The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-05-17 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.
Thirty cases of cattle plague have occurred in St.
Petersburg. Measures have been taken to prevent it spread-
ing.

Last week Bishop Piers C. Claughton, held a con-
firmation in the prison of Westminster, .when 11 young
women were confirmed. The sound of several hundreds of
female voices Joining in the chants and hymns made a great
Impression on those not used to a prison service.
The Tiftis Messenger reports that a disease, with
terrible mortality, is raging in ten villages of the Caucasus.
Holy pictures have been carried in solemn procession
through the village of Metkha, in the district of God, with
prayers for the preservation of the inhabitants.
A telegram from Rio de Janeiro, says that the re-
turn of the Russian immigrants to their own country con-
tinues. Four hundred of them left Rio on the 21st inst.,
and 700 more are awaiting transport at the seaports of the
Province of Parana.
The weekly return of the Registrar General shows
that during the week ending on Saturday last there were
5,832 births and 3,708 deaths in London, and twenty-two
other large towns in the United Kingdom. The death-rate
was highest in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and lowest in Norwich,
the latter only showing thirteen per thousand per annum
and the former twenty-nine. The rate in Vow:1ov, where
live deaths oocured from small-pox, was twenty-three. In
the metropolis alone the births numbered 2,520, and the
deaths 1,582.
The death is announced of Professor Grisebach, the
celebrated botanist and geographer. He was born in 1814
at Hanover, and in 1841 was called as Professor of Botany to
Gottingen, where he was still officiating up to his death. He
contracted his illness while on a visit with his family to
Italy.

A sad accident has occurred in Christ Chlrch,
Linnet-lane, near Liverpool. Mr. Batson, foreman carver
and sculptor, in the service of a local firm, with his son,
nineteen years of age, were on Monday renovating the carved
work of the church. During the dinner hour young Beason
went to toe tower and ascended a perpendicular ladder to
the height of about 200 feet, apparently to take a view of
the surrounding neighbourhood. By some means he tell
towards the beliringers' floor, and his skull was fractured by
contact with a bell. He was taken to the Royal Infirmary,
Liverpool, where he died on Tuesday.
An intereating old person, Madame Breton, has
just died in Paris at the age of ninety-five. She was the
widow of a devoted servitor of the 'Legitimist Monarchy,
and was one of the twelve ladies present at the baptism of
the Due de Bordeaux. Madame Breton passed through all
the sanguinary struggles of the Reign of Terror.
In consequence of the money allowed in the Esti-
mates for Chatham Dockyard for 1878-79 being insufficient
to keep on the whole of the men at present employed
there, a number of them are to be discharged weekly until
the number employed is in accordance with that provided
for, there being considerably more at work at present than
are allowed by the Estimates. The first party left the yard
on Saturday.
The Dogs Regulation Bill, which has been intro-
duced by Mr J. Lowther and the Attorney-General for Ire-
land, proposes to raise the license duty in Ireland. from 2s.
to 75. The date at which the licences are fixed to terminate
is the 31st of March in each year. The time within which,
according to toe Bill, a license would be necessary is one
month after acquiring possession or custody of a dog; and
notlicense would be required for puppies until the 31st of
March following the date of their birth.
The South Australian Register says that the salmon
Introduced into Australia by Sir Samuel Wilson seem likely
to prove successful. The following telegram from Melbourne
appeared in the latest number of that pacer :—" The Inspec-
tor of Fisheries reports that salmon have been seen in the
Yarra from nine inches to a foot long, evidently making
their way to the sea."
Are farmers peculiarly desirous of marrying their
deceased wives' sisters. The Prince of Wales on Ttiesday,
in the House of Lords, presented a petition signed by 3,258
Norfolk farmers in favour of the Bill for making such
marriages legal.—Mark Lane Express.
It appears that " Dickena's Parties" are the latest
distraction in social circles at Washington. Here is the
style of invitation used. " Miss Fannie Squeers and Miss
Tilde Price request the pleasure of your company (in
character) to meet Mr. Nicholas Nickleby, Mr. Alfred Jingle,
kilts Le Crevy, anti other old friends, on Tuesday evening,
the 16th lust., at Dotheboys Hall."
An animated game of chess was recently played at
the New York Academy of Music. The pieces were repre-
sented by ladies and gentlemen appropriately dressed, who
moved about on a muslin carpet, divided into large black
and white squarer, in proper chess-board style.
The London Gazette of Tuesday night contains an
extract from a despatch addressed by General Roberts, from
Headquarters, Camp Matutn, January 24, 1879, to the
Quartermaster-General in India, giving a supplementary
acoouut of the operations which led te the capture of the
Peiwar Kota'.
In consequence of the death of Mr. Butt, ALP., the
second reading of the Irish Land Bill, drawn by the deceased
leader of the [lrish Parliamentary party, will be moved in
the House of Commons by Mr. Shaw, M. P. It is curious that
the Bill originally bore the name of another deceased mom-,
her of the Irish Parliamentary party, the late Mr. McCarthy
Downing.
