The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-10-11 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

Twenty deaths in Memphia (U.S.) from yellow fever
are reported for last week.

The Francais is informed that Baron de Rothschild
Is prepared t,) contribute the sum of two millions of friicq
towards the experiments for constructing thg submarine
tunnel between France and ngland.
There is some probability that the present Mikado
of Japan will shortly throw aside the seclusion which has
surrounded his office for centuries, and pay a visit to this
and other European countries.

Pear trees in Japan are trained on trellises placed
horizontally some six feet from the ground The earth
underneath is filled with vegetables which require shade
and little sun. Tr-lose pear-orchards extend for hundred of
yards along the railway from Yokohama to Tokio.

A Maiden Speech.—Proposing the health of the
bridesmaids —Fn.
Mulos are being imported from the Mediterranean
islands for military purposes. Experience shows that A
mule can be kept for £lO a year loss than a military horse,
besides being surer-footed and capable of euchring more
hardships.
The Society for Preventing Street Accidents states
that, during the week ending October 4, seven persons were
killed by vehicles in the London streets end thirty live run
over.

The Field has the agreeable information that the
Tod in the north of Scotland has obtained more sport during
the last week than at any time since the closing of the netting
season.

A: party of enterprising Norwegians have just
starttd to colonise the Aldabra Islands, in the Indian Ocean,
within-10 degrees of the equator. Tke undertaking is a bold
. OD% for there is a vast difference between the climate of
Norway and that of the new settlement, which at present Is
Uninhabited.. •
Commenting on fashionable millinery, the American
Traveller morallaes thus I—'l A woman may wear her hat
knocked into any conceivable shape, and both herself and
hat are pronounced perfectly lovely, but just let a man jam
in one side of his hat and he is at once proclaimed a first-
class rowdy or a wine-bibbing vagabond."
The ship Northampton, 1,161 tone, Captain Clare,
.chartere4,by the Agent-General for New South Wales, sailed
frofn Ply Mouth for SydneypnTsidtry•in !asp week, with 420
emigrants, under the supervision of tr. Westby, as surgeon-
superintendent, with Miss gent in charge of the single
women.
In repairing a cellar at Bacharach, near Coblenz, a
peasant ha 's found 60 gold coins, dated between 1450 and
1520. They were coined by Duke Ulric of Wilrtemberg,
Archbishop Jacob of Mainz, the Elector of Cologne, the
Emperor Maximilian (at Frankfort), Archduke Sigismund of
the ryrol, and the Elector Palatine Philip.
. A Berlin correspondent mentions that the construc-
tion of heavy ironclads has been discontinued in the German
Navy, their place being supplied by small vessels, with un-
c ninsonly powerful engines, and armed with a rotating
cannon, whose shot will pierce the heaviest cuirass in use at
a distance of three miles.

The death is announced from Copenhagen of the
Danish composer Peter Arnold Heise, at the age of 49.
Though principally known in his own country as a song-
writer, he had also attempted larger works, net without

success.

The directors of the Metropolitan Elilway are
making an experiment with the electric light at the Alders-
gate Station. They intend to use Is long enough to compare
Its cost with that of gas, and hopes are entertained that it
will prove cheaper. If so, the light will be extended to all
the other sta ions on the line. It is the Lontin light which
is used. ~•
It has been decidea at the War Office that, having
regard to the serious nature of the diseases to which horses
are subject at the Cape, it would be incurring too great a
risk of infection to bring back to England any of the horses
which have been used by the mounted troops serving in the
Zulu war.

False hair Is now worn by many French children,
the Parisian tells us, most of the long fair locks which hang
over the little cnes' shoulders being artificial. Exceptionally
vain mothers also dye their children's hair, and darken their
eyebrows,

-
Her Majesty's ship Bacchante, with the two eons of
the Prince of Wales on board, arrived at Gibraltar on Mon-
day morning, having, it iii stated, had a beautiful pagsage
from England.

Orders have (says the Standlrd) been given for the
immediate return to India of all officers now home on leave
from regiments detailed for service on the frontier, except-
ing, of course, such officers as may be unfit for active ser-
vice on account of ill health.

Lord Randolph Churchill, MP., speaking at Wood-
stock on Tuesday evening, observed that if English farmers
were to compete with foreigners, great changes must be
made in our antiqae agrloultur,sl system, and the law of
entail, so far as its operation prevented the application of
capital to land, must be amended.

Over £4OO have been received for admission money
to see the splendid new steamship, the Orient. The sum is
to be divided among seamen's charitable institutions.
The ne w cotton season just commenced in Eupt
promises to be a brilliant one.
At the last meeting of the Liverpool town council,
it was resolved by 33 votes to 12 to direct the promotion in
Parliament of a bill for obtaining a supply of water from
the river Vyrnwy and its tributaries, iu Montgomeryshire.
A town's meeting will have to be held to confirm this resolu-
tion.
Steps are proposed to be taken by the rfricers and
past officers of the 24th Regiment to raise a monument in
memory of their comrades in arms who lost their lives in
action with the Zulus on January 22nd last during the attack
on the British camp at Isandula.
During September the revenue of the Dominion of
Canada was 1,913,067 dollars, including customs duties
1,189,021 dollars; the expenditure was 807,623 dollars.
The Americans are complaining of the slowness of
their train service, and draw comparisons from the English
service. Thus the daily express mail between London and
Holyhead is said to cover 268 miles in four hours and a half,
while the fastest train between New York and Washing.
ton, a distance of 228 miles, occupies six hours and twenty
minutes, and most of the regular trains take from eight to
nine hours.
In a private letter, dated "Fort Newdigate, August
21st," Just received from Lieutenant Arthington Worsley,
Natal Native Contingent, he says :—"Dlgby and I, and one
of the fellows in the 21st Regiment, are going over to-day to
the place where the poor Prince Imperial was killed to pub
up a cross in memoriam,"