The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-03-11 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

Last year the Probate Duty yielded an increase of
£88,687 on the preceding year, the amount being £2,153,797.
The Lancet states that the professional receipts of
the late Dr. BEgble, the distinguished physician, were as
much as ftrom £7,000 to £lO,OOO a year.
The Massachusetts Senate, by 19 to 11. defeated a
Bill giving woraenthe right to vote and hold office in cities
and towtts.

One hundred and twelve guns have been captured
from the &diets, and, together with the small arms, are
valued at 37 milltots of franca.

Lo. rd 'Lytton, the newly-appointed Viceroy of India,
left Paris on Tuesday, for Brindisi, on his way out to take
possession of his post.

Arrangements have been made for the meeting of
the Prince of Wales and the new Viceroy of India at Suez.
Alter the interview Lord Lytton will proceed to Bombay.

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It is ptated that Lieutenant Cameron, the African
explorer, will spend some time in Maderia before starting
for England. He may be expected here soon after Eatter.
King Alfonso will re-enter Madrid on the 15th inst.,
taking with him the cannon-112 in number—captured from
the Carlists.

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council have
decided to extend for six years the term of Fisken's patent
for cultivating land by steam power.
A new Channel Station, in connection with the
South-Eastern Railway, whereby it is expected the passage
between London and Paris will be reduced to eight hours,
was opened at Folkestone on ftturday with some ceremony.
It may be pleasant information—to those who have
no means—that the income-tax is to be raised to threepence.
Remember, it is especially a war impost, and the extra money
required is chiefly for the Army and Navy.
Small-pox is still very prevalent amongst the natives
In B ,mbay ; several Europeans have also fallen victims to
It. Numbers of people are being re-vaccinated. The dis-
ease is also present at Allatabad.
An amnesty will be granted by the Spanish Govern-
ment to all Carlists who shall notify their submission to the
Royal authorities before the 15th Instant.
An embassy from the African kingdom of Dahomey
Is shortly to arrive in Paris. Never before has that country
sent representatives to Europe. It is stated that the object
of this embassy is to come to conclusions with France on the
important question of the abolition of slavery. The informant
does not mention which country, or it it is mutuaL

A good many people in Brooklyn being oppressed by
exorbitant charges for gas, have taken the remedy into their
own hands by resolving to use oil. The change has already
had a serious effect upon the value of shares in the gas com-
panies of that city.
Mdlle. Titiens has just been offered 4,000 dols. (or
£BOO a week to remain in America and sing twice a week
during all the weeks of the "Centennial," togethet with
hotel and travelling expenses for six persons, private caz•
riage, ec,c.
The United States ship Franklin is now at South-
ampton to receive on board "all objects and works of artt n
tended for the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, which
may be forwarded to her by the duly authorised agents of the
Exhibition in England.'
The French are very business-like in their eccen-
tricity ; for instance, a Viscount said to his groom: "Well,
Jean, you will vote for the Republic, of course ?" "Yes
sir," "Then as I intend the contrary, our votes will neu-
tralise; so we will not go to the urn at all.—Court Journal.
Post-cards are very useful things in their way, but
they have one objection—that everybody can read them. To
obviate this, the United States Post Office authorities propose
to time a stamped sheet of paper the size of an ordinary
half-shoot, with a gummed flap, so that It can be used for
both envelop 3 and paper The cost of this will be id.
A Times' telegram rays that the British barque
John Geddie, at Charleston, loading for Havre, caught fire
on Saturday (the 4th hist), and the cargo, consisting of 2,367
bales of cotton, was damaged chiefly by rater, with which
the vessel was filled. The loss is estimated at 199,000d015.

Two eledones, members of the octopus family, have
been received at the Aquarium from Mevagissey, Cernwa2l,
where they were captured by some fishermen. The specimens
are unusually large, and are in excellent condition.

Austria's share in the cost of supporting the
Bosnian refugees and sending them back to their homes is
stated to have reached the sum of 700)000 florins, while the
amount already paid to the Provincial Government of
Croatia for the same purpose, on the joint account of Austria
and Hungary is estimated at 400,000 florins more.

