The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1888-06-02 00:00:00

THE TRIUMPH OF THE TRADER

and the man of profits in the world of art. The trader
controlled art as a valuable minister to his pride or
perhaps as a useful investment. In mechanical arrange-
ment of modern industry the designer and craftsmen
were no longer one. The designer is called upon to
cudgel his brains to make a design to order, that the
draftsman may copy it into carpets, curtains, floor-
cloths, easy chairs, fenders, and other supprThed
necessities of modern life. We must not, therefore,
be surprised that we do not get in our domestic and
personal adornments that spontaneous invention and
play of fancy which delights us in the works of past
ages. With all our boasted progress, we cannot, as a
rule, design the simplest article of use—a coal-box or
foot-stool without deplorable mistakes and incon-
gruities, and find it safer to copy an ancient example.
An English picture exhibition is

A LARGE SHOP,
and each artist has to be his own salesman, and we
are not therefore bound to take him seriously. Com-
merce can boast of R.A's in its service. Thousands
of pounds were spent in adorning our streets and
'buses in order to tell us where to buy a piece of soap.
When our spirits are exalted at the sight of fair
historic cities in one of these advertisements we find
the foreground filled in too often with sewing machines
and biscuit tins. The artist is no picturesque vaga-
bond now-a-days. He dines with bankers, merchants,
and dukes. But what good did he gain except in
social consideration, and the chance of becoming a
successful salesman of his own works. The great
diversion of method and sentiment among our artists
is one of the causes why we generally failed in public
monuments. The individualistic feeling of artists
prevents them from working together to a harmonious
result. To raise noble public monuments, before all
things it is necessary to have a public sentiment.
This primal necessity cannot exist in a society which
is composed of a mass of conflicting atoms and interest
cleft by caste and class, and clouded by mistrust and
jealousy. Mr. Crane has been recently to Athens, and
the question naturally occurred to him—what a
thousand years hence would be left of artistic worth
to tell our story. The best monument might still be
found in the surviving copy of an old newspaper—
after all, perhaps, the most characteristic monument
of the age. Instead of to Athena, our Parthenon would
be built, if at all, to the

GODDESS OF "GETTING ON"
A good deal of the enthusiasm for the higher artistic
education of our workmen was due rather to the
merely commercial desire to outdo our foreign
neighbours, and not prompted by a love of art. How
could the artistic talent of a craftsman or artist be
really free while he could not be sure that persistent
industry even would secure him a living? The con-
duct of life in our big cities was very much against
the cultivation of a sense of beauty. The question of
a growth of feeling for art was bound up with economic
considerations, with the system of land tenure, and
private property as a means of subsistence. When
the citizen was a freeholder, as inimediveval times, he
loved to beautify his house, so we had streets full of
varied and interesting houses. But now the citizen
had no desire for this, as it only benefited his land-
lord, who might possibly not even admire it. What
mattered it how many thousands of pounds a picture
might fetch ! These prices were purely artificial.
Men were not better artists because of the large sums
their pictures commanded—nay, so far as they were
influenced by the thought of price, distinctly worse.
How many artists, too, struggled with poverty during
life, and after they were gone their heretofore neglected
works became quite prizes in

THE GAME OF SPECULATION.
These were not the conditions to favour a high growth
of art, and it was in spite of them that we get any-
thing good. But the conditions under wilich we
lived were the result af the slow evolution of history,
and were themselves undergoing constant modifica-
tion in the constant march and procession of events
towards changes vaster in their operation than per-
haps the world had yet seen, and might lead onward
to a new life in which art might spring to a rejuvene-
scence out of the ashes of its degradation.

