The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-11-04 00:00:00

BEEF FROM AMERICA,

The Globe says :—" The American papers are at
present expressing much delight at the sudden growth
of a new trade. This is the export of dressed beef to
England. The experiment was first made only about
a year ago, and since that time, the New York Times
asserts, from a tingle shipment cf a few carcases
in one refrigerator, the trade has grown to the send-
ing out of a thousand head a week, and one shipper
alone has contracts with seventeen steamers to
carry out weekly contracts.' Our American con-
temporary points out that farmers east of the
Mississippi have thus a splendid prospect before
them. Hitherto, they have competed with the
Western graziers at a disadvantage, as the pastures of
the latter cost them nothing. But for the foreign trade
nothing is good enough except the best bred and the
beat fed cattle; and these can be raised, or at least
fattened, beat near to market. Americans have been
accustomed te send to this country in large quantities
the materials of which the most suitable food for cattle
Is manufactured. They are now urged to keep these
at home, and let England have only the final result,
beef, thus retaining in the .United States the profit
of the entire business. The English public will have
no reason to be sorry if this advice is taken. The
correspondence which has lately appeared in our
columns must have convinced the staunchest friends
of the butchers that the oommunity is not fairly
treated by this class of tradesmen. They have, of
couse, a perfect right 'to considerable return for the
outlay of capital and for their trouble; but it is now
proved that the profit taken by too many of them is
far in excess. of justice. Nothing will bring them to
their senses so soon or so completely as active foreign
competition. The United States have of course a
great advantage over the countries of South America,
the voyage in the one case being much shorter than in
the other. This circumstance would also tell in favour
of Canada if our cllonial fellow subjects cared to enter
upon this particular enterprise."

LIVADIA DESCRIBED.
A name that has for the last month been more con-
stantly and loudly sounded in the public ear than
almost any other is that of Livadia (says the Globe).
Yet there is scarcely a place in the world about which
it is more difficult to get any information. It is known
to be situated somewhere in the Crimea, in fall view,
as a St. Petersburg journal has ostentatiously in-
formed the world, of the waters which wash the
coveted capital of the East. But whether it is a town
or a village, a palace or a shooting-box, very few per-
sons in this country would venture to say. The maps
are, of course, mute on the subject, and that enter-
prising race of men the special correspondents, seems to
have had few opportunities as yet of penetrating into the
mysterious domain. It appears, however' from a quo-
tation made by the Paris Figaro, that the Yankee
"interviewer " some time ago made his way into the
Imperial sanctum, and the result of his expedition has
been recorded in one of those dreariest of productions.
the American humorist's diary. According to the
account given of it by the man of wit and travel,
Livadia is a happy combination of Imperial splendour
with rustic simplicity. Lying at about three miles
distance from the village of Yalta, it is protected on
three sides by a giant amphitheatre of sloping hills.
The parks and gardens extend far and wide over
the sides of the mountains, and amid the luxuriant
foliage are seen the bright roofs and porticos
of many picturesque villas, belonging not to the
Czar only, but to various other members of
the Imperial Family. These habitations are for
the most part as remarkable for their modest
dimensions as the grounds are for their size. The
most pretentious of them seem to be that of the Grand
Duke Michael, which is built solidly in the purest style
of Grecian architecture. But the charms which have
made Livadia the favourite resort of the present Czar
are not those of art so much as of nature. Numbers
of small pavilions scattered here and there about the
woods attest his love of a climate more genial than
that of the mainland. It is accordingly for the beauty
of the trees and flowers and the splendour of the
scenery that the place is to be admired, rather than
for that elegant luxury with which the Russians,
wherever they may be, know how to surround them-
selves.