The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-07-04 00:00:00

Vms,

FrraCll:FfitmerE OBSERVER,

_....-.
Is not In the least surprising to you to fled yourself with some I
very gentlemanly lunatics playing billiards ; nor do you feel
at all astonished bv•anttliye to hear a piano in a neighbouring
room, and recognise a bit of Beethoven. '• Are Beethoven
and billiards, then, remedial agents?" Are they nut? They
beat the lash, when all is sail and done ! Music anti cheerful
games, flowers and the song of bit its—you don't find them in
the Phannacopma, but all wise doctors know their worth as
curative influences.
I hat parts of Bethlehem seem niore likes club thane mad-
house is happily true. Wisely, every man is allowed to smoke
after the dinner ; and 'Us with a strire feeling of semi-
bewilderment that you ffroll into a reaMog-room and see a
gentleman quietly enjoying his tobacco over a Bomber of the
I Ulcerated Newt,. " Mad?" Certainly , hus been mad for
years. trili be used for years; but not for all that miserable
—not for all that out off from the fellowship of his race ' If
there are sad sights here, yet are there others that should
fill one with a kind of sacred joy. 1 he rule of force—of
brute force-11 dying out, even amongst the mad ; it cannot
linger many more generations, anywhere in Europe, amongst
the sane.
Portraits enough .e could sketch on the route through
the building. It is hardly the sufferers from acute mania,
perhaps, that afflict one the most. Here and there, over a
fine and proud face, you see a shadow pass like a thunder-
cloud, as the man's hour of torment comes upon him ; but
in that there is still some courage and manhood left.
Yonder, stricken by the worst kind of melancholia, a poor
creature, his hair all grey or grizzled, rock. himself inces-
santly to and fro upon his seat, shrinka from a touch as •
from fine, and gives no answer to a kindly salutation
but a moan. If this be his state at mid-day, what is it
when the night closes its? Peas on; and now, how old,
think you, Ls the rosy gentleman half asleep in a chair
by the chintney-corner ? The rosy gentleman looks up, with
a surprising amount if briskness, as he hears the question,
and answers, •• Ninety, sir , " Ile is not dreaming, not
romancing. Ile came to this hospital—think of it I—its
January, 1027, already forty-eight years old; and there is
still a colour . his cheeks. Less cheerful, but robust in his
language to a degree which is almost terrific, is an old
sailor in the neighbourhood. Our men swore terribly in
Flanders, but this grand old veteran would outswear thirty
troopers. Never was there an old gentleman so utterly unfit
for publication! The worst kind of modern afterolinner
1 conversation, compared to his wonderful utterances, would
be "as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water tuito wine."
We had better PA° the ladies.
In the female wards, situated in the eastern part of the
hospital, we meet with many more cases of chronic and
persistent delusion than amongst the men. The very first
lady for instance. whom e a accost soon describes herself as
" Queen of Ileaven and Earth," and speaks of her most
gracious Majesty Queen Victoria in a slighting tone and
de hunt en bat. Altogether, it is a more pitiable sight than
that of the men ; and for very obvious reasons. iiere, too.
we meet with one of the few inmates who recall the old
type of insanity. A poor, unhappy gentlewoman has been
here for years; she has grown old and sharp and wrinkled;
her white hair hangs Its great tangled heaps about her;
and there is All awful look, like that of hunger, In her eyes
as she presses towards the door of her little room, and
would fain pass on and hustle by you. Involuntarily, a
man shrinks from the touch for just a second ; and it
is not your first baptise, but a return of your reason, and
your reverence for woman, which makes you aocept and
pram the hand that she offers you. Ah, it is a thin, worn
hand . Honestly, one is glad enough to mount to the upper
galleries, where tine noire hopeful—at any rate, the quieter—
.• cases " are to he met with. Decorous ass private drawing
-
room are many of these apartments, where mule of the
patients sit reading. others working, othei 0, main, practising
at the piano. The strangeness of the whole scene see us to I
grow upon you, If these calm, orderly yonng ladies are mad, ;
w ho is sane P Who shaH .Iraw the precise line if demarcation '
between the two states! "They draw it themselvm" is
perhaps the answer. It is mournfully true. A po.lr girl—
who is, its the strict conventional sense, a young lady—
eagerly scoots 00 55 we pass. As one might guess, its the
old story of a love that came to nothing. The face
is bright still, and pretty, though the doe eyes are
troubled, and there is a painful little catch in the voice.
Sensibly and quietly, with a kind of subdued eagerness that
is wonderfully touchilig, she pleads for her release; she is
quite well ; she would be quite cafe; she can take care of
herself perfectly. A crucial question is then asked ; and
she cries. •• Ah ! but shall I tell you the truth, or not the
tenth P \A lien I tell you the truth, you keep me here."
.. Arid the truth," Oust help us, is that she is engaged to a
young gentleman, " and that the greater part of Europe be-
longs tai him." The soft but earliest voice—a lady's, in every
tone—trembles down into tears, but the eyes, though
suffused look proud, and have a touch of anger in them, as
she says, "You keep me here because I tell the truth." No
Quieter voice could you hear; and you must be straegely con-
, 'Muted if you can turn away front such an interview' without
' pain and sit kness at the heart.
No attempt has been made in this notice to gloss over the
fact that a visit to Bethlehem is a still painful and trying
journey; but, as public chroniclers, whilst deprecating any
morbid curiosity on such subjects, and refusing to satisfy it
by entering into many details that might easily have been
given, weave anxious to bear testimony to the excelle.e and
order, so far as we could judge, of the general arrangements.
On one point, indeed it would be impossible to speak wills
too much emphasis. The behaviour of the patients them-
selves is a proof of the influence exerted over them by the
mingled firmness and kindnem of the resident physician, Dr.
W. Ithys Williams, who Is welcomed with a smile by all but
the most hopeless as he passes through the wards. To that
gentleman, as well m to Dr. Kempthorne, the resident
1 nieuical assistant, the best thanks of all interested in the
gmal management of Bethlehem Hospital are eminently due.

