The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-05-29 00:00:00


BOMF FOREIGP, AND COLONIAL.

THE BRITISH MUSUITIL—Last week the annual
report on the 13r111sh Museum was issued in the form
of a parliamentary paper. It states that the estimate
of the amount required in the year ending the 31st of
March, 1870, to pay the salaries and expenses of the
museum, including the amount required for buildinge,
furniture, fittings, &c., is £113,203, a net increase of
£1,823 on last year. Salaries and wages are reckoned
to take £10,465; rent, £270; rates and taxes, £520;
fuel and light, £1300; stationery, £300; purchases
and acquisitions, £22,320; bookbinding, &c., £10,910;
printing catalogues, kc., £1,480 ; buildings, repairs,
£16,334; furniture and fittings, £6,184; incidental ex-
penaes, 1:1,020. The total of visitors to the museum
last year, excluding readers and students, was
461,710, against 445,036 in the year previous. The
readers were 103,529, against 103,469 the year previous.
- •

A LEGEND Kerr UP !—A remarkable festival
has recently taken place at Bruges, in Belgium. It is
entitled "The Festival of the Holy Blood," and a
celebration takes place but once in fifty years. The
legend is that Count Thierry, • Crusader, was pre-
sented by the King of Jerusalem with " a small portion
of the blood of our Saviour, squeezed by Joseph of
Arimathea and NiCOdeMIDS from the sponge, after
washing the body, which they had taken down from
the Cross." In the presence of the Emperor Conrad,
the French King, and other notable persons, the
Patriarch dropped a few drops of this precious blood
into a little cylinder of crystal. This was put into a
velvet case, and hung round Count Thierry's neck by
• chain of gold. The Count, thinking himself un-
worthy to be even the bearer of such a treasure,
handed it over to the Abbot of St. Berlin, and, with
his companions, escorted the " Heilig Blued," or Holy
Blood, back to Flanders—to Brur•es, in point of fact.
There is no more precious relic in all Belgium.
• •

AN OCEAN Item—Another remarkable ocean
race across the Atlantic is reported. Like the trial of
the Bustia and the City of Paris, accidental circum-
stances concurred in bringing about a simultaneous
start of the vessels from New York, and not a pre-
arranged plan of racing. The City of Baltimore left
New York with the mails for Queenstown and Liver-
pool on her regular day, the Bth of May. A few weeks
before another of Mr. Inman's splendid fleet, the City
of Boston, met with an accident to her machinery when
about to start, and the necessary repairs having been
made, was ready to start, as an extra ship, on the same
day as the City if Baltimore. The City of Boston is
about two years old; the City of Baltimore is a much
older vessel. Her commander is Mr. T. F. Roskell,
the City of Boston being commanded by Mr. H. 'l'ib-
bets. The City of Boston got away first, leaving her
anchorage at 2.15 p.m. of the Bth. A few miles out-
side Sandy Hook, while she was stopped, the City of
Baltimore, which had received her mails and passengers
at New York at 2.26 p.m., and proceeded on her
voyage, passed her at 4.36. Four minutes afterwards
the City of Boston was also under way full speed, and
the two vessels were in company during the rest of the
voyage as far as the Fastnet Rock, which lies on the
south-east coast ea Ireland, between Cape Clear and
Queenstown. This point was passed by the City of
; Boston at 55.0 p.m. of Monday, the 17th, 18 minutes
I ahead of the City of Baltimore. The latter vessel called
at Queenstown, the City of Boston did not, and this
detour will account for the City of Baltimore arriving at
the Bell buoy at the mouth of the Mersey two hours
and ten minutes behind her sister ship and rival for the
time being.
A STRANGE DISAFFEARANCE.—The New York
Tribune gives the following account of an unexplained
disappearance :
An agent of the Adams Express Company at Springfield,
Mass, left the house of a friend in New York, on the 20th of
December, 1867, and from that time all trace of him was
lost. His accounts with the company were found to be cor-
rect to the last cent, and no motive could be conjectured for
his voluntary disappearance. All available means to find him
were exhausted. At last, on the 20th of April, 1869, an
acquaintance met him, dressed as a sailor, visiting the Tower
of London. lie gave a history of his adventures, hut no
expLination of his suckles desertion of wife, mends, and
country. The day of his disappearance he had taken passage
for Glasgow under an assumed name. lie wandered about
England far several weeks, and then shipped as a seaman on
hoard a vessel hound for San Francisco. Thence he sailed to
Calcutta, and from Calcutta to London. He knew of the ex-
citeinent caused by his disappearance, but expressed no in-
tention of coming home.

