The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-04-04 00:00:00

!bun Grrespo4ant,
thatplednonii &Uo
s;
Mao
Sr es

riti• Weep it right to
Mead* sarselvao with

• \
•
•
•
•
•
•
\ ,

Idign han thit • days of i
void of in thou of
hied at
y two
night, and the Lords have mot for on riven less time.
Very likely after du Buster Roues we shall see • little
more husinees trazimond, foe it must be runemliond
that the Government, so well sa the Parliawingp-is
new ono. and had little Cr no time to corilidit the
measures which were to be laid belcre the legiolature.
This is a disadvantage whiob every work wil/ tend to
ramose, and however the newly-elected representatives
of the poi Tie may slam.' the hider vacation, ste may
depend upon it that the Cabinet will not ditring that
period lead an idle life. Bannon often • lead. me
to the NOUN. 14 Common:a, and I must nay that I
have been ounallerably- annumal se the load and re.

posted claw of " Order which experienced M. l'.'a
have mimed at the ;expense of their newly-elected fellow- !
members. The latter, 'sing totally unacquainted with
the rules of this august amenably, are liable tol inake 1
mistakes, and instead of these errors being quietly I
pointed out to them, a loud cry of" Order ! " isaheuted
from three or font hundred voices, and the new legis-
lator becomes confused as he innocently and in-
quiringly looks around for the cause of all the outcry.
It is, for instance, a breach of etiquette for a member
to enter the Ileum and proceed to his seat without
lifting his hat to the Speaker. He may wear his hat
during the whole of the ;lifting, but if he dew not I
remove it when he comes in he is assailed with a shout .
of "Order !" lie naturally wants to know the reason I
of the prevailing disorder, and is astonished when it is ,
explained to him. Again, when a member is addres-
sing the House, it is an unpardonable breach of
decorum fnr another member to pees before him. If
he wishes; to get to a different poet of the chamber he
must do so by a circuitous route, round by the division
lobby, or any way tlaat he can discover. But let him only
pass in front of any hon. gentleman who is speaking,
and there is a chorus of indignant cries. Another in- •
fraction of order is to call a 'leacher by name instead ;
of describing him by the constituency which he repre-
sents. Again, although you may retort upon an inter-
ruption, you omit not pause in your °beery:Aim; to
listen to it. Nor must a member read his speech from
• manuserip although he may refer to written
notes. Other breaches of order consist in attempt-
ing to spook from the members' gallery, and to
occupy mote than a prescribed space upon the floor of
the House. I have often thought some of these rules
excessively childish, and I am sure they would not be
tolerated in any place where business was the sole aim
of these who assembled.
Last week was rather a gay one in London, and the
events which made it so were favoured with fine
weather, although at times the northwest wind reminded
those who stirred abroad that winter had not yet left um.
The chief incident which moved fashionable London was
the Queen's Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace, on
Wednesday March2sth. Her Majesty WWI accompanied
to the Throne Room by the Prince and-Princese of Wales,
the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, Princess Beatrice,
Prince Christian, the Duke of Cambridge, and the Duke
of Teck. No wonder that with such an array of nota-
bilities the Mall in St. James's park was crowded. I
have often wondered how people could make time to
stolid there for hours, and find pleasure in gazing at
carriages with emblazoned panels and at representatives
IA rank and fashion whom they do not know, and of
whom some .1 them have never heard. But amongst
the three millions and a half of our population
there must be a considerable fringe, who, to
use an expressive phrase, had fathers before
them. This claw of persons, being left with a coin.
petency. and having been trained to no trade or pro-
fession, eagerly clutch at anything in the shape of
sight-seeing, and at a Ceurt, a Drawing Room, or a
Levie, there they are in their thousands. Others are
there for business - milliners to study the latest
fashions—and gentlemen with very light lingers who
perform the feat of relieving a man of his watch with
remerkable dexterity. Deciesionally the quick eye of
is policeman falls upon them in the act ; and, as a rule,
I have been sorry to see that a crowd will more wil-
lingly favour the escape of a criminal than render
assistance in securing him. Instead of helping the
police in their perpetual war against the predatory
(games, it is the too common practice even of respecta-
bility to aliu the force, and thus indirectly to en-
courage the freebooters in their evil courses.
That the London season is gradually opening into
active life is evident in the increase in the number of
charity dinners. A benevolent institution which pos-
Resets no endowment, and is compelled to rely solely
upon voluntary weitributions, endeavours to provide
some sittraction at lead once a year with a view of
