The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-05-06 00:00:00

REMARKS ON GARDENING.
(From Judy.)

Now that the weather is settled once more (it has
not snowed for more than half a day)—now is the time
for persons who are fond of gardening to indulge them-
selves to VI) top of their bent, or to the top of some
one else's bent, if that comes handier.
Landscape gardening is the best form of this enno-
bling pursuit but landscaping requires space, and
cannot be carried out with effect in a box on the win-
dow-ledge of a second-floor back. Those who have
space, however, should at once begin planting genea-
logical trees; if you have not one of your own, you
can easily borrow one of somebody else. A brewer's
plant, too, is a thing which looks well in a garden, and
is sure to pay the grower.
Most kinds of palms do well if the situation is
favourable, but the " itching palm" is a variety of
the tribe which generally turns out unsatisfactory.
Budding geniuses should be carefully cultivated, and
rooted aversions grubbed up.
Widows' weeds are undesirable things in a garden,
ogirloowg b
out
are objectionable,
directions but there is a kind of weed which comes from Havan-
• nah, and is not half so bad.
his best not to go in for any kind of ruin shrub,
'&s
id
carefully,
yd • d
you will an
soon be all a-growing and a-blowing. • .
fi il!f. • "

BROUGHAM AND HIS MASTER —Henry (afterwards
Lord) Brougham, when at the High School, Edinburgh,
made "his first public explosion," as Lord Cockburn
calls it. "He dared to differ from Lukg Fraser, a hot
good-natured old fellow, on some small bit of
latinity. The master, like other men in power, main-
tained his own infallibility, punished the rebel, and
flattered himself that the affair was over. But
Brougham reappeared next day, baled with books,
~returned to the charge before the whole class, and
pelled honest Luke to acknowledge that he had been
wrong. This made Brougham famous throughout the
whole school," "I remember," adds Cockburn, "as
well as if it had been yesterday, having had him
pointed out to me as the fellow who had beat the
master.' It was there that I first saw him."

INSANLT.Y_ AND DIVORCE.

The New York Herald says it seems to have been
decided in Kentucky that a man may legally have two
wives in that State ; for it was held by Chancellor
Bruce, in the Newcomb case, that at the time of the
death of H. D. Newcomb, in 1874, Mrs. Cornelia W.
Newcomb was his wife and entitled as such to a right
of dower in his estate, and that Mary C. Smith was
also his wife as far as was necessary to secure the
legitimacy of her children, of which Newcomb was the
father. Mrs Newcomb the first became hopelessly in-
sane in 1852 and is insane now. Many years after his
wife became insane—nearly twenty years, apparently—
Mr. Newcomb obtained a divorce and married again.
Insanity was a ground of divorce by statute in Kentucky
at the time; but a statute would hardly seem to be
necessary in such a case, inasmuch as insanity of
twenty years' duration is a good ground for divorce
under the laws of every civilised country. By New-
comb's will the insane wife was well provided for, and
a large estate was left to the second wife and her chil-
dren. But a son of the first wife, on the ground that
the divorce was irregular, has had the will set aside,
and thus the insane woman whose only heir he is,
secures the dower—about half a miLlion dollars. But
this decision—that involves the possession of two wives
by one man and a man's incapacity to obtain divorce
for insanity—looks very like a decision destined to be
set aside.