The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-01-11 00:00:00

.................•.,..,....................,.........•

The Queen and Princess Beatrice are expected to
!psicte at Osborne tW about the close of next month, when
_ _

the Court will returnio—Win-dsor Castle.

Wednesday (Bth) was the 15th anniversary of the
birth of Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward, the eldest
son of the Prince and Princess of Wales, but in consequ-nce
of the recent death of the late Princess Alice there was no
celebration of-the birthday.
Mrs. Theodore Martin (Heleit-ratiatTfirse- afeFeatcr*--.
assist the fund for the relief of the City of Glasgow Bank
sufferers by giving a readirg from Shakespeare in Glavg .
any time in February after the 15th of that month, or in..
March, as may be thought most desirable.

--The electric light is being brought into use for engine
netts on the Austrian railways.
The carpenters' strike at Weston-super-Kare ham
happily, come to an end, the men'having given way, and ex-
pressed their readiness to accede to the terms of their
masters, whose object has been to secure uniformity in the
hours worked by the several branches of the building trade. •
Since the men "came out " there have been several impor-
tations of Artisans from other towns.
A Renter's telegram from Hong Kong, dated 4th
inst states that the total exports of tea to date was
157,000,00011)5. The season is now closed.
A. Enoerb catalogue of the library of the Duke of
Devonshire has been nearly completed It Niill be one of
the nto4t m3gnificent bibliographical publicatiobs produoed
since the oays of the late Earl Spencer, and will fill from

-four to five volumes.
• The whole of the workmen engaged in the shiplmild-
log yards on the IV( ar have been given notice of a reduCtiou
of wages—namely, of 6d. per day on al wags of and above
27a per week, and 2s. per week on all wages below 275. per
week and above 20s. per week. It Is also said that a reduc-
tion of from 5 to 20 per cent. will be made in the wages of
the men employed on piece-work.
At the Swansea Savings Bank meeting. Mr. H. H.
Vivian. M.P., referring t 3 the present commercial distress as
being greater than he had known during the last thirty-seven
years, said it was very satisfactory to find that the industries
of the district were in active work There was as much
money paid weekly in the copper works now as had been paid
for the last ten years, and the men were receiving higher

wages.
Owing to the depression of trade in America, the
Harmony Cotton Mills and the Newburgh Cotton Mills have
commenced to work half time.. The former employes3, 600
hands. •
The ship Trevelyan, 1,042 tons, Captain J. Edward,
having on board 355 souls, equal to SO2} statute adults, left
Plymouth for Sydney on Sunday.
It is said that a discovery has been made, and that
the necessary patent is in the hands of one of the largest
companies of the Metropolis, by which, by means of **small
mechanical contrivance, assisted by a certain chemical
compound, an ordinary gas-jet can be made to give as much
light as an electric one.—Court Journal.
The death is announced of Lieutenant R. H. Tarry,
on the half-pay list, at the age of eighty-six years. ..Mr.
Perry served with the 44th R‘giment in the Peninsula, and
assisted in the retreat of Sir John Moore. He was also pre-
sent in the North American campaign, and took part in the
actions of Bladensburg and New Orleans. Mr. Perry has
been on half-pay since March, 1817.
The Prince and Princess of Wales are living quite
In retirement at Sandringham, surrounded by their children.
Those who know the Prince best say that no sorrow has ever
so deeply affected hlth as the roes of his favourite sister.—
' Vanity Fair.
A sheet of ice about four miles out of Lon-don; where
good skating was to be obtained, was kept select by charging
one shilling a short time before Christmas, and the takings
on one day amounted to £5OO.
- - -

