The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-03-02 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

Colonel Burnaby is of opinion that our volunteers
are equal to the first-class reserve of France, and that half a
million of men who had passed through the ranks would
rally to the defence of their country.

We understand that the late Pope succeeded in
amassing for his successor a capital amply sufficient to pro-
vide a civil list of an amount sufficient to maintain the state
and dignity of the Holy See. This capital, which we are in- •
formed amounts to no less than Z 5,000,000, is invested in
foreign countries, the greater part of it being in Paris
under the managtment of the House of Rothschilds.— Vanity
Fair.

Lord Napier, of Magdala, arrived on Sunday night
from Gibraltar, and spent the greatest part of Monday in
close consultation with the authorities at the Horse Guards.
—Truth.

A private telegram has been received in London
stating that the "deficiency in the Australian wool ship-
ments to date Is fifty-seven thousand bales."

Great preparations are bainz made in Geneva to
celebrate the centenary of the death of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau. The festivities will extend over three days, from
the 30th of June to the 2nd of July, both inclusive.

Tuesday was observed by the clergy of the dioceses
of London and Rochester as a day of intercessory prayer
with reference not merely to the coming Lent, hut to the
particular dangers which beset the Church at the present
time, and the services in St. Paul's Cathedral were attended
by the Bishops of London and Rochester, under whom, by
recent legislative changes, the metropolitan clergy now act.
The receipts on account of Revenue from the let
April, 1877, when there was a balance of £5,988,650, to
Feb. 23 were £69,877,054, against 4,69,372,946 in the cone-
eponding financial year, which began with a balance of
£5,119,587. The net expenditure was £70,613,137, against
£68,645,109 to the same date in the previous year. The
Treasury balances en Feb. 23 amounted to £3,319,550, and at
the same date in 1876 to £5,210,721.

At a meeting held in Leeds on Monday, statements
were made by several gentlemen as to the great distress
which existed in the town, to relieve which three soup
kitchens had been established. It was thought that with
additional subscriptions the present charitable institutions
would be able to meet the cases applying for relief, and a
resolution calling for increased support for that object was
carried.

A "great Conservative song," entitled "Hurrah
for Beaconsfield ; or, God Defend the Right," is being sung
in the London music halls.

Of the three brothers of Leo XIII., one is a simple
Jesuit priest.

Captain Burnaby's soldier-servant, Radford, who
accompanied him in his adventures "on horse-back through
Asia Minor," and who was also his companion in his recent
travels in noumelia and the seat of war, died last week at
Dover of typhus fever, contracted during the hardships of
Suleiman Pasha's retreat. At the funeral on Monday,
Captain Burnaby was present, and a detachment of the
Horse Guards Blue was specially in attendance.
A Reuter's telegram from Malta says :—" An order
has been issued by the Governor requiring extra vigilance to
be observed in order to prevent the admission of strangers
to the fortifications without a pass, since a spy in the pay
of some foreign Power is known to be at Malta endeavouring
to make plans of all the forts. Any such person, after being
warned off, is to be at once removed from the neighbour-
hood of the forts."

The South American Missionary Society has received
a gift of £5OO from "A. T."
-

-
A correspondent says that the priests at St. Peter's,
Rome, have been selling bundles of straw at a franc a blade,
on the statement that they had formed the death-bed of the
late rope. . _ _

The Times (in a leader on Tuesday) says it would be
charitable to conclude that the Russian terms of peace have
received their present form in order to leave room for a
reduction of their severity, and thus give the victor the air
of acting with moderation. At present they are startling even
when read by the light of the warning which the Russian
Government gave to our own so long ago as last June, and
which was made known to th world a week ago.

