The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-03-26 00:00:00

ur Introit gorrtspoukilt.

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

It falls to the residents in the capital of any great
country to witness scenes of stronger contrast than can
possibly come before the gaze of those beyond its
environs. Thus the 600,000 inhabitants of the city
which Peter the Great founded in the marshes of
Finland will have a striking exemplification of the
truth of the old saying, "The King is dead! Long
live the King! " The impressive ceremonial at
the funeral obsequies of Alexander 11. will be
followed by the preparations for the coronation of
Alexander 111. Meanwhile, the Lords and Commons
of England, in Parliament assembled, have echoed
the opinions of the whole civilized world in express-
ing reprobation of the crime which sent the late
Czar to his doom. Assassination has always been
especially revolting to the English people. It is a
crime from which their annals are exceptionally free.
It is contrary to the deepest instincts and to the most
profound moral convictions of the national character—
to all that is implied by the words, fair-play. David
Hume, in writing of the civil war of the reign of
Charles 1., admitted in admirable language that in the
worst times of the great contest, when so much blood
was shed on so many battle-fields, there was scarcely
any record of attempted assassination. "This fact,"
said the historian, "speaks volumes in favour of the
character of the English people." So it has ever been,
and so may it continue to remain!
When the late Emperor Alexander was in London,
nearly seven years ago, soon after the marriage of his
daughter to the Duke of Edinburgh, he gave one the
Idea of a lonely man in the midst of a grand solitude.
There was an air of settled melancholy which seemed
to tell how utterly companionless was the lot of him
who held uncontrolled sway over ninety millions of
his fellow human beings. In the lofty station to
which he had been called, it was impossible for him
ever to commune with an equal. And so his
life went on, and the circumstances of his death
possessed all the elements of the saddest tragedy.
He was not a sovereign who delighted in war and
bloodshed; for according to his opportunities he did
what he could to give peace to his c3untry. In addi-
tion to liberating 23 millions of agrarian serfs, he
sought to give the people of his vast empire a system
of local government. But the social system of Russia
is very different from our own, and he could only work
with the materials at his disposal. There can be little
doubt that in recent years he was anxious to be on the
best of terms with the people and government of the
United Kingdom, and that when he gave his only and
much-beloved daughter to an English Prince, it was
in the hope that the union would produce a better
understanding between the two countries.
It was impossible that either a Drawing Room or a
Levee could have been held while the Czar remained
unburied. Besides being a European sovereign of the
highest rank, he was the father-in-law of one of the
Queen's sons, and also of a sister of the Princess of
Wales. Court mourning was therefore at once ordered
for a month; and at the Drawing Room which her
Majesty will hold on the 29th inst. at Buckingham
Palace, all persons who attend will be expected to observe
the published orders. Brides and young unmarried ladies
on their presentation may, however, appear in white.
The Prince of Wales, after representing the Queen at
the funeral of the late Emperor of Russia, will hold a
levee at St. James's Palace on the sth of April, at
which presentaLions are, as is the rule, considered to
be equivalent-to those made to her Majesty in person.

By that time the Easter Recess will be close in
sight, and members of Parliament will have well-nigh
reached the promised land. Meeting on the 6th of
January, and going on without a break until the
Bth of April, thirteen weeks will have rolled
away since honourable members assembled at
Westminster. Many things have happened in that
time, which has been a most eventful period in Par-
liament; and politically speaking the fortnight's
recess is not likely to be a time of rest from oratory
and criticism. Parliament will indeed be transferred
to the provinces, and the proceedings of the Legis-
lature will be reviewed from different heights of
mental vision. The Commons will meet again on
the 25th of April, but the holiday of the Peers,
as is customary in their lordships' House, will
be of longer duration. In truth, thus far
during the Parliamentary year noble lords have
had scarcely any occupation, and often have not
sat as many minutes as the Commons have sat hours.
This, however, is not the fault of the peers, inasmuch
as very few Bills have come up to them from the re-
presentative chamber. The measures laid before their
lordships have been soon disposed of. But their busy
time is always—at the closing part of the session, when
Bills come up from the Commons thick and fast; and
In the legislative chamber, in the committee room, and
also as a court of justice, the House of Lords, although
an ancient and venerable institution, stands forth in
all the energy of ample occupation.
It has often been a matter of surprise why the
penny postage stamp issued by the Government
should not also be capable of use as a receipt stamp,
but as a matter of fact the postage stamp is frequently
so used, especially in rural districts, where it is not
generally known that no such receipt is valid if any
dispute arises. At length, however, the Treasury
intend to propose a change which will be greatly for
the public convenience. A union of the two stamps
is to be carried into effect so that from the time of its
taking place the postage stamp will be available for
Inland Revenue purposes. Now that the alteration
Is to be made, it is a subject for marvel that the dis-
tinction should 'ever have been made, and that it
should have lasted so long. We all know the incon-
venience attendant upon the obtaining cf receipt
stamps as compared with the facility for getting those
for postage. The new arrangement will give rise to a
certain amount of disadvantage for statistical purposes,
but on the other hand the public convenience will be
great.

