The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-04-10 00:00:00

ur foul* CorrtspoOtid.

[We deem it right to state that we do not at all UMW
Identify ourselves with our Conespondeut's opinions.]

The reassembling of Parliament after the Easter
Recess marks the beginning of what may be designated
the second division of the London season. The first
opens with the meeting of the legislature in February,
and extends to Easter, The second commences with
the termination of Easter, and goes on to Whitsuntide.
The third lasts from Whitsuntide to the prorogation
In August. From February to Easter there is not

Roe,

-
much activity. The weather, as in th,+-present _
is cold; the winds are bleak; the aspect of the capital
is somewhat cheerless. There is no foliage upon the
trees; and neither the grass, the flowers, nor the
shrubs seem to have recovered from the icy baud which
winter has so heavily laid upon them. There is more
life between Easter and Whitsuntide ; and as the
month of April progresses, the well-to-do classes leave
their country seats and come up to London, where
they find the parks and squares in the first blush of
new vegetation. But unquestionably the gayest period
of fashionable existence in the metropolis is that
between Whitsuntide and the prorogation. Then
the season may be said to be at its, height. Courts,
drawing-rooms, levCes, garden parties, receptions
by titled ladies, political banquets, balls, and a host of
other engagements, fall to the lot of those who move
within the circle known as that of the "upper ten
thousand." Prolonged at times until the pale streaks
of dawn have fallen upon the golden cross of St. Paul's
Cathedral, when the waning moon struggles un-
successfully to retain her glory in the face of the
gradually-increasing light of the morning, and the
rays of one bright star after another are extinguished
in the firmament, the merry round of life is often
enough resumed in the afternoon of the same clay,
when the fierce sunshine is beating down upon the
toiling millions of the mighty city. Then when the
leaves, which in the end of April look so refreshing in
all their delicate and varied shades of greenery, begin
to suffer from the drought, and the summer flowers,
one after the other, droop their heads and die, the
west end of the capital takes unto itself wings, and
literally in many cases, goes into the uttermost parts
of the earth No longer are the banks of the Rhine
and of the Seine the chief places of resort. The Neva
and the Danube, India, Egypt, and the vast
territories of the United States all come in for their
share of visitors.

year,: tt

The opening of Easter Term, on the 15th of April,
is one of the principal events of the legal year. This
division into terms was made by the Normans 800
years ago, and survives to this day. Like the year of
the Church, which opens with Advent, so that of the
law begins in November. The 2nd of that month is
the first day of Michaelmas Term, which lasts until the
25th. Then the courts break up for the winter circuits
and for Christmas, reassembling on the 11th of January
for Hilary Term, which continues until the 31st. Very
soon afterwards the Spring Assizes are in full progress
all overthe country, and these go on for several weeks.
By the time they have all been brought to a close,
Easter Term has arrived, which extends from April
15th to May Bth. There is then a break of a fort-
night, Trinity Term beginning on May 22nd, and termi-
nating on June 12th. With the opening of July the
judges are once more scattered through the provinces
for the Summer Assizes, and there is no more
work to be done at Westminster until November.
The Long Vacation, which extends over three of the
autumn months, was suited by William the Con-
queror to the time of the gathering of the vintage in
France, and remains to the present hour. It VMS to
have been shortened by the Judicature Act, passed
two years ago, but when that measure is to come into
operation no one can just now say. At Michaelmas
and Easter Terms the Lord Chancellor receives the
Judges, Sergeants, and Queen's Counsel at breakfast
in his private residence, the whole company after-
wards going in state to Westminster Hall, where the
Courts are formally opened. At Hilary and Trinity
there is no ceremony whatever, and the Judges take
their seats as though the Courts were resuming after
an adjournment of only a single night. When all
are in full swing, Westminster Hall is a busy place,
more especially if Parliament should happen to be
sitting at the same time. Stately barristers, costumed
in wig and gown, move hither and thither over its
vast stoile floor; active clerks, with red-stuff bags,
darting here and there, and adding variety to the
scene. In the Courts themselves there are always a
number of people who cannot have the slightest in-
terest in the cases under investigation. They are re-
presentatives of a numerous class in London, who,
possessing sufficient to live upon, and following no
trade or profession, are glad of even an hour or two in
the Law Courts to break the monotony of their

