The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-06-14 00:00:00

Stiyesz.


WHAT CONSTITUTES A SHARE-
HOLDER.

The Lord Chancellor, sitting for the Master of the
Rolls, gave judgment on Monday afternoon in Toomb•
case, which raised a question of imp irtance to share-
holders in companies in liquidation. Mr. Toomba was
the holder of one hundred shares in the Contract Cor-
poration Company, but forfeited his shares by reason
of the non-payment of calls. Whether notice of
the forfeiture was given to him or not seemed to be
disputed. But the SWIM due on the calls having been
paid within • week, the directors cancelled the
forfeiture, and Mr. Toombs was subsequently paid a
divi lend in respect of the profits earned before the
date of the forfeiture. The question then was,
ought Mr. Toombs to be placi-d on the list of con-
tributories in respect of his 100 shares ? For
hum it was contended that by the forfeiture
the original contract was determined, and that he
could not be treated as a shareholder tiniest' there
was a new contract allotting him the shares, and of
this there was no evidence. The Lord Chancellor held
that the receipt of the dividend as by itself evidence
that Mr. Toombs still regarded himself as a share-
holder, whether he had or had not received notice of
the previous forfeiture. His lordship accordingly
ordered his name to be put upon the list.

LORD DERBY on MEDICAL CHARITIES.
Lord Derby presided, on Monday, at the annual public
examination of the Manchester Schou,* for the Deaf and
Dumb. At the cloee of the examination, his lordship ad-
dreseed the meeting. Aft. r a few worda of commendation
upon the management of the institutioa, he .aid

There is one remark of • general character which I
may put before you, and it may possibly not have oc-
,.urred to everybody here. Only thoee who are practi-
cally conversant with what are called charitable in-
stitutions can realise the imo epee difficulty of making
sure that you are really doing more good than harm.
Nature says to most of us, 'Work or you will starve."
Humanity cannot bear to witness starvation or suffer-
g, and we will do what we can to remit or to lighten
the penalty eaten it has been incurred; but it is not
always easy to do that without lessening the
stimulus to exertion, and so indirectly creating more
suffering than you relieve. If you were to go into the
streets, and take up and care for and educate every boy
whom you found running loose there—which is a sort
of thing • great many kind-hearted people would
willingly do—you would have • great deal to say
in defence of your attempt After all, it is not the
boys fault if they are neglected at home, and it is hard
they should suffer for the default of others; but, as a
cuatter of fact, you would be holding out, as everybody
can gee, the strongest is ssible inducements to lazy and
rascally parents to turn their chil :ten adrift, in order to
get them educated and lodged and fed ter nothing And
so, as • result of y one kind act, you would have probably
in a year or two three times as many vagrant lads as
before. Hospitals in London, of late years, have been
enormously extended by the liberality of the public. I
know there is an outcry—not, so far as I can judge,
unreasonable—that they are used and abused try thou.
sands of per•orus who are in no distress at all, who
could pay, and ought to pay, for their own medical
relief, but who fin I that they can get it for nothing,
and have no shame in doing so. Everywhere y tti are
met with the old paradox—the old difficulty--how
tlo se th et deserve help least often want it most ; yet
, how ddficult It is to get that help to those who want
it most without causing reasonable and actual discour-
agement to others who have struggled hard t avoid
wanting it, and who have succeeded, with in finit e trouble,
in just holding their own. It is a difficulty that meets
you in various shaped,. Take children of paupers, for
instance. Who would contend that they ought not to
have every chance of health riven them that good food
and good I Aging can affurd ! Yet it is not altogether
unreasonable that the struggling ratepayer should say
" It is hard that I have pay to give comforts to three
children which I can't afford to my own, and that the
beat off should be those who have Leavitt shame in
throwing their burdens on other people's backs."
Yon see the same thing in another form. In
families, what is commoner than a father or