Two petitions were recently addressed to the
Premier praying either for his lordship to release the Tich-
borne Claimant or to receive a deputation on his behalf, in
order that the case might be presented to him from their
stand-point. In response thereto, Lord Beacontilsld has
directed a reply to be sent stating that, owing to the pres-
sure of public affairs, it would be impossible for him to re-
ceive a deputation on the subject.
The London correspondent of the Manchester
Guardian writes :—Lord Lorne has not altogether aban-
doned literature since he went to Canada. On the contrary,
helms utilised a portion of his leisure from official duties in
composing both prose and poetical descriptions of his
travels in the Dominion: The Princess Louise is expected to
enhance the value of the forthcoming volume with sketches.
A trial of strength between parties took place in
the German Parliament on Saturday, and resulted in a
decided victory for the Protectionists. The Tariff Bill is
pretty sure to be adopted now without much alteration,
and the disruption of the National Liberal party seems
imminent.
General Garibaldi is better. It is stated that he has
written to General Turr that the Italian Republicans would
never agitate against King Humbert.
Mr. Reed, C. 8., M.P., is nowon his way to England
from Japan, wire her he had gone at the invitation of the
Imperial Japanese Government. Mr. Reed has been staying
at different places in Japan for the last three or four months,
and is said to have received a most flattering recognition of
his services in respect to the war vessels recently added to
the Imperial Navy. Accompanied by his son (who has been
with him throughout the tour), he left New York in the
White Star Line steamer Baltic last Saturday, having crossed
from Yokohama to San Francisco.
The Bishop of London presided at the annual
meeting of the clergy and churchwardens for promoting the
objects of.,the Bishop of London's Fund. His lordship
stated thall notwithstanding the depression caused by di-
minished trade and the wars in which this country was
engaged, the income of the fund had practically been about
£l,OOO more than in the previous year. He gave a detailed
statement of the progress of Church work, and asked for
continued support to that and another fund to be established
for assisting in the repair of churches. •
Accounts from the Sutherland hills show the sad
havoc which the inclement weather has been making among
the sheep. Lambs it is said, are dying in hundreds, and flock.
masters are consoling themselves with the possibility of sav-
ing the ewes. The weather has been more like mid-winter
than the month of May.
The English medical men who were sent to Russia
to inquire into the recent outbreak of plague have (accord-
ing to the Leeds Mercury) come to a very decided opinion as
to its origin. They have been able to associate its appear-
ance in Europe in so many instances with the passage or
cantonment of soldiers brought over from Asia, as to leave
but little doubt as to the method bs. which infection has
been spread. The specific form of 'plague known to the
German doctors as " Bevlenpest " has existed almost from
time immemorial amongst certain tribes of Central Asia, and
though
endemic,not alwaysit is
s mostfatal
deadlyinits
wheneffect
A window is being erected in Cork Cathedral by
public subscription to Ufa memory of Lieutenant Coghill,
who was killed at Isandula while trying to save the colours
sitamatotancgksst those where
t iss
from other countries.
of the 24th Regiment.
A mail train running between Madrid and Cadiz
has run off the line The van containing the mails for Cuba
was smashed; six persons were killed and several injured.
Our obituary column recently contained the names
of one of the oldest members ot the aristocracy, a lady
formerly well known in Paris and at Edinburgh, as well as
in London, Lady Lucy Clementine Davies, only sister of the
Earl of Perth, whose title, it may be remembered, was for-
feited by his ancestors— the Drummonds—for their share in
the Scottish Rebellious of 1715 and 1745, but was restored
by Act of Parliament at the recommend stton of Her
Majesty in the year 1843. The deceased 14 was in her
84% 'ear, having been born in the month of November,
1795, and she was the last of the Drummonds who were
born in the old Chateau of Et. Germains, in which her
parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, held apart-
ments by favour of the French Crown from the time when
they quitted England in the train of the exiled Stuarts.
Lady Clementine married, in 1823, Mr. Francis Henry
Davies, a Registrar of the Court of Chancery, by whom
she had a son and also two daughters. She had been a
widow since 1833. Her name was well known to the literary
world as the authoress of two interesting volumes of her
reminiscences of the Courts of Versailles and St. James's,
published about eight or nine years ago.—Saturday's Times.
Among the anecdotes trild of thelately•deceased Mrs.
Patterson Bonaparte, the deeply-injured wife of Napoleon's
brother, it is related that wnen Prince Jerome was pitch-
forked into the throne of Westphalia he offered her an
estate. She refused, saying that, handsome country as
Westphalia was, it was not big enough to hold two Qoeems.
Subsequently she received a pension from Napoleon, and
being asked why the profited by his munificence after Vs,
&Wing that of her husband, replied :
sheltered by an eagle's wing, hut . won't hanr OP
u
aged adY itt
jti
aw of egoose," This respectaby_ags
so da the fanl'ily
vaned at 4.2.000. Thor are are not w
having arranged to keep' them. "I don't mindebtmig