The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-01-23 00:00:00

Our Youbou Comsponbent.

Ewe deem it right to state that we do not at all tlnieg
j.dentify ourselves with our *Correspondent's opinions.]
a

Mr. Gladstone's retirement from the: leadership of
he Liberal party did not take by surprise those who
were acquainted with his character, and knew the bent
of his inclinations. Two years ago, when speaking at
%banquet given to Mr. Cyrus Field, the well-know-n
American telegraphist, the then Prime Minister, with
vast patronage and power in his hands, declared that
he longed for a period of rest; after forty years of
Parliamentary life. On the 12th of March last year,
in a letter to Lord Granville, he reserved the right to
take his present course at the opening of 1875; and
only a few weeks ago a large board was affixed to the
front of his residence on Carlton House Terrace, stating
that the lease was for sale. All these things pointed
to but one conclusion—that before the weary wheels of
life stood still, the Liberal leader sighed for peace and
retirement after more than a generation of political
turmoil. The mansions upon Carlton House Terrace,
I may say, are amongst the finest in London. Over-
looking St. James's-park upon the south, they command
extensive views of a long range of West-end palaces,
and from the top windows can be seen the wind-
ing stream of the river, with the densely-populated
Surrey shore beyond. On the north the mansions
face towards Pall-mall, and are in the immediate
neighbourhood of all the clubs. It was from No. 11,
Carlton House Terrace that, on the 23rd of January
last year, Mr. Gladstone issued that manifesto to the
Greenwich electors which fell upon the country like
a clap of thunder, announcing a dissolution of Parlia-
ment. It is from the same address that he has now
indited his farewell to active public life. Official
positions will know him no more. He bids good-bye
to all that he held from 1834, when he[was made a Lord
of the Treasury, up to 1874, when he resigned the
double office of Prime Minister and Chancellor of the
Exchequer. When he first took office under the
Crown he was a young man of five and twenty, and
the snows of forty winters have since passed over his
head. He therefore looks forward to spending the
remaining years of his life in a state of repose, which
will contrast with some of the storms that have
marked his political career.

One of the books which is being read very much just
now is the volume of "Recollectioo4 " I.Tb-A 1,7 Earl
Russell, ranging from 1813 to 1873, a period of sixty
years, during the whole of which he was a member of
the British Parliament, either Lords or Commons.
This is a wonderful production for a man in the 83rd
year of his age, and his memory seems to be as good
and as vigorous as ever. In one of his earlier works
Lord Russell told us how, in the year 1809, he was
travelling in Spain during the Peninsular war, and saw
the famous lines of Torres Vedras, by which the Duke
of Wellington so long baffled the French army under
the command of Marshal Massena. His estimate of
the Duke's military skill Was so-high, that although
twenty years afterwards they came into collision over
political questions, Lord Russell always held the
abilities of Wellington in the greatest of respect. Forty-
two years afterwards, in 1851, the two men met on a
more peaceful stage, none other than the opening of
the Great Exhibition. Lord Russell was then Prime
Minister, and the Duke of Wellington, at that time of
the very age that Lord Russell is now, was one of the
most conspicuous figures in the procession. Lord
Russell could appreciate the Duke's tactical skill all the
better for having had a personal acquaintance with the
great Napoleon, with whom he talked at Elba in 1814.
That was about a year before the battle of Waterloo.
Of the members of the House of Commons who
formed that assembly when Lord Russell was first
introduced to the Speaker, not one survives. Pal-
merston then sat upoulthe Treasury Bench as Secretary-
at-War; Brougham was launching his thunders
against the slave trade; Canning was elaborating
those polished periods which so charmed and de-
lighted his hearers; Peel was developing those quali-
ties of dexterity which afterwards made him so valuable
a Parliamentary leader; but these and a host of other
political notabilities of that time are all gone. They
have passed "to where, beyond those voices, there is
peace." Lord Russell yet remains, and his latest
work shows that he has lost little if any of his in-
tellectual -vigour. He can tell us all about his
education seventy years ago as though it were a
chronicle of yesterday; and his stories about Canning,
who has been dead nearly half a century, are as fresh
and as racy as though he were relating a conversation
which he had half all hour ago with Mr. Gladstone
or Lord Granville.

