The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-12-13 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

There is an exceptionally plentiful crop of holly
berries this year.

Emigration from Germany to Bosnia is setting in,
sixty families having already repaired thither in the belief
that the exodus of Manomedans has created an opening for
them.
%.
A Japanese Geographical Society has been estab-
lished at Tokio.
Telegraphic money orders can now be sent through-
out France to any place provided with a post and telegraph
office. Sums exceeding £2OO are not received.

The Dominion Government of Canada has arranged
for the distribution of food among the Indians in the North-
west.

Viscount Chetwynd died on Saturday, at his resi-
dence, Moston-crescent, Exmouth, in his 78th year.

A fine eagle has been captured on the Chaussey Isles,
near Jersey, after it had killed a sheep.

A telegram from the Daily News correspondent at
Larnaca states that the cattle plague has broken out there,
add that considerable alarm prevails.
Severe weather is reported from all parts of Ger-
many. In Alsace and Lorraine the military have been
called out in large numbers to clear the railway lines of
snow.

An inquiry his been held at Huddersfield as to the
death of a 'brewer's labourer, who on Sunday evening was
found in a outhouse at New Inn with a bullet wound in his
head, and a pistol lying on the floor. A tablet was found
on his person bearing these words—" Hard up and out of
work." A verdict of "Suicide" was returned.

The Luxembourg Palace in Paris has had a narrow
escape of being burned down. A fire, which appears to
I have been smouldering for some time, broke out under the
I flooring of the library on blouday, but it was extinguished
before it could extend. A number of book's were burned.

A shocking accident occurred on Tuesday afternoon
at the wool warehouses of the London Docks. Six men
entered the cage of the hydraulic lift on the top floor, the
building being 100 feet high, and had descended halt•way,
when the lift-chain snapped, and they were precipitated to
the bottom. Three of the men died before their injuries
could be attended to, and the other three are not expected
to recover.

Recently the Lords of the Admiralty prohibited
the wearing of flannel jerseys by naval seamen beneath the
• outer garments, on the ground that by the regulation uni-
form throats and chests were left bare. The outcry against
this during the severe weather is endorsed by the naval
surgeons, who point to increased sick lists. The Lords of
the Admiralty have, in consequence issued permission for
the wearing jerseys during the winter months, on a pattern
to be approved by the Admiralty.

At a meeting representing 4,000 colliers of the
Bolton district held on Monday evening, It was resolved to
ask for an advance of 10 per cent, in wages.
. The Treasury authorities have warned the various
spending departments that they desire to have the estimates
ready earlier than has been the custom for some years past,
in order that all the votes may be taken before Easter.
A meeting of old Etonians has been held in London,
at the Westminster Palace Hotel, to consider a proposal to
+ raise a monument in Eton College Chapel to the memory of
the officers educated at Eton who had fallen in the Afghan
aad South African campaign. Resolutions affirming the
objects of the meeting were passed, and a committee was
formed to carry them into effect.
The outbreak of rinderpest in Warsaw and several
of the neighbouring districts is confirmed by official com-
munications in the Polish and German Press. In conse-
quence of this confirmation, the Government authorities of
. Prussian Silesia have already adopted stringent measures,
with a view to prevent the disease being brought across the
frontier.
During the recent severe weather several explosions
of kitchen boilers have taken place in London;>by which much
damage has been done.

It is reported (says the Examiner) that some of the
younger and more enthusiastic members of Parliament, who
are devout disciples of Mr. Gladstone, are bent on writing a
new and purely political biography of their hero.
The late Miss Fanny Hersee has bequeathed a
legacy of £250 to the National Society for Promoting the
Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established
Church.

The church of the email town of Ssventhem, in
Belgium, possesses a celebrated picture by Van Dyck, repre-
senting a scene from the life of St. Martin. Van Dyck has
pourtrayed himself as the saint, and his master, Sir Peter
Paul Rabaul', as one of the personages in the scene. It is
reported that the Prince of Wales has offered 300,000 f. for
the picture, but that the Belgian Government, having heard
of the offer, will purchase it for the State Museum.

The American papers state that during the voyage
of the City of Richmond, Inman steamer, which was towed
Into Halifax in a disabled condition, the second officer, Mr.
Egnor, was drowned, having been washed off the deck by
a sea on the day previous to the steamer breaking her
shaft. .

The St. Martin's Market, in Paris, fell-in on
Monday night just before ten o'clock. Happily the accident
happened at night, otherwise it might have caused the death
of hundreds of people. As it was, only one man was seriously
injured. The accident appears to have been caused by the
weight of the snow on the roof, which became too heavy for
the walls to support.

A. Lloyd's telegram says that the British steamer
Roscommon, from Liverpool for Havannah, has capsized
and sunk. Six of the crew were drowned. Part of the
crew were picked up by the Norwegian barque Svanen,
from Savannah for Genoa, and were landed at St. Michael's.
The Roscommon was a screw steamer of 1,600 tons, built at
Newcistie in 1879, classed 100 A 1, and owned by Mr. J. D.
Milburn, of London.

