The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-07-23 00:00:00

ist)ur yonbou torresponbott.

tWe deem it right to state that we do not at all times identify
ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.)

It is just twelve months since the Kingdom
was convulsed through its length and breadth
by a general election, and now again in the
month of July has the attention of politicians
been directed in peculiar degree to contests in
the constituencies. Strangely enough, this is
the third consecutive July in which all-interested
in public affairs have been forced to study elec-
toral returns with keen gaze. In July, 18e5,
the contested re-elections, consequent upon the
creation of Lord Salisbury's first Administra-
tion, made the political pulse beat to an un-
usually high degree; in July, 1886, as has
.been
indicated, the general election aroused the
greatest excitement; and now in July, 1887,
there have been an unusual number of contests
wherewith to agitate the public mind. It is as
evident from the latest of the series, as from
the earlier, that the interest of Englishmen in
public affairs has not diminished. A bad day
would it be for contitutional Government in Eng-
land if this were otherwise, for the effectiveness
of our Parliamentary institutions largely depends
upon the amount of popular support that is
obviously and continuously at their back. An
engine may be a very excellent specimen of
machinery, but if it lacks propelling power in the
form of steam, it is of slight use as compared
with a much less perfect engine which possesses
a motive force. Now, public opinion is the pro-
pelling power of our Parliamentary institutions,
and, whatever views one may hold upon the
political question 3 that divide Englishmen to-day,
none will be likely to dispute that those signs of
the times which point to the continued interest
of the vast body of the people in public affairs
are worth attention, and that the fact deserves
praise.

Our Royal vi3itors from the Continent, as
well as the Princes of India, who came to
Enuland for the Jubilee celebration, are under-
stood to have returned to their respective homes
Eareeably disappointed by the English climate.
They had been taught by the remarks of hasty
and incautious travellers to think that England
was a land of gloom and fog, in which the sun
was Fel.lom seen, and where the people were
dopressed by continued bad weather into a
state of existence which only enabled them to
take their pleasure sadly, and to escape which
suicide was their sole resort. They had further
been told that, even when summer came and the
sun ventured to peer from behind the clouds
that cu,tomarily hid its brilliancy, three fine days
and a thunderstorm were all that could be ex-
pected. A complete disillusionment awaited
them when once they sought these shores, and
we may be certain that when the English climate
is discussed in their presence in the future, they
will sturdily declare that it is by no means as
black as has been painted. But, soothing as this
may be to. our national pride, it is not to be
doubted that many among us would have
forfeited the compliment rather than have had
so prolonged a drought. Week after week went
on without a drop of rain falling upon the
parched earth, and for another fortnight the few
E bowers which descended in most parts of the
country wore utterly inadequate to do more than
moisten the surface of the ground. A fine
summer is delightful for the makers of holiday,
lm t it is distinctly inconvenient, to put it at the
mildest, for the tillers of the soil if the rain keeps
off too lone,.

