The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-04-09 00:00:00

istiv•o..4V

PEARS' SOAP, for Toilet ar d Nursery. s •
for the delicate skin of ladies sad c Idrwit saPirsoUi
ral
sensitive to the woather, winter or suissese. Provosts
redness, roughnes.,, and chapping. bold evywke,e, in
Tablets. Is each. Larger sizes, IS 4d and 2s Id.
To MAID DILICIOUIS CUSTARD WSCIOT Illetsc....rfes VW Me
Custard Powder. The Original and enlyaohnnee. AlCa
luxury. Saves half the cost sad is half the losable.
verywhere, in fid boxes suilicient for three piste, ••A in
tr , el for seven uints.
EkcxxiAxa's ROSH OLP.—Theibist for th Toast
IF lOU AR g IN'rEREST• Distils search for ad=a
Rheumatism and Neuralgic pitiiiia you are hersbY
,Recesoe•'
to obtain of any chemist POWBLVS RHISAIRT"-- 11. Esil
TION. Its extraord,nary efficacy his been atte,..„
s.r.irmisuje.
Clarendon, Lady Waldegra.‘s, the Couotisso ••
"General Wood, and many other eminent persons.
"external application only. Sold is bottle, a
:a ad by all Cbemiate. ' " . .

; •

11

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we,
ur 7.21/WOU aorrtspodmi.
(We deenslt right to state that we do not at all timed
iden),ify ottillidves with our Correspondent's opinions.]
The early days of April are always marked by
a popular desire to know what the Chancellor
of the Exchequer has in store for the taxpayers
in his annual Budget. As a preliminary, the
abstract of the gross produce of revenue for the
financial year completed on the 31st March, is
closely studied. From this it appears that the
total revenue for 1886-87 was not very far short
of ninety-one millions, and was twelve hundred
thousand in excess of that for the previous
financial year. There were increases in customs,
stamps, land tax, house duty, property and
income tax, and the post office and telegraphs,
while there were decreases in excise, crown lands,
interest on advances, and "miscellaneous." As
the then Chancellor of the Exchequer had cal-
culated a year ago that the revenue for the
twelvemonth would be nearly ninety millions,
while, as a matter of fact, it has been not far
from ninety-ono. There has been a surplus yield
of close upon a million—or, to be precise,
£003,738; but how far this is a real and not a
visionary surplus will have to be told by Mr.
Goschen himself, when he comes to narrate how
far, if at all, the total estimate of ex-
peßditure has been exceeded. A "heroic
Budget" is not anticipated;. in fact, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer has been particular
in public to emphasise that no such expectation
ought to be entertained; but, as the first effort
in that direction of one who for so many years
has been noted as a financier, it will be awaited
with unusual interest.
Among the Parliamentary papers recently
issued is one which will have more value and
interest centuries hence than it has to-day, it
being an official list of all the members returned
to the House of Commons between the dissolu•
tion of 1880 and that of November, 1885. Poli-
ticians of the present day are sufficiently
acquainted with such a list not to need it in an
official form, but the historians and antiquarians
of the future will be glad to have it ready to their
hand. This paper is in continuation of the highly
important blue-book in two volumes issued eight
or nine years ago, which contained the names
and constituency, as far as either could be ascer-
tained, of every member who had been elected
to Parliament since the House of Commons came
into beieg. As may be imagined the difficulty in
preparing that return was very great, and the
omissions had to be many. In the course of ages
a large number of the official returns to the
writs had disappeared—some of them simply
lost, others destroyed by vermin or damp, and
so sometimes for Parliaments together no list
of the members could be recovered, while for
others only the names of those elected for a few
counties had been saved from the wreck. The
original blue-books brought the list down to the
end of the Parliament of 1874, while the present
includes the whole of that of 1880, and with the
termination of' the latter a chapter of our political
history came to a close. Owing to the operation
of the Redistribution Act of 1885, several places
which had sent up members to Westminster for
almost as long as a House of Commons had
existed ceased to do so, and an altogether new
order of things was established, the first record
of which may be expected to be issued at no
distant date in continuation of the present Par-
liamentary paper.
It is so natural in these days to talk of
members being ssnt to Westminster that very
few among us recollect that in the earlier days of
the English Parliament there was no such
definite plsce of meeting. The Parliament of
1295, which was the first regular House of
Commons called, certainly assembled at the
place which still sees it meet; but that of the
next year was summoned to Berwick, that of
1298 to York, and later ones gathered at Win-
chester, Oxford, and other cities. It is little
wonder, therefore, that members in those days
required to be paid for their services, for it was
no light matter to a Cornish member, for in-
stance, to go from the westernmost part of the
Kingdom to the most northerly in times when
travelling was both exceedingly difficult and
extraordinarily unsafe. Two shillings per
day were allowed to each representative, the
days being counted from the time of leaving to
that of getting to their own place. Writs for
the amounts required were issued to the bailiffs
of the towns, and the money required seemed so
much to several constituencies that they prayed
to be relieved from the duty of sending mem-
bers at• all. In later days some of those
boroughs, which had upon their own motion
been disfranchised, wished once more to be re-
presented, but they had lost their opportunity,
and were not again allowed the honour.
Bravery is to be recognised wherever it is met,
and when it is displayed' by those who are en-
trusted with the constant care of our domestic
liberties, it is especially to be praised. Every-
one, therefore, will have been glad to see that
Sir Charles Warren, the Chief Commissioner of

