The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-07-24 00:00:00

Our frilOon 6orrtsyndent.
_iWe dAern it right to state that ore do not at all ulna,
'kentify ourselves with unr. Correspondent's opinions.

The rise competition at Wimbledon has not this year
escaped the experience of previous summers so far as
storms and floods have been concerned. At one hour
the :scamp might be simmering in a sultry heat; at the
next drenched with rain as the result of a violent
thunderstorm. In fact, this season, as far as it has
gone, has been a repetition of 1878, equatorial heat
broken up by tropical tempests, the heat and the tem-
pests alternately winning, but the latter scoring the
victory in the end. For twenty years has the camp
een pitched at Wimbledon, and in only one of
these years—the marvellous summer of 1868—
has there been uninterrupted sunshine through-
out the whole fortnight. Such a year as that
is not however, often vouchsafed to us it
these latitudes of variable currents and changing
temperatures; for week after week the sky above was
like burning brass, and so parched did fields
become that the dried grass was as tinder an I was ~et
on fire in many places by the sparks from pm ;ii g
railway engines. And while upon the land no rain
fell the captains of ocean steamers I,:' • I vinc a 4 the
ports were enabled to tell of a very considei mile rain
all at sea; indeed, the decks of the ships were scarcely
ever dry. That, however, is a year which does not
often visit these islands in the lifetime of man; and so
far as 1880 is concerned, the riflemen who had spent a
fortnight under canvas at Wimbledon will have been
enabled to describe on their return home some of the
discomforts which are incidental to life in the tented
field.

There is nothing more incongruous than evening
dress in broad daylight, but when the House of Com-
mons does not rise until five in the morning, the
aded legislators in evening dress may be seen making
their weary way acioss Palace Yard in the bright sum-
mer sunshine before it has bee9nae mingled with the
smoke arising from the homes of a vast population.
Evening dress is all very well in a brilliantly4ighted
room—lighted artificially—but it is out of place in the
garish eye of day. And when the benches of the House
of Commons, late at night, are crowded with gentle-
men who have dined and
,are in evening dress, the
sight, illuminated by the transparent ceiling,
is well worth gazing upon from either of the
galleries. But when hour after hour goes on, the dawn
breaks, the gas is at length turned off, and the heavy
crimson curtains are drawn back, letting in the fresh
morning sun upon the handful of tired talking men, a
ghostly glamour seems to linger round the scene, and
the observer cannot help thinking that there is an air
of unreality about it which never ought to exist in
regulating the sittings of a legislative assembly. On
this particular occasion the House sat thirteen hours
without a break; and when it adjourned at a quarter
to five, Ministers went home with the reflection that
they were expected in their departments at ten or a
little after, and in the House again at two o'clock that
day. Rather trying times, it must be admitted, for
gentlemen some of whom are more than seventy years
of age.

The rush of French from London to Paris last week
was really extraordinary. Multitudes of our neigh-
bours sojourning in the British capital besieged the
London Bridge and Charing Cross Stations, all trying
to get their tickets at once, to talk at once, and above
all to get to Paris at once, as though their very lives
depended upon it. Those who were left behind—very
few comparatively speaking—celebrated their fête at
the Alexandra Palace, where illuminations, fireworks,
and French national music both inside arid out, enabled
them to commemorate the distribution of flags by the
President of the Republic. On that day, 91 years
before, the red and blue of the city of Paris was first
blended with the white of the Bourbons, and the
famous tricolour was created, the flag which is asso-
•
ciated with all that is grandest in French history.
And later on, on the same day more than fourscore
' years afterwards, the Emperor sat in council with his
generals, making out those plans for the war against
Prussia on which he had decided, and for which the
Imperial family has paid so terrible a penalty. Those
who saw him before and after that day say that he was
a changed man from that time, for already he felt
that the reed upon which lie leant was breaking in his