According to a return just igsued, there are 340
coroners in England and Wales, and the cost of the coroners
and the expenses of the inquests in the last year given
amounted to £82,538.

On Monday, at midnight, a railway train in the
Shenandoah Valley, 65 miles from Harper's Ferry, Virginia,
broke through a bridge. Eleven persons were killed and
seven wounded.
An army circular gives a list of prizes to be awarded
for good shading at target practice under new arrangements.
The first prize is Z2O and a silver medal to the best shot of
the infantry of the army.
The chief feature of the second ballot in France is
the relative success of the Bonapartistg, who have secured
30 out of 103 seats. This raises the number of Bonapartists
in the Lower House to over 100.
The Council of the Labour League have decided to
ask the workmen and political clubs of the metropolis to
assist them in getting up a great meeting in favour of the
County Franchise MIL This is to be held immediately be-
fore the question comes on for discussion in the House of
Commons.

------
Some 4,000 spectators were present at Kennington
Oval on Monday, to witness the annual Football contest be-
tween England and Scotland, under the Rugby Union rules.
The Scotchmen, having won the toss, elected to defend the
gasworks gaol, with a strong wind at their backs. At the
conclusion of the match, England won by one gaol, one try,
and three touches down to one touch down.

Lord Darby has received a deputation from the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland,
who called attention to the persecution of Christians in
Syria. The Foreign Secretary did not deny the strength of
the case which the deputation had made out, and expressed
a hope that Turkish statesmen would have the sense to see
that a system of persecution and ill-usage of the Christian
population would naturally be a cause of internal decay,
which would be fatal to the existence of the Turkish empire.
The Libert4 is to be credited with the discovery of a
most remarkable invention, by the aid of which the proposed
channel tunnel is to be completed in less than six months. It
states that a machine "has just been invented by which
fifty-five metres of ground may be pierced through per diem,
and it calculates that if both English and .French began
piercing at the same time, the tunnel can be cut out in 144
days."

'
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has given its
decision in the Jones burial case. Jones, a negro, was de-
barred burial in Mount Moriah Cemetery, Philadelphia, by
its managers. The Court has decided that he shall be buried
there.

The 26th inst. is understood to be the date on which
the Queen will leave England on her visit to the Continent,
and, according to the existing arrangements, her Majesty
will embark on board the Royal yacht Victoria and Albert
at Gravesend. The Royal yacht is now being prepared for
the conveyance of her Majesty and suite to the port on the
Continent at which she will disembark.

On Saturday, during a strong gale, the schooner
lona, of Belfast, in endeavouring to make for the port of
Liverpool, went ashore at Crosby Beach. The New Brighton
and Liverpool lifeboats went to her assistance, but before
they arrived the master had been washed overboard. The
mate and two seamen were rescued by the lifeboats and taken
to LiverpooL

King Victor Emmanuel, in opening the Italian Par-
liament, delivered a speech in which he stated that the con-
dition of Italy is good and that her relations with foreign
States are perfectly friendly. He confidently expected that
in the present session a balance between the revenue and ex-
penditure for the year would be established without increas-
ing taxation.
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Some time ago, on the Rajmahal (India) branch line,
an alligator was struck by the "cow-catcher," and in his
agony he twisted his tail between the spokes of one of the
wheels and actually stopped its revolutions as effectually as
a brake of the most powerful construction would have done.
The idea has been patented by an inventive Yankee, and the
elligator brake, it is to be hoped, will soon be used on every
railway in the world whereon Americihs traveL

