The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-03-06 00:00:00

Rliscellancous

ROME, FOREIGN, AND COLONIAL.

A SUDDEN IMPULSE—Last week a young
married man named Miller, an inspector of gas meters,
in the employ of the City of London Gas Company,
left the office of the company in the Minories, saying
he would take a walk down Bishopsgate-street, and
never returned either to the office or to his home.
There was nothing wrong with his accounts, a balance
of £l5 being due to him from the company. His
friends communicated with the pace, and search was
made for the missing man in every direction, but
nothing was heard of him till Tuesday night, when
his father received a letter from a tailor living near
Gower-street, stAing that he (the tailor) could tell him
where his son was. The father went to the tailor's
house, said there found his son in a very wretched and
desponding condition. The young man states that
while walking down Bishopsgate-street, he felt a
sudden impulse to enlist for a soldier, and immediately
went by train to Chatham, where, however, he found
that be was an inch below the standard height. He
adds that he then felt ashamed to return to London,
and having spent all his money, he tried to get work
in Chatlawn, but could not, and on the third day of
his absence he made acquaintance with the tailor, and
walked up to London with him. He still did not like
to return home, and remained with the tailor for two
dayg, when the latter wrote to the young man's father,
as already stated.

DEATH OF A VETERAN. The death of Lord
Gough was announced on Turaday evening. His
lordship, who was in his eightieth year, was the son
of Mr. George Gough, a gentleman of good family, in
the county of Limerick. He entered the army in
1794, and served at the Cape of Good Hope, in the
West Indies, and in the Peninsula, under the Duke of
Wellington. For his services in the first China war,
which terminated with the treaty of Nankin in 1842,
he VIM created a baronet and a G.C.B. In 1843 he
was appointed to the command of the army in India,
and for his victories over the Sikhs in 1845-6 was
elevated to the peerage. At the close of the second
campaign in the Punjaub in 1849 he was made a
visonunt, and was voted a pension of £2,000 for himself
and his two next successors in the peerage. The East
India Company also settled upon him a corresponding
pension. In 1855 he succeeded Lord Raglan 118 Colonel
of the Royal Horse Guards. In 1857 he was installed
a Knight of the Order of St. Patrick, being the first
knight who did not hold an Irish peerage ; and in 1862
he was made a field-marshaL He is succeeded in the
peerage by his only son, the Hon. George Stephens
Gough, formerly captain in the Grenadier Guards,
who was born in 1816. - -

THE ELECTIoN PKTITIONS.—Six weeks have
elapsed since the election inquiries were commenced,
and during that period 63 petitions have been disposed
of. No fewer than 31 were withdrawn, 17 against
Liberals, and 14 against Conservatives. Twenty-two
members have been declared duly elected, in the pro-
portion of 14 Liberals to 8 Conservatives. Ten elections
have been declared void through either bribery. treat-
ing, or undue influence, and of the vacated seats 5 were
filled by Liberals and sby Conservatives. The un-
seated Liberals are Messrs..Kinglake and Vanderhyl,
at Bridgwater ; Mr. O'Beirne, at Cashel ; Mr. Ripley
at Bradford ; and Mr. Whitworth, at Drogheda The
Conservatives who have lost their seats are Sir It
Glass, at 13ewdley ; Sir A. Guinness, et Dublin; Sir
H. Stracey, at Norwich; Mr. Phipps, at Westbury;
and Major Knox, at Sligo. The proportion of Liberals
unseated to the number of petitions originally presented
is 14 per cent. The proportion of Conservatives un-
seated is 20 per cent. The uncompleted inquiries
affect two seats on either side, and there are in addition
44 petitions undisposed of. These affect the seats of 23
Liberals and 21 Conservatives.

THE CRETANS AS THEY WERE.— Now that the
Greek difficulty is over for the present, perhaps the
Cretans will Lie still.—Punch.

THE QIDOIN OF BORROWDALE.—BorrowcIaIe
has lost a celebrity. Mies Sarah Youdale, or, as she
was more familiarly called, "Old Sally Your'ale."
finished her career on earth on Tuesday, February 23.
She was born on Christmas-day, 1708, and consequently
was upwards of lOU years of age. and during her ex-
tended career deserved and obtained the respect of all
who knew her. Few visitors to Borrowdale but made
her acquaintance, and were gratified by her wonderful
powers of conversation and her prodigious memory,
which she retained until within a few days of her
death, and which gave her a claim to the title of the
Queen of Borrowdale, most cheerfully conceded to her
by all who saw her. As an instance of her extraordi-
nary constitution, only last season she assisted in the
hayfield, and there was no one who enjoyed it more,
or whose laugh and shout were more jocund. It may
be further stated that, except on one occasion, when
she visited Whitehaven, she was never out of the
parirh of Crosthwaite, in which Borrowdale is situate,
in her long life. Although she did not claim for her
ancestors their arrival in England with William the
Conqueror, it is an indubitable fact that on the supprese
slim of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII.
the name occurs repeatedly in the records of the time
AS holders of small properties. She was the last of her
race.

---- -
THE SUTHERLAND GOLD DIGGINGS. The
weather was very favourable for the gold diggers last
week, and between the burns of Seisgill, Kildonan,
and Torish there are fully 200 people daily at work.
Professional diggers now muster pretty strongly, and
on their visits to Helrusdale report that their success
runs from ss. to 12s. a day. Great numbers do not
make anything like this. Putting the good and the
bad together we (Northern Ensign) should gay that the
daily earnings will average from 2s. 6d. to 3s. a day.
From Brora a correspondent writes :

Last week has added but sparingly to the earnings of the
diggers at Son-oral, the quantity of the precious metal
fieuid being small, and no nuggets having been met with to
stimulate to fresh activity. still the search is being per-
sistently prosecuted. On Saturday about 50 men acre en-
gaged at the diggings, with the most of whom we have seen
more or less of the precious metal, preserved in vials in d
tin boxes but there appears to be no proper datum upon
which to base an estimate of the value of the gold found,
some of it being appropriated for various articles of
Jewelry, and acme not )et brought to market. The fliggers
are now under the surveillance of a elan employed by the
Duke of Sutherland to prevent the molestation of any of the
ground beyond the limits of the burn, but as tar same are
aware, he has not yet hail to interfere with the nien.

AN OMISSION; REC. rIFIRD !—The police reports
of the London press have omitted all notice of an ex-
traordinary incident which occurred the other day at
the most important of the London police-courts. But,
fortunately, according to a Paris paper, this grave
omission, whether wilful or accidental, has been made
good by the vigilance of a Parisian contemporary. The
tale is as follows :

It seems that a poor devil who had committed some
offence which rendered him liable to tie months' imprison-
ment was recently had up before a magistrate celebrated fir
his passion for gambling. The case having been heard, the
presiding alderman dismissed the prisoner with the stereo-
typed words 'three months hard labour." Theieupon the
culprit drew a coin front his pocket, put lion the bar before
the dock, and called out to the fudge, " Double or quits-.
heads or tails t" "Tails," answered the alderman, carried
away by his iwnehant for gamli'ing. "It's heads, my lord,"
replied the prisoner;" so you've lost." "And," as our
Parisian in,ormant remarks with justice, "the oddest part of
the whole story is that the magistrate meld not help laugh.
ug, sad discharged the vagabond on the spot.