""--
The Times correspondent at St. Petersburg says that
Prince Gortsch eked has recovered from an illness which he
was attacked with last Friday night, and has resumed his
ordinary occupations.—A. Renter's telegram of Tuesday
evening, on the contrary, states that the Prince is still con-
fined to his bed.
The mortality from all causes during the past week
in the large towns of the United Kingdom is reported by the
Registrar-General to have been at the average rate of 26
deaths annually in every 1,000 persons. In London and
Edinburgh the death rate was 26, and in Dublin 33. Leicester
had the lowest rate of mortality, and Norwich the highest.
the relative figures being la and 37. Whooping cough is still
the most fatally prevalent zymotic disease in London, causing
100 deaths last week, against 114 and 124 in the two pre-
ceding weeks.
On Tuesday night a crowded meeting was held in
the Windsor Guildhall for the purpose'of considering the
policy of the Government as regards the Eastern Question.
The meeting was addressed by Mr. H. Darvell, who censured
the policy of the Russians, and said if they were allowed to
remain where they were, they would afterwards go on till
they got to the frontier of India. He would propose, "That
with regard to the grave crisis of the Eastern Question, it
was the duty of all Englishmen to unite and give their
cordial bupport to the Government of the present day."
(Loud cheers.) Thp releguttoa was eluded. .11r. G. R..
Long proposed; (‘ That ibis meeting deprecates the carrying
out of any policy which would allow the advancement of
RUSSiala interests, to the prejudice of Great Britain." This
motion was carried almost without dissent. A third re-
solution of confidence, thanking the Government for the
patriotic position it had maintained in endeavouring to up-
hold the IlbuOur of England, was also carried.

The Liverpool Cocoa Rooms have proved a great
success. The directors have been enabled to declare a
dividend at the rate of 10 per cent., and it has been declaed
to increase the existing number of houses, which is at pre-
sent twenty-nine.
It is stated in a French paper that the Queen, who
has a passion for relics of departed potentates. telegraphed
to Cardinal Manning to ask for a memento of Pins IX. The
earnerlingo could not send her a medal or crucifix, since she
is a Protestant, but a little vessel of Britannia metal, which
the late Pope was accustomed to hold in his hand, is to be
filled with holy water and forwarded to her Majesty.
China advices received by mail from San Frano;sco
state that the building recently burned at Tientsin was a
house containing famine-stricken refugees, nearly 3,000 of
whom perished.
- •

The other day I was giving some people a- descrip•
tion of the ceremonies in St. Peter's at a Papal Coronation.
I painted, for a deeply-interested circle, the heaped-up
honours paid to the new pontiff, until, at the moment of
the culmination of his all but divine glories, the tow is sud-
denly burnt before his eyes, whilst the prelates murmur,
"Sic tramit gloria mundi !" I observed a look of con-
siderable uneasiness on the face of one of my friends, and
when I had finished he asked, mindful apparently of some
points of Papal etiquette, and in a voice of dismay, " Whose
toe 7"—Whitehall Retina. ,
Lady Ward has given a large number of blankets
for distribution among the poor in Sedgley parish. They
are to be marked and lent out to the poor on such condition
as will make them almost their own. Lady Ward has pre-
viously given £lOO for the purchase of bread, &c.
The Leeds Boot and Shoe Manufacturers' Associa-
tion have resolved, in consequence of the continued dulness
of trade, to reduce the rate of wages to the extent of 5 per
cent. At the meeting it was stated by several of the largest
employers that there was an entire absence of spring and
general orders, and that they had never known the trade to
be so bad before.

In 'view of the proposed increase in the establishment
of horses for army purposes a special committee has been
called together to superintend the purchases, and officers are
to be employed throughout the country, acting under the
orders of this body, to treat with breeders and dealers.

Ihe Chinese workmen at the Paris Exhibition are
attracting much interest. The carpenters and joiners are
said to do nearly all their work with the axe and saw.

General Duplessis, who died on Monday from in-
juries caused by his horse's bolting and dashing him against
a tree in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, was but 56 years of
age. He was much respected. All the medical skill of
Paris came to his assistance, and the whole military circle
made sympathetic inquiries. Marshal Alacilahon, the
Prince Imperial, the King and Queen of Hanover, and
Marshal Canrobert are among the friends who will regret
him. His eldest son, a naval officer, left for China but a few
days before the disaster.

A further reduction of waoaes has been made in the
spike-nail trade of Sedgley, making a total fall in wages
within the last three months equal to 25 per cent. Even at
these reduced wages work is very scarce and there is great
distress among the operatives.

"Are you for Disraeli?" said a man below a tree,
to another, perched on a branch of the tree, in Hyde Park.
"No," replied the other, "I'm for Beaconsfield." The dis-
tinction is one which shows that political questions are
thoroughly understood by the masses —Truth.
The distress amongst the families of the rniners and
iron-workers in the eastern portion of Wolverhampton shows
no signs of abatement, whilst the subscriptioas seat in to the
relief committte for affording help to the sufferers are so
small that they are quite inadequate to meet the demands
for assistance. Whole families are literally on the verge of
starvation.

