The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-04-05 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.
BRITISH AND FOREIGN;

It is reported in India that the G-evernment have
already lost 14,000 camels in the Afghan campaign.
Then has been found, hidden away in one of the
garrets of the Luxembourg, an old picture, which, when the
dust had been wiped off, proved to De a treasure of art. It
represents the Republic clothed in a white tunic with a tri-
colour scarf round her waist and a lion crouchlngat her feet,
and, what is more, it is signed "Gerome, 1848."
The north of England iron manufacturers are pro-
posing another reduction of 15 per cent. in the wages of
rollers, heaters, and shearmen, in plate and sheet mills, and
of forge rollers and shinglers working for plate and sheet
mills.

The first moiety of the call of £lO per share of the
West of England Bank was payable on Tuesday at the
Bristol branch of the Bank of England. A large number of
payments were made, aisd although the exact sum received
will not be known for some days, it is .believed the call has
been responded to satisfactorily. _ _

All the hands., muribering about 1,200, employed at
the Eionth.Rastern Railway works have received notice of a
five per cent. reduction in wages, or an additional three
hours work per week. The men met at Ashford on Saturday,
and decided to accent the reduction rather than work the
extra number of hours.

One of the latest phases of the Temperance move-
ment among non-teetotallers in the United States is the for-
mation of "Anti-Treating Societies" in several of the large
cities.

A further discharge of workmen from Chatham
Dockyard has been ordered, the first batch, to the number
of about 40, having left the yard on Saturday. The discharges
will go on for several weeks.
There was no criminal charge whatever brought
before the Bolton magistrates on Thursday in last week.
This was the first experience of the sort in that court since
the incorporation of the borough 40 years ago, and was re-
garded as an effect of the " bad times ;" the Clerk, who has been
connected with the court for a quarter of a century, remark-
ing that he attributed the absence of " business ' to the fact
that there was less than usual to spend in drink.
There were 26 British and foreign wrecks reported
during the past week, making the total for the present year
499 or an increase of 108 as compared with the oorrePpoading
period of last year. The approximate value of property lost
was £560,000, including British £320,000; and the aggregate
tonnage represented about 9,000 tons.

- -
The King and Queen of the Belgians left London
on Monday, on their return to Brussels. The Prince and
Princess of Wales, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, and
the Duke of Cambridge took leave of their Majesties at Vic-
toria Station, where a large crowd had assembled.

With respect to the prospects of the growing wheat
crop in the United States, the New York Tribune says :
"The wheat of this year has already suffered so much injury
that there is no reasonable prospect of even an average
harvest."

A Paper upon "Cheshire Dairy Farming and its
Milk Products' was read at a meeting on Saturday of the
Cheshire Chamber of Commerce by Mr. Roger Bate. He
said that in the early part of this century it was thought
that Woout 90,000 cows were kept for cheesemaking.
Formerly a great portion of this produce was sent to the
metropoliss, but during the last quarter of a century the
cheese had been fludiug its way into Lancashire and York-
shire rather than to London.

The Prince of Wales, Grand Master of the Free-
masons of England, has intimated his intention to appoint
Viscount Ebringion, eldest son of Earl Fortescne, to the
Provincial Grand Mastership of Devonshire, vacant by the
resignation of the Rev. L. Huyshe, of Clyst Hydon.
A photographic likeness of Lord Beaconsfield has
Ind been issued, taken by command of the Queen in the
Isle of Wight, which is about the best portrait of him that
has appeared for some time. _ _ _ _

An interviewer of the Pope thus describes his
Holiness :—He is a tall, thin man, very reserved, smiles
more than he talks, is very anxious to know all about public
opinion in England, on which however, he seems very well
advised; is witty, clever, and keen : on the whole, is a very
well read, educated, and astute man. His leanings are to-
wards Liberalism, and towards undoing much that his pre-
decessor did, and he seem to be particularly anxious about
the state of Ireland.

Sympathy with the sufferers by the floods at
Szegeden has found vent in an extraordinary display of
commisseration among some young men at Path, as re-
ported by the Hungarian journal, Koezoe. These young men
have mutually pledged themselves to =Fry only natives of
Szegedin,
-

Advices from Rome state that in expectation of thr,
arrival in Italy of the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, and
having also due regard to their intention of maintaining a
strict incognito, the Ministers of the Interior, of War, and
of the Navy have sent orders to the prefects and military
and naval commanders of the localities their Highneises are
likely to visit, to place themselves at the service of the
august visitors, and do all that is possible to add to the
pleasure of their visit.

