The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-02-19 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS,

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

The number of wrecks reported during the past week
hi 51, making for the present year 277.

Advices from °demi report that the stock of gma
there now exceeds two million hectolitres.

The Bradford Review, an ultra-Radical paper, was
published for the last time on Saturday, after au existence
of twelve years.
Not fewer than three ministers were absent from the
Cabinet Council last Saturday through Indisposition, vie.,
Lord Clarendon, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Bruce.

- .
A young lady, aged seventeen, has been arrested in
Buffalo for bigamy. She began marrying at the age of four-
teen.

It is stated that the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Imitating the railway companies, has resolved to publish the
revenue receipts weekly.
A "Dickens party" was recently given in Boston,
at which each of the participants was dressed to represent
one of Dickens' characters.
According to advices from Paraguay, from Brazilian
sources, Lopez has still 4 000 men with him. Ile appears to
have made a stand at Panadero.

The Court Journal thinks there will be a good many
omissions in the autobiography which the ex-Queen of Spain
lu aald to be writing.

The Constitutionnel says that the ciarnEze done by
the rioters, to public and private property In Pm's, during
the lad few days, is estimated at two million franca.

There is a talk of an International Congress of Geo.
graphers at Antwerp. Many eminent French savants hive
promised to take part.
. _ . .

Several further arrests have been made in Paris, the
persons arrested being suspected of complicity in the alleged
plot against the Emperor'. life.
A seizure of arms has been made at Cork in the
house of a man named Mahony. Resistance was made, but
both Mahony and his son were lodged in prison.

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During the last few days the Pope has received a
great number of presents, both in money and objecta of
value. Among the last is a costly chalice, which, by touch
log a spring, can be converted into an ostensoir.
A kitchen boiler exploded in a house at Abbeydale,
near Sheffield, on Monday morning, killing two men who
were sitting at breakfast. The cause of the disaster was the
(retying of the water in the pipes.

-
The will of Mr. John Tidd Pratt, barrister.at-law,
registrar of friendly societies, was proved In the London
court, on the let instant, and the personalty sworn under
.Z 50,000.

At Handworth, near Sheffield, a nurseryman named
Jackson, has been burnt to death In his house on Itonday.
He Is supposed to have been drunk at the time. Two cottages
were burnt.

An Irish newspaper recently, in alluding to the
somewhat sudden death of s beggar, who died at an advanced
age, said that on the foregoing day he was busily employed in
bin "eleemosynary career!"

There ought to be great joy in London over one re-
pentant sinner. A cabman, conscious of his delinquencies,
hsa sent five shillings to • police-court poor boo—" to avoid
the consequences of incivility and many other breaches of the
Cab Act."

Two daughters of a thrifty farmer in Princeton,
Illinois, 15 and 17 'years old, completed on the 17th or
January the task of walking SO miles within 20 consecutive
hours for a prize of 120 dols. They had one hour and 37
minutes to spare.
- -

-
'I he Treaeury haa resolved upon a very great and a
very sensible innovation. They propose to publish, from
week to week, an account of receipts and payments into the
Exchequer and out of it, from the first day of the financial
year to the date of publication.

A daring robbery was committed at Sir IL Napier's
house at South Kensington, London, on Monday evening.
Although the thieves were disturbed while rifling • dressing-
room, they succeeded in getting off with jewellery worth
£3,000. Entrance was obtained by climbing up a portico.
The Shanghai News Letter says :—" Chinese mei,
chants are looking into the coal mining question, and some
out-crops are expected within a few months. The Nanking
Government appear willing to open mines with foreign en
gineers, but not with foreign capital."

•
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A number of young men in the middle rank of life
have left Colchester for Buenos Ayres, for the purpose of de-
voting themselves to agricultural pursuits near that impor-
tant South American centre The emigrants are all respect-
able and intelligent young men, and their departure has been
regarded with some interest in Colchester.

A brutal outrage is reported from Clam. The victim,
a young girl named Fogarty, was waylaid when returning
from Corotim market, and murdered. She had • few shil-
lings on her, and these were taken. The body wan horribly
mutilated. No clue was obtained to the assaasin.