.„,
WINTER AT RED RIVER SETTLEMENT.—The
past winter was exceedingly bland, the thermometer
never passing lower than 34 deg. below zero. The
climate is so dry, so free from rawness, so healthy, that
the cold is not felt. In fact, the only fearful thing in
the North-west is the winter °rape. Then the snow is
lifted like dust from the prairies by the rolling winds,
and whirled and tossed in multitudinous tons in the
upper air. Earth and heaven seem to meet together.
An eery gloom gathers in the furious drift, which
moans and howls over the wilderness like some wild
beast , and every object open to attack is instantly
sheathed in the appalling storm. No human being
can face a scene like this and live. There is but one
alternative for the miserable wretch waylaid by it
beyond the reach of shelter, and that is to stretch him-
self on the snow and cover himself with his blanket,
In two seconds he is buried, and perhaps may con-
tinue no. There are instances, however, of persons
I
, having lain perdues in this way for three days without
a morsel to eat, and who are still living to tell the
tale. Fortunately such storms are rare. We had hut
one slay of this sort during the past wihter, and,
thomdt it was very severe indeed, strange to say, it
did not block up toe roads. When once fairly beaten,
the tempest sweeps the snow off the roads, which are
generally a little higher than the levels on each side of
them.— Toronto Globe Coors BpOlidt lICC.
A STRANGE Case.—The following strange
affair has been brought under the notice of the London
police :
Last Friday afternoon, whilst the children of Marylebone
School were in the playground, a man called at the school,
and pointing to a child, said he was its stepfather, and re-
quested to have it away for that afternoon, as he was going
to take it with his three other children out for a holiday. Ile
took the child In his arms. It began to cry. The schoolmis-
tress took no notice of this, as she believed the little thing
was crying because it slid not wish to leave the playground
Since then no trace whatever has been had of the child, and
the parents—the mother especially, who made the above state-
ment—are in the greatest grief. The conjecture is that the
child has been stolen, either tor the purpose of begging, or in
the hopes of getting a reward. The name of the stolen child
is George Henry Hedges, aged 5, fair complexion, hair light
brown, dark eyes, dark grey linsey frock, trimmed with three
rows of red braid, white pinafore, black Scotch cap, laced
boots, and white socks.
A VERY SAFE BANK !—A return published on
Tuesday gives the names of the parishes in which the
Bank of England stands, the extent of its site and
premises, the quantity of gold in its vaults on
the Ist of January, 1869, uncoined; the quantity
of silver in its vaults on the let of January, 1869,
uncoined; the amount at which the Bank and its
premises are assessed to the poor rate; anti of
the annual sums paid by it for poor rate, high-
way rate, sewer rate, improvement rate, church rate,
cattle plague rate, county rate, or any other rate, for
three years ending the 6th day of April, 1869. The
! parishes in which the Bank stands are —St. Bartholo-
mew, Exchange ; St. Christopherde-stocks ; St. Mar-
garet, Lothbury. The extent of its site and premises
is 2a.3r. 39 p. 211 sq. yds. The gold in its vaults on
the let day of January, 1869, uncoined, was £8,760,397
7s 3d. ; the silver, uncoined, niL The Bank and its
premises are assessed to the poor rate for £37,540.
The sums paid by it for the various rates last year
make ups total of 1.:7,511 120. 7d.
PISA proiNTING.--We see advertised " The new
improved Baby. requires no feeding, and is warranted
not to cry." This is a real blessing to fathers and
mothers and distracted lodgers—and to be had, too,
for a few stamps; but is it not rather cruel to offer to
send the little dear by the post? (Great blow to our
hopes —"the new, improved Baby" we find is only
what so many actual babies are boasted to be—" a
regular picture !")—Punch.

„ .
A Omit Fox TYPHUS FEVER.— In a paper ad-
dressed to the Frenco Academy of Sciences, Dr.
Pecholier, professor of clinical medicine at Montpellier,
proposes creosote as a cure for typhus fever. Dr.
Pecholier attributes the deterioration of the blood in
typhus fever to a ferment which substracts from the
former the elements it requires for its own nutrition,
and at the same time taints it with the produce of its
decomposition. Such being the case, typhus fever
would infallibly end in death in all cases, were it not
that this ferment itself is very short-lived, and dies in
the course of about twenty days, so that the whole
question of life and death is reduced to a kind of race
between the vital powers of the patient and those of
the ferment; whichever of the two outlives the other,
wins. Now it has been proved by M. Bechamp that
creosote prevents the development and multiplication
of organised ferments; whence Dr. Pecholier concludes
that it must exercise a similar action on the typhoid
ferment, and it is on this assumption that this new
system of cure is founded. Dr. Pecholier now states
that in all cases in which th, typhus fever was far ad-
vanced, he has obtained no result whatever; but that
in all incipient cases creosote diminished both the in-
tensity and duration of the disorder. He has tried his
system on about sixty patients.
, E,TAFTS OF THE CAPTIVE BALLOON.—About a
quarter-past four on Tuesday afternoon, the monster
balloon exhibiting at Batterties, London, broke loose
from its moorings and sailed away in the direction of
the north-west. It appears that the rope by which it
WWI held captive became entangled round its roller,
and this causing too great a strain upon the rope pro-
duced the accident, which might have been attended
I with the loss of many lives if there had been in the
. .

