The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-12-24 00:00:00

Our ionboa Corrtsputionit.

(We teem It right to state that we (10 not at all tunic
Wentify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.

Christmas week in London is a time which brings
to the metropolis thousands of persons, more espe-
cially from the Home Counties, who, whether they
had come up to the Cattle Show or not, had resolved
to see the gaily-lighted shops of the great capital. The
application of electricity to the illumination of the
streets this year makes London better worth seeing
in winter than it has ever been before ; inasmuch as
three of the bridges—London, Southwark, and Black-
friars—with the Thames Embankment, and the prin-
cipal city thooughfares eastward from Farringdon-
street, are now all lighted by means of the new
agency, and present the appearance of noonday
even on the darkest night. The contents of the
shops increase year by year in elegance and
beauty, whether the people go forth to inspect those
under the shadow of St.- Paul's, or journey westward
to the streets of Oxford and Regent. Indeed, a walk
through Ludgate-hill, Fleet-street, the Strand, past
Charing-mms, through Pall Mall and the Haymarket
into Piccadily, after the lamps have been lighted,
would, upon one of these nights ot Christmas attrac-
ticns, give the stranger a very adequate idea of the
wealth and cheerfulness of London. Let the evening

be dry, albeit cold, and the pavements are thronged
with eight seers, who ha.e issued forth to gaze upon
the varied spectacle which the different departments
of cJrarnercial enterprise have provided.
As to Christmas itself, it has come again with all

the good aihes we are accnstorned to associate with
such a season. Compared with some previous years,
the universal Christian festival comes to us this year
under brighter auspices and amid more favourable
surroundings than many even in recent times. There
are neither wars nor rumours of wars ; there are
no foreign complications threatening future 'trouble,
no great absorbing anxieties on the borders of
our vast colonial empire. Our huge ships of
which sail the sea may in the per-
sons of their crews, celebrate Christmas without
fear that they Will presently be called upon to go into
action. The commercial outlook is better than it has
been for-years. The Chancellcr of the Exchs quer sees
week by week an increasing Revenue, promising
favourably for next year's Budget. No serious trade
disputes harass the relations between capital and
labour. The business as well as the working classes
may unite, from the experience of the past and from
the hopes of the future, in heartily commemorating
Christmas and in anticipating a happy New Year!
Dr. B. W. Richardson, in his lecture on the Seed.
time of Health, which being interpreted signifies
childhood and youth, has pointed out that it is too
frequently allowed to become the spring-time of a
plenteous harvest of disease. He tells us how much
a this is preventible; and points out that of the
perils which beset the morning of life, the greater part
are due to inherited dis=eases, and the few handed
down become the basis of other and complicated
troubles at a later period. There are many which are
directly attributable to errors of rearing, and among the
accidental perils are those peculiar to this or
that particular season. First on the list is the
ordinary cold, with all the mischief to which it
gives rise. Then there is the risk of exposure to
maladies which are easily communicated; and in
many stations of life, until adequate attention is
given to Sanitary matters, these will probably be
dealt with by medical men for some time to come.
It is to the dangers besetting early youth, to which
the lecturer gives the name of inflicted and acquired
perils, that the greatest amount of mortality in after
life may be traced—mortality which in large propor-
tion might be avoided by a better comprehension of
the principles upon which medical science is based.
Amid the wonderful growth and development of
London, the decreasing population of the city has to the
uninitiated been an unexplained phenomenon. In 1861
the number of persons sleeping within the municipal
boundaries was 112,000; ten years later it had dropped
to 74,000, and last April it was 50,000. The Corpor-
ation lately instituted an inquiry into the actual busi-
ness population of the City proper, and from their
returns 261,000 persons were actually resident in or
employed within the civic precincts on the 4th of April,
on which day the census was taken, or more than five
times as many as were given by the Registrar-
General Further, the authorities have takßn the
useful trouble to count the persons entering the
City on one day by its sixty approaches during
the hours of business. The number was found
to be 707,000, while at the same time 71,000
vehicles of all kinds passed into the city.
Its limits are nearly all comprised within half a mile
of the Bank of England, and in this little radius
there is more business done and more persons em-
ployed than in any town in the world. Americans
who come to Europe may well admire the beauties of
Paris; but with all the vast size of their own colossal
country, with its rivers three thousand miles long and
its enormous inland seas, they never fail to be im-
pressed with the immense size of London and the
great tide of its unparalleled traffic.

