The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-06-04 00:00:00

Nistrilantous
HOME, FOREIGN, AND COLONIAL.

PURg BKHR.—Mr. William Ray Smee, Regmit'e.
Park, writes to The Timm :
Mr. Bass In the House of Commons, on Friday, said of the
publicans .•there was not ODO m a hundred—he thomMt he
might add not DUO In a thousand—who ever adulterated,'
"As to turning the New River into the beer cask, the righ.
hon. gentleman's cremility must hese nem, abused by sum.
person with a liv ly imagination." Sometime agd, with the
object of ascertaining whether the beer acid In London POD
genuine, I obtained six samples in the west district
and six in the s oith. It was purchased, without selec.
Mon, of large and email public-houses at the work-
men's dinner hour, and was immediately sent to he
analyzed Out of these 12 samples seven were salted, 11
had colouring matter jive in large quantithal, and It. al
there wan an extra amount of water setting aside the llttat
Sample as too g mil for an average, and the worst as too bad,
the remaining 10 gave 1,100 gallons as ~ritinally made b. the
brewer tram 10 quarters of malt to which 1 064 gallons of the
New River had neen added, for which excellent artt+ticalb,
coloured water the consuiners were charged £l2O, while the
cost of the raw material, the malt and hops, for the whole
2,244 gallons was doubtless less than £4O. But it was only a
fraud, for no cocculus or ally substance positively injurious
to health was dotccted. Mr. Bass may ray the analyst did
not understand his hosinesss. He, however, examined a
sample of ale brewed by Messrs. Baas and Co. and found no
salt, no colouring umber, and DO water added—in fact, per
fectly pure beer. May I ask was that also au error?

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MODEL HOUSEWIVES AT VEntIONT ! That the
movement for Woman Suffrage in Vermont Mtn
failed in a matter which will interest nobody in Eng.
land, but it is curious to record one detailed result of
the canvass made in the diattict of 11,yalton. The
number of women in the district was $2; wanted the
suffrage, 14; did not want it, 53 ; did not care, 14 ; not
at home, 1. It is quite clear that the old Puritanism
has by no means vanished from Vermont, when
only one woman out of 82 was not at home. They
have not "learnt to be idle, wandering abut from
house to house," as St. Paul says the young widows of
his time used ti do. Equally clear is it that one polite
fiction of modern society, by which "Not at home" in
the excuse for keeping undesirable visitors outside the
house, does not obtain in Royalton. Although they
have decided against woman nutfraze, the women of
Vermont are clearly model housewives.

ATTACHING SA:IN-SULFA. The improvements
made in connection with the manufacture of boots and
shoes during the last ten years have been very great ;
hut we are still far from perfection. Messrs. Chaffev and
Wahlig, of ltdmingham, propose, the Scient,fic Review
reports, to attach them by screws passed through eye-
lets formed in, or connected to, an endless wire, laid in •
channel cut in the sole to sink the wire below the surf c, .
the ' to being made to coincide ;elf,. the hot-s.
form . •.. cove's, and the said boles sag larce
euout perudt. tes acrews to force them swell down
into ti .•oi, DO OA C, produce ,1101 t.isflas On the wiz.,
cc
to cause to hold the leather snugly to the inc Ac
between t

THE 6 ~n OLD TIMM—A few days shice. as
some work,, were digging in the ruins of Wigmore
Castle, He', 1.-Tashirc fin early days the property and
residence of t 55 timer family), they came upon
the solid nunionry of an arched roof, and, on removing
one or two of the largeatones, found a dungeon com-
municating with another of equal size, each about 15
feet square, and covered with arched stone roofs. They
were approached by means of stone staircases, which
have been buried in the rubbish of the mine for many
years. In the stonework of the side walls were
embedded large, strong iron staples, supposed to have
been used for securing prisoners during the civil wars.
The dungeons contained a few bones in a very decayed
state and some lead rolled up. Hundreds of persons
from Hereford, Leominster, and the surrounding
neighbourhood have visited these interesting remains
of former ages.
A SMIIIiCT FOR, Air ARTIST.—A writer in the
Daily New, describing Epsom race-course the day
beton, the race, says:—
There were a dozen carriages In the enclosure opposite the
whining-post and the fandahed throng which clustered round
these when their occupants were at luncheon, would have
made a flue study for Gustave Dort It is understood that
that accomplished artist intends to be present on the Downs
to.day, and one could not help regretting he missed the
cluster of heads and faces assemhled round one of the drags
while the groom put by the th'bri. of his masters lunch
There had been no one on the Downs to beg from till pester
day, and thedreadful eagernese with which scraps were picked
up, with which the mouthfuls others ate, were followed fly
hungry, almost hy despairing eyes, the pitiful wails when the
booth door was locked, and the p•ilceman aided the liveried
retainer In clearing the ground, made a painful suggestive
sight.
.
'

