The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-06-29 00:00:00

The following sketch of the surroundings of the
new Museum, is by a writer in the London Evening
Standard:—

Betimal-green is better known to the police than to the
world of fashion ; ragged school missionaries aro more
familiar with its ways than drawing-room philanthropists, or
the Shattesliurys, the Peweodys, the Burdett-14,01sta
and the Walhices would he mere numerous. It would
seem as if the hackneyed truism ',me melt of the
world does not know how the other half lives" might he
altered to" one half of the world dues not care how the other
half lives." so trivial is the interest felt in tiffs 1.01,1011 as to
the mode in which the workieg classes contrive to solve the
daily problem of making both ends meet.
Apart from the valuable information to be acquired on
this social question by an excursion to BetAal-grcen, the
student of manners and the lover of the picturesque in low
life who makes a pilgrimage there clii fled itint-elf well re-
paid for his trouble. The quarter has its individuality as
well defined as any spot in gm ope. The very sign- boards
and notices in drunken litters on the window-panes have
their character. They are unmistakably East-enflisli. If
one were to be dropped out of a balloon, he could tell by
merely lookieg at them that he was in the in ighbourhood
where the wolf stalks abroad and leers over the door occa-
sionady—a neighbourbwal where unconsidered odds and
ends have their marketable value. Here is. notice that bed-
keys are lent at oils penny a flay ; in toe shop beside it a
merchant proclaims that rags and bones are bought by
weight in his establisment; a little farther on is a stuffy-musty
iiigg.edy•pigeletiy our °say shop where everything can
he had Jr. in a hoise-shoe magnet to a c.py of an old
master, artistically browned to counterfeit antiquity
'There are snuff stores with the fast-disappearing but once
fashionable effigy of a Highlander, mull iu hand, sentinel.
big the door ; a photographic studio elbows an undertaker's
with a picture of the style of funeral th 4 can be ell iyed
for one pound; an array of trusses and corn-plasters, and a
pyramid of boxes of Dr. Coughing's pills lu one window
alternates with a shaking nog ot smoking plum-dull" ill
another this is the champion coffee homn jairly eititled
to bear away- the belt If dirt be the winning qualification):
that belongs to a flyer who advertises that he cleans silks
atid satins ; and the next puzzles no With the mysterious
intimation that' • grindery of every deteription is sold ou the
premises."

Before the mind unused to such tediums warnings re-
covers its equilibrinni, a shock is given to it IIeW by the
strange words—" Wanted, Seer-round Men " What moo
they he waited for? To sew wedding.gaiments—or
shrouds? Shrouds one would incline to fear from the
multiplicity of emperiums whore sable pelimes. ticketed
..Spurgeosis" are disposed to view; and, preserve us front
evil ! here is a rival undertaker with a ghastly battalion of
come-lids with spick-andapau Dutch metal shields, oily
waiting for the inscriptions, standing very much at ease by
bis gloomy portals. Ugh ! There is a relief hi turning even
to those ill-smelling shambles at the other tile of the way
where horse-flesh is manufactured into cat's meat. After till,
people die in the West-end as in the East; and these East-
enders are as little likely to pay the debt of nature willingly
as their betters.

Places for eating and drinking and smoking, aye and for
the sale of pabulii in for the Intellect abound. Gin-
palaces are multitudinous and tin ivo, but the teetotaller
has the consolation !ha the trade in ginger-beer aid
sherbert, and unequalled oyster and perry at one penny
a &we; appears to be brisk ; the butcher and baker
and provision dealer flourish, as little matters it that
more hilliness is done in fried fish and saveloys than
In turbot or pail de foie gra.; ; odour of pig-tail is
stronger than the breath of en-11C, and British Itertas,
five tor sixpence, are InOre in request than choice flavannahs ;
but this is mere matter of habit superinduced by necessity,
and the literature patronised hy the denizens of lietidia -
green is cheap but not usually nasty—which is a very en-
couraging sign. Humble the locality is, but hard-working,
and with a proper sense of self-respect.

The first day that the Bethnal-green branch of the
South Kensington Museum was opened to the pubde
the number of visitors registered at the tutu tables (ad-
mission free from 10 am. till 10 p.m.) was 25,557.