The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-03-15 00:00:00

eat youbou Cortzsptabill.
XS deem It • ight to state that we do not at all than
*IA* ourselves w to cUr Correspondent's .pinionai

About the best news just now is the incontrovertible
fact that coals are coming down—vide quotations
passim-Ahem° quotations at the time of writing fluc-
tuating between 294. and 395. per too. They must
come down lower, though it will be a long time,
perhaps, before they are lowered to the prices at
which they stood about three years ago. There
are three main causes of the present decrease in price.
In the first place the recent enormous rates have
lessened the demand and diminished the consumption
(by no means the same thing) ; then several new com-
panies have been started to work fresh coal fields or
re opened others that had been temporarily abandoned;
and finally some substitutes or auxiliaries—"duff," coke
breeze, &c.-.-have been employed, and various economi-
cal exp. clients, such as chalk, fire-clay, and numerous fire-
savers of every imaginable variety have been adopted.
For my own part I am free to confess that I wish the
price of coals had gone up, up, up to absolutely famine
price. The evil would not have lasted long, and mean-
while some permanent remedies for that unhappy state
of affairs would have been infallibly discovered. We
shibuld have had new coal fields discovered that may
now lie for a century unknown; we should have had
coal-cutting machines to bring colliers to their senses;
we should have had co-operative companies to perform
the same operation on colliery proprietors and Goal
merchants.

I am glad to observe that Mr. Laing, who has an
extended knowledge of the working of the railway
system, has given notice in"the House of-Commons, that
he will move that "in the opinion of that House, taxes
OD the means of locomotion are opposed to public policy
and ought to be abolished." The railway passenger
tax is a great grievance to the railway interest, and it
works very unfairly with regard to the public. It is
chiefly owing to this tax of 5 per cent, on passenger
receipts that there is on the railways generally less
accommodation for third-class passengers than there
would otherwise be. Where there are, as on long
lines, parliamentary trains at a penny a mile the re-
ceipts of this class f passengers are exempt from taxa-
tion, but parliamentary travelling, as everybody knows,
is quite the exception to the rule, and on the enormous
amount of third-class fares, thus accommodating the
great mass of the people, this taxation falls very
heavily. The railway companies especially complain,
and mit without good cause, of having to pay 5 per
vent, on this third-class traffic, and it is peculiarly
hard when companies—the Metropolitan for example
—have to compete with tramways. Moreover, railway
shareholders—and many people of straitened means
have nothing else to depend upon but their railway
shares—are twice taxed. They have to pay 5 per cent.
on the legitimate earning of their line, and then their
railway dividends are taxed. It is a great-question
whether, as Mr. Laing puts it, railway traffic should
be taxed at all, but at any rate I think Mr. Lowe
might fairly remove the tax from third-claas passengers.

No one is likely to begrudge the honour paid to Mr.
Scudamore in giving him a public banquet in Edin-
burgh, and he well deserves the compliments paid to
him by the Lord Provost. Mr. Scudamore frankly
attributes the efficiency of the Post Office to the
department being constantly under the public eye.
The public should take the hint, and urge upon this
gentleman (with whom the matter seems to rest) the
redustion of United Kingdom telegrams from is. to 6d.
It is somewhat anomalous that while plays, the
moral, or rather immoral tendency of which is un-
mistakable, are permitted, in this "happy land" of
presumed political freedom personal allusions to the
puwers that be are not allowed on the stage, provided
those allusions are of a decidedly uncomplimentary
character. Some readers may remember that certain
pantomimic allusions to Mr. Lowe and the matches
were prohibited, and that from one of i'he pantominea
the following lines were struck out by order :

What?.make a speech all gammon and no spinach?

frye take me for • Gladsto-ne down at Greenwich?
A similar course, on a larger scale, taken by the Lord
Chamberlain, is now exciting consider able interest.
At the Royal Court Theatre—which by the way was
vi•ited by the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edin-
burgh before the now revised and corrected play was
altered—was produced a burlesque, the leading feature
of which was that the fairies of the moon summoned
three mortals from below to teach the said fairing
the mysteries of popular government. These
three mortals were cleverly made up to represent
three members of the Government, and these
three gentlemen were certainly pretty considerably
ridiculed, much to the delight of the audience,
for, as schoolboys always enjoy making fun
of their masters, so we are generally delighted at the
ridicule of our rulers. No meaner did it get abroad that
this wee the leading feature of the burlesque than the
house was crammed during the two or three night
that the play was permitted, and then the Lord
Chamberlain suddenly interdicted the performance in
this particular. This incident-has naturally drawn at-
tention to the censorship of plays generally and to the
system of licensing theatres and places of public enter-
tainment—a matter in which there undoubtedly needs
some reform.

