The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-02-20 00:00:00

Our foam .earrtsfotbtut.
[We deem it right to state that we do not at all times
identify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

The reform of the Patent Laws—a subject which
the Lord Chancellor has brought before the House of ;
Peers thus early in the session—is one which has
occupied public attention for some tun' e. It has been
inquired into by committee after Committee of the
House of Commons; and full and elaborate reports,
erabodying various recommendations have been pre-
seated with respect to it. The Lord Chancellor
ow proposes to make a clean sweep of all the existing
legislation on the question of Letters Patent, and on
the ground thus cleared to raise a new edifice. I am
not about to go into the merits of the Government .
Bill, for these will be amply discussed during its pro-
gress through Parliament, but I may say that the
Patent is a very eenerable institution. It means
literally a license or authority granted by-the Sove-
reien. Patents for nobility were first issued in 1344
by Ed ward 111. Licenses for the exclusive privilege
of printing books were obtained in 1591. Ihe pro-
perty and right of inventors in arts and manufactures
were secured by Letters Patent by an Act passed in
1623. The present Commissioners of Patents, as
appointed by the statute of 1852 are the Lord Chan-
cellor, the Master of the Rolls, the Attorney-General
for England and Ireland, the Lord Advocate of Scot-
land, and the Solicitor-Generals for the three kingdoms.
A journal is published under their authority,
with indices of patented inventions from 1617 to the
present day. Specifications of Patents may be con-
sulted by the public at the Free Library and Reading
Room, Southampton-buildings, Chancery-lane, which
was opened in March, 1854. A Museum containing
models, portraits, &c., was established in 1859 at South
Kensington, and is one of the most interesting features
()Utile collection there. It could be made much more
complete if there were a better building for the display
of these models, and Chancellors of the Exchequer of
different politics have been appealed to from time to
time, to recommend a grant from Parliament for the
erection of a new Museum. Hitherto these efforts
have not been successful, but the advocates of a better
building are not without hope'that they may yet make
an impression of a favourable character upon the
custodian of the national purse. Such an impression
it.is often difficult to produce. Only last week the
Lord President of the Council was appealed to for a
grant for King's College, which had been recommended
by the Royal Commissioners of inquiry into the state
of Scientific Instruction. The noble Duke said he
was entirely in favour of the proposal, and thoroughly
recognised its importance. "But you see, gentlemen,"
his grace went on to say, "the real difficulty, in this
matter, is the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The Board of Trade has done good service by in-
creasing the facilities for the use of the life-saving
rocket apparatus, and by providing a large number of
the necessary posts to which the line is secured, for use
by the men at our coastguard stations. The more fre-
quent drill of the coastguard, which practice with this
apparatus will involve, must have a tendency to main-
tain its thorough efficiency, so that it shall prove a
trustworthy naval reserve, when it may be found ad-
visable to increase the strength of the fleet.
There is a general concurrence of opinion that if the
fishing industries of Great Britain and Ireland were
under better regulations, a much larger supply of fish
might be obtained. There is no question that many
important sea fisheries are deteriorating year after
year. Trawling in shallow water, the increasing dis-
turbance caused by steam navigation, and the pollution
of rivers are amongst the principal causes of this
result. This last has lately commanded a good deal
of attention; and the Government, as we have seen,
are about to apply remedial measures for its removal.
I have often thought it strange that while our
fishermen rely mainly upon chance for informa-
tion respecting the approach of the shoals, in
Norway an organised system of intelligence exists
under the control of officials who telegraph to
stations all along the coasts the appearance and
position of any shoals that may come under
their observation. In this way the Norwegian fisher-
men are enabled to sail at once for the place indicated,
instead of wasting time in hunting for their prey.
The late lamented Canon Kingsley once drew in
teuching language "a picture of the lives led by the
fishers who went sailing out into the west—out into
the west as the sun went down "
" For men must work, and women must weep,
And there's little to earn, and many to keep,
Though the harbour bar be moaning."
One cannot help thinking that the working of the men
might be made more remunerative by the application
of a little science to their hard and often unrequited
toil. It is true that we cannot by scientific means
overcome the forces of Nature. After a storm the
women will still be "watching and wringing their
