The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-12-22 00:00:00

Pisallantous

HOME, FOREIGN, AND COLONIAL.

AFFAIRS IN BllRMAH.—Several telegrams to the
Indian papers from Rangoon state "that King
Theer•aw has been induced to again take an active
part in the affairs of Government, and that the Queen's
influence was waning. It is said 'hat a large army is
being raised to subdue the rebellious Shang. It is to
be divided into three divisions, of one of which the
King will take the command in person, but this may
be considered the reserve, ais it will only take the field in
the event of the other divisions suffering defeat. The
Italians in the arsenal at Mandalay are busily employed
in supplying arms and ammunition in large quantities.
Martini. Henry rifles are aho being provided; but many
of the peopie are fleeing into British territory in order
to avoid being seiztd by the numerous recruiting
parties which are presdng men into the military
serviv of the Burmese ruler.

MIITLNY AT SEA. —News has arrived in Trieste of
the occurrence of a mutiny on board the shin Podesta
Bazzoni, of Trieste, at Havannah. Some of the sailors
rose against Captain Brazmovici, and a portion stood
by him. The fight was so desperate that a signal of
distress was hoisted, on which some Spanish soldiers
came on board and restored order. Three of the ring-
leaders, among them the boatswain, were put in irons.
Those arrested died three days afterwards of yellow
fever, with seven more of the crew.
FATAL ACCIDENT TO A FIREMAN.—In London, on
Friday night in last week, an outbreak of fire occurred
in Itamsell-street, City. The portion of the building
on fire was the upper floors, occupied by R. L. King
and Co.' tie cravat manufacturers, and by Messrs.
' Yates Vialon, and Co., wholesale linen and cotton
merchants, The conflagration raged furiously for
some time, but was eventually confined to the portion
first attacked. One of the firemen, named Thatcher,
was on the parapet of some adjoining premises en-
gaged in lowering the hose after the fire was subdued,
when he lost his balance, and fell into the street, a
distance of about sixty feet. He was immediately
conveyed to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where he
expired.
SUICIDE IN A RAILWAY TRAIN.—In London, on
Monday, Dr. Diplock held an inquest on the body of
James Henry Payne, aged flfty.eight, a coach•builder,
lately residing at Shepherd'a•bush, who committed
suicide on Friday morning in last week in a railway
carriage. The body having been Identified, John
Russell, a carriage-cleaner at the Hammersmith
Station of the Metropolitan Railway, was called. He
said he opened the door of a third-class compartment of
a train that arrived at the station at 10.25 a.m. and
found the deceased lying full length on the seat Of the
compartment with his throat cut. A razor was on the
floor, and the deceased's umbrella, hat, and necktie
were on the seat opposite. The wife of the deceased,
in answer to the coroner, said her husband had had no
trouble. He left home on Friday morning to go to
work. The jury returned as their verdict "That the
deceased committed suicide while in a state of unsound
mind."

