The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-12-22 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

News has been received from Warzbnrg that the
Maine is rapidly rising, and has overflowed the lower
parts of the town, causing great anxiety.

A New York telegram says that-o-fisitscount of the-
recent break in the prices of cotton, the proprietors of
ma:,y of the leading mills in Rhode Island have de-
cided upon a rc,ductiun of wages.
From April let to the 15th instant the Exchequer
receipts amounted t 3 £56,792,435, as compared with
£55,799,149 in the corresponding period of last year.
The expenditure was £56,374,738. On Satnrday last
the balance in the Bank of England was £5,301,098,
and in the Bank of Ireland £859,308.

Solemn meaooria services were held on Monday, at
Gloucester, Mat.saohusetts, for 200 fishermen who have
been lost frost the fishing fleet this season.
Last week's receipts of cotton at all United States
ports were 280,000 bales; since Ist September,
2,952,000 bales. Week's exports to Great Britain,
72,000 hales; week's exports to the Continent, 26,000
bales. Total since let September, 1,503,000 bales.
Stock at all ports, 1,187,000 bales.
According to the budget of the Metropolitan Board
of Works the rateable value of the metropolis at the
present time is £28,415,764, an increase of £532,686 on
the past year.
The report read at the annual meeting of the
Metropolitan Hospital Sunday Fund, stated that
the number of contributing congregations bad beeu
77 in excess of the number of the previous year, but
the amount received, £33,935, had been ratltor less
than the total of 1882.

Her Majesty's bucklnunds met on Tuesday at
Ickenham, near Uxbridge. The deer made away
over a splendid line of country, leading the hunt at
first to Southall, and bcing eventually captured at
Ruislip, a few mileß frm Harrow, after a run of
about an hour and a half.

It is stat3d that the late Mr. Richard Neweham, of
Preston, who died receitly, has left to the corporation
of that town his collection of pictures, porcelain, and
brotzes, of which the first named a'one were ten years
ago valued at bttween £GO,OOO and £70,000.
The question of the housing of the poor ha 3 been
raised in the Austrian Parliament by a motion to
exempt from the heavy house•tax lodgings of which
the rent is under fourteen pounds, and to give State
.acilities to societies formed for the erection of healthy
artisans' d wellings.
A newspaper editor of Spires has been condemned
at Munich to two months' imprisonment for having
printed a gostiping summer article from Kissingen, in
which regret was exnre.sed- at the Unguent public
appearances of the King of Bavaria. No oner said
the judge, was entitled to criticize the actions of his
Majesty.
In London, a few mornings since, IA about half-past
two o'clr ck, Mr. W, L. Barrett, the flauti4, was
attacked by three ruffians while passing through Savoy-
street into tie Strand. They seized him round the
throat, beat him severely about the head and face,
and, having robbed him of his watch, money, and.
other property, left him lying insensible on the pave-
meLt, where he was found by the police.
Tha Queen and Princess Beatrice left Windsor on
Tuesda.y morning for Osborne. Her Maje.ty and the
Princess travelled from the Windsor Station of the
Great Western Railway by special train to Gosport,
where the Royal party arrived at half-past twelve,
and crossed to the Isle of Wight.

On Tuesday, Frederick Ho.,:king, a youth, V 79.9 at
Plymouth committed for trial at the As,iaes, charged
with the manslaughter of a felbw apprentice, named
1-itt, with wi,om be fought. Pitt fell and
sustained injuries to his head from which he is alleged
to have cied.

There were 2,510 births and 1,722 deaths registered
in London last wtek. Alto iviog for increase of popu-
lation, the births were 133, and the deaths 179, below
the average numbers in the corresponding weeks of
the last ten years. 't'he annual rate of mortality
from all causes, which had steadily declined in the
four rrecPd•n; weeks from 22.2 to 21 5, rose to 22,7, a
hi,,ber rate than has prevailed in any week since the
middle of July.