mother, or possibly two or three brothers and sisters
beggared in the attempt—perhaps an unsuccesa tit
attempt—to rescue some one, the black sheep of
the family, from the consequences of his own folly.
What are you to nay regarding such cases? It they
were going to sacrifice themselves, then our best feel-
ings are oily given us to delude and to mislead; if
they are right, then to do nothing or less than nothing
for yom,elf is the host reason, as the world goes, for
expecting your neighbour to do everything for you.
Well, these are paradoxes, over which I have often
puzzled, and many wiser people than I am, and with-
out Peeing any altogether satisfactory (solution.
But you may ask me, what have they to do with this
school, and why do I mention them here? Well, I
will tell you why; because it seems that almost entire
freedom fr mi the risk I am speaking of—the risk of
charity abused—is one of the very first recommenda-
tion, of an institution such as this is. You may
multiply paupers indefinitely by making pauperism
less disagreeable, and removing from it all idea of
social degradation; but no amount of care or com-
fort, or even luxury, with which you could surround
deaf and dumb children, would increase the Lumber
of deaf and dumb by • single individuaL The same
principle applies to asylums for the blind, for idiots,
or those in any way incurably afflicted. No one
enters into any one of those classes of hid own free
will. It is neither his fault nor the fault of his parents
that be is what he is, and the contingency of having
a child PO circumstanced is one so rare, so peculiar, so
out of all ordinary calculati in, that parents cannot be
reasonably blamed for not having anticipated or pro.
vided for it. That is, I think, a sound, economical
justification of institutions like the present one, which
will bear the test of reasoning as well as of sentiment.
You are not ignoring the principle of self help when
you assist those whom nature has precluded from
helping themselves. If every blind person and every
deaf and dumb person could have the benefit of the
beet care and teaching which society could give, you
could not thereby have the slightest risk of making either
the one or the other infirmity more common. You are
absolutely on safe ground. All you have to take care
of is that, of two candidaten for admission, that one
shall be first admitted who can show at once the most
nrgent want and the most reasonable proepecta of
benefits by the care bestowed. It is a good system
also, by which pupils who pay the greater part of the
costs are mixed with those who contribute very little.
It takes off much of the idea of dependence on
strangers. There is another consideration to be borne
In mud—that no clam of afflic.ed persons gain so
much by teaching and good treatment aa the deaf and
dumb. The blind, however terrible may be their loss,
are not cut off from the first of social and intellectual

wants—communication with the rest of mankind; but
to be unable to exchange a thought or a feeling except
through the slow medium of ordinary writing—and this
can only be acquired with difficulty—is a condition
should imagine more trying to the ordinary human being
than blindness itself. It, not good for men to be alone,
still worse for women; and there can be no deeper
solitude than that which ir produced by the phyrical
inability to speak or to hear. The process by which iii
that respect art has succeeded in removing the defects
of nature is. to my mind, as wonderfudy intellectual
as it is useful in its results. We have seen to-day
something of what can be performed by it, and
heartily congratulate the teachers of this school on the
way in which their work has been done. (Loud cheers.)

A TORRRNT IA • Town.—The journals of
Elbeuf, Seine-Inferieure, France, contain accounts of
disseter by which several lives have been lost.
During a storm of rain a few evenings since, a torrent
became formed in the neighbourhood of the town, and
the water rushing with meat violence down the hill
on which the Rue du Bourg-Theroulde is balk de-
stroyed the two houses numbered 59 and 61 in that
street. The first was occupied by a Belgian weaver,
named Scuba', and his wife, who both received injuries,
but survive, but the second contained three families,
and of the five persons who occupied the ground-floor,
and who were burild in the ruins, four were taken out
dead. The fifth, a young girl, was saved by a beam
which formed an arch above her head. One of the
occupants of the upper Mary was also killed, and du
other persons were lerlowely

POPULAR COOKERY.

Remarking on this useful feature of the international Ex-
hibition hi London, The l'smes has the following e ketch of
the practical and instructive lectures which are given twice
a day :

The crowded benches of the School of Cookery at
the International Exhibition are a proof of the interest
and novelty attaching to practical instructions in the
preparation of food. Twice • day the female popula-
tion f Great Britain are well scolded for their kitchen
ignorance by an enthusiastic lecturer, who is listened
to with a patience and humility which seems to en•
courage him in laying on his wholesome rebukes.
Something is said to all classes. The fine lady is
frightened by revelations of the shameful waste which
goes on in her grand kitchen, and is reminded that her
great gzandmother, though not less a fine lady than
herself, was wont to be up betimes in the morning and
about her house, and made it her business to have
every detail of the kitchen and stillroom at her fingers'
ends. the wife of the hard-worked professional man
in shown how