ELBow-Rooit.—According to the calculations of the
Registrar-General the area of England and Wales at
the time of taking the last census was equal to nearly
acres for every human being, so that if the popula-
tion had been equally distributed the distance between
any two neighbouring individuals would have been
ninety yards. Saxony and Belgium are the only two
other European countries where the population is as
dense as this. Our elbow room, however, is constantly
diminishing. About the commencement of the prsent
century the proximity of individual to individual on'
an equal distribution would have been 153 yards; in
1821, 132 yards; in 1851, 108 yards; in 1871, 96 yards.
A PRACTICAL VlEW.—First Parishioner (to recently
appointed Minister) : " Verra gled to fall in wi' ye
sir, an' maki yer acquaintance ! I hinna been at the
Kirk syne ye cam', as I wis in Ross-shire."—Parson :
" Well, I am very pleased to meet you. You may
have heard whether my Ser—"—Parishioner : "Oh,
a' the fowk are greatly taken wi' yer menners an
appearance, yer attention to the puir bodies o the
parish, yer visitin' the sick, an'—wha cares for
preachin' I "—Punch.
THE HIGHWAY RETURNS.—Returna of the receipts
and expenditure on account of the highways of the
several highway districts and separate highway
parishes in England and Wales for the year ended the
25th of March, 1882, as presented to Parliament, have
just been published by the Local Government Board.
The Blue-book states the number of highway parishes
to be 14,861, with a total of 116,049 miles of main
roads and ordinary highways in England and Wales.
The total amount of receipts is set down at 21,966,256,
including £1,704,784 in high way rates, £27,983 in con-
tributions from county authority, and £4,014 from
turnpike trusts. The amount borrowed was £641. The
expenditure was £1,951,867, the sum of £1.769,427
having been spent in repairs, £21,877 in improvements,
and £107,461 in salaries £4,€63 was paid in repayment
of loans, and £2,147 interest on loans, the amount of
which outstanding at the close of the year was £42,860.
A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA,—A message written
on paper has been picked up on the coast of Grund-
sund, Gothenburg, as follows :—" I, John Wood, am
a poor shipwrecked man. Oh, please come and save
me. Our ship, the Evening Star, sailed from New-
castle on August 18, and arrived at Cape Hortas, near
which she was wrecked on a sunken rock. I tied my-
self to a mast. The master and all the rest were lost.
I have one box of biscuits, no water, and if I am not
saved I shall soon be dead. Please, some kind friend,
come and save me. I write this on my biscuit box in
the hope that it may be picked up."
threiNlMWßlgnricave decided to send out
AlPWlLl‘lolol oa.y
adi-
tioral regiments to augment the strength of the
British forces now serving in Egypt, the withdrawal
of native troops under the command of Baker Pasha,
for the expedition to the Soudan, making it necessary
that the establishment should be completed as far as
possible to the strength authorised on the termination
of the late war. The regiments will be selected from
those now Perving in Ireland, and it is proposed to
enlist the Militia for service during the temporary
absence of the Regular Forces.
A FATAL FIGHT. —Late on Saturday night an
affray, which was followed by fatal results, occurred
in Christina-street, Cardiff. Some seamen having
proffered an insult to a woman who keeps a boarding
house in that street, two boarders, named Edward
Anderson and David M'Gee, remonstrated with them,
and were immediately set upon by the sailors. During
the disturbance Anderson and M.'Gee were repeatedly
stabbed. They were removed to the infirmary, where
M'Gea died on Sunday from the injuries which he
I had received. Five men were apprehended in con-
nection with tha affray.
A SCULPTOR'S MODEL. —The Pall Mall Gazette says
that a curious story is told of a statue of Dryope and
Apollo, which Mr. Robert Barrett Browning has
recently finished at Paris. In the studio, says the
correspondent who tells the story, I saw the model
who had stood for it, with the great, live snake coiling
round her, and her face was the statue's own. I asked if
it was not almost cruel to make her pose thus, snake-
embraced ; but the sculptor assured me that she was
very fond of the serpent. The snake himself was a
veritable python from Senegal, and had been resident
for some time at the Antwerp Museum of Natural
History, The embrace of this one might easily have
been fatal, for he was ten feet long and very large.
But he never so much as tightenel his coils uncom-
fortably round the model during the weary hours and
days in which she stood with him entwined about her,
while the statue grew. Mr. Browning showed me the
box which was the python's home when his working
hours were over. I say was, for, alas for art 1 this
good and kindly snake is dead. He died during the
absence from Paris of Adele, the model.

ATTACK ON THE SALVATION ARMY. —While the
members of the Salvation Army in Stirling were
marching on Monday night in procession through the
streets they were attacked by a party of soldiers of the
Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, stationed in Stir-
ling Castle. So violent did the disturbance become
that the police had to interfere and apprehend Wil-
liam Martin, one of the ringleaders, a private in the
Highlanders, who was next day charged at the police
court. The evidence of the police and others showed
that the Highlanders had charged the Salvationists in
organised form with sticks, and had driven them
through several streets to their hall.—The charge
against Martin was found to be proved, and the Bathe,
after commenting on the serious nature of the dis-
turbance, sentenced the prisoner to pay a fine of 305,,
or go to gaol for a month.

CHARGE OF MALICIOUSLY WOUNDING.—At the
Dover County Police-court, on Monday, a farmer
named Louis Napoleon Collier was charged with
maliciously wounding his servant, named Lawrence,
by shooting him on Sunday morning. According to
the evidence it appeared that Lawrence caused some
annoyance to his master, who attacked him with a
poker in a bedroom. Subsequently there wal a
desperate struggle between them outside the house,
and Collier's wife brought out a double-barrelled gun.
Collier took the gun, and as Lawrence was running
away deliberately fired at him. The medical evidence
showed that fifteen small shots had been extracted
fram Lawrence's legs, and there were marks of sixty
others.—The prisoner was committed for trial.

