The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-01-22 00:00:00

SATURDAY, JAN. 22, 1876.

as that about to take place. There are considerably
over 1,000 chronometers employed in the royal navy,
and those not actually "on service" are deposited at
Greenwich to be "rated." There are usually from 150
to 200 instruments there, and every day they are
wound and compared to seconds and tenths of seconds
with a clock in conneetion with the famous galvanic
motor clock, showing exact Greenwich time. During
a part of the time they are in store they are subjected
to great variations of temperature, as in the annual
compet!tion. 1 his btriness forms a subcrdina..e, but
a very important feature of the work of the observa-
tory, and certain parts of the premises are set apart
and fitted up especially for the regulatiOn of chron..)-
meters.

MISSING HIS MARK.—" How dare you throw-
stones like that, you bad boy? You very nearly in-
jured my cranium 1"—" Injured your craynum ! Why
what is yer cranyum—l ain't never seen one? Why
I've never throwed a stone at a craynum in my life!"
CIVIL MARRIAGE IN ENGLAND.—It is Stated
in the Registrar-aeneral's annual report for 1873 that'.
the marriages accorditg to the rites of the Church of
England twenty five years r.go were 123,182, or 87 per
cent, of the total marriages. In 1873 they were
154,581, or 75 per cent. This decrease is chiefly ac-
counted for by the increasing number of marriages
without religious ceremony at superintendent regis-
trars' offices. The number of marriages at these
offices in 1849 was 5,558, or 4 per cent. of the totat
marriages, whereas in 1873 it had increased to 21,175,
or 10 per cent. The marrilsges not according to the
rites of the Establishment in 1849 were 18,701, or 13
per cent. ;in 1873 they had increased to 51,034, or 25
per cent ; of 100 marriages of the latter class, there
were 16 in Roman Catholic chapels, 41 in registered
places belonging to various other Christian denomina-
tions, 2 among Quakers, 9 among Jews, and 41 at
superintendent registrars' offices.

A ZEALOUS POLICE-OFFICER DUMBFOUNDED,
—The correspondent of the Temps (a Paris paper), who.
has followed the Prince of Wales in his tour through
India, relates an amusing 'story of an over-zealous
policeman. While in Ceylon, the Prince paid a visit
to the public gardens, at Colombo, and a zealous
police-officer, noticing that a "tall gentleman with a
heavy beard" was following close behind him, went
up to him and said in an angry tone: "Why the devil
don't you take your hat off, sir?" The gentleman re-
plied that when he met the Prince, or had occasioh to
address him, he took his hat off; but that at othei:
times he remained covered. As the policeman had
not the power to compel him to walk bareheaded, be
contented himself with hinting in a menacing tone;
"You had better stand back, and not dog his Royat
Highness ljke that." The correspondent of the Temps
adds that the police-officer, when he ascertained that
the "suspicious character" was the Duke of Suther-
land, "was on the point of falling to the ground sense-
less, as one who had had a sunstroke."
BLARNEY. Tall Yankee (just arrived).
"Guess your legal fare is just sixpence—"—Dublim
Carman: "Sure, me lord, we take some Chape Jacks
at that—but I wouldn't disgrace a gintleman av your
lordship's quality be diivin' him at a mane pace t'rough
the public sthreets—so I tuk upon myself to give your
lordship a shillin'sworth both av stoyle an' whipcard !I"
—Punch.
THE TORNADO IN KENTUCKY.—Some extra-
ordinary results of the ter-Bible tornado which recently
visited the western portion of Kentucky and Tennessee
are given in the Amerioan papers. Mr. Chuek's resi-
dence at Nashville was blown to fragments, and all
the inmates were severely injured. The roof of the
house was blown several hundred yards. A trunk in the
second story was blown 100 yards. At Winfrey, Mr.
Cornell's residence was wrecked, and his family badly
bruised. Levi Mattox's orchards are the largest in
West Tennessee; they were completely deiholished.
Cabins were blown down and four negroes were killed.
One was caught between two heavy logs. He made a
struggle to relieve himself, when another log fell and
crushed him to death. The other three were also
killed by the falling of timbers from the house. One
man was lifted up in the air and blown forty yard,
falling in a cornfield in the mud and was badly
bruised. A train of cars on the Mobile and Ohio road
was blown over and off the track. Bed clothing is
strewn along the course of the tornado for fifteen
miles. This was the sixth tornado since 1825.

