The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-11-22 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

The total amount of the Prussian national debt,
according to the figures laid before the Landtag, is stated
at £69,769,464.

A pilgrimage ou an extensive scale is being organised
by some of the leading English Roman Catholics to proceed
to Rome to assist at the celebration of the 25th anniversary
of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Con-
ception.

A French bicyclist. M. Payet, has accomplished
the distance between Lyons and Milan in four days. Last
May he made a bicycling expedition from Lyons to Naples.
_

The hunting "meets" announced In The Times the
other day numbered 150

In consequence of the continued agricultural de-
pression the Assessment Committee of the Alton Union,
Hants, have decided to reduce the rating 15 per cent. on all
agricultural lands and wood lands throughout the union.

-
It is stated in a Constantinople telegram that the
Russian Government has recommended the Sultan to intro-
duce reforms without delay, and thus avoid giving occasion
for serious European complications.

The Agent General for New South Wake has been
Informed by telegram of the arrival in Sydney of the ship
Pericles which sailed from Plymouth with emigrants in
August last.

The Duchess of Edinburgh has signified her pleasure
to become a Royal patroness of and subscriber to the Royal
Infirmary for Children and Women, Waterloo-bridge-road,
London.

The Great Council of Berne has requested the
Government to prepare a scheme for the execution of public
works with a view to provide employment for the destitute
of the canton during the coming winter.

Sir H. Drummond Wolff, addressing his constituents
at Bournemouth said he had consulted within the last few
days some of the leading merchants in the City of London,
Liberals as well as Conservatives, and he had found out that
the trade in chemicals was the real barometer of the trade
of this country.

The Manchester Guardian says that the London
and North Western Railway Company have reduced the
wages of their platelayers a shilling per week.

The Saxon General Schiiibers Hofen, who is ninety-
five years of age and has just celebrated the jubilee of his
Generalship, was captured by the French at Jena, served for
a time in the French service, and on Saxony joining the
allies became one of Wellington's adjutants. He retired
from service in 1850.

The vigorous hand•shaking which General Grant has
been subjected to since his return to his native country
must have required no small amount of endurance. At San
Francisco the General shook 1,043 hands in one hour and
eight minutes.

A telegram from New York states that a violent
storm prevailed on Lake Ontario on Tuesday night, during
which a number of scows and dredges were sunk. Twenty-
two persons are stated to have perished.

The Record announces the death at Highgate of
Miss Cecil, daughter of the late Rev. Richard Cecil, in the
ninety•eight year of her age. Her sister, Miss Catherine
Cecil, who edited her father's works, is still living, and is
between eighty and ninety years of age.

"We are repeatedly asking the telegraph people to
point their sentences and capital their words. Neglecting
(as they always do) to take this trouble, they told the Lon-
don papers that Lord Carnarvon at Winchester said, 'The
worst-paid country curate is expected to preach twice on
Sunday with the persuasiveness of a journeyman-taylor, and
the eloquence of a barrow.' For 'journeyman tailor' read
'Jeremy Taylor,' and initial ' Barrow ' with a capital letter,
and all is right."— Court Journal.

The first council of the Manchester Diocesan Branch
of the Church of England Temperance Society was held on
Monday. Resolutions were passed, expressing the convic-
tion of the conference that a change in the method of grant-
ing licences for the sale of intoxicating liquors is impera-
tively needed; that the establishment of parochial societies
is of chief importance, and that their organisation be pressed
throughout the diocese as rapidly as possible. It was
further resolved "that the council affirms its adhesion to
the principle of entire Sunday closing, and would urge on all
its branches in the diocese to give this matter the prom!.
nence and support it demands."

A meeting of the Polish Historical Society was held
in London on Monday to commemorate the twenty-fifth
anniversary of the death of Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart. The
chairman, Major Szulczewski, said that no secure reliance
could be placed upon the Austro-German alliance as a barrier
against Russian aggression, and that Lord Dudley Stuart's
warnings against Russian faithlessness had never received
a better illustration than in Russia's present policy with
regard to 111liva and Turkestan. The natural barrieragainst
her encroaahments in Europe was the restoration of Poland
—difficult but not impossible.

Mr, Dawson Burns, seoretary to the United Kingdom
Alliance, has asked Mr. Cross whether the sale of intoxicating
liquors in railway carriages is legal, and under what statute
licences for this sale are procurable; and the Home Secretary
has replied that he cannot undertake to give legal opinions
to private individuals, and suggests that Mr. Burns should
consult a legal adviser on the question.

"The sudden friendship evinced by France for her
Spanish neighbours is taking a very practical form. In ad-
dition to the great Fate, which is the talk of all Paris, there
is to be (at the request of Queen Isabella) a lottery for
2,000,000 francs, the proceeds of which are also to be devoted
to the relief of the sufferers by the Murcia floods. Ah !
What revenges the whirligig of time has brought about
since the Spanish marriages which stirred all Europe in
Louis Philippe's time I"—Mayfair.