A large tract on the Bellmore Mountain in Ennis-
killen, which is thickly covered with furze, has been set on
fire. The conflagration was at times fanned into greater in-
tensity by a stiff breeze, and the late dry weather rendered
the work of destruction more rapid. The fire is supposed to
be the work of an incendiary, as several others have recently
occurred in the mountain districts of Tyrone.
A priest the other day, who was examining a confir-
mation class in the south of Ireland, asked the question,
What la the sacrament of matrimony I" A little girl at the
head of the class answered, "'Ti.a state of torment into
which souls enter to prepare them for another and better
world." 'Bets'." Said the priest, "the answer for purga-
tory." "Put her down," says the curate, "put her down to
the fut of the elms." "Lava her alone,' said the priest,
"for anythin' you or I know to the contrary she may be par.
fitly right."

- -
As bearing on the free-trade controversy in France, a
well informed Paris paper quotes statistics to show that the
exportation of wine, which, in the year 1861, was of the
value of 196 million francs, amounted in 1862 to 210 millions;
in 1863 to 229 millions; in 1864 to 234 millions; in 1865 to 260
millions; and in 1,66 to 238 millions. Thus, the vine-growing
interest haa profited much more by the treaty of 1060 than
the cotton manufacture, which in 1866 amounted only to 88

"The ex-Chief Baron in earlier life gave many
proofs of his interest in physical science, and be must be
happy now In contributing to our knowledge of the art of
longevity. At the age of eighty-six he is still hale and
hearty, and he attributes this to his adoption of ether-inha-
lation us stimulant-sedative. A few whiffs are, be says,
' sufficient at once to quiet spurn and pain, and to Induce a
general tranquillity of the nervous system.' As nervous ir-
ritability is a common complaint in these days, and by no
means confined to octogenarians, it might be well if Sir
Frederick Pollock's example would induce ' fashloulue
dram-drinker.' to substitute inhalation for imbibition "
Pall Mall Gazelle

In connection with the recent arreete in Paris the
France and the Patrie announce that some documents have
been discovered which reveal a plot against the lire of the
Emperor. Among them, it is said, are "very compromising '
letters of M. Rochefort. A letter of &echelon's to M.
Schneider is reported, in which he proposes that the
Ministry should be Impeached on the plea of having Incited
to a civil war. An attempt was made to read one of his
fetters in the Corps Lkgislatit, but the Chamber refused to
permit it.

A gentleman in Mayence gave hie servant maid the
following 'character' the other :—" The bearer ha.
been in my house a year —rniqns 11 months. During that
time she has shown herself diligent—at the house door;
frugal—ln work; mimif al—of herself ; prompt—ln excuses
friendly—towards men; faithful—to her lover.; and honest
—when everything had vanished? We have no doubt the
services of this attractive creature have been in immense re-
quest wherever she ham exhibited her wonderful certificate.
The Japan gazcVe says :—A sign of the times in
Yedo Is the great desire to raise companies to carry nut
various manufactures or other business. One engineering
firm In Yokohama, Messrs. Whitfield and Dawson, have
already turned out and sold two steam engines for rice mills
and have two others on the point of being finished and sold:
and all are sought for by these companies. Besides this, they
are haying steam launches for up-country riser traffic, and
Inquiring respecting boats of a larger size. This is the result
,A a considerable relaxation of the interference that hsa
hitherto been So detrimental to their operations.

It is rumoured that another English peer has joins I
the Church of Rome.

A club of disdnguiabed men ham been formed in
London, for.the discussion of " the tmniortality of the souL
. . .

-
A deceased dyer of Rochdale bore the singular name
of °Cannon Ball"

The Inshman declares that Tipperary "will have
no One else "than O'Donovan Rosa,

The Thorncliffe colliery rioters have been cow_mitte
for trial to the York assizes.

The death hi announced, at Nuite, of General
Berthfer de Grandry, in the 96th year of his age.

Small-pox ham recently been very prevalent in Paria.
Forty-seven deaths took place In the course of four day..

Green peas have been selling in Philadelphia at
2.4 d a-piece !

In London, last Saturday, five inquests were held
on the bodies of persons who had met their death through
exposure to the excessive cold of the previous days

The Gaulpia etates that foreigners are deserting Paris
vdth unusual unanimity. The Northern Railroad is organizing
apeeial trains.
. .

