The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-05-31 00:00:00

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•
Cremation in Paris is being seriously considered by
the kuncipai Council, and it is proposed to establish an
experimental apparatus at Perea-Chaise.
The Manchester Guardian says:—" It has we are
informed, been decided not to grant any orders in future
for the admission of reporters to executloas. The order
which as to Lancashire reaches us officially, is no doubt of
general application."
An anxious inquirer wants to know whether a Jack
Tar at the Derby may be described as an Epsom salt?—
Judy.

A great eruption of Mount Etna took "place on
Sunday evening.
South African telegrams to the Daily Netos one clay.
last week are stated to have cost £425 for wiring from tilt.
Vincent. —Court Journal.

The Queen has appointed fo- the 'vicarage of St.
Michael and All Angels, Coventry, vacant by the promotion
of Canon Baytiel to the rectory of Topperffeld, Essex, a
former curate of that gentleman, the Rev. James Butter, of
13111101 College, Oxford, vicar of St Thomas, Bethnal-green,
who two years ago exchanged the quiet rectory of Coin.
Wake, Ewer, for the arduous parish in Bethnal-green which
he now holds.—The Times.

A fire broke out on Thursday night, in last week, in
a farmhouse at litilchenweiler, canton Berne, while the
Inmates were asleep in their beds. The tenant, a farmer
named Jacob Fayer, succeeded with great dill:lenity in res-
cuing the whole of his family except two little b 33%, aged
respectively eleven and twelve years, and in an effort to
rescue them also he lost his life without saving theirs. An
old man of eighty, who was lodging in the house, was also
burnt to death_

A letter from Professor Nordenskjold, after tra-
velling six thousand miles, has reached the Russian Governor-
General at Irkutsk, and brought the gratifying intelligence
that the Swedish explorer and his crew, on board the Vega,
are well, and are frozen up at a spot in the Arctic Ocean a
little west of the East Cape, which is in Behring's Straits.
At Brussels, the other evening, towards midnight, a
fire broke out in a three-storied house in the Rue de la Plume,
in which 28 persons were sleeping. Four women and seven
children were in great danger, their means of egress being
cut off, but the firemen and neighbours, at considerable risk,
rescued them, and have had their gallantry acknowledged
by the King,
During a storm at sea recently a French vessel was
capsized and four of her crew drowned. The remaining
two, including the master, were afterwards rescued by; I e
barque Martine Maria and landed at Marsala.

The Turkish inhabitants of the Kars district are re-
ported to be all emigrating, most of them going towards
Erzeroam. The whole country is in a most lamtntable con-
dition

From all parts of France there are complaints of the
weather. lhe harvest is said to be a full month late, which
circumstance is more serious than usual, because the exces-
sive deficiency of last harvest has rendered necessary an ex-
ceptionally large import ot corn, and the prospect now is
that this import will have to be continued altirth longer
than ought to be the case.
Mx. William Lloyd Garrison, the well-known advo-
cate of stave emancipation, died on Sunday In New York.

_
On Saturday afternoon, during the usual exhibition
of the diving-bell at the Polytechnic, London, a link of the
gear above gave way, and the bell fell with great force to the
bottom. Two or three persons were in the bell at the time,
and they were Imprisoned beneath the bell, and in danger
of suffocation. The officials promptly turned off the water
and broke the glass windows in the bell.
The Cologne Gazette states that the villa of Mario-
weiler, near Daeren, has turned out to be a perfect mine of
Roman ruins. Photographs of all the finds are being made.
The coins found eatend into the fourth century. A number
of articles, including a look, spear-heads, jugs and pitchers,
and a serving dish, have been collected from among the
broken tiles and %other rubbish which encamber the founda-
tions.

A Parliamentary return just issued shows that there
are on the roll of the Established Church of Scotland 219,411
male and 297,375 female communicants. The total popula-
tion was, according to the census of 1811, 3,380,019.
Five pereons have contributed 136,000 dollars to the
endowment of the Baptist Theological Seminary at Rochester,
New Yerk.

Mr. Mundane, Cardinal Manning, and Sir T.
Chambers were present on Monday evening at a meeting
held in Exeter flail in support of Sir W. Lawson's local
option resolution. Mr. Munciella, who presided, said no
greater evil could befall humaLity than the allowing of free
trade in drink. Local option he regarded as the real solu-
tion of the question. A motion in favour of the local option
resolution was moved LI Cardinal Manning and carried, as
was also another calling upon the electors to use their in-
uen ce at the next election in favour of cir W. Lawson's •
motion.

