The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-09-09 00:00:00

risttflancous

1T.C7:12, IT E 7:172 N, /...!TD C0....,...1.:1LL.

A SLinioN NTE1:1: UPTED.—A n American
paper mentions that while the Rev. Mr. Cmter was
preaching at Union, Ohio, on the afternoon of Sunday,
the Pith of July, one Mrs. Osborn came in and walked
up to the pulpit and announced that sonic persons had
broken into Mr. Trone's house while he awl his family
Were attending Sabbath School, and that he wished for
some help to catch the thieves. Mr. Carter asked the
congregation to indicate what they would do, mid a
majority being for hunting the thieves, he "called for
the long metre doxology and pronounced the benedic-
ta," and the pursuit was commenced. It is stated
that the thieves "were finally caught," notwithstand-
ing the advantage obtained by means of" long ware.

UNREASONABLE.— We know It Man so keen
in money matters, that positively he refused to con
dud the purchase of a home for 999 years, because he
could not have the odd year thrown M.—Poach: .

BISMARCK'S DESIGNS AGAINST ENGLAND.—A
pamphlet has been published in Paris, entitled Prninlia
in thr text. It endeavours to Remonstrate that Eng,
land is threatene I with more comtdete ruin than that
which France has been subjected to by Co many. This
catastrophe, according to the author of the pamphlet,
is the necessary reali,ation of Prince Bismarck's plan,
who must needs always fear =Anglo-French alliance.
France will never be overthrown so long as England
remains powerful. The pamphlet seeks to show that
Prince Bismarck, in alliance with I{ll3Fia, wt,uld obtain
possession of Trieste and Antwerp, while Bussia would
occupy HintLtstan. It is added that a treaty to that
effect has been signed between Russia and Germany.

A NEEDLESS SEARCH. —Baron Testaferrata
Abela, a gentleman living in Malta, recently discovered
in the valley of Ilomerino a Rmnan tomb, containing
four human skeletons, earthenware lamps. vases, Ice.
The baron expressed surprise that no coins were
explaining to his loan the ancient custom of placing
pieces of money with the dead to pay the boatman
Charon for crossing the Styx. The man asked if he
really believed in such a story. "Certainly,' said the
baron. " why look for the money ? " rejoined
the man, ",the boatman has got it."
To THE FANCY. —The best place to get
Newfoundland Dogs is, naturally Newtown dand ; ergo
the best place to get Lap-dogs must be Lap-land.---
Punch.

•
DOING GOOD Worm—Miss Rye bag found a
follower in her emigration movanent for girls in the
person of a Roman catholic priest at Liverpool, Father
Nugent, who lately sent out from that port a batch of
eighteen young women, mostly of Irish extraction, as
emigrants to America, in the stenmship Calabria. The
following letter has bren received :

"My dear Father Nugent, Yours of June 27th was
handed to me by Mary M'Greevy. he tom girls you sent
here were immediattly cog:med. If you had sent twenty
they would have obtained forthwith situations. The de-
mand for female domestics is very great. If you had lint a
tenth of the money squandered by the Fenians in their
foolish and fruitless efforts, you could move 01 the poor'
destitue Catholic 15.35 and girls to America."
- • --

QUESTION AND ANSWEIZ.—What's the dilEz-
ewe between a Velocipeilist and an Eton boy tvho's
been severely swished': • One Blows a body on wheels,
and the other wheals on a body. Punch.

THE FRENCH AEMY.—ACCOTaIg to the A remir
Liherol, the Ministerial proposition to be submitted to
the National Assembly, on the recommendation of the
Budget ( Mnrnittee, will provide for expenditure on ac
count of an effective forceof 430,000 men. This force will
be thus constituted i—Staff, 5,000 men • Gendarmerie,
23,000; 106 regiments of infantry, 210,000; 30 battalions
sit Chasseurs,2o,ooo ; fourregiment<of Zon aves, 4,000;
three battalions of African Light 1 nfantry,3,ooo ; seven
disciplinary companies,.2,ooo ; foreign regiment, 4,000;
three regiments Algerian Trailleurs, 9,000; 56 regi-
ments of cavalry, 47,000 ; four regiments Chas,,,,u.
d'Afrique, 0,000; nine remount companies and depots,
5,400 ; three regiments of Spah9, 6,000; 24 regiment.
tillery, 45,000; two regiments Artillery Train,
9,000; three regiments Engineers, 10,000; four com-
panies of Construction, 10,000 ; aihninintrative ser-
vices, 12,000—total, 430,000. The effective force pro-
vided for in the Budget of 1870 NM 400,000 men and
90,822 horses, requiring an expendhure of 373 001,182
francs.