A New York telegram says that the visible supply
of wheat on Dee. 14 was 34,110,000 bushels, as against
33,26u,C00 bushels the previous week. Visible supnly
of Indian corn b,300,000 bushels, as against 8,600,000
barbels, the previous week. The export clearances of
wheat for Europe during last week amounted to
960,000 hushes. The export clearances of Indian
corn for Europe daring last week amounted to 660,000
bushels.
A shocking accieent occurred on Monday night at
one of the pits connected with the Townhill Coal
Company, rt,ar Dunfermline. Four men were engaged
in I.lasting eratien, and one of them, tinclivg that
the dynamite was 'mean, put it into a canister con-
taining hot water. An explosion immedi,taly fol-
lowedi- with the -result thtrevone man, netted Edward
Hu? cheeon, was blown to atoms, while thekothers were
knocked down end injured.
night the premises of Messrs.
Paprknhraintng aM'I Y
and Co., mantle manufacturers' 132, Queen
Victoria-stteet. London, were entered int) by burglars.
The men enteted at the hack-of the house and carried
away with th in about £2OO worth of mantles. They
then broke into thti next house where they ransacked
the premisee, but did not take anything away with
them.

Mr. Cavendish-Bentinok, M.P., in addresisng his
conttitnenta at Whitehaven on Tuesday, said the use of
remit' lasting the Government was to prevent people
being (I,!ceived twice over. He asked what the people
of Enr.lo.nd were to gain by the organic changes pro•
poced by Mr. Chamberlain and his party, and was
afra'd that the Constitution would be destroyed unless
the moderate Liberals united with the Conservatives
to resist the Radical party.

Sir Saul Samuel, K.0.M.G., Agent-General for New
South Wales, ham been informe-i by telegram of the
arrival in Sydney of the ship Rialto, which mailed from
Plymouth with emigrant in September last.

The Vienna Prase states that of the 78 Servian in.
Eur4entso udemned to death 18 have been shot, one
has committed suicide by hanging himself, and 59 have
been pardoned by King Milan.

On Tue,..dy 250 sailors and firemen employed by
the ehippit,g companies at Marseilles decided to strike
work owir,g to th-2 refusal of their employers to comply
with their demands.

Cn Tuesday an old woman named Mary Harney
was instantaneously killed at Athlone through being
struck by the shaft of a cart.
Intelligence received at Constantinople from Abadia
announces that a great storm has occurred there, and
much damage has been done to houses in the town.
Six large ships and 15 coasting vessels were lost during
the gale and their crews drowned.
One of the oldest porters in the employ of the
London and South-Western Railway Company, named
John Knott, was knocked down by a goods train at
Chiswick Station on Tuesday morning and literally
Cat to- &ten - -
The number of failures in England and Wales
gazetted during the week ending Saturday, Dec. 15,
was 242. The number in the corresponding week of
'last Yea? was 157, showing an increase of 45, being a
net decrease in 1883, to date, of 591.
Six men were coming ashore from the Royal yacht
Royal George at Portsmouth on Sunday afternoon,
when their boat, which was under sail, was caught by
a squall and capsized. Another boat was at once
sent to their assistance, but only four of the men were
recOeredthe othti tditrbeitig nowhetb tirbeieern •
A concert was given in Berlin on Wednesday evening
in aid of the fund for building an English church in
the capital in commemoration of the Crown Princess'
silver wedding. The chief performers were English
residents, and the Crown Princess, with Princess
Victoria, was present. Altogether about £B,OOO has
now been collected for the above object—the bulk of
this sum being the result of the summer fete at the
London Fisheries Exhibition.

A miner, named Edmund Palmer, has met with a
frightful death at the Far Colliery, near to West
Bromwich and Wednesbury. He was at the top of
the shalt, and by some unexplainable means slipped.
He fell to the bottom of the shaft. He was found dead,
his body being dreadfully mangled. The remains had
to be gathered together in a bag.

At Heelcy, near Sheffield, on Saturday, an elderly
man, while apparently in the act of picking up some-
thing from between the metal., Was caught by an
exoress Midland train from Chesterfield, and dread-
fully mutPated. Toe body was identified as that of
Thomas Sharp, aged 61, a person of independent
means.