It is announced that the army contingent in France
for 1,70 will be 15,000 men below that provided for by the
military law.

Walter Rayner, prisoner in Chelmsford Gaol, has
died from consumption one day after pardon had been
granted by the Lome Secretary on the ground of In-health.
The Emesian Government has made a demand upon
the swiss Federal Council for the extradition of a polities!
prisoner. The mau in question la accused of conspiracy and
murder.

Alexander Diming the elder, is said to be suffering
from paralysis of the right hood, which e jokingly observes
is simply retributive justice, it being the hand with which
(with a pen in it) be had so largely sinned.

LTA me•-k the work of pumping water from the dip
workings at the Oaks Colliery was commenced, and has nines
been proceeded with at the rate of 5,000 gallons an hour.
It is estimated to contain altogether about 30,000,000 gallons
It is said that Niecount Fielding, eldest son of the
Earl of Denbigh, made his lint communion on the lit of the
present month from the hands of the Holy Father, In the
private chapel of the Vatican.

An epidemic of diphtheritic sore throat has, during the
last sixteen months, caused seven hundred deaths in a
population of about 30,000, at thrall, on the Danube. The
rate of mortality is said to have been 50 per cent.

At the meeting of the Great Northern and Western
of Ireland Railway Company it was dated by the Chairman
that the average coat of constructing the ninety.two
of which the railway consisted, was only £7,000 per mile.
In many of the Madrid theatres political pieces are
being put on the stage—some in favour of a Republic, others
of Eapatero. in almost all the Duke of Montpensier plays •
ridiculous part.

The Saturday Review says "the Queen's Speech
was in one way a very agreeable disappointment, for
although, if possible, more confused am! incoherent than
usual, it had the great merit of promising plenty of work.'
Owing to continued indisposition, the Lord Chief
Baron will not go circuit at the :spring Assizes, and it is es
tremely uncertain that his lordship will be able to resume
his Judicial duties.

A chorister at Lanteglos Church, a boy twelve years
of age, being entrusted with the offertory bag on Sunday, was
detected in the act of helping himself to half-a-crown. Ile
ls to be sent to a reformatory.

A spirited debate took place in the California Legis-
lature recently upon the point whether the word •' morgue
should be pronounced with what they called the "French
twirl," or called simply morgee."

The South London Courier says that at a recent
meeting of the St. Giles's Vestry, Camberwell, a member
proposed that "no vehicle or any other animal should be
allowed to remain or stand upon any part of the common or
recreation ground."

The reduction in the Navy Eatimatea, when com-
pared with the amount asked for last year, will 'according to
the Army and Nary Gazette) amount to something up•
proadung three-qiuuters of a million.

In an answer to the Clyde sugar refiners, who have
memorialized the Chancellor of the Excnecuer on the sub-
ject of the drawback to be allowed on relined sugar, Mr.
Lowe has declined to anticipate even inferentially the nature
of his budget.
Telegrams, both from Constantinople and Cairo, re-
present the relations of the Porte and the Knedive as perfectly
satisfactory, and emphatically contradict the rumours of
warlike preparations In Egypt. The Sultan has made him.
self liable to the contractors who built the iron-clads.
The death of Dr. George Smith, of Poplar,
Secretary to the Congregational Union of England and
Wales, is announced. Dr. smith, who lately visited the
Dominion of Canada as a delegate to the Congregationa
Churches, was the author of several theological works.
O'Donovan ROBEIN according to the Clonntel Chro-
nick, will be proposed at the Tipperary election, and his
friends are already canvassing on his behalf. Mr. Heron,
Q.C., the unsuccessful candidate at the laatelectimi, will also
contest the seat.

M. Rochefort continues to write letters from his
prison to official persons. The latest of these is one addressed
to the Prefect of Police, in which Rochefort insists that the
usual prison regulations shall be relaxed in his favour, and
that the letters and articles be writes shall not be subject to
examination by the directors of the prison.

