The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-10-30 00:00:00

Our Nonbon Corttspodent.

[We deem it right to state that we do net at an times
Identify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.

When the two Houses of Parliament were pro-
rogued on the 7th September, the Lord Chancellor
announced that the prorogation of the Legislature
would extend to the 24th November, then to meet
for the despatch of business. The addition of these
words is a merely formal matter, for the constitution
assumes that no indefinite time shall elapse between
the separation of Parliament and its meeting again.
A week or two before the 24th November the
Cabinet will probably meet and decide upon a
further prorogation of sixty or seventy days, the
state of the country not requiring that the lords
spiritual and temporal, and the representatives of
the people shall assemble for deliberation at West-
minster. There is, however, some speculation in
London as to the possibility 'of a winter session.
Eastern affairs and Ireland, separately and combined,
are looked upon as disturbing inflnences well calcu-
lo.ted to involve the necessity of summoning the
Legislature. A winter session is not generally re-
sorted to except in cases of great national emergency.
There was one In 1837, when Lord Palmerston's
Government, having amid a financial crisis suspended
the Bank Charter Act, brought Parliament together
for a Bill of Indemnity, and immediately obtained it.
There was another in 1867, to take a vote for the
expenses of the expedition to Abyssinia. There
was one in 1878, to adjust the expenditure
for the Afghan war. These were all exceptional
occasions, rendering essential the meeting of Parlia-
ment before the usual time in February. It may be
added that a Winter Session is resorted to by any
Ministry with extreme reluctance, and only as an
urgent necessity which cannot possibly be got over in
any other way. It is difficult to get the members to-
gether. They have made their arrangements for the
recess on the understanding that they will not be wanted
until February, and have gone to the east, to the west,
to the north, and to the south, some on business, and
others upon pleasure bent. They are in India and
China, Australia and Japan, in places so far apart
as the United States and the Eastern Archipelago,.
far away enough from Westminster, and beyond the
call of the Queen's Proclamation which command
their attendance at home.

On the eve of the re-assembling of the Law Courts,
after the Long Vacation, and when the judges and
members of the Bar had come up to London for an-
other year of work, the death of Lord Justice
Thesiger, at the age of forty-two, came as a painful
shock to those who, having watched his brief judicial
experience, had predicted that a long career of useful-
ness was before him. Since the Courts separated in
August, two judges have died—the oldest and the
youngest upon the Bench—Chief Baron Kelly and the
junior Lord Justice, the former at eighty-four years of
age, and the latter at just one-half. It is only
about two years ago that death removed the late
Lord Chelmsford, the father of the recently-deceased
Lord Justice, at the advanced age of 84. At that
time of life, after a long and honourable career, a
man's work is done, and no work is harder than that
of a man in the full tide of practice at the bar or upon
the Bench. The former, aftera prolonged day in Court,
is often engaged during a considerable part of the night,
mastering fresh briefs ; while in the case of a judge
the announcement is freouently enough seen that his
lordship reserved his decision. That means that
after he leaves the Court, and when he has returned
home, he spends hours in referring to authorities,
searching for precedents and getting up an elaborate
judgment, which although condensed in the daily
papers, finds its way fully into the columns of the
journals devoted exclusively to the law. But lawyers
are so famous for longevity that when a judge dies at
forty-two, it is felt that the public, no less than the
legal profession, sustain a loss by the going down of a
brilliant sun while it is yet noon.