A MESSAGE nwat THE SEA.—A "message
frrni the sea" was picked up at New IBedford,
recently, written from the City of Doitton, and pre-
served in a bottle. The piper was without date or
conic, and nyitteti by a (erman, the translation run-
ning as follows : "bear Persons,— He who finds this
'bottle, if it poissibly makes its way to the laud, will
please send it to the Admiralty in an English harbour.
I have thrown similar ones which contain the Wings in
different language:. They conic from the sinking ship
City of Poston. We got, unfortunately, in or among
the -- lice, probably), from which no one can be extri-
urted.—Nt ir York Tribune', August 18.

CRUELTY ITT THP, KlTCllEN.—niticing the ease
of plucking a live fowl in Liverpool, the Pall Mall
Gazer says
The cruelty cruelty of plucking a live chicken is not one whit
worse thou that of skinning an eel alive, yet this practice is
almost invariably adopted by cooks In the • best reguiatml
kitchens, who would he surprised to hear that they were
liable to three months imprisonment for an act which ap-
pears to them perfectly natural and harmless. Again, what
can be more cruel than the practice of boiling lobsters alive?
Lot any one who fancies that these wretched creatures do
not suffer, listen if he can to the horrible screams pen-
coed from the kettle during the m rc.,t, si.if 'he will give
them credit for niore feeli;;il sisan 19 displayed by their exe-
cutioner:. :j;s.iiol S and 'Prawns are treated in a similar
manner, but owing to their eimparatively diminutive size
It would of course Ire absurd to sty a word on their behalf,
mire especially as they cannot, like lobsters, make them-
selves heard. The small must look alter themselves, hut
we might at least put a atop to the unnecessary' torture of
hip?,, Waste, mot fishes of u respectable size. There surely
must be some Meant f extinguishing his leis objectionable
than Ulna: now kW often employed by butchers, salesmen,
and cooks."

QUITE THE REVERSE.—\%e are invi,Rd, by
the gentlemen who desire, through paternal legislation,
to regulate other people's personal habit. by debarring
them of invigorating liquors, to hope that some alde
Statesman will, in some future Session, contrive to earry
an effective Licensing Bill. What they mean is a Rill
for the Abolition of Licenses.- Punrh.
SounEtts' Wm:ea.—The plan lately adopted
of paying the soldiers weekly instead of daily has been
attended with only partial sucAPsa. In some corps it
is found to work satisfactorily, but in others it is said to have caused considerable increase of crime ; and in
the case of the depots to which recruits are sent on
enlistment, it has been fmuul necessary at some stations
Partially to iliscominue the system and resort to the
practice of daily payments. The newly adopted plan
the
roefcriluii'tsPetonBihnegadettlitrtartelyerswitchonetsilt(Urte: toh'rwco'rrewiitnhg sue
cess. Permission to volunteer for serv.ce abroad is
given to men of suitable age who are now serving with
regiments at home, and the recruits under twenty will
probaldy be sent to supply the placeof these VOIRRIeerS.
DISCOVERY OF COAL—The Western Mail says
the period of inactivity enforced upon the colliery
owners in the Ithonda Valley by the recent strike has
not been altogether unproductive of suNdantial good.
Since the "turn out" of the men on the lot of June,
the Abergorky Colliery Company have been engaged in
iniproving the workings by deepening tie shafts
of
their pits at Trot, by. Last week the cuavatms em-
ployed in this wok ,Caine upon a new seam of coal,
which is spoken of us king of a splendid quality.
OUR OLn Pas the remark of a
patient sufferer, on seeing the name of " Imhof "
on
a street-organ, that he was glad it was not "1 'in off,"
aft that would have been too tantalising to one who
could look lock on many years' agonising experience of
the pertinacity of vagabond organists.---Pench.
NIA“ARA. —A Press dispatch from Matra
states that on the 11th of August, while gonie ye
were swimming in Whirlpool Cove, below Niagara
Falls, the bodies of two men were seen floating around
in the circle of the Whirlpool. After considerable
exertion one of the bodies woo secured by one of the
strongest of the swimmers, who was secured against
accident by a rope from the shore. The second body
could not be secured, but the boys were near enough
to ascertain that one of the legs had been torn off, pro-
bably by coming in contact with the rocks in the
river. The boys say that for a number of days the
body of a mother and her chill has been floating in
the pod, regularly encircling the Cove with clock-like
precmion, and after plunging in the vortex, reappearing
again in the outer circle. Although the boys, who are
daily found swimming in the Cove, stoutly assert the
presence of these bodies, little heed is given to than
by the residents of Clifton. At all tinms of the day
a number of boys from 10 to hi years of age Call be
Mind bathing in this dangerous place. Often sine of
the more daring jump on the logs which are always
found maklngthe circuit, and float clear round the
pool, jumping off when they are brought near the
Th•le

