The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-04-03 00:00:00

ur foOon gorrespOtti.

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

The fcrthcoming visit of the Prince of Wales to India
is of interest, as showing a desire on the part of the
Heir-Apparent to become personally acquainted with.
the characteristics ef the vast empire over which he
will one day be called upon to rule. Few of our
Sovereigns will have seen so much of the world as his
Royal Highness. Half a generation ago he travelled
through our American colonies and the United States' •
and he has since been here and there, almost escreiy
where—except to Australia. Paris, Vienna, Berlin,
St. Petersburg, Rome—all these historic cities are
familiar to the Prince of Wales; and there is ne doubt
that the more a man travels the more he learns. He
is now to see Calcutta, and to roam over a land which
forms one of the most interesting parts of the British
dominions. The Hindoo historians, indeed, ascribe
the origin of their people to a period ages before tho
ordinary chronologies. A race of kings is mentioned
as reigning 2,300 years before the- birth of
Christ, and Buddhism is said to have been in-
troduced more than nine centuries before the
Christian era. Where was Great Britain then—the
country which now lords it over the two hundred
raillions of the Flindoo race? Why, those nine centuries
had almost rolled away before Julius Cesar, at the
head of an expedition from Rome, effected a landing
under the white cliffs of Albion, although those cliffs
were covered with armed men who had gathered
together to oppose him. The teeming population of
that eastern clime were prosperous traders a thousand
years before the triumphant Cmsar contended with
Cassivelaunus, the British general, before Caractacus
was carried in chains to Rome, and Queen Boadicea
was defeated by the Roman commander Sartorius.
Several ancient nations, particularly the Tyrians and
the Egyptians, entered into commercial intercourse
with India, which was partially conquered by Darius
Hystaspes, more than 500 years B.C. and by
Alexander the Great 200 years later. The commerce
between India and the Great Roman empire was
at one time very considerable. Tyre and Sidon
have gone ; Macedon and Sparta are un-
known now; Greece and Rome no longer dominate
the civilized world; Persia and Egypt are but shadows
of their former years; Babylon and Nineveh have dis-
appeared; Carthage was destroyed by the victorious
Romans twenty centuries ago; yet amid all the vicis-
situdes which have befallen other nations, India
remains to this day the most brilliant gem in the
British crownland the brightest star in our com-
mercial constellation. Its busy cities are alive with
the hum of industry; and its plains are intersected
with railways and canals which testify to the presence
of capital and enterprise. Thebes upon the one hand,
and Palmyra on the other, have been numbered with
the dust for countless ages; but the towers and
Pagodas of Calcutta and Delhi are still shining in
all the brilliancy of an Oriental sunlight, while the
voices of a busy population are heard in their thorough-
fares at their base.
The French Embassy at Albert Gate has witnessed
many a gloomy time in the history of its people, but
the sorrow within the stately mansion itself has
seldom been greater than at the death of the Comte
de Jarnac, another victim of the east wind. People
had only just heard of the dangerous illness of the
French Ambassador at the Court of St. James's, when
they learned that he had been carried off in the prime
of his life and manhood. The strictures passed by our
friends across the Channel upon the eccentricities of
the English climate are familiar to most of us. Often
and often, in the early days of spring, when the sun is
shining splendidly over the land, it is accompanied by
a breeze so cutting as to render the sunshine almost
wasted, and to beguile some people into presuming too
early upon the apparently fine weather. That terrible
east wind pierces a joint in many an armour, and
strikes a deadly chill into the frames of the weakly
and the aged. The Comte de Jarnac was indeed
almost as much of a Briton as a Frenchman, seeing
that hi i mother was an Irish and his wife an English
lady; and no one who heard him speak in such
excellent English at the Guildhall banquet in
November, could have supposed that he was a foreigner.
He was ever ready to assist a deserving cause, and
only a few days before his death I saw an announce-
ment in the papers that he had promised to take the
chair at the anniversary festival of a benevolent insti-
tution to be held in June next. Long before the ar-
rival of the spring quarter, however, he has been
stricken down and taken to his rest. Another victim
of the inclement winter, whose death was announced
on the same day as that of the Comte de Jarnac, was
Mr. Hezekiah-Leviticum Bateman, the manager Of
the Lyceum Theatre. No one in Loiadon had done
more to revive the legitimate drama. He took the
Lyceum when the stage was at its lowest, and
gradually improved the public taste until crowded
houses nightly testified to the popularity of Hamlet.
Mr. Bateman's death came upon his friends with
startling suddenness, for only a few hours previously
he had joined a party of acquaintances at the residence
of Mr. Charles Dickens, the son of the eminent author.
All who have been to the South Kensington Museum
will be glad to hear of the distinction which has been
conferred upon Mr. Henry Cole, its founder. Mr.
Cole has for some years been a C.B. (Companion of the
Bath), but he now gets a commandership of the same.
order (K.C.8.), so that he will henceforth be known
as Sir Henry Cole. The Order of the Bath is of early
origin, but it was not formally constituted until
1399 by Henry IV., two clays before his coronation in
the Tower. The times were then not so settled as
they are now, and Henry conferred the order upon
forty-six esquires who had watched throughout the
night, and who, moreover, had bathed. After the
coronation of Charles 11. the order was rather neg-
lected until May, 1725, when it was revived by George
1., who fixed the number of knights at thirty-seven.
In 1815 the Prince Regent enlarged it, forming three
classes Knight Grand Cross (G.C.8.), Knight
Commander (K.C.8.), and Companion (C. B).