car at the methe uS'ual number of daring passengers. I
To show the violence with which the balloon broke
away, it may be mentioned that the rope when broken
coiled itself in an instant round a stout spar of wood
nearly five feet long, which it tore out of the circus
and carried with it into the air, the end of the rope
knocking down a policeman who was on duty. It
sailed away in a north-westerly direction, and it was
bet seen going in the direction of Watford. Fortu-
nately no one was in the car at the time.
" ENOCH ARDEN " CASE AT GLAsosm.—ln
the year 18(14, a painter belonging to Port-Glaeigow
left that town and joined the American army. From
time to time, for twelve months thereafter, word was
regularly received from him, the last word being that
he was promoted to be a sergeant in the Union army.
About two months after that letter was received
another caw., to his wife in Port-Glasgow, stating that
I her husband, the sergeant, was no more, having been
I shot in one of the battles in which General Lee was
_

the opposing commander. His widow, his father,
mother, brothers, and sister., mourned for him as dead,
and donned the usual habiliments for twelve months.
After that his supposed widow was married, and with
her second husband lived happy till Friday night last,
when her former husband arrived at Port-Glasgow, all
alive, and in excellent health. The wife refuses to
leave her second spouse, while the first threatens to
take legal proceedings to compel her to share his bed
and board. How the matter may end it is premature
to conjecture. The first Iniaband was in Greenock on
Monday, consulting a legal gentleman as to the course
he ought to pursue.
CONVICTION FOR POACHING AND ASSAULT.-At
Huddersfield, James Murphy, a collier, has been
charged with night poaching on the 2li' h if gay last
year. and also with brutally assaulting tam" watcher,
named Richard Paton, who is an underkeeper for

Colonel 13radbury. On the night in question Paton
was watching the preserves at Thurstonland, near
Barnsley, when he observed the defendant and a man
named Ainaworth (who has absconded) in the grounds
—having previously beard a gun fired and gone in the
direction of the place from where the shot proceeded.
Two shots were fired, and directly afterwards Ainsworth
and Murphy came past the spot where he had hid
himself—the one carrying a gun, and the other (the
defendant) a hare, which was tied up in a handker-
chief, from which blood was streaming. Paton came
out from his hiding place when Ainsworth pointed his
gun at him, and said he would shoot him if he followed,
and Murphy told his companion to let him have the
' butt end of the gun on his head, and knock Ids brains
out. The underkeeper, however, followed them, and
they then stonml him most brutally, injuring him
very severely. The prisoner pleaded guilty to trespass-
ing. The bench ordered him to be sent to gaol for
three months, and to find sureties in £2O, to keep the
peace for six months; in default three months' impri-
eminent.
-

---
A LAPSED LFOACY.—Vice-Chancellor James
had before him, on Monday, the case of "Brownjohn
v. Gale," in which a question was raised as to the dis-
posal of a legacy of I:500, given by the late William
Hollins to the Irish Society of London, for giving
!et
sc ririete
tural
heir own u
t educatione the l
et
eeneagtei.v e lush,
(
,sth through
t
h the
e e
date of Mr. Hollins's will), that society became amalga-
mated with the Society for Irish Missions to Roman
Catholics, and the latter society claimed the legacy.
Counsel for the Irish Society of Dublin insisted that
there was no existing society which fully answered the
description in the will, and that if the Irish Society of
Dublin was not entitled to the legacy it ought to be
administered under a scheme to be settled by the court.
Counsel for the next of kin contended that the legacy
had lapsed. The Vice-Chancellor held that the legacy
lapsed in consequence of the so-called amalgamation of
the society indicated by the testator with another
society whose objects were totally different. By that
amalgamation the Irish Society was in fact extin-
guished. The money in question therefore fell into
the residuary estate.
' A MAN OF BUSINESS INSTINCTS.—The tele-
graph operator at Promontory Point is evidently a
man of strong business instincts, and resembles Fanny
Dorrit in having "no nonsense" about him, (says a
New York paper.) When the Pacific Railroad was
completed he telegraphed :-
240 p m.—We have Just done praying; the spike is about
be presented.

