The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1888-04-07 00:00:00

LONDON CORRESPONDENCE,

[We deem it right to state that we do not at all times Identify
eurselTes with our Correspondent's opidena.)

Now that Easter is over, the Volunteers have
ceased manceuvring, Parliament has reassembled,
and the holiday-makers have settled down once
more to their customary avocations, there comes
the usual feeling at such a season that the
winter is over, and that plans for the spring
and even the summer are in place. It is too
early as yet to be talking of the seaside, but no
long time will now elapse before the holiday
season will be in full swing. When the April
showers have all fallen, and when May has
brought Whitsuntide upon us, those who for
various reasons have to take their holidays early
will commence packing their boxes, and the
card bearing the well-known inscription. "Apart-
ments to Let," will begin to be exhibited in
the windows of our seaside towns. Those
who are accustomed to regard July, August,
and September, and especially the two latter, as
the only holiday months worth thinking about,
would be surprised to find how many of their
fellows have to take their rest in May and June.
In large establishments such as banks and ware-
houses it would be utterly impossible to allow
any great 'proportion of those employed to take
their holidays at the same period, with the con-
sequence that they have to begin early and in
small detachments. Easter is consequently, in
many places, the starting-point, and not until
November is the process stayed.
It is early at the very beginning of spring for
members of Parliament to be talking about the
prospects of an autumn session, but the gossip
of the Commons Lobby has been taking the
latter contingency into consideration, and it has
been accompanied by many shakings of the head
and expressions of doubt. There seems to be an
idea that an autumn session may be rendered
incumbent by the necessity for passing the
Local Government Bill and other of the
larger measures which the Ministry is pre-
senting to Parliament; but it is altogether
too soon to forecast events to such an extent as
to say if it will be demanded. Among members
generally, the idea of an autumn session is
always unpalatable. It is true that, when one
is to be held, the House rises earlier than
it otherwise would, but then it has to meet
again so soon that the boon is scarcely appre-
ciated. And among the wives of many of the
members, their idea is even more unfavourably
regarded, for, willing as they may be to spare
their husbands to the service of their country
during the period mostly covered by" the London
season," they are not at all so willing to
let them go when the duties of a country
house demand their presence at home, the con-
sequence is that, for social even more than for
political reasons, a Ministry always hesitates a
long while before resolving upon holding an
autumn session, and it is certainly always at a
much later date than April that the resolution is
arrived at.

"Show Sunday" has now come and gone, and
those lovers of art who have the entry to the
principal studios upon the occasion, are able to
tell what are the chief pictures which will be seen
at the forthcoming great exhibitions. This one
is full of rapture at what Sir Frederick Leighton
intends to send to the Academy, of which he is
the president; that one of delight at what Mr.
Burne-Jones designs for the new gallery, of
which he may, in a sense, be said to be the
founder; and the kind of appreciation of what
some other famous artist has painted for the
Grosvenor. It is not, of course, until the pic-
turns are hung that their effect can be rightly
judged. Seen by themselves, one cannot exactly
appreciate how they will look when set by the
side of others; for it is well - known that
the effect of a really brilliant piece of work may
be almost destroyed by proximity to another
with the dominant colour of which it does not
harmonise. It seems generally agreed, however,
that the prospects of the exhibitions of this year
are excellent. Time was when the Academy
sufficed to satisfy the art-loving public; then the
Grosvenor was added to the list; and this year
the New Gallery will be opened. Surely, from the
pictures shown at all three, there ought to be
some to satisfy the tastes of the most exacting.
Once again the penny steamboat is plying on
the Thames. Long ago our river was called
"the silent highway," but it has never seemed
quite so silent as lately, when the passenger
steamers have been withdrawn. Now that they
have been put on again the stream seems more
itself, and those who like open.-air travelling will
hope that it will long continue so. Various
plausible reasons have been given in explanation
of the fact that the old steamboats did not
manage to pay their way, and it is, of course,
true that the competition, both of omnibus and
train, has very greatly increased of late years.
But during the summer months there
has always been, and there is always likely
to be a demand for the steamers. Many people
prefer very decidedly to ride on the river than in
a stuffy 'bus or in a choking tunnel, and those
who have never seen what London looks like
from the river, have missed a view of the great
city which from certain points is extremely
picturesque. Our painters are more and moro
finding this out, and one of the paintings to be
exhibited this year represents the Pool, which, as
most readers will know, is below London-bridge,
in a light the picturesqueness of which no one is
likely to deny.
The reign of the "infant phenomenon" is
evidently far from at an end, for whereas last
year little Josef Hofmann was turning the heads of
enthusiastic London concert-goers by the wonder-
ful excellence of his piano-pl eying, this year equally
little Otto Hegner is repeating the process with
perhaps even more finished work of the same
kind. Although there is much to be said to
qualify the pleasure one may feel in such per-
formances, there is no denying the special gifts
.possessed by those who give them. The only fear
which many will have is that by prematurely
forcing the pace, the powers of these little fellows
may be stunted, and that what might prove of
great service to themselves and enjoyment to
mankind may thus be withered in its bloom.
Against this has to be set the fact that some of
the finest piano players we have possessed
or do possess, were of the "infant phenomenon"
erder, and it is argued that in an art wherein
mechanical precision is as necessary as genius
itself, the earlier and more complete the training
the better. It can only be hoped, therefore,
that the training will not be overdone, and that
both these children Hegner and Hofmann, will
prove in the far future that their powers have
not been injured by the strain to which they are
exposed to-day.
reT -
An official return; Which has just been issued
by order of Parliament, giving statistics in con-
nection with railway servants who, during July,
1886, and January, 1887, on duty on the railways
of the United Kingdom for more than twelve
hours at a time, or who, after being on duty
more than twelve hours, were allowed to resume
work with less than eight hours' rest, is not
pleasant reading for travellers. It is, in fact,
exceedingly discomforting to find that the pro-
portion of men employed during these excessive
hours is so large and it is disquieting in the
highest degree to be told that the occasions on
which signalmen have been engaged for eighteen
hours and more are far too numerous to be
compatible with the public safety. Seeing that
our lives are entrusted to the care of these men,
who can hardly be blamed if they fall asleep at
their posts, it is obvious that there will be a
very general demand that such excessive hours
of labour shall cease. It is simply possible for
men who are at work for eighteen hours at a
stretch watching telegraph needles and pulling
signal levers can be in a fit state to perform such
delicate and all-important duties at the end of
so prolonged a spell.
There is an old saying which tells us that peace
has its victories no less than war, and it is as true
as it is trite. It has its heroes also, and when
one of these perform some notable deed of
bravery it deserves as full and frank record as any
hich are done on the battle-field. Such a hero
and such a deed will have their memory'per-
petuated for ever in the chapel of the Bristol
Royal Infirmary, where a memorial window has
just been completed in honour of a young sur-
geon in that institution, Mr. William Connor
Lysaght, who last summer, in the en-
deavour to save from death a patient
who had just undergone trachetomy, sucked
the tube, infected his own throat, and
himself died. It is not long ago that a similar
act of bravery, involving equally sad conse-
quences, was perpetrated in a London hospital,
where also it has been commemorated as an
example for all time. There are various old
jokes at the expense of the doctors, though these
have to some extent faded away; but the faculty
can fairly afford to put them aside when they
can show such illustrious examples of calm
heroism as those which have been mentioned. It,'
is too often forgotten that, in the exercise o
their profession, medical men have to run manyj
_s serioqs Tisk, , and when they add voluntary[
Tiske tp --skipAbeir patients' lives, they deserve
tilUtket F. It,

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