hands for those who will never come home to the
town;" but to be forewarned of the approach of a
great multitude of fishes would often prove a small
fortune to them, and would help to render a life of
monotony and exposure more tolerable by making its
labour more productive.
Parliament has often been compared to the trunk of
an elephant. It can either pick up a pin, or rend the
political oak. It settles the form of Government for a
vast empire.; it recognizetethe existence of the Colorado
beetle. It seems that in six years this dreaded insect
spread for a distance of 360 miles across America, and
so enormous are its reproductive powers that in a
favourable summer a single couple prodeces sixty
millions. They appear to be imperious to ordinary
hardship; for not long ago, by way of experiment,
five were sent in a post letter from Canada to Eng-
land, and reached this country in perfect health.
Another vivacious specimen was kept without food
for six weeks by a professor of Wisconsin, but it did
not affect the constitution of the insect in the slightest
degree. There has been considerable alarm in Belgium
at an apprehended invasion of this voracious repre-
sentative of creeping things, and measures of protection
are contemplated by the legislature of that country.
No topic fills the House of Commons so speedily as
the question of "Privilege !" which has been already
raised this session. It is not heard of so often now as
it was in former times, when the power of the Crown
was arrayed against that of the other estates of the
realm. The Privileges of Parliament, I may say, are
of three kinds—first, those which appertain to members
individually; second, those that belong to either House
in its collective capacity; and, thirdly, those of both
Houses jointly. The powers which can be exercised
are very wide, but there are some limitations. For
instance, persons imprisoned for contempt cannot be
• liberated nor admitted to bail- In the daily proceedings
of Parliament questions of privilege take precedence
of all other business. The privileges of individual
•members are freedom of speech and person, including
non-liability to legal arrest and seizures under process
from the courts of law or equity; this, however, does
not extend to indictable offences, to actual contempts
of the courts of justice, or to cases made felonies and
misdemeanours by the laws of bankruptcy. Members
of Parliament are exempt from obeying subpcenas or
serving on juries. Privilege of Parliament continues
to peers at all times, and to Commons for a convenient
period after prorogation ondissolution. Peers are en-
titled to be present at the coronation of the Sovereign,
and if the Legislature be in session at the time, the
Commons also attend with their clerks and officers. In
no civil action can a member of the House of Lords be
outlawed, nor can any attachment lie against their
persons. When arraigned for any criminal offence, it
must be before their peers, who return a verdict, not
upon oath, but upon honour; they also have the pri-
vilege of sitting covered in courts of justice.
One 01. the largest deputatione which Sir Stafford
Northcote bee received since his tenure of the Chan-
cellorship of the Exchequer, was that which asked for
the abolition of the Income-tax. It is never the cus-
tom of a minister to disclose pdint-blank what he
intends to do in his Budget ; but, in this case, the right
hon. gentleman gave it plainly to be understood that
the state of the revenue would not allow him to sur-
render the Income-tax unless he imposed a new
burden to fake its place, and as the time has gone by
for putting on fresh indirect taxation during a period
of profound peace, the substitute for the Income-tax
must, like that impost itself, be levied in a direct way.
Duties on tea, sugar, and other necessaries of life,
once swept away, are not again put on without
a very urgent reason; for the disarrangement of
trade by a frequent imposition and removal of
taxes upon the same articles would be a very serious
matter for our merchants. Of course with a great
war in progress, such as that with Russia twenty
Years ago, the people are prepared for an augmenta-
tion of their burthens ; and I remember very well tha
just then the Income-tax was doubled. Mr. Glad-
stone, who we; then Chancellor of the Exchequer in
Lord Aberdeen's Ministry, raised it at a stroke from
• sevenpence to fourteenpence in the pound, but still it
• was cheerfully borne. It is now twopence in the
- pound, less than a third of what it was when Sir
Robert Peel revived it in 1842, for he placed it at
sevenpence, and was enabled by its operation to sweep
away the Excise duties upon hundreds of articles, and
' • to contribute to that extraordinary development of
our commerce which has [since taken place.
The Alexandra Palace on Muswell-hill is approach-
ing completion, and it is intended that everything
shall be ready for the opening on the Ist of May next.
The ceremonial will be a very brilliant one, and
amongst other dignitaries the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs
will attend in their State robes. Hitherto this under-
taking has been followed by a series of misfortunes.

