The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-01-25 00:00:00

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

The Liebig Company have, during their career,
turned a million and a half of cattle into essene,e of meat.
A meeting was held at Rochester on Monday night
to support the Permissive Bill. The majority, however,
were adverse to the objects of the promoters of the gather-
ing, and the result was the adoption of an amendment to the
chief resolution
There is a London toy which is popular in town at
the present time: It represents ewe athletes, wound up by
clockwork, weiklng a race round "a board of green cleth,
and it is certainly amusing to watch their antics. They pass
and repass each other in the retest natural manner, and put
on a mcet determieed spurt et intervals, when occasion
demands.—Court Journal
114-,re is a hi.t fir some of our • great linendrapere,
A Philedelpiree dry-goods merchant has added a children's
room to his store, where mothers may leave their children
to be amused with rocking-horses, pictures, and toys, while
they do their shopping. Babes In arms not admitted, lest
they should not be called foie—Court Journal-
Th e Oxford University crew have written to the
Harvard men declining a challenge for a race in August, on
the eroond that it would be impossible to row so late in
the year.
The Prince Imperial arrived at Maidstone on Mon.
ey afternoon on a few days' visit to Visoonnt Holmesdale,
M. P., at Linton-park. He was warmly received by a crowd
at the railway station.
The Allgemeine Zeitung says that it is regarded as a
certainty in Berlin Court circles that Queen Victoria intends
going to Germany next year. It is expected that after visit-
ing the grave of the late Gratil Duchess of Hesse Darmstadt,
Her Majesty will go to Coburg, where she will make& longer
stay.
The Chinese Envoy, Ku° Sung Tao, and his wife
took farewell of her Majesty on Saturday, on their return to .
China. His Excellency was accompanied to Osborne by the
Marquis of Salisbury. The Queen conversed with Madame
Kuo through the medium of an interpreter.
The annual returns of the volunteer force show that
on the Ist of November last there were 203,221 officers and
men enrolled, the number being an increase of more than
10,000 on the previous year. The number of efficients, 194,191,
Is greater than in any previous year.
There were 56 British and foreign wrecks reported
during the past week, making the total for the present year
138, or an increase of 54 as compared with the corresponding
period of last year. The approximate value of property lost
was £700,000, including British £590,000. Twenty-five were
lost off the British coasts.
A considerable number of men in the engineering
trade in Huddersfield and the district have been locked out.
They rejected the demand of their employers to revert to
the system of working 57e hours instead of 64. The men
were willing to accept a reduction in wages, but they will
not work " longer hours " than at present.
The French army has just been supplied with new
colours and standards. A wreath of laurel traversed by a
golden dart takes the place of the .id Imperial Eagle, and
the letters " R F.e" together with the regimental number,
cast in bronee, add to the ornamentation. The flag itself
bears the 'ascription. "Republique Frameaise, honnetir et
patrie," in the middle.
A fatal accident occurred on the Midland Railway
near the Nottingham station, on Tuesday. A man named
Fletoher, while engaged in shunting, fell over the metals,
and before he could rise a number of tracks passed over
him, severing his head and one leg from the body. Death
was instantaneous.
At a recent meeting of the French Society of
Hygiene Dr. Landeer, in the course of 110M8 interesting
observations on the subject of smallpox, said that he re-
marked that it was in houses exposed to the north that
small-pox raged the least, and he suggested that inquiry
should be made whether certain winds did not exercise a
particular influence on the development of the disease.
In consideration of the patriotic sacrifices recently
made by their subjects, the Emperor and Empress of
Austria have expressed, a wish that all costly pomp, and all
celebrations involving expenditure: may be avoided in re-
gard to the festival of. thettesilver wedding. The man oluvres
of the standing arrpr are to-bersuspended during the present
year. - •
• Much divergence continues between the official ac-
counts of the plague in Astrachan and private inteltigence re-
ceived respecting It, the former asserting that the epidemic is
-diminishing, and the latter that it is increasing. A large
quantity of fish and other provisions has been destroyed at
.Tsaritzin on the Volga, to prevent contagion.
During the past year in Chioago the receipts of
swine were 6,339,656. of which 6,180,000, weighing 648,200
tons, were killed and packed.
