The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-07-16 00:00:00

COMMENTS ON CURRENT NEWS.

THE Royal Agricultural Show at New-
castle has been, despite the squabble between
big makers of implements and the manage-
ment of the exhibition, a great success. The
attendance has been large, and the entries
of. stock were greater than has been since
the exceptional Kilburn year. The Royal
Society may be congratulated upon its con-
tinuouspopukaity, and upon the appreciation
evoked by its efforts to improve the farmer's
position; .

THE big shooting carnival at Wimbledon
has attracted as much interest as ever, but
it is sadly to be feared that it is degenerat•
ing somewhat into a place for pot hunting
aiming marksmen rather than maintaining
the position of a meeting for testing, in a
practical way, the precision and efficiency of
volunteer shoot. What with the opposition
of the Conservators of the common and ob.
jections of the residents thereabout to having
their locale made every summer the scene
of not always or dbilyb6kiday keeping on the
part of friends of some of the- shooters and
carious Londoners generally, it is not all
certain that Wimbledon will again be
the camp of the Nat;•.)cal B,ifl A.ssocia.
don.

WHILE his wife has been here in' Britain
honouring the Jubilee ff.*tivities with her
dusky presence, King Kalakana of Hawaii
has got into sad difficultiQs at home with
his subjects and some of the settlers in the
Sandwich Islands. If report be true he has
been endeavouring to make such money
.out
of corruption, selling trading privileges to
all sorts of speculators at the expense of his
own people. The:speCulatotehave quarrelled
*aid stirred up a revolt, which threatens the
throne .of the king. if, when Queen Kapi-
olani reaches Hawaii again her husband has
not been deposed by dissatisfied adventurers
and indignant subjects, she may be able to
give him a little of the light of civilization,
and correct her royai spouse's morality up
to the•cotomercial.standard of -Britain. Un-
It)ss he does mend his ways it seem very
likely that Kalakaua will speedily cease to
reign in the Cannibal Islands, for so his
domain WilB once wont to be .called.

WITH the Third "Reading- Of the Crimea
Bill the House of Commons- by no means
came to an enct of its- Irish troubles.
Government and Opposition have ()Very
prospect of fighting their battles over again
on the various stages of the progress of the
Land Bill which has come down to them
from the Lords. One prominent Nationalist,
interrupting another member in his speech;
on Monday night, was called to Order by the
Speaker, and defiantly clrille.tged the Chair
to name him. There wlll be wrangles
galore, Co ibtless, of the old sw t until the
end of the se.isioa, and when the tale of work
done in Parliament is told, it will not con-
tain much ot iinv,-)rtanco. beyond measures
for the alleviation of Irish ills The worst
co!' the matter is that after all the -outlook
will not he much brigltte as regards the
perAexi g pro.)leals involved in the Irish
question. "Ireland still blocks the way" is
a summing up of the political situation which
we have no likelihood of getting rid of for
many a nionth to come.

BULGARIAN affairs, which for some months
past have been fermenting in a compara-
tively ndseless ii otrinens manner, have
now risen to a sharply critical condition
The Sobrande has elf..soted a king, the Regency
and the Ministry ni,vc quarrelled and both
have resigned, and ocher events of import-
ance have succeeded. Turkey and Russia
do not look . kindly upon Prince Ferdinand
ofSazo-Cobarg, the chosn of the Bulgarian
Assembly; -and but for these two Towers it
does not seem improbable that the Prince
elect would be able to command .the friend-
ship or at any rate the goodwill Of Europe.
As we write it remains to be seen whether
the Duke of Saxe-Cobnrg and Gotha's son
will accept against his father's counsel the
throne which Prince Alexander of Batten-
berg, brave soldier as he was, was too weak
to keep a hold of. Just now, if ever, Bul-
garia needs a firm hand to keep her from
national ruin.