Fernando that what I had done was perfectly null and
void, that I was liable to be transported for fourteen
years for what I hwl dime, and that he hail better go
to some register office. I know what Mr. Harw
sod
alludes to, and I will give an explanation on it if
wished. Mr. Fernando always stipulated secrecy in
the matter, and I told him if his wife had not been a
Catholic for twelve months he had better go to some
register-office, on account of the law. It wa.s just after
the Yelverton case had been decided, but I did not
say I was liable to transportation. I said a priest per-
forming such a ceremony between two parties, one of
whom liad not been a Catholic for twelve months, was
liable to transportation. I received Miss Shaw into
the Church.
Inspector Feat-n, of Derby, proved the apprehension
of Fernando and Miss Siaaith at Glasow, and bringing
them to Derby.
Other evidence having been given, Mr. Harwood
addressed the Bends, contending there was not a tittle
of evidence to justify them in sending Fernando for
trial.
The Bench decided to commit both the accused for
trial at the next Derby assizes on the charge of
bigamy.

are not misgoverned by England, for they. are really
not governed by her at ; whatever their origin or
foundation, they have no traditions hostile to the
English Court or Church, and their policicians are as
little as possible tinged with the doctrines of the
Contrail Soe,al. Everywhere that a Prince of the
Blood comes he is received with an enthusiasm
which rather startles us of the old country.
We are naturally inclined to think that these
people, thrown On a strange shore to struggle with
nature and be the pioneers of civilisation in a new
hemisphere, must have acquired something of the
roughness and independence which conduce to
Republicanism. They form a community more
socially free than our own because they are not sub-
ject to the influence of a powerful aristocracy or the
weight of many centuries of custom, They see no one
above them ; except the transient differences made by
fortunes easily lost, they all stand on an equality.
They and their fathers before them have hail little
connection with the ornamental part of the English
social structure, for emigrants are recruited from the
lOW of those who work by their hands or their wits in
agriculture, handicrafts, or commerce. Yet these
people, who are almost Republicans from the very
necessity of Unarm have given the Queen's son a re-
emition far more enthiriastio than he would have re-
ceived in the nest loyal districts of the three kingdoms.
The same phenomenon WU witnessed when the Prince
of Wales went to Canada, hut the fiery sun of the
southern continent has igiven an even stronger hest to
Australian loyalty.
There are cynics who will say that colonial loyalty has
in it a spice of self-interest, since the people know that the
harsh parent of a century since is now grown doting
and over-indulgent. We do not believe this for a
moment. Such demonstrations as were made in
Australia were evidently spontaneous; and, indeed,
the masses seldom have any far seen objects, what-
ever may be the case of politicians or capitalists. The
Australians cheered and feted the Duke of Ed:nburgh
because they liked him, and the Queen, his m ther,
and the old country, and the imperial connexion.
Wherever he went—whether through the streets ic
the great cities, which have risen in the present cene-
ration into rivalry with Europa and America, or among
the tents and big-houses of the miners, or into the
most secluded agricultural settlements— he was re-
ceive.i with the same vivacity of welcome. Nor is it
true in the case of Australia that there is much to get
from the British people. The troops have been re-
duced to a mere handful, the sums expended from
the Imperial revenues are but small, audit the Aus-
tralians want capital for any enterprise they must find
it themselves, or come into the London market on
equal terms with all rivals. The secret of this good-
writ to the Mother Country and the reigning House
cannot, therefore, be explained by the sense the adonists
have of favours to come— it is evidently a spontaneous
feeling, of wit eh we see the manifestations without
being wholly able to divine the cause.
Believing that this sentiment is most advantageous
both to the Mother Country and her dependencies, we
regret that the wound the Prince received prevented.
loin from completing his intended voyage. In New
Zealand, one of the most interesting of our colonies,
and one which is said to reproduce most nearly the
society of England, there had la-en the most eager
anticipation of the Prince's arrival. He was to visit
thaw noble harbours, the future seats of a vast com-
merce when the Britain of the South shall have taken
her place as one of the chief nations of the earth ; he
was to ascend the lofty peaks which look down on
some of the most fertile plains of the southern
hemisphere. When the news came that this was
impossible, that the Royal visitor lay wounded in his
cabin and must return to Englandat once, there was an
outburst of indignation and regret which almost im-
pelled the colonists to give short shrift to some
troublesome Fenians who were chatterinc and
threatening in their towns. We hope, for the sake of
our New Zealand friends, that it will not be impossible
to send them a Royal visitor at some future period.
At any rate, there is now abundant proof that the in-
stincts which hold such powerful sway at home are
even stronger in colonial breasts, and it is a satisfac-
tion that one of the Queen's sons should have embraced
a profession which enables him to gratify them by his
presence. In the career which the Duke of Edinburgh
has entered he may see many regions and many races
of men. Especially nay he carry to the scattered
coasts and islands whica acknowledge the sovereignty
of Queen Victoria the assurances of her regard, and re-
ceive from them the protestations of their loyalty.
The nation will learn with pleasure that the wound the
Duke received has had no such effect on his health as
should preclude him from resuming the pursuit of a
noble calling