The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-03-13 00:00:00

Stew-' -

HOTEL you Birs-FAxamis.—The Hunt-mums.
—Punch.
A Parrrr PREACHER. —At a ragged-school
meeting in Sheffield, the other day, the Earl of
Shaftesbury said ladies would be surprised what effect
they could produce if they would undertake to teach
young men of the ragged and forlorn class. They
would be treated with affection and with reverence.
In one of the worst parts of London there was an
institution which he visited. In one room he found
about thirty-five men listening to the teachings of the
daughter of a small shopkeeper in the neighbourhood.
She was one id the prettiest women he ever saw in his
life, He noticed that there was no one present but the
young woman with those "rough men, and said to the
superintendent, "Are you not afraid to leave my dear
little friend alone with alt those men ?" lie replied,
"I am." Then why don't you go to her?" 'You
mistake my fear. lam not afraid of their doing her
any harm. They love her so much that they would
lick the ground on which she walks; but 1 am afraid
some person ;nay step in, and, not beinz under
authority, or not knowing the manners of the place,
may say something impertinent to her, and if he did
he would not leave the place alive."
A THING DUNE lIT HALF.—The first act of the
new Parliament has been the rejection of Mr. Faw-
cett's Election Expenses Bill, intended to enable can-
didates in moderate circumstances to get cheaply into
the House of Commons. As all the harm that
bribery and corruption can do is that of giving wealth
the preponderance in legislation over intelligence and
niorality, the House, which negatives the only pleasure
calculated to insure purity of election, may as well,
while they are about it, repeal the Anti-bribery Act

of last Sgssion. —Punch.. -
TERRORISM IN IRELAND.— The disparity between
the proportions of detected and undetected crime was
adverted to by the Lord Chief Justice when opening
the Commission for the King's County at Tullamore
the other day. One of the eases mentioned in the con-
stabulary returns was an act of incendiarism, the
house of a farmer who had taken a piece of land from
which another had been evicted having been net on
fire. There were three or four other races of a similar
kind. In another case an armed party went to the
house of a farmer and threatened to shoot him if he
took a piece of laud which he was anxious to get
from his landlord. Another class of agrarian crime
was the sending of threatening letters. In one
instance a farmer had received a letter threatening his
life if he did not give up a piece of land which he held
for seventeen years. None of those offenders had been
brought injustice. His lordship observed that if such
terrorism be permitted to prevail all law would be
overthrown. He expressed his horror at the assassina-
tion of the atationdnaster, Auketell, who hod shown
him into his carriage and was shot the same night.

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TRIALS FOR MANSLAUGHTER. —At the Lancaster
assizes, on Saturday, sentence was passed upon Thomas
Martin, a wheelwright, of Lancaster, and Robert
Caton, a plasterer, of Preston ; each if whom bad
been found guilty of the manslaughter of his wife. Ti.
Martin's case Mr. Justice Lush said death had been
caused under circumstances of considerable brutality.
Whilst infuriated by drink Martin had gone home on
Christmas Day last, and deliberately knocked his wife
down, and then beat her to such an extent with his fist
on the head as to cause effusion on the brain, from
which she died two days afterwards. His lordship
sentenced Martin to five years' penal servitude. With
' regard to Caton, who had been recommended to mercy
on account of the j. rovocatii in he had received, the
judge said he quite concurred in that recommendation.
It seemed that whilst in a state of intoxication, Caton's
wife had accused him of improper conduct with his
dauAter, in the presence of two or three persons. This
so enraged him that he gave her three or four blows on
the head with a brush handle, which fractured her
skull, and she died the same night. Caton was sen-
tenced to twelve months' imprisonment, with hard
labour.