Formerly the honour was confined to military
and naval officers, but in 1847 it was opened
to civilians. In these would be included Lord Chief
Justice Cockburn, who received the grand cross
for his services at the Geneva arbitration ; the late Sir
Arthur Helps, who was made a K.C.B. for his contribu-
tions to literature; and Dr. Lyon Playfair, M.P., who
was created a C.B. for the active part which he took in
promoting the Great Exhibition.
The selection of Saturday and Monday as the two
days in the week on which the Tower of London shall be
opened free to the public, shows a desire on the part of
the authorities to meet the wishes of as great a number of
persons as possible. To both of these days the half-
holiday movement has now considerably extended of
late years; and multitudes will thus be enabled to
avail themselves of the free admission who could not
otherwise have done so. There is not a division of the
building which is not . avested with peculiar inte-
rest. It is within twelve months of eight
hundred years ago, since William the Con-
queror marked out the site of the Royal Palace
known as the White Tower in 1076. It was com-
pleted in 1098 by William Rufus, who surrounded it
with walls and a broad deep ditch. Several succeed-
ing princes made additions to i:-,, and King Edward
111. built the church. The White Tower was re-:con-
structed in 1638, and upon the restoration of Charles
11. it was thoroughly repaired. The executions of
illustrious persons and the assassinations which have
taken place in the Tower, will give holiday ramblers
ample food for reflection if they are at all acquainted
with the leading incidents of English history. The old
pile is yet regarded with much veneration, and the
office of Constable of the Tower is always given to a
general who has seen long service. It was filled by
Lord Combermere, mere lately by Sir William
Gomm, and only a few days ago the appointment was
given to General Sir Charles Yorke, who is eighty-five
years old, and has been in the army sixty-five years.
He was in the Peninsula, and at Waterloo. The
Tower would have been opened free for the first time
on Easter Monday had not the officials anticipated an
enormous crowd on a Bank Holiday. It was there-
fore deemed advisable to defer it for a few days.
The fame of the Brighton aquarium has long filled
Londoner.' with a desire to have a similar institution
in their midst, and one is actually in course of con-
struction upon the Thames. There can be no more
interesting study than that of the habits and modes of
life of the denizens of the great deep. Hitherto the
most considerable institution of this kind in or near
the metropolis has been that at the Crystal Palace,
and it has proved one of the attractive features
of the place. It has been laid down as an axiom
that the proper study of mankind is—fishes.
With birds and beasts, the general run of
Persons, have a tolerable acquaintance be-
cause they breathe the same atmosphere that
we do, and the air is as necessary to the mainte-
nance of their existence as to our own. But our know-
ledge of the manners and the customs of the finny
tribe, to which the essential to our life is so much
poison, is necessarily limited, and anything which
tends to increase it should receive every. encourage-
ment. Fish are uncommonly shy, and the utmost
care is required to take them for preservation Cap-
tain Bligh, in his narrative of the mutiny of the
Bounty, relates that in the journey made by him and
his companions in an open boat over 3,600 miles of the
vast Pacific, although they secured several birds by
hand, they caught no fish, notwithstanding that
baited lines were regularly thrown out. Yet in the
body of that calm ocean, in some parts reported to be
five miles deep, there must have been an immense
number of fish of all sizes and descriptions. While
upon this subject I may mention that a French
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been experimenting on the preservation of fish, and
has at last discovered a fluid which will effectually
bring about that result. If this be capable of exten-
sive application, it is likely to have an important bear-
lug upon our food supply, for it is well known that
every year enormous quantities of fish are condemned
in the markets of our great towns as unfit for human
food, either through bad packing, the want of the use
of ice, or other causes.
The increasing popularity of the Bank Holiday
movement is noted on each recurrence of these breaks
in the monotonous round of life. The cessation from
business is perhaps more observable at Christmas and
at Easter than at Whitsurttide, and on th first
Monday in August, because there are special cir-
cumstances connected with the two first-mentione
festivals which do not exist at the other
two periods I have mentioned. At Christmas,
for instance, there are always the 24th, 25th, and 26th,
and often one or two days besides, for holidays and
merry making. Easter gives you Good Friday,
generally the Saturday; on Sunday, of course, no
work is done ; Monday is a holiday by Act of Parlia-
ment ; Tuesday is thrown in as a friendly make-up;
and Wednesday is not unfrequently required to re-
cover from the reaction consequent upon a return to
duty. There is one class, however, to which these
seasons of recreation for the million bring anything
but rest. I refer to the railway officials. Only
upon the most urgent consideration is leave of absence
granted to any of them at such times, for the entire
staff is then necessary to deal with the great augmen-
tation of traffic.

The adjournment of the House of Commons for the
Easter recess on the Tuesday preceding Good Friday,
instead of on the Thursday, as originally arranged,
was inevitable. Indeed, the Prime Minister found it
impossible to keep the representatives of the people
together. At times it was with the greatest difficulty
that a quorum of forty could be collected, in order to
prevent the collapse of important business. "We
will away to the woods, away! "seemed to be the pre-
vailing sentiment, and it was hopeless to struggle
against it. Her Majesty's faithful Commons will
doubtless return to their labours, invigorated and
refreshed after their brief rest from legislative work.
The Lords have a somewhat longer relaxation. They
separated on the 19th of March, and do not reassemble
until the Bth of April.