A terrible accident has occurred at the bobbin works
of Messrs. Wilson Brothers, Todmorden' by which a
boy named John Arthur Walker lost his life, two
other persons being injured, and several men had
narrow escapes. The floor of the drying-room fell
through, precipitating three persons upon the boiler,
and Walker was suffocated with the debris; the other
two were got out alive. It is thought that the floor
gave way through the subsidence of the flues.

Serious riots haye occurred at New Orleans between
the opposing factions of the democrats during the
primary elections for nominating the delegates to the
Gubernational Convention. Three persons were killed
and several injured. The sheriff has been placed under
arrest for taking part in the disturbances.
On Wednesday morning a shocking accident occurred
in connection with a fire at Messrs. Wild and Sons'
Mill, Oldham. The fire brigade were taking a fire
escape to the mill, when it came in contact with a
telephone wire, wire, attached to the mayor's house. This
telephone wire pulled down bur yards of heavy coping ,
atone, severely injuring eight persons, three of whom t
it is feared will not survive.

An Exchange telegram from Gibraltar, dated Wed-
nesday morning, says :—A fearful easterly gale has
been blowing here all night, doing immense damage.
Carriages were overturned and pedestrians blown down
by the force of the wind, and several persons were
thus injured. Many houses in the town are unroofed,
and a number of wooden sheds were carried into the
sea.

Mrs. Mary Chester, who attained the age of 100
years in March last, has just died, at the Kingston-on-
Thames Almshouses, of which she had been an inmate
for the last twelve years. Considering her great age,
her faculties were wonderfully preserved to the last.
Her grandchildren number 22, and her great grand.
children 30.

The Governor of Khelat, son of the late Behbood
Khan, has fled to Tnrkoman territory, because the
Persian Government demanded of him compensation
for twenty thousand sheep which were carried off some
time ago by Turkomans.
A fire, which soon assumed great proportions, broke
out in the night at the royal dockyard at Lisbon
The training brig Camocns, a new vessel just about to
be launched. was totally destroyed, and several depots
were burned to the ground. There was no loss of life,
and none of the dockyard staff sustained any injury.
The damages are placed at £1.00,000.
A Wiltshire labourer and his wife, living at a vils
lage called Ford, on Monday proceeded to Salisbury to
make some purchases, leaving an infant child in
charge of a sister, aged eleven years. The latter fell
asleep, and the infant-, who was sitting in a chair,
pulled the cloth from the table, and in doing so over.
turned a lighted lamp, which set fire to her. She was
dreadfully burnt, and died in four hours,

At Croydon, on Wednesday, two Irishmen were
fined 08 Bs. for driving calves suffering from foot-and-
mouth disease through the streets of Croydon, on the
sth and 6th of December. The calves, which were 75
in number, had been travelling from Cork, and had
been all over the south of England.
About 100,000 cwt. of American wheat has been
brought by steamer from Hamburg to Lanbe' i n
Bohemia. This is the first American wheat which has
ever been imported into Austria.
On Tuesday Mr, John Bright addressed a large
open•air meeting in front of Gawthorpe Hall, Burnley,
where he and Mr. Childers were staying as the guests
of Sir U. Kay•Shuttleworth. He dwelt upon the
great improvement in the condition of the working.
classes during the last half century, and recommended
his hearers to endeavour to effect amicable compro-
mises with employers when difficulties arose. He
hoped they would see an extension of the franchise in
the coming Session.—Mr. Childers also addressed the
meeting.

