The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-01-30 00:00:00

Our 0 Ant 6orrtspodent.
E'
[We deem it right to state that we do not at all times
1-I.ztity ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

The way in which venerable forms and ancient
customs are entwined with the usages of modern life,
has often been the subject of remark. In many an
elaborate ceremonial, which typifies the wealth, the
glory, and the civilisation of to-day, you may see a
reminder of medival ages, when our forefathers were

less pushing than are the children of men to-day, and
when the mighty powers of electricity and steam made
a no more sign of life than the silent hill-tops or the
lonely mountain. Nowhere is this more perceptible
than in the associations which surround the Parlia-

mentary institutions of this country. Every year,
before the Lords and Commons assemble in their re-
spective chambers, a ceremony is carried out which
reminds us of a stirring incident that happened 270
years ago. A solemn procession is made through the
vaults of the two Houses of Parliament to ascer-
tain whether any barrels of gunpowder have
been deposited for the purpose of blowing the
Queen, the Lords, and the Commons high into
the air! No gunpowder, not even the shade of Guy
Fawkes having been seen, the result of the search is
duly made to her Majesty's Chief Commissioner of
Works, who draws a long deep breath on receiving an
official assurance that the lords spiritual and temporal,
the knights, citizens and burgesses, and the commis-
sioners for shires and boroughs in the House of Cora-
mons may assemble and meet together in safety. It
signifies not that within a few feet of the searchers the
signs of modern civilisation appear on every hand,
that a fleet of steamers daily agitates the rapid tide of
the Thames, and that an underground railway is
brought to the very door of the House of Commons.
The investigation is now made as thoroughly as it was
in the time of James 1., more than half a century
before London was desolated by the plague, and
when old St. Paul's looked down upon a city which
had not been devastated by a fire, the glare whereof
was seen upon the far-off Cheviot Hills.
The right use of recreation is a subject which may
be variously treated from different points of view. As
a rule there is no doubt that the people of this country
work hard and play hard; and it is this complete
devotion to the undertaking which is immediately in
band, that has caused many a foreigner to declare
that we make a toil of our pleasure. And there is
another thing which the dweller in foreign lands
cannot well comprehend, and that is why we should
prefer for our leisure hours such sports and exercises
as have in them a considerable element of danger.
Our forefathers, in bygone days, were accustomed to
indulge in a diversion known as quarterstaff, wherein
they ran a risk of breaking each other's heads; and
in more modern times we have our steeplechases, in
which there is often considerable peril to the rider's
neck. Football and cricket would lose much of their
attractiveness if there were no broken shins and
bruised knuckles as the concomitants of these games;
and the foxhunter thinks nothing of a cropper in his ex-
citement to obtain possession of the brush. Then again
there is the Alpine climber, who struggles through
snow and over rocks until he has attained a given
altitude of so many thousand feet, and scrambles down
again, knowing that a single false step is almost certain
to send him to destruction. It seems very evident,
from the numbers who engage in recreations of all
kinds, that no very considerable proportion of our
countrymen agree with the late Sir George Cornewall
Lewis, who declared that life would be tolerable were
it not for its pleasures.