eliciting suiscriptims. Sometirues this taken the shape
lif a sermon, and if an Archbishop can be secured,
great is the joy of the promoters; if not, they are well
content with a Bishop. Others prefer a bazaar, or a dis-
tribution I if prizes, and much anxiety is then manifested
to ensure the attendance of one of our Princesre. I
fancy that the Duchess of Edinburgh will find her
time pretty well taken up this summer in engagements
of this description. But the form if assembly which
finds most favour is the annual dinner. If a Prince of
the Blood Royal can find time to take the chair, the
accession to the funds is correspondingly great. Allow
nue to give you an illustration. On the night of. the
Drawing Room, the l'rince of Wales presided at the
annual dinner of the British Orphan A.sylum—a noble
institution, deserving of all support from the
public. Naturally there was a distinguished gather-
ing ; the lessee of Willis's Rooms provided a splendid
dinner ; and the speeches of the heir-apparent
were so agreeable and to the purpose, that before the
company sopa:Mist, subscriptiens to the amount of
.C 2,000 had been handed in. I have seen cases where
the gathering have been more numerous, in which the
subecription list has amounted to double that sum.
This was so two years ago when the King of the
Belgians, then on a visit to this country, presided at
the annual dinner of the Royal Literary Fund, which
found itself richer by £4,000 at the close of the evening
than it was at the beginning. Tennyson has written
.1 the fierce light which beats; upon all the acts of
Royalty but of one thing I am certain, that the
members of the reigning House never hesitate to make
any sacrifice of time or of convenience in their efforts
1.0 help forward the cause of charity.
The early accounts of the tidal wave in the Thames
conveyed but an inadequate idea of the misery and
destruction which it wrought. It effected such
havoc in the homes of thousands of the poorer
classes that • public subscription has been started,
and an urgent appeal is made for assistance. When
river bursts its banks in the country, it is seldom that
anything more disastrous happens than the deposit of
slime and sediment upon the meadnive, the weeping
away of a haystack, or the drowning of a sheep. But
when a stream like the Thames, which for Reversal
milee flows between two banks crowded with an
enormous population, suddenly rimes five or six feet,
the consequent suffering is well nigh incalculable.
From Woolwich to Nine Elms the southern shore is
honeycombed with narrow streets tenanted by the very
poorest; and these, on a fine spring afternoon, found
the water all at once rise to the ceilinge of their lower
looms. It was not from the effect of rains upon the
lands near the source of thaeiver, but it came surging
lip from the sea, and waif the result of the gathering
together of a vast body of water in the Channel which
had for the time escaped from the Atlantic. How im.
;ionise it must have been was evident from the fact that
from the Nona to Kew, a distance ..f little less than fifty
miles, the riseof the water was nowhere lens than five feet,
and was in some CMOs IA high as seven. Such an inci-
dent only shows how dependent is the existence of even
the mightiest city in the world upon the regular work.
ing of the laws of Nature. Here we are, far enough
away from the broad Atlantic, set the conjunction of
the sun and moon's influence acting upon the tides in
that ocean, and drawing its waters for the time into
the Channel, wrecks the homes of great numbers of the
I .onolon poor, and leaves traces of devastation which it
will take a very lung time to efface. It only requires
hese exceptional tiles to be assisted by a strong wind,
materially to increase their destructive effects.
I see that the Czar intends to leave St. Petersburg
CU route fir this country on the let of May. It is to
be hoped that his Imperial 'Majesty will be n.ore for-
tnnate in respect to weather than was the Sultan, in
1067. Theta, day after day, it was wretched in the ex-
treme, and the naval review at Spithead was held in
the micLit of a stiff gale. However, we had no reason
to complain of the weather hot year, when
the Shah was amongst us. The City of London,
which lately resolved to present a gift of the value of
:0,000 guineas to the Duchess of Edinburgh, will enter-
tertain her father at a magnificent banquet at Guild-
hall. This means a baronetcy for the Lord Mayor and
a knighthood for each of the Sheriff& That is the in-
variable rule when either our own Sovereign or the
raining manweli of a fersign country enters the City
of London ix State.
These of your mailers wb• have had 6i:easiest to visit
the British Museums will have noticed a ramp of
ereisien shedding in front of the building. One day
last week some waggon-loads of broken stones were
deposited in one of these temporary erections, and, to
the uninitiated, these seemed but a mere heap of
rubbish. It is, however, a valuable mam of arehiteco
tural treasure from the recently excavated ruins
of the Temple of Diana at Ephseus, and is to
remain in its present position until the learned
have oubjected it to a searching examination