The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-11-06 00:00:00

rison. Sergeant Snaden, at the recent examigation,
gained the g II medals, and obtained honours in ap-
plied mechanics, inorganic chemistry, practical, plane,
and solid geometry, and other subjects. Ile was also
awarded one of the Whitworth Scholarships, but could
not receive it, as he was four months over the proper
age. Sergeant &laden has ac mired the knowledge
which enabled him to obtain the exhibition during his
I..iSIITH time while serving with the corps of Royal
Engineers,
SENSIBLE ADVICE TO LITIOANTE—ID the Scotch
Court of Session, on Friday, the Earl of Breadalliane
craved the Court to find that the defendini, the trus-
tees of the late Marquis of Breadaibane, were bound to
deliver up to him the key of the charter-re our in lay.
mouth Castle, and ought to be interdicted from
interfering in any way with the pursuer's custody of
the deeds and writings therein contained. The Court
recommended the parties to do now what they ought to
have done long ago—namely, agree on some way of
separating the papers. lf that was not done in a reaeon
able time the Court would have to tate th'2 matter jute
their own hand,.

THE IRISH AND THE Nloolll.—The old feud
between the negro and the Irish labouring population
of New York has burst forth with renewed violence.
Two "coloured clergymen" were lately passing along
a certain quarter of the city, when they were at-
tacked by a gang of Irish labourers employed on some
new buildings in the locality, and most brittallp
stoned. For the cause of the outrage ws tritrat
back a little. A short time ago a negro tanned I" rt
got involved in a street quarrel, and in defending him:
self killed an Irishman. He was at once arrested, lint
the facts of the cast, were no clear that • verdict of
justifiable homicide was returned, and the negro was
acquitted. Ever since, we are told, a general persecu-
tion of the negroea has been going on, and the attack
on the two clergymen was simply one of many similar,
though less violent, outrages. " 'Down with the
nigger !' " says one journal, is the cry of the dehased
democracy. Down with the mobs !' is the response
of the people."
A DUCAL PRIVILEGE.— MT. Commissioner
1 Winslow has decided, in the case of the Duke ef
Newcastle, that a Peer of the Realm, not being A
trader, is not within the pale of bankruptcy law. It
is well everybody should know that a Duke cannot be
bankrupt in law; he can only he bankrupt in fortune,
in credit, and in character. He cannot file his
dule ; he can only defile his lscutcheota— Punch.

FIVE PERSONS SUPPOCATED.--There being a
dearth of water in the writs of Gannet, Frarce, a
farmer conceived the idea of descending into his own in
order to mske it deeper. lie therefore placed a bar
over the orifice and let himself down about four yards
by means of a rope, when he was affected with vertigo,
caused by the putrid emanations of carbonic acid gas,
and he fell to the bottom from a height of 30 feet.
His son, who had seen what had happened, also at-
tempted to go down, and was in his turn suffocated;
thiee workmen who came upend tried successively to
go down and afford assistance also became victims to
their self-devotedness. Succour was then regularly or-
ganised, and after some fruitless attempts to draw up
the bodies with hooks, a process of disinfection with
lime and ammonia was commenced, but upwards of
three hours had elapsed before a lighted !anthem could
be let down to the bottom without being extinguisled,
When the passage was considered safe a workman des-
cended five times, and came up as often with a corpse
, in his arms.

A BANQI7ET TO AGED POOR.—A banquet was
given at Accrington on Friday, in the Market Hall,
to about 1,300 poor persons, coiefly above fifty years
of age. They were the guests of the gentlemen and
tradesmen of the neighbourhood. Mr. Francis IlAr-
greaves wa.s the originator r.f the feast. He aeked for
subscriptions, and about £l5O were sent in, and the
butchers and grocers of the town abo charitably filled the
tables with contributions. The diners all brought their
own plates and knives and forks. After dinner the
centre of the hall was cleared, and the old folks took to
dancing.

A CCIIIOI7B APPFAL.—The came of "The
Excise r. Tne Brentford Bench of Magistrates" has
been heard, and was se follows :
Mr. Baldwin was summoned for having • dog, on the 26th
of May, without a licence. lie had a licence granted to hi in
on the 16th of July, and the officer who granted it was the
informer. The justices below diimissed the summons, be-
cause the tax, being for the whole )ear from the let of Janu-
ary to the list of December, they thought the licence might
be taken to he retrospective.
The Court at once decided that in point of law there
muse be a conviction for the lowest penalty • and
the Excise did not ask for costa.

A GIRL ACCIDIOTALLY SHOT BY HER BROTHER.
—A melancholy accident o.:icurred in Gateshead on
Friday, in the house of Mr. Shelton, a marred man,
and a photographic artist. It appears that sonic
three weeks ago Mr. Shelton loaded a small
pocket pistol with powder and ball, and placed
it for safety under the " tester " of a bed in title
of the rooms in his house. It was not touched until
Friday, when Mrs. Shelton, who was cleaning the bed,
removed it, and placed it on a table in the room. Re-
quiring a short brush, she shouted to one of her chit.
dren in the kitchen to fetch one. Her son William,
eleven years old, got the brush, and took it to his
mother. The boy saw the pistol lying 011 the table,
and got possession of it without his mother seeing. him.
He went into the kitchen, where his sister Emily,
thirteen years old, was playing. Not knowing that it
was loaded, the boy held it up and pulled the trig,aer.
The cap missed fire. Pointing the pistol towards the
wall of the kitchen, he again pulled the trigger, and
the pistol went off, but instead of going in the direc-
tion of the wall the bullet hit his sister Emily. The
people in the house hearing the report rushed into the
kitchen, and found the poor girl on the floor weltering
in blood. Everything was done that medical skill could
suggest, but the suddenness of the paralysis and the
erratic direction taken by the bullet made the case very
perplexing. Previous to the unfortunate occurrence,
she had been in a very weakly condition, and this foot,
coupled with the serious nature of the wound, made
her ultimate recovery very doubtful from the first.
She was not, however, entirely Oven up, until very
shortly previous to her death, which took place on
Sunday morning.
A GREAT MIRACLE !—Civita Vecchia has been
the scene of a great miracle. A brigand, guilty of
numeroue murders, was lately missed from the gaol
there, but the police, after a raid on the haunts of
crime, succeeded in effecting his recapture. The man
. now avers that he did not break out f prison, but was
taken out by an angel, whom the Madonna, touched
,by his sufferings, sent to deliver him He demands
: an inquiry into the facts and a judizial recognition
of the miracle.