war

'Wonderful as has been the progress made in the
speed of Atlantic navigation, there are those on the
other ici of the ocean who advocate an attempt
to still farther reduce the time in which the voyage
can be made. A scheme is now talked of for
organising a new line of steamships, running powerful
and fast boats, by means of which passengers would
be taken from New York on Monday morning, and
deposited in London on Saturday night. These
vessels would be of steel, and therefore lightly
constructed, five hundred feet long, and divided into
fifty water-tight compartments, which would render
them absolutely safe from any danger of sinking.
It is proposed to carry no goods, and to land pas-
sengers and mails at Milford Haven, where a train
would be in waiting to convey them to London.
The projectors of the scheme anticipate that they
will be able to run the first of these ships early
in 1883; ana as the Americans are fond of
adventure, and are great advocates of doing a
journey in as short a time as possible, it is likely
enough that the idea of spending one Sunday in New
York and the next in London may attract many
across the Atlantic merely for the sake of accomplish-
ing the distance in such an extraordinarily short
space of time.

When the German Emperor and his son the Crown
Prince went to accept the surrender of the late
Emperor Napoleon at Sedan on the 2nd September,
1870, the Crown Prince so measured his pace
as to give the monarch slightly the advantage in
front, a concession demanded by the superior rank
of the sovereign. Again, when a portion of the
Prussian army entered Paris six months after-
wards, the head of the charger which bore the
Emperor was a few inches in advance of that
upon which the Crown Prince rode, father and
son conversing gaily by the way. This idea of rigid
etiquette is carried out in other respects in the German
Court. Its notion of sport is a remarkable one, for
the grand shooting parties which are organised to
hunt in the Imperial preserves have a very curious
way of going to work. One of these was lately
attended by the venerable Emperor himself, the King
of Saxony, several princes, and many State digni-
taries. The quarry included deer, wild boars, and
other respectably big game, three hundred of which
fell to the guns of the illustrious riflemen. The
Emperor's bag was the largest, that of the King of
Saxony came next, and so on by successive stages,
each of these distinguished sportsmen having killed the
number of game proportionate to his rank. Not one
of them had ventured to slaughter a buck more than
the Kaiser, or even to approach the number he had
slain.

The Marquis of Lorne, who returns to resume his

rule over the Canadian Dominion early next month,
has - been pointing out to a London audience the
advantages of Canada as an emigration field for young
women. The last census showed a surplus of about a
million females over males. Men find the struggle for
existence in this overcrowded country severe enough;
but to the mass of single women who work for a
scanty and precarious livElihood the fight for existence
must often be something like torture. The Marquis
of Lorne has done his best to supplement the efforts
of the practical ladies who are striving to induce their
countrywomen to emigrate to a land where the
demand for feminine usefulness is enormously in

excess of the supply. The great drawback to Canadian
emigration is undoubtedly the climate. If that great
, dependency of the Wet possessed the genial atmos-
phere of California, the disproportion of men to
women which now exists would speedily disappear.
..; Them has bt.en a belief that the Royal Academy had
exhausted the treasures of the Old Masters which are
found in our private collections.— But as the years
pass on, the riches held by England in works of
Art seem to increase rsthPr than to diminish. This
•year the collection of pictures hy Old Ma ,ters is
likely to he more than usually good. The Queen
again contribute.; largely, aria sends from Windsor
• some of her choicest specimens. The Dukes of We t-
minster, Grafton, and Marlborough, the Earl of
.Normanton, and other noblemen, have also sent
paintings from their own collections, and altogether
this year's exhibition is likely to come up to the best
traditions of the past. No doubt there are some who
prefer the modern style of art as being infinitely more
fresh and clear. Charles Dickens once had in his hall
at Gad's-hill a most hideous Old Master, labelled,
"You are not expected to admire this." But com-
paratively few are of this character, and representing
as they do a school of art that has long since paved
away, are appreciated equally with the productions
of our modern artists,