existence.
When the Metropolitan Railway was constructed
th 6 route which it took compelled it to turn aside
from Oxford street and the' western part of Holborn,
and to leave those important thoroughfares without
the accommodation which is afforded by a subter-
ranean line. Some years ago a service of omnibuses
was put on from Portland-road Station to Regent
Circu-,, and now this is supplemented by services from
Edgware-road and Baker-street stations to the Marble
Arch. The fare is a penny, and passengers are booked
through between the Marble Arch and all stations on
this useful railway. The ride is a remarkably cheap
one, but I think I know a cheaper. The passenger
who takes a penny omnibus from Waterloo Station to
the Strand really pays only a halfpenny for it, inas-
much as he thereby escapes the payment of the half-
penny toll over Waterloo Bridge.
Few social measures of late years have excited such
discussion as the Tenant Right Bill of the Govern-
ment, introduced into the House of Lords by the
Duke of Richmond. I presume that one reason of
this is that, in a country where the land is so limited
in quantity, any laws or regulations bearing upon its
transfer or tenure must form a subject of ranch in-
terest to more than one class of the community. It
may not be generally known that in the time of Henry
VIII. land was let in England at the rate of a shilling
per acre. In 1600 the whole rental of the Kingdom
was only £6,000,000 sterling; in 1688 it had risen to
£14,000,000; and in 1798, when Mr. Pitt proposed his
Income Tax of 10 per cent., he estimated the entire
rental at 100 millions, 50 of which came from the land,
10 from houses, and 40 from the profits of trade. In
all ages the successful cultivation of the soil has
been an object of pride and pleasure to intelligent
men. The Athenians were accustomed to assert
that the art of sowing corn began with them;
but the Cretans, the Sicilians, and the Egyptians
have made the same claim. Before the birth
of Christ there were eminent Roman writers on agri-
culture, such as Varro, and Cato the Censor; and one
unmistakable advantage of the Roman occupation of
Britain was the great improvements which they intro-
duced into the cultivation of the land. When it is
remembered that by no ingenuity can man add a single
i
foot to the solid surface of the globe, it
s easy to see
the importance which is attached to its possession. It
may be reclaimed sometimes from the sea; at others
from the margins of tidal rivers; but it is impossible of
of creation. There is, for instance, the Thames
Embankment, which was reclaimed, or taken back
again, from the stream which left it dry at low water.
Land is of such enormous value in London and its
immediate neighbourhood that tha most ingenious
devices are resorted to in order to make the most of it.
Houses are run up with merely a few uare feet for a
back yard; and, as a dwelling of four or five stories
'occupies no more room at the base than one of two or
three, the higher buildings are predominating gradually,
the increased rental counterbalancing the augmented.
cost of construction.
The Revenue Returns published at the end of the
financial year showed that the Chancellor of the
Exchequer had received nearly half a million
sterling over the Budget estimate for the twelve
months ; and, as our trade is not quite so
flourishing as it was two or three years ago, this
result cannot be regarded as unsatisfactory. I find
that in the five years beginning with 1869, and ending
with 1873, British imports rose from 295 to 371 mil-
lions sterling, an increase of 25 per cent.; while the
value of the exports were augmented from 237 to 311
millions, or more than 30 ?per cent. But while the
latter fell off slightly in 1873, compared with the pre-
vious year, inports displayed a continuous increase
throughout the period. The demand for our produc-
tions appears to be growing more rapidly in Belgium
and elsewhere, except in Sweden and Norway. On
the other hand Egypt and China showed a slight de-
crease, and Brazil remained stationary. Under the
head of imports the United States occupied the first
place throughout, followed at a long interval by
France, India, Russia, and Germany. Returning for
a moment to the revenue for the past year, I may re-
mind your readers that the Budget will be introduced
on Thursday, the 15th instant; and whether the sur-
plus be large or small, the annual re-adjustment of the
public burthens can never fail to be a subject of great
interest to a people dealing so extensively with com-
mercial affairs as those of Great Britain.
Longfellow has described in touching and vivid
language the impression produced by the chimes of
the belfry of Bruges, and no one who has passed a
night in any of the quaint old cities of Belgium will
forget the music of the bells as it is borne along upon
the wings of the evening breeze. Shoreditch is a part
of London which does not bear much resemblance to
Bruges, for whereas the people of the antiquated
Belgian city appear to enjoy an existence calm and
noruffied, "far from the busy haunts of men," the
streets of Shoreditch are alive with active life' and
through them pours an incessant volume of traffic
between the City proper and the Tower Hamlets. The
place is. however, unique in one remarkable respect,

