The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-03-18 00:00:00

THE RINK MANIA.

As might be El:Tooted the rink mania is bringing a
golden harvest to the manufacturers who can produce
roller skates (remarks the Standard). Birmingham
and Sheffield and South Staffordshire are in ecstacies
at the new fashion, and such is the pressure brought
to bear upon manufacturers that they hardly know
how to execute the orders they receive. The number
—of inventors is legion, and every otoe-of Virmla -inxioffr
to see his invention take the solid form of thousaniis
pairs of skates with the least possible delay. Doubtle s
many of the devices prove utterly worthless; but th s
does not in the least prevent other inventors fro
believing firmly in their own infallibility. T
Engineer gives the experience of one manufacture t.
He takes an order for four thousand pairs of ska'
to be delivered within a certain time, each skate r
.qtfiring eight-seven separate pieces of metal in its
tci
construction. Within a day or so another inven r
comes with an offer to take fifteen thousand pairs if he
order can be executed; and hardly has he left befo
another arrives offering to place a very much larg
order, if the invention can be worked out without
moment's delay. This same man, besides the order for
four thousand pairs on which he is engaged, has l
run out in lead the patterns for a new skate, the detsit
of a distinguished inventor, 'which is to be made whollk
of steel. It is quite clear that there is a universal
determination to make hay while the sun shines; and
the next question that arises is, how long will the sun
keep out? Capitalists seem to expect a long spell of
sunshine.
'
_
EPITOME OF NEWS.
BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

War is stated to have been declared on Wednesday
last by Japan against Corea, the ports of which are said to be
blockaded by the Japanese fleet.

How to get a Bird's-eye view of any place—Take
a pipe with
.you, and look at it through a cloud of fragrant
" fippenny.' —Judy.
The King of Portugal has conferred the Grand
Cross of the Order of Tower and Sword upon Signor Min-
ghetti, the Italian Prime Minister.
The Baroness Burdett-Coutts has written to the
Bethnal•green vestry, offering a donation of £lOO for the
purpose of "laying-out" with flowers and walks, the burial
ground of the parish church of St. Matthew.
A telegram from New York says that a fire has
occurred in an almshouse at Norwich, Connecticut. Four-
teen of the inmates were burned to death.

G. W. Sherman, of Newport, RI., is said to have
the largest dog in the "United States. It weighs two hundred
and ten pounds, and measnees Sour and a half feet around the
body. Ills a eross between St. Bernard and Newfoundland
breeds.
On Friday (the 10th) the ship "Windsor Castle, 1,074
tons register, Captain Harrison, belonging to Messrs. Green,
of Blackwell, was despatched from Gravesend by Messrs.
Devitt and Moore for Brisbane, Queensland, under charter
to the Queensland Government. She had on board 381
souls, equal to 350 Statute adults.
- -

. _
Speaking at a meeting of the United Service Institu-
tion, the Duke of Cambridge urged that the day for cavalry
had, certainly not passed away, for an army without cavalry
was of no good at aIL "I think," he added, "that cavalry
officers ought to be men of the greatest possible military
ability, and should be trained in surveying and land sketch-
ing."
The Lord Chancellor has received a deputation of
gentlemen interested in the cotton trade, who complained of
the haste with which the Trade Marks Act had been passed
last year, and asked that a commission of inquiry might be
sent to Lancashire. The noble lord promised to consider
their representations.

In a lecture at Leeds on surnames, the Rev. C. W.
Bardsley, of Manchester, stated that, speaking generally,
the hereditary surnames of Europe were not older than 500
years. Incidentally he tenaarked that there were now in
England 260,000 Joneses and 2e0,000 Smiths, the Browns and
Robinsons being less numerous ; and that formerly Matilda,
Emma, and Elise or Ellis were the three favourite names in
Yorkshire, the last named dating from the time of the
Crusades.
A party of travellers in sleighs were at the beginning
of last month surprised some ten miles from Moscow by a
swarm of wolves, which after a short pursuit overtook them,
and tore men and horses to pieces, with the exception of one
driver, who escaped on a horse. There were six sleighs and
18 passengers in them beqdes the drivers. Altogether, ao-
oording to the Mosso. Gazette, 23 persons lost their lives.
A Supplementary Estimate of £3,200 towards de-
fraying the expenses of the Ashantee expedition has been
Issued by the Treasury. The expenditure in 1874.5 fell short
of the estimate by £15,000, and the present supplementary
estimate does not involve any excess of expenditure beyond
the total original estimate of the cost of the expedition.
At a meeting of ironworkers held at Warrington on
Saturday, the chairman said the state of the trade was more
critical and the look-out darker than had ever before been
the case. Foreign competition—chiefly Belgian—had, he
said, much to do with this condition of affairs.
"Tasmania has taken a turn for the better at last.
Her tin mines are splendid, and the vast quantity of iron ore
she has will soon be utilised, Salmon have been caught in
numbers in the Derwent. The year's revenue shows a surplus
or nearly 423,000."—Melbourne Correspondent of the
Standard.
- Smith id that clergymen ht be

