The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-10-30 00:00:00

titiAE 6TOURI3RIDGE OBSERVER.

teaching is obvious enough, it does not seem at present
to be very clear how any considerable number of these
trained instructors are to find employment. The com-
mittee of the school appeal to corporations and indivi-
duals to institute free teacherships as a means of
doing a public service and relieving an overstocked
market of governesses." Apart from this they have only
to suggest that "a certificated teacher may obtain em-
ployment in towns and large villages in lecturing and
illustrating cookery, and, if competent and enterpris-
ing, may make an income of £lOO a year." Any
governess who would engage in such peripatetic lectur-
ing would be singularly enterprising and would richly
deserve the 100 a year. The training school for
teachers at South Kensington is admirable, but if
teachers are to be trained in any great numbers, special
efforts runst be made to find schools for them to teach
in.—The Globe.

. PROPOSED LICENSE FOR SMOKING.
The members of the Anti-Tobacco Society have hitherto
chiefly confined their attention to talk and tracts. A pro-
gralnme of action has now been laid before them by a corre-
spondent signing himself "Pro 83110 Pub'leo," remarks a
contemporary. It remain., to be seen if the society will adopt
ft. The programme is as folloivs :
As some measure is considered necessary for re-
ducing the amount of smoking among the public, I
would suggest that the ss. license for selling tobacco
be done away with and a license of 2s. 6d. to use
tobacco be introduced instead. This license would
tell with considerable effect. First it would yield a
very much larger amount of revenue than the
amount realised under the license to sell. It would
also have a very great influence in preventing
the juvenile part of our population from smok-
ing, who now indulge to a fearful extent. I
would also respectfully suggest that the license
to smoke should be obtained precisely upon the
same principle as the dog license, and to be obtained
from the Post-office authorities, and that the Inland
Revenue officers be appointed to carry the law into
effect. I would also suggest that the license should be
worn conspicuously while smoking is going on, and
that the name of the owner of the license should be
written on one side, and "License to smoke" on
the other, the penalty for the infringement of the law
to be severe. I consider the Anti-Tobacco Society
have a prior claim to legislation upon the permissive
principle to any other body of men; and as smoking
begets drinking, and drinking and smoking have a very
exciting influence, do away as far as practicable with
one great cause of drinking—i.e., smoking; and the
result will be the evil of drunkenness will be materially
lessened.

as it might easily do next year, it will have to be
remembered that this year every acre of land in Eng-
land received several inches of water from the heavens
in one week; that water was everywhere ooz'ng, per-
meating, falling, or rushing from the
,higher to the
lower grounds, according to the declivity; that every-
where there were formidable and even destructive
inundations, till the element itself had assumed the
character of an enemy of the human race. Many a
household or homestead, many a farm, mansion, or
cottage, will then be paying for water by the tub or
the bucket, or be sending children for it by long, steep,
and hot roads, which now gazes on ponds, ditches, and
surface pools of water with no other wish than that
they may soon be dry.
Some day or other, when Parliament has settled a
few questions which may concern, may be, a dozen or
two people, and may be largely estimated at a few
thousand pounds, it will possibly spare a little of its
attention for a question which concerns the whole
population, and is simply how fifty or a hundred
million pounds may be rescued from utter waste.
The Agriculturalists talk of burdens on land; all
these, on the most cd4aprehensive reckoning, for a
dozen years, will not amount to the loss by the
last drought to which wo have referred. Cannot they
employ their time and their present hold on the; Govern-
ment in this country to some purpose by directing
public attention to the best means of equalizing our
water supply, husbanding excesses, and making some
provision, however slight, for the calamity which ex-
perience shows to be a good deal worse than a rainy
day, and quite as certain to recur, soon or late? It
is needless to say the towns too, are equally interested,
for while the town populations generally have been
loudly complaining for several years that the streams
which Nature had given to them have been diverted,
diminished, or misused, a good many of them have
found themselves this week provided with more water
than they could dispose cf. Thus far, with the excep-
tion of a sad casualty here and there, through some
merely accidental circumstances, there has been only
inconvenience and loss. But we would rather direct
attention to the certainty of immense loss and extreme
suffering to the poor brutes by an ordinary drought,
for which no provision has been made. It is not the
act of a rational country, and certainly not of a humane
one, to enter upon every year with the population of
this country and the care of many millions of brute crea-
tures on our hands, without the certainty of providing
food and drink for them. This can only be d one byp univer-
sal system of reservoirs, great and small, tanks, ponds,
lakes, and canals, wherever they can be formed. There
certainly is the water for them. There was at least
last week, though that has passed away. It is only a
question of money, and it must indeed be an enormous
expenditure which shall L.e out of just proportion to
the loss it is proposed to avert and the gain it is hoped
to secure. It must be a work of time, doubtless, just
as our railways and all our other improvements are
works of time. But we shall have to take the work in
hand, or discover, to our cost, that while we have done
much that mattered but little we have left undone the
most pressing of all our public necessities.

