The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-05-03 00:00:00

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

Sir William Armstrong's firm is engaged in the
manufacture of a new machine gun, which will be submitted
to the committee now appointed to inquire into the best
form of machine gun for adoption in the services.

It is stated that the Powers have agreed to the pro-
posal of the French Government in favour of joint media-
tion between the Porte and Greece, with s view to bringing
about a settlement of the Greek frontier question.
The widow of Shere All and the mother of his de-
signated successor, the late Abdoollah Jan, has returned to
CabuL

Seven colliers who were buried in a mine near
Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, were rescued unharmed after
5i days' imprisonment. They subsisted on the flesh of an
imprisoned mule. The rescuers worked steadily day and
night, constructing a drift 1,200 f I. long to extricate them.
The original autograph score of Beethoven's Pastoral
Symphony has just been sold by auction in London for £55.
It wanted two pages to complete.

- - -
The May number of the Nineteenth Century will
contain an article on "Public Interest in Agricultural
Reform," by Mr. William E. Bear.

The recent fatality of diphtheria among Royal
personages in Germany has induced the Empress Augusta to
offer an international prize for the best treatise on the care
of the disease, the paper to be sent in ik ith in the year.

Bolivia, which has just gone to war with Chili, has
no navy, but her standine army Ls reported to number 2000
men, commanded by eight generals and 1,013 other °facers,
being an officer to every two men.

In London, on Saturday evening, the Prince of
Wales honoured with his presence the annual dinner of the
membeis of the Royal Institute of British architects (given
at the Freemasons' Tavern), His Royal Highness, who is
patron of the Institute, in proposing the toast of the even-
ing, asked what greater proof could there be of the Society's
prosperity than the fact when it was founded forty years ago
it mustered but twenty members, whilst now it could boast
of seven hundred and fifty.

Three French officers who visited Metz the other day
without passports, were arrested by the German authorities
and were sent back to the frontier by the next train.
A leader of fashion in S%n Francisco has had her
chairs and cushions stuffed with aromatic herbs, in Iran-
tion of a practice prevalent among Oriental nations.

Professor Virchow has written to Berlin that he was
present at the exhumation of a treasure, consisting of article
of gold ,by Dr. Schllemann, in the Troad, and that he is now
in a position fully to confirm the truth of Dr. Schliemann's
statement

While the traffic receipts of British railways show
such unfavourable results week by week, on most of the
French lines they exhibit a steady increase.
Daring the last fortnight a considerable number of
salmon caught in the Tweed have been d teased. One of the
fibh 114 s been sent to Professor Christisson, of Edinburgh, and
his opinion is that the substance attached to the fish is an
Irritating fungus which eats into the flesh and causes the
salmon to rub itself w destruction on the sand or gravel.
Considerable numbers of dead fish have been taken from the
river recently.

A deputation from the Canals Association of Great
Britain has waited upon the Duke of Richmond and Gordon
to suggest such alterations in the Rivers Conservancy Rill as
would "preserve with more security and more definitely the
rights and privileges appertaining to canals." His Grace
thought the privrliges and powers of all canal companies
were amply protected by a clause in the 13111, but promised
to look into the matter.

The twelfth week of the London Engineers' strike
has now been entered on, and as yet neither the ten
employers, who continue to enforce the reduction 7i per
cet., or the men show the least sign of giving way. Of those
who first came out on strike, about 20 per cent. have suc-
ceeded in getting work elsewhere, and the remainder con-
tinue to receive relief pay varying from 101 to 225. per week
according to the number of children each man has.

An agitation has been commenced by the drivers
and conductors of the Paris Omnibus Compauy to obtain an
amelioration of their position. They ask that their service
should be reduced to thirteen hours a 4y, and that they
should have a day's rest once a month.

"A correspondent of the Prairie Farmer, writing
from Williamson, Kansas, mentions land there that "you
caq farm both sides '—that is, the upper and under sides
Very useful land that. The crop grown on the under side
Is coal. Coal-farms can be bought at from 20 to 60 dollars
per acre. Kansas farmers also grow the Castor bean, and
some of them are taking to mulberry planting, for the pur-
pose of silk growing, in which industry a Frenchman, M
liossiere, is said to have made a great success. He has an
estate of 3,000 acres, and a machinery for weaving the silk
into ribbon —Mark Lane Express.