The late Sir Charles Lyell left to the Geological
Society a sum of £2,000 and the die for a medal to be cast in
bronze,a copy of which and the interest of the sum is to be given
annually or from time to time by the council of the society
as a mark of honorary distinction to some person or persons
who shall be regarded as having aided geological science.
The first award of the medal and fund has recently been
made by the council of the society to Professor Morris,
F. U.S., of University College, London.
The Prince of Wales has arrived at Allahl3ad from
BareWy, and was received with great ceremony at the
station, by the Viceroy, the Commander in Chief, the Lieu-
tenant Governorof the North- West Provinces, the judges and
law oftioers,and other high officials. His Royal Highness was
presented with an address from the municipality, and he
afterwards held a chapter of the Star of India.
A telegram from New York states that the Home
for the Aged, at Williamsburg. near New York, a charitable
institution of the Little Sisters of the Poor, in which were
185 old people, stveral of them centenarians, has been burnt.
'There was a panic among the inmates, many being bedridden.
Many sank exhausted while trying to escape. Two jumped
from the windows and were killed. The ;police and firemen
carried out several inmates, but many were burnt to death.
Twenty bodies were taken from the ruins, and about thirty
persons were missing.
An American paper says that nearly half a century
ag,) a woman living in Pawlet, Vermont, was compelled to
ask relief from the town, which was refused. She finally be-
came a charge upon th 3 town, and she then made a vow that
the town of Pawlet shDuld not be without a pauper for fifty
sears. She will be one hundred years old in October, and the
fifty years will expire some time next winter. She has had
offers of marriage during her dependence, but her answers
always was, "I would lot swap the town of Pawlet for the
best man living."

Emigration to the greater part of our Colonies has I
for some time past been on the decrease, but that to South
Australia appears still to go en. On Saturday last there was
despatched Irons Plymouth Sound the ship Bolan, 1,338 tons
register, Captain James Ross, belonging to Messrs. W.
Thomson, Jun., and T. W. Thompson, of }Leith. She has
been chartered by the Agent-General for the South Australian
Government for the conveyance of emigrants to Adelaide,
and on her present voyage takes out 379, equal to 322 fr
statute adults.
The number who voted for Mr. Osborne Morgan's
resolution of Friday (248) was 14 mere than the supporters of
the Burials Bill last session. Fifty-five members who did not
not vote with Mr. Morgan last year did so on Friday. Some of
these are new members, and 12 are.Conservatiyes, the latter
showing an inci ease of 5. In addition, Sir Robert Peel and Mr.
Ripley voted for the first time with the Liberals on this ques-
tion. Last year 77 Conservatives were absent unpaired, and the
efforts made to secure their votes this session accounted foe
the augmented majority. Mr Morgan suffered from the
absence of 37 members who voted with him eleven months
ago, several being ill or absent from England. in particular,
many of the Irish Liberals were in attendance at the assizes.
Of the absentees 15 paired.—Daily News.
"The appointment of Mr. Richard Henry Dana as
Minister of the United States in England, in succession to
General Schenck, is said to have been generally approved in
America, and will give no less satisfaction here. Mr. Dana
bears A name which he has made most favourably and widely
known both in legal and in popular literature. He comes of
a family which has no difficulty in tracing its pedigree
through records at least as honourable in his country as the
roll of Battle Abbey is in England. ills ancestor, Richard
Dana was one of the honest men who did what Cromwell
only thought of doing, who left their homes in Lincolnshire
to seek for religious and political freedom under the skies of ,
Massachusetts. To these men and to their descendants, who I
fought against our own fathers the battle of liberty,both
Englishmen and Americans can look back with affecton and
respect.—Leader in Daily News.
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Considerable surprise and disappointment have been
produced at Portsmouth by the publication of the Navy
Estimates for 1876-7, for, although they show in the aggre-
gate an increase upon the Estimates of the prececUng year,
there appears an actual reduction in many of the charges
for the maintenance of the local naval and marine establish-
ments (says The Times). The number of hands to be em-
ployed in the Dockyard and the Royal Clarence Victualling
Yard is exactly the same as last year—viz., 4,910 in the
former, and 116 in the latter ; but reductions in the wages
account occur respectively of £17.484 and £32. Upon the
total charges for Portsmouth Dockyard and the Victaalling
Yard there are decreases of £6,693 and £53. It must, how-
ever, be mentioned that the difference in the dockyard
wages account is p.irtly caused by a supplementary estimate
of £4,580, which was last year voted for the visit of thet
Prince of Wales to India. But the greatest astonis n
has been produced by the shipbuilding programae fedrotwahe
year. Not a shigle new ship of any kind is to be ,*
at Pertsmoutir