It is on the 2nd of November in every year that the
Lord High Chancalor of England, officially styled the
Keeper of the Queen's Conscience, play a very prominent
part in two important ceremonials. In the forenoon of
that day the Lord Mayor Elect of London, accompanied
by the Sheriffs, and attended by the Recorder, the
Swordbearer, the City Marshal, and the Remem-
brances, proceeds to the Lord Chancellor's residence
in State, and is formally presented to his lordship,
who then conveys her Majesty's approval of the
choice of a chief magistrate which had been made by
the citizens of London. It may be remarked that
Inndon is the only municipality in the kingdom which
presents its mayor to the reigning monarch for an ex-
pression of the sovereign's approval; but on the other
hand the Corporation possesses privileges not shared in
by other civic bodies. For instance the citizens of Lon-
don elect their own Sheriffs, which eyerywhere else are
appointed by the Crown. The ceremony of presenting
tha Ignld3s-61-ifißkVinciltta.icilt to-iffetfthW 14 it 6'n—t;SCl
approbation of the sovereign was withheld—is of a
very ornate character. The Recorder furnishes the
Lord Chancellor with a brief biographic sketch of the
new chief magistrate's career; and the Chancellor in
well-rounded phrases and stately language conveys the
Royal will and pleasure accordingly. Then the loving
cup, a handsome golden bowl filled with the richest
wine and beautifully decorated with flowers, is passed
round, the Lord Chancellor taking the lead by
drinking the new Lord Mayor's health, the latter re-
sponding by drinking to Her Majesty and the Lord.
Chancellor, and passing it on to the next in order. This
interesting engagement having been disposed of, the
company takes leave of the Chancellor and departs.
No sooner has this high legal dignitary waved his
farewell to one set of guests than another begins to
arrive within his gates. His lordship has, as usual,
issued invitations to a breakfast to her Majesty's
.Tudges, Queen's Counsel, and Serjeants all learned in
the law; and on this the first day of the Michaelmas
sittings, they gather under the Chancellor's hospitable
roof, looking for the most part fresh and ruddy
after their three months' holiday, and ready for the
hard work of another legal year. After breakfast
the whole party, in carriages, starts for Westminster
Hall, the Lord Chancellor at its head. There his
lordship opens the business of the sittings, and the
several judges file off to their respective Courts,
where, however, not much serious work is attempted
during the first afternoon. The Long Vacation has
somewhat relaxed the legal mind, and it cannot be
braced together again all at !once. On the first day
staid Queen's Counsel, no less than their lively juniors,
linger over the memories of the past, and enjoy again
in their mental vision, the days which they have spent
amongst the winged grouse or in the pursuit of the
finny tribe.
The American metorologists who predicted for us
one of the warmest Octobers on record, have for once
fallen short of the accuracy which so often charac-
terises those forecasts. Instead of the warmest, the
month has been the coldest October in these islands
for a quarter of a century. The equinoctial gales,
having been comparatively mild this year, left a con-
siderable proportion of foliage still upon the trees;
and when in mid-October, for the first time in
three-and-twenty years, a snow-storm passed over the
land, the flakes clung so tenaciously to the leaves
that the weight broke down the branches in all
directions. It seems strange to read of giant
oaks being maimed and mutilated in this way but
the grounds of the Crystal Palace supplied ample
testimony to the devastation which the snow storm
had wrought amongst the woods which form so con-
spicuous a feature of the surroundings of that popular
institution. The building itself, as it generally does,
escaped injury amid the heavy descent of snow, its
semi-circular roof acting as a very effectual safeguard
against any appreciable lodgment of snow upon it.
But for some time to come the miniature forests and
plantations round about the Palace will show traces
of the October snow-storm which is almost a pheno-
menon in this country.
The international balloon contest was regarded with
much interest on both sides of the Channel. The
balloons were to have started from the Crystal Palace
on the day after the Lord Mayor had entertained at
the Mansion House the President of the Municipal
Council of Paris, the Burgomaster of Brussels, and
other foreign guests. His lordship, with the Pre-
eident, the Burgomaster, and the Sheriffs of London,
went down to the Palace on a wild and wintry day to
witness the ascent, but the weather was unfavour-
able, and the visitors had to be content with
a handsome luncheon which had been provided by
the Palace directors. The competition, however,
came off on the next day, both the balloons of
France and England taking a south-westerly direc-
tion, and travelling to Havant, a distance of about 65
miles, in two hours. This, it will be at once seen, is a
rate of speed equalling that of many a line of railway
in this kingdom; and when the two sets of aeronauts
suet on the next night at the rooms of the English
Belloon Society in the Adelphi, they received many
congratulations on the success which had attended I
their rapid voyage through the air. In the machine
navigated by the English aeronauts was Commander
Cheyne, who so energetically prosecutes his desire for
a balloon expedition to the North Pole.
This is what is often called the dull season, when, no
Parliament being in session, and the newspapers
having to fill their space as usual, attention is given to
subjects which ordinarily would not claim so much
notice. But a subject of very deep interest to the
inhabitants of London and to all from the provinces
who have to come to the metropolis in the winter, has
lately been started—and that is, how to prevent those
stifling fogs which in the dark months wrap like a
winding sheet of death round the capital. Last
winter these visitations were as destructive to life as

an epidemic, so that their prevention is a matter
of enormous moment to the inhabitants of London.
Yet opinions as to the possibility of this differ as
widely as do the conjectures as to their cause and
origin. Some scientific men hold that, being duo to
smoke alone, the fogs are entirely preventible; others
contend that the peculiar configuration of the Thames
basin will always cause fog to be an accompaniment
of its existence. Some maintain that fog arises from
an abnormal quantity of damp, while it is an un-
doubted fact that the last winter was a singularly dry
one, and that the fogs were worse than any which had
been experienced during mcre than thirty years.
It is possible that very few who take part in the
Fifth of November celebrations know much of their
origin, or of the stirring incidents which gave rise t 3
them. But the placing of thirty-six barrels of gun-
powder in the vaults beneath the Houses of Parlia-
ment by Guy Fawke s and his fellow conspirators,
in anticipation of the session of 1605, leads to the
observance of a very solemn custom previously to the
opening of every Parliamentary session even to
this day. The officers of the Serjeant-at-Arms,
furnished with lighted flambeaux, and fully as
prepared for emergencies as though the terrible
Fawkes himself, with Catesby, Percy, and Winter,
were still gliding about the vaults with dark
lanterns in their hands, make a careful search
all through these subterranean regions, if haply a
conspirator against the safety of sovereign, lords, and
commons might be found lurking there. The lapse of
two centuries and three quarters has made no difference
in the strict observance of this usage, and there is little
doubt that for ages yet to come it will be carried out
as surely as the tide will ebb and flow past the
sumptuous pile in which the legislators of the future
will assemble for the purpose of making laws for the
increasing population of these realms.