The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-08-13 00:00:00

Ett tottrirlibge elisertur.

SATURDAY , AUGU ST 13th, 1881.
TUE APPROACHING RECiI SS.

THE Banquet to Her Mditisty 'a Ministers, which
was held at ths Msnsinn lionse on Saturday
evening, ought by rights to trove been considered

as the -cloying sot of che Parlismeurtary Si,FBl"l3. •
It took place on the 6th of Augast, As the
Muse met on tha th of Jauuary, 1. had been
sitting seven months, whereas the ordinary
legislative year is acces!orced to last but six.
The fact that f-A2 that veiy day the House of
Commons bet for the tirbt tiote.r..n a Saturday,

_
was in itself a sufficient indication that the

prorogation is near at had. It way be assumed,
with tolerabLe cortainty, that before the present
. . . .

mouth is over the whole of the business will have

bben wound up, cud that the long dravcia out
gassiou of 1881 will havt, come to an end. With

- txceptions too insignificant to require notice,
the time of Parliament bas been excint,ively
devoted to Irish affdirs, a fact which wiil be
borne in mind by the Administration in driwing
up ha list of measures for 11,82. No part of a
great empire can perpetually monopolise the time
of Parliament, where all equally require legisla-
tion.

It hue become the habit in this country to
tiole the autumnal holiday by the rising of Par-
liament, ethoegh there is no doubt that this
produces considerable inconvenience When the
two Houses of Legislature sit into September,
as they did last year, the annual vacetion is
driven into shortened days, and chill October is
ripen us almost before we know where we are.
There is no other civilisee; country in which the
makers of the nation's laws de vere themselves to
the hardest of their work in the best part of the
summer. In France and ie the United Statea
the Chambers are convoked in November, and
separate in May or June, thus giving the loug
days to purposes of recreation. The slightest
reflection will show how important this consider-
ation if. A day in the middle of September
has not so much sunshine as one in the midcUe
of June by at least four hours, and a great deal
of holiday work may be done in that time. So
far as convenience for those whose holidays de-
pend upon the rising of Parliament, the existing
arrangealent is about the worst that could be de-
vised, but in a matter of this kind there is a con-
servative instinct which long militates against
the idea of change, and postpones any alteration
as long as it is possible to do so.
But although Parliament has not yet risen, the
Royal Yacht Squadron Regatta at Cowes is an
irresistible reminder that the Loudon season has
practically ended. The season is that period of
aristocratic and fashiouable life in the metropolis
which witnesses a concentration oi all descrip-
tions of engagements —garden parties, drives,
and pic-nics by day, arid belie, coneerte, on
parties at night. These are, to use a familiar
expression, in full awing between the Parlia-
mentary recess at Whitsuntide and the first
week of .August, when the occupants of the
West-end squares begin to wove away. Now
that Goodwood is over, and the Session is nearly
at an end, there is nothing to keep in town the
majority of those who nave found life a continual
round of enjoyment for two or three months
past. After the Twelfth of August, when
grouse-shooting begins, it is extremely difficult
to keep Parliament together. The jaded legis-
lature longs to be off to the moors or the High-
lands, there to recruit his exhausted energies
aaa t prepare for the severe and increasing
Isbenr which Parliamentary duties entail.
There are of course cenaiu recognised haunts
of fashion where toe Loudon seaeon will repeat
itself. The Meditetranean in tneee days of
screw steamers is practically little further from
the metropolis than Brighton. Nor is the choice
of the waled of fashion thus limited. It has be-
come the habit of late years to pay dying visits
to the Antipodes, to Caliieruia, to Japan, to the
West Indies, to the Sareteich Islands, and to
Spitsbergen. Hew,: the ditli:mity of getting
Parliament together ter an eutaien. weehon when
an emergency aria's fur seeii en occurrence.
This, it must be admitted, la not often the case.
There was suoh a contingency in -1078, when
the two Houses had to be eanemoned in connec-
tion with provicing for the expenses of the
Afghan war, which was entered upon after the
prorogation. But members of Parliament s, par-
ate without dreaming of having to come back
again before Christmas; and after such a session
as this has been none wilt grudge them their
well-earned holiday.