Mr. Ayrton has been for some time past about the
best abused man in the present Government, and
he has been to a great extent abused for no
better reason than that it has been the fashion
a fassion which is now wearing itself out. He
has now, however, an opportunity of becoming
popular. Ile has lust been appointed chairman of the
House cl Commons Select Committee to inquire into
the exiat;ng cause of the high price of coaL Much will
depend on the goof generalship of the chairman of
this committee, and I hope it will set to work vigor-
ously, and let us know where lies the fault of our
having to pay ouch extortionate prices for our
black diamonds.

We are always too apt to forget our benefactors,
and sometimes we strive to do honour to their memory
when they have passed away in poverty and neglect.
The name of the late Lieut. Waghorn, once so familiar
to the public, has now re-appeared and illustrates this
fact. This gentleman was the pioneer of the overland
route to India, the adoption of which has been of incal-
ridable service to Great Britain and her Indian Ern-
pire. Re never received a fitting reward for rendering
us this service, and now and again sine, his death we
have heard that his three sisters were in embarrassed
circumitances. It is gratifying, therefore, to hear
that 111 r. Gladstone has rec =mended an annuity of
£25 severally to each of these three ladies. True, the
amount is n it much, but then we must bear in mind
that the fund at the command of Government for all
such purposes is only £1,200 a year.
The famous Great Eastern, Mr. Scott Russell's big
ship that has had so marvellous a history, has now on
board the whole of the deep-sea section of a new At-
lantic cable to be laid by, or rather for the French.
Transatlantic Cable Company. There are already
three submarine cables between America and (prac-
tically, though not nominally)our own country, but the
telegraphic rates are still so high that there is ample
room for a fourth line, the only doubt being whether,
as the new cable that is to be laid belongs to a com-
pany that already possesses one, the result will he a
cheapening of telegraphic communication between the
Old World and the New. It is just possible, however,
that should the new cable be successfully laid in May
and Julie next, a question will arise which is of some
importance. Inland telegraphic communication is in
the hands of the British Government. Why should
not the English and American Government agree to
work the Atlantic cables' But then it might be said
that this would do very well as long as the two
countries are at peace (ego pet-pans), but that this
would never do were they at war. On the contrary
It would then be the utmost importance that the tele-
graph should not to at the control of private indi-
dividuals. Let us hope that no such a contingency
may ever arise, but depend upon it the question to
which I have alluded will sooner or later come up for
discussion.

We hear a good deal about the differences among
religious denominations, but we do not perhaps take
adequate account of their points of agreement and of
their occasional hearty cooperation. A pleasing in-
stance of this is to be found in c nnection with the
intended erection of a building to be called Christ
Church, on the Surrey side of Westminster Bridge, in
perpetuation of Surrey Chapel, so long identified with
the celebrated names of the Countess of Huntingdon
and of Rowland HilL The new chapel will be the finest
in London—not quite BO large as Mr. Spurgeon'. Taber-
nacle, but handsomer—besides which there are to be rnn-
necte 1 with it a lecture-hall, class-rooms, &c. The Rev.
Neenn an Hall has been generously aided in raising
funds for tfia building by persons of various denomi-
nations. The num of £,200 has been subscribed for
the freehold, among the subscribers being the Deans of
Westminster, of Gloucester, and of Chester, and
several ladies and noblemen who are members of the
Church of England. It is pleasant to see rush har-
mony and Christian fellowship irrespective of differ-
nces of opinion on minor wavers.

Mr. Banton, a &alar in curious hooka, haa at bit
place in Broadway what I. doubtless the moat valuable copy
of the Bible ever compiled. It repreeenta the toil for thirty
years of.. English collector of &Mica prints, engravings,
drawinas In oil and water-colours, and Is roughly valued at
10,000 dollars. Such subjects at sawna and the Elders,"
or "Daniel In the Lions' Din, are enriched with score. et
Illustrations drawn from every acid of art—the convent
wheals of the mediaeval ages, the strange, fancif al, strikingly
false drawing of the Italian masters, the grotesque worka of
Dutch and German painters, and the later and more trathful
efforts id modern artists. In all, this wonderful momissent
of loving devotion to a worthy hobby Include. no ISM lama
30,000 illustrations of vaiioua kinds, Nome of than nen*
from 60 dole. to 100 dola amok and Sillllo4o frets some lII*
ettllloos of the rimed Wt.