The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-11-13 00:00:00

Our Yonbon 6aTtsponbtnt,
(We deem it right to state that we do not at an ttL7C3
Identify onrseives with our Cprrespondent's opinions.j

November is the month in which the members of the
Cabinet, after three months' holiday, again assemble
and meet together in London for the purpose of shap-
ing the Ministerial measures for the coming session.
They come from their country seats, and from the
mansions of hospitable entertainers, who are proud of
the company of such distinguished guests; from sandy
beaches, where some of them have listened during
long sunlit hours to the music of the sad sea waves;
from busy cities, where this or that Secretary of State
has been the subject of a congratulatory address; from
shooting grouse, and partridge, and pheasant upon
ranges of lonely moors; and gather once more in the
gloomy and fog-bound metropolis, there to settle the
army and navy estimates, and to sketch out the
programme of next year's legislation. They are back
again amid the life and bustle of Parliame...-___
and from their offices look down upon the rapid tide
of the Thames as it sweeps towards Westminster
Bridge. On the days when it is known the Cabinet
will meet, there is many a lounger at the corner of
Downing street, who are amply rewarded for staying
about in the cold by seeing the twelve gentlemen pass
up into whose hands the destiny of the Empire is
committed. They come sometimes in couples, arm-in-
arm, chatting merrily, as though there were no long
nights before them under the splendidly-lit ceiling of
the House of Commons. Others arrive singly, deeply
engaged in thought; but at all events there they all
are, and punctual to the minute; for in high places,
as well as in the ordinary walks of life, punctuality is
the soul of business.
Lord Mayor's Day works in excellently with the ar-
rangement by which the Cabinet assembles in the be-
ginning of November. By the ninth of the month
Parliament has generally been up thirteen weeks at
least; and during that time many things may have
happened upon which misconception has arisen in the
public mind, and calling for comment or explanation.
When the Legislature is in session, the question to the
head of a department in either House elicits the infor-
mation which the people desire; but when noble lords
and honourable gentlemen are scattered through their
respective counties, and the Cabinet Ministers are en-
joying the rest which they so much require, a matter
may run on for weeks without being explained or put
before the country in its proper light. There is really
no opportunity for doing so. It is then midway be-
tween August and February, and constituting a con-
venient break between the separating and the meeting
of the Great Council of the Nation, that the Lord
Mayor's banquet strikes in as a most convenient insti-
tution. As a rule it is attended by all the Cabinet
—linisters ; and an occasion is thus given for explana-
tions upon matters of public policy such as the people
may expect. The Banquet is always held at Guildhall,
where covers are laid for 800 guests. It is provided
on the most magnificent scale, is defrayed by the Lord
Mayor and Sheriffs, and with the procession of the
day does not cost much less than £2,500. In Guild-
hall politics are unknown. A Conservative Lord
Mayor will toast a Liberal Prime Minister, or a
Liberal Lord Mayor a Conservative Prime Minister,
as though there were no differences of opinion at all
between them. In fact, politics obtain no sway what-
ever in the municipality of London, where the chief
magistrate is always chosen according to the rule of
seniority.

The Freedom of the City of London is an
honour highly prized by all its recipients, and
coveted by many who can scarcely hope to obtain
such a distinction. On the roll of honorary free-
men are the names of gallant generals, admirals,
and officers of various grades in both services, who
have caused the flag of Great Britain to be re-
spected in all climes and upon every sea. The auto-
graphs are there, too, of the statesman, the philan-
thropist, and the man of science. Men who have
played such different parts in history as Arthur Duke
of Wellington and Richard Cobden have planed their
signatures upon that famous list. The princes of
the reigning house are entitled to the y free-
dom by patrimony; and the four sons 0 her
Majesty have all taken it up. The latest ddition
to the number of freemen was Sir George _Liddell
Airy, the Astronomer Royal; and on th 3 same
day on which this ceremony took place, 111 Court
of Common Council passed unanimously a reso-
lution to confer the freedom upon no less illustrious a
personage than the Lord Chief Justice of England.
The document conveying the right of free citizenship is
always enclosed in a gold box of the value of no
guineas, and this is invariably an elaborate work of art.
The Corporation is a body with immense revenues;
indeed its estimated income is £lOO,OOO a year. A
proportion of this vast sum is expended upon what
Lord Palmerston once called "the splendid hospitality
of the City of London ;" but a great part is devoted to
works of public improvement, such as the reconstruc-
tion of bridges, the removal of rookeries, and their
substitution by rows of new and model dwellings. The
Guildhall Library and Museum, supplied at a cost of
£25,000, shows that the City authorities are not
behind when an educational cause is concerned. And
those gold boxes enclosing the freedom, which are held
by distinguished men in various walks of life, may be
looked upon as typifying not only the wealth of the
most ancient and the richest municipality in the
world, but as demonstrating its readiness to recognise
intellectual merit wherever it may be foutad„

The King and Queen of Denmark have come over
here at a very gloomy time, and at a season when the
condensing powers of the air, never backward in our
climate, are very often in full operation. The main
object of their journey, however, appears to be to
fetch the Princess of Wales, who is to spend Christmas
with her parents at Copenhagen, Our Royal visitors
have not been very numerous during the year which
will shortly draw.to a close. The Queen of the Nether-
lands was here for a little while in the summer, and so
was the Sultan of Zanzibar, but the lattec scarcely
came within the rank of a reigning sovereign, being
addressed by the title:of "Highness." .Now last year
we had the Emperor of Russia amongst us, and later
the Empress; while the year before saw the Shah of
Persia in our midst. The sensation caused by the
presence of that potentate surpassed anything in the
same way which had been witnessed for a very long
time, and it will take a good many years before the
public interest can be again worked up to an equally
high pitch over a similar event.

