The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-05-22 00:00:00

Our foOon Corrtspithut.
(Ws deem it right to state that we do not at 11l UMW
deathly ourselves with our Correspondent's opiniohal

The re-assembing of the House of Commons after the
Whitsuntide recess gives one the idea that if the work
upon the table is to be cleared off there must be "along
pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together." No more
holidays now, with thekingle exception of the Derby
Day, until the prorogation. For ten or eleven weeks, at a
time of the year when the days are at their longest and
hottest, the work of legislation must go on—through
leafy June, through sultry July, and half-way through
broiling August. It has always passed my comprehen-
sion why Her Majesty's faithful Commons, with amass
of business before them early in the Session, and know-
ing that the greater part of it must be got through, yet
allows just half of the legislative year to glide by
without getting at all seriously to work. From Feb-
ruarY to May, when the weather is cool, little is done;
from May to August, when a blazing sun is overhead,
the work has to be accomplished, somehow—very often
anyhow. And thus it comes to pass that when the
Commons meet after the Whitsuntide holidays, it has
not only to clear away the Bills which have been before
it for weeks, but it must be prepared to receive those
which have been originated in the Lords, and, having
undergone full discussion there, are ready to be sent down
to the Lower House. Thus, in the Commons, during the
last half of the Session, there is a double block
—the Lords' measures waiting for consideration,
the Commons' measures waiting for disposal. Had
reasonable expedition been used with respect to the
latter, they would have been out of the way long ago;
but as it is you now very often hear of the "massacre
of the innocents." One unoffending Bill after
another is mercilessly slaughtered, through want of
time to debate its provisions, and the peers frequently
find that they have devoted half a Session to a
measure which when it reaches the Commons is jostled
out of the way. This was the case last year over the
Judicature Bill, which having been moulded into shape
in the Painted Chamber, was sacrificed in the middle
of July, simply because the Commons were hopelessly
in arrear over their own work. This condition of
affairs is not inherent under any particular Govern-
ment, nor any especial leadership. It has been the
same ever since I can remember, no matter whether
Palmerston, Disraeli, or Gladstone, controlled the
House Commons. I know that the leader, who-
ever he may be, is certain to be blamed for the dead-
lock, but the real fault is with the House itself as a
body.

The clouds which overcast the political firmament a
few days ago seem to have cleared away for a time,
but as many believe only for a time. The unquiet
aspect of the Continent has of late given our
statesmen cause for considerable uneasiness, and
this has been truly enough reflected upon that
sensitive barometer, the Stock Exchange. A fear
of impending war will affect the prices of public secu-
rities to an extraordinary degree, and it is a tradition
that on the Ist of January, 1859, when the late Em-
peror Napoleon spoke those few threatening words to
the Austrian Ambassador which presaged the cam-
paign in Lombardy, the value of stocks in the various
European markets, before nightfall, had depreciated
to the extent of a hundred millions sterling. When
once the dogs of war are unloosed, there is no knowing
who may be dragged into the vortex. There was a
tremendous panic on the Stock Exchange in London
on the 18th of July, 1870, three days after France had
declared war against Prussia, at the publication in
The Times of the famous draft of a Treaty for the an-
nexation. of Belgium to France. At that time we had
no idea that France was so totally unprepared for war,
and it was assumed that if she succeeded in beating
down Prussia, Belgium would be attacked, and then
Great Britain would be bound by treaty to defend
that manly and independent little State. Securities
went down with a run, and even Consols, at one period
of the day, were quoted as low as 88. War, its effects,
and the horrors inseparable from it, has in all ages
been !the theme on which imaginative writers have
dwelt. Poetry and prose have been alike brought into
requisition, the poet having, in most cases he advan-
tage of the prose-writer, however skilled in word-paint-
ing the latter may be. No one who has once read
Byron's Childe Harold can ever forget his description
of the War Fiend :

"See ! when the Giant on the mountain stands;
His blood-red tresses deepening in the sun;
The death-shot glowing in his fiery hands,
And eye that scorches all it glares upon ! "
Sixteen years ago, during the war between France
and Austria, this quotation was given by Mr. Bright
at an immense meeting of his constituents at Birming-
ham, with all the dramatic power of which he is
master, and the thrilling effect produced will never
be erased from the memories of those who heard him.
The camp at Wimbledon will be ready for the
annual rifle competition on the 10th of July and the
meeting itself is to begin on the 12th. A Canadian
learn is coming over; a body of American marks-
men is also to be invited; and it is not improbable
that a number of Australian and New Zealand rifle-
men may also be present. With Canada, the
United States, and the Antipodes represented,
the meeting will be of more than usual interest.
A new regulation affecting the shoooting is to
come into op.ration this year for the first time,
and Volunteers are by no means unanimous
in commending it. Shooting in a standing position is
to be abolished, the idea being that in warfare the
marksman should present as little of his body as pos-
sible as a target for the enemy. The volunteers will,
therefore, carry on this competition either kneeling or
lying fiat upon the ground. The objectors to this rule
declare that, inasmuch as one purpose of rifle-shooting
is to test a man's nerve, the best way of so testing it
is for him to 1o:tow that by standing erect he is a mark
for the enemy, and should show a fearless front to the
foe. It is understood that if the regulation does not
work well in practice, it is to be re-considered by the
CounciL

