveyor, so that Le
may certify that the projected structure is
safe, and no t likely to endanger anyone'
life or limb! There is a screw loose in local
law somewhat