The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-09-20 00:00:00

False hair is being largely used for the adornment
of children belonging to high-life. Those soft flaxen locks
that are seen floating in the wind on the beaches of Tronville
and Dieppe are, it appears, in many cases false.

The Japanese Government has in its service 80
Englishmen, 31 Americans, 30 Frenchmen, 18 Germans, 7
Dutchmen, four Italians, three Swiss, three Chinese, two
Austrians, two Portuguese, and one Russian, making 181
foreigners.
The coffin containing the Duke of Brunswick's
remains has been removed from the Plainpalals Cemetery at
Geneva to the magnificent mausoleum erected in the Place
des Alpes of that city.
An art lately revived in Rome is the old Venetian
art of painting upon mirrors. Birds and butterflies are also
often added, and the effect of the glass underneath, espe-
cially when this is thick and bevelled, is to make them
appear as if suspended in the air.
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Baden has more visitors than in any previous
autumn since the war. The German Empress arrived on
Wednesday and is to be followed by the Emperor about the
24th, after the Alsace muceuvres.

Torpedo salutes are the latest novelties in the
American navy. When a foreign admiral recently visited
the New York Naval station the usual welcome from big
guns was omitted, but eleven torpedoes were exploded in
honour of the distinguished guest.

Busy people annoyed by frequent visitors are recom•
mended to adopt the plan of an ingenious American. This
'cute gentleman keeps a phonograph in his office, and, when
he is interrupted in the middle of work, he hide his visitor
talk to the instrument that he may hear the story at his
leisure.

The misuse of English titles and expressions is so
general in France, that a special article in a Gallic review is
devoted to instructing literary compatriots in the right use
and meaning of "Sir," "Miss," " E 54.," "Gentleman," and
other common terms.

Society in Now York is determined in future to be
rigidly particular and exclusive. An "Rite book' has been
established, which contains the names of all those who are
entitled to enter fashionable circles, and no outsiders
whatever are admitted.

The Sheffield Independent understands that the total
amount promised to the Wesleyan Methodist Thanksgiving
Fund is nearly £173,000. The amount already paid has
enabled the treasurers to distribute urther sum of £8,300
amongst a number of institutions.

Lieutenant Hamilton, V.C., of the Guides, who
perished with Cavagnari, was a man of very great promise,
and one of the most popular ot an exceedingly popular
family in the County Kilkenny. Handsome and cheery,
excelling at all games and quick-witted withal, he will be
sincerely and widely regretted in the sister isle.—Vanity
Fair.

The Observer states that the gallant Major Hackett,
who was ro badly wounded—losing the sight of both eyes—
at Kambula, has sufficiently recovered to leave Netley, and
to come to town. Oa Friday in last week the Prince of
Wales sent for him to Marlborough House, and reoeived
him in a most kind and sympathetic manner.

A telegram from Switzerland says that another edel-
weiss seeker has fallen a victim to his temerity. A young man
from Lucerne, named Dabinded, was venturing too near the
edge of a precipice on Mount Pilatus to gather one of the
coveted flowers when he overbalanced himself and was
dashed to pieces.

The Bristol Times reports that a couple of adders
were killed near Yeovil Junction on Sunday. One of them
measured 2 ft 9 in. in length.

Following up the resolutions of the Scotch iron.
masters last week, twelve of the thirty•six furnaces were
blown out on Monday in the Coatbridge district, rendering
two thousand men idle; and eighteen furnaces were blown
out in other parts of Scotland. Thirteen thousand tons of
coal extra are thus thrown weeklyinto the market.

Tuesday was the 77th anniversary of the birth of
Louis Kossuth, or Lajas de Kossuth Falye, ex-Governor of
Hungary, who was born on September 16, 1802, at Monok,
in the county of Zemplln, In Hungary, of an ancient though
not wealthy faintly.

During the last week eight steamers arrived in the
Mersey with live stock and fresh meat, the totals being
2,517 quarters of beef and 637 carcases of mutton, 1,340
cattle, 4,400 sheep, and 302 pigs, which is a considerable de-
crease when compared with the figures of the previous week,
except as regarded mutton, which was about the same.

The Edison Telephone Company in Paris are about
to start a system by which, for an annual subscription of
fifty francs, a telephonic apparatus will be laid on from a
central office to the private houses of subscribers. Both at
the house and the office there is a frame with names corre-
sponding to the numbers of the different Eubscribers.
Bartholdy's enormous statue of Liberty is nearing
completion, and is to be erected on one of the islands near
New York. It has been proposed, and possibly the sug-
gestion may be carried out, to put an electric lamp in the
torch, a realistic touch, which may make the statue more
useful, if not more ornamental.