FRANCIS 11. or NAPLES.—The Roman corre-
spondent of the Tablet writes under date Mayl3 :
The King of Naples announced last night to his family and
court that lie had come to the resolution of leaving Rome for
the summer months, and paying a prolonged visit to the
Duke of Parma, at his chateau near St. Gall, and afterwards
to the courts of Vienna and Munich. The Queen's health is
the ostensible reason, but his Majesty probably desires to
break up the entourage of the lamest palace, a great part of
which was known to be in the pay of the revolution, and to
return to Rome on a new footing, His Majesty made known
his intentions to Cardinal Antonelli yesterday, who replied :
° Have you fully considered, sire, the importance of the step
you are taking? Think twice before leaving Rome." The
King answered, " My mind is quite made up ;" and then
drove to the Count of Trapani's where he announced his
departure for this day week_ His Majesty will visit Henry
V. at Frohadorff before returning to Rome for the council.
ATTEMPTED SUICIDE BY A SERGEANT.—A very
and case occurred in Brecon a few days ago. A ser-
geant named Fuller, in the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers,
had been paying his addresses to a young woman who,
unfortunately, was near her confinement. The regi-
ment to which Fuller belonged being about to leave
Brecon he was anxious to marry the girl, and so prevent
her being disgraced ; and with a view thereto he ap-
plied to the commanding officer of the regiment for
permission to marry. This, it seems, was refused ; but
Fuller, determined to carry out his wish, married the
girl without the officer's consent. This, of course,
soon came to the ears of the commanding officer, who
at once ordered Fuller to be confined to his room, and

forbade his seeing his wife or any one else. Orders
it is said, were also given that Fuller would have to
leave Brecon with the regiment, and that his wife
would not be allowed to accompanyhim. Having only
been married a few days, these orders, it seems, preyed
on his mind, and when alone he attempted to shoot
himself with his rifle. On some of his comrades near-
ing the report, and going to his room, they found
Fuller lying in a pool of blood. He had, it seems, put
the ride to his mouth and discharged it, the whole of
his lower jaw and one side of his face and nose being
carried away, together with his tongue. Medical men
were at once called in, and at the time it was thought
lie could not live, but now it is believed that he will
ultimately recover. He cannot, however, speak.
AN HERBALIST POISONED BY HIMSELF.—A
case of poisoning has occurred in Liverpool, resulting
in the death of one person and endangering the life of
a second. Martin Flannery, a collector of herbs, went
out to the fields in the exercise f his vocation, and re-
turned early in the forenoon with a quantity of herbs.
The house in which he lived with his wife and child
was possessed by a woman named Ann Carney, who
' made complaints to him of severe suffering from rheu-
matic pains. Flannery undertook to prescribe a remedy
for the woman's complaint, and recommended her to
tike some portion of the herbs which be had collected.
She did as he suggested, and Flannery himself partook
of the medicine. The consequence was that both
Carney and Flannery were taken iIL Carney went to
the East Dispensary, where an emetic was adminiss
tered to her, which was so far successful that her life
was out of danger, and it is thought she may recover.
Flannery expired soon after taking the herbs.
ACTION FOR LIBEL.—Vice-Chancellor Molina

on Saturday, had before him a motion to commit Mr:
Ward, the editor of the North of England Advertiser,
for contempt 44 court, for having published in that
newspaper an article, which it Vit,l4 said contained un-
just reflections on the motives of the plaintiff in the
suit of Robson v. Dodds, and of his solicitor. The bill
in this suit charges the directors of the Northern Conn.
ties Benefit Budding Society with having exceeded
their powers of borrowing, and asks torso injunction
to restrain them from infringing the constitution of the
society in reference to borrowing. The Vice-Chan-
cellor held that the article came within the definition
of Lord Ilardwicke. It tended to prejudice mankind
against the plaintiff and his solicitor before the cause
was heard. Mr. Ward must, within three weeks,
insert in the newspaper in question, an apology for the
article, in default of which he would be committed for
contempt of court, and he must pay th costs of this
motion.

