The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-06-19 00:00:00

Our yodu 6orrespderd,
rWe deem lt right to state that we do not at all tunes
cnu-seives with our Correspondent's opirdorq.l

The near approach of the twentieth of June is a
reminder of the event which is celebrated on that day.
It is the date of Her Majesty's accession to the Throne,
eight and thirty years ago. Ministries and Parlia-
ments have come and gone since that bright summer
morning in 1837, when the Archbishop of Canterbury
and the Lord Chamberlain left Windsor Castle for
Kensington Palace, where the Princess Victoria was
then residing with her mother, the Duchess of Kent.
These high functionaries had come to inform Her
Royal Highness, then a young girl of eighteen, of the
death of the King, her uncle. "The King is dead!
long live the Queen!" The crown and the sceptre had
passed from the hands of an old man of seventy-two
to those of a Princess just entering upon womanhood.
It was two o'clock in the morning when they left
Windsor, and travelling by road to London, they
reached Kensington Palace about five. There the two
distinguished personages, who were the bearers of each
momentous news, alternately knocked and rang, and
at length with some difficulty succeeded in arousing the
porter in charge of the entrance gates. This official
was directed to inform the attendant of the Princess
Victoria that the Archbishop and the Chamberlain re-
quested an audience upon business of importance; but
the attendant replied that her Royal Highness was in
such a sweet sleep that she could not venture to dis-
turb her. The Archbishop of Canterbury replied,
"We have come to see the Queen on business of State,
and even her sleep must give way to that." In a very
few minutes afterwards, as we have been told by Miss
Wynn, in her Diaries of a Lady of Quality, "her
Majesty came into the room in a loose white night-
gown and shawl, 'her nightcap thrown off, and her
hair falling upon her shoulders, her feet in slippers,
tears in her eyes, but perfectly collected and dignified."
Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister, was imme-
diately sent fir, the thunder of artillery proclaimed
the intelligence of the accession to the people of
London, and at a Privy Council held at Kensington
Palace at eleven o'clock in the morning, her Majesty
took the usual oaths, and made a declaration in which
she placed her firm reliance upon the wisdom of Par-
liament, and upon the loyalty and affection of her
people. Some idea of the extraordinary changes
which have since been witnessed may be gathered
from the solitary fact that the Queen's youngest child,
Princess Beatrice, is now older than her Majesty when
she was called upon to assume the sovereignty of this
realm.

The history belonging to one date in June is an
irresistible reminder of another—the 18th. Every
schoolboy knows that it is the date of the Battle of
Waterloo sixty years since; but the popular acquaint-
ance with an event which happened forty years after-
wards is not so general, nor are its memories quite so
agreeable. Twenty years ago this month the allied
forces of England and France were besieging the
Russian stronghold of Sebastopol, and it was agreed
between Lord Raglan and General Pelissier that on
the 18th of June, the anniversary of Waterloo, an
attempt should be made by the combined armies to
carry the place by assault. No one doubted of success,
and in London the Park and Tower guns were loaded
la readiness to fire salvoes immediately on receiving
the intelligence of victory. A deserter had, however,
given the Russians warning of what they were to
expect ; and so when on the memorable 18th, when the
English desperately attacked the Redan, and the
French made an equally vigorous assault upon the
bialakhoff batteries, the Russians made such an
obstinate defence that a repulse in each case was the
result. The English lost 21 officers and 144 men
killed ;61 officers awl 1058 men wounded. The French
lost 37 officers and 1,514 men killed or missing. The
Russians admitted the loss of 781 killed and nearly
4,000 wounded. Prince Gortschakoff, the Commandant
of Sebastopol, addressed his troops in these words:
"Soldiers! the enemy is beaten—driven back with
enormous losi ! Allow your Commander to repeat
his gratitude to you in the name of the Emperor, our
august monarch, in the name of our country, of our
holy and orthodox Russia. Tao hour is approaching
when the pride of the enemy will be lowered—their
armies swept from our soil like ehaff blown away by
the wind." Events did not exactly prove true to
Prince Gortschakoff's prediction, for on the Bth of
September following, Sebastopol was in the possession
ef the allies. But for the time this repulse was a
very unpleasant incident. Lord Raglan died from
grief, for ten days after this unsuccessful attack he
was no more!

The meeting held at the Mansion House a few
days ago, for promoting a scheme of University
extension to London, is likely to have important
results. The Lord Mayor presided, and the
speakers were both numerous and influential.
The proposed plan aims at securing the highest
class of teaching at the lowest possible cost
to the persons taught. It tries to do with
system and method what the Athenmums and
Mechanics' Institutes have scarcely succeeded in doing,
namely to bring the higher education within the range
of people whose time is greatly occupied in business.
It is well known that such persons have many difficul-
ties to surmount if they attempt to pursue any course
of study in isolation. When they have opened their
books, they do not know, without direction, which of
the works is the most important, nor the author who is
the most competent authority. The scheme now sug-
gested, provides the stimulus of competition, and by
bringing into classes those who are anxious for infor-
mation, enables them to correct and modify their own
opinions by comparing them with the ideas of others.
The plan has worked fairly well in many large towns,
and a coratLittee has now been appointed to set it going
In the metropolis.

