The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-05-08 00:00:00

Our Nanban Coutspri4ait.

rWr deem it right to state th3t we do not it all times
tdeutily ou.:F3-.lves with oar Correspondent'3 opinions.)

The London season may always be said to get
into fell swing with the beginning of May,
and this year there has been not only the cus-
tomary opening of the Royal Academy at that
period, but the appearance of the Queen at the
inaoguration of the Colonial and Indian Exhibi-
tion to mark the time when gaiety in the West-
end of the metropolis is in the ascendent. The
scene at South Kensington on Tuesday has been
described by a hundred pens, and it is only
needful 0 add that visitors from the provinces
will be arr4ly repaid if they go to the exhibition
this year. It is agreed by all who have already
seen it that it 13 far more picturesque and far
more interestinr, than either of its predecessors,
and there is no difficulty in understandinc, why
this should be so. There is a wealth of colour to
be extracted from any representation of the
material resources of our many colonies and
dependencies, which can be understood even
on reflection, but which is naturally much
mere conceivable when witnessed in concrete
form. When one thinks of the many striking
features of Hindoo life and of Australian or
Canadian industry, it is an easy task to picture
oneseli how brilliant an exhibition cen be
made when specimens of these are gathered into
one focus and under one roof. It may safely,
therefore, be prophesied that those who this
year wend their way towards South Kensington
will not only find a :nest enjoyable exhibition,
but will go away more than ever impressed with
the size, the strength, and the resources of the
Blitish Empire.
Critics as a whole agree that the exhibition of
the Royal Academy this year is inferior in in-
terest to any of recent times. Various causes
have contributed to lessen the number of
pictures from our best painter:, and one of these,
strange as it may seem, was the weather. The
-unusually long winter prevented a great amount
of work from being undertaken, which might

otherwise have been aeoruplished, and the cons-,
nuencas are seen in the small number of picture
furnished by those who are the truest representa-
tives of that which is bast in English art. Of pic-
tures which are contemptuously denominated
"potboilers "there are, of course, as many as ever, for
no considerations of darkness or fog are allowed
to stand in the way of the production of such
articles as these! But the effect, on the whole,
is dispiriting, and visitors, if they have not
Acquired that well-known complaint, `.‘ the
Academy headache," will pass with a sense of
relief to the Grosvenor Gallery, where a better
selection of pictures is this season displayed. The
strange fact is apparent, when both exhibitions
are visited, that some of the hest known. Acade-
micians have sent superior work to the rival
institution_ to that with which they have
favoured the show which is peculiarly their own.
There doubtless is good reason for such an
apparently singular procedure; but it seems a
pity that the Royal Academy, which has so long
held a distinguished position as representing
British pictorial art, should exhibit any signs of
decadence at a period when the popular appre-
ciation of good pictures appears keener than
ever.

