The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-09-25 00:00:00

116,

ffirtITERIDGE OBSERVE&

open out to him during the time that he is performing
those duties the opportunity of more pleasures and enjoy-
ments, comfort at home, and happiness for his wife and
children and all around him. It is not mere book learning
that lam talking of. That is not the object of these schools.
It is the school discipline, the training of the moral mind
of the child, the teaching him how to teach himself, the
self-control and self-respect which he gets at school, which
do more for him than all the book learning that you put into
his head. If these people were here I would appeal to them
in this way, and I think I could do it with strong effect. I
should say to them "We hear a good deal about your
friendly societies, your building societies, and the money
that is put into the savings-banks, and the penny banks, am
everything of that kind, and I entirely approve the whole a
these things, and will do, and have done, everything in my
power for the futherance of these institutions, because I
believe them to be sonnd ; but if you are to train yourselves'
to habits of self-denial, depend upon it there is no way
of self-denial which is so good for yourselves, your
children, and all around you es denying yourselves the
luxury, as you call it at the time, of the wages of your
children before they are of an age to work' I do not
believe that if any parents will insist upon denying them-
selves the fruit of the wages of their children—the making
hands of them before they are really fit to be made
use of and before they are properly trained—any other form
of self-denial will bear such good and lasting fruit as that of
allowing a child to go to school in its tender years, and keep-
ing it from work until it has been to school for a certako
period. (Hear, hear.) I believe that the comfort the
would get would be very great; and I am sure.
solace they if ould receive in their old age would be more
than they at present think; and they would be free from the
reproach—which I am sorry to say, having been for a great
part of my life more or less concerned in the administration
of the criminal law of this country, has been so often uttered
both from the gaol and from the workhouse, and I am afraid
from the lunatic asylum, by persons when they have come
out—that they would not have been there if their parents
had exercised a little more control and self-denial la
their childhood and given them the advantage of the school.
(Cheers.)
w ,•nildren are to be got into the school is a problem
hich, of course, must be solved, and I earnestly implore you
to solve it for yourselves. The State has said that there shall
be school accommodation for every child throughout the length
and breadth of this country. Do you think, when the schools
are built, and the State finds they are not filled, that it will
be content to rest there? The State. at present says, "We
give you time to show whether you yourself will send
your children to school where there is no School Board, and
how you will take advantage of the opportunity." But
depend upon it the State will before long again interfere,
and see that the children are brought to school ; and is
this not plain reasoning? You do not allow a parent to let
his children go into the streets without clothes for the
sake of decency. You will not allow a parent let his
children, if he can afford it, go into the street without food
for the sake of humanity ; and what right has a man to let
his children go into the streets without education, mad be-
come a prey to all the criminals who are about him—to lead
a life of crime, of misery to himself, of distress and wrong to
others, and of enormous expense to the country, for he is
sure to become a criminal. You cannot in any reason sup-
pose that a man who has the power of sending his child to
school has a right to neglect to teach him any more than be
has to feed or clothe him. If he does not dolt, he must be
made to do it ; and the question you have to solve is whether,
without assistance from the State, you can succeed in get-
ting your children to school, for at school they must be:
and the State has a sight t o take care that it is not flooded
with persons who are living a life of crime and misery to all
around them. (Cheers.)
Do not run away with the notion that simple education
alone will do everything, or that improving your dwellings
will do everything. You are required to undo that which
has been done for years past, and it is only by gradual im-
provement that we can hope to reach a better state of things
than we have at the present moment; and I believe as surely
as I stand here that that improvement is gradually going on
more extensively than many of us think, and that if all goes
on prosperously, as we hope it will do, we may trust in the
next generation to find a very different state of things to
that which some of the older of us remember to have existed
when we were children. I congratulate you very heartily
upon the strong feeling for school and chapel building there
is in this district, and it is with the greatest possible pleasure
that I now declare this bazaar to be duly opened. (Cheers.)

