The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-08-22 00:00:00

• •I •

Metropolitan 6ozzip,

BE SCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.

!The remarks under this head are to be regarded as the
expression of independent opinion, from the pen of a gentle-
man in whom we have the greatest confidence, but for which
we naverthelees do not hold ourselves responsible.l

With the Court absent from England and Parliament
dispersed all over the world, it is natural enough to
conclude that politically, we in London, like the rest of
the country, are rather dull, but election movements,
here as elsewhere, are beginning to create considerable
exitement. Election addresses and placards, corres-
pondence on subjects connected with the forthcoming
contests, and here and there preliminary election
speeches, indicate the approaching electoral battle.
Meanwhile, the increase in the number of voters is
remarkable, as being considerably more than the
authors of the Reform Bill for England anticipated.
As far as can be seen at present, there are likely to be
upwards of a million voters in the boroughs added to
the register, instead of 700,000, on which Mr. Disraeli
oalculated, and perhaps instead of adding 300,000 to
the county voters, half a million or so will be added.
This naturally tends to induce greater interest in ths
eleetimu; than has hitherto been the case, and it will
not be surprising if it do not indirectly tend to lessen
that undue excitement which is so frequently mani-
fested at election contests. It has usually been the
men without votes who have made most noise at the
hustings.
Although the Paris fifes seem on the whole to have
gene off very well, and enthusiasm for Imperial insti-
tutions has everywhere been more or less exhibited in
France, it is evident that there is some little weari-
ness in the public mind. M. Henri Rochefort's Lan- '
terne is a great fact, and its suppression is significant, as
it would seem that the Imperial Government cannot
boar satire and wit brought to bear on legitimate oppo-
sition. The Lanterne, it is true, might have given a
doubtful light, but why put it out? Was it because, as
, Walter Landor said, "children fear the dark, but
men fear the light?" Ws can, however, understand
why the Imperial Government put out this light, but
it seems rather ridiculous to prohibit the sale of paper
lanterns in Paris, and of cigarettes with the design
of a lantern upon them. A maxim of our law is De
wrinimis non eurat lex, but nothing appears too
little for the French Government to care for. And
then there was that noteworthy demonstration by the
Paris students, when the son of General Cavaignac
refused to go up to the table at which the Prince Im-
perial sat to receive a prize, and when the son of the
Republican soldier was cheered by his fellow-scholars.
This has been followed up by a more significant
demonstration. At the College Sainte Barbe, M.
de Coreellea, a personal friend of General Cavaignac,
pronounced a warm eulogy on the former chief of the
Executive, under the '4B Republic, and the applause of
the students continued for full twenty minutes. No
wonder, therefore, that, according to the Inaipendanee
Beige, the Government is very anxious with regard to
the excited state of feeling amongst the student
classes. These young men are mostly of extreme
liberal opinions, and delight in manifesting it. They
are impulsive and enthusiastic, and have an hereditary
disregard of the powers that be. We are now, there-
fore, watching the French news with rather more than
ordinary interest. The predominent opinion seems to
be that, take him for all in all, the Emperor is the
man for the situation, and that whatever may have
been his conduct previous to becoming Emperor, he
has subsequently governed the country wisely and
well, and that no man in France can be more desirous
of preserving peace with this country than he is.
Once again we have alarming news from Ireland—
intelligence of the same sort that has so frequently
before disquieted its. Mr. William Scully was pro-
seeding to evict thirty families on his Tipperary pro-
perty, and a small party of bailiffs were taken to
protect the bailiffs. One tenant family armed them-
selves and resisted, and it seems that two policemen
were shot dead, a third wounded, and Mr. Scully him-
self and four bailiffs were also wounded. Unhappily,
there is nothing new about this. It is a sad history
repeating itself. But we were beginning to look upon
Ireland as tranquilized, more prosperous than before,
and, politically and socially, more content than pre-
viously. And now we have old antagonisms revived;
the agrarian disease has broken out afresh. It is a
melancholy episode in the current news.
The clause in the new Act for the Regulation of
Railways, which imposes a fine of £5OO on railway
companies for conveying prize-fighters, does not appear
to have struck terror into the patrons of this horrid
"sport." In the leading journal which devotes atten-
tion to such matters, I notice that, during the present
month there is a fight arranged between two
fellows for £lO a-side in the "London district," and
that the fight for £2OO a-side and the championship is
fixed for theist of next month. Arrangements for several
other fights are also publicly announced, and the
journal alluded to states, as usual, that it has received
such and such deposits. There is, however, one
significant and encouraging statement— that "from
prudental motives we withhold the whereabouts of the
men" engaged for the champion fight This looks as
if the police would be after them, and it is to be hoped
it may turn out so. This heavy fine of £5OO for know-
ingly conveying prizefighters to or from a fight, will
be a heavy blow and sore discouragement to these
fellows. Would that it might prove a death-blow to
the ring. But is it not an anomaly and a disgrace to
us that any journal should publicly aid in breaking the
law by receiving deposits?

