The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-02-20 00:00:00

istent. Next year, if the Imperial Federa-
tion League prosecute its mission as vigor-
ously as during that just expired with the
annual meeting, its executive may be able to
come torward with some definite plans pre-
pared ; and meantime the eause will be pro-
moted by the views of able men, home and
colonial, being veneated and well weighed
by the public. The time has not yet arrived
when anything final can be done towards the
solution of the Federation problem. The
League and its supporters must proceed
patiently and slowly, encouring, a federal
movement on the part of the Colonies them-
selves rather than hastening them in that
direction, There is no desire in any of our
Colonies for disintegration ; they are loyal
to the core, bat they do not care to be driven
into Imperialism. Full Federatioq may be
regarded as a coming condition o'j things,
and the League is working well f r the day-
dawn.

COMMENTS ON CURRENT TOPICS
THE vexation and disgust occasioned in
London by the recent rioting has not, it is
satisfactory to note, acted as a check to the
generosity of the charitable. The unem-
ployed are the subjects of solicitation to
everyone blessed -with enough and to spare.
Her Majesty has shown once again her
sympathy with the suffering in a practical
way, and the Prince of Wales and peers and
commoners innumerable swelled the sub-
scription list so speedily that in a very brief
space the Lord Mayor's Mansion House Fund
reached the goodly total of £50.000.
Efforts are being put forth by the authorities
to provide work of a public character for as
many of the distressed as possible. If tem-
porary relief of this character can be afforded
it will be better and more satisfactory than
the doling out of unearned gifts of food nnd
money, which are naturally disliked by the
respectable unoccupied workers, however
"hard up" they may be. In many pro-
vincial towns where the depression in th•
11.bour market is relatively quite as pro-
nounced as in London, the corporations have
started public works, and find the 'expedient
answer well. But everywhere the appeal
from the unemployed has met with a ready
response from the well-to-do, which does
credit to the hearts of English men and
women.

TiE migration of a number of Cumber-
land farmers and their belongings to Mid-
England is a noticeable movement. Whether
the northern agriculturists will be able to
extract more profit out of the compara-
tively fertile fields of Warwickshire than
they have gained from the deserted dales
and breezy upland of their native county
remains yet, of course, to be proved. Mean-
time they are working to that end with a
will. The more auspicious character of the
soil in the midland shire should assist them
',lnch, and rents are, at this present, very
low in Warwick and thereabout. It must
have cost the Cumberland dalesmen many a
bitter pang ere the decision was arrived at
to quit the holdings on whim they were,
many of them, bred and born, and taking
their implements and encumbrances with
them, start life afresh further south. But
good fortune should follow them now that
the move is made.

-..jC11,12

LAWLESS Englishmen, when their evil
efforts are frustrated at home, fly often
enough to the Continent, in search of a safer
place to practice. The fraudulent bankrupt
and defaalting trustee seek security in Spain
swindlers, like Benson, go to Belgium, and so
on ; but on Tuesday another pair of offenders
against the public peace crossed the silver
streak, and fought in France for the "cham-
pionship of England." The French do not
at all seem to appreciate the visit of English
pugilists to their shores, and one journal
reminds as that France is not yet a con-
quered country. On this disgraceful con-
flict between habitues of the prize ring
there was, an authority says, as much as
£20,000 wagered. The patrons of brutality
should be placed in the dock alongside of
those they employ to batter each other's
faces that they may enjoy the fun and
gamble about the result Prize fighting
would soon be a thing of the past after that.

JUSTICE SIEPHEN'E, strong words at Win-
chester in sentencinz Vivian Webber to
four months' imprisonment for false libels
on ladies at Ryde, will not be regarded as
one whit too severe by the general public.
Of gentlemanly connections, and belonging
to a honoured profession, the culprit had
perpetrated a greater wrong against ladies
of exceptional character than the most
abandoned villains could have committed.
Re detailed gross and unfounded calumniesT
and was forced to an abject apology. Then,
later, he published his libellous imputation
in a local newspaper. That a person who
had presented valuable pictures to the to...gas
of Portsmouth and Ryde shoull so far for-
get his manliness was painful doubtless;
bat Mr. Justice Stephen will bo upheld by
V9X populi in regretting that he could not
inflict -hard labour, and extending to the
oiTender the same punishment and indigni-
ties as surround the prison lives of thieves
and rogues, besides mulcting him in a
fine Cowardly and malicious attacks upon
the persons and fame of women are far too
common, and only drastic tr -atinent is at all
likely to check the heartless wretches who
act in a manner so despicable.

TAKING advantage of the change of con-
trol at the British Foreign 01Mn, the Greek
Government made no haste to correct its
dedant attitude, but set the Bay of Salamis
bristling with ships of war. Lord liosehory
has not been long at the head of the depart-
ment of Foreign Affairs blfore he gave
.the
Hellenic bAntarn elarly to undergi-.7t•: ~kae
offtrasive crow. 14.111`5i", Ce.'t;o.
Uelleuir, temper that ris wo writt!, it is i)y no
means certain that a conflict 13€4,ween
Greek admiral Itati the Britis;i fleet eal
avoided. Those responsible for nltiios
Greece seem t) have lost their heads entiz-ely
or they could not fail to see the madness and
the folly of :dying in the face of Britain,
bAcked by the concert of Earop-,
•

THE sentence of a London news-lad to
seven days' imprisonment for obtaining
money by false prowusJs may serve to acL as
somewhat of a deterant to what has become
a serious nuisance. This enterprising juven-
ile, desirous of disposing of a few copies of
a halfpenny evening journal which remained
on his hands at half-past eleven at night,
hit upon the expedient of calling out sensa-
tional heads of information, which existed
not in the newspapers he held in his hand,
buL only in his own imagination. For these
he charged four times the proper price. The
cry of "Assassination of Parnell" soon sold
oft the remnant of the stock. This sort of
thing is done almost daily in London. The
public sh ,tild refuse to buy from any news-
lad who does not display the proper contents
bills of the papers he offers. The journals
thenvelves make as ranch as possible of any
startling news they are publishing, indeed
placard-writing has developed into an edi-
torial fine art. The public has enough to do
to disconnt the publisher's bill of its paper,
without searching for fact among the fiction
of the news-lads. As to paying extra price
for a copy of a journal which casts just the
same wh!‘n it contains the most sensational
twrt 'Atter times, why those who do
19 lays caLy tbenkeelyw 9010414*.