The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1888-03-10 00:00:00

LONDON CORRESPONDENCE,

W. deem It right to state that we do not at all thus identify
bureelves with our Correspondent; opinionaj

THE "Silver Wedding" of, the Prince and
Princess of Wales has been the chief topic of
conversation in London this week, and has
evoked the sincere congratulations of all the
subjects of the Queen. For now more than
fifty years the English people have followed
every event which concerns her to whom they
owe allegiance with ever-increasing interest;
they have rejoiced in her joys and condoled with
her many cares; and now that her eldest son,
and the heir to the throne she so long and well-
filled, has accomplished twenty-five years of
his married life, the congratulations tendered to
him have not the less been meant for her. In the
family concerns of the Queen all have
felt joined because of the frankness
with which her Majesty has taken her
people into her confidence; and just as
they have ever been glad to see her children
listAirabled around her when some great occasion
hm demanded their presence, so are they glad
to see the Prince of Wales gathering his sons
and daughters to his side at this season of the
silver wedding. Prince Albert Victor has left
his military quarters at York to join the family
circle at Marlborough House; and his younger
brother, Prince George, has come back from his
naval duties in the Mediterranean specially to
take part in the gathering.
What adds to the interest which the Royal
Silver Wedding has excited is the comparison
tvhich can be made between affairs as they
existed in 1863 and as they exist now. Abroad,
the United States were then torn almost asunder
by the greatest internecine struggle of modern
times • France was an empire, Germany still dis-
united, and Italy did not possess Rome for its
capital. At home, Lord Palmerston was Prime
Minister, Lord Russell Foreign Secretary, and
Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli led their party
in the Houses of Lords and Commons respec-
tively. Among the rank and file of politicians,
13rougham and Cobden and Roebuck were yet
living, the late Mr. Forster was beginning to be
spoken of as a man certain to rise; neither Mr.
Goschen nor Mr. Smith had entered Parliament;
Lord Salisbury was known by his earliest name
of Lord Robert Cecil; while Lord Randolph
Churchill and Mr. Chamberlain were young and
unknown. The Atlantic cable as it at present
exists had not been lsid ; Faraday was a leading
scientist; Thackeray, Dickens, and George
Eliot were providing us with literary
food, while Carlyle was at work upon
his longest, and in some respects his greatest,
work. It is when such a comparison is made
that we feel how great a span is really formed
by twenty-five years; and when the national
progress during that period is reviewed, it will
be with earnest hopes that the Prince and
Princess will see another such span of married
happiness, an welcome with all true Britons
their "Golden Wedding."
A subject of intense interest, and, indeed, of
great importance to Londoners—that of their water
supply—is soon to be brought under the notice
of Parliament with a view of having it
thoroughly inquired into, and, if possible, placed
upon a more satisfactory basis. Like all our
institutions political and social, the water
supply of London has grown up at haphazard,
and has been extended in various directions as
time has required. But the sources at immediate
command are limited in number and capacity,
while the demand upon them is ever growing,
and under these circumstances it is thought that
it would be better to overhaul the whole system,
and see in what way, it can be placed upon
basis which shall have in them at least a promise
of permanence. This, of course, is far from an
easy matter to set straight, and it will take all
the wisdom and scientific knowledge of experts
to arrange. But seeing what Liverpool and
Manchester and, in a less remarkable way, Leeds
and Bradford have done in the endeavour to pro-
vide themselves with a good and constant supply
of water, there is a widespread idea that the
metropolis will have in its degree to do the same,
and, if necessary, go further afield in search of an
abundance of this necessary of life.
Some days ago an interesting question was
raised at the doors of the House of Commons,
and was settled in accordance with what most
people will agree was the dictate of common-
sense. A member of the House, who is a
barrister, and had been engaged in a case in the
Lords, endeavoured to enter his own chamber
with his wig on. The door-keepers men of long
experiences as they are, hesitated, for within
their recollection no such effort had been made.
The legal member argued that, as he was
not wearing a sword, he was entitled to
admittance, and upon precedents being examined
they were found to be in his favour, and
the barrister entered, wig, gown, and all. This
is not at all to be wondered at, when it is 're-
membered that the wig is only a survival from
the time when all men of quality wore them, and,
• therefore, when the House was full of such. The
bishops continued to wear them long after most
other people had left them off, and they were not
refused admission to the House of Lords because
of either the wearing or the omission. A time
may come when barristers also will everywhere
appear in their own hair, but that time is
not yet, and until it arrives there ought to be no '
disability attached to what they are found to
do in conformity with professional etiquette
and usage.
Among the minor miseries of a citizen's life is
the liability to be called upon -to serve on a jury,
and the duty, as far as dwellers in London is

