The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-01-08 00:00:00

Our fo*nt eartspoaent,

(We deem it right to state that we do not at all times
identify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.)

The sudden and heavy snowstorm which visited
us on the evening succeeding Christmas Day will
hold its place in memory with those of January
18, 1881, and January 6, 1886, each of which did
an amount of damage calculated to make it long
remembered. Coming as this latest specimen
did in the midst of the Christmas holidays the
inconvenience it caused was almost as keenly
felt as the damage itself. It was just the time
when tens of thousands of people were visiting
their friends; and though it was not particularly
bad for those who were staying some days it
was peculiarly hard on any who had to return
home either the same night or the next morning.
In London vehicular traffic was almost at a
standstill, and those who had gone out to spend
the evening, depending upon a casual cab to take
them home, were annoyed as well as astonished
to find that between entering and leaving the
house of their host a thick mantle of snow had
descended, and that they might as well call for
a cab as cry for the moon, so little chance was
there of their obtaining that which they sought.
The Monday, which was kept as Boxing Day.
was especially disagreeable in the metropolis, fox
a thaw had commenced, and walking through the
streets was a labour not likely to be undertaken.
And yet thousands of pleasure seekers gathered
in the snow and slush outside the various places
of entertainment, and waited for the doors to
open with as much patience and perseverance as
if the pavements were dry and all was sunshine.
Of all the features of the storm, the most
striking was the extensive destruction of tele-
graph, telephone, and signal wires. It is doubt-
ful whether since the telegraph system reached
anything like full development, such a wide-
spread wire-breakage has been seen. On the
morning of Boxing-day, of five hundred trunk
telegraph wires running out of London, only six
were in working order, and several days' elapsed
before the remainder were repaired. Some of the
largest places in the kingdom, especially those
lying to the south-west of the metropolis, were
cut off for days from direct communication
with London, and for nearly a week messages
for Bristol were telegraphed by way of Liverpool.
Thousands of telegrams were conveyed to their
destination by train, and even that methcd was
slower than would ordinarily have been the case
because the signalling arrangements were so
thoroughly out of order. Some provincial news-
papers had to depend solely on the intelligence
supplied by their immediate districts, their usual
telegrarrs from other parts being denied them.
The efforts made to meet this unlooked-for
difficulty would seem very curious to those who
do not know the fertile inventiveness of the
average editor when forced into a corner. In
one case, for instance, it was seriously contem-
plated to obtain news from London for a western
town by way of New York—a roundabout pro-
cess, which sounds singular, indeed, to those who
have had no occasion to study the enormous
and varied ramifications of the telegraph system.
As it was, some news was transmitted from
London to the provinces by wires passing
through foreign countries; and, it the story
could be published of the difficulties newpapers
had to encounter as a consequence of this latest
storm, it would not only interest but instruct
those who imagine that the getting-together of
a journal is one of the easiest processes imagin-
able.

"Of the making of books there is no end," is
the text which naturally comes to the mind
when the statistics of publishing for the year
now gone are examined. The total number of
works published in the United Kingdom d iring
1886 was over five thousand; and though this
number is more than four hundred below that
of 1885, it is sufficiently large to be astonishing.
As might, perhaps, have been guessed, novels,
tales, and other fiction furnished the greatest
individual total of the fourteen classes into
which the various books are divided, their
number reaching close upon a thousand. Next
came works on theology and Biblical subjects,
and sermons, and after these educational,
classical, and philological treatises. The man who
in these days would attempt to imitate the
philosopher of old who took all knowledge as his
province, ',vould evidently not suffer from lack
of material, and would be much more likely to
be smothered by the mass annually furnished
by the printing-press. But the 'mportant
point t) be noted in regard to the publishing
of recent years is the increasing facilitlui which
are being given to those of moderate purse to
study the masterpieces ef literature. This was
difficult of attainment until within a short peri -d
of the present, because of the cost of good books.
Rubbish could always be had at a cheap rate, but
the greatest works—those which every culti-
vated person, rich or poor, ought to read—were
inaccessible to the poor, except in libraries which
were not always attainable. A deep debt of
gratitude is owing by the public to those pub-
lishers who have set the example during the past
few years of providing the finest books in the
language at a price within the reach of all.
It is natural in winter-time to talk of furs, and
some interesting information regarding the pro-
curing of these and their preparation for market
has just been issued. Russia, as most folks
know, produces a vast number of furs, which
clothe not only the well-to-do among the in-
habitants of that vast country, but are exported
to this and other countries. In the northern
provinces, the peasants in the winter season become
hunters, and, mainly by means of nets and snares,
capture tens of thousands of animals for the sake of
their fur. How vast an industry this has become
maybe judged from the fact that one single district
that of Slobodsk, sendsin an ordinary year as many
as three hundred thousand skins to market; while
at the fair of Irbit two years ago two hundred
thousand fox furs and a similar number of hare
were exhibited for sale. When we see a lady
clad in rich furs, and by them well protected from
every bitter blast that blows, the thought does
not often occur of the labour which was entailed
in procuring those furs in the wildest districts of
Russia. From forty to eighty little animals
called zibelines are required to make a pelisse;
but if a pelisse be wanted formed only of their
paws, four hundred pieces are needed. The ccst
of such garments is necessarily great, but so is
their beauty and comfort; and even those of us
who are not in a position to purchase for our-
selves furs which have to be paid fo:, not in single
pounds, but in tens and even hundreds, are not
likely to envy the better off who can afford thus
to clothe themselves, and as a consequence give
employment to a hardy race of indefatigable
toilers.