After a struggle of many years a splendid building
was thrown open to the public on the 24th of May,
1373, and after a short and successful career of six-
teen days, it was utterly destroyed by fire on the

9th of June following. All who believe in
supplying innocent and healthful recreation for the
people, will hope that the Palace which is now SO
nearly finished may long throw its lofty shadow over
the slopes of Muswell-hill, and that it may be to the
north of the metropolis what the magnificent glass
structure at Sydenham is to the south. With all our
railway facilities, a day at the Crystal Palace for a
dweller at Finsbury-park is a practical impossibility,
so great is the distance between the two points. A
Crystal Palace in their own midst would be highly
appreciated by the inhabitants of northern London.

I have often thought that one of the most interest-
ing and suggestive columns in either of the widely-
circulated London dailies is the long list of "want
places." What a never-ending scramble for employ-
ment there must be amid the population of a large
town! Tha causes which combine to fiil this column
are various; but while some may belong to the im
provident class, there is little doubt that the majority
have a far higher title to succeed, and whom misfor-
tune, or the first necessity of turning their talents to
account, has brought into the labour market with-
out any fault of their own. The idle candidates
for work are far outnumbered by the industrious
ones, who are ready at a moment's notice
with hand and brain, but of whom only a certain per-
centage can find what they seek. Thousands of clerks,
tutors, domestic servants, governesses, secretaries,
journalists, copyists, skilled artisans, and unskilled
labourers, both experienced and inexperienced, want
places in London alone every day of the year. Many
obtain what they ksivertise for, though rarely without
the exerctse of pa.Tience, and often after no incon-
siderable amount of suffering. But the number of
those whose hearts are daily sickened by deferred
hope is always far larger than the list of vacant situa-
tions. Why should a precarious subsistence be acces-
sible only through the briary thicket of human suffer-
ing? Without attempting to give reasons, it may be
hoped that many are in some degree able to alleviate
what they cannot wholly abolish, and that one of the
most impressive lessons which Christianity has to
teach in this nineteenth century, is that the truest of
all charity towards our fellow-man is to provide him
with work. Our geologists are able to read sermons
in stones, and it is beyond question that no great
amount of sentimentality is required to detect many a
sermon in the "Want Places" column.

DEAN STANLEY ON THE PRACTICAL
TEACHINGS OF LENT.
Sunday (the 14th) being the first Sunday in Lent, the
first of a series of special services was held in the
Church of St. Lawrence, Jewry, London; and
although the weather was very unfavourable, the. an-
nouncement that the Dean of Westminster would
preach drew together a congregation which filled the
sacred edifice to overflowing. The Dean selected for
his text the words "Rend your hearts and not your
garments, and turn unto the Lord your God," from
the 13th verse of the 2nd chapter of Joel. He com-
menced by drawing a vivid sketch of the scene at the
Temple which drew the solemn warning and injunc-
tion from the lips of the prophet Joel, whilst the vast
multitude of men, women, and children before him,
with garments rent and tattered, were indulging in
every expression of outward grief in the presence of
a calamity which had overtaken and threatened to
ruin them. He called upon them to remember
that it was a far different rending in which God
delighted—a rending the heart from the entanglements
of sin and turning their faces not towards the visible
temple but towards the invisible and eternal God, who
is gracious, merciful, and long-suffering. These words
had been fitly introduced at the beginning of the morn-
ing and evening services of the Church, for they con-
tained the general truth that the worship of the lips,
to be of any practical use, must be carried out in daily
life. For of all forms of worship in the Christian
Church, from the very simplest to the most complex,
it was still true that the outward was but the shadow
and the inward the substance—the outward worship
was the means, the moral and spiritual worship of
heart and life was the aim and the end. Some of
them might perhaps remember the beautiful lines in
which the poet had described how the child raised to
its ear the shell and heard, or fancied it heard, within
its smooth cavities the roar of distant waters—
" And it remembers its august abode,
And murmurs as the ocean murmured there."