From a large proportion of the advertisements in
the London papers, from the placards on the walls,
from the flaming announcements at railway stations,
and from conversation generally, one might come to
the conclusion that a large part of the business and
life just now is to excursionise. It is a restless time
of the year, this, and August is emphatically the
excursion month. We are invited to go, at temptingly
eheap rates, to the breezy Channel Islands ; to the
dull, quiet, prosperous town of Holland; to the
already crowded seaside resorts of England, Scotland
and Ireland; to the lakes , to the mountains; to
France, Switzerland, and Italy; in fact, almost
everywhere, not omitting the East, the Mediterranean,
and America! Among them all, let me choose, for a
"sentimental journey"—an imaginary trip, alas ! never
to be realised--that "summer cruise in the Mediterra-
nean," which is offered to anyone who will choose to
pay £lOO for it. "A pleasure cruise round the
Mediterranean, in a first-class steamship, calling at
the several places of classical and scriptural interest,"
is a suggestively pleasant proposaL Whether 100
people will be willing to pay £lOO remains to be seen.
Excursionising is being more and more systematised
every day, and we may soon look out for a trip round
the world at RO much a-head. Doubtless, all this
travelling has its advantages, but it has its drawbacks.
We are certainly becoming a more restless nation.
But what an immense amount of money is thus cir-
culated, or, in other words, how greatly are trade and
commerce increased by this passion for locomotion.
With every returning autumn we have renewed
grumbling about extravagant charges at hotels in
Great Britain, and certainly the grumbling is not
without cause. What thinks the reader of the follow-
ing charges at a celebrated hotel in Glasgow? Three
dinners (soup, an entrée, and roast beef, much cut
into when placed on the table), las. ; claret and soda,
7s. 6d.; two liqueurs, 2s. ; apartments (two rooms for
one night), 10s. ; three breakfasts, (" the name British
meal one gets everywhere,") 12,.; two baths, 3s. ; three
dinners, 15s. ; ale la. ; one brandy and soda, is. 6d. ;
liqueur, 2s. , attendance, Is. 3d. ; total, £3 17s. 3d.
The gentleman, who reasonably objects to this, men-

Cons several countries in which he has travelled, and
says this is the dearest hotel he knows; but other
correspondents forward specimens of very extravagant
charges elsewhere in Great Britain. Here, then, is a
sufficient answer to the common taunt of Englishmen
going to foreign countries, and leaving unvisited the
'mantle* and marvels of their own. A powerful cause is
the comparative cheapness of hotels on the Continent.
Bntsurely there must be someremetly for this? If people
would but ascertain the charges before incurring them, it
would, at least, leave them free to go elsewhere, and
this competition would produce reform; whereas: if
objections are reserved till it is too late, hotel-keepers
have the whip-hand of us, and as they thus uniformly
get the best of the strife, competition is weakened.
The question arises, however, whether hotel-keepers
have the legal right to charge anything they like? Will
some adventurous tourist, instead of sending his bill
to the newspapers, have the courage to contest its pay-
ment in a law-court! Our forefathers had no idea of
such extravagant charges es are the rule now-a-days,
otherwise they would not have spoken no rapturously
of the pleasures of an inn—for the "hotel" is of
modern invention. The Shakspearean question,
"Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn ?" was not
marred by horrid misgivings of a forthcoming extor-
tionate bill. The poet Shenstone, it will be re-
membered, wrote on the windows of an inn :

Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
slay sigh to think he still has found
Ills warmest welcome at an inn.
Ile would never have written this had he been called
on to pay such bills as modern tourists pay. Dr.
Johnson was emphatically a' tavern man. "There is
m.thing," he wrote, "which has yet been contrived by
man by which so much happiness is produced as by a
good tavern or inn." But how great the difference
between the tavern of his time and the hotel of our
own -between the Johnsonian inn and the modern
pulolie-house, and in nothing, perhaps, so much as in