The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-03-08 00:00:00

grmallan COll5

HOME, FOREIGN, AND COLONIAL.

DISCUSSING AN ABSENT FRIEND.—"Yes, Robinson's
a clever feller, and he's a modest feller, and he's a
honest feller; but, betwixt you and I and the post,
Mr. Jones," said Brown, confidentially, picking his
wisdom tooth with his little finger nail, "Robinson
ain't got neither the looks, nor yet the language, nor
yet the manners of a gentleman —" Right you are,
sir !" said Jones, shovelling the melted remains of his
ice pudding into his moath with a steel ltnife (which
he afterwards wiped on the table-cloth). " You're
'it orf to a Ti"—Punch.

THE PROPOSED TELEGRAPH THROUGH CENTRAL
—CeWithl
Arefgraicrad, ttohetEhelectorirociaponsedremtealergkrsa:p_h
are enormous, arid when these have been surmounted,
engineering difficulties in the way of such a work
throughA
TheFßecnAt.o
as they can be at a cost, electrical difficulties must be
g:hat
notencountered, a
snadt i
showfac t
ot
rhi el
ys e eax rpel a
it
no e
db. e oAv
ce
cr
oc
ro
dmi
ne
Captain Mayes, for hundreds of miles over part of the
proposed tract the tropical vegetation holds sway, and
if a road of twenty feet in width be cut and the rpotp
of the trees grubbed up, in a few months' unless there
is a constant stream of traffic, the whole is again
covered with an impenetrable jungle. Then all the
materials, posts, wites, insulators, tools, and even the
food or merchandise wherevvith to obtaie food, must
be parried in some parts by the aid of coolies. Elec.
trically, the insulation of the line would be about ap
bad as one can suppose a line to be, Vortices of its
course being in two tropics, there would be a double
rainy season to guard against; and be it remembered
that rain in England is one thing and rain in the tropics
another. It would be extremely difficult to send
messages during a tropical downpour over long lengths
of laud line—and, if we consider the egect of the
luxuriant vegetation probably coming into contact with
the wires, we should say almost impospible,
QUITE RIGHT, Too.—(His Lordship, wanting to
Catal trnln, gflts up at eight, and puts out the ser-
vants.)—His Lordship; Bless me, how very damp the
paper is What does it mean 7—New Footman;
Well, Mr. Binns—(the butler)—have it warmed before
he begin on to it, my lord; but he said it needn't be
this morning, you'd do it yourself.—Judy.
T4F, C2NTA4IOUS DISEASES (ANIMALS) ACTS.—The
London Gazette contalne an Order in Council under this
Act-, to the effect that henceforth in Great Britain "a
person who carries on the trade of cowkeeper or dairy.
!Pap for the purpose only of making and selling butter
or cheese or both, and wlio does not carry on the trade
of purveyor of milk, shall not be deemed tv be a person
carrying on the trade of cowkeeper or dairyman within
Article sof the Pairies, Cow Sheds, and Milk Shops
Order of 1870."

with
—TVio weeksligo, when on
.a shooting expedition
d which I
lior incident oceurre
two boatmen, a Pecil
our columns—to wit,
think worthy of ventilating in y.
oatmg on the water, ap-
a bird, seemingly dead and fl
d th. Out of curiosity, an in ing
peered in the distance.
'f cently killed, by picifing it up it might
STRUGGLE BETWEEN AN ANGLER. FISH AND GULL.
that ra
my pet peregrine falcons, I
ordered the for
bear down upon it, and to my
ma"-
a froeupmnasdet;lit struggling in thp Water. then
surprise
l'nstructed one of them to lay hold of it, and was
astonished to 03173 a struggle ensue, Boatman v.
Bird, which ended in favour of the former by
getting the bird in over the boat, and tte opponent,
'
which, an tar as could be recognised, was nothing more
or less than a fish locally termed rnasgoom,"
scientifically, " Angler," whip had sei;ed the bird by
the head. 'Fhe said fish, to all appearance, was about
sft. long ; the bird, all but drowned, was a large black.
back gull, apparently three years old, measuring
4ft. from tip to tip. muQh ilayin beep Written
ta about arying b i irds n yotir cOlumns, could this have
been a case of a starving fish 2—A. G. (L.irwick)
Land and Water.
A W
shape of the utilisation of a wapte product. Atte-4. the
sugar has been extracted from the beet roots, the pulp,
or mplasse, is fermented and distilled to obtain a raw. spirit, the refuse being calcined in furnaces to recover
7ran P
eiteop litaic? TlTTWan.—The beet-sugar in-
dustryreceived a great stimulus in the
iAli s
the salts of potash. This latter prozesii destroys a
quantity of organic ratter which was known to con-
tain valuable matter. M. Vincent, chemist to a large
distillery at Courrire, has succeeded in obtaining frouq
the refuse large quantities of n v;luable liquid known
as chloride pi methyl, which is of great utility in the
arts fer the purposes of refrigeration, and also fp,r the
production of some of thp finest aOino oolours. The
new pFocess will uecessarily increase the value of the
" molasse," and. will thus cheapen the production of
beet-sugar, bringing the latter into stronger conlpeti,
tion with the product of the eugar-carl
PasifisTAT.4uw4uT 13-4-imi.tas:T.--7,Tfie present Parlia-
men't was eleCted and-siminioned to meet on the sth
of March, 1874, and the sth is therefore the sth anni-
versary of its creation. On that day it entered 7,p0
the sixth year of it ftgei
HALfelkiAßltlN.—earliatneutary returns have been
issued Of the Sinni received at the goldsuiiths' halls at
London, Birmingham, Chester, Dublin, Eiphurgh,
Newcastle, Sheffield, and E:ketpr, for duty and hall-
iii4rkipg in eacn year from 1867 to 1877 inclusive,
showing also what moneys were paid into the Treasury
Out of the receipts during each year, whf;,,t the amount
of working expenses, end vOl4 Was tha appropriation
of tilo t 4 114511,ind, if 'any. he returns show also
the weight of geld • and 'silver respectively that was
hall-marked in each of the above years at each of. the
halls before named. In London the duty on !narking
amounted to £535,182, of which the Commieccner.s!Df
Inland Revenue received ,152,61. The total weight
- I
of metal raTked was---7gold, 7 ,3 7lb. and silver.
80,1111 h. The receipts during the Elaine period we
£17,73 and the disbursements £74,157. n
Ithet itirplue
-
Binning.
was carried to an accumnlation 'fund. _ , _
hana_the sum ieceived for duty amounted to E171,9P ;
967,451 ounces of gold wares and 1,355,48 ounees of
d and marked, and 237,464 silver wares were assaye
was received for hall-marking.