Lord Beaconsfield has placed Mr. Frederick Martin
on the Civil List for a pension of £l.OO a-year. in recognition
of the service he has rendered by compiling the "Statesman's
Year-Book," which he has now issued for sixteen years. Lord
Beaconsfield lately mentioned the Year-Book in the House of
Lords in terms of warm praise."—Athenceum.

The poor woman who has for nine months been an
in-patient in St. John's Hospital for Diseases of the Skin,
Leicester-square, London, suffering from leprosy in its most
horrible form, died in the charity on Saturday last. This
sad case, the hospital authorities state, shows that leprosy
is by no means extinct in Europe, and it forcibly illustrates
the necessity for the establishment of leper wards.—Mon-
day's Daily Telegraph.
The Countess Chambord has sent 10,000 francs in
gold to the Pope. An equal sum was sent by the Count stew
days ago.
- - - -

- -
During the short sojourn of the Queen at Paris
the Princess Beatrice paid a visit to Notre Dame and to
the Hotel des Invalides. At the latter place the Princess
spent a considerable time in examining the famous tomb of
Napoleon I.

An artesian well is just upon being completed at
Nelson, near Burnley. Water has been tapped at the depth
of MOIL, and it rises above the surface to the very unusual
hsight of 291 t. This is the first water found in this neigh-
bourhood.

The King of the Belgians having expressed a desire
to see in action the modus operands of the London Fire
several engines took place the other day in the grounds of
Buckingham Palace. A bay window projection in the north
front of the palace was made the scene of operations, and
several men were "saved" therefrom in gallant style.
Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales
and the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh formed part of the
Royal party who witnessed the imanceuvres,
The Portsmouth Times hears that the standard for
the entry of boys into the navy is again lowered to that in
force during 1878.

A new --York bridegroom recently sent a pair of
diamond earrings to his bride inclosing the box containing
them iu a jewel-casket, fourteen by sixteen inches, and
nineteen inches high. The sides of the box were of solid
selected 3.larechal Neil buds, bound by a rim of tea rosebuds
the cover was of superb white rosebuds. A ring of violets
was the lid-liter. The inside of the box was lined with
white satin.

A house in Westbourne Park, London, has been
opened by the Earl of Ilarrowby, LO., as a home and club
for foreign governeasea resident in England.

About five minutes past twelve on Monday morning,
W. Gale, of Cardiff, started in Nottingham to walk 2,500
miles in 1,000 hours, doing bait a mile and 220 yards every
quarter of an hour, Sundayaexcepted. It is intended to con-
tinue the walk In Leicester and in' various towns in the dis-
trict for seven weeks, at the end of which time he hopes to
have concluded the task he has set himself.

The Prince of Wales is expected to visit Nice and
Mentone shortly.

General Garibaldi has sent to the Italian papers a
letter on the proposed scheme of Italian emigration to New
Guinea in which he says that he is of opinion that the time
ha not come for Italians to undertake the colonization of
New Guinea. Internal questions and the state of abandon-
ment in which those Eastern populations—whom Italy for
her own honour and interest must support and assist—have
been left, combine to make inexpedient all idea of an expedi-
tion to a remote region. Garibaldi advises those Italian
youths who so generously placed themselves at the disposal
of Signor Menotti Garibaldi to hold themselves in readiness
to complete the greatness of Italy..

A special conference of working men's delegates,
representing every branch connected with the British sugar
trade, was held in Bristol on Saturday. General satisfaction
was expressed at the appointment of a Parliamentary Com-
mittee. It was stated that upwards of 80,000 men in the
various branches of the sugar trade were thrown out of
permanent employment through the effests of the foreign
sugar bounty system. It was resolved to hold a demonstra-
tion in the city to protest against the bounties.