An article appeared in the Berlin Post of Saturday
evening last on toe present commercial distress in England,
in the °ours° of which the writer argues that, apart from
the influence she has acquired by her foreign policy during
the past yew', she will now have io enter upon a commercial
straggle for the maintenance of her position in the world.
en proof of this assertion the Post points to the agitation in
Ragland in favour of extending the protective system.
The Bromic Vremja says that Russia thirsts for peace
—the people hoping for a diminution In the taxes, while the
upper cheeses are giving their attention to the development
of legislative reform and to an extensioe of the liberty
of the press. Every one, in short, believes that the re-
establishment and the maintenanoe of peace will be pro-
ductive of much benefit to the country at large.
The Grand Duke of Mecklenberg, who has set out
for St. Petersburg in order to be present at the marriage on
the 24th inst. of his eldest son with the Grand Duchess
Anastasia eitchaelovna, the eldest daughter of the Grand
Duke Michael, is attended by a suite of seventy persons.
This imposieg retinue includes a grand master of horse, a
lord high-marshal, a marshal of the household, chamber.
Line a governess of the household, gentlemen and ladies in
waiting, a general-adjutant, aides-de-camp and orderly
officers, a physician in ordinary, and a chief chaplain to the
Grand Duke to perform the marriates ceremony according to
the Protestant rite, as none of the Protestant clergymen in
St. Petersburg are considered to be sufficiently orthodox.
The turners and fitters employed by five large engi..
neering firms in Iludderafleld have been-locked out for re-
fusing to-werk 57e hour' instead of it hotel's, as hitherto.
• Railway traffic in Roumania is reported to be greatly
;Impeded by the quantity of snow which has fallen in the
country.
A new use for rabbits I I read the other day that
in some part of America—l forget where—the farmers are
feeding pigs with rabbits which are very plentiful. How
nice to be able to have your rabbit in pork instead of with
It—Mark Lane Express.
Chant says • "If one of the principals in a duel be
thinner than adversary, it is his duty as a man of honour
to button up his first second in his great coat will? him to
give him the volume necessary." Another caricature by
Chem represents a blind beggar on one of the Paris bridges
yelling" Oh, the heartless knave I I thought he had given
me two sons He has given me his bronze medal as an
exhibitor. Heartless! heartless I heartless knave! "
At a recent meeting in Melbourne of the principal
Australian meat-preserving company, it was stated by Sir
Samuel Wilson that the meat then in coarse of packing in
the tins which have now become such familiar features in
the provision merchants' shops in this country, "cost a
farthing less than nothing for sheep;" or, in other words,
that the sums realized from the sale of the skins and tallow
were sufficient to cover, or rather more than cover, the
original prime cost of the animals.
The Earl of Dude has returned 19. i per cent, of their
rent to those tenants who farm arable land on his estates at
Wootton, Oxfordshire, in consequent Of the great depression
In agriculture.
A picture by Turner has been unearthed in the
United States, where examples of the English painter are
rare, the few. Turners in the States being in private col-•
lections and little known. The present painting is a view of
Conway Castle—one of Turner's pet subjects.
Two large fires oecurred last week in New York
City, destroying property of the value of 600,000 dots, In the
heart of the business section. The larger, on Friday night,
burnt the premises of Messrs. Vanvaikenburgh and Leivitt,
Messrs. Walkingshaw and Voigt, the Florena Silk Company,
and others, involving a loss of 3,200,000 dots.
Tne carnival in Paris this year promises to return
to its pristine glory of Imperial days, and at Vincennes the
famous procession of the boeuf graa is to be revived for the
first time since 1870. The procession of the keuf gra. now
takes place on Shrove Tuesday, bus the earliest chronicles
of the ceremony in 1739 and 1750 show that the proeetesion
was held on the preceding Thursday, and the intervening
days to Shrove Tuesday were devoted to all sorts of rnerri-
ments. The kw" gra, disappeared at the great Revolution,
but reappeared in 305, to vanish again in 1814, and to return
with Louis XVIIL The revolutions of July and February
in turn suppressed the bauf, which was re-established under
the Empire, and in the last years of Napoleon M.'s reign it
bore the name of tbe celebritr of- each season, such as
Theresa, Sardom-Offenbach, Augier, due.
