The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-12-17 00:00:00

COMMENTS ON CURRENT NEWS.

CFIRISTITAS markets have for some dafs past
much engrossed those whose business it is to
provide the good eating and drinking charac-
teristic of the season; and the supply has
been equal to the demand. In Lundon the
Christmas meat market was well stocked
with the primest beef and ranttsn from all
the great cattle farniers of the kingdom.
Leadenhall is crowded with countless fat
geese and turkeys of tremendous size, not to
speak of an infinity of ducks and other
fowls slain for the Christmas feasting; while
activity at all th 6 other markets, in the pro-
vinces aswell as London, tells eloquently of
the near approach of the chief holiday of the
year. Everywhere the shops are dressed for
the event, toys and greeting-cards, crackers
and Cecorations of unending variety, natural
and artificial, abound, to the delight of the
children and depletion of the pockets of their
elders.

THE Parcels Post is being most extensively
turned to accoant as a conveyancer of
Christmas presents, and, when packages are
sent securely, a very valuable, satisfactory,
and economical forwarding medium it is
proving. The arrangement for a general
delivery of postal parcels on Christmas morn-
ing in England, Wales, and Ireland, though
it is Sunday, will be regarded as a good
arrangement by many who like Christmas-
boxes to be handed over on Christmas Day;
while others will gravely demur to what
they will consider unnecessary Sabbath-
breaking, and doubtless the exemption of
Scotland from the Christmas morning parcels
delivery is a concession to strong Caledonian
feeling respecting the observance of the
Lard's Day. The Postmaster General ap-
peals to tne public to make the work of the
officials and carriers as brief as may be on
Christmas Day proper, by posting, in the
main, on Friday for delivery on Christma4
Eve. A little forethought and consideration
for others in response may work much in
lightening the load of our friend the post-
man, and affording him opportunities for
Christmas merriment.

CHRISTMAS brings its " bills "and responsi-
bilities, as well as mirth and jollity, and
pater-familias is apt to then review the
financial situation as regards himself. The
closing year affords opportunities, too, of
reflecting on the nation's position. Is the
outlook promising? Are things bright and
prosperous in the world of industry and
commerce? To these seasonable questions
it is pleasing to be able to return cheering;
answers. An all round improvement is re-
ported from business centres, and the only
qre-lt industry under a settled cloud is that
.)f agriculture. The farmer is having a hard
i2:ht, truly; but even he will have his turn,
-or tr4de cannot become generally active
without ultimately affecting the prices of
farm produce. Despite the croakings of
those pessimists who will have it that the
man who seeks to live by the land in Britain
is in a hopeless case, we believe that ere long
we shall witness better things in the rural
districts, We are buying less dead meat
abroad than we did last year, and not nearly
as much foreipn corn, and there is a marked
increase in our exports of home produce,
iron and steel especially standing 20 per
cent. higher than twelve months back.
There is reason then to feel thankful trust
that before Christmas has long been past we
shall be experiencinc, a pronounced revival
of trade, which will speedily have an influ-
ence upon the pockets of every class of the
community.

THE member for the Holmfirth division of
West Yorkshire was speaking at Sheffield
the other day respecting the unemployed of
the great cutlery capital, and said, bluntly
as is his want, some words well worth re-
membering. He suspected—and the remark
has truthful application to a wider sphere
than the smoky Yorkshire town in which it
was made—" that there were some men oat
of work who did not want work; they were
born tired and had not yet got rested." And
unfortunately the loafers and hangers-on of
industry often obstruct one's sight of the
worthy and unfortunate unemployed. Big
efforts are being made in London and the
provinces to carry Christmas cheer, if for
the day only, into each poverty-bared
dwell-
ing; and surely nothing, not even the holly
and the carols, are more seasonable at
Christmas than the true charity which would
make a heavy heart forget for a while its
sorrows.

MATTER seems to have achieved a signal, if
temporary triumph over mind in London
just now ; and an American fighting-man is
the chief lion of society. This latest cele-
brity, who has brought himself over the
herring-pond for oar delectation, is a
" bruiser " whose prizering records and
whose career as a showman boxer have been
noised abroad by sporting journals. Ho is
with us to make money out of us, and would
appear to be meeting with a success that
should satisfy him to the full. Members of
the aristocracy, ladies as well as the other
sex, have patronised the redoubtable Sulli-
van, or been pa,tronised by him, whichever
may be the correct term, though the pay-
ment for the enjoyments of association has
certainly not come from the man of muscle
and fists; and our future King, even, has
paid court to the 'gifts and graces of this
chief of all the sloggers. There are reports
running of a great forthcoming fight between
this Sullivan and some English exponent of
the elevating art of fisticuffs, for a big
stake, at some place to which the police will
not have invitation, and the fee to witness
which will be the modest sum of fifty
guineas! There is perhaps a little Yankee
arithmetic in adding up this admission
money; but the extravagant laudation of the
more brutal capabilities of the human
animal to which it unmistakaably points, is
scarcely creditable to those to whom hero in
England we look for example.

MANY artifices have been resorted to by
those who think the Customs regulations
fair game for fraud, but anything more cool
and systameiirt than the wholesale irnporta
tion 05 pressed tobacco, in parcels got tip
with all eie seeming of bales of cotton pick-
ings, as disclosed in •a cvlse ceLhre concluded
in London oa Tuesday, can scarcely be
imagined. Justice Day's imposition of a
penalty of ever £l3OO on the persons
engaged in this neat swindle upon the
State—the transaction is too extensive to be
labelled mere stnuggiing—rnay perhaps have
the effect of patting a stop to illicit com-
merce of such a character.