On Monday the Lord Chancellor was a witness be-
fore the House of Commons Select Committee appointed to
consider the provisions of the Laud Titles Transfer Bill.
He gave several reasons why he tnought the Act relating to
the subject had no: been resorted to as largely as he should
have desired ; explained why he had not approved of Lord
Westbury's statute, and called attention to the fact that
there was a remarkable tendency throughout the country to
shorten deeds of all kinds. The only way in which Parlia-
ment could abbreviate them was by providing forms and
saying that certain signs or words should mean very much
more than at first appeared.

The satisfactory state of the public health in Man.
cheater was referred to at the monthly meeting of the In-
firmary Board of Management on Monday. Mr .T Schofield
(the chairman of the Health Committee of the City Council)
said that the lowest parts of tho city at present had the least
amount of fever; in fact, itcould not be said that there was
a single " fever nest" in Manchester.

The French Government ha l awarded gold medals
to Messrs. John E. Smythe, Horatio Pritchard,W. Leigh, and
H. S. Perry, in the service of the Submarine Telegraph Com-
pany, for rescuing the crew of the Ange, wrecked last
February on the Cornish coast.
A plague of ghostly rats is infesting Sholapore, in
the Deccan. The superstitious ryots declare that these
destructive creatures are the spirits of their relatives, who,
having died,of famine a year or two ago, have now returned
In another shape to share the produce of the field, and ac-
cordingly, although the rats come in enormous swarms and.
destroy 2.5 per cent. of the growing crops the natives hold it
sacrilegious to kill a single one of the pests. The rats have
evidently travelled from Indapore where a similar belief
prevailed as to their origin, and as they move from district
to district serious scarcity will ensue if preventive measures
are not taken.

Amongst the unclaimed "lots" of the French
National Lottery there are pictures, statues, a cheese,
frozen plants, and a safety-chest. Many of the "prizes '!
still remaining without an owner are worthless, and would
not pay the expense of removal Perhaps the safety-chest
may labour under the inconvenience of one that was recently
put up for sale, of which the secret for opening it had been
lost. All the lumber will, nevertheless, have to be "kept
till called for" by the administration, and its housing will
probably exceed its value.

Professor C. H. Pearson, M.A. (member of the
Legislative Assembly of Victoria), distributed on Saturday
the prizes and certificates awarded to the successful students
of the Crystal Palace School of Practical Engineerit,g.
Previouely to doing so he stated that he was much struck by the
mechanical excellence of the work he had seen its the work-
shops, and he rejoiced to find the study of engineering was
being cultivated so extensively it some of the great schools
of England.

The Lord Chancellor's report on the Earl of
Wintertou's claim to vote for representative peers for Ire-
land has been published. The lord Chancellor states that
the claim has been established to his satisfaction.

At twelve o'clock on Sunday (says the Correspondent
of The Times) Dr. Newman was received in private audience
by the Pope, who retained him in conversation nearly an
hour, manifesting a very particular consideration and kind-
ne.s towards him. Dr. Newman, who was attended to the
Vatican by the Fathers of the Oratory at Birmingham who
have accompanied him from England, afterwards visited
Catdinal Nina, who expressed in affectionate terms his heart-
felt pleasure in welcoming his new brother in the purple.
On Saturday afternoon, at Dundee, while William
&radian, clerk, was walking along the track of the Dunferm-
line branch of the North British Railway, he cbserved a
train approaching him. lie stepped on to another set of
rails, upon which a train was coming from an opposite direc-
tion. Being uuaware of this, he was knocked dawn and
Instantly killed

Under the head of "Conscience Money" (in
The Times), the Chancellor of the Exchequer acknowledges
receipt of bank-notes fzr Zil.s from "DR.," and a £1 note
sent anonymously,
The six days' walking match that commenced at the
Agric:llt.sral Hall on Monday morning in last week was
brought to a conclusion on Saturday evening at twenty
minutes past nine o'clock, at which /sour Brown, the winner,
had succeeded in walking the marvellous distance of 6421
miles; Hazael at the time being recond with 492 miles;
Corkey third, with 4134 miles; and Weston last, with 450
miles. Brown consequently takes the whole of the stakes,
£4OO, as well half the surplus profits from the admission
money to the Hall—a no inconsidersble sum—Mattel takes
t ic4
juligter, Corkey a sixth, and Weston the remaining
isv
An experiment has been successfully made on the
Rdinburgh and Glasgow branch of the North British Railway
with a new method of illuminating carriages. The system
is worked ix connection with the Westinghouse break, and
by means of a product of paraffin oil, patented, a brilliant
light much superior to that of oil-lamps is obtained.

