The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-11-02 00:00:00

RECOMMENDED TO MERCY.

At the winter goal delivery of the county of Northumber-
'and held at Newcastle-on-Tyne, Jobn Anderson, 45, mason,
W„as indicted for baying wilfully murdered John Kiddell, at
tlsdon, on the 31st of July, and he was also further charged
With Use same offence on the coroner's ir quisition."

, The deeeased man, John Kiddell, was a shepherd
ng with his wife and family in a cottage known as
T...cdholes, about half a mile from Elsdon, in
•Northumberland. At a further distance, about 9i
railee, lived the prisoner, John Anderson, who
came into the neighbourhood about May last.
ICiddell had under his charge a number of sheep
Pastured on about 800 acres of land, through which
'Se prisoner occasionally pas.ed on his road home, and
it Was said he was _in the habit of leaving the gates
the
and letting loose the sheep. On the evening ef
toe day in question, at about ten o'clock, the prisoner
Passed through one of Kidclell's gates, which he left
open. Kiddell came out of his cottage, and called
the prisoner back to shut the gate, which he refused
to do, whereupon the deceased went after him and
look hold of him for the purpose of bringing him
uack to make him shut the gate. The deceased
struck the prisoner and made him come back
4nd shut one gate, and was taking him by the
back of his house to make him shut another
Fate, when the prisoner, losing his temper, drew a
• knife and stabbed Kiddell in the lower part of
the stomach. The attack was witnessed by the
children of the deceased. The prisoner went on to-
Wards his home, calling on the way at the house of a
Man named Ballantyne, to whom he admitted having
&tabbed the deceased with his clasp knife. He also
said that he would go home and shoot himself, for he
would be hanged for what he had done if he did not.
,The prisonez went home, and was apprehended in
Qed, when he denied the charge. It was urged in his
defence that the prisoner had no malice against
the deceased, and that he had acted under great
Provocation. - - - .

The jury found the prisoner Guilty, but recom•
mended him to mercy. The Judge sentenced him to
death in the usual manner, stating that he would for.
Ward the recommendation to the proper quarter.

The Crucifix which Louie XVI. wore on the morning
his execution has been left to Pope Leo XIII. as a legacy
'rem his Conain /dgr. Prosper!, who has recently died.
tio,bori

THE ELECTRIC LIGHT.

The Times of Saturday (28th) has a long article on the
Electric Light. It commences—

"In an article which appeared in our issue of the
3rd of June last, we reviewed at considerable length
the practical progress made with electric lighting up
to that date, and we stated the position in which
the matter then stood. Daring the tim3 which
has since elapsed very great and substantial pro-
gress has been made, not only in the development
of the electric light itself, but also in the public
interest which that progress lids excited and in the de-
mands for its practical application which are arising
on every side. The municipal authorities of London
and of other British cities and towns have deputed
persons to make exhaustive inquiries and reports
upon the subject. In nearly every case the
result is a recommendation of its adoption,
not, indeed, as a general substitute for gas in streets
and houses, but in numerous places where thorough-
fares intersect and traffic is crowded, and where the
iDe of gas is insufficient and unsatisfactory." The
writer then pr )ceeds to discuss the proposed systems of
electric lighting, the demand for the light and different
modes of operation, giving several examples of recent
scientific discoveries, and dwelling on the importance
of the independence of the various lights, and con-
cludes the article thus :

"The system of M. Rapieff, which we described
in our article of the 3rd of June, and which was
then only in its laboratory stage, has since made
great progress and is now available for public
purposes. The simplicity and distributing cha-
racter of the Rapieff lights—more than 20 of which
can be worked from one machine, and which are easily
understood and readily used—strongly recommended it
for trial in some of our printing offices where abundant
light without great heat is very desirable. Arrange-
ments have been made and carried out accordingly, and
The Times has been actually printed by the Rapieff
light, Six lights, which is a less number than it was
thought likely would be necessary, have been found
sufficient to light the large room which contains the
whole of the Walter Printing Presses employed in pro-
ducing our issues. Another large room in which
numerous compositors are employed is about to be
lighted by similar Rapieff electric lamps worked by the
same dynamo-electric machine. We consider the use
of the electric light in printing offices is a great test of
its fitness for general use, and as we have found M.
Rapieff's system well adapted for our purposes, it will
doubtless commend itself to others as well."

The New York Herald of the 14th inst. contains a
lengthy account of interviews its reporter had jirst
had with officials of different gas companies in New
York on the reported invention of Mr. Edison. The
reporter quotes Mr. Dresser, the editor of the American
Gas Light Journal, who had returned from a trip to
Europe for the purpose of investigating the electric
light in the laboratories of different French and
English chemists. He remarked that he found nothing
in his observations to indicate that electricity would
ever supersede gas for common and domestic use. In
its transmission its intensity proved too great for short
and too little for long distances. Mr. Goom, Pre-
sident of the Manhattan Gas Company, said he re-
garded the alleged invention as a beautiful philo-
sophical toy, but perfectly useless for general
purposes. He thought the gas light companies had
nothing at all to fear from it. He stated that the
American Gas Light Association would meet in the
course of the ensuing week, and that the whole subject
would be then discussed.