The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1888-06-23 00:00:00

LONDON CORRESPONDENCE,

(We deem it right to state that we do not at all times identify
ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions,]

,

No death of a foreign potentate for many a
year has so affected the English people as that
of the Emperor Frederick of Germany. It was
not merely that the illustrious sufferer had
passed through a period of trial and sufferin
with a graciousness of dignity that had earnec
the sympathetic approbation of the world;
though that of itself would have given the latE
Emperor a title to consideration from all. But
almost in the strictest sense he was one of our.
selves, and as such he had always been re-
garded by the people of these realms since thE
day, now just more than thirty years ago, when
he led to the altar the Princess Royal of England;
eldest daughter of our own Sovereign, and hence-
forth to be known as Dowager Empress Victoria
Last year, when the great jubilee celebration
was held at Westminster Abbey, no figure was
more marked by the vast crowds assembled
along the route than the white-clad Crown
Prince of Germany, who with marshal's baton
in hand and gold-eagled helmet on head, rode
proudly along by the side of the Queen, and was
the most heartily cheered of all that glittering
"escort of Princes." It was then almost impos-
sible to conceive that, seated in his throat, was
the beginning of that fell disease which at
length has laid him low. But small causes often
fell the greatest oaks • and the Emperor Frederick
has succumbed after a period of tribulation
which has been terrible in its intensity,
but he has passed away amid the grief of the
German people and the deep-seated sympathy of
the whole of the civilised world. What was said
of Washington at his death might be used as a
most fitting epitaph for the late Emperor—
" First in war; first in peace; and first in the
hearts of his countrymen.'
As a rule war correspondents are not very
popular with the military authorities, and at a
time of campaign, the restrictions upon them are
apt to be both many and irksome. But even
those Generals who have least liked them in
the past are beginning to see that in
the present condition of the public mind,
special correspondents are a practical neces-
sity of the situation, for the taxpayer claims
a right of knowing what is going on at the seat
of war, and how his own soldiers are faring and
are being treated; and the consequence is that
of late there has grown up a distinctly more
friendly feeling between the military authorities
and the representatives of the press, which may
in the future have excellent results. One of the
fruits of this more friendly feeling was furnished
a few days ago, when Lord Wolseley unveiled in
the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral a memorial
brass to those war correspondents who fell during
the various Soudanese campaigns. These men
had died in doing their duty to the British public,
and in their degree deserved honour side by side
with the soldiers who perished in those disas-
trous times. It is not always remembered by
the purchasers of newspapers what an amount
of risk has frequently to be run in procuring
their mental pabulum; and it was only fitting
that the presence on this melancholy and yet
pleasing occasion of one of the best known of
our English generals should have emphasised the
debt which is popularly owed to the press heroes
of the Soudan.
There is such a rage for athletics in these days
that it is well to be told, upon competent authority,
how far it can be indulged in without danger.
One such authority has just spoken, and it states
that the main danger to be apprehended from
indulgence in athletics is their being undertaken
when the individual is not in "condition," or
when he is too old. It adds that a game like
football should be played regularly, if played at
all, and that there should be a life calendar of
games for the different ages of beginning, perhaps,
with football and running, or with cricket and
lawn tennis to bowls, golf, and archery. There is
undoubtedly, much common-sense in this sue.'' -
gestion, because it tallies so closely with most
people's experience as to their feelings when
they attempt at a later age games and
exercises which they had no difficulty in
performing at an earlier. A good player at
lawn-tennis observed a few days ago that, now
he was forty, he must be thinking of giving it up,
as he found that thougla he retained all his old
technical skill, he was very hard put to it when
set to compete with a young fellow half his age.
And as it would be exceedingly hard upon those
who are fond of outdoor games and exercises to
be deprived of all further chance of participating
in them simply because they are over forty, the
suggestion that they may then turn to the
milder physical excitement of bowls and archery
is worth working out.
A development of the telegraphic system which,
in a time of popular turbulence, might have im-
portant results, has just been effected by the
authorities in charge of the metropolitan police,
