The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-03-06 00:00:00

Our foil* CorrespoiNnt.

[We deem it right to state that we do not at all times
Identity ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

The vacancy in the office of Sergeant-at-Arms in
the House of Coinniens has recalled attention to the
agties and Plaoluments of that position. The salary
is not a large one, but the post is one of great dignity
and importance. The functionary in q.uestion is ap-
pointed by the Crown to be in attendance upon the
Speaker; thus, although the Sergeant-at-Arms is really
the servant Of the House, practically he is nominated
by the Sovereign. He is assisted by a deputy and
several subbrdinate officers; during the sittings of the
House he occupies a chair below the Bar; and be
directs a large proportion of the arrangements con-
nected with the maintenance of order in the approaches
to the House and the offices adjacent. At the same
time his discretionary powers are not extensive, for
almost all his more responsible duties are performed
under the immediate direction of the House itself, com-
municated through the Speaker. He has the care of
all persons committed to custody for breach of privi-
lege, or any other offence of which Parliament can
take immediate cognisance. The post is usually held
by a gentleman of the military profession, seldom
under the rank of a field officer. Lord Charles
Russell, who has just retired, was formerly
in the army himself; his Deputy is Captain Gossett,
whose assistant again is Colonel Forrester. Those
whom duty calls to the House of Commons will tell
you that these gentlemen discharge their functions
with the utmost courtesy. They devote especial care
to the comfort' of those who have to frequent the Press
Gallery, which is situated directly over the Speaker's
chair. Into this no one can enter without an order
signed by the Sergeant-at-arms himself, and the
utmost watchfulness is exercised to prevent the in-
trusion of unauthorized persons. A door-keeper is
always at the gallery entrance to see that none but
members of the press pass in. The Sergeant has sup-
plied them with ample accommodation in the shape
of rooms for writing out their copy, and a refreshment
bar has even been fitted up for their exclusive use.
What they want they ask for, and generally get. When
Mr. Ayrton was First Commissioner of Works, they
requisitioned the right hon. gentleman for an
additional stove of a specified pattern, and not only
had their wishes complied with, but Mr. Ayrton him-
self came to see that the stove was the very thing
wanted, and worked satisfactorily. I may say
that the duties of Sergeant-at-arms are carried out
in the House of Lords by the gentleman and yeoman
ushers of the Black Rod.

A'paragraph with the heading "Value of Land in
the City" is often seen in the LOndon papers; and
certainly the price to which land is run up within the
civic limits is something wonderful. Imagine an area
of a thousand superficial feet producing a rental of
330 per annum! The fortunate possessors of city
soil may well rejoice that the land which they own
lies where it is, and not upon the bleak plateau of
Dartmoor or amid the lonely wolds of Yorkshire. In-
deed, nowhere else in the world will the same
enterprise, wealth, public spirit, hospitality, and
splendid munificence be found within such a circum-
scribed space. its traders are merchant princes, its
bankers control the money markets of the globe, its
white-winged ships stud the blue ocean from the
equator to the poles, and the fame of its commerce is
heard amongst all nations. Its surface is dotted with
scores of churches, whose steeples, rising high into
the air, seem eternally to point to another and a
nobler existence. On week-days, amid the whirl
and rush of traffic, the melody of church
bells seem strange and incongruous as it mingles with
the troubled London atmosphere. Yet some of the
services are well attended, and in St. Paul's the chants
are rendered, and the lessons are read to the accom-
paniment of a roar outside which resemble the distant
breaking of the Atlantic waves upon the shores of
Connaught. In the very heart of the city, and upon
one of its noblest public buildings, there is a motto
thoroughly appropriate to that centre of wealth
and enterprise. It was selected by the late Prince
Consort for the New Royal Exchange when it was
opened in 1814, and from its facade constantly tells our
busy merchants that, " The earth is the Lord's and
the fullness thereof."