The heading of an account in a San Francisco news-
paper of a mining accident, "One Man and Twelve Chinese
Kale I," is an indication of the ruling prejudice on the
Pacific coast.
The whole of the factory hands employed at the
army clothing establishment at Pimlico have been discharged,
'With an intimation that they may apply to the storekeeper
for re-engagement under new regulations which have been
drawn up, embracing a reduced scale of wages, which will
involve a loss of from 5s to 10s. a week for the time workersi
and will operate even more disadvantageously upon the piece;
wonters.
A meeting of the Oxford branch of the Amalga-
mated Society of Railway Servants has been held, at which
a communication from the London committee was considered
relative to the future policy of the society in regard to dis-
putes, wages, and hours on railways, and recommending the
establishment of a strike fund. The opinion of the meeting
was decidedly against the proposal, and it was unanimously
rejected.
A strange discovery, tending to the conclusion that
the end of the world is not far off, was made the other daY
in a town of Pennsylvania. With the snow which fell there
came down a substance resembling sulphur, which lay in
some places half an Inch deep. A small quantity of this
sulphuric snow was set on fire, and "burned readily,
emitting sulphuric fumes." There is no burning mountain
in the neighbourhood, so that it is difficult to account fdr
such a dangerous phenomenon, unless it is to be supposed
that it is a sign ot the approach of the time when everything
is to be burned up.
The strike in the Pteston weaving trade is evidently
coming to a close. Upwa,ds of 200 of the operatives have re-
turned to work on the maskers' terms. 1
"Amid all the numetous articles and paragraphs
with which the papers have teen recently flooded respectieg
the late Princess Alice, I ha ee nowhere seen recorded the
curious fact that she was marled to Prince Louis of Hesse
in the dining-room of Osborne House. Yet such was the
case. In consequence of the death of the Prince Consort,
the Queen wished the marriage to be as private as 'possible ;
so a temporary altar was erected LI place of the sideboard,
and the Royal pair were united in the apartment.aforesaid
No other member of the Royal Faulty has been married
during the present generation in so letired a fashion. The
Princess had, by the way, no bridesmaid".... The World.
There were 2,349 births and 2,078
deaths registered
in London last week. Allowing for incrmee of population,
the births were 196 below, whereas the neaths exceeded by
so many as 283 the average numbers in
corresponding
week of the I,ut ten years. The annual death-rate from all
causes, which in the three preceding weeks
the
had been equal
to 29-2, 28-7, and 30•0 per 1,000 was 29-9. The annual death-
rate in the metropolis during the thirteen weeks ending lest
Saturday averaged 27 1 per 1,000, against 27 24-7, 23-6,
and 25-6 in t,&.e corresponding periods of the four years
1875-78.
The Cardiff corporation has resolved t) present a
memorial to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, aeiving that
one of the six seats now vacant shall be allotted to Cardiff,
giving the town two representatives. Since 1858 the export
of coal, e.r.c., has increased from one to nearly
six taillion
tons, and the vessels from 86 to 204, with a tonnage of
70,800. The population is nearly 90,000, and the veters
8,000.
There died at. Leet on Saturday last a Waterloo
veteran named John Howard, formerly bugler in the blet
Regiment of Foot. He entered the army about the year
1808, and was present at the battle of Waterloo, where he
received three wounds lie was discharged about a year
after the battle, but received no recognition of his services
until about six years ago, when his case was brought under
the notice of the military authorities by his old colonel, and
he thenceforth received is. 3d. per day.
The Times of Wednesday says:—" Our obituary
column yesterday contained the name of a once well-known
clergyman at Bristol, Jonathan Henry Woodward, formerly
vicar of St. James's Church in that city, but who resigned
that living in 1850 or the following year, soon after the deci-
sion in the Gorham case, to which he could not reconcile his
conscience, and therefore he submitted himself to the
Roman Catholic Church. He was the son and grandson of
dignitaries of the (lateyEstablished Church in Ireland, end
Was educated at Trinity College, Dablin, where he took the
usuLl degrees. He was an eloquent precher and an elegan
and adcomplished writer, and bus left behind him a re pR,t atf _
for conscientious self-diacritic° which will not be readily !Or.
gotten by his friendsk

The value of the property left by the Earl of
Nerthesk has been sworn to as under £196,000.
A anonymous donor has presented ALM to the
extension fund of the Diooesan Penitentiary, which has its
centre at Basingstoke, in the hope that the counties of
Surrey and Hampshire may coma forward and help on the
good work.
The Paris ham fair will be held this year on the Btbs
9th, and 10th of April. This fair is one of the curious sighte
of Paris,
- - - - -