Notwithstanding numerous causes of excitement of
late, people have read with great interest Mr. King-
lake's most recent volume upon the history of the
Crimean invasion. It is devoted entirely to a descrip-
tion of the battle of Inkermsn, which, as we are now
reminded by Time, was fought more than twenty
years ago. The Icompleteness of detail, and the
mastery of facts presented in this volume are really
marvellous, and the work will remain for ages a full
and authentic chronicle of a most critical time in the
story of a great European conflict. How familiar the
names appear to those who followed step by
step the stages of that struggle! How well
acquainted the people were with the geo-
graphy of Sebastopol, the position of the Kara-
belnaia dock, the course of the Tchernaya river,
the range of the guns commanded by the great Fort
Nicholas, the value of the Malakhoff and the Redan
as strategical points, the confidence of Prince Mens-
chikoff in his power to annihilate the Allies, the cool,
methodical way in which Lord Raglan went to work,
the tenacity of General Pelissier, and the rage of
Prince Gortschakoff, when upon the memorable Bth of
September, 1855, he wrote to the Czar, describing the
"infernal fire" which the Allies had poured into the
beleaguered city previous to the assault and capture.
Mr. Kinglake's original intention was to bring his
work to a close with the death of Lord Raglan,
which took place about three months before the fall
of Sebastopol; but in the interests of historical
literature it is earnestly to be hoped that he will make
it complete with a description of that important
event. His personal experiences during the cam-
paign and his polished and graphic style combine to
invest his writings with peculiar value.
In Captain Shaw's annual report upon the causes of
metropolitan fires, there are some suggestive facts. At
the head of the list stand "lighted candles," for 218
conflagrations ; open fires, 147; escapes of gas, 44 ; seek-
ing for such escapes with naked lights, 21; gaslights,
11; swinging gas brackets, 21; explosions of spirit
lamps, 8; upsetting such lamps, 51. Amongst mis-
cellaneous causes Captain Shaw gives hot ashes as the
origin of 42 fires ; lucifers, 40; defects in flues, 60; foul
flues, 27 ; children playing with matches and with fire,
62. Only seven conflagrations could be directly traced
to incendiarism ; while the origin of 296 were not traced
at all. Four fires only were attributed to the careless
acts of persons who had become intoxicated. Captain
Shaw, who makes a very efficient chief of the Metro-
politan Fire Brigade, lives and sleeps at the head station
at Watling-street, which is in the very heart and
centre of the city. It is in telegraphic communication
with every fire-engine station in the capital, and
should a conflagration of alarming proportions break
out in a distant part of London, the head of the
Brigade at once starts for it upon the first engine
which can he got ready. Captain Shaw has held his
appointment since the death of Mr. Braidwood, which
took place at the great fire of Tooley-street, in June,
1861, when a change of wind, occurring at a fortunate
moment, saved the entire borough of Southwark from
destruction.
An interesting fact is brought out in the annual re-
turns of the Volunteer Corps,for last year, and that is,
that of the total number enrolled, amounting to 175,387
rank and file, 161,100 were efficient, and 14,287 ineffi-
cient. The efficient members naturally represent the
real strength of the force, since volunteers who do not
qualify themselves to perform military duties are
merely incumbrances. The proportion of non-efficients
is about 8 per cent. of the whole. This cannot be
deemed unsatisfactory, but it should be remembered
that the Volunteer army has now been in existence
half a generation.
Whenever a vacancy takes place upon the judicial
Bench in one of the Superior Courts, the choice of a
successor is sure to be the subject of keen speculation
amongst the members of the Bar assembled in Weet-
minster Hall. The retirement of Mr. Justice Keating
from the Court of Co:nruon Pleas has been received
with expressions of deep regret that the country is
about to lose the benefit of the services of so profound
a lawyer and so eminent a judge. At seventy years
of age, however, and after having been a judge fifteen
years he feels justified in leaving the field to younger
men. The salary of a puisne judge is £5,000 a year,
in addition to which he is allowed £5OO for a Chief
Clerk, but he himself defrays his circuit expenses.
At the end of fifteen years, he is entitled to claim a
retiring allowance of £3,500 per annum, and well he
deserves it. The life, especially on circuit, is a very
wearying one, for the assize courts, as a rule, open at
nine in the morning, and sit until six in the evening.
And as every assize town has not the splendid
halls of Manchester and Leeds, the chances are
that, hour after hour, the judge, who necessarily
•ccupies an elevated position in the court,
is compelled to breathe a foul and vitiated
atmosphere, which must have the most deleterious
effects upon the health. When sitting in London, the
work of a judge is by no means measured by the
amount of time which he spends in court. You often
see, for instance, that "their lordships took time to
consider their decision," which indicates that after
they get to their homes, they are ransacking their
libraries for authorities bearing upon the case before
them, and working out the judgment which is to be
delivered at a future day. I may add that the Court
of Common Pleas, in ancient times, followed the
King's person; but on the confirmation of Magna
Charta, in 1215, the tribunal was fixed at West-
minster, where it still continues. Formerly, no bar-
rister under the rank of serjeant could plead before
the judges of the Common Pleas, but in 1846 this ex-
clusive privilege was abolished, and a uniform practice
now prevails whereby any member of the bar has the
right of addressing either of the superior tribu.nals.
The 300,000 persons who every year cross the English
Channel will be glad to see that a practical beginning
is about to be made with the borings for the long-
talked submarine tunnel. The points to be connected
are those nearest each other on the two coasts—Dover
on the English side, and Calais on the French. It is
believed that the bed of the sea consists of a solid mass
of chalk many hundreds of feet in thickness, which
stretches without interruption from shore to shore.
Should this be so, and no cracks or fissures exist in it,
the engineers see not the'sliightest difficulty in piercing
it for railwaY Pluimite, Of courrse i# thge ;we rifts iu

the chalk, which let in the water, the prosecution of
the work would be hopeless. It will be news to many
that the English Channel, which is such a terror to
travellers, and has been the great protection of our
country from invasion for centuries, is not more than
180 feet in depth between Dover and Calais. In
the first place, a small bore, or driftway, as it
is technically called, will be made, to ascertain
the constitution of the chalk bed, and this will
be seven or nine feet in diameter. The work will pro-
gress at the rate of a yard an hour, and will be finished
in about two years. The chalk being found a solid
formation, there would follow the enlargement of the
tunnel to a size capable of containing two lines of rail-
way, and four years more would thus be taken up.
Between the sea and the crown of the arch there are
to be at least 150 feet of chalk, so that there would be
no danger of an irruption of the waves. As 180 feet of
water will be rolling above the 150 feet of chalk, it
comes to pass that the trains will be carried along at a
depth of 330 feet below the level of the sea—a measure-
ment equal to the height of the cross of St. Paul's
Cathedral from the ground. The workmen employed
in cutting the tunnel will be supplied with air from
above, and it will be pumped in as regularly as it
is required. The debris from the cuttings must
of necessity be carted to the shore at either side
as fast as it accumulates, and the nearer
the excavators approach the centre of the
Channel, the longer the distance for the debris to be
conveyed—eleven miles on either side. Fancy the
delight of the submarine labourers who, after two
years of toil in the dreary driftway, will be enabled to
shake hands, for as the work would go on simul-
taneously from each side, England and Franee would
thus meet on dry land under the restless waves of the
Channel. The undertaking is a most stupendous one,
and if successful, will be the greatest triumph of en-
gineering skill which the world has witnessed. Given
the solidity of the bed of chalk, and Sir John Hawk-
shaw has no more doubt of his being able to build a
line under the sea than Brunel had of his ability to con-
struct the Thames Tunnel, which has been a marvel
for a generation. It is now used for the purpose of the
East London Railway.