The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-10-13 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS:

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

Lieutenant Wiegman, who lately walked acrose
Africa from Zanzibar to the Congo Coed, is pre.
paring for another tour of exploration in the latter

region. -

In London, on Saturday, an omnibus conductor was
summoned to the City Police Summons °mart, for
p4ing for passengers by blowing a horn within three
miles from the General Post Office. The presiding
alderman said the practice wai not only illegal, but
dangerous. He fined the defendant 53. and costs.

Exploring parties who have just descended the
Yukon river in Alaska say that they travelled down
the stream for 2,000 miles. They report the river to
be one of the largest in the world, discharging 50 per
cent. more water than the Missisaippi. Its breadth in
some places is seven miles. - - _ .

-
.4 propos of the Church Congress, Mrs. Ramabotham
said she regretted that they didn't discuss the use of
the Athenaeum Creed, to which the excellent old lady
Is sot absolutely certain whether she objects or not.—
Punch.
A Renter's telegram, dated Prague, October 9, says
—" A powder mill has blown up at Nechowitz. A
boy was killed and several men were injured."
Beckwith, the swimmer, visited Captain Webb's
grave before he left America. He was unable to find
the grave in the little churchyard where Webb's
remains rest, and he had to get an undertaker to point
it out. Beside a little oak tree close to the fence was
a dirt heap without a twig or stick to mark it. That
was Webb's grave.
Some official returns show that at the close of 1881
there were 3,6701 miles of completed line in Sweden,
834 miles in Norway, and 1,012 i miles in Denmark,
The net profit realised in 1881. upon the Swedish Mee
was £816,794' upon the Norwegian lines £69,915;
and upon the Danish lines, £223,289.

-
The Salvation Army, it appears, is preparing for a
campaign in Austria. Thousand of tracts in the
German language have just arrived in Vienna. They
were addressed mostly to small tradesmen.

A Paris telegram says that the son of Prince May-
rocoriato, Hellenic Minister to France, has met his
death accidentally, having shot himself while trying a
revolver.

In London last week 2,387 births and 1,252 deaths
were registered. Allowing for increase of population,
the births were 219, and the deaths 208, below the
average numbers in the corresponding weeks of the
last ten years. The annual rate of mortality from all
causes, which had been equal to 17.0 and 166 in the
two preceding weeks, further declined again to 16.5,
Lord Aberdare, speaking at a distribution of prizes
at the Mountain Ash Science and Art Schools, said
he was pleased to find the Government taking so
resolute a part in popular culture and general educa-
tional work. There were many subjects which with
advantage might be dealt with outside Parliament,
but educational matters must be regulated there. It
was by taking a direct and practical interest in the
welfare of the masses that the great work of popular
education was to be successfully carried out.
On Tuesday morning the first snow of the present
season fell in Berlin. In Potsdam there was a fall
of snow last week, and in Spandan the frost is re-
ported to have already killed the more susceptible
plants.

Intelligence has been reoeived in Birmingham to the
effect that Mr. Starkey, of the well•known firm of
Lomas, Harrison, 6.nd Starkey, aocountanta, has
been drowned near Barmouth. He ventured out in a
canoe, and was carried out to sea by a treacherous
current.

A Philadelphia telegram says that numerous China-
men have recently been smuggled from British
Columbia into the 'United States, and on Monday the
officials captured a vessel in Puget Sound bringing 11
across from Victoria. The boatmen say many &access.
fully cross, and the profits of the traffic are good, the
Chinamen paying 15 dole, each for their passage.

The Jewish Chronicle says that Sir Alexander Galt
!epode very favourably on the Russian Jews who
went out last tear to Winnipeg. All of them have
now found employment at the railway works in that
neighbourhood. They have become quite adapted to
he heavy manual labour in which they have been ern.
ployed.