FARMING IN BELGIUM.—The little country of
Belgium has 480 persons to the square mile, or three to
every four acres. That is, four acres are made to support
three persons. If the United States were equally
crowded, the population would be 1,650,000,000, or
more than the population of the whole world. One
acre perfectly well cultivated can easily support one
person. It is possible to produce sixty bushels of
wheat on one acre, and this is equivalent to the whole
support of at least two persons, It is simply a matter
of cultivation and management. Belgium shows what
can be done. And it is well done, for we do not hear
of distress in that busy country, nor of "assisted
passages" of paupers, nor of a rush of dissatisfied
Belgians crowding away to better their condition. It
shows that high farming and excellent cultivation of
the soil are profitable, and may be taken as one of the
facts that proved this to be a settled principle of
agricultural economy.
UNINTELLIGIBLE OCCUPATIONS.—The avocation of a
" worireeater," or one who makes pretended wormholes
in various objects in order to give them an appear.
mice of antiquity was humorously referred to by Sir
Marie Dilke in his recent speech at Hammersmith.
This does not however appear to be by any means a
solitary example of an unintelligible designation of as
man's calling (says the Daily News). rhe censu,
commissioners cite no fewer than a hundred name,
of occupations of the people which are sta-ed to be in
i
common use, and yet are such that n all probability an
ordinary educated man would know at most but one
or two and often would not know even a single one.
Sometimes, when he might fancy that the term gave
some clue be would find, we are told on inquiry, that
the supposed clue was completely misleading. A 3
specimens we may note the following :—All-roundee,
barker, blabber, black picker, bomb setter, branner,
budget trimmer, bull dog burner, buttoner up, can
breaker, cheeker, crutter, dasher, doctor maker, doler,
duler, egger, faster, flat keeper, fluker, idle back
maker, impression maker, keel builey, lurer, maiden.
maker, off-bearer, °liver man, orange raiser, ponty
sticker, ransacker, sand badger, spragger, aprigger,
toother, trowler, walk flatter, weeternman, wheel
glatter, whim driver, 6i2d whiteter,

A FLYING Fisif„—During the voyage of the ship La
Hogue from Plymouth to Port Mackay with immi-
grants, a flying ash flew onboard while the ship was in
lat. 40185., and long. 3920 E., on the 2nd September
last. It struck the man on the look-out on the breast,
and fell on d-ck. It is remarkable that this fish should
have been found so far south, viz., over 300 miles to
the south of the Cape of Good Hope, as they are
seldom seen out of the Tropics, and that it should
have flown such a height. Some people doubt whether
they fly at all, Dr. S )oreooy and Dr. Bennett amongst
others. Captain Wagstatf's opinion, however is that
they do fly, touching their wings in the water occa-
sionally to give them a fresh start, and flying further
than the eye can follow them. The specimen which
came on board the La Hogue was found to measure
18 inc,,es in length, but during the time it has been
preserved in spirits in has contracted an inch. It is,
we believe, One of the largest specimens ever secured.
—Sidney Morning Herald.
-

RENY/lithe FOR BRAVERY.—At a meeting of the
Chairer of the Order of St. John of Jernsalena held in
London at St, Jonh's-gate, Sir Edward Perrott, Bart.,
pre,iding, silver and bronze medals for deeds of gala
lantry in saving life on land were unanimously
awarded to Robert Nelson and William Corson, of the
Liverpool police, for courageously pursuing and des.
troying a mad dog; to Julier Hatcher, of Marnhull,
Dorsetshire, for gallantly rescuing a boy of thirteen
who had been attacked by a bull, gored, and tossed
several times; and to Mr, Arnold Lupton. instructor
in mining to the Yorkshire College, and a collier,
named Tom Rowley, who at the utmost peril of their
lives succeeded in saving two men who were lost in the
workings of the pit, nearly a mile from the shaft, at
the disastrous explosion at the Wharncliffe Carlton
Colliery, Barnsley, in October last.
LAST WEEK'S WRECKS.—The weather last week
was more disastrous to shipping than was apparent by
the first reports of the gale, and the number of wrecks
and casualties resulting therefrom exceeds that for
any week since the commencement of November,
1882, the severity of the recent gales being on a par (if
not exceeding, in some localities) the great storms of
October 1880 and 1881. The total actual shipwrecks
last week amount to 138, of which 66 were British
owned, and 53 went down off the coasts of the United
Kingdom. The lives lost amounted to 130. The
total of wrecks to date for the present year Is 1,85,
against 1,66 at this time last year, or an increase or
191.