-------
Nelms TOR ST. GEOROE'S, HANOVER SQUARE.
—All Swelle.—Punch. _ _ _

WINE AND BEBILHOUSS LICENCES.—On Saturday
the text of a bill was published, which has for its
object the amendment of the law relating to wine and
beerhousea It provides that no licence, or renewal of
licence, for the sale, by retail, of beer, cider, or wine,
shall he granted, except upon the production of cer-
tificates to be issued by the justices at the general
annual licensing meeting. The bill proposes to give to
the police the right of entry into houses licensed to
sell beer not to be consumed on the premises—and it
also provides that persons founil present in houses
open at illegal honrs shall be liable for half the amount
of pecuniary penalties imposed on the keepers of such
houses. This bill is endorsed by Mr. Selwin-Ibbetson,
Mr. Akroyd, and Air. Headlam.
NEW AND GIGANTIC PLANT.—Within the last
few days living specimens have been forwarded to this
country from Nicaragua of one of the most gigantic
plants in the vegetable world. It is closely allied to
the Arms (or "Lords and Ladies ") of our hedges,
and, until the present time, has wholly escaped the
notice of travelling botanists. It produces but one
leaf, nearly 14ft. in length, supported on a stalk loft.
long. The stem of the flower is a foot in circumfer-
ence, the spathe or flower 2ft. long, purplish blue in
colour, with a powerful carrion-like odour. As this
remarkable species of Aroirlem is quite new to science
it has not yet received a name.
SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT CONCLUSIONS. --
In a
scientific lecture at Paris, lately, the lecturer exhibited
enlarged photographs of notabilities by the magnesium
light, throwing the rest of the theatre into darknerw.
When the Emperor's photograph was seen, it was
saluted by a storm of seditious cries from all parts of
the darkened house. "A is pork I " " Vice la B,i-
publique !" "Ii s'en ira bient6t l" and so forth.
Query. Is the logical inference from this, that all
those who abuse the Emperor are in the dark, or that
everybody, in the dark, abuses the Emperor! —Pensh.
CORIOLIS LAW SINT IN PARIS.—A suit was
brought on Friday at the Civil Tribunal of the Seine
by M. Mendelsheirn, a writer on the press, against
111. Wittereheim, publisher of the Journal Officiel, to
recover 3,000 fr. damages for the inconvenience to
which he has been subjected by the late delivery of
the Government organ, to which he had subscribed,
and the bad paper on which it was printed, and which
rendered it almost illegible. The defendant showed
that the delay had been inevitable in consequence of
the difficulties of a new organisation ; the paper he
admitted had at first been indifferent, but he had since
changed his manufacturer and both causes of com-
plaint were now remedied. The Court decided that
the plaintiff hadno claim for damages, and merely con-
demned Wittersheim to the payment of costs.
ANOTHER WATERLOO VETERAN GONE I—The
death of General Sir Arthur Benjamin Clifton removes
another from the decreasing list of Peninsular and
Waterloo veterans. Authorities differ as to the age of
the gallant officer. According to one account he was
born in 1769, the year which witnessed the birth of the
late Duke of Wellington and of the First Napoleon, so
that he would have been now about a hundred years
old. Another authority gives the date as 1770, and a
third as 1772. Taking the general, therefore, at his
youngest, he would have attained the age of 97, and
would have been a British subject four years before
the United States of America obtained their indepen-
dence. Sir Arthur Clinton, who had a medal and
clasps for service at Talavera, Busaeo, and Toulouse,
was heir-presumptive to the baronetcy of his nephew,
Sir Robert Clifton, one of the members for Notting-
ham.

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Two HEADS ARE " NOT " BETTER THAN ONE.
—The duel system in the Army has been abolished
with advantage. The dual system might follow with
equally satisfactory resulta—Punch.
A PRINCE RECEIVED INTO THE ROMISH
CI-MICH.—The Morning Post's correspondent at
Rome writes:—

If Pius IX. has experienced great trials and reverses dur-
ing his Pontificate, he has also had great triumphs and
consolations. Among the latter we must reckon the
numerous and continually increasing conversions from the
Protestant to the Catholic faith. There is now in Rome a
young Prussian nobleman of great wealth and ancient
family, Prince Schonberg, whose formal reception into the
Roman Church has lust been officiated by Cardinal Dunne-
paste, and has given the utmost gratitioatlon to Ins Holiness.
The Prince's riches :onl influential social position, Joined to
his change of creed, may lie best realised by our looking on
him as a Prussian Marquis of Bute.
RE FUSING TO DO THEIR DUTY.—A mutinous
ship's crew—twenty able-bodied seamen—have been
brought before the Plymouth magistrates charged with
refusing to do duty on board the iron clipper ship
Simla. The vessel was bound on a voyage from
London to Calcutta, with a general cargo. The men
were shipped at the East India Docks, London; each
hail received his advance note and was therefore in-
debted to the owners. The captain was obliged to
put into Plymouth, because on Sunday week the men
came aft, and said they would not proceed to sea, nor
would they do any more work. They assigned no
reason for their conduct. Before the bench the de-
fendants alleged that the forecastle was in an unfit
state for use inconsequence of the water getting into
the ship. The magistrates appointed a Board of Trade
surveyor to inspect the ship, and he reported that she
was perfectly seaworthy. The bench said they were
bound to protect commercial intereds. They had
heard many CARUS 1 4 the sort, and they were deter-
mined to mark their sense of the defendants' conduct
by giving them each twelve weeks' imprisonment.
BETTER DAYS.—We are told that "the agri-
cultural statistics of Ireland show an increase of mea-
dow and clover." This improvement and her brighter
Church prospects lea.l no to hope that Ireland is at
last in clover. We trust that the seeds of discontent
will now cease to be sown.— Punch.