QUESTIONS FOR THE CIVIL SERVICK MCA MINA-
TIoN.- -Give the Latin equivalent for " A Music-Hall
audience."—Answer (by Punch's crib) " Colluvies gen-
tium." A mob of gents.- --Punch.
BLONDIN'S FEATS.—Blondin, the rope-dancer,
is again at the Crystal Palace with a new perform-
ance more startling than any he has yet exhibited.
Last week he crossed the centre transept on a bicycle
in mid-air, the only support being a tight rope. The
velocipede manufactured expressly for him had a small
wheel in front 18 inches high, and hind wheel 2 feet
and a half high, with grooves in both wheels to re-
ceive the rope. Amidst great cheering Blondin
mounted the saddle balancing a pole, and drove the
velocipede across the wide expanse. A brillant lime-
light shone upon him and made his motions apparent.
He looked like a spider running along a thread of ita
web near the roof. He passed to the side opposite the
orchestra and recrossed amid loud cheers from the
audience. Blondin worked hard in ascending the in-
cline—and in descending be had as much difficulty in
checking an impetus that would have ovirturned an
ordinary performer. Altogether the feat seems one of
the most dangerous and hazardous yet exhibited, and
the greatest wonder is that the performer has escaped
without breaking his neck.
MCNIFICEhTDONATIOh h.—During the past week
several very large stuns have been presented to the
various charities in and around London. Up to Thurs-
day no less than £9,000 all in donations of £l,ooo each
had been acknowledged by hospitals, refuges, convales-
cent hones, the. ; but since then, reckoning only the
donations of £l,OOO each, this sum has been raised to
£13,000. It would not appear that all thete donations
have been presented by one person, as the initials of
the donor in each case are dissimilar; but it has been
remarked as somewhat singular that in every acknow-
ledgment three initials have been used. Among the
latest donations are £1 000 from " B. G. F.," for the
Metropolitan Convalescent Institution, and £l,OOO from
"G. T. N.," for the Metropolitah Fres Dormitory
Institution. Besides the above several donatiens of
£lOO have been announced.—Receipt was acknow-
ledged on Monday, by the Committee of the St. Mary,
letrone Female Protection Society, of the donation of
£l,OOO from "H. J. N."
SUPERB IMAM INDCBTRY.—There is Or WM a
very remarkable man living in the West of England,
perhaps the most indefatigable student the world has
ever heard of, judging by Archdeacon Freeman's
account of him. In a speech at Exeter, in which he
expressed his strong dislike to newspapers and niaga-
rnes, the Archdeacon (who is said to be one of Dr.
Temple's opponents in the Chapter) stated that lie once
gave a work of Jeremy Taylor's to a man who " read
it for three years night and day, and never stopped I"
•--Punch.

AN EXTRAORDINARY FEAT. The steamer
Rakaia, of the late Panama and New Zealand line, in
one of her tripe from Panama, called in at Oparo
Island for coal. Whilst there one of the natives mired
Captain Wright, the commander, to ship him as a coal-
passer. The captain consented, and the man went to
work, and in a few hours afterwards the steamer left
the i-land. As the land receded from his view, the
native became readies.; and uneasy. At night, when the
officer of the watch called the roll, the native was min,
ing, and Captain Wright concluded that lie must have
jumped overboard. The vessel was put about, and
steamed back in her wake. In afew hours, so wonder-
fully accurate WSK h. r steering, she passed directly by
the place where the native had escaped overboard, and
he was discovered floating in the water. He was taken
on board again much against his will, and the vessel
proceeded on her course. This in certainly one of the
most extraordinary cases of accurate steering on mord.
—Panama Star.
DISTREESING 0000RRENCE.—Much painful ex-
citement was caused in Barnstaple on Saturday morn-
ing by an announcement by the public crier that two
children, aged respectively, four and nine years, had
disappeared on the previous day, and had not since
been heard of. It appeared that the two children are
the eons of • mason named Hearn, and on Friday
afternoon they were sent to school as usal, but on
their way they met a porter who was conveying some
oats in a handcart to Mount Sandford. about a mile
from Barnstaple, and the two boys accompanied him.
Whilst the oats were being unloaded by Wilkie the chil-
dren strayed away, and were seen no more until the fl-
lowing day, Saturday. The farmers of Landkey then dis-
covered the elder boy, William Hearn, sitting by the side
of • mill lest, near Laridkey, and his younger brother,
Thomas, lying by his side. The elder boy was asked
what he was doing there, and he replied that be
" could not get his brother home." On examination it
was found that the child was quite dead, and the bro-
ther stated that he hail fallen into the water, but was
it drowned, Lerause hi,epoke to him after he puiled
him out. The children had been exposed to the in-
clemency of the weather all night, and the youngest
probably died from cold and exhaustion.