The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-04-13 00:00:00

Orr fonbou orrespontnnt,
ns, deem It Muhl to state that we do not at all times
Idemuy ourselves with our Correspondent's *intone]

The news relative to the health of the Prince of
Wales is of the most satisfactory character, and we
may indulge in the hope that he will, ere long, be able
to resume the active performance of those high duties in
connection with public affairs, the performance of
which was always a pleasure to him while his health
was adequate to it. The lamented absence of the
Prince hes brought the Duke of Edinburgh more
prominently forward than otherwise would have been
the case ; and it will have been noticed with pleasure
how ready he Las been to preside at meetings of a
benevolent character. The Duke, by the way, is a
capital speaker, and pets his ideas into terse and telling
Language. We are shortly to lose Prince Arthur, it
seems, who is to be made a major in the Rifle Brigade,
and who is going out to India for a couple of years.
No Princes in Europe have travelled so much as the
Prince of Wales and the mike of Edingburgh, and
the ethos's, it would apptar. are also to enjoy the
advantages of travel. The thorough popularity of
all the Princes is beyond all dispute.

It is to be hoped that a bill now passing through the
lions, of Commons may in due time receive the royal
assent. I refer to the Public Health Bill. The main
principle of this measure is that of local self goseru
meat in conjunction with a central authority, and its
leading object is the enforcement of existing sanitary
laws and the establishment of such additional regula-
tions as the improving tone of society demands. There
ia no doubt that if this measure becomes law and be
rigidly acted opon—and there is ample provision for
this—kp will tend very materially to promote the
health of the people, and especially that of the work-
ing classes.

Our citizen soldiers—the zealous, self-denying Volun-
teens—are soon to lose, it seems, their distinctive name.
Aoconling to a War Office circular, the Volunteers,
Militia, and Yeomanry, are to be called the Auxiliary
Forcea, and all the troops belonging to either of these
divisions of the reserve will be under the orders of a
genesal commanding the regular army in the district.
Opinions amongst the Volunteers themselves doubtless
differ as to the advantages of this change, mad psobably
it will on the one hand cause a good many resignations
and qui the other will Ming many accessions. On the
whole it may be hoped that the Volunteer service will
thus be improved, and that greater efficiency will be
attained, without the Volunteers losiag anything of
their purely voluntary character. Certain it is that
since the "battle of Brighton " they stand higher than
ever ha the estimation of their countrymen.
Oass by one our great foundation schools appear to
disappear from London and to be transplanted into the
country. Christ's Hospital, commonly called the Blue-
coat School, is the last instance of reform, if reform it
be—and I suppose it-is. The price paid for the free-
hold by the Mid-London Railway Company is so enor-
mous that the way in which this money is expended
will be matter of great interest to the whole nation,
for I need not inform the reader that Blue-coat boys
are by no means exclusively Londoners, The sum of
£600,000 is to be paid fur the site of the school and
grounds. It is said that £lOO,OOO is to be expended in
building and supporting a school in the country, and
that the remaining half-million will be devoted to the
establishment of schools in London. The public may
well watch with anxiety how this enormous amount of
money—left for the education of the poor, be it re-
metuberesi—is appropriated.
A very pleasant bit of news—too good, I fear, to be
tree—comes to us from France. It is said that
" hundreds of millions "—that is an indefinitely large
number f—of oysters are to be brought from the
Tagus and laid down in the French oyster-beds,
like too many of our own, sadly impoverished. But
whether the oysters will take kindly to their new
quarters remains to be seen—always supposing that
the attempt to transfer them is made. We have heard
a great deal in our own country about oyster cultiva-
tion, and companies have been formed to carry out
various projects of this kind; but the delicious bivalve,
the toothsome mollu.sc—l believe that is the long way
of writing "oyster "—is as dear as ever. But a sagacious
thought occurs to me. If there are "hundreds of
millions" of oysters at the month of the Tagus, why
not send some to England? We love them so that
we could eat them, and should be happy to pay for
them.

The agitation among farm labourers continues and is
being develoued. *Perhaps it is 118 well that the agri-
cultural labourer is not much of a newspaper reader,
or it may be that the numerous newspaper articles
telling him how ba lly he is treated wouhl produce
quite an exciting effect. As it is, they are creating no
little interest among landlords, farmers and labourers
Undoubtedly there is much to be said on the
side of the farmers as well as that of the labourers,
but I think that most outsiders, who read the
special correspondence and the subsidiary letters
on the subject must be of opinion at all events
that there is great room for improvement in
the condition of the agricultural labourer. The
community generally, I think, cannot but rejoice
that his condition is already being ameliorated.
We are told that "a time there was, ere England's
grief began, when every rood of ground maintained its
man ;" but them the charming poet who told us that
knew little about political economy and less about
domestic economy, if we may judge by the many anec-
dotes related of him. The plain truth is that Eng-
land never had such a time as this; but there is
another plain truth—that the condition of the agricul-
tural labourer has not improved, of late years, as that
of moat other classes living by labour has improved.
University dsgrees were never made for lattice, that's
certain, but many ladies consider they were made for
University degrees. The two, however, scarcely har-
monise. The time stems to be coming when we shall
have, as Tennyson says, "Prudes for proctors, dowagers
for deans, mat sweat girl gra4luatee in their golden
hair ;'' but if so we ought to have some alteration iu
the titles. I see that a young lady at Marseill.s has
just passed her examination and obtained the diploma
of tachelier 2s lettris. What a droll title for a young
ady I

Change-ringing—l do not mean ringing the changes
—has not hitherto, I believe, been practised by the
elite of society, and the society of college youths, who
devote themselves to the triple-bob-majors, is not a
very aristocratic association. But bell-ringing on
scientific principles is now to be studied and practised
by Oxford undergraduates, with the sanction of 'Usti-
vereity authorities. A good deal may be said for and
against ; to some people it is quite charm.
log; to others it is very disagreeable; but certainly
much depends on how it is done. To most persons
the sound of the church-bells, as it floats over the
fielde one summer's morning, is pleasant to the ear, but
then they must not be "sweet bells jangled out of
time." Now that Oxford undergraduates have taken
the bell-ropes in hand we shall doubtless have an im-
provement in ehangseringing.
A n old and well-remembered proverb says that meat
and cooks eeme from different st mrces, and we know—or
if we du not, it is not for want of being told—that good
cooks are scarce, and that consequently they demand
high wages. A "gent "—ft is his own word—takes a
curious method to make known his wants. Ile ad-
vertises poetically in the Times, but the inexorable
printers of your great contemporary put his poetry in
prose fashion thus "Required by a gent, near to
Bromley, in Kent, a cook on plain cooking plainly
intent. Enough if she's able to serve up a dinner diet
won't make her master a dyspeptic grinner. If asked
to bake bread, ne excuse she must utter; must be
able to churn and to make melted butter "—and a good
deal more of the same sort. I hope this advertising
gent will secure a servant who is more clever as a cook
than Ise is sea poet; for he is by no means illiberal in his
views as to salary, as he thus winds up his poetical an-
nouncement : "She insist be content, whatever her
age is, with sugar and tea, and I:20 wages."