QUEEN EMMA AT liosm—A correspondent of
the San Francisco Bulletin writes from Honolulu con-
cerning Queen Emma, whose visit to the United States
will be remembered :
I saw an] recognised the once beautiful and still fine-look-
ing Queen of Kuniehameba 111. I saw her first at her summer
residence In Nunann Valley. She reclined upon mats and
pillows in the Oriental style. A broad verandah made a most
refreshing shade, and as she offered us a dish of edible bark,
(a little like slippery olm. but very tender,, or some fruits, her
grace and dignity were singularly pleasing. She seemed some
pastoral goddess, born to rule her subjects with love SIR% gen-
tleness, and indeed she is such. tier only coronet was of
wild flowers, which are very generally worn here by both
rex 3R, and most becomingly so. Chains of flowers and berries
hung about her neck also, giving out an agreeable odour.
There was no formality observed, even by her workmen,
whom she was overseeing in person. Her gardener came at
her call, and, sitting on the steps of the verandah, laughed
and argued with her as freely as possible : yet no one could
feel inclined to presume upon 811Zh modest aignity

Tlig VAGRANCY QUESTION.—A committee of
Northamptonshire magistrates appointed by the Court
of Quarter Sessions, having had under consideration the
difficult subject of vagrancy, have arrived at the con-
clusion that the relief of tramps and vagrants, and the
sole control over all buildings, wards, or cells for lodg-
ing such persons, ought to be entrusted to the police,
and that the expenditure for such purposes' and the
costs of prosecuting vagrants, should be charged on
the county or borough rate. They moreover consider
it desirable that a ticket-of-way system for repressing
and regulating vagrancy be made universal bylaw, and
that householders and others should be protected from
the intrusion of vagrants by making it penal for a per-
son to be found within the curtilages of dwellings in
the daytime, having no fixed residence, and not being
able to give a good account of himself. The Right
Hon. G. Ward Hunt, M.P., was chairman of the
committee.

LONG HAIR AND POLITICS—The New York
Independent says Certain newspapers are in the
habit of describing American Reformers as 'long
haired.' This designation is incorrect. A great ma-
. .. . . . .

jority of our leading Radicals are either sho'ri-haired
or have no hair at all. Indeed, for the most part they
are a company of bald-pates. The venerable and
illustrious head of Wm. Lloyd Garrison is as smooth
and shining as an ostrich egg. Horace Greeley has
just hair enough to skirt his basilar faculties with a
fringe of Anglo-Saxon gold. Ralph Waldo Emerson
keeps his hair cropped as close to the skull as a prize-
fighter's. Wendell Phillips has a few scattered and
beautiful grey locks, which William Page is just now
transferring to canvas. Henry Ward Beecher's hair
is not half so long as his father's was. Charles Sumner,
for whom nature is now ripening what Tennyson calls
'a good grey head,' has is sturdy growth of hair, but
keeps it under the inexorable shears—Atropos occat.
'rheodore l'arker hail not hair enough to keep his head
from suffering the winter's cold. Chief Justice Chase,
who was once a Radical, has been shorn of his locks
like Samson. General Butler is distinguished for many
things, but not for hair. Indeed, so far from the
common notion being true, that Radicals have long
hair, there is something in Radicalism thst shortens
hair—as if the Radicals, in taking time by the fore-
lock got their own forelocks taken by time. Our two
venerated office-associates are living monuments of
this truth."
HEROIC CONDUCT Or A LADY.—OII Saturday,
as a young lady, the daughter of a gentleman
who resides in Leonora-street, Liverpool, was walk-
ing in the pleasure grounds of the park, she was
called on for assistance by some children, one of whose ,
party had fallen into the lake. The lady, seeing the
child struggling and sinking, jumped in, and succeeded
in seizing it and bringing it in her arms to land. The
child was immediately taken to the house of its parents
in Mill-street, where efforts to restore animation proved
successfuL '1 he young lady suffered much from fright
and exhaustion.
A SLIGHT CONFUSION.-- MTS. Malaprop, who is
growing just a little deaf, on hearing a friend read out
from the paper something about "the last Encyclical
and Syllabus of the Holy Father," ol,served that, good
Protestant as she was, she should like to taste that
syllabub. —Punch.
AN UNNATURAL MoThga. --The Court of Assizes
of the Seine has just been occupied with the trial of a
married woman named Bany, twenty six years of age,
residing in the Rue de la Chapelle, Paris, for attempt-
ing to poison her son, four years old. It appeared from
the evidence that she had been in the habit of ill-treat-
ing him, and frequently expressed a wish that he
might die. In March last the child was very ill, and
she obtained an order for his admission into an
hospital, and the next day she went to see him, carry-
ing in hyr hand a small cake. But, as the rules forbid
anything to be given to a patient except what is ex-
pressly ordered, one of the nurses took it away from
her, and placed it on a bench where she could find it
on leaving; but she snatched it up, and threw it into
the street. A woman who win passing picked it up,
intending to give it to her dog, but on breaking it open
she remarked that there was some phosphorus inside.
Immediately suspecting that there was something
wrong, she carried it to the concierge of the hospital,