The death is announced of Countess Fiorini tiaz,
z tntl, one of the most illustrious female cultivators at
natural science Italy has producsd She Via% 4 vaember of
several scientific academies and highly aateemed by the
most celebrated botanists of Europe. eugh in her 80th
year, she was occupied on a work upon the spontaneous flora
of the Colosseum, in course o, blication in the acts of
the Academy of the Nuovi
A patriarch of kllo forest has been lately felled in
California, and ti,.o greater portion of the wood taken to San
Francisco. „tit was known by the epithet of "Oki Moses."
If one sufgl,-.t infer with accuracy its age from the number of
its cls, it must have been 4,840 years old. Its capacity is
u.id to have been so great that 300 persons could find room
within its trunk.

M. Michel Etienne, founder and chief editor of the
Neue Fr6e, Presse, died in Vistula on Tuesday morning in
his fifty-second year, after a long and painful illness. ,
The Lord Mayor of London has announced that the
fund now being raised at the Mansion House will not be
exclusively conned to the relief of the widows and orphans
of those who fell at Isandula and Rorke's Drift, but will be
extended to the all of the widows and orphans of all those
who have fallen, or may yet fall, during the Zulu war.
Down to Monday evening, the lurk(' amounted to £lO,OOO.

The secretary of the Durham Miners' Union and a
number of the Durham coalowners met on Tuesday evening,
when a prolonged discussion took place on the subject of the
strike. It was ultimately agreed that a coramittee of seven
or nine persons on each side should be appointed 14 she
masters' union and by the men's union, with fell powers to
make an arrangement. It is fully expected ts this course
will lead to an early resumption of work.
Her Majesty has sent a do--,...L..ti0n of £3, upon the
application of the Rev. 3, Uewlett, vicar of St. Luke's,
Millwall, to a poor wora.;, living in the above parish, the
wife of a labourer, ir:zp was confined recently With three male
children. Opho previous occasion the mother had twins
(feI:II9.IRA All are alive and doing well,
hit R. W. Hanbury, M.P., speaking at the
Staffordshire Chamber of Agriculture on Saturday, criticised
Mr. Sclater-Booth s County Boards Bill, referring to it as bad
in principle, describing rimy of its provisions as absurd, and
maintaining that the division of the county business between
toe quarter sessions aud the proposed county board was
thoroughly unsound in principle. A resolution was passed
by, the Chamber against the Bill.
The Infanta Christina, daughter of the Duke of
Montpensier, and elder sister of the late young Queen of
Spain, died on Monday afternoon at Seville, in her twenty.
seventh year, Tne event has caused a painful impression,
and much sympathy Is expressed among men of all parties
with the double bereavement of the Montpensier family in
loss than a year.

Writiug from Rome, the Correspondent ei The
Ttmes, says :—" Formerly the Catholic paps were filled
with announcements of the conspicrtoud sums of money
continually placed at the feet of glut IX. N w, instead,
we hear as repe.teoly of tlic nauntficent amounts given by
Lea XIII. for charita.4e purpo‘es. On the occasion of
Itatter hts Itolir.e.:s distributed 26,000% to indigent persons
and pious instif4tions, without taking into account sped.'
Inpostdi4s granted to convents and educational establish-
lißbuta hi Rome and ehewhere."
balsais ig to become again an in3portaut place of
arms and a fortress of the first class. The ramparts now
surrounding the town, which are of an antiquated type and
would afford no protection whatever against an attack
undertaken with modern artillery, are to he levelled, and a
new enceinte, with a girdle of detached forts la advance of
it, Is to be constructed. resting en the citadel, and enclosing
the towns of Calais and St. Pierre, as well as the principal
works deiigned in accordance with the law of the 14th of
December, 1.8.75, for the improvumeut el the port%

The Queen, accompanied by Princess Beatrice,
will, according to present arrangements, leave Windsor
Castle for Balmoral about the 19th of may.
The Sultan has permitted the institution of a Grand
National Lottery on the pattern of the Italian.
A telegram from Madrid says that at the village of
Yeas, in the province of Jaen, a hill has fallen in, demolish-
ing five houses. Thirty persons were killed and fourteen
insured.
The ladies of Detroit hare taken madly to the
bicycle; the reason given is that it is fast and they can dress
In breeches.

