The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-10-05 00:00:00

BETTER EDUCATION, BETTER HOUSES
AND BETTER FOOD REQUIRED.

Sir John Pakington, attending a "Harvest-Home"
festival at Hantury, Worcestershire. and being called
upon to respond to the toast of "The Visitors," ex-
pressed his satisfaction at the revival of the custom of
harvest-home festivals, and observed that in that part
of the country they had been specially favoured by
P i Providence in the ngathering of the harvest. He
went on to say that the old saying "Live and let
live" was most appropriate at the present time. It re-
ferrednot only to the duties of landlord and tenant, but
also to the duties—no less important—of tenant and
Labourer. He congratulated the labourers in that
palish that there had been no tendency among them
to join any of the unions. They might depend on it
that these unions were not for the promotion of their
happiness. They had a strong cllim to careful con-
sideration and regard for their real interests; but they
' should remember the good advice given them in that
day's excellent sermon, that happiness did not
depend on wealth. Happiness depended on some-
thing far higher; upon • thankful spirit, • con-
tented mind. The poor man possessed of these attri-
butes had within him elements of happiness which the
rich man was entirely destitute of, provided he
did not properly discharge the duties of his station. In
his belief—and he was by no means apt to exaggerate,
and would not ask them to overrate the blessings they
enjoyed—the labourers had no occasion to be led by any
union or to be led astray by any discontented agitator.
lie apprehended that what they mainly stood in want
of throughout the country were three things—viz.,
better education, better houses, and better food. If
these requirements were looked to, legislated for, and
promoted the labourers would cease to be the dupes of
those who fostered a spitit of discontent, and would
lead far better and nobler lives.
Mr. IL P. Amphlett M.P., also spoke, and said
that there might be questions which would hereafter
test the statesmanship of their public men in reference
to the division of the produce of the land amid the
various classes of society, but there must first be a
greater development of agricultural prosperity. He
condemned most unequivocally the false issues raised
upon the labour question.