Mr. Cecil- Ratites addressed his constituents at
Chester on Monday evening. Having referred to the
domestic legislation of last session he touched upon financial
matters, and said it was surprising to find the Liberals
censuring the Government for spending six and a half
millions In keeping them out of war, when the Liberal party
some years ago spent sixty millions in an unnecessary war.
He regretted the existing depression of trade, hoping that
next session the Government would do something to produce
a better state of•things, though it was unreasonable to make
them responsible for the trade crisis.
A crisis is pending in the cotton _trade of Preston
which threatens to be as alarming in its reining as during
the past strike and lock-out. Ills not merely that the mills
are being partially stopped or running short time, but that
the masters, ending it impossible to stand against the pre-
sent depression in trade, are giving notice of the necessity of
further reducing the wages of the operatives The latter,
on the other hand, seem determined to oppose any further
reduction, and if they persist in their resolve nothing can
prevent a second strike and lock-out. Several firms have
intimated their intention of reducing wages.
The trial of the six directors and manager of the
Glasgow City Bank began on Monday, in the High Court of
Justiciary at Edinburgh, before the Lord Jnstice-Clerk (Lord
Moncrieff) birds Craighill and Mure. The Lord Advocate and
Solicitor-General for Scotland oonduoted the prosecution on
behalf of the Crown, and fourteen legal gentlemen were
present to defend the prisoners. The court was crowded, '
anu there was a large number of persons outside the building
who were unable to obtain admission. Upwards of a hun-
dred and fifty witnesses are to be examined, arid more than
a waggon load of books and papers were brought into court.
The indictment is very voluminous, and couteius seventeen
charges. It is expected that the trial will occupy a fortnight
or three weeks
The iron clipper ship Leonidas, owned by Messrs.
Patton, jun., and Co., has been chartered by the Govern
-
meet for the conveyence of the first complement of coolies
from Calcutta to Fel.
The lottery proposed to be started in aid of the dis-
tressed shareholders in the West of England Bank having
been found to be illegal, it is proposed to establish a !there-
holders' aid association, half the cepitese subscribed to be
devoted to the benefit of the distressed shareholder!,
The Osservatere Romano announces that the Chapter
of St. P Irs h.,s decided to celebteue the alas vs ray of
Pins IXes death by. a solemn fatieral service in lee Batelle
on the Bth of February., .the day after the grand requiem to
' be sung in the petriarchal basilica of St. John Laterals on
the anniverser y itself
• Tile moveinent fora reduction of wages in the wire
trade at Birmingham, Warrington, and othtr towns has ex-
. tended to Sheffield. There are 'about 200 wire drawers in
the town, end, 'following the example set by the men in
the towns mention, d, they have expressed their willingness
to gccept a reduction of 10 per cent. At some houses the
matter has been fettled on that balls; at others the men
have received a fortnight's notice, eith a view to a genet al
reduction of the price-list. The men in this trade have had
' no advance for more than thirty years.
• The receipts on account of revenue from the let
'April, 1878, when there was a balence of £6,243,389, to
January 18 1879. acre £59.001,012, ogainst £58,874 583 is
the correspoudieg period of the preceding tinanciet year,
a 'nich began set,ii a balance of £5,988,650. The net
expenditure was £ee,287,975 against £84,367,975 to the same
'late in the previeus year. The treasuly balaeces on
jaeuary 18 amounted to £1,257,738, and at Ills same dAte ft
1878 to £1,408,034.
A lamentable occurrence is- reported from Sou 41
Africa. Captain-Pattereou and Mr. J G Sergeant, on re-
turning from a mission to a native King, drank at a spring,
and died within three days, as well as their interpreter suet
five natives. Ills supposed that the water of the spring was
impregnated with- some poisonous substance, but no sus-
picion of foul play is entertained, the fatality being con-
sidered purely accidental.
The "hangman's record" for 1878 in the United
States shows that during the past year ninety-six murderers
in that country died for their crimes on the gallows. All of
the culprits were men. Forty were white, fifty-two
1 coloured, two were Indians, and one a Chinaman. Of the
executions that took place, seven were" double executions,"
four triple, and two euadruple. More hangings occurred on
Friday than all the other days of the week, the number of
Friday executions being seventy. March was especially
fatal ro murderers, tweuty.five being hanged in that month,
The Southern States had 70 per cent, of all the haegiogs,
and nearly two-thirds of tho criminals executed there were
negroes.—Pall Mail Gazette.