for Majesty's promise tliat there shall be an in-
, :K_'etion of the Volunteers in Windsor Great Park at
no distant day was peculiarly welcome after the dis-
appointment caused by the abandoning of the pro-
posed review in Hyde Park. That would have been
a graceful and popular recognition of the strength
and solidaritY of a movement which has this year at-
tained its majority so far as the completion of
.the
twenty-first year of its existence is concerned. An
inspection in the great park at Windsor will scarcely,
as a spectacle, equal a review in the Park of Hyde,
like that which took place before the Queen and the
Prince Consort twenty years ago; still it is better than
nothing and the riflemen who sacrifice so much of their
time to attain proficiency ih their military duties, will be
all the mo-e hearty in the discharge of those duties, after
a gracious recognition from the sovereign in person.
The Queen is partial to military spectacles, not for
the sake of mere ostentation and display, but because
she takes a real interest in her soldiers. Her Majesty's
frequent visits to Aldershot; and more recently the
review of the Aldershot division at Windsor, are an
ample testimony to the fact that the constantly-
pressing cares of State do not interfere with the
Queen's attention to the condition of her army.
On the 18th July, 1878, Lord Beaconsfield, who
with Lord Salisbury had returned from the German
capital two days previously, explained to the House of
L:r.:ls the provisions of the Treaty of Berlin; and
soi ; of these a Conference of the Powers in the same
city has lately assembled to enforce. The settlement of
the new G,reek frontier has been the knotty point at
issue. The Turks are unwilling to concede that which
the Congress at Berlin recommended two years ago, and
which the Conference—a less influential body—now
calls upon the Moslem in stronger language to grant.
It is always curious to note how a cloud in Sopth-
Eastern Europe sets all the nations in a state of
anxiety and unrest. It was Napoleon who used
to say that when France was satisfied, Europe
was tranquil: and this was true so long as a
revolution in France was able to kindle commotion
elsewhere. This was so in 1789, in 1830, and
again in 1848. Bat after all, uneasiness in France
can pass away without causing a general Euro-
pean conflagration ; while disturbances in Turkey
set the whole of her neighbours watching for
the arrival of the time when they may pounce
upon their prey. Russia, Austria, and Germany,
used to be regarded as the chief sinners in this respect,
but their number has been increased in recent times
by the nationalities which have been more or less
taken out of the Turkish empire, Greece, Roumania,
Servia, Bulgaria, East Roumelia, and Montenegro,
the whole of which would expect something to fall
to their share if the Turish Empire went to pieces.

The' Coffee iTaverns movement, one of the latest
phases of social reform, having proved a commercial
succeps, i undergoing a new •development in London.
The Co fee Miisic Hall Company has been
formed, the object of which is to start respectable
places of amusement, with low prices of admission
and withou facilities for becoming intoxicated. The
first step has been taken in the purchase of the Victoria
Theatre, haad by the Waterloo Railway station.
It is to be opened for good musical entertainmeots in
connection with a coffee palace which is now in course
of construction. The experiment is a bold one; but
in such a crowded locality there must be many
amongst the humbler classes of quieter tastes than
those which were for so many years accustomed to
cheer the perfor.mances at the "Vic." It has been tried
at Birmingham, and has proved a great success. It is
a happy idea to begin this movement with music. In
the dark days, when this country earned the title of
"Merry England," music was a national pastime.
Tbe love of music, if revived, might restore to the life
of the humbler orders some of the old joyousness of
their forefathers without this being stimulated in any
way by artificial means.

Sir Edward Watkin, M.P., in presiding at the half-
yearly meeting of the Metropolitan Railway Com-
pany, mentioned the fact that during the past half-
year more than thirty-one millions of passengers had
been carried over the line. This is a number equal to
the population of the-whole of the United Kingdom.
Yet the rally-, a,y is not more than six miles in length,
burrowing as it does under the streets of London
between Aldgate on the east to Paddington on the
west. There is very little of this enormous carrying
agency to be seen. The long-talked of Inner Circle
is again before Parliament, that is to say, a piece of
line connecting the Mansion House Station of the
District Railway with the Aldgate Station of the
Metropolitan. This will pass under some of the
costliest property in the City of London, and unless
the companies can obtain Parliamentary powers for
underpinning the buildings affected by the construc-
tion of their line, instead of being compelled to pur-
chase them, the expense must be enormous. The
chairman mentioned the case of one warehouse alone
in Eastcheap, the acquisition of which would involve
an expenditure of 2150,000, while to underpin it
would represent but a trifle. And yet Eastcheap is
but a small proportion of the district beneath which
the Inner Circle Completion line must pass, if the
project is ever to be carried out, one which would
add immensely to the convenience of business men
frequenting the city of London.

A bicycle journey from Ostend to Pesth h,ts just
been accomplished in twenty days by a Hungarian. Et,
travelled on an average eighty:4mo mile!) a day.