The Dead-Letter Office, as a part of our exist-
c postal machinery, is undoubtedly a necessity;
in many instances the knowledge that before
r,rs can be returned to their writers, the missives

1 .ist be oi ned by hands other than those for whom
were intended, is sometimes made the subject of
.vere comment. That letters, in a number of cases,
ight be sent back without a previous passage
..rough the office, is the opinion of Sir Henry
J:essemer, the eminent civil engineer, who has sug-
gested that where any doubt exists as to the correct-
ness kr temporary addresses, the sender of the letter
should place a stamp at the right hand corner of the
envelope, and another at the bottom, drawing a line
across the middle, and thus dividing the envelope into
two compartments, as it were. In the first might
be written what is believed to be the tem-
porary address of the intended recipient and
in the other the permanent addre\ss. If the
postman found that the party had gone from the first
address, it would be his duty to drop the letter into
the nearest pillar-box, the second stamp would ensure
its delivery at the second address, and thus the usual
delay and unavoidable opening at ibe Dead Letter
Office would to rendered unneces.ry. The second
address, it preferred, might be that f the writer, and
the fact of its being prepaid would secure its imme-
diate rL.nris unopened. A plan such as this is simple
to a degree, and it has this great advantage—that it
would save the necessity and labour of opening some
thousands of letters, and having theirs re-directed.
The records of the daily practice of the University
boat crews once more assume a prominent place in the
columns of the London Press. So long as the practice
is upon the Cam or the Isis, these recitals appear in
email type; but when the crews come nearer to
London a very much bolder letter is used, and by
the rising generation no part of the journal is
every morning more carefully scanned. The pro-
longation of the armistice with the Boers, or the pros-
pects of the Ministry are passed over in order to see
how No. 7 got on at the previous day's exercise.
That the water was somewhat lumpy in the bends,
and that the morning was occupied in tubbing, are
regarded as facts which may be fraught with moment-
ous consequences. That the long steady stroke of
thirty-two per minute should be increased to thirty-
four without visibly distressing the crew is looked
upon by the juvenile portion of the population as
being far more iniportant than the escaping of a
war with the King of the Ashantees. What is the
retention of Candahar to the success of light
or dark blue in beating a scratch eight? Still,
if a schoolboy just now talks more about aquatics
than about Euclid, it must be borne in mind that
there are many other months in the year in which he
can devote himself to his studies in mathematics and
algebra, and it is quite possible that at some period
of his life his boating knowledge may come useful to
him.

The taking of the Census is always an event of great
national importance. It bears no relation to the I
pride of heart which induced King David to number
his people; but in modern and civilized life it is not
only necessary to determine the position of a country
amongst the nations of the earth ; but the in-
formation obtained is of enormous service in framing
measures of political and social reform, in taking pre-
etvatidifikiikainst the spreading of malignant diseases,
and in Aevitifigitneans of education for the ignorant
classes of the population. All who are alive at mid-
i t on Sunday the 3rd of April within the limits of
the British Isles will be counted, not only in the giant
city, but in the quiet village and the sequestered
hamlet, the occupants of boats .and barges on
rivors and canals, the sailors on board the ves-
sels in our cloaks, who are either preparing to go

down to the sea in ships, or have returned from
a long ocean voyage, the inhabitants of lonely islands
and of those who never leave their homes to go forth into
the great world which is far away from the sound of the
deep diapason of the sea. The exactitude with which
the work of the thirty-five thousand enumerators is done
is marvellous; and remembering how perfectly the
census of 1871 was taken, it seems impossible that
there could have been any improvement upon it.
Ten years, almost to a day will have expired since
that time and a period which, although it makes
an appreciable difference in the age of man, is
but a speck in the history of a State. Yet, as the
terrible event at St. Petersburg lately told us, a
matter of momentous consequence in the lifetime of
a nation may happen in a moment; and although the
moving incidents of an ordinary household in the
United Kingdom cannot compare with this, yet in
every family there are events which serve as the land-
marks of its domestic history, and in many a home
at the filling up of the census-paper the fleeting
changes of the past decade will be reviewed, and
many byegone memories recalled.