for a network of wires has recently been laid be-
tween Scotland-yard and the various constabu-
lary stations of London which would enable on
an emergency, a force to be summoned from
every part for concentration upon any one
quarter, and the value of this is self-evident.
But at the very moment that the police are being
congratulated upon this development of enter-
prise, complaints are being raised by the medical
profession that the telegraphic system is not all
that could be desired when messages
freighted with the possibilities of human
life are in question. Doctors complain
that owing to the dilatory manners of clerks and
the want of due facilities for needful Sunday
communication, lives are often placed in peril
and sometimes, indeed, are lost; while they have
a further complaint that the public are often so
careless that the address of the patient is
omitted from the message, with consequent fric-
tion and delay. There is much to be said on all
these points, but as to the last the public only
- can be blamed, for there is far too general a care-
lessness on this matter of omitting addresses,
which frequently puzzles not only doctors but
ordinary business men.
"Bathing Fatalities," as a newspaper heading,
is as unhappily common in the summer as
"Skating Fatalities" in the winter, and so
large an element of thoughtlessness enters into
both, that it is never inopportune to call atten-
tion to the causes which, if noted in time, would
prevent many of them from taking place. There
is one point, for instance in connection with
,fa'al bathing accidents, which is so simple that
it ought always to be insisted upon, and that is
Ithat no one ought to enter the water soon
after partaking of a hearty meal. Early as it
is in the summer, there have already been
some cases reported this year where the
cause of death was directly traceable tc
a violation of this precaution; and any
doctor will be able to give a perfectly
lucid physiological reason why this should
be so. It is best always to wait for
at least an hour and a half or two hours after a
good meal before bathing, and if this point were
always as carefully attended to as it deserves,
many families which are now plunged into grief
by the death through drowning of some one of
their members would be spared the pain.
A curious example of the changes which are
always taking place in trade was afforded a few
days ago at the annual meeting of the London
• Coffee-shop Keepers' Benevolent Association.
It was reported that during the rather more
than half-a-century in which this insti-
tution has been in existence, its re-
sources have never been so severely strained
as they have been recently. Various explana-
tions can be given of this, though on the very
face of matters it seems strange that at the
• very time that temperance is obviously more and
more spreading among the working classes, the
coffee-shops should be so badly hit. But the very
cause which might have been thoughttobe certain
-to operate in their favour has, in point of fact,
militated against them. To meet the growing
demand of the workers for cheap, wholesome, and
non-intoxicating drinks, combined with eatables of
good quality at reasonable prices, there have been
set on foot establishments of large size and with
widespread connections, which have put the old-
fashioned coffee-shops into the shade. It may
seem harsh to say so, but no one who has studied
the matter can doubt that these latter have not
advanced with the times. Rather, they have
relatively retrograded, and the consequence has
been that the public these days which likes
everything light and airy, objects to the stuffy
dark boxes which our fathers may have ad-
mired, and around which Dickens contrived to
throw even a little romance, but which do not
appeal to any sensations of pleasure among the
people of to-day.
Richard Trevithick, the Cornish engineer, who
was the first to place a locomotive upon the rails
but who lacked the practical shrewdness of
George Stephenson, who made the locomotive
live, has had to wait a long time for popular
recognition. Though he has been dead about
sixty years, it is only now that a memorial has
been set up in Westminster Abbey to his honour,
and there is a ceatain grimness in the situation
bcc Luso of the fact that this man, who was one
of the most gifted engineers this century has
seen, died in abject poverty, and lies in Dept-
ford Churchyard without as much as a
stone to mark his grave. By his

vention of the high -pressure engine aria
the cylindrical boiler, he conferred a great
benefit upon the commercial world, but he never
reaped much for himself, because he was filled
with such gigantic projects that they proved to
him to be merely will-o'-the-wisps which led him
to ruin. There is always
.a deep melancholy
attaching to a career which is shattered by want
of what is commonly known as "ballast." How
often in our daily life do we see men of great
natural talent ruined from this one cause, for in
the hard struggle of existence it is tact oven
more than talent which customarily wins the
victory. A. F. R.