your
Me,
Or

A vote of thanks having been passed to the right
hon. gentleman, the opening proceedings terminated.
Subsequently a considerable number of persons
assembled outside the school-room, and Mr. Cross
was there presented with an address by the Wigan
Conservative Association. In replying Mr. Cross
said he wished that visit of his to Orrell to be
entirely free from all political bias of any kind or
description, as the object of the gathering was one
in which all persons, however much they differed on
other matters, might unite, and therefore he made a
bargain that if the address were presented—and, of
course, he was extremely happy to receive it—he
should be excused making anything like a political
speech. He would accept that which they had given
him credit for in the address—a sincere desire honestly
to do his beet for his country. He could assure them
that it was most gratifying to any public man to see
that, at all events, his endeavours, however he might
have failed in the full development of them, had met
with recognition from his fellow-subjects, and that he
received thanks for what he had endeavoured to do.
He could only say, in conclusion, and he would Bay it
anywhere, that, so far as he was concerned in the present
Government, his object always would be, and he be-
lieved the wish of the whole Government to be, to pro-
mote the welfare of the largest number of people pos-
sible consistently with the rights of the few, and to
promote the largest amount of individual liberty and
freedom of action which was consistent with the good
government of the State. (Loud cheers.) Cheers were
given for the right hon. gentleman, and the proceedings
then terminated.

parents .1 ---
I am sure. that the....1.1ad to

for them before the wheat has ripened or even he
eared. Accordingly, all act together, and it is good
for all that they should. But now for the British
consumer. Will he be pinched, or as it is usually
put, will he have to pay more for less bread, and
consequently have less money to spend on other things?
Mr. (laird tells us we -hive nothing to fear. What
with our own increased acreage and the good Harvest
of 1874,. and what with the large supplies from
we, ged.a most unusual stock remaining on hand this
year. This was the more fortunate inasmuch as the
Harvesttas been three weeks later than last year, and
its introduction into the market a whole month later.
As it is, the superfluous, stock of last year, or whet
threatened to be superfluous, has come in opportunely
to. feed the nation in a long and unexpected gap, and
does not remain on hand to weigh down the prices of
the new Harvest. Last year's Harvest had thirteen
months' duty to do, and has done it; this year's Har-
vest is only equal to eleven months' duty, and, as far
as can be seen, has only eleven months duty to do.
We are, however, confessedly at the mercy, we will
not say of winds and of waves, for that difficulty
been a good deal _got over ,thsise days, but of other
peoples and lands. 1 So, indeed, we always were from
time to time, and 'Sometime* met with no mercy, but
.‘ad to be content with what little and bad bread we I
could get at home, The rough estimate is that we get
half our wheat from foreign countries, and when there
arrives that long-predicted time of war between our
islands and the whole world we shall have to feel the
truth of the old saying that "Half a loaf is better
than no bread." Mr. Dodson said the other day, at a
harvest home dinner, that taking the kingdom through
according to the best estimates the wheat crop will be
from fifteen to twenty per cent, below the average,
which means, he says, that four or five millions more
will have to obtain their bread from other countries.
Our own harvest will only suffice, he says, for thirteen
or fourteen millions, all the rest being, for the next 12.
months at least, dependero, on foreign gnpOrtatinna
This would have been th'onitht' a Very -alarmist state-
ment a few years ago, and Mr. Dodson rather aggra,,
vated it than otherwise when he said that British in-
dustry, capital, and skill are doing their very utmost
-
with the limited area under their control. To comp 9-