PARLIAMENTARY ELECTORS. —A return to the
House of Commons, procured for Captain Home, M.P.,
has just been printed, showing the total cost and other
charges connected with the printing of the register of
electors in the counties and boroughs in the United
Kingdom, during each of the years 1873 and 1874.
Various expenses are included and the net cost is given
in each county and borough. The largest expenditure
was in Lancaster. The net cost in 1873 was £1,499;
and in 1874, £1,615 ss. 3d. In the county of Middle-
sex in each year respectively, £668 19s. and £619 12s.
In England the smallest amount in a county was in
Suffolk (Eastern Division), £35 55.; and in Wales,
Montgomery, £3O 16s. Bd. With respect to boroughs
the net cost was very small, as low as 13s. in one place.
Similar returns are given with respect to Scotland and
Ireland.

MATRIMONIAL ADVICRTISEMENTS.—(From the
Manchester Examiner :)
" A young lady wishes to correspond with a gentleraszs,
with a view to matrimony.—Agdress," &c.

"A Christian young gentleman, 23, income £lOO a year,
wishes to correspond with an amiable young lady, from 17
to 22, with view to matrimony; enclose carte.—Address,"
Bze.

"A gentleman, aged 30, of independent means, wishes to
correspond with a lady from 25 to 30, of accomplished
manners, with a view to matrimony; means no object;
enclose carte; confidential.—Address,"
"A widow lady, 39, considered good looking, pleasing in
manners, also musical, and of thorough business habits,
capable of managing household duties, wishes to correspond
with a gentleman, 45 to 55 years, in moderate position, with
a view to matrimony.—Address,"
"Bachelor, 46, good looking, desires the acquaintance of a
well-educated, amiable lady, pleasing in appearance, good
pianist, and competent to look after his household affairs,
with a view to matrimony.; should not much exceed 36;
desirable opportunity for a suitable lady; means not ex-
pected.—Address," ezc.
THE NIGHTINGALE'S NOTE.—Florence Night-
ingale. has forwarded £lO to the Mansion House for
the benefit of the sufferers by the loss of the Goliath
training ship. The gift is not likely to be forgotten
by the boys, for when they become full blown (joke!)
sailors they will have.many a night in gales to remind
them of the name of their kind benefactress. —Tun.