SHARIS WORTH HAVING !—Several parts of
shares in the New River Company were sold by auction
in London last week, in forty.seven lota. They repre•
sented an income of £2,100 per annum, and the gross
amount realised by the sale was about £62,430. Among
other facts as to the increase in the value of the shares
of this Company mentioned by the auctioneer, he stated
that King Charles IL. gave up possession of thirty-six
shares in consideration of an annual payment of £5OO,
which payment still continues to be made under the
title of ` The King's Clogg,' and that one of these
thirty-six shares was sold by public auction in 1823 for
£17,050 ; so that the 36 shares which were surrendered
for a commuted payment of £5OO a year in King
Charles 11.0 time were in 1823 worth £613,800, or an
annual income at 4 per cent of £24,452. The result of
the sale proved that the present value of one of the
shares of the King's moiety is now £48,000. The 36
shares, therefore, are worth £1.728,000, representing an
income at 4 per cent. of £69,120, or 138 times more
than King Charles was content to accept.

THE SALE OF LIQUORS ON SUNDAY.—An open
air demonstration, attended by upwards of a thousand
working men, was held at Haverstock-hill. London,
on Saturday last, under the auspices of the Central
Association for stlining the Sale of Intoxicating
Liquors on Sunday. This WAS the tint of a series of
similar gatherings organised by this twisty, is order to
test the feeling of working men upon this question. A
brass band headed a processionwhich marched through
the principal thoroughfaresof the district to the meeting
place. The speeches were delivered from a waggon,
the chair being occupied by Mr. Garvey, LL.B. A
petition to Parliament in favour of Mr. Ryland's 13111
for Closing Public-houses on Sunday was unanimously
adopted.
THE "REPEATING" PROCESS. —IR the late
municipal election in New York, the New York Tinws
says, there were more tickets in the urns than people
who voted, and many more were counted than were
put in the urns. This, it is said, was due to the system
of "repeating "—that is, one person voting at many
places, giving the names and addresses of persons in
the district, hut of course without the latter's know-
ledge or consent. It seems there are still some diffi-
culties to overcome in the use of the ballot. The
Tribune says that over 80,000 votes were polled for Mr.
Church, and not more than 50,000 voted. The NfiV
York Sun, a violent supporter of Church, admits these
facts, and says, "Never before were our citizens dis-
graced by so corrupt and infamous an election. Re-
peating was the enter of the day." In the Bth ward,
8,474 votes were polled for Mr. Church, say the Tribune,
and in this ward less than 3.000 voters live, and of these
a large proportion did not vote. Fifteen dollars is
stated to have been the price for a forged vote.

HENRY WARD BEECHER Ott TAR APPLE-TREE.
the discourse entitled "The Lilies of the Field ;
a Study of Spring for the Careworn "—a sermon that
might be called the Apple-hl room Homily- after
giving krth as his text the passage of Scripture con-
cluding, "And yet I say unto you that even Solomon,
in oil his glory, was not arrayed like one of these," he
exclaims, by way of commencement, "I know he
never was! nor has anybody else ever been; nor will
anybody ever be. I can show you one apple-tree that
puts to shame all the men and women that have
attempted to dress since the world began."
ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN AND BEABT.—Due
arrangements have been made, we are glad to see, by
Brivy Council Order, for " watering " beasts travelling
by railway. Query if the "beasts" for whom " water-
ing" on a journey compulsory provision is most needed,
are the four-legged ones? By the beasts we have had
most reason to complain of—however fond of "liquoring
up '—"water" is shout the lust refreshment likely to
be asked for—Frock,
WHEN UNMARRIED LADIES GET VOTES, What
will their rule be but Miss-rule ?—Punch.

YOUNG MEN WANTED !—The marriage statistics
of Massachusetts for the past year show that there
were fewer marriages than in the year before, or the
ear prosodic% that, a fact which may to some extent