-- -
Two geese were recently drawn by the rapids above
Niagars over the falls. They soon appeared in the stream
below, and swam leisurely to the shore.
According to trustworthy estimates there are now
betweep 10,000 and 12,000 looms idle in Blackburn. A few
estimates place the number at a higher figure, but these pro-
bably include the stoppages in some of the outlying districts
around Blackburn.
The workmen in the Dumbartonshire shipbuilding
trades have acoepted a redaction in their wages of 7 per
cent, and on Tuesday started work on the reduction. It was
at one time feared that a strike would take place amongst
the riveters, but this has been averted la friendly confer-
ences between masters and men.
Austrian papers remark upon the extraordinary
diminution which has taken place in the number of marriages
concluded in Vienna. In 1877 there were fewer marriages
contracted in Vienna by 3,637 than in 1870, 'namely, only
6,049. The proportion of marriages concluded in the_year to
1,000 of the population now stands at only 7 25 in Tienna,
whereas in Paris it hi 9 -07, in Munich 9-06, and in Berlin
1093. • .
The Revisers of the Authorised Version of the; New
Testament have concluded their second and final revision.
The company have held 85 sessicins, and have spent 837 days
on their work, having commenced in June, 1370. The total
number of the company is 24, and the average attendance
throughout the time has been 16. There now remains the
consideration of any further suggestions which may be made
by the American CompenY, and the adjustment of some
questions which have been reserved to the end.
A plague has broken out in Astrachan, and is Faidt o
have been imported from Turkey by ' some Cossacks.
Measures have been adopted to prevent it spreading.
The Hebrew community of London has sustained a
serious loss in the sudden and unexpected death of the Rev.
Dr. Artom, Chief Rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese con-
gregations throughout England. The reverend gentleman
had been staying for a few days at Brighton, and on Sunday
evening he was attacked • with angina pectoris, to which
terrible malady he succumbed within twelve hours. He was
only 44 years of age, and a native of Genoa, in Italy,
In London on Monday night, the experiment of
lighting the Liverpool-street station of the Great Eastern
Railway by means of the electric light was commenced, and
the result was very successful inilluminating the station in
a most brilliant manner.
-- The Thames Tunnel Company are ,advertising the
names and last known addresses of stiffdry'shareholders
whose respective proportions (specified In the advertisement)
of the "surplus moneys " of the Company have not been
claimed. It is added that "at the final distribution of the
company's net surplus moneys any part,ql the said-surplus
moneys then unclaimed will be distributed among tle other
shareholders." s.. .
The Recorder of Birmingham, in charging the grand
jury at the Quarter Sessions, attributed the present com-
mercial depression in a large d. gree to the reaction follow-
ing a desire for much money-making and a great anxiety to
get rich in periods of inflated prices, when everything which
anybooy touched seemed to turn into- moni y. At such
periods people !sere tempted to increase their means of pro-
dnction, instead of laying by their extra profits'as a reserve
fund for times of auverAty.
The Archbishop of York, writing ta Mr. Barker,
secretary of the United Kingdom' Alliance, denies that
he has ever denuunced teetotalers in any measured
language, or that he has ever denounced . them at
all. Some of the best of his clergy had long been
teetotallers. He should be sorry to say anything to grieve
them. It was curious be was receiving letters asking if he had
said. "Salvation was only possible in connectionwith total
abstinence ? " There was foundation for neither statement.
Men were free to be temperate or abstain. Be• wished to
use that freedom, and respect it in theirs.
The 29th Regiment, stationed at Dover, .has received
orders most unexpectedly to embark at Portsmouth for
India on the 29th instant.
The number of desertions from the English 'Army in
1878 amounted to 8,000, being about 800 snore than took place
daring the preceding year, when 7,700 desertions were
reported.
Five hundrei coach-builders at 'Liverpool struck
work on Monday in consequence of notice from the employ-
ers to extend the hours of labour from 53 to 56i without a
corresponding increase in wages.
The most valuable book in the present recently
given by Mr. Astor to the Astor Library is one which brought
79,000 francs (15,890 Uols.) at an auction Bale last summer in
Paris. It is an early printed book, the first edition of the
" Catholicon of Joannes Balkus de Janns " dated 1460—a
treatise on grammar and rhetoric and n Latin dictidnary,
the printing of which is attributed by Brunet to Guttenberg.
Mr. C. S. Read has done well to warn farmers
against being gulled by the cry for reciprocity, and by assur-
ing them that the people of this country will never allow
their food to be taxed. He added that, as the taxation of
foreign food could not be allowed, neither could manufac-
turers expect to be protected. Many manufacturers,' how-
ever, are asking for Protection, and at the same time de-
claring that food and other raw material should not be taxed.
Farmers, therefore, for this, if for ,no other reason, should
keep carefully aloof front these no-protectionista.—Mark
Lane Express.
Since the lit inst., when the new Weights and
Measures Act came into operation, the ironmlusters of the
South Staffordshire district have experienced considerable
difficulty in getting their employls to work. - The men have
an idea that, as the law compels the reduction in the
number of pounds constituting the ton of iron, they ought
not to accept a corresponding reduction in wet" but they
ought to be paid the same price per ten as formerly.
The masons' bricklaYers, plasterers, and labourers
in the Sheffield building trades struck work rienently, and
now the joiners have resolved to come .out in opposition to
the new scale of wages. The Relief Committee in the town
have decided to give no assistance whatever tb,euch persons
as these. !*,

