The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-09-21 00:00:00

A cowman to a farmer at Heath Town. Wolver-
hamp,ton, is in a dangerous state through being gored by a
bull. lie was driving the animal out of one field into anothc r,
when the beast thrust one of his horns through the man's
side, penetrating his lungs.
- - • •

The Chancellor of the Exchequer scknowletiges in
Th. 'limes (hs "Con2cience Money") receipt of the first
half of a £.lO note for hicome-tax from " G.E."

A large diamond, weighing 204 carats, has been
found at putvitspan.
A Wave?* y Dictionary is about to appear in New
Ycit. It has been compiled by a lady—Miss Mary Rogers
—and contains an alphaheticll arrangement of all the cha-
racters in Sir Walter Scott's novele, with a bescriptive
analysis of each character, and illustrative selections from
the text.
One of the keepers of the Gunfleet Lighthouse,
opposite Walton-on- the.Naze, fell into the sea on Saturday,
and was drowned before assistance could be rendered. Ile
overreached himself while endeavouring to take a news-
paper which had been offered him from a passing yacht.

- -
On Sunday morning the new steamer Asia was
going down Shields harbour, when she was met by a large
passenger steamer, the Countess of Aberdeen, proceeding
from the sea. The Countess of Aberdeen ran into the Asia
and sank her in a few minutes. The crew of the Asia were
saved by the other vesseL It is anticipated by the harbour
authorities that they will be able to raise the sunken
vesseL

There were twenty British and foreign wrecks re-
ported during the past week, making the total for the present
year 990, or a decrease of 180, as compared with the corres-
ponding period of last year. The approximate value of pro-
perty lost was £llO,OOO, including British £90,000.

- -
Messrs. Devitt and Moore's sailing ship Rodney,
Captain Louttit, with 515 emigrants on board, equal to 422 i
statute adults, left Plymouth Sound on Friday in last week
for Adelaide, under the auspices of the Colonial Govern-
ment.

The colliers' agitation in Staffordshire is increasing.
The miners' agent has appealed to the men at Hanley to
resist the introduction of the butty system and a reduction
of wages, and on Saturday large numbers decided to bring
up their tools and stand out rAther than submit either to
that or any other alteration in weighing. It was stated that
the proposed butty system would entail a reduction of from
H. to Is. per head in many instances, besides increasing the
dangers of accident.
The Arctic Regions are stated to be unusually
encumbered with ice this year. The west ice has never
before approached so near the Greenland coast nor been
seen in such quantities, while Melville bay is so closed that
no vessel can pass through, and the Dundee whale fishery
promises to be a complete failure, not a single fish having
been caught up to July 12. Owing to this expected failure
oil has risen £3 a ton and bone to £.1,200 a ton.

Destructive storms have visited the middle and
Western States of Canada, causing considerable interruption
to railway communication. On Sunday, in last week, the
streets of Toronto were flooded and great damage was done
to property.

- -
The Bishop of Manchester consecrated on Saturday
a new church (St. Clement's) at Salford. In the course of
hissermon the bishop said he had been accused of having a
plan in his mind for stripping Manchester of all its churches
between Ancoats and the City-road. A more absurd or
groundless supposition, he said, had never entered anybody's
head. From time to time suggestions had been made as to
whether it might not be desirable to remove certain
churches, as their sites were valuable for other purposes,
and build churches in the suburbs, to which the population
was removing. He wished to see the Church of England
made strong, not by the mere multiplication of churches
and incumbencies, but by the multiplication of really effec-
tive instruments for Christianising and evangelising the
people. The clergy should always remember that their
noblest title and their highest office was to be their.people's
ministers.

The annual report of the Railway Department of
Victoria for 1877 slows that at the close of the year the
number of miles open for traffic was 931. The gross earnisgs
amounted to £1,135,790, and the total expenditure to
£592,481, showing a nett profit on the working of the line of
4543,399.

- -
A telegram from Victoria says that gold has been
struck in the Magdala mine shaft, which is the deepest in
the colony, at a depth of 1,889 feet below the surface. This
discovery is causing great excitement in gold-mining circles.
Gold mining in California is fast ruining the agri-
cultural interests of the State. The hydraulic method of
extracting the gold forces a quantity of barren sand down
the chief streams, which chokes up the river beds, diverts
the currents, and is spread by the freshets over the alluvial
valleys in such deep layers as to destroy tillage and cover
the fruitful land with barrenness. The Sacramento River is
being transformed into a mere ditch, according to the local
journals, while the landowners on Bear River, a tributary of
the Sacramento, have formed a Protective Society to prose-
cute mining companies for damages. Bear Elver in 1857
was a clear stream; since then the bed has risen ten to
fourteen feet, causing the river to overflow and form a new
channel, and the water is too muddy to use even for
irrigation.