- ---
Dean Stanley preached twice in Glasgow on
Sunday. In the forenoon he occupied the pulpit at the
Cathedral, and in the afternoon that of the University
ChapeL Both places were crowded. He preached in the
Cathedral trom Genesis c. 32, 27 v.,'l What is thy name I"
A skeleton, supposed to be that of one of three
pirates gibbeted at Blackwell Point some fifty years ago, has
been discovered on the foreshores of the river Thames at
Blackwell Point. It was partly embedded in the mud,
was perfect when discovered, but fell to pieces when dis-
turbed.
At the sale (in London) of the remaining works of
the late Sir Francis Grant, P.R:A., by Messrs. Christie,
Manson, and Woods, the intetesting chair ot Sir Joshua
Reynolds, in which so many of his celebrated sitters were
Painted by Sir Joshua, was sold (after a spirited contest) for
73 guineas, the purchaser being Sir Frederick Leighton,
President of the Royal Academy, who intends to present it
to the Academy,
Ohio is a big state and has produced net a few big
men. It has now produced what is said to be the largest Bill
ever introduced into a legislative assembly, in the shape of a
new code. It contained 3,200 pages, and, as it was insisted
that it should be read in full, the Senate sat up till midnight
to hear it through; even at that, hundreds of pages, Li is
reported, were slyly skipped.
The men, boys, and women employed at the exten-
sive lead and silver mines at Laxey, Isle of Man, have
struck work in consequence of a circular issued by the di-
rectors increasing the hours of labour one hour each shift,
and doing away with the monthly half-holiday on the pay
Friday and also the holiday on the Saturday following. The
directors allege that the average wages paid are consider-
ably higher and the working hours much less than at nine
large mines in the kingdom. The strike, if persisted in, will
cause great distress. Altogether about 600 hands are
employed.

The Paris correspondent of the Daily News writing
on the 29th, says :—" A great meeting of the agricultural
societies of France was held to-day at the Grand HoteL M.
Estancelin, in the chair, made a rabid Protectionist speeeh,
which was rapturously cheered by the great majority of the
audience. He drew a doleful picture of the state of agricul-
ture, which he said had been brought by Free Trade princi-
ples and those pestilential things called commercial treaties
to the verge of ruin. In many places where corn onoe
there were now nothing but thistles. (Here the enthusiasm
of his hearers knew no bounds) Were he an Englishman be
should be a Free Trader. Free Trade was all very well for
England, but it was detestable for France. (Immense ap-
plause.) M. Dreo, deputy for the Var, himself a landed pro-
prietor, protested ag.,lnst the great exaggeration with which
the chairman had spoken of agricultural distress, but he was
put down by clamour. The meeting adjourned.'
The Home Secretary, in a letter to the Committee
of the Epping Forest Fund, states that a petition from them,
praying the Queen to visit Epping Forest in the ensuing
summer on the occasion of the permanent dedication of the
forest as an open space for the enjoyment of the inhabitants
of the metropolis, has been laid before her Majesty, and
that he had been commanded te express ber Majesty's regret
that ter numerous engagements will prevent her at present
from complying with the request.

"The improvement in the iron trade which we
noticed a couple of weeks ago has not been sustained, and
in other industries there Is as yet little activity. Still, there
is perceptible in most quarters a more hopeful feeling than
lately prevailed. The cessation of bad weather has allowed
field work, house building, and other open air occupations to
be pushed forward, and has thus given a stimulus to the
dependent trades. Orders from abroad, too, are somewhat
more plentiful, but prices still continue excessively low.
The advance in tin, however, is maintained."—" Trade and
Finance," in Pall Mall Gazette.

The Nord of Brussels gives the following as the pro-
gramme of the expedition that is to leave for Turkestan in
the summer, under the command of the Grand Duke
Nicholas Constantinovich. The expedition will start from
the Ural Basin, in the direction of the Syr Darya, touching
In turn at Karatougal, Tashkend, and Samarkand. Thence
it will arrive at the Amu Darya, which it will descend as far
as its mouth. Following then the lizboi, the old bed of the
Amu, the expedition will -finally gain the Caspian, after
making a variety of important investigations. The staff of
the expedition will include, among others, a railway
engineer, a naval officer, a naturalist, a geologist, a topo-
grapher, an archmologist, a painter, and a writer.
A letter addressed by Sir Louis Mallet to Mr. T. B.
Potter, M.P. (chairman of the committee of the Cobden
Club), on the subject of reciprocity has been published. Sir
Louts points out that the more nearly tariffs of foreign
countries approach to the limits of prchibition the more will
the British producer be protected in his own market. Those,
therefore, who desire this kind of reciprocity—viz., the reci-
procity of monopoly—must rejoice at every new restriction
placed upon British trade abroad as necessarily involving
increased protection at home. After all, he says, the present
cry about foreign competition is a very hollow one.