THE HELIGOLAND QUESTION ONCE MoRE.
In the bipzig. Gazette there is a lengthy demand for
the "restoration" of Heligolaialto Germany. England
is reminded that she first seized the island from Den-
mark and not Germany, by the way, in order to make
its smuggling de-pia for British goals at a time llS07)
when the Berlin decrees of the preceding year allowed
no other inlet for our manufactures, except by the
devious method of coutniband. it is added that
England was enabled to " withhold " the island from
Germany in 1415, solely because Germany was not then
united, and was not then "the Power of the tirst
order "which it. has since becosie. During the recent
Fre-Iwo-German war the French were able to maintain
their blockade of the German coast mainly, according
to the Ltijcig Gaidtr, through the circumstance that
He! goland was not German tenitory. Had it been
German territory it would have teen strongly fortified,
and the strong fortifications would have prevented
French war-vessels from anchoring under the Ice of
the island, and French coal ships from enjoying a
similar refuge. Heligoland, the laipzic journal insists,
is a sentinel at the embouchures ig the Elbe, the
Weser, and the Jande, the thiee all-important rivers
for commercial or military purrses of the north-west
of Germany, and it becomes neither German safety nor
German honour to allow a foreign Power to remain in
such a position. The Lfip:io (Thzette adds that it
would not recommend an immediate declaration of war
against England for the possession of the few square
feet of ocean rock. It designs, in the first place, that
the Reichstag should ruake known by a unanimous vote
that Heligoland was indispensable to I lennany, when
it douLis not that at the voice of that august assembly
the predilections of England for an " inalienable" por-
tion of the Fatherland would be certain to disappear.
SoMETIONG LEFT OUT.—III the Postmaster-
General's last Reliort we read that "in London alone
above ten million yards of string were used in 1570 for
tying up letters for the country, and above 17,000 lb.
of sealing-wax for securing the 700,000 bags; and -I tons
of ink were used in England for impressing postmarks
/in letters." There is is most extraordinary omission in
these statistics of a great Cover:anent Department—
not a word is said about Red Tape —rest-/i..
A HORRIFIED HINDOO.—The Times of lwlin
publishes the following letter:—

'Sir,—Yesterday was Monday- a sacred day of one of the
most sacred months, Shrarun. At p.m. I hail bathed, and
prepared myself for the worship of the Deity. M
y eyoi were
half shut by the drowsiness of abstraction in Him : my heart
was melting before His obey, and my mind, leaving behind
the dark not labyrinthian regions of reason, had rested on
the bed of belief. I was ralecting gratefully on the various
resources of eilifleation, subsistaneo and pkasure given by
Ire; 'windy to man ! In the if sue!. reveries I was
startled !iy hearing a 110ISC went out to see
what it s‘its, and 005 Informed that the riaeon-shooting
Enrorettne were • tann;t:sl in the to Os) teirilie aini 119gaSt-
fill spilt in the Sooner' Blehel ! How meat the Ilindoos
within, seeing and hearing if the shots, have been pained
by such a deed at such a time Ima sure God has not
Intended the death even gif His slighteid meatnre to he a
sport. Death may be a necessity-- death may be an accident
—but it Dever eau he an amusemm.t.- I beg, c., 310I1A0ER
TRIMCI.TaII..I", a Brahmin. Broach, Angust

THE Ftmecn HAItVEST. The French harvest
Is reported upon 14y a French paper as follows:
" Wheat is very good in three departments, good in 23,
tolerable 'n 19, and moderate in 34. Oats are very
good in 30 departments, good in 44, tolerable in seven,
and moderate in five. Eye is very good in eight de-
partments, good in GO, tolerable in 11, and moderate in
two. Barley in very good in 23 departments, goo' in
44i, tolerable in eight, and moderate in one. But there
is no doubt that, taking into account the distribution
of the crops in the several departments, the wheat
crop has been deficient as a whole, owing to the under-
average production in the principAl wheat-growing
portions of the country. --Chaatber of Agriculture
Juuntal.

MOTTO FOR MISS MILLY-CHEISTINE.—TWO
heads are better than one. -Poach.