THE ROYAL Anres.—The Railway News says
The Act passed last session has made such wide
changes in the patent laws that considerable excite-.
ment has been caused among those directly interested.
Thue, at a meeting of the Wolverhampton Chamber
of Commerce last week, it was reported that sow.
thing like a panic had been caused among certain
hardware manufacturers by the new Patents Act.
Lock manufacturers and others have accumulated
large stocks of goods marked "patent " or " reels.
tered," or bearing the royal arms, although the goods
have not been patented. To use these marks without
authority after Ist January will be an offence, and the
fear is lest these stocks ehould be sacrificed. It was
therefore resolved to co-operate with Walsall in a
deputation to Mr. Chamberlain on the subject. The
clause as to not using the royal arms will give rise to
some curious questions, as it will apply to all trades,
businesses, callings, or professions carried on after the
31st December, and it may be to existing newspapers.
Thus The Times may have to reflect whether it has
lawful authority to continue the use of the royal arms
on its title page; the Observer may also have to con.
eider by what authority it puts two copies of the royal
arms on its title page.
THE FIELD-PIECES OF THE POWERS.—According to
La France Militaire, the following is the number of
field-pieces which, on the outbreak of war, the ptin.
cipal European Powers could place in line :
Germany, 2,040; Austria, 1,540; England, 342;
France, 2,166; Russia (not counting the Asiatic
batteries and those attached to the divisions of the
Caucasus), 2,258 ; Italy, 984. Among these are not
reckoned mountain guns. To the above figures =list
be added for France 76 depot batteries, the 2 batteries
of the Marine Artillery, and the 194 batteries of the
territorial Army, which raise the total number of
field-pieces of France to 4,222. For Russia must be
added 768 pieces of the Reserve Artillery, which brings
up the total for that Power to 3,026. Italy, after
mobilising its Militia, and adding its Reserve Artillery,
would possess 1,680 pieces.
A RECREATION FOR LADIES.—The Pall Mall Gazette
says that a new amusement for ladies is reported from
Austria, In fashionable circles at Vienna the custom
has been introduced from France of instructing ladies
in fencing. A well-known fencing master who is the
most popular with the Viennese ladies in this science
gave a tournament last week, at which he presented
his pupils before a selected audience of 1,500 persons.
The enthusiasm among the audience was very great,
and it was equally divided between the skill of the fair
fencers and the tasteful arrangement of the fencing
costumes. They consisted of tight-fitting, high-necked
garments of claret-coloured or sky-blue material reach..
lug to the knees, with tricots and plastrons to 9or.
respond. Their hands were protected by fencing.
gloves, and their faces by steel masks.
HORRIBLE IDEATE OF A BOY.—ILI London, on
Tuesday morning, whilst the men who are employed
at the lime kiln works, West Ferry road, Millwall,
were at breakfast, they noticed a sudden augmenta.
tion of the flame from the kilns, and thinking that a
portion of the works had taken fire, several of them
ran towards the kiln and found that there was a body
in the middle of the furnace. They at once procured
some iron bars and with great difficulty they got the
body out of the flames, and as they did so the head
fall off. A shell was procured, and the remains were
elseeed in i; ana conveyeu to rue mortuary. After-
wards they were identified as those of Charles Bailey,
aged nine years, of Gaverick-street, Millwall.
A SAD ACCIDENT.—A Paris correspondent states
that a sad accident occurred on Monday on the rail.
way between Bordeaux and Mont de Marean. A
child of four years old was in a compartment with its
mother when the door of the carriage flew open, and
the child fell out upon the line. The mother, without
a moment's reflection, sprang after the child, regard.
less of the fact that the train was going at full speed.
On arriving at Mont de 4arean, M. Caves Esgaris,
the Prefect of the Landes, who happened to be at the
station, started on an engine, accompanied by the
station-master, to the place where the accident
happened. The infaet was found alive and unhurt,
but the mother was killed.
NEW METHOD OF TOOTH DRAWING.—The British
Medical Journal says that a dentist of Geneva has
invented a new and ingenious process of tooth-draw.
ing. A small square of india-rubber, pierced with a
central hole, is pushed over the tooth till the upper
part of the root is reached. The india-rubber gradually
contracts, pulls on the roots, and the offending tooth
is fully enucleated, without causing the patient any
Learn whatever. Four or five days are generally re.
epured te complete the operation. Very slight bleeding
and
.a slight swelling of the gum are the only incon.
yernelices experienced. M. Paul Bert brought this
ingenious method before the Aoacidenie des Sciences
i
in Paris; when M. Galippe remarked that the process
was already known, and quoted a case in support of
its !a-may, n which a young girl had placed a ring of
' india-rubber round her two front incisors, and forgot
she had done so, the result being that she lost the
teeth.