concerned, appears to be one not greatly loved.
It is amusing for the onlooker, but not at all
BO amusing for the participator, watch in one
of che law courts the efforts made at the opening
of the sitting to escape from the service. One
favourite device is for the juror to send his wife
to plead with the associate that he may be let
off. Various are the scope and sincerity of these
wife-borne excuses; but it will be noted that the
women are more successful in gaining the re-
quired remission than the men when they
trust to the eloquence of themselves. Some
of those summoned take the extremely in-
judicious course of deliberately being absent, but
this only entails the possibility, and sometimes
the certainty, of a fine; while others, more astute,
come to the court, but forget to answer to their
names when called, though ready to show them-
selves if a fine be threatened. Very different are
all these devices, but a visit to the Law Courts
any morning will furnish abundant evidence that,
though all Englishmen are ready to acknowledge
that the jury-box is the palladium of the British
Constitution, a large proportion of them have no
burning desire to enter it.
Discussions have frequently taken place as to
the effect which the continued introduction of
machinery must have upon the demand for
labour, and the debate is not likely soon to be
ended, for it would seem as if every year brought
before us some new invention which should prove
of so labour-saving a type as to cause less de-
mand for manual aid. But there is another side
to the view so often and so superficially taken of
the effect upon the community generally of
these labour-saving machines and that shows
to us that by their help both neces-
saries and- luxuries can be produced more
cheaply, and distributed more effectively among
all classes. One instance of this will prove the
point. A curious calculation has been made to
the 'effect that a thousand barrels of flour, the
annual ration of a thousand persons, can be
placed in New York from a point two thousand
miles away with the exertions of only four men
working one year in producing, milling, and
transporting the wheat, and that as this can be
baked and distributed by the endeavours of three
more persons, it follows that just seven persons
can supply a thousand with bread. The fact is a
striking one, and suggests much food for
thought.
The rage which has recently prevailed for
turning private trading concerns into limited
liability companies is a commercial symptom
which can scarcely have escaped the notice of
any business man. It has gone so far in certain
directions that the natural suspicion has been
aroused that much of the speculation invited is
ill-advised and even dangerous. Of course, no
general rule can be laid down upon any such
matter; every project- of the kind must be
judged upon its own merits; and all that
can be said is that those about to put
their money into such cannot read the
prospectuses too carefully. The old-time warn-
ing that high interest means low security is
sound, but it too frequently falls upon unheed-
ing ears; and the temptation to embark in some
doubtful enterprise which promises high interest
is all the greater because the price of first-class
securities has advanced so rapidly of late.
Every year these grow dearer, and persons who
have only a little money to live upon, and who
wish to reap all they can from it, are sorely
tempted to try their luck elsewhere. Nit
:aution in the matter of investments is [always
ki season, and was never more so than now.
_ A. F R.

,
simply

WEEN a gold mine stops working, it is
'cause it is not in the vein for it.

RUSSIA AND BULGARIA.
ACTION OF THE SULTAN.

A Ministerial Mazbata was on Sunday submitted
to the Sultan, proposing to
.notify to the Government
_ _

at Sofia that the Forte maintained its declaration of
Aug. 22, 1887, that the presence of Prince Ferdinand
in Bulgaria was illegal; and subsequently, in obe-
dience to an Imperial Irade, the Grand Vizier tele-
graphed to that effect to M. Stambuloff, the Bul-
garian Premier. The Porte on Tuesday informed the
Ottsman Ambassadors abroad of the step which it
had taken.

It is stated on good authority in St. Petersburg
that Russia will afford no countenance whatever to
the idea of a Conference upon Bulgarian affairs, being
persuaded that its realisation would inevitably give
rise to divergencies among the Powers that would
impede the settlement of the question.
Prince Ferdinand, whom the Russian Government
has so persistently urged the Porte to declare an
usurper, was elected Prince of Bulgaria, by an unani-
mous vote of the Sobranje or National Assembly on
July 7, 1887, and took the oath of fidelity to the Con-
stitution of the Principality at Tirnova, on Aug. 14.
Before that date the Prince had received a deputation
from the Sobranje, and it being then quite evident
that the Czar would never consent to the return of
his ill-used predecessor, Prince Alexander, he seems
to have produced the impression that he would accept
the throne if offered to him, though proclaiming the
utmost anxiety to act in accordance with the wishes
of the Great Powers, and especially of Russia. In
the Bulgarian Chamber the Prince has the support
of 250 members out of a House of 300—the general
election which was held in October having by a very
decided majority endorsed the choice of the previous
Parliament. Of the three most prominent leaders of
the Russian faction—Zankoff, Karaveloff, and Rados-
layoff—the two last-named failed to secure seats in
the Sobranje. Notwithstanding the unanimity of the
people, the election has not been confirmed, as it re-
quires to be by the Treaty of Berlin, by the Porte and
the great Powers, while the German and French Am-
bassadors at Constantinople have supported the
Russian demand that the Sultan should declare the
Prince's position illegal. Prince Ferdinand is 27
years of age, having been born on February 26, 1861.
He is the youngest son of the late Prince Augustus,
Duke of Saxe-Coburg, and Princess Clementine ot
Bourbon-Orleans, a daughter of Louis Philippe. His
Highness served as an officer in the Austrian Army,
and possesses large estates in Hungary.