Another agrarian outrage is reported from Tip.
perary. On Thursday last five men entered the house of a
caretaker on Mr. Bradshaw s estate, and threatened him
with death if he continued to compete for a farm. Two
shots wer fired, and the care-taker and his mother were
beaten with the gun Mocks.

In the House of Commons, Mr. Plimholl gave
notice that he should move for leave to bring in a bill requir-
ing railway companies to provide hot-water apparatus in
railway carriages, for the convenience of passengers, when-
ever the weather rendered it necessary. The notice was
received with " much laughter."

A correspondent of the Freeman's Journal has been
Informed on trustworthy authority " that it having been re.
ported that O'Donovan Ilona had been guilty of insubm dine-
tion, he was lately subjected to corporal punishment, having
received thirty hishes with the cat-o'-nine tails.

General Beauregard, the celebrated Confederate
general, is now in Marseilles. lie has been for some time
past the director of a railroad in Louisiana. Ilia visit to
Europe is in connection with a scherne, of which he is an
ard, at promoter, for the construction of a Southern Pacific
railroad, starting from Charlestown, in South Carolina,
and traversing the Southern State. to Sacramento in
California.

A French gentleman, residing in Paris, M. Etienne
11-' devoted to the sports of the field, had the mis-
fortune lately to be laid up with a severe attack of gout.
Ills faithful dog was in the habit of stretching himself every
night across the feet of his gouty master, and, strange to
say, this treatment cured the master completely: but the
poor animal became quite helpless, having transferred it.
master's gout to its own limbs.

A tenant-right demonstration took place at Toome,
county Antrim. A considerable number of farmers and
others attended, and resolutions declaring that Government
should make advances to tenant farmers to enable them to
buy back the moll at a valuation price, and allowing them to
repay the moneys into the National Treasury, were adopted.
The proceedings were orderly.

"Mr. Bright's friends—this is the latest news—think
there is nothing In his case for which a disordered stomach
will not account. Ile is going to Brighton, hut the doctors
forbid his travelling by rail, and he will have to post all
the way. My own impression is that a disordered stomach
is not all that is the matter with him ; but his Illness never.
thelem, has been exaggereted."—Birmingham Post.

Mrs. Blomfield, the widow of the late Bishop of
London, died on Saturday last at her residence at Rich-
mond, Surrey, at an advanced age, not far short of 80 years.
She was the daughter of Mr. Charles Con; and previous to
her marriage with the Bishop she was the relict of a Mr.
Thomas Kent. By the Bishop she had a family of ten chil-
dren, more than half of whom survive ; and almost all of
them were present at her bedside during her last illness,
She had survived the Bishop about 11 or 12 years.
- - -

An alarming af cident occurred at Castle Hedington
on Saturday afternoon, about four o'clock. A horse attached
to a carriage took fright, it Is said, from a band of music.
The carriage was being driven hito the village. The horse
dashed off at full speed, and ran Into a shop. Two ladies
who were inside were thrown out by the overturning of the
vehicle. One was killed on the spot, and the other expired
on the road to East Suffolk Hospital. She was the wife of a
farmer, of Wbiugton.

The "Countess of Derwentwater's " land surveyor,
Mr. Henry Cares, has been committed to the Northumber-
land Assizes by the lieirdiain magistrates for a breach of the
peace and conspiracy to seize stock on N ewlands Farm on the
17th of January. Copies of an injunction have been posted
on all the Admiralty premises on the estate. Public feeliag
Is Betting in against the countess, and the persons committed
for trial complain that they were deceived by an opinion
said to have been given by Mr. Mellish, QC., otherwise
they would never have taken her part. The countesil ii iU
at Blaydon.

The unfortunate gunpowder accident at hieters.
Vivian's colleries, Mega, South Wales, on Monday, appearsto
have been more disastrous than was at first reported. The
number of deaths now ascertained is 23, and 30 other work-
men are Injured, four seriously. Ihe gunpowder appears to
have been used for blasting purposes by the miners employed
In sinking the shaft to a lower depth It exploded, most
unfortunately, just as the men employed in tne regular work.
fogs were descending to their daily labour, and the .not
took effect on human lives lust as in snowy weather a clean
narrow space Is sweptin a stukyard and corn being sprinkled,
the sparrows are shot by dozens at a single discharge.