The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-12-23 00:00:00

Ttlistellaiiegus
SOME, FOREIGN, AND COLONUL.

A HINT TO SUPPER-GIVERS AT CHRISTMAS.—
Don't put your Cosaques too near your Turkey.—
Punch.

ENGLISH SPELLING IN THE PUNJAB.—The
following is an illustration of the development of Eng-
lish spelling in the Punjab. The Punjab Advertiser is
assured that it is a verbatim copy of a letter recently
received by a schoolmaster in the north from a house-
holder in his locality :—" Cur, ass, you are a man of
no legs and I wish to inter my sun in your skull."
The obscurity and seeming offensiveness of this -ad-
dress disappear on translation. What was intended
to be written—" Sir, as you are a man of knowledge,
I wish to enter my eon at your school."—Hindoo
Patriot.
CANADIAN PAIZE CATTLE.— On Tuesday the
Dominion steamer Dominion landed 60 head of cattle,
said to be the finest ever brought into this country.
Tnese are sent by Mr. Lingham, of Ballville, Ontario,
and owing to the navigation of the Sr. Lawrence being
closed wero shipped on board the Dominion at Phila-
delphia. We understand that the result. of last season's
importation of Canadian cattle has been highly encou-
raging. There are, therefore, at the present time,
hundreds of thousands of cetle fattenirg in Canada
ready for export to this country, one firm alone Lear
Toronto having upwards of 1,80 head of beasts feed-
ing for the English market. The whole were landed
in excellent condition, and immediately despatched to
London for the Christmas fat cattle show, the average
weight of each being UPWI4O6 24001b,—The Timg,

A NAVAL VETERAN.—The Rev. E. A. Adams
writes to The Times from Thernton Vicarage, Leices-
tershire :
'There is now living at Thornton, Leicestershire; where
he has been lodh g with his sister-in-law twelve pars, a
man named Joseph Suminfrs, who was at the battle of Tra-
falgar in the year 1805. I saw him on Weches.i ay and heard
him relate several incidents connected wi:h his early life.
fie *as captain of the eighth gun of the lower deck of the
Tiger. He entered the serince in 1797, was hirn on Jane I,
1780, and will therefore be 07 years old next Juno, should he
be alive at that time. He has a pension of 17s a wetk, but
his sister-in-law told the this will be Insufficient whenever he
shall rf quire a nurse to wait upon him, whico, on account
of his great age and fast-increasiug infirmities, may any day
be necessary. His prayer is that he may reach 10U years of
age."
PLURAL OF Botrqurrs. —Book- eases, —Flinch,
THE AVERAGE PRICES OF BRITISH CORN.
The following sib the ai•erage pikes bf British- corn
for the.week eadipgßee. I reol,ied_frona the in-
spectors and officers of Excise :—'heat, .60s. 4L;
barley, 38s. 10d. ; oats, 255. 44, per :imperial qnarter.
Corresponding week last year :—Wheat, 465. 7d.;
barley, 355. 4d.; oats, 245. 10d.
CRUMBS OF :COMFORT .—Tom : • 4'Hulloa;
flow's your mate Jack ?"—Bill •!ob, 'n'is dead, -poor
old Jack is, throiigh atchhi B told weepiie up the
snow."—Tom: "Poor chap, hi ath softy. • Ah
won't Uwe to sweep up no snow where 'e's gone to."—

