The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-04-23 00:00:00

COMMENTS ON CURRENT NEWS,

POLITICS have fairly held the field, in and
out of Parliament, for the last few days. It
has been a ferment of oratorical fighting,
and chiefly over the Irish question. To be-
gin with there was the disgraceful
scene in the Commons, in which Colonel
Sannderson' the enthusiastic Orangeman,
brought a hot indictment against all and
sundry of the Nationalist M P.'s, which was
received with the prompt branding of flat
denial, expressed in the bluntest language,
by Mr. T. Healy. Mr. Speaker rebuked the
unparliamentary repletive. Mr. Parnell's
lieutenant would not withdraw the word, so
he was s tspended. There was heartburning
over this, and an after endeavour to heal the
breach, but without success. Then Mr.
Chamberlain and his ficlus achutes have been
stumping Scotland, speaking of things Irish
and things general, Lord bliartington and
Mr. Goschen have sent forth Unionist
thunder from " auld. Reekie," Lord Randolph
Churchill has testified to the political faith
that is in him before the men and woman of
Nottingham, and, not to speak of many
others of lesser note who have held high the
party banners, the ex-Premier also has said
his say again on the well-worn theme of
Irish Government. This latter address,
given at the Eighty Club in Lonion on
Tuesday, has not been accepted as likely to
heal the breach between the Liberal Unionist
members and those who have stood firmly by
their old leader, greatly to the'joy of such
as would see the rift in the ranks remain.
Than, in the House again, there has been the
excitement over Mr. Parnell's indignant
denial of the authorship of a letter published
by the Times in
.fac-simile, alleged to have
been written at the instigation of the Irish
leader, and said to be signed with his auto-
graph; a letter of a truly startling sort, and
if, as affirmed by Mr. Parnell, a pure fabric-
ation, certainly one of a shameful character.
The Crimes Bill, after all the party strife,
passed its second reading with the substantial.
majority of 101. When one has touched on
all this heat and passion and sensation, the
contemplation of what, at any other time,
would have been an absorbing subject, be-
comes comparatively tame. ciVe refer to the
introduction of the Budget by Mr. Goschen.
To be sure, though, this year's financial
statement of the Government had had its
interest very greatly discounted some weeks
back by the Minister responsible, for Mr.
Goachen had warned us in a confidential
postprandial speech not to expect other than
a humdrum Budget.

THOSE mistaken sentimentalists who would
have had an exception made in the finishing
of the law which decrees a life for a life in
the case of the wretched Hoxton murderer,
were doomed to disappointment Carrell
was hanged within the walls of Newgate on
Monday in expiation of his dreadful crime,
and
.now his blea3lting bones lie side by side
with those of many others who have not held
human life satred, within the small well-like
cemetery just off tke Old Bailey-street, and
in strange contiguity to one of the busiest
thoroughfares of the busiest city in the
world. T.he " mad-doctor's " well-meant
efforts, the benevolent minister's endeavours,
and the strenuous exertions of friends all
failed to bring about the interference of the
Home Seereta,ry between the malefactor and
his awful doom. It is as well, for as long
as capital punishment remains inscribed on
the statute book, such terrible crimes as that
prpetrated by Curren should thereby be
avenged. The deed was without one re-
deeming circumstance, its only motive a
sAtish jealousy. There was nothing of the
man about the murderer. He slew his victim
in cold blood, without a word of warning.
After he had done the foul deed, he kept in
hiding to save his neck for days,until hunger
forced him to surrender to the officers of the
law he had outraged. In the condemned
cell, so long as a ray of hope of reprieve re-
mained he made untrue "confessions," and
only told the whole ghastly truth after the
gallows had been erected. He died at last,
without the regret of any fellow-creature, a
fearful end indeed, and there are none to say
his fate was too harsh for the man's deserv-
ing.