about

THE QUEEN, AND HER RELATIONS.
From The Times of Wednesday.)
Three days after the event, and on the eve of the
funeral, the news reached the British public that Her
Majesty had lost her only sister, the companion of her
childhood, her dear and fast friend, and the sharer of
many hopes, sorrows, and joys, to comfort whom in
her sad bereavement and declining health the Queen
went to Baden this year. When the object of that
journey was announced it is scarcely possible to say how
small a portion even of Her Majesty's educated subjects,
were prepared for the fact that she had a sinter, or how
it came to be. It is true that in tee Court Circular, and
other official notices, there appear every now and then
foreign namesand titles, the bearers of which are vaguely
supposed to be Her Majesty's relations on her mothers
side. The nearness of the affinity, if suspected at all,
is probably thought a matter of comparative indiffir.
ence where Royalty is concerned. There underlies the
British idea of a Constitutional Crown a vague assump-
tion that it has no right to have any relations at all
except those in the line of Succession and according to
the Act of Parliament. Few people are capable of
entire sympathy and comprehensive intelligence, and,
accordingly, what fills the mind of ordinary people,
dazzling their vision and stupefying the inner sense,
is just the splendour of Royalty, the greatness of
the name, the world-wide extent of the empire,
the place in a line of glory, the magnificence of the
Court, the largeness of the surrounding, the unique
and almost divine radiance of the honour—all mattes s
immeasurable in the estimation of beholders, some-
tunes absolutely nothing but a handful of dust and
ashes to the much-envied possessors. To the really
noble, whether it be the nobleness of generous aspira-
tions or of simple affections, there must be times when
all the earth is as nothing in comparison with a prin-
ciple, an anxiety, or a regret. But it is hardly
possible that this should ever be realized by those
who generally recognize only outsides and prominent
features, least of all possible that it should be
perceived amid the glitter of that Royal state
which is necessarily brilliant and ostentatious in
spite of itself. It would be almost incomprehensible
to the mass of mankind that, besides the continued
lalaeurs and frequent anxiety which even a Consti-
tutional Sovereign cannot escape, and besides the
ordinary cares attaching to a large family and great
household, Her Majesty should idso be a prey to real
and deep sorrow for the troubles, the illness, and death
of her own Mother's daughter. Nay, there are wise
persons who will say that a high estate, and much to
do, will limit the range of little sorrows. It is not so,
however, in fact. They who have hearts at all do not
give their whole heart to a matter because it is great,
or give it by rule because the matter is small. They
are quite as liable to do the very contrary as men and
women of a lesser degree.
As all want of full sympathy, and all narrowness
and incompleteness of social regards, are certainly
faults, and must lead to harm, we will venture to ask
our readers to give more than a passing consideration
to the scene described by a Corresp ndent who was
present at Baden last Friday. The sister of the
illustrious lady compelled to play the greatest part
in the affairs of the living generation of mankind
was then laid in a simple grave in the public
cemetery, with no more mark of distinction than
the presence of two nephews, who, as it hap-
pens, are Princes of our blood Royal. Accord-
ing to the laudable custom of that country and
religion, the first part of the funeral service had
been performed in the modest mamon in which the
Princess Hohenlohe Langenbourg had died, and in the
presence of her old and attached friend the Empress of
Germany and our own Princess Alice, with the Duke of
Edinburgh and Prince Arthur. Wherever these per-
sonages go, British loyalty invests them with a halo of ,
Royal brightness; but to the eyes of the rest of the
world here was no more than is to be seen too often at a
place where rest and health are sought by those who
have the means. We can answer for it tifist it has
been quite possible to visit Baden several times,
and make even a protracted stay, without being I
ever aware of the fact that in one of the villas thickly
spread on the banks of its little stream lived a sister of
our Queen. The public life of Royalty we all know.
Here is the private life. Here is the simple household
to which Royal thoughts would often turn, and which
would hold its place by the strong power of natural
affection, when pageant after pageant, spectacle after
spectacle, ponspe and vanities many and grand, I
have all faded from the recollection. Surely we
Englishmen are bound to remember, somewhat
better than most do, that her Majesty, being mortal,
and as much as others the creature of circumstances,
has a private as well as a public life. There are, in-
deed, heroes, and even heroines, who have been able '
to cast off altogether the slough of natural affection
and relationship, and live only for a nation or an
idea. But this is precisely the very thing we are
most afraid of in this country. We wish our Kings
to be good men, and our Queens to be good women,
rind as little more as is possible. If anything would
frighten this isle out of its propriety it woald be a
Sovereign showing the least sign of heroic exaltation.
The first of Royal graces, in British estimation, is the
rare grace of humility. The first of Royal duties here
is to remember the humbling lessons which it is disagree-
able to preach to Kings. Ile it so. But let us also re-
member that the illustrious persons we thus burden
with high duties have often to do their stated work
when bowed down by affliction, and hardly able to
force their thoughts from the place, or the name,
planted deep and standing clear in the landscape of
sad memories. Private persons can be private when
they please, and hardly know what it is to be at the
service of a world. Even a slave can hide his grief—
not so Royalty.
It will occur naturally to most of those whose
memory or reading goes back to the beginning of this
century that a great change has come over the scene
since the days when Germany was supposed to give
the British public nothing but dangerous advisers,
costly connexions, embarrassing obligations, and all
that is unpleasant to an Englishman. The complaint
had seldom much reason, geeing that we compelled the
Royal Family to seek alliances in that <marten The
truth is that from the earliest time the English, with
their national inconsistency, were always proud of
foreign alliances, and as uniformly jealous of the
natural results, whether in the strangers invited to our
Court, or in the political complication.% entailed. Queen
Victoria's conduct to her Cserman relations, and the
positien they have taken and steadily maintained
in this country, are arch as we might spppose
them to have deliberately chosen after a care-
ful study of English precedents and Engligh
warnings. That supposition, 'however, is needless.
The result is due to natural good sense and
unaffected modesty rather than to any conside-
ration of a recondite character. The Princes whose
very close relationship to Queen Victoria will be a
continually repeated surprise to large portions of the
British public have no more presumed upon that
natural and necessary footing than if they had not
been, as they are, blood relations, but only cone
xections in some remote degree. Gee thus has
worked his way laboriously and gallantly up in the
-Nay?. Few suspect under the name of Count
Gleichen a son of the Queen's own sister, the lady
just deceased. Our countrymen profess to be quick
to discern foreign vices, and the foibles which are hardly
less dangerous, perhaps more hateful. Let us at least
do justice to the virtues which do not obtrude, and
which do not even solicit our praise. Perhaps we
might do more; we may es-en imitate them, though
they are sometimes seen in a foreign costume.