The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-07-02 00:00:00

THE AMERICAN WHEAT TRADE.

The estimates of this year's yield of wheat in Cali-
fornia are 38 to 40 million bushels against 53 millions
last year. The swplus from last year is stated at 17
million bushels.
- -

The grain exports during May from New Orleans
embraced 33 cargoes, aggregating 1,852,504 bushels.
The total shipments since September 1 foot up to
12,010,847 loushels, against 10,576,323 bushels last year
—an increase of 1,434,524 bushels.

THE HOME SECRETARY AND THE
POLICE FORCE.
At the first annual festival of the Metropolitan and City
Police Orphanage, which was held at Strawberry-hill,
Twickenham, on Saturday afternoon, Sir W. Harcourt was
one of the speakers. In the course of his speech, he said :
They looked to the naval and military forces with
confidence for defence against the foreign foe, but the
men of the police force might depend upon it that
they were not regarded by their countrymen with less
respect. They were the domestic army which carried on
day and night an untiring warfare against the secret
enemies by whom society was assailed. It was well the
police should know that the public appreciated the
high nature of the honourable duties which they per-
formed. He was reading in a report the other day
what was the growth of London. He found that in a
single year, 1879, there were added to London 21,589
houses—a large town in itself—that there were 401
new streets and two new squares, and that they ex-
tended over a space of 71 miles in length. That gave
them some notion of the task set the police. This
vast society could lie down in peace and rise up in
safety. (Hear, hear.) Those who were responsible
for the peace of London were aware of the gravity of
the task committed to the police, the diligence and
watchfulness that were perpetually needed. He had
both pride and pleasure in bearing testimony to the
splendid condition and excellent discipline of that
great army of order which was always in the field,
always on full campaign, whose sentinels were always
at their post. The fidelity of the work done by the
London force was, as a rule, 01 admiration of all who
were acquainted with it. Many foreigners had ex-
, surprise at the
manner in which those in po SIUII -11 1,1•1 a Auzi,141111,A,6
force smothered the embers of smouldering crime. Ile
knew it was complained that there were many'defects
in our detective system. Those who complained of
the faults of that system were often the first to de-
nounce the very methods by which it could be made
effectual. The country was jealous, and justly so, of
an organized system of espionage. But people must
remember if they were'called to play an above-board
game against men who played against them with
loaded dice and marked cards, against the midnight
marauder, the skulking assassin, and the secret society,
they must expect to be baffled and defeated. (Cheers.)
The detective system was, in his judgment, fair, just,
and proper. Whatever might be said of the defects of
the English system, by all consent it would be ad-
mitteithat our police, as a protective and defensive
force,"had no superiors in the world. (Hear, hear.)
The great masses of this city, and of this country,
felt, as they ought to feel, that the policeman was their
protector and their friend.