for it now possesses what is called a carillon of chiines, '
that is to say, a machine which sets to music its
splendid peal of bells. The chimes ring out upon the
uneasy London atmosphere every three hours, sacred
tunes being played on Sunday, and such airs as "The Last
ie of Summer," "The Blue Bells of Scotland,"
Home,Sweet Home r and " My Lodging is on the Cold
Ground," on week-days. There are other churches in
the metropolis owning to sets of chimes, such as, for
instance, St. Dunstan's, Fleet-street, and St. Clement
Danes', in the Strand, but in nothing like the variety
which is the pride of those just set to work in Shore-
ditch. The sounds make little or no impression upon
the roar of London life at mid-day; but when even-
de approaches, and the sunlight fades in the west, the-
pleasant voices of church bells have a singularly fasci-
nating effect. Those of St. Dunstan's to which I
alluded just now, are lost amid the tumult of Fleet-
street, but they may be heard to perfection in the
Temple Gardens, an oasis in the desert of London life.
In such a place as that, on a summer evening, with
the birds singing in the branches overhead, the noise-
less river traffic gliding up and down the rapid tide of
the Thames, and with the subdued hum which tells of
the presence of a vast population on the Surrey shore
beyond, the echoes of evening bells have a wonderfully
soothing influence, one which tends to chase away the
cares, and to soften down the asperities of life.
When we consider that coal is now regarded as one
of the necessaries of existence, it seems difficult to be-
lieve that there was a time in the history of this
country when it was looked upon as a public nuisance.
It has been contended, and with some apparent truth,
that coal, although not mentioned by the Romans in
their notices of Britain, was yet in use in the time of
the Druids. Henry 111. first granted a license to dig
coal in 1234, but for a long time it did not become a
favourite. Sea-coal was prohibited from being used in
and near London as being prejudicial to human health;
and Stow tells us that up to the year 1273, smiths were
compelled to use wood. In 1306 the gentry petitioned
against its use. It was not until 1400 that it was gene-
rally burned in London, and even then more than two
centuries elapsed before its use became common
throughout England. The people must have
been more easily annoyed by smoke then than
they are now, when a thousand lines of railway,
intersecting the kingdom in all directions, are tra-
versed by locomotives sending dense volumes of it
into the air—in the great towns darkening the face of
of the sun, and in the country temporarily eclipsing
the outlines of the landscape. These, no less than the
steamers which plough the surface of our tidal rivers,
and the manufactories, with their tall stacks of
chimneys pointing high into cloudla,nd itself, would
have been looked upon with scant favour by those of
our ancestors whs) were so careful of their lungs that
they would not even allow coal-smoke to issue from a
blacksmith's forge. The Song of Steam, so well known
to us, who consume a hundred million tons of coal
annually, was to them totally unknown :

"In the darksome depths of the fathomless mine,
My tireless arm doth play,
Where the rocks never saw the sun decline,
Nor the light of the glorious day.
I manage the furnace, the mill, the mint,
I carry, I spin, I weave;
And all my doings I put into print
On every Saturday eve.
Then harness me down with your iron bands,'
Be sure of your curb and rein;
For I scorn the power of your puny hands,
As the tempest scorns a chain."