The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-10-16 00:00:00

ur foOnu 6orrespintUit,

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

The address presented by the Corporation of London
to the Prince of Wales, expressive of all good wishes
. connection with tilt-, visit of his Royal Highness to
our Indian Empire, seemed to reflect the sentiments
of the people generally. As to the Heir-Apparent
himself, he will be outside the saddening influences of
the British capital when these, to many minds, are at
their strongest. "Chill October" finds the fogs of
November close upon its heels, when the stagnant air
is, laden with heavy and suffocating vapour. lriom
November to February and often into March, it is
dull enough even in a city of bustle; and the Prince
himself, no lees than those who accompany him, will
often contrast the scenes of Oriental splendour and the
sunlit skies of Hindoostan, with the grey and gloomy
metropolis at home with whose characteristics they are
so well acquainted. Let the Prince return home
safely in our midst five months hence, and there will
be no complaints of the coat ot the journey, although
It is very likely to exceed the sum which Parliament
voted for it last session.
M . Alderman Cottone2LP., our new Lord Mayor,
in suggesting an enlargement of the civic pageant on
the 9th of November, has made a proposal which will
increase his popularity with the great multitude that
always turn out to witness the show on that day. He
estimates that about a million :and a half of people
gather in the streets on that occasion ; and instead of
filling up the procession with knights in armour, to be
laughed at immoderately by the gamins, the new chief
magistrate would make a display of the different
trades which have-conduced so much,to our own pros-
perity, and to carry civilization into distant lands.
There is something peculiarly appropriate in this idea
in a spectacle wherein the city companies figure so ex-
tensively as in the Lord Mayor's Show. The Fish-
mongers, the Fruiterers, the Goldsmiths, the Mercers,
and all the rest of them, represent industries which
have placed the City of London in a position
equalled by no community on the surface of the
globe. Most of them are very rich, and might well
be glad to devote a portion of their great wealth
to setting forth the attributes of the various
Industries which contribute so much to the
expansion of our commerce. For nearly 700 years
has the Lord Mayoralty of London been an office
of dignity and importance. The first mayor, Henry
Fitzalwyne, was appointed in 1189, though the prefix
of lord, with the courtesy title of right honourable,
was not granted until 1354 by Edward 111. Formerly
the Lord Mayor's procession went to Westminster by
water; but the land route has now been taken for
very many years, to the satisfaction of hundreds of
thousands who would not care to venture into crowded
boats upon the Thames. Why do the inhabitants of
the metropolis turn out in such enormous numbers to
look at the Lord Mayor's Show? Simply because it is
the only out-door spectacle in the course of the whole
year which is to be seen for nothing, merely by coming
to have a look at it. There is never any diminution in
the hosts which throng the thoroughfares; and that
Lord Mayor who contrives to make his procession the
best worth looking at, is the most popular amongst
the masses.
The intense feeling of the people against slavery in
any form has been clearly demonstrated lately, and
must have reminded many upon whom the snows of
years have gathered, of the enthusiasm created by the
thunders launched by Brougham against the system
half a century ago. Slavery, as many of lour readers
xnow, has existed from the earliest ages. The traffic
in men came from Chaldxa into Egypt, Arabia, and
all over the East. In Greece, in the time of How;
all prisoners of war were treated as slaves. The ycMhs
of Sparta, trained up in the practice of butchering
slaves, were from time to time let loose upon them to
show their proficiency; and once, for amusement only,
murdered 3,000 in one night. When Alexander the
Great razed Thebes to the ground, he sold the whole
people into slavery; and in the year 317 8.0. there
were 400,000 slaves in Attica. In Rome slaves were
often chained to the gate of a great man's house, to
give admittance to the guests invited to the feast. By
one of the laws of the Twelve Tables, passed by the
Roman Senate, creditors could seize their insolvent
debtors and keep them in their houses, till by their
services or labour they had discharged the sum they
owed. Pollio threw such slaves as excited his anger
into his fish-ponds, in order to fatten his lampreys. In
England laws respecting the sale of slaves were made
by Alfred; and the English peasantry were so com-
monly sold into servitude in Saxon and Norman times
that children were disposed of in Bristol market
like cattle for exportation. Many were sent to Ire-
land, and others to Scotland. They were desirable as
vassals during the feudal times; but, with the gradual
progress of enlightenment, a better spirit prevailed.
In 1574, Queen Elizabeth ordered her bondsmen in the
western counties to be made free at easy rates; serf-
dom, a system by which peasants were attached to the
landed estates, was finally extinguiehed in the reign of
Charles 11., and on the 22nd of June, 1772, the judges
of the King's Bench decided that slavery could not
exist in England. The question came before the
judges in this way. A poor slave named Somerset,
brought to this country, was, because of his infirm
bealth, turned adrift by his master. By the charity of