And that exactly represented the true object of Chris-
tian worship. However secluded we might be in that
church or elsewhere, still we ought to catch it as it
were the roar of the great sea of the outward world,
over whose waters, however much we might be retired
from it f.)r a time in quiet havens, our passage must
after all be made to the shore of rest beyond. Round
and round all our London churches beat the waves of
the vast world of human hearts and souls. For the
space of one short day each week the stream was
checked and its murmur more faintly heard • but it
was still there, and the very object of that wor-
ship which secluded us from it was to remind
us that our voyage along and over it must be
made, and that we were assembled there to gather
fresh strength and energy to renew the voyage.
The whole value of Christian worship and its
ritual and ceremonies was that of a means to an
end. Let them take the highest symbols of all—the
two sacraments. To think that the essential part of
baptism was water, and the essential part of the
eucharist was bread and wine, was as fatal a mistake
as to think that the essential part, in a religious point
of view, of the ancient Jewish fast was to go about in
rent garments tattered and torn. In coming to the
question, what was the true Christian idea that Lent
was to teach us, Dean Stanley said no doubt much of
what was formerly done and intended to be done at
Lent had passed away from us completely, as those old
Jewish rites which were celebrated in the time of Joel.
The ashes, from which Ash-Wednesday took it
name, were no longer sprinkled on the heads of any
public worshippers, and open public penance had been
totally and they might say for ever disused. The
last place in England, he might perhaps say in Europe,
except in a modified form in the Presbyterian
Church of Scotland, where it had been used,
was in the Isle of Man in the last century, under
Bishop Wilson. But, excellent a man as he was, and
single-minded as was his intenticrn, it totally failed.
The original institution of Lent had gone through
many changes. At first it lasted only forty hours,
from the Friday to the Saturday preceding Easter
Sunday, and this was afterwards changed to forty
days. At one time it consisted in entire abstinence
from any kind of food from sunrise to sunset, as was
seen at present amongst the Mahommedans. Now
this was no longer observed in any part of the Chris-
tian world, but in its stead had been substituted cer-
tain conventional forms of abstinence from certain
conventional kinds of food. There were two things,
however, which, according to the higher and more
Christian ideas of Lent, it was intendo to recall
to the mind of Christendom, and which in propor-
tion as we were removed from those more outward
and ostensible observances of our forefathers we
were the more bound to cherish according to our
higher spiritual enlightenment. It was intended
in the first place to impress upon us the neces-
sity of self-denial and self-sacrifice. Any life that
was worth hying for must be a struggle—a swimming
not with but against the stream a striving to enter
not in at the gate which received all the world, but that
which admitted very few; in the next place, this old
institution of Lent was designed to teach us to hate all
moral sin, all moral evil, with an undivided hatred.
In short, if there was any purpose in Lent at all it
amounted to a declaration that amidst all our uncer-
tainties and confusion one thing was certain, that
kindness, generosity, truthfulness, courage, purity, and
unselfishness were the greatest blessings of life, and
that cruelty, injustice, meanness, cowardice, intem-
perance, filthy conversation, gambling, and uncharit-
ableness, wheresoever and in whomsoever found, were
the causes of infinite, multiplied, and often irretriev-
able evil.

" WOELD v.IIIIIIE METROPOLITAN RAIL-
WAY COMPANY."
The above cause has been tried in London, and was an
action to recover compensation in damages for severe per-
sonal injuries sustained by the plaintiff, owing to the alleged
negligence of the railway company's servants.
The defendants pleaded not guilty and contributory negli-
gence by the plaintiff.

Mr. Merewether was counsel for the plaintiff, who
was a foreigner, a cornopean player, and a general
musician, earning up to the time of the accident by
which he suffered the injuries; complained of, a mum
averaging between £2 and £2 10s. a week. He had
served previously in the band of the militia, and subse-
quently as bandmaster in the Inns of Court Volunteers
or "Devil's Own." On the ni,ghtof the3OthAugustlast
year, whilst pursuing his calling, he took a third olass
ticket at Hammersmith for Edgware-road, in the
neighbourhood of which he resided. On 'going upon
the platform at Hammersmith he found a train in
waiting, the doors lying open, but, as he assexted,
there was no railway porter or servant in attendance.
He attempted to enter the carriage, but he had only
got his foot on the step when the train moved on. He
was dragged several yards and then thrown back upcm
the platform. When picked up by a railway porter
who then came to his assistance, it was found that he
had been much crushed—that three of his ribs were
broken, and that he was otherwise gitatly injured,
For a considerable time he was confined to an hospital
and has since been obliged to consult medical men.
Since the accident he has been unable to pursue his
profession, or to play upon his instruments. He had
consequently been exposed to great privation, besides
suffering at times much bodily pain and ill-health.
Mr. Montagu Chambers, Q.C., endeavoured to sup-
port the pleas put in, and to show that the injuries
complained of had been greatly exaggerated.
Several witnesses were examined on both aides, and
the evidence given for the different parties was some-
what conflicting.
The jury, however, returned a verdict for the plain-
tiff— damages, £lOO.
The trial lasted nearly two and a half days.

SCHOOL itIOT. —Canadian papers report that
Garaquet, New Brunswick, has been in a state of riot,
on occasion of the annual school meeting in January.
It is stated that the inhabitants are mainly French,
and bitterly oppose the non-sectarian school law of
New Brunswick. The rioters damaged considerable)
property on the ,day of the meeting, and on the fol-
lowing day they also threatened peaceable inhabitants
who supported the law, extorting money from them
to purchase liquor. They went so far as to procure a
rope, with which they threatened to hang Mr. Sheriff
Vail, should he come along. The Hon. Robert Young,
who resides at Caraquet, procured men fully armed
and barricaded his residence. A number of special
constables arrived. One of the number, John Gifford,
was shot dead by a Frenchman. A Frenchman was
also shot, but he is not dead. Thirteen rioters-have
been arrested. Caraquet is a town in the county of
Gloucester, discribed as principally inhabited by un-
educated fus.hermen, numbering some hundreds.