Sydney _ once sai__ _ mign.
divided into three classes—nimrods, ramrods, and fishing.
rods. It was not a bad remark, but it has been beaten by a
Connecticut man, who says that railways are built upon
three gauges—broad gauge, narrow gauge, and mortgage.
The American Bible revisers have been labouring
ince.santly for four years, and have completed only one-
third of their work. The English committee have finished
only two•thirds. It will take fully three or four years to
revise the whole.
At the recent fashionable spelling bee Mr. Lowe,
having spelt "rink," "velocipede," and " financier " correctly,
he broke down on the word " braized " in connection with
beef—leaving out the "1." Another ex-Cabinet Minister has,
It is echoed, been plucked on so familiar a word as " abridge-
ment."—Court Journal.

Of the 21 Bills introduced by the Government into
the House of Commons during the present session, two have
received the Royal Assent, five have passed through all their
stages, six have been read a second time, and eight await a
second reading. Eighty-one public Bills have been intro-
duced by private members, and of these five have been re-
jected or withdrawn, one has passed all its stages, eleven
have been read a second time, and 64 await a second reading.
In the Central Park, Zoological Gardens, New York,
one of the lionesses recently gave birth to two healthy young
ones, and from some unexplained cause failed to give them
requisite nourishment. A fine large mastiff bitch was at
hand, and the young lions were placed with her. She im-
mediately fondled them and assumed the charge, and has
since, for a number of weeks past, nursed them with affec-
tionate attention. They are now getting large and clumsy,
and, in a playful mood, sometimes caress their foster mother
with unsheathed claws.
For a man who, it is said, has several millions worth
by him of bullion, it did not greatly tax Scindia's resources
to furnish the Prince with a massive golden bedstead and a
plunge bath of fine solid silver. It was a curious thing to
realize that there was a moderate fortune in one leg of a bed-
stead.— Court Journai.

The receipts on account of revenue from the let
April, 1875, when there was a balance of £6,265,822, to the
11th inst., were £73,025,724, against £71,413,116 in the corre-
sponding period of the preceding financial year, which
began with a balance of £7,442,854. The net expenditure
was £72,180,385, against £65 701,627 to the same date in the
previous year. The Treasury balances on the 11th inst.
amounted to £5,778,431, and at the same date in 1874 to
£6,484,716.
A destructive accident occurred on Wednesday on
the Great North of Scotland Railway. As a goods train was
proceeding from Keigh to Aberdeen the axle of one of the
waggons gave way, near Pitcaple. Twenty-three trucks
were thrown oft the rails, and several were precipitated
down an embankment and smashed. The permanent way
was greatly damaged, and the line completely blocked. The
telegraph wires were rendered useless for some distance. No
one was hurt.
The Registrar-General's report states that eighty
- _
last week by whi

deaths were caused in London last week by , Aoopl
46 by measles, 35 by scarlet fever, and Iby smallpox. Both
measles and whooping-cough caused more than the average
number of deaths, whilst scarlet fever was fatal in fewer
cases than it has been in any week since last May. The
deaths froul diseases of the respiratory organs were 336, or
73 below the average number. Fifty deaths are attributed to
violence, and of these live were causeid by horses or vehicles
in the streets. The death-rate in the Outer Ring was 196
against 218 per 1,000 in Inner London.
A deputation. representing Boards of Guardians in
Lancashire and Cheshire, waited upon the President ol the
Local Government Board on Monday, and urged objections
to the powers proposed to be given to surveyors of taxes by
the Valuation Bill before Parliament. Mr. Sclater-Booth
replied that it was not intended that the surveyor should
over-ride assessment committees, but it was thought the
provision objected to would give Government the security
required, in respect of contribution to local rates.
On Sunday Brussels was visited by one of the most
severe tempests ever known. Several persons are stated to
have been killed in the streets from the fall of scaffoldings,
chimney-pots, slates, and tiles; and numbers of children
were lifted up and blown into the roadway. Circulation was
at one time impossible. Twenty trees were blown down in
the Park, and over one hundred trees were also blown down
in the King's gardens at Laeken.

