The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-12-11 00:00:00

foOon 6orrtspnbent.

[We deem it right to state that we do not at all times
Identify ourselves with our Curre-spondent's opinions.]

The rumour that Parliament was to be summoned
for a pre-Christmas sitting, which was very pre-
valent a week or ten days ago, has died away, and
it is now generally understood that the Legislature
will not assemble for the dispatch of business
until the usual time —the first or second week
in February. The last time that the
spiritual and temporal, and the knights, citizens,
and burgesses gathered at Westminster before
Christmas was in November, 1567, when_a vote was_
taken for the Abyssinian war. The sitting was held
for that especial purpose, and little or no other business
was transacted. In like manner it was surmised that
Parliament was now to meet in ord.ar to ratify the
bargain made by the Government with the Khedive of
Egypt for the purchase of his shares in the Suez CanaL
It now appears, however, that there is no such urgent
necessity for the issue of the Queen's Proclamation;
and as to the consent of our senators being readily
given, such a question was never in the slightest
doubt. Having at a sweep secured 17,000 out
of the 400,000 shares constituting the pro-
prietary, it would not be surprising if other
shareholders were to hasten to dispose of their interest
to us. At all events we have now a very considerable
slice in the control of this vast uudertaking—one
which, by the way, would never have been carried out
had it depended upon this country. But all's well
that ends well, and that France should have given us
a safe and speedy highway to our great Indian posses-
sions is such a way of avenging Waterloo as was
never dreamt of in the philosophy of warriors or
statesmen.

lordal

It becomes increasingly clear that the construction
of the Navy will form a prominent subject of debate in
Parliament next session. The paragraphs which ap-
pear from time to time respecting the condition of the
unf Drtunate Vanguard, and the extent to which she is
still sinking more deeply into her sandy bed, tend to
keep the subject alive, and to increase the faith of
those who look upon the ram as the weapon of the
future in naval warfare. One point to be considered
will be the vulnerability of our etrongest ironclads be-
low the belt of armour plating. The thin sheet iron
s:rhich constituted the double bottom of the Vanguard
was shivered like a match box; and thus it comes to
pass that while we have thrown all our energies into
"the battle of the guns," and have been piling on
armour to resist shot, a most vital part of our ships
has been left unprotected. It is only necessary to hit
below the belt once, and the vessel is disabled and des-
troyed; and in these days of rams and torpedoes
this weak point is particularly liable to attack. The
skill of naval constructers would seem to have been
concentrated of late years in the endeavour to provide
men-of-war with armoured batteries capable of keeping
out the heaviest projectile in use afloat. But while so
much has been done in this almost vain effort to over-
come the superiority of the gun, our ships have been
left comparatively easy prey to those two most
powerful engines, the torpedo and the ram.
The development of science, instead of assisting US to
build a better navy, has only increased our difficulties.
Every succeeding Admiralty is, indeed, perplexed as
'') the design which should be adopted. Some years
ago there was a strong demand for ships upon the
turret system with a low freeboard; and, in response
to public opinion the Captain was constructed,
equipped, and sent to sea. We all know the result of
that experiment; and with this knowledge it is not
surprising that the Admiralty should take time before
adopting every new plan which is sent in. Two brass
plates upon the north-west wall of St. Paul's Cathedral
tell the sad tale of that disaster :
"There's on the lone, lone sea
A spot unmarked, but holy.
For there the gallant and the free
In their ocean bed lie lowly.
Down, down beneath the deep,
Which oft in triumph bore them,
They sleep a calm and peaceful sleep,
The salt waves rolling o'er them.
And though no stone may tell
Their name, their worth, their glory;
They lived in hearts that loved them wet—
They grace Britannia's story.
it is clear that such dangerous experiments in ship-
building will not bear repetition; and this is one of the
many difficulties which must surround the reconstruc-
tion of the navy.