The correspondent of The Pima writes :—The ap-
prehensions as to the destruction of Vitznau commenced on
Friday night in last week, when a noise like a thunderclap
awoke every inhabitant. The mountain torrent going to the
Lake of Lucerne contained rock, trees, and thick mud.
Efforts from all quarters prevented the torrent from in-
vading the village, but the valley is covered with mud
slowly trickling into the lake. A chapel has disappeared
under 2011. of mud, and a whole forest has been carried
down. It is feared that more rain or a thaw would cause
an immense fall of rocks and overwhelm the railway
station side of the village; but It does not appear that the
Rigi Railway is imperilled."
When the Mediterranean fleet proceeded recently to
Cyprus the ironclads entered the harbour of Famagosta two
abreast, and found in its waters ample room for all the
ships and many more. Admiral Hornby reported that the
harbour was superior to Valetta. These facts, the Morning
Post thinks, will surprise some of the orators who, speaking
from erroneous information, have decried and ridiculed the
naval value of Cyprus.

It may not be generally known that Major Marter,
the captor of King Cetewayo, Is, like Lord Gifford, his
almost equally fortunate companion in arms, a Gloucester-
shire man, having been born at the village of Barnsley,
four miles from Clrenoester.—Court Journat.

There were 2,544 births and 1,609 deaths registered
In London last week. Allowing for increase of population,
the births exceeded by 6, while the deaths were 138 below.
the average numbers in the corresponding week of the last
ten years. The annual death-rate from all causes rose to
23 2. During the past seven weeks of the current quarter
the death-rate has averaged 214 per 1,000. against 208 and
21-3 in the corresponding periods of 1877 and 1878. The
1,609 deaths included 63 from measles, 113 from scarlet
fever, 14 from diphtheria, 44 from whooping-cough, 20 from
different forma of fever, 23 from diarrhcea, and not one from
small-pox.

Mr. Edward Firth and Mr. Charles Henry Firth,
brothers of the founder have announced their intention to
provide and fit up a laboratory for Firth College, Sheffield, at
the cost of £l,OOO. Mr. Charles Harding Firth, B. A, of
Balliol College, Oxford, has been appointed by the council
Lecturer on Modern History and Political Economy. He is
a nephew of Mr. Mark Firth, and took a Historical Scholar-
ship at Baliol, also the Stanhope Prize, and was first class in
History.

"Last week was the most eventful in the history of
the New York Stock Exchange. Dealings were enormous,
excitement reaching a wild pitch. Brokers were overwhelmed
with orders, a large proportion of them being from people
who never before dealt in stocks. The public fall of the idea
of fortune awaiting stock speculation rush in, buying any-
thing offered. The last week's dealings are the largest
recorded, exceeding 3,000 000 shares, everything rising, some
stocks over twenty per cent."—Philadelphia Correspondent
of The Times.
False hair is again going out of fashion in France,
and many fashionable ladles adopt the coiffures of the
Directory and First Empire, cutting their hair short, and
dressing it after the portraits of Mesdames Tallien and
Recamier, and Queen Hortense. Diamond lace or braids
ornamented with jewels, are mixed in the hair, while
another favourite style copies Madame de Sevigne's
coiffures. Scenes after Watteau are now painted on tbe
fronts of ball dresses.
Speaking at the meeting of the Ploughing Society,
at Alford, in responding to the toast of the "County Mem-
bers," the Hon. Edward Stanhope, M.P., Under-Secretary for
India, referring to the question of the coming dissolution,
said he was told that those who reported his remarks at
Horticastle made it appear that he had said a general elec-
tion was very near. such was far from his belief, and he
should not be at all surprised if, when he met them next
year, the time fixed upon for the dissolution had not then
arrived.

An influential meeting was held at Oxford last
Saturday to take counsel as to the best mear s of preventing
the threatened restoration of St. Mark's Venice. Letters
expressing sympathy with the movement were read from
Mr. Gladstone, the Earl of Carnarvon, the President of the
Royal Academy, and the Dean of Westminster. Resolutions
deprecating interference with one of the most precious mon-
nments of ancient art in the world were passed; and it was
resolved to for ward a respectful petition on ass subject to the
Italian Govennment. The Dean of Christchurch presided at
the meeting, and among the speakers were Mr. btreet, Mr.
Burne-Jones, Professors Acland and Richmond, and Mr. W.
Morris.
Mr. J. F. Harrison, M.P. addressed a crowded
meeting in the Corn Exchange Hall, Kilmarnock, on Mon-
day night. The hon. gentleman criticised and condemned
the foreign and domestics policy of the present Government,
which he called a from-hand-to-month policy. Had, he
said, the latest action of the Administration regarding
Turkey been taken at the beginning, there would have
been, in all probability, a peaceful solution of the question,
and a saving of an enormous number of human lives and of
great expenditure.
The death is announced of Henrietta, Baroness
Brays, which occurred at Stanford Hall, Leicestershire, on
the 14th inst. The late Baroness was born on the 3rd of
November, 1809, and married in September, 1844, the Rev.
Edon Wyatt-Edgell, formerly vicar of North Cray, Kent, by
whom she had a family of three sons and a daughter. Her
eldest son, Captain the Hun. Verney Wyatt-Edgell, of the
17th Lancers, was killed at the battle of Ulundi in July last.

The Paris Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph
writing from Paris on Monday night, says:—" I informed you
on Thursday that there were some doubts as to the truth of
the widely-circulated report of Abd•el-Kader's death. These
doubts are to-day confirmed by the following note of the
Agence Bavas :•—` From information received from the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs we learn that the rumour of
Abd-el-Kader's death is devoid of all foundation. Had such
an event occurred the Consuls of France at Damascus and
Beyrout would not have failed to Winn it to the notice of
the Minister for Foreign Affairs.'"