While we in England have been experiencing
bitterly cold weather, our brethren across the
Atlantic have been amusing themselves by com-
paring the atmospheric effects in various portions
of that vast country, the United States. They
point to the striking contrasts involved in the
facts that, while Florida is sending oranges and
fresh cucumbers to market, another state,
Dakota, has snow six feet deep, and immense
herds of its cattle are being destroyed by those
bitter, blinding, biting snowstorms known as
" blizzards ;" and that while in California grapes
are being gathered, preparations are being made
in Maine to harvest the ice crop. Perhaps,
after these startling contrasts, it is not wonderful
to be told that there exists a gentleman who
keeps in perpetual summer in the United States
by moving his quarters monthly from the Gulf
of Mexico to the base of the White Mountains,
and returning each year. It is an old American
taunt against the English that we do not possess
a climate, but only samples of weather; yet, after
the instances just quoted, it would seem as
if the samples were across the water. We may be
glad, after all, that our climate does not include
such startling varieties. Charles 11. is reported
to have said that the English climate was the
best in Europe, because it allowed us to go out
more days in the year and more hours in the
day than any other. And that is a great deal for
a business nation to be thankful for.
The revenue returns for the last quarter of
1S8(i bear testimony to the continued, if gradual,
improvement in trade; and a better New Year's
wish could scarcely be given to such a country as
ours than that peace should continue and pros-
perity grow. The prospects of the preservation
of peace in Europe have been somewhat clouded
of late, and should &conflagration break out no
one can prophesy with surety that in some
fashion we may not be scorched by the flames.
But, although the din of armed preparation is to
be heard on every side, the good omen which
accompanied New Year's Day deserves recog-
nition. Nearly thirty years ago rumours were
rife as they are to-day of an approaching
Continental war, and these were given colour
to by a threatening utterance of the late
Emperor Napoleon to the Austrian Ambassador
at the customary New Year's Day reception at
the Tuileries. This year, as then, France was
looked to as one of the probable parties to a con-
tinental struggle; but the speech of President
OrSvy at the official reception on the first of
January was of a very different character
to that of the Emperor Napoleon, for he con-
cluded by observing: "I offer my congratula•
t ions to the Diplomatist Body for their share in
bringing about the good relations which Frame

has maintained with the other Powers for a
period already long enough to count in the life
of our generation. I am confident that this
period will be prolonged by the wisdom of
Governments for the happiness of nations." The
omen was rendered the brighter by the fact that
on the same day the Hungarian Premier, M.
Tisza, addressing his political friends in the Diet,
assured them that nothing had recently hap-
pened which was in contradiction with the hopes
he had all along entertained of the preservation
of peace; and that the Crown Prince of Ger-
many, addressing his father, the Emperor, also
on New Year's day, said the people looked with
joyful confidence upon their monarch as the
guardian of peace. It is not well to place im-
plicit confidence in smooth words, but it needs
no demonstration that peaceful are less likely to
provoke an outbreak than warlike ones.
A fact of great promise for the renewed pros-
perity oi our coal and iron districts is that while
over eight thousand miles of new railway have
been laid in the United States during the past
twelve months, an even greater activity in that
direction is expected to be displayed in the year
just commenced. This cannot fail to have good
effect upon the iron and steel industries of
England, for America is still constrained to pur-
chase a great proportion of its rails from us. An
increase of the manufacture of rails means an
increased consumption of coal, and their export
will bring grist to our railway and steamship
companies. One industry helps another, and
added prosperity to one means greater profit to
several. Saving the agricultural interest, which
is the largest single commercial interest- WO
possess, none are more important than the com-
bined iron and coal industries. It may roughly
be said that, while these flourish, England
cannot fail; and we know to our cost that, when
these are depressed, England is depressed like-
wise. There are those who tell us that, in the
course of time, our iron must become exhausted
and our coal fields yield no more; but, allowing
that in the progress of the suns, this must occur,
no reason is furnished for not making the best
of our present opportunities and assisting to the
utmost of our power the prosperity of the great
nation to which we belong. A. F. B.