We are constantly told that the age of miracles is
past. The statement is generally meant to imply a
miracle which would be greater than any of those that
excite the admiration of devotees. If true, it must
necessarily be that the human mind has attained to
omniscience, ard could be no longer astonished or
perplexed. It is remarkable that the unbelievers in
.he miracles of tradition are the warmest of those who
pin their faith to the miracles discovered in another
field. The marvels of science are revered by those who,
barely comprehending them, reject the wonders of old
on the ground that they are incomprehensible. The
age which is inclined to look coldly upon the story that
the Bun stood still over the Valley of Ajalon, in order
to facilitate Joshua's task for the overthrow of the
enemies of his people, is the age which has called the
sun into its service for the purpose of taking photo-
graphs. And yet this miracle of modern science was
ue far from being a new thing that specimens of photo'
t•raphy a hundred years old were found hidden away
behind the wainscoting of an ancient house where such
magician as James Watt had lived. And some time
e, in a Japanese museum of antiquities were some
splindid specimens of the photographer's art which,
executed a thousand years ago, would have done credit
to many a European artist of to-day. Such a discovery
might well give force to the declaration that there is
"nothing new under the sun."
How prone human nature is to take sides with the
weak against the strong has often been noticed.
The spider, after all his toilsome preparation and
elaborate forethought, is doubtless entitled to the fly
caught in his meshes; and the right of the wary pike
'to the small fish with which he allays his ravenous
eppetite, would not be denied. Yet, although the
'Ard in the air, the fish in the sea, and the animal on
• he ground, preys each on its fellow, our age manifests
I growing disposition to take sides with the weaker
,arty. If a quarrel is witnessed in the street between
big boy and a little one, encouraging shouts are sure
t be raised in favour of the diminutive one. That the
ter has been insulting his superior in strength does
-Aot matter. All the sympathy manifested is for him.
It is the same in national as in individual affairs.
',,cry one will recollect that on the declaration of war
',France against Prussia in July, 1870, there was a
rst of indignation against Napoleon 111. and his
s.binet. If the whole pop-elation in this country had
..een polled, it would be found that, speaking within
'mite, the good wishes of nine-tenths of the People
:ere with the Prussians. This feeling was due not so
ouch to a belief that France was wrong as to the idea
hat she was the stronger of the two. But when one
• uccess followed another on the opposite side, and the
Inge machine of blood and iron spread itself in an
eormeus belt of devastation around Paris, it was defa.
'lilt to meet an Englishman who did not wish that
erne unexpected army might rise from the French
oil, and free it from its invaders.
The meteorologists who have been predicting a long
Ind severe winter find that appearancee are thus far in
i•avour of their forecasts. It is not often that in the
irst days of December the landscape is covered with
e thick white carpet cf snow; and that, in great
ities, those soft flakes, so rapidly accumulating,
eriously impede locomotion. In the face of the bitter
.vinter weather which has lately settled down upon the
end, we can have some sort of fellow-feeling for our
r allant countrymen
who have gone to explore the
aysteries of the Arctic! regions. To us a week or BO
of frbet and snow is fraught with inconvenience and
misery to immense numbers of the population, but the
hardy companies of the Alert and the Discovery have
o face these atmospheric conditions for at least a
couple of years. When they return, as we all sincerely
dope they will, we can understand that their coming
back to civilization will be attended with strange and
singular memories. It will be a veritable return from
leath unto life—from unbroken silence and unrelieved
iolitude to the roar and bustle of a million-peopled
eity. When Mr. Henry M. Stanley iound the late
Dr. Livingstone in November, 1871, the missionary
aveller had not even heard of the change of adminis-
hlation which bad taken place in Great Britain three
years before; and the story of the mighty political
convulsions which shook the continent of Europe in
1870 was to him as newas though he had lived on another
planet. As to the temperature in which the Arctic
explorers live, move, and have their being, it may be
noted that the extremes of heat and cold are found to
produce the same perceptions upon the skin, and when
the mercury is frozen at forty degrees below zero, the
sensation is the same as touching red hot iron.
During the hard frost of 1740 a Palace of ice was
built at St. Petersburg. Quicksilver was frozen hard
at Moscow on the 13th January, 1810. Perhaps the
coldest day ever known in London up to that time was
the 25th December, 1796, when the thermometer was
sixteen degrees below zero. On the 3rd January,
1854, the record was four below zero. On Christmas
Day, 1860, the temperature at Torquay, in the south
of Devon, was twenty below zero. For a week the
cold was excessive, and so intense as to kill all the
laurels. On the 4th January' 1867, the thermometer
marked three degrees below zero at Hammersmith
and Hornsey, near London, and a frost came on
terrible in its severity. That was the time of the
lamentable accident in the Regent's Park, when owing
to the breaking of the ice on one of the ponds, forty
persons were drowned.
The trial of the Wainwrights, which has [just been

.4-Justice