Although the present session is one devoted essen-
tially to the passing of practical and social measures,
it is already felt that there 'is little chance for the
success of the bill which would have created a muni-
cipality for London. The subject is a gigantic one,
but the outside pressure is not sufficient to force it
through Parliament. It h as been urged that really capable
men, possessing the requisite administrative faculties
and aptitude for very difficult business, are scarcely
likely to present themselves as candidates for posts that
involve incessant labour without equivalent remunera-
tion. The Government of London, with its three or
four millions of inhabitants, cannot be properly dis-
charged in a perfunctory spirit during short intervals
of leisure. This may do in smaller municipalities, but
the metropolis of England .ao sxseptionally large,
and the interests of its various districts are so con-
flicting, that the work falling upon its rulers will de-
mand the most unremitting attention. There 'are many
now who do not hesitate to contend that the best way
of securing the services of such high-class administra-
tors is to pay them. The principle is a novel one, and
is not likely to find favour just yet, and if the people
of London wait for their municipality until this idea is
adopted, the rule of the vestries will not be disturbed
for a very long time.
Sir Charles Lyell, like many other clistinguished
men who have stamned the name and secured the fame
of Great Britain upon the scroll of time, has found a
fitting resting-place in Westminster Abbey. Professor
Huxley has called him the greatest geologist of his
time, and certainly a more able exponent of the science
of the earth has never written in the English language.
Geology has been the subject of philosophical specula-
tions from the time of Homer, and it is said to have
been cultivated in China many years before the
Christian era. It certainly occupied the attention of
Pliny, who perished through approaching too closely
Mount Vesuvius in that tremendous eruption which
overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii in the
year '79. Lyell's "First Principles of Geology" is a
standard work, and I well remember that in illustra-
tion of the vast age of the earth, he states there that
an accumulation of lava at the base of Vesuvius has
been gradually growing for at least ten thousand years.
He has not long survived Professor Phillips—like him-
self a distinguished geologist, and who also met his
death by falling downstairs. Sir Roderick Murchison,
too, is gone, with whom Lyell had many a contro-
versy: always carried on, however, upon the most
amicable conditions. The scientific attainments of
each had secured for him a baronetcy ; but I believe
that both have passed away without leaving any one
to perpetuate their honourable and illustrious names.
The large hotels which have sprung up in London
during the last twenty years have been found a very
great convenience. Most of these attached to the
great railway termini, have quite a palatial appear-
ance. The most extensive is, perhaps the Mid-
land, at St. Pancras; then we have the Great Western,
at Paddington ; the Charing Cross, at the South Eastern
station of that name ; the City Terminus, at Cannon-
street; the Grosvenor atVictoria ; the Great Northern,
at King's Cross; and so forth. Others, like the "Inns of
"Court" and the "Langham,"are private ventures, un-
connected with railway companies. The "Langham" is
the principal resort of the American visitors to the
metropolis, the attendance and appointments being
just the same as in;a New York hotel. A department
has just been opened at the "Langham" which deserves
every success. It is an office where you can purchase
railway tickets for any line in the United Kingdom,
to be used on any day. This is a thorough American
innovation, for in the chief cities s,f the United States
you can enter a shop and buy railway and tramway
tickets just as easily as you weuld purchase any
article of merchandise. The hurry and bustle of an
English railway station, whose booking-office is opened
only a few minutes before the departure of a train, are
thus .voided. You invest in your ticket at your own
convenience, and are not compelled to take your place
in single file with an impatient crowd, irritated and
angry at the easy nonchalance of the clerk inside the
pigeon-hole, who seems perfectly indifferent whether
you save your train or not. The system adopted at
the "Langha.m "Hotel will have to be greatly extended
before its benefits are so widely felt as they ought to
be ; but it is a step in the
_right direction. We may
look for other transatlantic reforms after some thousands
of our people have been to the Philadelphia Exhibition,
and have seen how matters are managed in American
cities. Another improvement in railway service has
to be noted. The London and North-Western now
runs a sleeping saloon with the Irish mail between
London and Holyhead, thus following the lead of the
Mid And in putting on Pullman's palace cars. These
latter are the most luxurious institutions ever placed
upon a pair of rails.
The Offer of a reward of .£5OO for the will of the late
Lord St Leonards adds another to the instances already
on record showing how little care a great lawYer may
take over a matter which to the ordinary mind is one
of the greatest possible importance. His lord-
ship ,*as one of the greatest equity lawyers of
his emu or any other time, and had in the
course of a long professional life, seen innumer-
able illustrations of the evils arising either from a
lack of this most important document, or from
its having been badly drawn up. Yet after his own
funeral, the most diligent search fails to discover a
will—a fact which may be accounted for when a man
in the prime of life is suddenly struck down, but is in-
comprehensible when recorded of an old gentleman 94
years of age, who, retaining his faculties to the last,
must have known for years that he rim lingering upon

the borderland of death. Lord Westbury, another of
our great equity lawyers, drew up his own will, and
although by his extraordinary ability he had worked
his way from the humblest of positions to the Wool-
sack, he worded this testamentary document in such a
way that it has been before the Master of the Rolls
several times to be construed, and that eminent judge
has declared that he finds the greatest difficulty in
making out what Lord Westbury meant. For a
guinea any country attorney would have made a will
requiring no appeal to a legal tribunal. Lord
Brougham died without a will, but he had previously
settled his property by deed of gift.
i The present Parliament is twelve months old on the
sth instant, and during the first year of its existence
thr

Ae House of Commons has lost only four of its mem-
bers by death—Mr. Charles Gilpin, Lord George
Manners, Mr. John Laird, and Mr. E. S. Davenport.
That is a remarkably small proportion for such a
numerous assembly—much smaller than in the Lords,
which contains 150 more members. The existing
Legislature, called into being by Mr. Gladstone last
year, would not expire by efflux of time until the sth
March, 1881, when, should the • life of the Prime
Minister be spared, he will be in the 76th year of his
age. There is, however, no Parliament in modern
history which has run its full course, for the chapter
of accidents generally turns up something to cause a
dissolution long before the'end of the seven years to
which bylaw its duration is restricted.