THE GERMAN EMPEROR AT MILAN

The Special Correspondent oi The Times, writing from
Milan, on Oct. 22, says :

I was walking with a young friend in the Via Man-
zoni, the way to the station, when, preceded by the
tramp of the King's Cuirassiers, the mczza gala, or, as
one might say, undress Court carria.2es came up at full
trot. In the first sat the Emperor William with King
Victor Emmanuel ; in the next, Prince Humbert, with
the other Princes ; followed in other vehicles by their
usual male retinue. The two monarchs in their well-
appointed sportsman's garb—the Emperor in a light-
coloured suit, with a white hat, the King in black
velvet, with a broad-brimmed Calabrian beaver
—looked, in my opinion, to greater advantage than
in their uniforms, with cordons of their Orders
and their white-plumed silver helmets. The Em-
peror, hale and hearty,—he stands for hours at Court
Receptions without ever exhibiting the least symptom
of weariness,—with the habitual benignant and pleased
expression on his countenance, accompanied with a
smile the bows by which his bare head acknowledged
the obeisances of the persons who stood on the footpath
of the by no means crowded thoroughfare. The King sat
erect and composed, taking no notice of the saluta-
tions, which might be presumed to be exclusively
addressed to his august visitor. Prince Humbert
stood up in his carriage, and returned the people's
marks of respect with an eager and somewhat
demonstrative alacrity. At the Monza Station other
carriages, drawn by superb teams, were in waiting.
The party repaired at once to the Park, and on
their first appearance the horns gave the signal for
the beginning of the sport. What is here called a
partita di caccia is not, as I imagined, a hunting, but a
shooting party. There was a battue of the Prince's
coveys, and a terrific slaughter ensued. The King
seldom fired, but never missed. Thirty-one shots of
the Emperor were successful. Prince Humbert did
the greatest execution. The Dukes of Aosta and Genoa
also acquitted themselves with credit. Count Moltke
did not attend the party. There were about 400
pheasants and woodcocks killed, a roebuck which
received his death-shot from the Emperor's rifle,
several hares, and other game, and the whole was pre-
sented to the Emperor William, who, I am told,
ordered it to be sent by train to Berlin. Then fol-
lowed lunch at four, and two hours later the sportsmen
were all back in Milan.

In the evening we had the Court Ball. The hour
appointed for it was half-past nine, and by that time
a great many of the 4,000 invited guests were awaiting
the Court party, who made their appearance at ten.
The gentlemen, who constituted a very large majority,
were requested to remain in the ante-chamber while
the ladies were being ushered in and accommodated
with seats in the dancing-room, the Grand Hall of the
Caryatides. The lines of chairs were drawn up on
three sides of the vast apartment; the fourth side of
the area was unoccupied, being at first intended as free
space for the dancers. The gentlemen had to squeeze
in between the ladies' chairs and the walls, and the
crush was awful, only a few being sufficiently for-
tunate to see anything, as upon the first notes of Haydn's
Anthem being struck, the Royal couples stepped in,
the Emperor with the Princess Margaret, the King
with the Duchess of Genoa, and the Prince and
Generals of high rank, with the Marchesa di Mon-
tereno, the Countess Gattinava, and other ladies of
honour in attendance on the Princess. Little chance
was given to gentlemen in black coats and white
cravats to view the rich uniforms and the elegant
ladies' toilets that dazzled the eye in the bright yet soft
blaze of those myriads of wax lights. The Emper)r
wore a scarlet tunic, with white epaulets, and held
in his right hand his helmet with the silver eagle.
The King and Prince Amadeo were clad in their
Generals' uniforms. Prince Humbert, during the
German Emperor's visit, invariably appears in the
Prussian Hussar costume of the regiment which
bears his name. Count von Moltke had on the
cordon of the Order of St. Maurice. The Ministers
and other high civil functionaries were in Court
dress. The Princess Margaret was attired in blue,
her robe bordered with wreaths of roses. Her necklace
and tiara were of diamonds. Her mother, the Duchess
of Genoa, was in white. After the first and second
waltzes, in which the Princes and the Princess with
the ladies of honour took the lead, the lists began to
be invaded, the gentlemen, most of whom had in their
pent up position been nearly suffocated, broke in
unrestrained, and then the mdlee became general, room
enough being only left here and there for the dancing
sets. The Emperor' the King, and, I believe, the
Duchess of Genoa did not join the dancers. The
Emperor, so far as I could see, never sat down, but
was unremitting in his attentions to the Princess and
the loveliest of her ladies of honour. Prince Tommaeo,
the young Duke of Genoa, appeared to impress the
ladies in my immediate neighbourhood as being re-
markably handsome. He is now grown up, and looks
noble and manly, and those incipient mustachioes on
which six years ago Prim grounded his arguments for
considering the Prince as a fit candidate for the Spanish
throne have now expanded into a large and full dark
beard. His Royal Highness is only 19.
The ladies present did not exceed 400; the other sex
mustered at least four times stronger. The Court
retired a little before midnight, and of the remaining
entertainment I have nothing to tell, having followed
the example of my betters.