But such a drought as we have been having
affects not only the farmers, and not only the
dwellers in towns whose water supply is seriously
diminished by it, for it also touches the sporting
interest. Those interested in grouse-shooting
may be rejoiced in the knowledge that on many
of the moors the prospects of "the Twelfth" are,
on the whole, satisfactory, the birds being fine
and healthy; but their fears are likely to be
aroused by the knowledge that, owing to the
drought, extensive fires' have occurred on
some of the moors. The heather being dry and
in some places long, a fire once lit, whether by
careleasness or pure accident, spreads rapidly,
and a mass of whitish powder is left where the
brown and the green vegetation had just
previously delighted the eye of the traveller.
Any one who wishes to be alone, and who would
ask for himself the question that Cowper put into
the mouth of Alexander Selkirk, "Oh, solitude,
where are the charms which sages have seen in
thy face ?" can hardly do better than take a
tramp across one of our great moors. There he
will have ample opportunity for thinking out the
old monastic problem whether solitude is prefer-
able to society; and although he may come to
the conclusion that, on the whole, the latter is to
be preferred. he must have indeed a poor eye for
the beautiful if he will not allow that the beauty
of the moors is so great that all who care for
prolonged walking ought to enjoy it.
In the summer-time scarcely a pleasanter trip
can he found by the jaded Londoner, who
merely wants a day's outing, than one on the
Thames. It has this advantage over the seaside,
that whereas the latter in the majority of cases
can he reached only after a hot and stuffy rail-
way journey, the other is a water trip through-
and as such at this period of the year is
decidedly the more agreeable. Those who know
the river only as it flows between Westminster
and London-bridge—beautiful as in some re-
spects even that portion of the river is—are not
aware of the varied and multifarious beauties of
the upper reaches of the Thames. Such as are
aware of them appreciate them to so high a degree
that their love for them becomes a passion. It is
a kind of Thames fever which swallows them
lip, and hundreds of persons during the summer
months make a home upon its banks, and even,
by the use of house-boats, upon its bosom. The
scenery is not imposing; it is far from that to
which the term " grand " could be fairly applied;
but it has the beauty of a miniature, and those
who have never been beyond Putney cannot be
said to know what the Thames really is. When
they do know it, their admiration is assured.
The early days of autumn are always connected
in the popular m;nd with the gathering of
various scientific and industrial associations,
which to the irreverent often present the ap-
pearance of pleasant picni2s, but which to the
initiate are full of interest and instruction. One
of the earliest of these this year will be what is
known as th e summer meeting of the Institution of
Mechanical Engineers, which will be held in
'Edinburgh during the first week in August, and
that this will be productive of both the interest
end instruction claimed is apparent from the
programme. For among the subjects for dis-
cussion are the structure and progress of the
Forth Bridge, as well as the machinery employed
at the works: the new Tay Bridge; the paraffin
industry in Scotland; the dredging of the lower
estuary of the Clyde; and the position and
prospects of electricity as applied to engineering.
As will ha seen, most of these topics are
mainly Scotch, but the last is one that
affects us all, and upon which a discussion
by those best acquainted with it can scarcely fail
to prove of value. We have extracted a great
deal from electricity, but much remains to be
derived from_ one of the greatest forces of nature,
and he, wourci be rash who would attempt to
prophesy the extent of its power. Such a dis-
cussion, therefore, will be awaited with interest,
not only by the mechanical engineers themselves,
hut by all who interested in scientific, indus-
trial, and commercial progress.
Inventiveness has evidently far from disap-
peared from the list . of qualities which cha-
ractepsemankind, and simultaneously with the
enunciation of a project for forming an In-
ventors' Institute, so that those who have die-
coverea flornethiti'g may be able to put it to the
best account, and with the invitation to sub-
scribe to a company for making paper bottles,
it is intimated that in Australia an idea
i gaining ground that railway carriages ought
to be made"of steel instead of wood as hereto-
fore. In Victoria it is proposed to construct
an experimental car entirely from malleable
steel, without a scrap of timber being used even
for seats or doors; and it is claimed that such a
carriage, in the event of an accident, would
bend- or double up, 'instead of splintering
like wood, and thus passengers would neither
he crushed nor impaled ,by wooden frag-
ments. A, . further improvement would
doubtless be that there would not be the
same liability to fire in cases of accident as at
present; and although it is seldom that we have
such a conflagration in England, it is alarmingly
common in, the United States. The latter will
appear to the ordinary observer to be a more
tangible advantage than the former; for, if a
smash comes, a carriage which bent or doubled
up would be as dangerous to life and limb as one
which sfriashed. But there is obviously ample
room for improvement in the construction of
our railway carriages, and the Australian idea,
therefore, is worth working out.
That the Players should have beaten the
Gentlemen twice in one week, both at Lord's and
the Oval, and on each occasion with an innings
and some runs to spare, is a cricketing pheno-
menon the probability, or even the possibility, of
which would have been seriously doubted some
years fig°. But there is now little room for
doubt that the Players outclass the Gentlemen
at every point, and markedly in the bowling.
Time was when the excellent batting of the

Gentlemen saved them from the defeat to which
their always inferior bowling exposed them; but
things have changed, and the Players, who could
always do well with the ball, now do as well
with the bat. It is to be regretted, for the
sake of cricket, that our amateurs do not
give more attention to the science of bowling.
The bat is certainly the more brilliant instru-
ment. but the true cricketer recognises that
bowling is not only a science but an art, and he
regrets that so many of his fellows do not appre-
ciate this to the full. _ The professionals always
have abundant practice in. bowling, because the
amateurs like being bowled at; but now that
the former show that their batting powers have
increased, it is the duty of the latter to so bestir
themselves and change their methods that not
again shall be seen the spectacle of a single
innings defeat of the Gentlemen by the Players
repeated within the compass of a week.
A. F. B.