"Hospital Sunday" in London has again come and
gone, and until all the amounts have been received at
the Mansion House, it would be premature to declare
whether the result has justified the expectations of
the promoters of the scheme. Hospital Sunday is not
so old an institution in the capital as in some provin-
cial towns--Birmingham, for instance ; the first experi-
ment of the kind was made on the 15th of Jane, 1873,
ix the mayoralty of Sir Sydney Waterlow. The net
result was a sum of about £26,000—not a very large
amount for a population of three millions and a quarter.
Last year, I believe, the proceeds were a little more
than this; but those who anticipated at least £40,000
were disappointed. The idea is a most commendable
one—that of all denominations flinging aside sectarian
differences, and joining together in the relief of unavoid-
able calamity. Bat many have been inclined to doubt
whether London is not too vast a place for such a plan
to he attended with that success which has marked the
progress of the movement in smaller communities.
Highgate has no symp Ithy with Hors'eydown ;
Belgravia knows nothing of Beam al- green ;St. George's-
in-the-East is 5 very long way from St. George's,
Hanover-square ; and the interests of Bayswater and
Bermondsey are as far es tp poles asunder. The
people of Spitalfielde, knowing the value of the East
London Hospital, would respond to a special appeal on
it. behalf, for they have seen the benefits which it has
conferred, and know where their contributions are
going; but when their subseriptions are cast into a
general fund, which is to be distributed over parts of
London where they have never been, and never will,
the response is not so hearty as it would be if the object
of their charity were existent in their very midst. I
may add that the Hospitals With wealthy foundations,
such as Guy's and St. Bartholomew's, do not participate
in this Fund.

Those who have passed their lives in country towns,
surrounded by fields, and within easy distance of
pleasant farmsteads, and where the one grelt wish of
Cie rising generation is to vigit London, have little idea
of the longing for the fresh air experienced by those
who have to live in the area covered by those square
miles of brick and mortar. Of late years those who
are accustomed to read the metropolitan daily papers
must have noticed pathetic appeals during the early
summer for funds to fa nable the benevolent and philan-
thropic to take some hundreds of poor children for a
day in the country. All honour to them for the trouble
which they take to give even one day's enjoyment to
those whose lot in the walks of life is not so favoured
as their own! There must be vast numbers of children
in London who never saw a field in their lives, and whose
delight must be unbounded at getting out upon the
"green glade and the grassy &II." Cramped up in
their never-varying courts and alleys, Ji 0 wonder that
they look wan and sickly, and that kind-hearted
people respond to those appeals to which I have
referred. The evil increases every year. There is
not a single piece of laud available for building
In the neighbourhood of the metropolis which is not
eagerly secured for that purpose; the green turf is
converted into streets and houses; and where children
once delighted to gather wild flowers, busy life now
reigns. In the few miles between London and the
Crystal Palace, you may see a score of notice-boards
alongside the railway—" This available site to be let
for buikling l"—an intimation which is anything but
gratifying to those who mourn over the rapid substi-
tution of the hideous monotony of bricks and mortar
for the beauties of Nature. In the victory of lath and
plaster over the buttercups and daisies, the saying
that " God made the country, and man made the
..own," receives full and ample confirmation.
A Select Committee of the House of Commons has
been engaged for some time in inquiring
'frictions imposed, and the into tbe re-
Privileges conferred by law
upon bankers authorised to issue notes in the three
idngdome respectively. There seems to be a general
ooncurrence of opinion that, so far as the main busi-
ness of banking is concerned, that is to say the receiving
a deposits and the discounting of bills, all State in-
-14 WIWI" All that can be done is to:take

care that oompmnies starting for this purpose are pro-
perly registered, that lists of their shareholders are ac-
cessible, and that under the guise of limited or un-
limited liability no facilities are given for fraud. Upon
the question of the:circulation of notes. however, very
considerable differences of opinion exist. Mr. Gladstone's
view is that: the issue of paper money is the business
of the State, while Mr. Lowe is understood to have
leanings towards another system, and to favour a
scheme by which bankers might issue notes, provided
they lodged with Government a sufficient " cover " in
the shape of Consols. A deal of evidence has been
taken respecting the expediency of issuing £1 notes in
England, and it is remarkable that in Scotland the cir-
culation of this description of paper currency is double
that of all other notes taken together.
Those who have gone through the chapels at West-
minster Abbey will not have failed to notice the Coro-
nation chair, in which every sovereign of England has
sat for many hvndreds of years, in order to be crowned.
It is a relic of great interest, but in that wonderful
building, so full of legends and fruitful with memories,
it obtains merely a passing notice, as the guide speedily
takes the visitors away to the next chapel. That rude
chair, once gilt and emblazoned with colour, contains
the old coronation stone of Scotland—a sacred relic
which, according to some antiquaries, Fergus, the first
King of Scotland, brought from Ireland more than
2,000 years ago. Some traditions, however, give it a
much older history, and declare that it was the very stone
upon which Jacob laid his head upon the night of his
memorable dream. Another ancient chronicler has
told us that it was brought from Egypt by the sou of
King Cecrops. But the King Fergus history is the
more generally accepted, and there is no doubt that
600 years ago Edward I. brought it to Westminster,
where it has ever since remained.