Twelve hundred 'silk weavers at -Lyons haie struck
against a reduction of the wages tariff of MM.
At the meeting at Newcastle on Saturday of the
North of England gas managers, the chairman, Mr. Rep.
worth, of the Carlisle Gas Works, stated that since their
last meeting there had been an unprecedeLted aotivity in
their nuaineas, A scheme had been successfully initiated in
a midland city, where the depression of the trade was great,
for the cooking of dinners for the public by gas.
_ _ _

A slight earthquake was felt between 9.15 and 9.30
p in. on the 24th inst. at Sigmaringeu. The direction was
not observed. _ _

The total debt chargeable on the revenues of India
which was held in England on the 31st of March last Wks
£60,029,117, the amount of debt incurred during the ball.
year ending on that date being £3,175,000, and the amount
discharged £2,487,500. With the exception of £20,917, the
whole of the debt bore interest.
Some idea of the national importance of the strike
of Durham colliers may be inferred from the fact that when at
work these men "put out" twenty-five million tons of coal
per annum. _ _

- A telegram from Lloyd's Agent at Comma (dated
29th) states that the British steamer Nile, belonging to Mr.
George Clark, of Sunderland, bound from Elva to Newport,
with a cargo of mineral ore, had struck on the Linnela rocks,
and was a total loss. Of her crew, three men only were
saved, the remainder (twenty) having been drowned. Tbe
Nile was an iron screw steamer of over 1,300 tons register,
built at Sunderland in 1868.

The Queen arrived at Windsor Castle at halt-past
five o'cioca last Saturday evening from Baveno.
Dean Stanley has consented to the erection a
statue in Westminster Abbey in memory of ,Str James
Simpson, the late Professor of Midwifery in Edintrurgb
University and the famous discoverer of chloroform.

The Tweed Salmon Fishery continues very unpro-
ductive. The result of the fishing up to this date is very
mueh behind that of last year. The scarcity of fish keeps
the prices up. On Saturday salmon was selling at 2s. 2d.,
and trout at 2s. per pound.

"The missing link" has been discovered in the
Siwalik rocks of the Punjab. Mr. Theobald, of the Geolo-
gical Survey, has found the skull of an anthropoid ape, an
adult female, which must have been as large as a female
gorilla or °rang. This is the first fossil found in India
which bears a resemblance to existing apes; and this
animal must have been as distinct as the gorilla and the
chimpanzee, or any other two types of ape It Is, tberefore,
proposed to give it a new name—Palaeopithecus.—Echo.

The Indian Government. according to a Times tele-
gram, has resolved on a considerable redaction of the expen-
diture. Henceforth only twe millions and • a half will be
allowed for public works.

To the great delight of an immense number of
Parisians, the Gingerbread Fair and its numerous attendant
attractions are to be kept open for another fortnight (says
the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph). The ran, which
has almost continually fallen since Easter Sunday, is the
cause of this respite given to the vendors of gingerbread
and purveyors of cheap amusements.

A. six days' professional bicycle race, for prizes
amounting to £3OO, was commenced on Monday, at the
Agricultural Hall, London. where a competition of a similar
character took place last November. The men are permitted
to ride for eighteen hours a day—from six in the morning
till midnight. There were nine starters.

The Sheffield Telegraph states that Hospital Satur-
day in Sheffield. owing to the depressed state of trade,
has not been so suocessful as usual. The amount collected
was £635, against £B5O last year.