ihebhpoloeae wrk
antatee
and
dei
Sir John Hawkshaw, the eminent: engineer, gives a
timely warning as to the danger to life and limb incurred by
those who frequent the streets of London from the telegraph
wires suspended over head. Galvanized wire in a smoky '
atmosphere does not last more than about a dozen years, and
the first iutimation of decay, in all probability, will be the
falling of the wires upon the passers-by: and the weight of
the wires and the height from which they will fall will be
generally sufficient to kill or maim those upon whom they
fall
It is contemplated to open communication between
the light vessels and the shore by means of carrier pigeons.
Several gentlemen connected with the Trinity House visited
Harwich on Tuesday for the purpose of ascertaining what
arrangements could be made in the event of the project being
adopted. The birds could travel to and from this town to
Kentish Knock and sunk light ships, and would doubtless
prove of great service in cases of emergency in conveying in-
formation relative to shipwrecks occurring within the dis-
trict to which they would belong.
British demand, home and foreign, in regard to
both the necessaries and the luxuries of life, seem to remain
ever uusated (says the Court Journal). We are not conctient
plains and
stock hills
for
our
n: theca onandnebtual
mp
eroeisse
e_saenamty
meats fish, &c., even to condensed milk, anindeeni;v,
our
available with
quartersng the
for
t 9,, satiate this huge country's ' snot
de-
mand for flowers of even the May-bloom g
rinquesteandoytherdeetthey
eddew
storyyinfas held at the
has
us in con-
tivre iliiver hare found their
markets, and upon inquiry we are
The deceased, on the evening of
They come expreu in
huge-spikedeti sonitsdeo g,ar, eTaihntettyoh liliesact thomee iomefnfat:Fohki
from
esatnooc, s
.uee,
rirtn
.ihh has
ef a. i I 6 dy
:two asr ae t. 1 s f Y,
nection with the million home-groefif
forty hours I '
o 1 o n the body of
rgoson
itlnoasfssry Mason
aged 54, the wife o
In oompany with a Hrs. Colville to
way plentifully into the mar
the 7th hint., left home
honour of the Queens ' wit-
ness visit to White-
the de:;erations in
f that •
d proceeded as far aslocality when through
chapel and had
d helpless. Mrs. Colville was forced to loose her
the d crowd pushing butt' ways, they were taken cif their ftet
~llvneaT,,,eornedAonrai.,
.7fwE'a,afittiaufil.rodohraa.ypT,
exhaustion. A verdict of "Accidental death" was returned.
The game of " the Spelling Bee" (says a Scotch-
ei is
lstak`Bboaro
unanimouslydr ,
raeophnli
itelwid'
which
ii f lenht
t(hhf oeeo
ntu)esgtuahatelilvybei ggbeus tt
man) is of Scotch origin. In giving
game began he says, "A teacher in Forfar, about fifty years
ago being one day in a merry mood, put the question to his
holdiuThe esa
rode(
e. ther.Giea
re 8
d:nctsene,
,d, $
a, osaf
n td h
se
o od
ne
afterwardsc
afterwardse a s Gid
discovered
tclßtaes?is,u,
full
Itsezehneotthht
they
yhr
(largest)?' When, with one voice, the urchins shouted,
The Suit's fit! When taking the chalk and writing up a" B"
Illus-
trated his arithmetical problems, he appealed again to his
pupils whether they had ever seen a 'bull s fit' as big as that
added, '0 but we thought it was a buntbee you meant.'"
Few persons who respond to that portion of the
Litany which prefers a petition for "all who travel by land,"
think of the dangers attending locomotion, Dr. Farr, of
the General Register Office, says that of the violent deaths
of the year 1873, no fewer than 1,290 were connected with
railways, including deaths of railway servants. It is worthy
of remark that the violent deaths caused by horse convey-
ances of one kind or the other—namely, 1,250—were very
nearly the same number. The railway deaths comprised..
1,185 of males, and only 105 of females; killed by horse con-
veyances, veyances, 1,058 males and 194 females. Dr. Farr
addi-
tional to these incurred in the old oonveyances, including
duo waggons, carts, ho., of the country.
that the deaths on railways may be regarded as deaths an:nal: in
lily
olfinthe,e valleyni
large,nalled