A great improvement is reported to have taken place
in the health of the Empress of Russia, and her Majesty is
now on a fair way to recovery.
The Broad Arrow says :—With regard to the grant
of an Afghan medal, if we are correctly informed, the
nominal rolls are to be sent in of all officers and men who
have actually served beyond the frontier during last *inters
campaign, and a clasp will be added in the case of those
officers and men who have served in the recent operations
under Sir F. Roberts.
The Annuaire de Statistique states that out of the
37,000,000 inhabitants In France there are 2,613 men between
05 and 100 years of age, and 191 over 100 years of age.
The 14th inst., the double anniversary of the death
of the Prince Consort and of the death of Princess Alice, will
be commemorated in the usual manner on Sunday. There
will be a service at the Prince Consort's Mausoleum at
Frogmore at eleven o'clock, when her Majesty and various
members of the Royal Family will be present. •
Mr. J. L. Toole, the celebrated actor, has had the
misfortune to lose his only son, Mr. Frank Laurence Toole,
a young man twenty-three years of age, whohad passed all
his preliminary examinations .for the bar, and was to have
gone up for his final examination this winter. He had been
suffering for some time from a disease of the leg, and on
Saturday it was found necessary to resort to amputation,
but he only survived the operation a few hours' and died on
Sunday morning. Mr. J. L Toole was himself confined to
his room with gout, and had to be carried down to his son's
deathbed.

The Paris correspondent of the Standard writes:
"The epidemic of diphtheria ravaging all Western and
Southern Russia has assumed such formidable proportions
that a very considerable per-centage of the young are dying.
There are districts in Bessarabia, Paltava, and the neigh-
bourhood which will have to be freed from the conscription
for years to come because there are no children left."

In a letter to Sir Julius Vogel, the Lords of the
Admiralty have declined to undertake to provide a depot of
provisions and other stores at the Crozet Islands, remarking
tLat they cannot too earnestly urge on all who have any
interest in the mercantile marine of great Britain that ships
should not be encouraged to run so far south as these islands,
for by so doing the masters not only endanger the lives and
property in their charge, but most probably lengthen the
voyage to a considerable extent.
A county meeting, convened by the High Sheriff of
Montgomeryshire, was held on Monday evening at Welsh-
pool, to consider the agricultural distress It was stated
that Montgomeryshire had not suffered from the depression
so much • as other counties; but a strong feeling was ex.
pressed in favour of seeking from the Legislature relief
from unfair and excessive taxation, which it was said
pressed so heavily on all counties alike.
- -

Mr. Lefevre M.P., who has a wide acquaintance
with agricultural questions, has been asked by the farmers
of Berkshire to address them on the causes and remedies for
the existing depression. Mr. Lefevre has consented to speak
at rk public meeting called by the farmers, but the date has
not yet been nxed.

"I noticed an act the other day which gave me more
pleasure than any thing I have seen for a long time past.
Just opposite Marlborough House is poor woman begged
money of a gerttleman. He drew out a piece of silver, ha
in the act of placing it in her hand dropped it in the mud of
the road. Ile instantly picked it up, wiped it with his hand-
kerchief, gave it to the poor woman and went his way. This
act was the most perfect illustration I ever remember
noticing of Charles Lamb's theory of a gentleman."—
Mayfair.
A t.legram from America says that a mass meeting
of Irish sympathizers, including among its promoters some
of the most influential citlzs, was held at St. Louis, on
Monday evening The speakers referred chiefly to the
hardships
.arising from the Irish LAnd laws, and the action
of the landlords. Resolutions were adopted declaring the
entreat sympathy of those present with Ireland; favouring
the introduc:ion of a system of peasant proprietorship;
censuring the action of the English Government, as respon-
sible for Irish distress; and promitiug material aid to those
in need. The meeting did not disperse till a late hour.
A remarkable illustration of the severity of the
weather Is announced in some of the Paris papers. At a
quarter before seven on Thursday morning in last week it
was announced to some of the gendarmes who were going
their rounds In the Bela de Boulogne that three wolves had
been seen near the Nouveau Chalet. A chase was at once
made after the animals, and the gendarmes before long saw
a she-wolf and two nearly full-grown young wolves. Owing
to the party having no hounds with them, however, they
were unable to overtake the animals, which quickly disap-
peared in the wood.
The Duke of Argyll gives his "First Impressions
of the New World," In Fraser fer December. He explains
that his visit was "purely personal and private," that he
"saw little of men, and nothing of institutions," and
that, "from politics of all kinds, whether Eastern or
Western, it was his great object to escape." The Duke
gives, however, a graphic account of what ha saw, and he
seems, like many others who have crossed the Atlantic fbr
theft's,: time, to have been awed with the "wonders of the
New World."
It was computed by the office of Works and the
Royal Humane Society's officials respectively that upon live,
pieces of ornamental water in the Metropolitan parks—
namely, Regent's Park Lake, St. James's Perk "Canal,"
the Long Water in Kensington-gardens, the Round Pond,
and the Ornamental Water in Finsbury-park—there was
during last Saturday about 70,000 skaters and sliders in the
aggregate. Regent's-park having the maximum of 19,000 and
Unions Water coming next with 16.000- Ma" th"jandli
of persons tined the banks.

i fiame