the Metropolitan Police, has recognised both by
premium and promotion the conspicuous courage
• shown by a constable who, in endeavouring to
capture a couple of burglars at North Finchley,
- was severely beaten, and thrown upon the rails
of the Glve.t Northern system, where a passing
train added to his injuries. "He giveth twice
who giveth quickly" says the old adage, and the
reward accorded by Sir Charles Warren to the
suffering constable, must have been all the more
acceptable, because it was announced so soon.
There is often a tendency to ridicule and dis-
parage the police, but those who indulge in it
would do well first to inquire whether the
ridicule and disparagement are deserved.
Black sheep there are, as there must
be in every flock; but those who know best the
difficulties and dangers of a policeman's life are
the most ready to acknowledge that the black
sheep in the constabulary force are remarkably
few. Of the pluck and heroism continually dis-
played by many of them the general public never
hears. It is almost impossible to meet a con-
stable who has been many years in the service
without finding that, at some time or another,
he has received severe injuries while engaged in
the execution of his duty. And the remembrance
of this fact ought to do something to check the
thoughtlessness often displayed in commenting
upon every chance shortcoming of some indi-
vidual policeman as if it were characteristic of the
whole force.
After six years of practical cessation of such
rumours, Europe has twice been startled within
the past few weeks with reports of attempts at
assassination of the Czar. From Sunday, March
13, 1881, when the late Emperor was slain in the
streets of St. Petersburg, to Sunday, March 1:1,
1887, when a similar attempt was projected upon
the present ruler of all the Russias, there had
been a lull in the history of Muscovite
• assassination ; but that the lull was only tem-
porary was shown by the fact that, within a
little over a fortnight from this last date,
another effort to kill the Czar was made, and
this tiriie in his own fortified park at Gatschina.
It is difficult to realise what must be the effect
upon any man's nerves of living continually in
an atmosphere laden with rumours of
1_ attempts at assassination. Even the strongest
might be forgiven for quailing under such a
terrible state of things—a state which one would
ithigine no man would wish to be endured by his
'• worst enemy. _ And what must weigh upon the
Czar must be: the remembrance that political
'assassination in his
_dominions is no creation of
• • the. presenVday. Russian history abounds with
in4ances of, it, and the success which has
atthded upon so large a proportion of the
• littetapts cannot but have a disquieting influence
upon the recollection. "Uneasy lies the head
that wears -a- crown," says Shakespeare; he
might have taid it more emphatically if he could
• have foreseen-such a terror-haunted existence as
• that lived by the Czar A,l,axander to-day.
It is not often that .c"Royal proclamation is
'devoted to any subject so humble as halfpence,
but one that was issued a few -days ago strikes
at .nothing higher than this. The increasing
eircillation of foreign copper money in our midst
' liadTecome- A nuisance of large proportions, and
her Majesty's advisers had at length been con-
- viiced that no measure less striking than a
Royal proclamation could abate it. This has
accordingly been published, prohibiting the im-
portation into the United Kingdom of all coins,
ether than gold or silver, made in any foreign
country... The effect, as far as London was con-
serned, was at once apparent. Scarcely had the
• proclamation been posted at the Mansion House
and other public centres in the metropolis, than
the conductors of omnibuses and tramcars re-
fused to lake any foreign coppers as fares, and
even the. newsboys in the streets declined a
French ten-centime piece, which a day before
they would as gladly have accepted as if
• it had been an English penny. The
movement continues to spread, and what those
,
are to do who, in the time before the proclama-
tion was issued,l•had become possessed of any of
these foreign coppers, and • who now cannot get
rid of them, is not easily to be explained. The
professional money-changers would not care to
be bothered with coppers; and if all who happen
to have French "pennies" have to wait until we
visit Paris in order to dispose of them, many
will have to wait a long time. It is a pity that
some benefactor to his species had pievided

method by which those now burdened with the
unexchangeable coins could have cleared them
out of their pockets without undue loss.

Complaint; have been rife during the past few
months that many of the cutting and thrusting
arms, such as swords, cutlasses, and bayonets,
supplied to our naval and military forces, were
not fitted to stand the strain which a state of
war would necessarily put upon them. Any dis-
position that may have existed to ignore these
complaints must have been effectually put aside
by the report which has been issued of the
strong committee recently appointed to consider
the subject of defective naval cutlasses and sword-
bayonets. This states that while there was no
reason to doubt the efficiency of any weapon
supplied prior to 1871, the committee believed
that the converted cutlasses and sword-bayonets
of the pattern 1871, with which the navy is now
for the most part armed, are absolutely untrust-
worthy and unfit for service. Such a judgment
was not only a severe but a startling one, and
the natural consequence of its procla-
mation was that an order was imme-
diately given for the replacing of old and
defective weapons by new and staunch ones. As
long as war exists we have to be prepared to
meet it, and as long as we attempt to be prepared
we must supply our forces of all kinds with the
most efficient arms. The bending of bayonets
and the jamming of guns had much to do with
the comparatively heavy loss of life we suffered
during the operations in the Soudan; but it took
some time even after that deplorable fact had
been made certain, to convince those in au-
thority that a thorough overhauling of our
weapons of offence and defence was not
merely desirable but absolutely necessary. Such
an overhauling has now taken place with regard
to one portion of our weapons, and no one can
say, with the result now before us, that the
trouble it involved has not been more than
repaid.