OVERDOING IT.—" What! going already, and in
mackintoshes? Surely you are not going to walk I "--
" Oh, dear no! Lord Archibald is going to take us to
a dear little slum he's found out near the Minories—
such a fearful place ! Foutteen poor things sleeping
in one bed, and no window I—and the mackintoshes
are to keep out infection, you know, and hide one's
diamonds, and all that I "—Punch.

THE FATAL ACCIDENT TO A SURGEON.—An inquest
Wa9 held on Tuesday at Manchester touching the
death of Mr. R. B. Carrutheis, surgeon and chemist.
aged 32,:wh0 died in the infirmary from injuries re•
ceived while attending a snffeter from the terrible gale
the previous week. The deceased was called in to the
wife of Mr. Unsworth, Derby•street, who had her leg
broken by the fall of a chimney•stack through the
roof while she was in bed. Mr. Carruthers was accom-
panied by his wife, and as they were standing by the
patient's bedside another chimney stack fell in on
them. At midnight the surgeon and his patient were
conveyed to the infirmary, where he died of gangrene
following on a double compound fracture of the right
thigh too high for amputation, The verdict was
"Accidental death."

THE FINANCIAL POSITION OF THE WORKING CLASSES:
—Professor Leone Levi states that as the result of re-
searches it,to the financial posit:on of the working
classe., he find that in 1866 the annual wages of
operatives, domestic servant., and others, estimated
by Mr. Gladstone at £250,000,000 were found to
amount to over £400,000,060 ; while in the present
year they may be estimated at £118,600,000. A comrn
parison of the numbers and income of the working
classes with those of others, show that in thirty yearn
an average family of the lower middle class has
proved its financial position by 37 per cent., while one
of the working class has improved by 59 per cent.
As far as be can judge, the economic condition of the
working classes has immensely improved of late years.
What they mostly need is a greater force of moral
purpose, a greater culture of the intellect, a greater
refinement of manner and taste, and an increasing
capacity to repel what is depressing, and to attract
what i 3 ennobling in their intercourse of life.

CHRISTMAS POULTRY.—On Tuesday the London
dealers made their show of Christmas poultry. There
was a large consignment of foreign geese, turkeys,
and fowls, and the supply of poultry from Norfolk
and other English counties was of excellent quality.
Large turkeys, homebred, sold at 15s. to 308. each,
and small, 108, ; geese S. to 12i.; ducks, 23. 6cl. to
45.; and large fowls, is. 61 to 83. Foreign poultry
sold at cheaper rater. The supply of game and wild
fowl was very large.

ON WOMEN COOKS.—A Connecticut paper says
"A woman can do a little cooking, for a very few
people, very well, but she fails almost always In
attempting to cook large quantities at a time and for
many people. The case is cited of a school for boys,
where women were cooks. So long as there were only
a dozen or so boys to cook for the table was well sup.
plied, but just as the number increased the food de•
teriorated. The woman who was the head cook, with
a couple of assistants, couldn't organise and manage
above a certain small number. A chance was made•
and a competent chef was procured, with a couple o
if
assistants. He had no difficulty in cooking for the n-
creased namber ; he could serve 300 just as well as
twsnty, with economy, with regularity, and with a
table as unif,,rn3ly good. The other failing of women
55 Cooks is their irregularity of performance. There
are exceptions, of course, but women cooks usually
can do nothing the same way twice. They use what
tiviy call their judgment.' and the result is, of course,
Perpetual experiment. Who ever knew a woman to
make soft gingerbread —to take a common and
huakneyt,d e e? We are not nOW
ralbin;.; a u...n al que.tion as to whether life, which IS a
perpetual experiment, is not more interesting than life
that goes by rule; we are not op 'fling the question of
woman's chief and enduring clarna ; we are only
practically considering the fact that when the beat
way of making any dish or of cooking any food is dis-
covered, it is hest to adhere to it. We are not going
to argue that in the natural const,tution of the sexes
we should expect men to be the beat cooks; We simplY
rad upon the fact that they mil