- -
On Saturday morning a boiler exploded on the pre.
misee of Mr. Williams brick and tile manufacturer,
Ashton New-road, Bradford, Manchester. A number
of men were engaged at the time of the acoideut,, and
three of them were more or less seriously injured, and
were removed to the Royal Infirmary, Manchester,
where one of them; William Themes, died on Sunday.'
On Sunday a Public meeting Was held, at. Dtentehatek
-At resolution. was "adol)ted 'a:Mending. the
PXOUldibb dl the English 'theiriberi glebe Salvation
A,tne. A Cotincilloi of State; who 'Was 'preiierit,
declared that the body to which he belented'Would do
its duty, and cloire.-the gates of Switzerland to those
who traded on her hospitality. •
, • - • •
The Additions to the ZeolOgicial Society's •Gardehs
,ItOgent's Faek,,London, during•last .weekr included a
bonnet.monkeY, ft.oni Ind4s, presented :by the Rev.
; awhite-frented capuchin, from South
:America„. pre.p3qtecl bY Cs•Pt4n King ;Aii blotched:,
geneta long-nosed crocodile,•from, Went Africa, pre-
eeoed
by Surgeep Mosee, A.M. Li.; Edypt.i..n
front North Arrica,, prevented by Lieut.-0010uel
rayl r; too Kittiwake mulls, and a 'common
guillemot, British. prsee,•ted hy Mr. Cuningleme ; a'
herring gull, a shag, and a o.,muton curlew, BrAtipe„,
preEenred by Dr. A. Giinther, F.R.4. •
, euven European
!Ay llodacts leo, from the Llartri of Elba, preseuted by
Professor Giglioli, C,M.Z.S. ; a Robben Island snake,
from South Africa, presented by the Rev, G. H. R.
; a pig-tailed monkey, from Java;
common curlew, and an oyster catcher, British, de-
posited; a River Jack viper, from West Africa; seven
short-nosed sea horses, from the European coast, pur-
chaßed.—Nature.

Snow has already fallen at Lyons and Villefranche.
in the Loire, in Pay de Dame, and in Savoy, creating
general consternation, as the vintage has only just
begun and the corn has not yet been sown.

Dun..tee University College has just been opened by
the Earl of Dalhousie. It was founded by Miss
Baxter, sister of the late Sir David Baxter, at a cost
If one hundred and forty thousand pounds.

A Vienna telegram etates that as the Bulgarian
Ministers were entering the Sobranje on Monday an
unknown person approached M. Natchevitoh, as if in-
tending to speak to him, and attempted to take his
life. Fortunately he failed to effect his purpose.

- -
Russian advice s state that a prominent member of
the Nihilist party recently committed suicide at
Tomsk, in Siberia, to which place he had escaped from
the State prison at Kieff. On being recognized in the
streets he drew a revolver and fired a bullet into his
head.

A curious marriage has been solemnized at Portsea,
the eontta43ting parties' named Edward Rowe and
Elizabeth Hall, being deaf mutes. All the bridal
_ _ _ _

party were also deaf ad dumb.
The German contributioas to the fund inaugurated
by the Orowa Prince and Princess on behalf of the
sufferers by the earthquake at Ischia amounted on
the 2nd of this month to 502,80 marks or,considerably
more than £25,000.

The Italian Press reports the arrival, at the Bay of
Amish, from Shoal of a caravan organised by Count
Antonelli, consisting of 70 camels laden with ivory,
skins, coffee, feathers, and other produce. This is
expected to be followed, in November, by a caravan of
400 camels.
An inquest was held on Monday on the body of
George Allen, postmaster, at Handsworth, a village
near Sheffield, who, being unable to get rest at night
through overwork, took two ounces of laudanum,
which killed him.

The immense wealth which Russia possesses in turf
beds is but little appreciated. Its exploitation is only
developed in a few provinces, and by some of the rail-
way companies turf is used as a combustible. Beds of
turf exist in Rusja covering 70,000 square miles,
which would furnish sufficient material to provide all
Russia with light for ten thousand years.

At a meeting of representatives of friendly societies
at Leeds, Mr. Jackson, M.P., offered £lOO in prizes
for the beet essays on "The intipaality of the present
system of district funeral levies, and how beet to
remedy it," and "The weak points in the present
&fondly society system, and how best to remedy
them." The competition is open to all benefit members
of friendly societies in the United Kingdom.
The first weekly number of Cassell's Saturday
Journal has made its appearance. It consists of six-
teen pages of letterpress without illustrations, but pre.
Renting a large amount of reading of an entertaining
and instructive kind. Fiction, anecdotes, oorrespon•
deuce, household recipes, prize oompetitions, and so
forth constitute the bulk of the contents. The journal