Some very important alterations will be found
in the Wimbledon preliminary prize list, which
has just been issued; but, though all of them are
of interest to volunteers, those which will attract
most attention from the general public are they.
which affect the Queen's Prize. Since the gold
medal was first won at the inaugural competition
of 1860, the changes which have been introduced
into the conditions of the contest have been fre-
quently changed; and the latest alteration,
though not affecting the great prize itself, will
have much influence upon the preliminary stages.
It is now proposed that what may almost be
called the historic "Queen's Sixty" shall be re-
placed by the "Queen's Hundred." There will
be 400 prizes in the competition instead of 360,
and the last hundred, and not, as before, the
last sixty, in the first stage will have
prizes of two pounds each. The highest
scorer in that first stage will, for the
first time, receive a bronzb medal, and thus
there will be a gold medallist, a silver medallist,
and a bronze medallist to be recorded instead of
only the two former as in previous years. Then
from this first stage the highest three hundred
men will pass into the second stage, from which
the best hundred will go on to the third and
final stage, the other two hundred taking prizes.
It will be evident to any who know the con-
ditions of firing at Wimbledon that the man who
gain. tho Quoon's prizo after such a severe com-
petition as this will prove himself so well worthy
of the honour that none will be able to say, as
has sometimes been said in previous years, that
victory was the result of good luck OD accident.
A matter of even more interest to volunteers
is that the Secretary of State for War has sanc-
tioned the formation of camps of instruction for
about one hundred thousand members of the
force during the present drill season, for whereas
the Wimbledon gathering directly affects only a
little over two thousand, this will touch nearly
fifty times that number. These camps will be
in each case for particular regiments only,
but beyond them arrangements are being
made for large assemblies of volunteers
at Dover, Chatham, Aldershot, Shoeburyness,
and elsewhere, at some of which plac'es
the auxiliaries will be exercised with regular
troops. The Government will supply tent
equipage where required, and will allow a small
capitation grant in addition to the sum paid
for ordinary efficiency. Under these conditions
it may fairly he expected that much good will
result from the proposed camps. All that the
Volunteers require in order to place them more
nearly on a level with regular soldiers is in-
creased practice in military tactics, and this
means much more than can be acquired by occa-
eional battalion or brigade drills. Just as an
ounce of fact is worth a ton of theory, so a week
in camp outweighs in actual teaching power a year
of ordinary drill; and as the Volunteers long
ago proved themselves to be far from a "feather-
bed force," as it was once the fashion sneeringly
to describe them, it is well that the Government
ehould adopt this method of teaching them
more than they have hitherto learned of the
practical side of military life.
The question of the supply of food is one of
deep interest to us all, and the news will, there-
fore, be received with pleasure that the
British Dairy Farmers' Association has
offered a sum of money • to provide a
scholarship, to be competed for by dairy
farmers or persons intending to start upon the
busin6"ss of dairy-farming or dairying. The can-
didates, who must not be less than eighteen years
of age, will in a few days be subjected in London
to a written and a viva voce examination in
butter-making, and the one who is successful
will be required to devote at least two months
to the acquisition of a knowledge of butter-
making in Normandy. It is thought that, at tho
end of that visit to a portion of France, which is
at once the most charming and the fullest of
dairy farms, a knowledge will have been acquired
which will prove of utmost value when it is
brought back to be put to practical use in Eng-
land;. and it is hoped that, by such a process,
repeated at intervals, a better style of
dairy-farming and butter - making may be
introduced into England. Perhaps, at the
same time, some additional knowledge may be
gained which will bring up the English cheese
manufacture to its old level. Good judges
declare that there has been a great falling off in
this particular during recent years; and as there
is no solid reason for such a state of things, it
may be that added information and greater zeal
will bring back the old conditions. Anything, in
fact, which can help the British farmer after this
long period of agricultural depression deserves to
be studied and may be hoped to succeed.
At the very moment at which this dairy-farm-
ing contest was being announced, another example
of foreign competition with English agriculture
was being placed on record. We have long
imported fruit from the Continent and from the
United States, but he would have been a bold
man, who, even up to a short time since, had
prophesied that we should be importing fruit
from the Antipodes. And yet only a few days
ago there reached the Thamea a consignment of
grapes, apples, pears, and other fruit from
Australia. The apples and pears are reported to
have arrived as fresh as they were on the day they
were picked, but the grapes, which had been
packed in carbonised saw-dust, did not turn out
quite as satisfactorily, it being found difficult to
entirely separate the packing material from the
bunches of fruit. The consignment :,,v!es: intended
for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, but a
part is to be Sold in order to test the market for
Colonial fruits, and the result will lie watched
with much interest by all who either grow
ior
purchase fruit. It is obvious that, f the
difficulties of packing,' could be overborne—and
they certainly do not seem insuperable—a very
large industry for Australia :might be created.
The taste for fruit is growing, but it is one which
the British farmer has not been cpliolc to
recognise, and one for which he has made no
strong effort to cater. It may be that now that
not only are apples imported from America by

the shipload, but that both apph s and pears are
threatened to be brought from Australia, these
among us who have the capacity for growing
fruit will be stimulated to greater exertion in
order to meet the new competition.
It is often stated that England does not make
the same use of the telephone as the United
States, and certainly, if the number of instru-
ments in New York be compared with the
number in London, the assertion will appear to
be justified. But even here the use is extending,
and it is not improbable that it will be greatly
increased within the next few years. The develop-
ment which is now being most eagerly sought
after by practical electricians is with regard to a
long-distance telephone, and many ingenious
contrivances are being put forward to counteract
the forces of induction, which on a long line so
seriously hinder the progress of the sound.
These attempts are not confined to England,
for some interesting experiments have just taken
place between Paris and Rheims, with the object
of ascertaining whether persons in the one
city could correspond directly by telephone with
these in the other. The experiments are stated
to have, on the whole, proved satisfactory, and
they lead to the hope that even greatf r dis
tances may yet be conquered. But, while yield-
ing all credit to the French electricians, it is
worth remembering that there has existed for
some time a system of telephoning between
London and Brighton, which is a distance net
so very far short of that between Paris . and
Rheims; and that this system has not been
merely one of experiment but is in regular and
daily use. A. F. It.