If one may judge by the large number of agri-
cultural papars in the United States, American farmers
must be more generally readers of the writings that relate to
their interests than their cousins on this side of the Atlantic.
The farmers of Prince Edward Island have just had a paper
started for their especial benefit, under the title of The
Prince Edward Island Farmer. The agricultural interest
Is so important in Amerioa that a considerable number of
the local journals, which with us are generally newspapers,
are distinctly, though not exclusively, agricultural—Al ark
/Jane Expres.
Makers of pig iron in the north report considerable
clearances just now, especially for foreign ports, and rates
are consequently firmer. The engineering trade are pretty
fairly employed. The coal trade is rather better in one or
two branches, and there are faint signs of an approaching
alteration in prices.

The province of Bosnia was formerly noted for its
strong and hardy race of ponies, which were in great demand
in other parts of the Turkish Empire; but of late years the
breed has so degenerated, and the drain on the country
caused by the war bas been so great, that, according to Consul
Freeman's commercial report on the district for the past
year, only the most ordinary animals are now to be procured,
and these at double and treble the price which they fetched
ten or fifteen years ago.
-

A collision between a steamship and a gigantic fish,
which took place the other day in the vicinity of the Tong
Tong Islands, is reported by the Times of India. The
Messageries Maritimes steamer Anadyr, on its voyage to
Shanghai, was suddenly brought to a stop by a violent shock
The cause of the collision was found to be an enormous ray,
or fl it fish, estimated by those on board to weigh from 8,000
to 10,000 lb. The monster was lying asleep on the top of the
Tr 0•4 r -nrhosk ika Iror.nlen x‘ad..l, 0...im0r10.d. In, •. ixx *lac,
ribs" from the stem of the steamer. After the first alarm
had subsided efforts were made to haul the creature on board;
but, owing to its unwieldiness, all attempts in this direction
proved fruitless, and the fish, doubtless even more "shaken"
than the pasAengers on the boat, was reluctantly allowed to
move off and seek such remedies for the injury it had
sustained as are to be procured in the mysterious deep.

A pamphlet has just been published in Russia called
"Life in Life," which is considered as the manifesto of the
Nihilist party, and in which this sect calls itself Socialist,
whose purpose is the destruction of the present economical
organisation and inequality, which constitlAte, according
to their convictions, the root of all the evils of mankind,
The Manchester Guardian says that as the fact of
the Sunday opening of the free libraries and reading rooms
becomes more generally known there appears a disposition
on the part of the people to avail themselves of the fatdll-
- offered. At the Cheetham library on Sunday, the total
attendance was about 700, which, as compared with the
previous Sunday, exhibited an increase of between 450 and
500 readers. At the other branch reading rooms the same
state of things as regards attendance was exhibited. At the
Free Reference Library, King-street, there were about 210
readers—a number which is equal to that of an ordinary
week day.
The Russian Official Messenger gives the following
as the latest return respecting the sickness in the Russian
active army :-11,504 invalids in the troops south of the
Balkans, 4,930 in the army of the north, 4,420 in the reserve—
in all, 20,854. Of these, 17,140 remain from the recent
evacuations, since the commencement of which 54,000 invalids
have been sent home by sea.

Admiral Hobart Pasha left London on Tuesday
night for Constantinople, having been somewhat unexpectedly
ordered to return to his duties as Inspector-General of the
Turkish fleet immediately. The Pasha dined with the Prince
ef Wales the night previous to his departure from London.
The National 'Welsh Eisteddfod at Birkenhead was
opened on Tuesday by Mr. Osborne Morgan, M P., the pre-
sident, who de fended the holding of the Eisteddfod out of
Wales, and advocated the claims of the institution to be-
come popular. Professor Macfarren and Mr Brinley
Richards were among the speakers. The chief competition
was for a prize of £6O and a gold medal for the best render.
lug of three anthems. These were won by a Philharmonic
Society of Ruabon. A concert took place in the evening, at
the close of which an accident happened, by which several
ladies were severely injured, the door of the ladies' cloak
room giving way. -

