The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-11-20 00:00:00

STOTIRBRIDG-E OBSERVER,

next Session of Parliament, the settlement of the
Burial question on terms equally just to the Church
and to the Nonconformists."

Canon Ridley, through whom the memorial was for-
warded to the Prime Minister, has received the follow-
ing answer from the Prime Minister's secretary :
" Rev. Sir,—Your letter of the 6th inst., together with
the memorial which you forwarded on the subject of Mr.
Osborne Morgan's Burials Bill has been duly laid before the
rrime Minister, who desires me to say that the pressure of
business renders it impossible for him to fix a day on which
it would be within his power to receive the deputation to
which you allude, and have the advantage of hearing an ex-
pression of their opinion on this important question. The
subject, however, is engaging his attention, and he will not
fail to give every consideration to the points adverted to in
the memorial which you have submitted to him. I have the
honour to be, Rev. Slr, your obedient servant, ALGERNON
TURNER To the Rev, Canon Ridley."

tury. Akbar received tribute from the Hindu Rajah of
Rajpipla. If we come to other princes who will meet
their future King elsewhere, we shall find that most of
them date their titles from quite modern times.
Sindhia and Holkar are sprung from lieutenants of the
Martha Peshwas. The Rajah of Patiala claims
descent from a Jat chief who rose to power about two
centuries ago. The reigning House in Kashmir be-
longs to the present century, and the Nawabs of
Rampur to the last. It was in the last century that the
present kingdom of Travankor was founded. The older
dynasty of Cochin was re-established with English aid
after the downfall of Tippu Sultan, when Mysor also
was restored to its former rulers. In point of long and
proud descent few princes even in Raj putana can be
said to surpass the Prince of Wales. The young Maha-
raw. of Mewar or Udaipur may, indeed, point to a
lineage ennobled by great names and clearly traceable
to the warrior chiefs of Chitor. But Jaipur was
founded in the tenth oentury and Jodhpur in the
fifteenth, while the smaller Rajput States and the Jat
State of Bhartpur are of still later origin. In paying
homage, therefore, to the Prince of Wales the pride of
few, if any, of the native princes can be in any way
wounded, nor are they likely to forget that but for
English forbearance few of them would retain the
power they now enjoy.—Allen's Indian Mail.

spheric sponge is squeezed, the vapour is re-formed into
water, and falls in the form of rain. A sponge holds
water by capillary attraction; the atmosphere holds
water as invisible vapour by latent heat, and it is the
liberation of this latent heat by condensation which brews
up the tremendous toi nadoes, storms, and floods which
work so much damage. The water evaporated during
many days from, say, 10,000 square miles will be pre-
cipitated in a few days over a few square miles. Hence
the devastating floods occasionally experienced. In
nature excess begets excess, which work on until the
forces necessary to excess have for the time become
worked out. Hence years of wet and years of drought.
Rain floods and storms are not "unprecedented,"
though it pleases some young engineer whose work has
been destroyed to report so. Floods and storms are
part of the economy of nature, and ought to be studied,
foreseen, and provided if ; as, if any engineering
work can be made safe by a second work, it ought to
have been made safe by the first work, and so have
prevented the loss of time and the money wasted in
restoration.

Inn country so compact, so thickly peopled, and so
wealthy as England now is, the floods we suffer from,
being the result of former errors, mal-arrangements,
and present neglect, are simply disgraceful. In the
earlier days of our civilization, when population was
sparse, land of little value, and there were neither
roads nor steam power, water mills were useful; but
now many of them are and have long been an injury
and a nuisance. Rivers and streams are dammed
and blocked which ought to be free, and hundreds of
thousands of acres of land, now worth vastly more
than the old corn mills, are permanently waterlogged
and occasionally flooded. Abuse of rivers as our
trade has increased has increased also, until at present
it would fill a long catalogue to describe all the
modes of abuse practised. The evils, mischief, and
losses are national; the remedy must be imperial.
Entire river areas must be dealt with irrespective of
county or parish boundaries, and private rights must
be made subservient to the general weaL There is
probably more wealth on the banks of the Thames
than on any other river in the world (and compared
with some it is a mere rivulet), but look at the present
state of the Thames—through past and continued
neglect, it is now, when flooded, one vast pestiferous
swamp. In Holland and in our Fen districts the in-
habitants prevent flooding and even keep out the seas.
The estuary of the Thames has been embanked from
a time prehistoric, and yet the upper and richer por-
tions of the valley are allowed to be disgracefully
flooded. The river has at last been embanked through
the metropolis. The valley above will no doubt
some day also be dealt with. We are told by
those who do not understand the question that
floods arc more common and more violent now than
formerly—that land draining shoots the surface water
down more rapidly. Land drains do nothing of the
sort ; but, if anything, for a time retard the discharge
of flood water, just in proportion as the drained land
absorbs the first rain. Floods are the effect of con-
tinuous rain—so continued that water flows off water,
and the undrained surfaces and the drained surfaces
then act alike—the subsoil must be saturated up to the
surface, so that the continued heavy rain must flow
down to choke the neglected and abused rivers and
flood the valleys. "Make reservoirs" is advice in one
form. Make reservoirs, certainly, so far as may be
necessary, for domestic uses and for trade purposes;
bat making reservoirs will go a short way to
preventing damage from rain-storm river floods.
To prevent flooding there must be a free course
provided for all excessive falls of rain, or
mischief will ensue. A stream which is apparently
dried up for months in a year can, in a few days, become
a roaring and destructive torrent. And every great
impounding reservoir has, in proportion to its gathering
ground, a flood-water channel or by-wash. The several
table lands of England require arterial draining; the
main lines of rivers also require to have their beds
deepened, impediments removed, and their bordering
alluvial fiats embanked. The water which covers the
swamped areas on each side of the Thames above
London at this moment is only a fractional part of
the flood volume, and in many cases very moderate em-
banking would prevent this disgraceful and unwhole-
some flooding. ROBERT RAWLINSON.