The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-01-22 00:00:00

ur Emil= CorrtsrOent.

• (We deem it right to state that we do not at thlY3
Identify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinion, •

The debate upon the Address in the House of Corn-
mons has been prolonged to an extent which has no
parallel in our modern political history. Less than
half the time which was required to dispose of the
first amendment, has before no:v settled the fate of
an Administration and decided the balance of party
government for years to come. In 1859, when by an
amendment to the Address a change of Ministry
was secured, the effects of which remained until
1866, the House found
.three nights of debate
amply sufficient to enable it to arrive at a judg-
ment upon the question at issue. In 1881, when
there is no such issue before the House as the fall of
an Administration, and there are four amendments to
the Address, it takes seven sittings to get rid of the
first of these, leaving the three others still stopping
the way to the progress of public business. While
the work of Parliament has increased, its talking
powers have also sensibly augmented; and as session
after session rolls by, there are no indications of the
Calk becoming less. The signs, indeed, point in the
contrary direction.

No ancient proverb has in modern times become so
thoroughly discredited as that which tells us that a
green yule makes a fat kirkyard. The exact reverse
of this is the truth. A green yule means mild weather
and the absence of bitter winds, 'which, when they
sweep over the land, bear an increase al mortality
in their train. The diseases which mo 4 especially
affect the respiratory organs are then assisted in their
work, and in particular old people and little children
are the victims. The warm December which has just
passed from us has been succeeded by some of the
bitterest weather in January that Great Britain has
ever experienced. Twenty-eight degrees of frost in
London—in Cheapside, the heart of the City—where
a comparative degree of warmth is supposed to pre-
vail even on the coldest day—is a startling record;
and in the open country, where there is no shelter of
houses nor the warmth of innumerable fires, an
even lower figure would be reached. The miseries
of a hard frost in any denseli-populated com-
munity are indeed incalculable. In the first place a
considerable number of out-door occupations are
stopped, involving loss of work and the cutting away
of resources for the purchase of food and fire when
the necessity for both has been increased. Then a
considerable proportion of our modern houses are so
constructed that a day or two of severe frost cuts off
the water; and thus a considerable amount of
domestic discomfort is caused. There are of course
many to whom the arrival of what is termed "season-
able weather" brings much enjoyment; well-clothed
and well-fed, they delight in the healthful recreation
of skating; and so far as agricultural pursuits are
concerned, a touch of Charles Kingsley's hard grey
weather is essential; but to a large part of the resi-
dents in a great town a continued hard frost is little
short of an unmitigated calamity.
It has been noticed as a recent feature in our import
trade that the goods sent across the Atlantic have
been of a finer and more costly descriPtion than
heretofore. The present lull in our foreign trade is
generally ascribed to the lack of demand from
America. Business is, undoubtedly, very prosperous
in the States, and stocks cannot be large, inasmuch
as purchases for a considerable time have been small;
so that all that is wanting is confidence that prices
have touched the Idlvest point. The Americans must be
postponing their purchases, for the linen exports to
the United States were one-third less in December,
'I 1880, than in the same month of 1879. The tide of
prosperity which is sweeping over the American con-
tinent will soon make itself felt here; indeed it has
already had a wonderful effect upon the general trade
of this country. Many goods, coming as they do
somewhat under the head of luxuries, are more
affected by a temporary depression than fabrics of a
less costly description, but a return of prosperity on
the other hand induces a demand for the more expen-
sive materials. Everthing seems favourable to a
speedy improvement in our trade, and it is to be
sincerely hoped that the omens may prove true.
With respect to the recent advance in the Bank
rate, it may be remarked that such a step is unusual
at a time when the Bank is growing in strength.
There was at once an augmented reserve and a higher
proportion to that reserve to the liabilities which had
to be met. The necessity for such a step was not
obvious either from the Bank return or the state of
the money market. True, there has lately been a
very active demand for money, but that has been
mainly in connection with the heavy Stock Ex-
change settlement, and it is likely now to subside.
It is not likely,, however, that so moderate an advance
as one-half per cent, will in the least interfere with
trade; and while the need for the advance is not ob-
vious, it is not necessary to criticise it adversely. All
the more readily may it be acquiesced in, since to all
appearance it is only anticipating a movement which
would have had to be made before very long. There
can be no doubt that the supply of loanable capital is
diminishing, while at the same time the demand for
money, owing to the issue of new loans, &c., and the
expansion of trade, is increasing.