The Great West is a songless track. The deficiency
is to be remedied. A cargo of skylarks, bullfinches,
nightingales, chaffinches, goldfinches, linnets, green-
finches, thrushes, and starlings is to be let loose in
Oregon.
Seth Kinman, a veteran scout, has presented every
American President, from Buchanan to Arthur, with a
chair made by himself from the horns and hide of elk
and deer he has slain. He is making one for Mr.
Cleveland.
The Academicians are sometimes blamed for fully en-
forcing their "hanging" rights. This year they only
exhibit 177 paintings and drawings between them.
They might have claimed space for 552 works of art
"on the line."

The Yankees are systematic—even in the matter of
naval nomenclature. The big armoured vcssels are in
future to be called after the States, the cruisers after
the cities, and the gunboats after the principal battle-
fields of the Rev,lution

A DISGRACEFUL CASE.

LORD JAMES DOUGLAS COMMITTED TO PRISON.

A motion by Miss Mabel Edith Scott, a young lady
of about 20 years of age, by her mother, Lady Maria
Selina E. Scott, her next friend, for the committal of
Lord James Douglas to prison for contempt of Court
for breaches of divers orders binding him to abstain
from directly or indirectly communicating with Miss
Scott, was heard on Tuesday in the Chancery Division
by Mr. Justice Chitty.
It was stated that the respondent's proposals to
marry Miss Scott having been rejected, he had con-
tinued to persecute her with communications, with
the result that the present action was commenced
for the sake of obtaining the protection of the
Court. In April, 1887, Mr. Justice Chitty
granted an injunction restraining the respondent
from having any communication with Miss Scott.
A breach of the injunction having occurred, a
motion was made to commit the respondent, and an
order was made in May, 1887, that the respondant
should pay the costs of the motion, the respondent at
the same time apologizing to the Court, and under-
taking to conform in future with the terms of the
injunction. A further breach having occurred,
another application was made to Mr. Justice Chitty,
and at the hearing of this application on the 10th of
June, 1887, the respondent's apology and undertaking
were again accepted. The case was fully reported in
The Times of the 11th of June, 1887, (3 The Times
Law Reports, 675). It was now stated that after
these proceedings the respondent went abroad, and in
December, 1887, while yachting with a friend in
the Mediterranean, forwarded to Miss Scott her
own photograph, on the back of which he had
written, "R— wishes this to be returned." R—
was the name of a young lady. The postal cover con-
taining the photograph was not addressed in the re-
spondent's handwriting, but it was admitted that the
postal address was written at his request and by his
direction. At Christmas, 1887, the respondent for-
warded to Miss Scott a Christmas card. The character
of the card was objected to, and, as admitted by the
respondent's counsel, was at the least in bad taste.
The applicant submitted that the foregoing acts
constituted further breaches of the orders and under-
takings.
' Mr. Romer, Q.C., and Mr. Lovett appeared in
support of the application, and submitted that an
order for the imprisonment of the respondent was
the only order which would now satisfy the justice of
the case.

Mr. Daunay and Mr. Reginald Neville appeared
for the respondent, and stated that Lord James
Douglas desired to express his profound sorrow for the
acts complained of, and he humbly offered his apologies
to the Court and also to Miss Scott and Lady Scott.
The acts complained of were committed nearly six
months ago, and there was no longer any likelihood
of the recurrence of similar acts.

Mr. Justice Chitty said that the terms of the orders
and undertakings made against and given by the re-
spondent were clear and plain. He had clearly com-
mitted breaches of the orders and undertakings, and
had apparently taken advantage of the indulgence
of the Court. It was a painful thing for
a young lady and her mother to come
forward in a case like the present. If the respondent
had, through some other channel and with an honest
intention, simply returned the photograph, it could not
have been said that he had been guilty, by doing that,
of any violation of the injunction imposed on him.
However that might be, the ground upon which the
Court would proceed would be the sending of the
Christmas card. The sending of such a card was an
insult to any lady or any woman in any position of
Life. He would say no more in giving his judgment
in this extremely painful case except that the re-
spondent's rank was an aggravation of his offence.
He made an order of committal. He would, however,
listen to an application for the respondent's release if
made after an interval of 14 days from caption.