The liquidators of the City of Glasgow Bank have
postponed making their second call on the shareholders till
decision has been given in the cue before the House of
Lords. If that decision is favourable to the liquidators the
call will, it is stated, be £2,250 per £lOO share.

A Scholarship for Women is about to be founded in
memory of Miss Catherine Winkworth, whose translations
of German Sacred Poetry are Su widely popular. Half
of the thousand pounds required has been already raised.
A battalion of Zouaves and skirmishers on the way
from Aumale to Baghar, in Algeria. where it was to relieve
the acting garrison, was caught between Sonaki and Souk-el.
Tleta on the 28th inst. in a snowstorm of such violence that
It was only with difficulty that the battalion reached shelter,
and after nineteen of its number had died of cold and fatigue.
Fourteen are at present in the hospital at Baghar still suffer-
ing from the effects of the journey.
- -

In London, on Saturday, a conference promoted by
the committee of clergyman appointed to consider the
relations of the Church to trade unionism was held at the
Chapter House, St. Paul's-churchyard. In opening the pro-
needing's, Mr. T. Hughes, Q C' who presided, gave it as his
opinion that so long as capital remained the hirer of labour,
BC) long would trades unionism continue to exist and the best
mitigation of the evils arising from this state of things would
be found in a system of arbitration. Several papers in favour
of conciliation and arbitration in labour disputes were then
read.
A deputation from the National Builders' Associa-
tion waited upon Sir John biker in the House of Commons
on Tuesday afternoon for the purpose of calling his attention
to the provisions of the Employers' Criminal Liability Bill,
and to the necessity of making 'such alterations in some of
the clauses as would define more accurately the liabilities to
which employers would be subjected in the event of the
measure becoming law. The Attorney• General said that the
Bill would not come before the House of Commons for
another month, and that he would take into consideration
the suggestions made by the deputation.

The Holmadale, 1,257 tons, Captain D. Bolt,
chartered by Sir Arthur Blyth, Agent-General for South
Australia, left Plymouth last Saturday for Port Adelaide with
400 emigrants
An unusual scene was witnessed in St. Paul's
Charcb,.Sandgate, on Sunday morning. A coast-guardsman
was, at his own desire, baptized by immersion by the
Incumbent. A congregation, numbering about 60 parsons,
principally ladies, was present. The incumbent delivers d a
short and suitable address, and the Church of England form
for the baptism of adults was used. Al the appointed por-
tion of the service, the candidate, who was dressed in white
coastguard's dress, was immersed in a large bath.

As a proof of the humidity given to the atmosphere
by trees, experiments show that the "Washington Elm," at
Cambridge, Mass., with its 200,000 square feet of teal surface,
transpires seven and three quarter tons of watery vapour in
twelve diurnal hours of clear weather. From this it is in-
ferred that a grove, consisting of 600 trees, each with a leaf
surface equal to that of the elm mentioned, would return to
the atmosphere 3,875 tons of aqueous vapour in twelve
hours.

Great interest was shown by all classes at Faver-
sham, on Saturday, on the occasion of the opening of one of
the National Thrift Society's penny banks at the Guildhall,
by the Mayor. The number of depositors during the hour
the bank was opened was nearly 200, and the amount re-
ceived slightly under £B.

The Gardener's Magazine says the fruit trees are
teeming with the highest promise. Tha wood is firm and re
markably ripe, the buds are plump and apparently healthy.
If any mischief has been done to them by the severe frosts of
the put winter, there is good reason to believe that it is
simply local, and that so far no great reason exists for
despondency on that head. On the other hand, the com-
parative sluggishness still displayed in Nature is productive
of great hope.

The Liverpool British Workman Public-house
Company has Just issued its fourth annual report, showing
a profit of upwards of £3,300 on the business of the year.
There are now 34 houses in full working order in Liverpool,
with accommodation for 3,500 persons. All the houses are
open at five o'clock a.m , those on the docks close at eight
p.m., those in the town at eleven. The takings are about
£l,OOO a week. Ten thousand gallons of coffee, four
thousand of cocoa, three thousand of tea, and four hundred
of peasoup are disposed of weekly. All the empkyle ate
total abstainers, and facilities for signing the pledge are
given on the premises.