The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-12-10 00:00:00

OM ENT ,3 ON CURRENT NEWS.

FRANCE is herself again. •:i President Gr6vy
has -.r,one and President Sadi Carn It reign 3
at the Elyse in his stead. The Ilew ruler
oE our neighbours over the silver streak diit
net last Saturday morning iinagine that he
would be called to be a king in all but thf.
nnme before nightfall, and the spectacle of
his home going in the evening with a
cavalrY- c ;cort, might well have alarmed tht
new Pre..,iEent's good lady- had not sora(,
friend meantime apprised her of the honour
which had talon to her •husband. M. Sadi
Carnot's election as President seems to have
been well received in France, and there is a
better prospect of peace and prosperity
following his government of the nation than
there would have been had one of the more
, widely-known statesmen who were thought
Ito be in the running secured the requisite
majority of votes for the Presidency.

A. SURPRISE came from America on Tuesday
-.Thei it was known that President Cleveland
had spoken out. in his Message to Congress,
concerning the tariff question. The United
States Treasury is embarrassed with a con-
stant surplus. That this arises in a great
measure from the protective policy of the
Washington Government there can be no
manner of doubt, and in so far as President
C!eveland's Message may be interpreted into
a proposition that taxation should never be
raised beyond a nation's need, his policy will
have a general support. But people think
more strongly "over the herring pond" on
the question of Free Trade and Protection
than even we do here, and the President's
attempt to grapple with a difficulty which
bus been generally left discreetly alone when
the occupant of the White House has to
face the representatives of the American
people may lead before long to a political
crisis in the States.

THE Christmas Fat Stock Show of the
Smithfield Club, 'at Islington, has been in'
every way a success, tho most successful
ever held by the club, in fact, from all
points. The animals exhibited were more
numerous, better in quality, and in bettor
condition, and a very difficult matter the
judges found it in many cases to decide the
point of superiority in cattle, sheep, and pig
pens. The beasts were some of them
velitable mountains of meat, but sleek and
shapely, bred for the butcher and the eater,
and many of the prize-winners whose
ultimate reward of success is but a death-
dealing blow of the slaughter-man's axe, or
a swift, skilful thrust of the knife, in some
town shambles, will ere long be contributing
to Christmas feasting and post-Yuletide
indigestion. Others of those wonderful
cattle, which thousands at the Agricultural
thll have this week poked and stroked, and
petted and prodded, vill be spared alive to
perpetuate a race of edible giants which has
had no superior in any age ,or land. We
may at times lament that the British farmer
candot grow beef, mutton, and pork as
cheaply as some of his foreign competitors,
but we can proyadly claim that nowhere in
the world has there ever been any thing to
equal for excellence "the roast beef of Old
England,"

CHRISTMAS seems to Englishmen a queer time
for cricket playing; and yet the reports
which keep coming to us by wire week by
week from Australia concerning the doings
there of the two teams of British amateur
and professional batsmen and bowlers are
read with interest by many. This week,
too, we have had reported the discassians at
Lords by the County Cricket Coancirof the
vexed questions ofleg-before-wicket and of
drawn matches, and let, us hope that there-
from will arise some decisive action which
will abate both nuisances, for each is such,
as things stand at present. On Tuesday, too,
the county secretaries held their annual
conclave to settle the fixtures of next year's
cricket programme, and a full and interest-
ing list was drawn out. The visit of another
Australian team to Englt.nd to play pretty
constantly from early in May to the close of
the season, though it cannot bat clash with
the inter-county contests now and again,
will form the most prominent feature of the
cricket of 1888, for we are told that a bic,
effort is being made to bring over the
strongest batch of Antipodean players which
has been seen in this country.
$

Poo l-z Lord Lyons did not live to enjoy the
hononrable retirement which a long and
distinguished diplomatic career entitled him
to. He was a model ambassador, who knew
just when to act, and just when to maintain
a policy of masterly inactivity. Lord Lytton,
accomplished and undoubtedly clever as he
is, will find it difficult to deal as ably with
the excitable Frenchman ae did the old re-
presentative of Britain who occupied the
Embassy in Paris before the second Empire
tottered to its fall. Lord Lyons had been
named by his Sovereign for the dignity of
an earldom, but he has been called away by
death before the ne w honour could reach
him, and now the peerage becomes extinct.
The Duke of Norfolk was much attached to
his late uncle, and feels his almost sadden
demise very keenly, coming as it does, so
shortly after a greater bere3vement.
1.1
• •

SIIIAKEN Nei, in his speech at Leamington
on Tuesday, in speaking on procedure in
Parliament, called attention to the circum-
stance that Mr. Beresford Hope's successor
in the representation of Cambridge
University combines with his membership
of the legislative assembly a college pro.
fessorship and the presidency of that most
learned body, the Royal Society. Professor
Stokes is, in truth, a distinguished man of
light and leading, for these three functions
have not been vested in one individual since
the famous scientist who found out why an
apple falls downward united them in his own
proper person. Is it too much to hope that
the culture of such shining, ornaments of
society as the new member for Cambridge
University will do something to restore to
what was once styled the first assembly of
gentlemen in Europe its failing reputation
for politeness and good manners