Leeturivg at Leamington on Tuesday, Dr. Cumming
quoted at length Peter the Great's will, directing the future
policy of Russia, avowedly to gain for her the supremacy of
the world. He characterised the Russo-Turkish war as one
of the most terrible and shocking recorded. lie styled some
of the provisions of the will, which aimed by treachery and
deceit at sowing discord amongst neighbouring nations, in
order finally to subjugate and conquer them, as masterly
conceptions, but stigmatised them as full of subtlety and
demoniacal teaching. He endorsed the sentiment expressed
by Peter the Great, tha.'whoever holds Constantinople and
India will be the rulers of the world, and hoped this country
would not forget that fact. As to the future of England, he
believed that, despite her defects and fgults, her evangelical
Protestant Christianity would be her salvation.

Forty Tyne tugs are now ,engaged in trawl fishing
off the Northumberland coast. This is quite a new industry,
having been started about six months ago, and it has been
most successful. The fish is brought into the Tyne six
days in the week, much of it alive. It is sold by auction
wholesale, and there are large daily consignments to Billings-
gate. Between 500 and 600 people find employment in this
trade.

According to the Registrar-General's return, the
deaths from small-pox in London, which had been 55 and 47
in the two preceding weeks, further declined to 39 last week,
of which 24 occurred in the Metropolitan Asylum Hospitals,
one in the Lcndon Hospital, one in the Highgate Hospital,
and 13 in private dwelling-houses. Of the 39 fatal cases 12
were certified as unvaccinated and 16 as vaccinated, while
In the remaining 11 cases the medical certificates of the
cause of death did not give any information.
Among the exports of Corsica it is said that there
are annually between 350,000 and 400,000 blackbirds (merles)
which are sent to the continent. They Visit Corsica in vast
numbers each winter to feed on the berries of myrtle and
arbutus, with which the mountains are coverad. In the
month of December they became very tat, and the flavour
and perfume given to their flesh by their food cause them to
be much esteemed by the gourmets of Paris. A pate de
joie de merle is a great delicacy.

The Rev. Mr. Spurgeon, who is still residing at
Mentone for the benefit of his health, has addressed letters
to the members of his congregation, which were read at the
morning service on Sunday in the Metropolitan Tabernacle
by the officiating clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Wood. In these
he states that his health is improving, and that he has
reason to bless the Lord in consequence of the satisfactory
continuation ot the good work at his Tabernacle during his
absence.

Acivices from Panama to the 13th inst. confirm the
reports, which were current some time back, of a tidal wave
having done great damage at Callao. There were also
earthquakes on Jan. 23 at Iquique and Mica, which, how-
ever, did but little damage.

The death of the Pope has caused great sensation
among the lotteries. Every one tries to get a number cor-
responding with something appertaininz to the Pope,
expecting it to bring luck, as: 9, (Pius IX), 7 (day of the
month when he died), 58 (58th Pope), 86 (his age), &c.—
Truth.

A firm in Dundee has received an order from the
British Government for 60,000 sand bags, to be ready within
three weeks from this date.

On Sunday, in the Paris cemetery of Pere la Chaise
a bust of the late M. Ledru Rollin was unveiled. About
thirty deputies and senators were present. Speeches were
delivered by M. Cremieux, M Victor Hugo, and M. Louis
Blanc. M. Gambetta, who did not speak, was more loudly
cheered than anyone else.

I cannot remember who it was that asked me,
"When silence rains, who gets wet ?"—Judy.

The London Docks were invaded a few days ago by
a large force of Russian sailors. The occupation was not
hostile, and yet it was significant of Muscovite uneasiness
with regard to the policy of England. The sailors came
over to conduct back to their own country a number of un-
armed Russian vessels now lying in the Thames, deeming it
advisable, in fact, to make sure of them before a possible
declaration of war.

Drawings are now being prepared at the Admiralty
for a large number of torpedo boats, which are to be con-
structed at the various royal dockyards, in addition to those
now building by contract. The boats will be on the most
improved principle, and will have very powerful machinery.