A question of vital importance comes next: shall w
grind the coffee, or shall we pound it? We usually grind
it in a mill; the Arabs use a pestle and mortar It is
said that the difference between the two methods is
well marked. Brillat-Savarin made elaborate experi-
ments, and got friends to help him in the comparison.
It was unanimously agreed that triturated coffee is far
superior to that ground to powder in a mill. The
novelist Balzac came to the same conclusion. Why
'coffee pounded should tie superior to coffee ground no
one seems to know; but Brillat-Savarin relates an anec-
dote in point. The Emperor Napoleon once asked
a chymist why it was that pounded sugar seemed
to sweeten his coffee less than lump sugar. The
chymist appears to have taken the fact for granted,
and simply pointed out that there are facts in
chymistry which are inexplicable. The chymical con-
stituents of sugar, starch and gum are identical, but
no one can tell Why sugar is sugar, and net starch;
1 and it was possible, he said, that the pounding of the
sugar had made it pass in some degree from the state
of sugar into that of starch. Here is a pretty little
Jolem for learned Pundits. We know nothing about
it, and are only quoting Brillat-Savarin. But certainly
the homceopathists would: have something to say to it,
for they maintain that _their infinitesimal drugs by
trituration are developed to a prodigious potency.
Whatever be the explanation, it is impossible to gain-
say the opinion of such authorities as Brillat-Savarin
and Balzac that there is a decided difference between
the mill and the mortar as a means of crushing the
-coffee. 1- We invite some caterer to make a series of ex-
periments.
At 1a we come to the infusion. What is the best
'Mode ef infusing the coffee? There are so many
~inethods in vogue that they seem to indicate a want of
general satisfaction. One way is to infuse the coffee
coldkiet it stand for a long time, and heat it at the
last. Another way is to boil it and clarify it with
white of egg, Some people, again, only pour boiling
water on it and leave it to settle. There area number
of curious little scientific vessels for distilling coffee
which are only mechanical toys. We have seen per-
fect coffee made by placing the powder in a simple
muslin bag fitted to the top of the coffee-pot, and
by pouring on it the proper q,uantity. ilf . boiling.
ter. But never was there, a doffile-maohine more
Iple and more certain than the oraifilif :French
percolator, which is, in fact, two coffee-pots in one
—the upper one for infusing, the lower one for the
reception of the filtered liquid. He must be a great
blunderer who cannot get a good cup of coffee out of
such an instrument. Two conditions are necessary to
-make it good ; one is to use plenty of coffee,
e other is to make the infusion rapid. There
L- people, penny wise and pound foolish, who think
fe
make a saving in coffee by using a small quantity
and by infusing it long. It is a great mistake : they
lose the more delicate aroma, the taste is bitter, and
the worst qualities of the coffee are brought out. ,On
the other hand, to time the infusion requires a little
management. The punctures of the filter are not in
all machines alike, and coffee is sometimes ground fine,
sometimes coarse, blocking up the punctures more or
less. No certain rule can be laid down beyond this—
that in any case, be the infusion weak or strong, of
long or of short duration, it must be perfectly *ens-
parent. Needless to say that when c3ffee is not ground
to powder, but triturated in the Arab fashion, the
i
precolator s insufficient. It is necessary to boil the
infusion for a moment or two; but while most people
in this country thoroughly understand that they must
not brew their tea too long so as to make it bitter, they
do not seem to understand that neither must they try
to take too much out of their coffee, or it may turn to
poison.— World.

hart problini for learned

they n
I trituration

•
In connection with the foregoing, "A Retail Coffee
Dealer" writes to The Times :—" May one who has
had long experience in the preparation of coffee be
allowed to answer the questions asked in the article
reprinted from the World? First, as to roasting, it is
quite impossible to do it uniformly in an open vessel'
the berries require constant turning, and I have found
that a globe with a double motion (the same as that of
our earth), when exposed to an equal heat, the most
perfect way ; second, as to grinding, pestle and mortar
make it too fine, and the ordinary steel mills do not
sufficiently pulverize it; a stone mill (the same as flour
millers use) is better than either. Third, I endorse
every word that is said as to the proper vessel for
making it; there is nothing to be compared to the
simple percolating pot. I would only add, drink it as
soon as it is made. Lastly, as to the quality of the
coffee, there need be no alvm about that. A portion
of our large supply from Ceylon is as fine this year as I
have ever seen, while the Mysore and Jamaica that
come to this market are far superior to Bourbon and
Martinique. The dealer must indeed be a ' blunderer '
who cannot supply finer coffee in London than is to be
obtained in any other city in Europe."