climax of all earthly ills,
• The inflammation of his weekly bills,"
may be kept down, at the same time that the quantity
and quality of the family meale are increased and
bettered by the mnitremix personal superintendence of
her cook and kitchen. The bourgeotee housewife is no
lose upbrai led for the sham gentility which leads her
to teach her daughters how to play the piano instead
of how to boil a potato.
These South Kensington severities are attentively
hearkened to, not only by rows of young women, but
also by country clergymen, respectable mechanics,
email tradesmen, &e., all of whom probably return
home resolved to assert their right to wellocooked
meal,, whether the amount of housekeeping money
be great or small. It is also to be hoped that
no right-minded bachelor who has attended these
lectures will ask a young lady to share his small
house and income till he has satisfied himself that
she knows how to cook, or, at least, how to teach
• cook. A week ago the lecturer was preaching a
erns sie against cold mutton. The text was most
attractive, and many • cook-maid anxious to improve
herself come with her sixpence in her hen 1, and the
eager inquiry, "Are the 'ashes goin' on?'
The lecturer's instructions are precise and simple.
and are well illustrated by the attendant chef and his
kitcheumaida, who prepare the different diahee before
the eyes of the audien:e. Numbers of letters from
grateful masters and mistresses bear witness to the
improvement in the domestic bill of fare which may
result from even one visit to the SchooL If, after
hearing the discourse on hashes, for instance, a
cook should still send to table tough chunks of meat
swimming in greasy water or a thick floury mess,
she would, indeed, deserve to be drummed out of
her kitchen. How easy is it to prepare a really
palatable and excellent rechau,e of a yesterday's
dinner ! The gravy, having teen carefully mixed,
boiled, and strained, is allowed to get nearly cold
before the nearly cut pieces of meat are put into the
saucepan, there to simmer as slowly as may be. In.
stead of the slices of flabby toast, which too often
sicken the soul of the bread winner sitting down to
his dinner faint with work and hunger, the dish
ohould be garnished with symmetrical eippeta which
have been frizzled into crisp toast in • wire basket
plunged into a saucepan of boiling lard. As economy
Is the burden of the lectures, the thrifty manager
is duly reminded that the lard in which these sippets
have been cooked may be used for other frying, but
for nothing after it has been used for fiah. The
virtue of cleanliness, of an exquisite and dainty
cleanliness, ranks higher in the code of kitchen
morality than even economy, and is as absolutely
a necessity to good cooking as the very fire itself.
This is well inculcated by the lecturer, and his forcible
directions and advice and their practical illustration
would surely impress even Sterne's "foolish, fat
scullion," or the kitchen wench " dull as the fat weed
that rots on Lethe'e wharf." It is truly enough points I
out that when we look round and observe the ranks
from which the ordinary middle-class servant is re-
cruited, her short-coming. should cease to surprise
rut It is no longer to the respectable farm-
house or tradesmen's family that we can look
for servants such as were the comfort of our
ancestors' homes. Those young ladies now play the
piano and dabble in 'ologies. Too large a proportion
of servants of the day are taken from squalid homes,
where there is but little food to be cooked and few
hotieeholl duties of any sort to be done. Girls from
such homes as there require training to per'orm toe
common domestic duties. This training they can
only at present acqnire at the expense of their eni•
ployere, and it is no wonder that a clever, intelligent
servant-girl is as rare as a blue bird or • talking
tree. It is as unreasonable to expect a girl to cook
withcnt having been properly instructed as it would
be to expect her to make a watch, awl this School of
Cookecy will, we h she, be the parent of many others.
That the necessity of such establishments is felt may be
issferred from the fact that the members of the Conn-
mittee have received from several manufacturing towns
moat earneet applications to organize similar schools,
and that not a few rich landowners have offered to
support liberally any movement which will teach the
working men's wives on their estates to cook food. It
would almost seem as if we were at last rubbing our
eyes and waking up to the knowledge that with all our
riches wears an ill-fed main, and have but reaped
half the advantages of our free trade until we learn how
to use the materials it brings to our shores. Women
in want of • mission cannot do better than first go and
learn at Sonth Keneinzton how to turn to profitable
and palatable acco int common meat and vegetables,
and then go and teach where it is least known this
most useful knowledge.