The following is a return of the expenses of the Flint
borough election; Mr. John Roberts. 51. P., successful Li-
beral candidate, £2,369 75.: Captain Pennant, defeated Con-
servative candidate, £2,961 25. 6d.
Fifty-five thousand men were reviewed on Sunday
at Vincennes by Marshal MacMahon, who was accompanied
by the Duke of Cambriiige, the Russian Grand Dukes Con-
stantine and Alexis, and all the foreign military attaches.
On Saturday afternoon a boy named Smith, living
in Nelson•street, Woolwich, went from Woolwich in a boat
down the river Thames to see the wreck of the Princess Alice,
and was drowned.
- -

A Reuter's telegram, dated Naples, Sept. 14, says:
—" Great activity continues to be manifest in Vesuvius, and
volumes of lava are projected to a height of 100 yards above
the new crater, accompanied by loud explosions. However,
no flames are as yet visible."—According to the Pungolo of
Naples, the probabilities of an eruption from Mount
Vesuvius are based upon the fact that the new crater opened
on the bottom of the old one is completely full of lava,
which is now flowing over into the space within the walls of
the old crater, and that it cannot be long before it rises to
the level of the lower edge corresponding to the great rent
of 1872, whence it will roll down the exterior of the cone.
A soldier serving in the army of occupation in
Bosnia, in a letter which has been printed by the Cologne
Gazette, states that after every battle the plundering of the
deserted houses belonging to the Turkish insurgents is per-
mitted. Many soldiers, he says, have succeeded in looting a
number of rings and watches.

Mrs. Mackay, the wife of an owner of silver mines
in Nevada, is a great purchaser in the jewellery court of the
French Exhibition. She has bought from Boucheron a
parure of diamonds, consisting of a diadem, brooch and
pendants, bracelets, rings, and earrings. The parure is
ornamented profusely with blue sapphires, and terminated
with a handsome pearl. The centre sapphire is valued at
200,000 fr., and the entire parure at 850,000 fr. Also a neck-
lace of brilliants terminating in a briolet drop valued at
125,000 fr.
-

One of the few survivors of the Grand Army, a
eantiniore, named Guilloteau, has just died at the age of 90.
She entered the service 74 years ago, and was present at
Austerlitz, Eylau, Friedland, Jena, Wagram, and other great
battles.
Most people have seen the toy twine telephones
which are sold in the streets. An engineer of Springfield,
Connecticut, claims to have discovered a way to make the
toys almost as effective as the telephone itself. He uses thin
button iron in place of the membrane commonly used in the
twine telephones. Wire pins are made use of as hangers, to
which are fastened small non-conductors of glass. With
this simple apparatus It has been found possible to converse
easily across the Connecticut River, which is nearly half a
mile in breadth.

Some time ago two pairs of ivory carvers, with the
inscription "Peace with honour," were presented by a Shef-
field nrm to the Earl of Beaconsfield and the Marquis of
Salisbury. Letters were received on Monday in acknowledg-
ment. Mr. Algernon Turner writes :—" Lord Beaconsfield
wishes me to express to you the pleasure with which he ac-
cepts the handsome and beautifully made carvers which you
have presented to him. Looking at the circumstances under
which they are given, his lordship feels that this is a yet
further proof of the s}mpathy and support which he has re-
ceived from the people of Sheffield during the trying labours of
the past two years; and in thanking you he desires me to
say, that he not only values the gift in itself, but appreciates
still more the feeling which prompts it."—The Marquis of
Salisbury's secretary writes that it is very gratifying to his
lordship as a public man to receive such a token of ap-
preciation of the foreign policy of the Government, and
that the value of the present is greatly increased by the
kind expressions contained in the latter which accompanied
it.

I am told tbat Russia will not likely give us im•
mediate trouble In Cabal. She is expected to retire satisfied
with having giv,n us check ' for Cyprus. But she has
made it pretty ulear to Auglo Indian soldiers that our Pro-
tectorate of Asia Minor assumts a new aspect now that she
has shown with what ease she can plot with Shore All.
Military opinion in India, I am told, goes the !quail of as-
serting that if we have no trouble to occupy us in Arpenia,
Russia would be powerless to hurt us in Afghanistan,
because, what with railways and steamers, we can plant our
forces promptly nu the frontier whilst Russia would have to.
move hers through a thonsafid 'Otitis DI Mart.
hers But then-h&
when
dpilculty becomes ours, and our advantages hers,
Mt Mitre of 'Milts IA shifted to Asia Mlnor."--Afayfair.

' 1.4, • )

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