Fun.
_
Now: DOG.—In Grayville, Indiana, a
recent occdret hi is well worth chronicling i—on
Wednesday morning last a little five-year-old Child of
Frank Dunbar, living four miles south of Grayville,
was sitting before the fire, eating nuts, no one else be-
ing present except one or two other little children. By
some means the child's clothes caught fire, and in a
moment she was enveloped in flames, the other child-
ren rushing off and screaming for assistance. The
house dog, a common our, sprang on the child, threw
her down, and actually stripped off the burning cloth-
ing. By the time the parents arrived the faithful
animal had saved the child's life, he being the worst
burnt of the two. The above account is vouched for
by Dr. Milliron, the attendant physician.
FROST AND LOVE.—Frost kills vegetation
but it enlivens human beings. It stirs the blood, it
makes the cheeks rosy. Somehow it seems to warm up
our whole nature. Now is the season for courtships,
and proposals, and engagements—as if we were bound
to spite old Nature by the warming of the affections in
proportions as she grows colder. Well, this is natural.
The girls look prettier in their winter costumes' with
their cheeks painted by the cold north winds. Their
manners grow more winning and cordial. Contraries
rule throughout the world. We rebuff the cold of
wider by the glow of the affections. There are said to
be stoves which save hal: the fuel; but love does more
than that, it gives a tenfold value to everything, and
cheers as well as warms. All hail, then, to winter and
frost—so only that love waxes correspondingly strong.
—New York Ledyer. „
NOT AALL 811191.nA1t.--ILSL I 001. "I be a
good Christian, Samuel."-2nd ditto: "Wet thou?
How (lost t' know? "-Ist. ditto: " Whoy, Parson
says all good Christians be glad when Christmas time
comes, an' I be's glad enough, 'cos then I 'as a spree,
and lots o' drink."—Furi.
A CHINESE CURE FOR NIGHTMARE. A
new and strange disease, known as the " crushing
epidemic," has lately been prevalent in Hangchow,
Shanghai, and neighbouring districts of China. Accord-
ing to the Celestial Empire, it was "a torrible form of night-
mare," and "most undoubtedly resulted in the deaths
of many persons." Against such a danger English
medical science, we are afraid, would be powerless, or
at least unprepared; but Chinese practitioners are
batter off. The Celestial Empire quotes from Mr.
Giles's translation of the Chinese manual, "Instruc-
tions to Coroners," the following valuable advice, which
we suppose would be found equally useful by persons
troubled with nightmare in this or any other country
"In case of nightmare, do not at once bring a light,
or, going near, call out loudly to the sleeper • but bite
his heel or his big toe, and gently utter his name.
Also spit in his face,and give him some ginger tea to drink;
he will then come round. Or, blow into the patient's
ears through small tubes, pull out fourteen hairs from
his head, make them into a twist, and thrust them into
his nose."—Pall Mall Gazette.

A RECRUITING SERGEANT.—The most success-
ful recruiting officer of his generation is eupposed to
have been Sergeant Thomas Warnes, who has just
died at Woolwich. 113 was formerly in the Roy&
Artillery and latterly attached to the Woolwich
Pensioners' Staff, and he has, while in the recruit-
ing service, enlisted 4,387 men for the Army, of
whom 3,290 have been for the Royal Artillery, and the
remainder for other regiment.
A REWARD FOR HEROISM.--- On Tuesday In
last week the Duke of Manchester presided at a
Chapter of the Order of S. John cf Jerusalem, held at
St. John's-sate, Cierkenwell, when the bronze medal
of the Order was voted to George Gates, a sewer-
flusher, who recently, with gallant disregard of per-
sonal danger, went back into the New-road sewer at
Battersea, although himself in a half-stupiflecr state,
and rescued two men, Scott and Plester, who but for
Gate's courageous conduct, would probably have
shared the fate of a comrade, Lomas, who was killed
by the poisonous gases. This medal, which is also
awarded in silver, is conferred by the Orderj far the
reward of deeds of valour in saving life on WA.