CRIME IN FRANCE.—The Journal °Pie' pub.
lishe3 a report on this subject for the year 1859,
occupying eighteen columns. The number of eases
tried before the courts of assizes in France was .3,397,
or a diminution of 216 on the jireceding year. The
most serious crimes were the iollowing - Murder 211
(decrease 7), poisoning 25 (increase 7), Infanticide 170
(decrease 41), homicide 140 (increase 22), parricide 9
('lees-ease 4), rape 151 (decrease 15), criminal assaults .
on children 738 (decrease 17). The number of accused
in those trials waa64,189, of whom 3,553 were men
and 636 women. The social position of the accused
was as under :--Occupied in field labours 37 per cent,
workmen 30 per cent., servants 8 per cent., traders
14 per cent., liberal professions 7 per cent, vagrants
4 per cent, With respect to instruction 36 per cent. -
were completely ignorant, 44 per cent, could read and
write imperfectly, 16 per cent. well, and 4 per cent,
• hail received a superior education. Of the total Ot
4,189 accused, 975 were acquitted, 18 condemned to
death, 132 to hard labour for life, and the remainder to
the same punishment; or to imprisonment for limited
perks's. Of those on whom the penalty of death was
passed one was a woman, 10 were executed, and in the
other cases the sentence was comniuted The 370 Cor-
rectional Tribunals tried 17,1,745 vermin.% or a decrease
of 19,812 on 1868 ;of the total 146,5.15 were men and
24,229 women; 13,132 were acquitted ; 3,314 minors
were given up to their parents or sent to a reformatory
institution, 55.342 were condi:rimed to the payment of
fines, and 90,688 to imprisonment. In addition to the
above 413,128 individuals were summoned before the
petty police tribunals, which condemned 357,055 to
fines of from one to fifteen tram., or imprisonment fur
terms not exceeding five days.
VAGRANCY AND TUE VAGRANT ACT.—In the
new Act on the prevention of crime, which will come
into operation on the 2nd if November, there is a pro-
vision to amend the Vagrant Act, 5 George IV., c. 83,
as to the nature of the evidence required to prove the
intent to commit a felony. It is to be construed as
if, instead of the words "highway or place adjacent,"
the words were " or any highway or any plate adjacent
to a street or highway ;, and, secondly, that in proving
the intent to commit a felony it shall not be necessary
to show that the person suspected was guilty of any
particular act or acts tending t I show Ids purpose or
intent, awl he inay be convicted if from the circum-
stances of the case and from his known character as
proved to the Court it appears to the Court that his
intent was to commit a felony.

THE ELEMENT OF CONeORIL—The Pall Mail
Ca:Mc is informed 13y American papers that :

"The Irish element is giving trouble in Chicago ns well aa
In New

Is it possible that the Irish element can give friiebbo
anywhere out of Ireland, where it j trampled on by
the tyrant Saxon? Sure, it can give nothing bat al-
vantage to ever holy around it in any population into
which it has intrielueed itself for the pripagation of
peace and pietness, and the reinforcement of law and
order. —.Punch.

LIBRARIES IN ITALY.—From a returs of the
statistica if public libraries in Italy for lo.l,A"ente'l
to the Minister of Public Instruction, It cipears that
Italy possesses twenty-eight of these titutions,
which were resorted to last yvar madels.
Naples, the most populous of Italiiur cities, with five
Public libraries, has also the largest Lambe,- of readers,
being 192.991 Turin, with sue public Weary, has
115,000 mailers; Florence, with Bove 92,000. The
library most frequented in plitpoi lion to ihe population
was that of Catania, ssjli 15.611 Nine only
of the libraries are open in the cmidit ; the number
of visits made at that time was Works in
general literature and philology were most largely in
request; after these treatises on jurisprudence and
legislation • and in the third place, works on physical
science. proportion if novels issued was very
small, which may perhaps be owing to storks of this
description losing but sparin,,ily admitted into the
libmnei. The total number of works added to all those
institutions during tho year was 11,706 t
"LET
sha,t,t ryf,,Lat.aststopewechFaLtOr,;RlLgit Llooverl
{mail the Scottish women who were nut present, adding
that, though ohl, he was "a v.ry gallant fellow." He
is, sound the adjective urik tither emphawis you like.
As for being oh! if a mats hfe is to be measured by
his good works, tile Earl is a Methuselah, but he in
-young enough to Mean to deumlish several of the es•
maining Castles of Moloch-Mammon, and to set a
great many more prisoners free. Me. Punch applauds
111.60 w for its lwarty welcome to as good a man OA
over stepped Buchanan Street, and that 's goyim.; a
deal, especially as Mr. Poach himself has trtaldenthure
egs.—Fiiacli,