The Princess Louise came home from Canada to

escape the severity of the Canadian winter at a time
,hen her health made the long cold of North
tmerica, dangerous. It has been said that she will
not return; but all such rumours have been set
at rest by the semi-official announcement that the
Princess will resume her duties as V ice• Reine of the
Canadian Dominion early in the spring. The people
of Ottawa, where the Court is kei,t, will be glad to
have her Royal Highness back again, for the Cana-
dians like a real court as well as Englishmen.
The Princess Louise, moreover, has given such an
impetus to Canadian art, and raised such a desire for
the softening refinements of culture, that her return
to Canada will be a public benefit to the many in-
terests which are represented in the growing im-
portance of that wide-spreading territory. Nature,
in the matter of -climate, has not been kind to our
North American colonies. The intense frost locks
up the rivers several months in the year, and pre-
vents the prosperous development of possessions
which are inhabited by a thrifty and hard-working
people. It is only to imagine our own Thames, Tyne
or Mersey blocked with ice for at least a third of the
year, like the St. Lawrence, to realise the very serious
drawback of a severe climate. With the climate and
the soil of Turkey one of the fairest lands upon the
surface of the earth, the Canadians would speedily
become one of the foremost nations in the world.

• The fact that the Society of Arts has entered upon
its hundred and twenty-seventh annual session,
is a noteworthy one, looking at the enormous
number of institutions which have competed
for the public favour since its establishment
in 1754. That was in the reign of George 11.,
a very long time ago as a mere matter of
years, and covering an epoch of enormous import-
ance in our country's history. From the period
of its foundation the Society of Arts has been a
strenuous supporter of sanitary reform, the import-
ance of which is becoming more and more recognised.
Measures are now being taken to enable a house-
holder on taking a residence to ensure that the
drains are right. The scheme of the Sanitary Pro-
tection Association has now been laid before the
public, with the high approval of Professor Huxley.
It will enable any householder, for a small annual
fee, to learn from good professional men, whenever
their services are needed, whether a house is "safe,"
or why it is unhealthy. This Society has been
needed ever since the law was declared that after
he had signed the lease the tenant had no remedy
for unsanitary condition against his landlord.
Important posts in the public service are becoming
less of an ornamental and more of a practical cha-
racter. The office of Inspector of Salmon Fisheries,
in the hands of the late Mr. Frank Buckland, assumed
an importance which people had never assigned
to it before, simply because he brought such a large
amount of valuable information to bear on the dis-
charge of its duties. The appointment of Professor
Huxley :13 his successor will bring to the work the
mind of a man of science peculiarly qualified for the
office. He will be able to bring his great attainments
to bear on the best way of utilising a nutritibus article
of food without withdrawing his attmtion from other
subjects in the vast field of science which he traverses.
The duties of the office are not very difficult or wholly
engrossing. The late Mr. Buckland found time to do?
great many things as well as to carry out in the most
effective way the particular obligations which he had
undertaken. Mr. Huxley belongs to an order of men
who have made a very distinct mark in English
science and literature. He is conspicuous by the ease
and force with which he can illustrate his subject by
all manner of literary allusions. He has often given
new and striking clearness to some passage which
nrtit otherwise strain the mind of a reader by
the sodden flesh of a happy. comparison drawn from
peetry, from the drama, and even from fiction. In
bringirw his great scientific knowledge to bear on our
humane treatment of our beasts of burthen he haa
rendered a service to humanity itself, and in his
inspectorship of fisheries he will be enable to render
important services to the State in a capacity for which
he is so eminently fitted.

33edretto, a village in Tessin, has suffered consider-
able damage by an avalanche. Three persons were killed
and se,reral injured. In 1i63 the same village was almost
swept away and thirty lives were lost by a similar calamity.
Three years ago the greater part of it was again derstroyedln
like manner.

THE WRECK OF THE "INDIAN
CHIEF."

"A Seafarer," writing in the columns of the Daily
Telegraph of the 11th inst., gave an interesting narra-
tive of the rescue of the survivors of the crew of the
Indian Chief, as related by the mate of the ill-fated
veel. On Tuesday, the 18th, the Daily Telegraph
published, under the, head of "The Coxswain's
Yarn," a further artiere by the same writer, in which
he gives an additional narrative as related to him by
the coxswain of the lifeboat, and which, he appro-
priately observes, "is a necessary pendent to the
tale told last week by the mate of the wrecked ship;
and," the writer continues, "as he and his colleagues
both of the lifeboat and the steam-tug want no better
introduction than their own deeds to the sympathy
and attention of the public, let Charles Edward Fish
begin his yarn without further preface."—We give
the following extracts from