A verdict of Wilful Murder has been returned by
the Coroner's Jury concerning the death of Philip
Maguire, a farmer, who was murdered late on Sunday
night at Killycreeny Bridge, near Cootehill. The de-
ceased was returning from a Salvation Army meeting
when he was killed. The crime is not supposed to be
agrarian.
A memorial tablet has just been erected in the Free
Christian Church, Shrewsbury, by the pastor and
members of the congregation, upon which is the follow
ing inscription :—" To the memory of Charles Robert
Darwin, author of The Origin of Species,' born in
Shrewsbury, February 12th, 1809. In early life a
member of and constant worshipper in this church.
Died April 19tb, 1882."
It is notit 51 in the London Gazette of the 14th
inst. that Pa 'lament will meet on the sth of February
"for the despatch of divers urgent and important
affairs." The Convocations of Canterbury and York
are summoned for Feb. 6.
The screw steamer Bradley. of London, came into
collision with the echooner lsabdla, of Whitstable, on
Wednesday morning, at Hartlepool. The latter sank
in mid•channel, and a boy named Champs, one of her
hands, was drowned. The sunken vessel impedes
navigation.
The weekly return of metropolitan pauperism shows
that in the first week of December there were 91,771
paupers, of whom 54,979 were indoor and 36,792 out-
door. This is a decrease as compared with the corre-
sponding periods of 1882 and 1881 of 3,729 and 1,458
respectively, but an increase cf 247 as compared with
1880. On the last day of the first week of December
5( 0 vagrants were relieved, of whom 358 were men,
126 women, and 16 children under
.sixteen.
The miners of Cannock Chase, about 8,000 in
number, who recently resolved to give notice for an
advance of wages, have postponed the demand until
after a conference, to be held at Manchester, on the
27th mat,, and have inatructed,their agent to attend
such conference and advocate uniform and concerted
action on the part of the miners of the Midland
Counties generally.

In or_e of the principal streets of Birmingham the
other day a sweep named Cheshire ran up a ladder
on to the roof of a gentleman's house, and stood upon
his head on the top of a chimney-pot. The chimney
collapsed and fell Into the street, and the performer
of the freak rolled into the waterspout and had a
narrow escape from what must have been instant
death. He was rescued through a skylight in the
roof, and was afterwards fined se. at the police-court
for his folly.
The steamers arriving at Liverpool !during the last
week with live stock and fresh meat from the United
States and Canada brought a total of 1,366 cattle,
9,943 quarters of beef, 1,798 carcases of mutton, and
100 hogs. It will be seen from these figures that there
were no arrivals of sheep during the week, and that
the first shipment of hogs to this country was
landed lAA week. The supply shows when contrasted
with the previous weeks' imports, a slight decrease
in cattle, but a large Increase in fresh beef and
mutton.

On Saturday morning, between two and three
o'clock, three gamekeepers, named James Grosset,
John Fortune, and John AVDermoid, were shot at by
poachers near Edgelaw Reservoir, on the Rosebery
estate, Edinburgh. M'Dermoid was shot in one of his
arms, Fortune in the abdomen, and Grosset in the
back. Two men have been apprehended in connexion
with the affair.

In London, on Tuesday, at the Marlborouglnstreet
Police.nourt Frederick James Moriarty was again
brought up before Mr. Mansfield cbarged with shooting
Mr. Hwfa Williams, and formally remanded in the
absence of the nrosecutor. A doctor's certificate,
stating that Mr. Williams was progressing, and would
probably be able to appear in a week, was put in and
read.
The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens,
Regent's Park, London, during last werk included
two lesser white•nosed monkeys, from Wet Africa,
presented respectively by the Rev. W. C. Willoughby
and Mr. S. E Sims; twev ty lia,bary tintl, doves,
from India, presented by Mr. A. T. Hirsch, F.Z.S.
two bearded tit mice (European), resented by Mr. H.
Astley, F.Z.S. ; water rail (British), presented
by Mr. E. G. B. Meade, Waldo; an Indian crocodile,
from India, presented by Sir Joseph Fayrer, K.C.5.1.,
F.Z.S. ; two scaly-breasted lorikeets, from New South
Wales; a St. Thomas's conure, from St. Thomas,
West Indies; four West African love birds, from
West Africa; two undulated grass parrakeets; a cock.
ateel, from Australia; two Indian crocodiles, from
India, deposited; a hairy poraupine, from Bran!, Jra
approval; two cirl buntings (British) purchased,