- -
People who take an interest in legal reforms have
been curiously watching the effect of the new Judica-
ture Acts. These statutes are so voluminous and
effect so many changes of procedure that time must
manifestly be given for the efficient and proper work-
ing of the machinery which the legislation has called
into existence. It must also be remembered that the
Acts are not complete. The original measure of 1873
abolished the House of Lords as a Court of Final
Appeal ; but the Act of last Session repealed that pro-
vision, as a temporary measure in consequence of the
strong objections of the Peers to part with their
juriadiction as a Court of Justice, and it is even
now for Parliament to decide what the Supreme
Court shall really be. There are other points on
which an amending statute will be required,
such as for instance the question whether the
intermediate Courts of Appeal shall be retained
in their present form. The intention of the first
Act was that these should be swept away, and that
there should be but one appeal from the Court of First
Inst9.nce direct to the Supreme Court, thus saving
time and expense. In the titles of the various tri-
bunals there has not been so much alteration as we had
been led to expect. It had been supposed that their
distinctive names had been dispensed with; but, al-
though the Queen's Bench is no longer an independent
"Court," but merely a " division " of the High Court
of Justice, it is still the Queen's Bench, and the same
must be said of the Common Pleas and the Ex-
chequer.

The new terminus of the Great Eastern Railway in
Liverpool-street is a good addition to our specimens of
railway station architecture. Its opening is a forcible
reminder of the way in which the metropolitan line has
gradually been forcing its way under the streets of
London. I remember well when it came only as far
as Farringdon-street, and when passengers who wished
to travel to East Anglia had to rcake a tedious journey
through the crowded thoroughfares to the Great
Eastern terminus in the very heart of Shoreditch, a
matter of about a couple of miles. Slowly but surely
the Metropolitan crept on, first to Aldersgate-street,
then to Moorgate-street, and now we find it at
Liverpool-street, not far from the world-renowned
Aldgate pump. The Great Eastern has at the
same time been advancing to meet the Metropolitan
and now we find them side by side in the
same street. This metropolitan line is one of the most
remarkable conveniences of the day. It may be easily
reached from the Great Western terminus at Padding-
ton, the Great Northern at King's-croes, the Midland
at St. Pancras, the London and North-Western at
Euston, the Chatham and Dover at Ludgate-hill, and
the Great Eastern at Liverpool-street. In fact no
railway running into the capital seems to be content if
its terminus be removed far from the Underground.
The South-Western trains are now found at Ludgate-
hill, where the line runs right into the Metropolitan.
Many experiments have been tried with a view of
improving the mental condition of the mechanic and
the artisan after they have left their hours of labour.
As time goes on, and the fruits of the Education Act
of 1870 become apparent, the necessity for such organi-
sations will diminish, for every year must now increase
the number of the instructed amongst the masses.
Some institutions have failed because they proposed
to set men to spend their evenings in classes for hard

I thi

'arliament-street, struggli

study who were tired out by a day of exhausting toil.
It is impossible for a man who is physically weary to
be mentally active at the same time, for though the
labour of the mind and of the body is of a widely dis-
similar character, there is a sympathetic feeling be-
tween the brain and the hand which cannot be
ignored. A man who has been handling the plane
or the saw throughout the, live-long day is scarcely
in a fit state to master are abstruse proposition in
Euclid. The Institute in Castle-street, Oxford-
street, appears, however, to have hit the happy
medium. An amount of useful instruction tokork-I
lug men is combined with the delivery of lectm‘s on
topics of the day, and these are followed by debates,
in which the men are invited to take part. The Com-
mittee of the Institute take care that all sides of kn.%
portant public questions are represented, and do not
commit themselves to the various views which are ex-
pressed.

It is noteworthy that while the anniversary of the
Battle of Balaklava was so magnificently celebrated at
.e Alexandra Palace, that of a longer and sterner

_ 'e which took place ten days later passed away
with little or no notice. 1 refer to the battle of Inker-
man, which took place on the sth of November, 1854,
between a vast horde of Russians and a few thousand
French and English. The allied armies had then been
encamped before Sebastopol six weeks, and the com
wanders bad come to the conclusion that the place
must be reduced by a regular siege. The Russians
resolved to make a vigorous effort to sweep. the besiegers
Into the sea; so, early in the morning of the sth of
November, before the nocturnal mists had cleared
away, and in the midst of a drizzling rain, 60,000 of
them issued forth from the beleagured city, and fell
upon 14,000 of the allies in the trenches. The result
of the sanguinary fray has always been called "The
Soldier's Victory," for so dense was the misty atmosphere
that the generals were unable to see how to direct
elaborate movements; so that it was sheer dogged
courage and not military skill which at last compelled
the enemy to withdraw to the protection of their lines.
How changed is the scene of to-day! The fair city of
Sebastopol, maimed and battered though she may have
been, still rears her head proudly as the Queen of the
Elaine; but the shock of contending armies is suc-
ceeded by the solitary scream of the circling sea-bird;
and the Tartar shepherds lazily watch their flocks -as
they feed upon the rank grass which flourishes in the
huge cemeteries, marking the graves of a hundred and
fifty thousand men who perished in that historic
struggle. .