A HARD FATE !—lt is a curious fact, or rather
it would be curious in any other planet than this,
which rather abounds in such cases, that the man on
whose lands gold was first discovered in California iv
spending the last yeers of a long life in poverty and
neglect. It was in General Sutter's mill-race, near
Sacramento (says a correspondent), that the precious
metal was first seen by Americans. The general is a
native of Switzerland, but went to the Sandwich
Islands to cultivate oranges, and thence to the Pacific
coast of America, where be took a large tract of laud
under a Mexican grant, with the hope that the United
States would some day stretch out to him. But the
gold appeared, and the rush of miners trampled over
his fields, killed his herds, and made desolationin place
of the fair estate they had found. From that discovery'
came the most enormous tribute Nature ever paid to
Man. The present year's yield of gold in Californit
cannot be less than 100,000,000 dollars in specie, and
while this immense runnel of wealth has been flowing
for more than a quarter of a century, and, great mere
chants and bankers have been made by its possession;
poor old Sutter, on the brink of the grave, is unable to
find an ear in which he can tell his story. He lives in
a little cottage near Litiz, Pennsylvania, where he is
educating his grandchildren at a German echool, and,
as he is more than eighty years of age, there is no time
to lose, if he is to be indemnified at all for the losses
he incurred at the time of the discovery.
STAMPS FOR TELEGRAPH MESSAGES. —On and
after the Ist February next distinctive telegraph stamp§
will be issued for the payment of telegraph messages—
foreign as well as inland—and must be used instead of
postage stamps. The telegraph stamps will be of the
value of id., 3d., is., and ss. respectively. Message
forms embossed witii a stamp of the value of is. will
also be issued, either singly or in packets of 20, and
interleaved books containing 20 stamped message forms
at a charge of Os. 2d. per book. The stamped
message formsand, books will be sold at every money
order office throughout the United Kingdom at the
prices marked upon them. At post offices (not being
money order offices) the three lower denominations of
telegraph stamps only will'be kept, but the ss. stamps,
the books, and the message forms will, on application
and payment of their value, be procured by these offi-
ces from their head offices. Telegraph stamps will not,
like postage stamps, be re-purchased from the public,
and if used for payment of postage the letters will be
treated as unpaid. The public will be at iibarty to use
any telegraph message forms embossed with postage
stamps which they may have on hand.
THE PLAGUE.—At a meeting of medical offi-
cers of health of the metropolis on Saturday evening,
Mr. J. Netton Radcliffe, one of the medical inspectors
of the Local Government Board, read a paper on the
prospect of a re.appearance of the plague in this
country and on the Continent. There was, he said,
conclusive evidence of the existence of the plague in
the Lower Euphrates in 1874-5, and if it should ap-
pear in the Levant he held that it was almost certain
to find its way here either overland or by- sea. Not-
withstanding the changes which have taken place in
this kingdom since the last visitation of plague and the
existing sanitary organisation, he had no confidence in
the population being plague-proof; but the local
authorities had ample power to frame the requisite
regulations to grapple with the disease.
THE POPE A IVIUSICIAN. —A writer says :
"It is, perhaps, not well known bliat Pius IX. is a
very fine musician. As a young man he cultivated his
taste for music very assiduously, and his voice. was
magnificent. Even now it is very sweet and powerful,
and when his Holiness sings at High Mass all who
hear him are struck by the superb manner in which he
ext.cutes the difficult Gregorian chant. The Pope has
always been a distinguished patron of music, and it is
to him that Rome cwed the flourishing condition of her
Conservatory of Music, which, however, has sadly
deteriorated of late. Pius IX. is at present much in-
terested in the great church music question, which is
so widely discussed in the musical world. He dis-
approves of the use of profane music in churches, but,
at the same time, recently expressed an opinion that,
as a rule, what is usually called sacred music was dull
and dreary. He thought that sacred music should be
dramatic but not theatrical.
I AN EXCITING SCENE.—On Sunday afternoon
an alarming scene took place, at a pond at West-hill,
Highgate (near London), owing to the sudden breaking
of the ice. From an early hour in the morning two of
the seven ponds on Lord Mansfield's estate had been
thronged with persons skating and sliding. A number
of constables. were present, and were assiduous in
warning the people of the dangerous state of the ice.
Shortly before noon two skaters were immersed, but
they were rescued with but little difficulty, and were
apparently but little the worse for their bath. At
about four o'clock in the -afternoon, however, a large
sheet of ice gave way on the second pond, and five
people were immersed in deep water. Vour of them
were rescued from their perilous poeition, and conveyed
to the bank. It was then stated that a youth was still
under the ice, and the utmost excitement consequently
prevailed amongst the bystanders, who crowded the
edge of the pond near the scene of the catastrophe.
At this ‘moment a gentleman without pausing to
divest himself of any of his clothing, -plunged bravely
into the gap made by the broken ice. After having
disappeared for a considerable time he came again to
the surface, without, however, having discovered the
object of his search. Subsequently he dived down for
the second time, but was, unfortunately, equally un-
successful. Greeted by heartyrcheera from the enthu-
siastic ,witnesses of his gallant act, the gentlemen,
whose name did not transpire, refused offers,-of stimu-
lants, and speedily ran off, saying that he lived close
by. Meanwhile, the police procured drags, but they
failed in discovering the body of the supposed missing
lad.