The "hideous monotony of dreary streets," so
graphically described by the Prime Minister in his
address at the recent Royal Academy banquet, is, so
far as London is concerned, not without relief. Five
minutes from crowded Fleet-steeet and Ludgate-hill
you can come upon the Thames Embankment, a real
blessing to the people of the metropolis in more than
one way. In the first place there is a splendid road.
way where formerly mudlarks only sported at low
tide, and in place of mud and sandbanks, when the
tide was down, filling the air with dangerous
miasma, the north side of the Embankment
is flanked with public gardens which are now
in all their glory. Another of these lungs of
London was added only a few days ago, when
Mr. W. H. Smith, one of the members for Westmin.
ster, and the Financial Secretary of the Treasury in the
present Government, declared it open for the purposes
public recreation for ever. Hundreds and even
thousands of persons congregate here on a summer
evening, who cannot get into the Temple Gardens,
for these are open only two months in the year—from
the middle of June to the middle of August. Stand
upon Westminister Bridge and look eastward; the
spectacle is such as can be witnessed in no other city
in the world. The broad boulevard of the Embank-
ment, two miles long, shaded on its pathways by trees,
relieved on one side by charming people's gardens,
and washed on the other, throughout its whole length
by the broad stream of the river, runs right up to busy
Bla,ckfriars, over whose Bridge a stream of pedestrians
and of vehicles continually pours. The massive bridge
of Waterloo is directly in front of you ; next you catch
the wide spans of the South Eastern Railway Bridge
running into Charing Cross ; the distance being
bounded by the bridges at Blackfriars—one for
ordinary traffic built by the Corporation, and the other
constructed by the London, Chatham, and Dover
Railway. Over all the symmetrical dome of St. Paul's
rises in solitary grandeur over the bustling city. Near
Westminster, too, may now be seen the progress which
is being made with the new street that will connect the
Embankment with Charing Cross. Northumberland
House has been cleared away, and the lofty trees of
its gardens may now be plainly seen from Trafalgar-
square. In another part of the town a wonderful im-
provement has lately been effected. The Bethnal-green
Museum is now surrounded with tasteful gardens. So
much for the west and the east, to say nothing of our
numerous parks, the Alexandra Palace on the north,
and the Crystal Palace on the south. London, so often
decried for its ugliness, is rapidly becoming a beautiful
city, and one in which it will be very pleasant to
dwell.

Speaking of St. Paul's just now, reminds me of the
movement for throwing open the metropolitan cathe-
dral, at all events for two days in the v i week, as n the
case of the Tower. At present, if you wish to be shown i
over the whole of Wren's masterpeice, t costs 3s. 2d.,
and in a party of half a dozen—father, mother, and
four children—a sovereign is thus made to look very
small. The Dean of Westminster, has in the Abbey,
carried out the principle which has just been applied
by the Government to the Tower of London, and on
certain days all the chapels are thrown open. A
national cathedral should be as free of access
as the Houses of Parliament, where you have
but to go through the form of obtaining an
order in the building from the Lord Chamberlain.
The improvement in the frontage of St. Paul's has
only just been completed. The unsightly high railings
were removed in the autumn of last year, and now
light iron rails connect the granite pillars which run
round the pavement. The effect of the change is very
marked. Formerly the Cathedral of which we are all
so proud seemed huddled away; now its splendid
architectural proportions are made the most of, and
the building stands forth grand in space.
The meetings of the Fouran-Hand Club are occa-

sions of great interest. No money is spared: for
unless a man has money it is useless to join an orga-
nisation where you are expected to drive four-in-hand.
The first meeting of this Club in Hyde-park is quite
an event in its way, and attracts tens of thousands of
spectators. On the present occasion nearly thirty
drag,s, each with four horses, drove round the Park,
and then set off for the Alexandra Palace, followed by
a vast number of vehicles of all descriptions. Some of
these turn-outs were really magnificent; horses of
rare breed and in the best condition, their mount-
ings faultless, and the coaches without a scratch
or a blemish. The sun, too, shone splendidly
upon the gay and brilliant scene—such a scene as many
a country squire who was an admirer of horses would
have trudged miles to witness. The display was re-
ceived by the assembled multitude with tremendous
cheering, which showed their appreciation of a spec-
tacle which even in London is not often gazed upon.
Travellers who have gone through Italy and Swit-
zerland, and are longing for fresh fields and pastures
new, will learn with interest that arrangements have
been made by the Eastern Railway of France for a
fast train service to Constantinople. The Turkish
capital is a part of Europe which is not often thought
of by tourists, but an attempt is now to be made to
popularise it in that way. Trains will run from Paris,
Stuttgardt, Munich, Salzburg, and Vienna, down the
Danube to the Black Sea, a part of the world whose
geography was more familiar to us twenty years age
than it is now. There a steamer will convey the tra-
veller to the Turkish metropolis. The trains will
start from Paris at half-past eight on Wednesday and
Saturday evenings, and the journey to Constantinople
will take a little leas than five days.
• In the galleries of the South Kensington Museum
buildings, there is an exhibition of pictures by British
and foreign artists, which is of interest as showing the
contrast in style of the different schools of painters.
There you may, in a minute or so, exchange the heat
and glare of Kensington Gardens for a look at the cool
rivers and the moonlight nights of the Dutch and
Flemish masters, and the sight thereof is refreshing in
itself. England, France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden,
and other European countries are fully represented;
England as a matter of fact making the smallest show,
and Belgium the largest. Belgian art, indeed, stands
out very creditably in this display, the landscapes
being especially good. The people of this pushing and
energetic little kingdom are making it manifest that in
art, as-well as in manufactures, they can not only hold
their own, but compete successfully with older, richer,
and more powerful nations.