The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-09-17 00:00:00

COMMENTS ON CURRENT NEWS.

THE moonlighting murder at Ennis, in
which Head-constable Whelan, an officer
who had been conspicuously noticeable for
devotion to duty, lost his life—coming so
closely as this lamentable occurrence did
after the fatal riot at Mitchelstown—has
served to concentrate attention on the state
of Ireland, just when the end of the Parlia-
mentary Session was giving rise to the hope
that Irish affairs would for a time kt least
cease to be the chief topic of public interest
all over the United Kingdom. It is to be
feared that what will rise from these two
painful accidents will be the warrant for
many more disturbing events.

SINCE the terrible calamity at Exeter took
place, the safety of theatres has seemed to be
the concern of the authorities all over the
land, and it is well it should be so ; for if a
panic occurred any evening in many much
frequented houses of entertainment, nothing,
under existing circumstances, could prevent
a disaster of similar appalling dimensions to
that which recently made Exeter into a city
of the dead. The want of adequate arrange-
ments for exit from the gallery in the ill-fatHl
theatre there seems to have attracted the at-
tention of the authorities who only licensed
the playhouse on condition that certain sur-
gestions for safety should be carried out.
They were not; and the tedious stairway
communicating from gallery to street was
later further obstructed by a dangerous post.
Why was no official entrusted with the duty
of seeing that the building was made as safe
as possible ? We contend that the lesson of
the Exeter holocaust is that some responsible
and competent surveyor ought to be ap-
pointed by Government, to whom plans of
every place of popular assembly should be
submitted, and that no place should be per-
mitted to open its doors to the public until
such surveyor had certified. its safety. We
would thus remove the authority, 30 far as
safe provision for speedy exit is concerned,
over theatres and other places of entertain-
ment, and even of worship, from Local Boards
magistrates, and Town Councils to a properly
constituted Government official. If Govern-
ment inspection is needful to secure life and
limb in mines and factories, it is also requis-
ite to prevent, so far as human thought can,
such tragedies as that at Exeter.

SUMMER has quite gone now, so far as pre-
arranged out-door sport is concerned; and
in place of sunlit cricket fields, surrounded
with rings of airily clad ladies and admirers
of the game of the sterner sex, we have now
the bracing and more vigorous pastime of
football, pursued, it must be confessed, in far
less pleasant, if more suitable, weather. The
cricket match at Hastings on Saturday
brought to an end a season which has been
most successful. Never has the peculiarly
English game of cricket been more popular;
and the popularity of bat and ball
is not this year owing in any -way
to an extraneous interest arising from oar
own wielders of the willow standing up in
England's name against the attacks of an
Australian Eleven. It has been cricket
amongst ourselves; and the fifty odd thou-
sands who on three days visited Kennington
Oval, when the premier county of the year
did battle against Notts, show the genuine
interest taken in the game of cricket by the
masses. Tt is good that this is sa,for the in-
vigorating.cricket contests which afford so
large a share of the summer pleasure oF
Britain are watched almost exclusively for
the sake of the sport. Betting, that cor-
ruptor of all things manly, has not in any
appreciable way interfered with the straight-
forwardness of cricket. And cricket has
done nobly to warrant the interest taken in
it for cricket's sake. What other sport has
produced so evergreen an expert as the
plpular De. Grace P What ether pastim-;
commands the close attention of bishop and
Calanet Minister, of gentle lady and of
school lad, and leaves every one of them at
night with memories of pleasant moments
passed, uumingled with regret. Why, the
hardheaded Chancellor of the Exchequer
spoke the praise of cricket strongly at a ban-
quet only this year; and many a prelate
looks back with wistful joy at the old time
when he donned in glee the gloves and pads
for Alma Mater.

'W. G., " the " Old Man Mighty " of
Cricket, has this year shown us once again
of. what stuff he is made, and how between
wickets, and anywhere, indeed, on the velvet
turf, none but himself can be his parallel in
anything concerning bat or ball. He has
kept wicket in a first-class match; he has
made a century twice in a game; he is far
and away better than any other unprofes-
sional exponent of the game, with the ball
or at wicket ; lielhas mvie four hundred
more runs than anybody else in first class
matches; 113 has—and this is his highest
praise—done better than he
.himself has
done for ten years past. The batting aver-
age of Shrewsbury, the patient, brilliant
Nottinghamshire willow - wielder—albeit in
but half the innings played by the big
Gloucestershire dcctor is, it is true, very
much better than that of "W G.;" but it
is the only average, amateur or professional,
which comes measurably near that of "the
champion ;" and when we have to remember
that Air. Grace has, besides his hitting
prowess, done twice as much bowling dur-
ing the year as any other gentleman, we are
ready to admit that he still stands at the
head of the game, and that no other wearer
of the flannels is so valuable to his side as
the bearded veteran whose figure and face
are so familiar.

TE[RoAT IRAITATIoN AND Coralen.--Sorelleaa and dry•
fleas, tickling and irrit..tic,n, including cough and affect-
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me Jubjubes In contact w:th the glands at the
moment they are exlite 1 by the at of sucking the
Glycerine in thee agreeable confect:o ns bec3Gl
actively healing. Sold only in boxes, 7i., tins is lA,
labelled "JamEB EpPa & C-, Homceopathic Chern• 3,
London." Dr. George Moore says: in his work on '
and Throat Diseases," sa : The G;ycerine iv.;
prepared by James Epp Co., are of mid • ,)te
service as a curative or , zative agent," whi Dr,
Gordon Holmes, hyscian to the Mun..Apal
Throat and Ear lultirmar;% , ,vrites : "After an extended
trial, I have found your cilycerine Jujubes of consider-
able benefit in almost all forms of throat diseass.

Epps's Medicines may be had at 136, High Street

DZRZIATOLOGY.—SmaII-pox Marks, Birth Marks
Moles, removed by a new scientific process.
Cidaianteed. Semi sta nped directed envelope to Dr.
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instmotions tree.