Some of the most interesting information of the week
is often contained in the Returns of the Registrar-
General. We get in these documents all kinds of
health statistics, the temperature which has prevailed
during the previous seven days, a description of the
quality of the water supplied by the various com-
panies, and other items of knowledge which it is desir-
able to impart. One of the latest issues is an estimate
of town populations to the middle of 1875, by which
time four years and a quarter will have elapsed since
the last census. It appears that in the ten years be-
tween 1851 and 1861 the increase per cent. in the num-
ber of inhabitants of seventeen of the largek English
towns was 19, and in the decade between 1861 and 1871
it was two less per cent. By the month of June next
the Registrar-General calculates that London will con-
tain the enormous number of 3,445,160 people, or more
than the population of eighteen of the largest towns in
the United Kingdom all lumped together! In that
one term " London " are included the homes
of as many human beings as are comprised
in those great centres of maritime and inland
commerce which contribute to the story of Great
Britain's industry—Liverpool and Manchester, Bir-
mingham and Bristol, Leeds and Sheffield, Notting-
ham and Leicester, Halifax and Bradford, Bolton and
Oldham, Northampton and Salford, Wolverhampton
and Portsmouth, Newcastle and Sunderland. In the
year 1874 the excess of births over deaths in London
was 44,788, but the gain by immigration from the pro-
vinces was counterbalanced by the loss from emigra-
tion to foreign countries. This is rather remarkable,
considering that there is scarcely a village in the king-
dom which has not lost some of its former residents,
who have left the place in order to settle in the
metropolis. Still an increase of population at the rate
of 45,000 a year is a rate of speed which, if maintained,
will in course of years tell a tale upon the green fields
of Middlesex and Surrey. At the same rate, by the
end of the present century, there will be another
million or even more added to the present number—a
hive of busy bees for which history can find no parallel
Babylon and Nineveh, Tyre and Sidon, Rome and
Carthage might have had a more exciting existence, but
the whole of them combined could never boast of such a
number of people as that which is crowded together
within the limits of the British capital.
Those of your readers who have been over the
Houses of Parliament—and no one who comes to Lon-
don omits to do so—will be glad to learn that the
First Commissioner of Works has taken measures which
it is hoped may prevent the:further decay of those two
master-piPces of Maclise, representing the battles of
Trafalgar and Waterloo. The walls upon which those
splendid paintings have been placed were evidently
damp at the time, and there is a painful-looking dis-
colouration in many places. It would be an irre-
parable less if the damp were allowed to spread, and
to destroy these works of art—irreparable because we
have not a Maclise now amongst us. This eminent man
died nearly five years ago, and at the last public appear-
ance ever made by Charles Dickens, which was at the
Royal Academy banquet in May, 1870, he pronounced
an eloquent tribute to the memory of his departed
friend, little dreardithat fie short weeks only
would elapse before Mend of his own earthly journey
was reached. Maclise, although so famous as an
artist, was one of the most retiring of men, and lived
in a modest house in Cheyne-walk, Chelsea. His two
greatest works, if lost, can never be replaced. A
great, painting is not like the production of an illus-
trious writer, which, once finished, can be multiplied
by tens of thousands of copies. We cannot apply the
printing-press to such productions as those of Maclise ;
and there is, consequently, all the more reason why
care should be taken of them. Some of the smaller
frescoes in the halls of the Legislature have to a great
extent been defaced by the dampness of the walls
upon which they hang.
How many of us have a sufficient appreciation of
the important functions discharged by the Police? They
wage a perpetual war against the predatory classes,
who are ever on the watch to prey upon the respectable
portion of society; they are exposed to all weathers ;
they often discharge their duties at the peril of their
lives; and although but poorly paid they are supposed
to manifest the sagacity of a highly-trained intelligence.
I was glad to see a notice, a few days ago, of an in-
teresting entertainment to the members of the City of
London police, which had been provided by the
liberality of a few gentlemen who estimate at its proper
spirit the work performed by the guardians of law and
order. The changes in life's unvarying round of duties
must indeed have been a grateful one. For my own
part, I am an advocate for encouraging the police in
every possible way. The city and metropolitan forces
combined are nearly 10,000 in number, and if amongst
so many a black sheep is occasionally found, it is as
unreasonable as it is ungenerous to abuse the whole as
an inefficient body of men. The truth is we little
know how much we are indebted to this useful army,
and if a constable is not immediately upon the scene
of every robbery, it is but fair to reflect that he has not
the gift of omniscience nor the power of omnipresence
—weaknesses which are shazed by most oder members
of the human family,
International Conferences have of late years grown
more and more frequent. In the summer before last
awe was one of these gatherings in London to consider

the question of prison discipline; last year there was a
monetary conference in Paris, and one in Brussels upon
the laws and usages of war. The gathering in Paris is
to be:renewed this year, whenrepresentatives of France,
Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, and Greece will' be pre-
sent. It does not appear 'ivhether iny one wilf
there for this counti?'”-but financial matters are Of
paramount interest with us, and we might get an idea
from discussions such as these. A considerable body
of merchants in the city are continually, urging the
repeal of the Bank Charter Act, and it would have
been interesting to know from practical men some-
thing of the working of the State bank system
abroad.

Amongst other indications of the approaching open-
ing of Parliament is the usual announcement of the
names of the movers and seconders of the Address.
This is a time-honoured custom almost as venerable as
the delivery of the Royal Speech itself. The Speech
from the Throne consists of a number of paragraphs
giving more or less information to the newly-assembled
legislature, and the Address is one of thanks to the
Sovereign for what is thus communicated. For
instance, supposing the Speech to say: "My relations
with foreign powers continues to be satisfactory."
The Address replies, "We humbly thank your
Majesty for the assurance that your Majesty's relations
with foreign Powers continuo to be satisfactory, and
we humbly express a hope for the perpetuation of such
a desirable condition of affairs." And so on through
all the other topics. The mover of the Address in the
Commons is always a county member, and is either a
deputy-lieutenant, or an officer in the yeomanry,
militia, or volunteers. He wears the uniform of his
rank whilst making his speech. The seconder is invari-
ably a representative of a city or a borough, and if he
be not a volunteer or a militia officer, he wears a
Windsor uniform. Sometimes, but on very rare occa-
sions, three lines of momentous interest form the con-
cluding paragraph to the Address. That is when the
Opposition have determined to turn out the Govern-
ment of the day, and they tack on to the
Address something in this strain: "And we
beg leave further humbly to assure your Majesty
that this House has no confidence in your Majesty's
present advisers." That is all, and if this is carried
an answer comes down from the Sovereign to this
effect: "I thank you for your loyal and dutiful
address, and for the expressions of your attachment
towards my throne and person. I have duly noted
what you say respecting my present advisers, and
have taken measures accordingly." Out goes the
Ministry; in goes the Opposition. Such an extreme
course, however, as moving a vote of no confidence is
taken but seldom. It was followed in 1841, and again
in 1859, since which other causes have contributed to
Ministerial crises and Parliamentary dissolutions. A
Minister of the Crown prefers to select the question
which he will treat as one of confidence, and would
rather not have it forced upon him by a triumphant
Opposition.