The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1887-02-05 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

COMMENTS ON CURRENT NEWS.  ONE of those terrible calamities which from time to time shock the world, occurred at three o'clock on the morning of the 26th of January to the ill-fated emigrant ship Kapunda, bound from London to Australia, which, after a collision with a homewardbound Belfast boat, sank south of Maceio. Close on three hundred lives were lost by this awful "peril of the sea," most of them those of poor folk who were sailing en familia to find a new home and a new field for industry. Only one woman of the many on board was rescued from the wreck; and the death-roll would have been largely increased but for a fortunate failure of a party of female servants to join the vessel in time for sailing. All the land is deeply moved with sympathy for the friends of those who have thus sunk beneath the wave so far away from their native shore.  POLITICAL excitement has within the few days past centered upon two points, so far as home affairs go. Tho opening of Parliament, with Lord Randolph Churchill's explanation of his resignation of Ministerial rank excited very much attention, ES did also the defeat of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his bold attempt to wrest a seat from the Gladstonians in Liverpool. Mr. Goshen's way into the House of Commons was quickly afterwards, however, smoctlacd by the resignation by Lord Algernon Percy of his seat for the aristocratic new borough of St. George's, Hanover-square. Lord Algernon, by-the-bye, has just come into almost a princely fortune for a younger son—by the death of Lady Rokewood-Gage, and this and his ill-health decided his lordship to quit the Commons. The ex-member for Westminster and later for the fashionable marrying borough is the Duke of Northurc. berland's sixth son, and married Earl MountEdgeumb's elder daughter, so that a political peerage might easily fall into less eligible hands than his. Some of the speeches on the Address, nc tably those of Col. Saul derson, Lord Raneolph Churchill, Mr. Labouchere.and Mr. Chaplin, have not failed to secure attention.  THE news from Afghanistan, telling of the attack on the Fort of Bala Abdula by Durants in which 100 of the Quetta Railway coolies were killed, is sufficiently disturbing to have created considerable alarm. It is to be hoped that the outbreak is nothing more than the result of local fanaticism on the part of tEe treacherous tribes thereabout, for anything like an organised intrigue from the Candahar centre would be full of foreboding for the future peace. There are rumours of that sort, bu: if they have any truth AngloIndia may have to speak a word in the /ratter. We hope, however, that the Ameer can manage to settle this trouble speedily himself, and if the Durani tribe are terrified at sight of the railroad-making and of the steam monsters which they cannot comprehend, that he will be able to calm their ignorant fear and frenzy.  TALE of tin swords and oellag bayonets has perturbed the British soldier not a little of late, and now the ugly tales are again afoot. Report says that the weapons distributed for use on her Majesty's ship Indus have hardly any superiority over hoop iron! Tested at Devonpert, the deceptively bright blades bent into a semi-circle, and remained at the graceful, if not utilitarian:curve long after the removal of the force of pressure employed. Is this an outcome of the administrative economy of which we have heard ? Prices for arms have been cut down as much as they will bear, but reductions which decrease quality as well as price are far flora being of a sailing character, ono would have thought, after the feeling raised by the recent discoveries of such sadly imperfect and unreliable weapons in so large a percentage among those in the hands of our soldiers and sailors that the greatest possible care would have been shown by the responsible authorities in testing deliveries from the Government arsenals and factories as well as from private contracts. Put the bad swordbayonets which have this week come to light at Devonport have only just been issued ! There is need of sweeping reform somewhere, and the ruthless sacrifice of some officials who are failing to fulfil their duty.  JUVENILE suicides are happily rare. But we have to remarkable ones this week. There was the case of a poor little girl who drowned herself because she had been scolded for obtaining sweets on credit; and that of the determined fourteen-year-old lad who shot himself in Manchester after being discharged in disgrace from his employment. These mere children faced death and its mysterious Hereafter rather than the rebut e, and, perhaps, punishment of friends ar d acquaintances; displaying a morbid sensibility of a greater than ccmmon degree, truly, but of no rare chaicecer nowadays. In the old time girls or boys v(yho transgressed were soundly thras'hed for their peccadilloes, obtained absolution, and ultimately had a healthy moral stamina built up within them. In these degenerate days we eschew thm rod and spoil the child ; maa moral weakling which flies to destruction rather than stand the world's censure and live down-the consequences of error. Artificial modern society is failing to teach that boys and girls may rise on "stepping stones of their dead selves to higher things." Oh! fur an infus;on of the robuster mental and physical schooling of a couple of decad( a back into the polish and culture of our ultraeducational system!  Apropos of the disastrously fatal fall of a temporary gallery in a North London workhouse the:other day, the coroner has given his decision, in effect, that nobody is to blame. A. workhouse, says the official...dictum, is a private place, and authority cannot therefore interfere to prevent the erection of a temporary gallery there any more than it can step in to prohibit a similar additi_m to a drawing-room. Tlis is doubtless perfectly correct " Crowner's Quest Law," but it is scarcely common sense. Yon may put up a jimerack stage or platform in some spacious apartment, and heedlessly invite your acquaintances thereon, with the result that a collapse occurs and several deaths ensue. You will be held unworthy of censure so long as the place is private. But erect a small greenhouse in your back garden, or even a potting-shed, and see what the local authority will have to say to you if you have not first submitted plans, iu ceremonious . form, to the district surveyor, so that Le may certify that the projected structure is safe, and no t likely to endanger anyone' life or limb! There is a screw loose in local law somewhat