A MUNIFICISNT GUT.—A large number of
the leading citiz els of Dundee assembled on Saturday
to witness the opening of the Convalescent Home, the
funds of the building, and endowments of which, were
bquaa.thed by Sir David 11,xter, nart., mercha
Dundee, uncle of Mr. W. B. Baxter, Ml',, f'
Montrose Burghs. It has been erected in the s'
at a cost of £lO,OOO, and will accommodate 50 persons,
who are to be admitted by the infirmary direntors;
£20,000 have been left for its maintenance.
PROPER FARE. —What would you expect to
find on a literary man's breaktast.table?—Bacon's
Remains, Final Memorials of Lamb, if in season, and
Shelley fragments.—Punch's Almanaek.- -
A RiOE OF MEN WITH TAlLB.—Lucian Gay
used to convulse the „guests at Coniugsby Castle, with
his famous story of the very respectable county family
settled in the shire for several generations, but who
had ever been distinguished by the strange
humiliating peculiarity of being born with sheep's tails;
The Rev. George Brown, a New Zealand missionary,
is responsible for the statement that the conceit of the
humourist has its existence in reality—at least, that he
has been so informed. He relates that at Man island,
off New .Britain, the natives most positively assured
him that there was a race of men with tails at a place,
called Kehil, close at hand. Tney further said that
those queer specimens of humanity are dwarfs, and that
the tail, which they represent as being hard and stiff,
is an extension of the spinal bone, and that if the people
wish to sit down they must first dig a hole- to receive
this caudal appendage. In triumphant refutation of
the suggestion that they might be monkeys, Mr,
Brown's informants asked, ! Do monkeys talk or
make taro plantations, or fight with spears, fifi these'
men do ?" Nevertheless until one of these "missing
links" is caged by some enterprising voyager and sub-
jected to anatomical examination, one may fairly de-
cline to believe that their tails are more genuine than
that Lucian Gay invented for Sir Mowbray Choi-
mondeley Fetherstonehaugh. That Mr. Brown did
not go in search of these phenomenal beings may be
accounted for by a little episode in his narrative.
"While I was sitting talking to the chief at one of the
villages," he tells us, "one of our lads went into a
house to light his pipe, and found a woman engaged in
roasting the leg and thigh of amen who had been killed*
the day before by the chief with whom I was-convers-
ing." In regions where folk dine off their neighbours
they might not be able to resist the temptation of
making a meal off a stranger.—Evening Standard.
PRISON I.4l3ol:TR.—There can be no doubt,
we think, that the matmakers have a eubstantial
grievance in that their special form of industry is so
much encroached upon by prison labour (remarks the
Standard). If it be a fact, ati affirmed by some of
those who pursue this occupation' that upw-trds of 50
per cent, more prisoners are employ ed in the making
of mats than there are upon all other trad-s put
together, a distinct injustice is being perpetrated. It
should be remembered that, in addition to thousands
of other ev, rkmen engaged in the trade, mat-meking
furnishes a livelihood for many hundreds of persons in
the Institutiors for the Blind, and it is not every trade
that these efficted people can put their band to.
With regard to prisoners, the case is different.
There is no reason whatever why a greater
variety of trades should not b 3 taught to
them. No doubt there is s difficulty in instructing
prisoners in the more skilled oecupitrOnti; but this
ought not to prove insuperable, and it is to be hoped
that Mr. Cross, who received a deputation on this sub-
ject a short time ago, may be enabled to suggest some
relief to the sufferers in a hard•pressed industry.
Each trade if it could be so arranged, should have its
due share of criminal labour engaged upon it, and no
more. Tne mat-makers may confidently leave their
case in the hands of the Home Secretary, who has ever
been ready to listen to any representations or com-
plaints made to him by the working classes.

am the
iuburbs I

CortsummoN or- SPIRITH. —ln the first three
quarters of the year 1876 duty was paid on 11,626,651
galloiis of home-made spirits intended for consumption
in England as beverage. This quantity is less by
241,401 gallons than in the corresponding period of last
year. But the 4,688,672 gallons on which duty was
paid for consumption in lielaud as beverage are
202,758 gallons more than in the same period of last
Near, and in Scotlani the quantity, viz.. 4,853,051 gal.
ions, shows an increase of 45,413 gallons: Therefore
the 21,168,374 gallons of home-tnade spirits on which
duty was paid for consumption as beverage in the
United Kingdom were almost the same quaLtpir as in
the corresponding period of last year, there hung only
an increase of 6,768 gallons. The return relating to
foreign spirits is brought:.
down to the rn
end of 'Nove-
ber, and the 10,301,965 gallons of imported spirits
entered for consumption in the United Kingdom in the
first eleven months of 1876 are 81,631 gallons less than
in the same period last year.

LONDON "MYSTERIES." The Observer re-
marks :—A. Case bearing in many respects a striking
resemblance to that of the young lady whose body was
found a few years ago in the lt?gent'e Canal, but
whose name even remains to this day undiscovered,
formed the subject of itquiry by a coroner's jury at
the Workhouse, Mile-end, last week. The inquest
was held on the body of an unknown woman,
apparently in a good position, dressed in a black silk
dress and velvet jacket, which was found on Tuesday
afternoon by the keeper at the Mile-end Locks. The
skull was fractured, the legs were fastened together
with a piece of rope, and were both broken. The
body, which had received several injuries, had evidently
i been n the water several days, and although a descrip-
tion of the deceaued had it is stated, been fully,
circulated by the police, she had not been indentilied.
The jury returned a verdict of "Found drowned, 'and
the fate of this unfortunate woman will probably re-
main for ever an unrevealed mystery. There are in
truth so many of these 'mysteries' that they attract
now but little attention, yet there can hardly be a
doubt that if a full description of the dress and
appearance of the deceased were propdrly circulated
throughout the United Kingdom some clue would be
gained at least as to the woman's name.. The sudden
disappearance of any person is an inciaent that is
generally remarked in the circle of acquaintances."