a gentleman named Granville Sharp, he was restored
to health, when his master again claimed him. This
was resisted, and a suit was the consequence, which
established, by its result in favour of the black, the
great point that slavery could not exist upon British
soil.
The bellicose attitude lately taken up by the Chinese
towards Great Britain lends interest to some facts
which have been published respecting that singular
people. Vast as Chinese territory is, it does not seem
to be large enough to meet the wants of a constantly
increasing population. Already large numbers of Celes-
tials have settled in Auetralia, but it is the United States
to which they flock most eagerly. They have recently
arrived at San Francisco in formidable bands, and
every steamer and sailing vessel comes laden with
therm During the last three years 50,000 have
been landed at San Francisco (pronounced by the
Americans 'Frisco), and it is estimated that there
are 110,000 in California, of whom 40,000 are
females. It seems clear that if this emigration goes
on at the present rate, all the vacant labour fields on
the Pacific coast will soon be occupied. Swarms of
Chinese will then pass eastwards, and in diatricts
where such a thing are competition for labour has
hetherto been unknown there will be a brisk competi-
tion. The Chinese are intensely disliked throughout
America ;,but it is admitted that they make efficient
domestic servants, farm labourers, and mechanic and
factory hands. They not only become skilful in any
calling they adopt, but are very industrious, being
able to work without apparently ever needing a holi-
day. But they do not permanently settle with any
other people; for it is the ambition of every China.
man to go back when he has made enough money, and
end his days in the land of his birth.
California is a word which to many minds is sug-
gestive of nothing but gold finding. Its soil and cli-
mate are, moreover, better adapted than those of any
other country in the world for the raising of cereals.
The wheat crop there is often so abundant as to retake
it a difficult and frequently an impossible matter to
gather in the harvest. Good corn is sometimes em-
ployed for fuel, as the best and most economical use
that can be made of it. The harvest in that
wonderful land is great, but the labourers are few ;
and from these combined causes the farmers have this
year made little or no profit. The price of labour s
high, and the grain growers as a clews are alleged to be
unable to pay it so as to leave a balance which will
remunerate them for their trouble and risks. In these
unfavourable circumstances grain-farming is going out
of fashion amongst the agriculturists of California.
Thus has one land superfluous labour, and another has
superfluous food; and we must wait for the extension,
cheapening, and improvement of the means of transit
between the west and the east before the balance will
be adjusted.
You hear nothing of the emptiness of London now.
The people are coming bark to town in shoals; and at
every railway terminus you may see the renovated
metropolitan in different degrees of development.
Some from the Continent, many from the Highlands,
others from the Lakes, and large numbers not from
"earth's green fields," but from "ocean's ware-beat
shore," testify to the popularity of the annual holiday,
to
and to the increasingly general nature of its applica-
tion. Meantime, while the receivingcapita is n backha
w
its people, many an important provincial
been alive with Congresses. The Congress is compara-
tively a modern institution. Time was when the Parlia-
ment of Science, or to use ita proper title, the British
Association, was the only public body of importance
which adopted the pee ipatetic principle--meeting
here one year and there the next. Then the
Social Science Association, which originated at a
meeting held at Lord Brougham's house in May,
1857, with a view of promoting an improvement in the
education of the people and the administration of
justice, followed the same plan, meeting first at Bir-
mingham,, then at Liverpool, Bradford, Glasgow, and
so on.. The great religious bodies all now have their
annual conferences in varying places; and the success
which Bas attended the application of the principle in
the cases of our great agricultural societies is an ample
testimony to its superiority to the rule which, by con-
fining an annual gathering to one particular spot, dulls
the interest which is sure to be. kindled by constantly
moving about.

Lord Carnarvon's proposal for a Confederation of
our Colonies in South Africa gives import anc to some
facts which have come to light concerning the depend-
ency of Natal. The total population is about 360,000,
'Tread over 4000 Klan raw, or rather more than

18 persons to the mile. Of these, at least 270,000 were
natives, who outnumbered the whites in a proportion
of 15 to 1. It is thus not very difficult to under-

stand why the Europeans should adopt panic
measures at the slig,ht.-st indication of a rising
amongst the natives. Regarding the latter, inherent
laziness is alleged against them by the white colonists,
and for this there is evidently unie foundation.
Tiaffirs, like West Indian negroes, care to work only
sufficiently hard to provide for their temporary wants,
and as this can most easily be accomplished on virgin
soil,they constantly take in new land, and allow that
priviouhly tuader cultivation to remain comparatively
, idle. The land in the best parts of Natal is most pro-
ductive, and where Nature has done so much for man,
man (in'thc person of the native) cares to do as little
as he possibly can.