Frederick Douglas, speaking before a large mixed
audience at Baltimore, has declared the Negro exodus to
Kansas from the South to be a mistake.

Althoueh everything seems very backward, remarks
the Chamber of Agriculture Journca, vegetation is now pro-
ceeding more rapidly. What We want are 'gushers] breezes,
accompanied by more genial heat, with frequent growing
showers. The grass fields are very much greener than they
were a fortnight since, and there is, of course, less scarcity
of grass, but up to the present many farmers have been com-
pell!ld to feed their docks and herds partly on hay or trough

The award in the Kidderminster carpet trade dis-
pute has Just been made. The matter at issue was the
price to be pali for weaving tapestry carpets on the Moxon
looms in Kidderminster, and it would have led to a strike
but br the determination to refer the question to arbitra-
tion. Mr. Hughes, Q.C., the arbitrator, has now decided
that the price for weaving the above-named goods shall re-
main at lid. per yard, and that there shall be no extra per-
centage, such as the weavers demand, paid.

The 33rd birthday of Princess Christian falling on
Sunday, was celebrated at Windsor on Monday with Royal
honours, salutes being fired from the Long Walk, and Fort
Belvidere and the Adelaide frigate, Virgibia Water.
The Americans have H. M. S. Pinafore on the brain.
One of the stories in proof is that the editor-in-chief of a
daily paper called his subs and reporters together, and said,
"1 wish you wonll not use the Pinafore phrase, 'hardly
ever,' in the paper hereafter. It oocurred twenty times in
sus many articles in yesterday's edition. Never use it again."
"What 1 never?" was the unanimous question. • Well,
hardly ever 1" was the editorial rejoinder.
A. notice has been issued by the Postmaster-General
to the effect that after the Ist of next month the definition of a
circular letter, so far as the Inland book post is concerned,
wilt be as follows viz„ a letter which from in'ernal evidence
appears to be intended for transmission in identical terms to
several persons, and the whole or greater part of which is
pr,tlacea by means of ordinary type, engraving, lithography,
or any other rnechaincil process. Such circulars will be
entitled to pass by book post.

The Duke of Bedford has given a half-year's rent
due at lAdy Day last, to the farmers and thous renting small
holdiDga on Ws Devon, Cornwall and, Dorset (states, in con-
sequtn•N, of the depression in agriculture.

Tn. Neutcbar.€l Gr«,at Co-nocil has resolved, with
one vice, to adhere to the abolition of capital punishment
in that Canton, decreed in 1854.

Owing to the low prices of grain and cattle, Lord
Breadalbahe has reduced the rents of a number of farmers on
his estates by 20 per cent.

An extraordinary case of a really serious accident
seemingly unattended by any serious effectsla reported from
Chevtley, near Newmarket, where on Thursday in last
week, a lad named Poulter was run over by a traction
engine, which passed over both thighs. He was attended
by a surgeon, who had him' placed on a mattress and con-
veyed home, but owing to the swelling the medical man was
unable to ascertain whether any bones were broken. On
Sunday the lad preferred to go to his own bet, which he did
without any help This is the more remarkable as the engine
weighed about three tons.

•
Catherine Churchill, who was c,nvicted at the recent
Somerset Assizes for the wilful murder of her husband,
Samuel Churchill, at Knowle St. Gilts, on March 4, was
executed at Taunton Prison on Monday morning, in the pre-
sence of the sheriff and prison officials. Several hundred
persons assembled outside the prison, and punctually at
eight o'clock the black flag was hoisted over the gate-
way.--On Tuesday morning John DArcy, an Irish-
man, was executed in York Castle, for the murder of
William Mitchell, an old than, aged 73, at Oultcn-
lodge, near Leeds. A very large body of spectators as•
sembled outside to witness the hoisting of the black flag,.
which told of the fatal bolt having been drawn.—Thomaa
Johnson, convicted of the murder of Eliza Patten by stabbing
her, was executed at Kirkdale Gaol on Wednesday morning.
The strictest privacy was observed, the only witnesses being a
few gaol officials. Outside the prison a large crowd collected,
waiting for the appearance of the black flag, which was
raised shortly after eight o'clock, and announced that the
sentence had been carried out.-31arwood was the executioner
in this, as in the other two ca,es. No reporters were ad-
mitted in any of the cases.