The reports from Charleroi in the Belgian journals
are unanimous in representing the condition of the iron
manufacture as rapidly improving In tone. In all the
principle centres large contracts have recently been entered
Into.

"September llth.—My birthday. I had forgotten
It until this morning; you will know before you see this I
had not forgotten you. You must not sacrifice my (perhaps
I may say our?) happiness without reason; or I cannot
think any future 'day' will be 'brighter than the one
before.' Remember, 'I will trust you.' Yours ever."—Ad-
vertisement in The 'Pima.

The receipts on account of revenue from the Ist
April, 1879, when there was a balance of £6,915,756 to Sept.
13, 1879, were £32,920,637, against £32920191 in the corre-
sponding period of the preceding financial year, which began
with a balance of £6,243,389. The net expenditure was
37,593,897, against £37,777,972 to the same date in the
previous year. The Treasury balances on September 13
amounted to £2,246,903, and at the same date in 1878 to
£2,494,685.
The New York Journal of Commerce states the
cotton crop of the past year at 5,074,155 bales, compared
with 4,773,865 bales of the previous year. Of this crop
1,561,873 bales were consumed in the United States. As to
the current year's crop opinions differ more than usually.
The season for the two past years has been late, with indica-
tions of early frost. Estimates vary from 4,750,000 to
5,200,000 bales. The Journal says it inclines to the outside
figures.
The Brighton Aquarium Company have secured two
very fine mermaid manatees, which arrived in Liverpool re-
--„ 4.1%. {1,411. 1,71,111 Allth
America. They are fine healthy specimens, a male an a
female in young. Together they weigh nearly seven hun-
dred pounds. A monster sturgeon six feet long, caught at
Newhaven, has also been added to the collection.
The Committee of the Municipality of Paris ap-
pointed to consider the question of re-buildingthePostoftioe
of that city has recently taken the opportunity to express its
desire that the simple or initial charge for a letter posted
in Paris or France to asiy address in that country should be
reduced from 15 centimes (or about lid ) to 10 centimes (or
Id.) Should the authorities agree to the proposal, France
and the French capital would at length obtain the boon
which the late Sir Rowland 11111 was the means of conferring
on London and England forty 3 ears ago.

A relic of the Directory is to be utilised in the new
Chamber of Deputies in the Paris Paleis Bourbon—the
marble tribune used by the orators of the Council of the
Five Hundred, more than eighty years ago The front of the
rostrum is ornamented by some beautiful carving, repre-
senting History and Fame' supporting a column which is
surmounted by a bust of the Republic, and bears on its
pedestal the two-faced Janus, emblematic of the past and
the future. _ _

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An effort is now being made in Plymouth to get up a
testimonial to Major Chard, V.C., of Rorke's Drift tame, fie
Is expected at Plymouth shortly in one of the Cape Mail
boats, and as he and his friends have long been connected
with the neighbourhood of Plymouth, and the gallant Major
Is himself a Devonian, the exertions of the committee are
meeting with a prompt response.

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A young girl of sixteen has died in Brussels of hy-
drophobia In the month of May last she was bitten on the
hand by a dog belonging to one of the lodgers in the same
house. She was taken to a doctor a short time after the ac-
cident, and was cauterised, and since then was supposed to
be completely cured. Four months afterwards the first
symptoms of the frightful malady appeared, and it required
f.oty men to take her to the hospital, where she died in dread-

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ful agonies.
A Parliamentary return of the gross amount of
ol duties charged under the Inland Revenue, Scotland, to:
the year 1577, 1878, and 1879, gives the amount under the
head of spirits as £4,472 398 ; of malt, as £406,273; beer,
brewers', roaltsters' spirits, and wine licences, £153,259'
other licences, £160,422; railways, £62,134; property and
Income tax, £646,088; house tax, £105,191; stamps,
£737,153 ; legacy and succession duties, £402,213; land tax,
£35,402; other sources, £3,589 making a total of
£7,184,118.
"Mr. Thomas Littleton Holt, who has for many
years been associated with the Press of this country, died on
Sunday last at Burrows, Hendon, at the age of 85. His
death severs one of the few remaining links connecting the
iournalism of the past with the present. It was to him that
the late Mr. Dickens owed his introduction to Dr. Black,
then editor of the Morning Chronicle. Mr. Holt was pro-
prietor of the Iron Times, which started daring the railway
mania. When his friend Leigh Holt was imprisoned, for
libelling the Prince Regent, he was the first to visit him. Ile
took an active part in popularizing cheap literature, and it
was greatly owing to him that the advertisement duty was
repealed. He also took an active part in the abolition of the
paper duty. Besides starting many papers in London in the
later period of his life, he returned to his native town,
Birmingham, where he started Ryland's Iron Trade
Circular, to the success of which his writings largely con-
tributed."—Times' Obituary, Sep. 17.