Oct Sunday last, in the various Baptist churches
and chapels throughout the 'metropolis, special services
were conducted and collections made on behalf of the Baptist
Missionary Society. Mr. Spurgeon officiated in the Metro-
politan Tabernacle at both morning and evening services,
and pleaded the cause of the society on both occasions,
taking his text from the latter part of Jeremiah, c. 14, v. 22.
"Art not Thou He, 0 Lord, our sod? therefore we will call
upon Thee, for Thou hast made all these things."
Some of the best eels for the London market are
caught in the streams or dykes that run through Rye on the
coast of Sussex. Sometimes at one day's netting over live
hundred weight are netted. The method of fishing is rather
peculiar; for the bed of the stream is first stirred up with
long punt poles with wooden cups at the end, and the fish
are captured between two nets which cross the stream.—
Pictorial World.

The Bishop of Ripon, in the course of his triennial
visitation, addressed a large gathering of the clergy in the
Bradford parish church on Saturday. His Lordship re-
marked how insignificant in comparison with the great end
of the ministry were the trifles about which men's thoughts
were exercised, and for the indulgence of which there was
in some quarters an utter disregard for the law. The Church
of England necessarily admitted great diversity of thought,
but that diversity must be under some control; and U every
man did that which was right in his own eyes a state of
anarchy would be brought about which would be enough to,
jeopardise the very existence of the Church, considered
merely as an establishment.

This year is the eighteenth centenary of the destruc-
tion of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and, in consequence, the
directors of the excavations have conceived the project ot
celebrating the event by a scientific fete, which will be held
In November. The principal Italian archteologista are
already invited, and it is probable that the invitations will
be extended to foreign swans.

A letter was sent in the course of last week to Mr.
W. E. Gladstone, M.P., informing him that, at a recent
meeting of working men held in Camden-town, London, it
was stated that, had the right honourable gentleman been
In office, England would not have been engaged in the
Afghan or Zulu campaign, hor in a probable Burmese War,
nor would turkey have been in her then condition witit
respect to Russia. To this communication the right honour
able gentleman has returned the following courteous rep 33
—" Str,—l thank you for your obliging communication, in
which, with an undue indulgence, much is ascribed to me
which I must regard as due to the body of coadjutors with
whom I acted in the Government. They will. I feel con-
fident, persist in the course which has won for them so much
of invaluable confidence and support.—l am, Sir, yours faith-
fully and obediently, W. E. GLADSTONE...

The latest American effort is paper napkins. Since
they were introduced by a manufacturing firm in Wisconsin,
one Boston firm alone has sold 250,000 of them.
The hev. A. H. Mackonochie, vicar of St. Alban's,
Holborn, recently met with a serious accident on the Great
Western Railway. Stepping from a train at the Didcet
station at night be missed his footing and fell between the
platform and rails under the carriage. He sustained serious
injuries, including a dislocation of the right shoulder; but
he is progressing favourably.

Tenders have been accepted from the Church cf
England Temperance Society by the Council of the Royal.
Agricultural society, to take in band the temperance refresh-
ment sheds at the International Show at Kilburn, in July
next. The new hop drinks of the National Temperance
Beverage Company will be sold.
The boring at Sangatte for the experimental tunnel
under the Channel, whica was resumed a low weeks ago, has
now reached strata which yield large supplies of water. At
the end of last year the well was 115 feet deep: it has now
been driven to a depth of 128 feet, or about 30 feet below
low-water mark, but the water accumulates at the rate of
about 300 gallons per minute, and more powerful pumps are
required before the work can proceed.

A return moved for by the Duke of Somerset ahows
that during the twelve months ended January last 60,341
tons of dead meat were imported into the United Kingdom
from the United States of America; of which there were
10,458 tons salted beef, 25,181 fresh beef, 16,987 salt pork,
and 465 fresh pork; 15,161 tons of meat preserved otherwise
than by salting, and 2,099 tons principally of fresh mutton.

A meeting has been held in London at the West-
minster Palace Hotel to consider the desirability of bringing
about a union between the English, Scotch, and Irish agri-
culturists and land reformers and the establishment of an
association having in view the better representation of
tenant farmers in Parliament and the amendment of laws
which impede the progress and prosperity of agriculture.
Members of Parliament representing English, Scotch, and
Irish constituencies and a few welt-known agriculturists
v: are present. Resolutions settling the bases of union were
unanimously passed, and the question of a publics conference
in London was discussed.