The jewelled lizard, so long fashionable in Paris to
fasten a knot of flowers to the front of the dress, has en-
tirely disappeared this winter, ana.fashionab4,dames now
wear their crest or coat-of-arms made in diamonds as a
porte.bouguet. The leaves of artificial flowers also are
sprinkled with diamond dust. ,
•. , •
The Emperor of Germany's PKivate Secretrizy, Herr
Mil eider, who has lately died, had been for thirty years
preparing the pillow to support his. head in his coffin, at
least so says the Deutsche Zeitung. The pillow is stuffed.
with Herr Schneider's own hair, welch he has carefully col-
lected whenever cut off, and which varies :from the bright
fair locks of youth to the snow-white of later years.
Many of the Agri=ltiir.al Labourers' Union men in
Kent have consented to the-reduction in the weekly wages,
and the masters have taken them back, ,even during the pre-
valence of the late severe weather, when there was no re-
munerative farm work to be dons Meetings continue to be
held in various districts, where the principal topic discussed
appears to be that bearing ujimi the ortrroised-emigration at
600 Kent and Sussex Agricultural labourers and their wives
and families to New Zealand. Many country districts are
being placarded with large posters, giving extricts from in-
fluential Austra.ian newspapers showing.therantestisfactory
state of the labour market In Nations parts and warning
agricultural labourers especially against leaving their homes
at imminent risk. . - • .
At the meeting of • the Teachers' Association on
Saturday in last week, in King's College,- tendon, : Dr.
Knightly, of Brighton, who presided, In opening the pro-
ceedings, said that nolhing contained in their -pregramme
was of more urgent importance than ,the ;establishment -of
training schools for teachers. He regretted that In all the
numerous plans propounded for the turtherace .of educa-
tion there was an enormous preponderance. of merely intel-
lectual discipline over moral and religious' training, which
must lead, he thought, to a one-sided development of-the
faculties.
The Bishop of Manchester preaching on Sunday. at
Old Trafford, sad he went to see the distribution of the
relief on Friday, and the sight was enough to Make one weep
tears almost of despair. Toe powers of good and evil were
apparently gathering themselves together with increased in-
tensity, and unless some radical change came aver our lives
Man.:Ateli jowl i
and our motives the prosperity and greatness of the country
were doomed. If we were to have perpetual strnggles
between capital and labour, and to trade upon fictitious
capital, and if all society were to be undermined with
rottenness, he did not see how we could go on.
where two brothers,
Waltham, near Chelmsford, on Monday,
~ •
direly seven
named Harry and Christopher Bush, aged respect A sad ice fatality occurred at a pond at Great
and five, the sons of an agricultural
were found
drowned. The hats of the poor little fellowshed 'Warred. With
upon the ice near where the breakage
father took the bodies out
the assistance of another man the fa
home.
of the water, and they were removed
sirticdoh. which has
labourer, were found
enoagwenbtesinogi
A life-buoy of very simple cgd
way, -of Torquay, and
i':ll4sn. It is said
recently been invented by'Moai _
severely tested by
some of the great shipping t a
a person who used it could not
to have such buoyancy ti .
favourably reported on byc.olincalpanies
in
Lou
it is se 'email and convenient
be same tidt
atr lat
Ili e
slid
d
sink, and, at t
.sipealtinK ttt the,anntial dinner of the
t
Chamber of Ceirnmbrce oeltonday night
passen:eroovne
bran° 2are:shit °Pfliscould eekily earry one.
at Devonport, urged that the pleas for protection which had
a argument. lie 'traced to other
revived through tbe prv.ent de
rho:: eovferryiymout
pression,of trade were untrue
causes use commercial •distreis, and.urged•that when criti-
cally ex-mined our export trade did not present that falling
off AS compared with our imports that wale generally sup-
p.sed. Ile condemned reciprocity.. Sir Massey Lopes, re-
al! tLoofrada
felling to the tame subject, recounted lutnerous causes
which accOuntedlor the present Oriels, -butipointed out that
the quantity of our.export had actually increased. It was
roads their realised value. otily 'had diminlihed, and it was
• this whleh ads tolhe . ueegaltthe.diftertnce between
parirc4l).
.profit aud •1014 - . rumen boalutif494 was tre astret 01 the
—depreigon. ' .-----'l*. • *"--e -----.—"

e: • ,••;:e

p

L

I:'