The French Fine Arts Department has just secured
a perfect papyrus, dating 2,000 years before Christianity.
The hieroglyphics are quite legible, and detail the funeral
of the queen-mother of one of the kings of the first dynasty.
The fleet of vessels at the present time fitting out at
Chatham Dockyard is larger than the whole fleets possessed
by some European countries, and would in itself form a
sufficient squadron, with the addition of one or two gun
boats, for the protection of the British Isles in case of hos-
tilities. The whole of these vessels could put to sea In the
course of a few weeks. In monetary value the vessels would
represent no less a sum than between £3,000,000 and
£4,000,000. _ _

The statement that the German masons working in
London have returned to their own country is incorrect.
With two exceptions, all the German masons who were work-
ing at the Law Courts two months ago were at work on
Tuesday morning.
- - • - • •

Drawings are now being prepared at the Admiralty
for a large number of torpedo boats, which are to be con-
structed at the various royal dockyards, in addition to those
now building by contract. The boats will be on the most
improved principle, and will have very powerful machinery.
The executive committee of the John Stuart Mill
Memorial Fund have resolved that the surplus of about £5OO
shall be devoted to founding a scholarship of the value of
£2O a year in connection with University College, London,
open to the competition of both men and women, in
Philosophy of Mind and Logic.
The Elizabeth, with 234, and the Edward, with 203
emigrants, engaged by Sir Arthur Blyth, K.C.M G., Agent-
General for South Australia, left Hamburg on the 26th inst.
for Port Adelaide.
_ _

The Sheffield file hardeners recently received notice
of a reduction of 10 per cent, but after urging upon their
employers the fact that they had not had any advance for
nearly twenty years, the proposed change will not be en-
forced for the present. _

A telegram from Odessa to the St. Petersburg
papers, dated the 19th instant, announces that Lieutenant
Pustehin and other Russian prisoners of war interned et
Constantinople have been liberated, and despatched to the
Grand Duke Nicholas's head-quarters.

A strike of spinners, which stopped 250,000 spindles,
commenced at Bury on Wednesday last, in opposition to a
reduction of five per cent. in wages. At a meeting held on
Saturday it was resolved by a large majority to resume
work. _ _

The Lanarkshire Volunteers, who had addressed a
letter to Mr. Montagu Corry, to ascertain whether the
Government in the event of war would feel disposed to
accept the services of the volunteers for garrison duty,
have received the following reply :-10, Downing street,
Whitehall, 19th February, 1878.—Dear Sir,—Mr. Corry is
at present absent from England on account of ill-health,
and is ordered to have complete rest from all business. I
write, therefore, to say that your letter of the 12th instant
has not been forwarded to him, but I imagine there can
be no reason why a spontaneous offer such as you de-
scribe made by a volunteer regiment to the Secretary of
State for War should be unweloome to the Government.
—I am, dear Sir, faithfully yours, JAMES F. DALY."
The new Pope is said to have adopted his title of
Leo XIII. out of gratitude to his benefactor, Leo XII.
The representatives of the occupiers of flax scutch-
ing mills in Ireland have, it is stated, been successful in
inducing the Home Secretary to make an exception in their
favour in the new Factory Acts Consolidation Bill. Accept-
ing the progress as one closely Agin to agriculture, Mr.
Cross has agreed to exempt them from the restrictions as to
hours of work in all cases where there are no children em-
ployed, and where the mills are not kept at work for more
than four months in the year.
The San Francisco Chronicle publishes some interest-
ing statistics of the population of that city. The capital of
California, which in 1815 was a village with only a hundred
inhabitants, contained a population of 150,000 ten years ago,
and in 1872 the census showed that it numbered 178,276
souls. Four Nears later, upon the Ist of March, 1876, the
population bad increased to 301,020, which was at the rate
of :>0,686 per annum during the four years. It is estimated
that at the present date San Francisco contains at least
330,000 inhabitants. The number of Chinese living at San
Francisco has risen from 32,000 in 1876 to over 40,000, so that
the white population of the city is rather less than 290,000.

_
In charging the grand jury at the intermediate
sessions for the Hundred of Salford, Mr. Higgiu, Q.C., the
chairman, expressed his belief that the time was not far
distant when the whole criminal procedure of the country
must be revised, and placed on a footing "more in con-
sonance with advanced ideas.

Mr. R. Moon, in presiding at the half-yearly meet-
ing of the London and North Western Railway, attributed
the reduction in dividend partly to the depression in trade.
There was, in his opinion, something grievously wrong when
in our own markets we were undersold in glass, manufac-
tured iron, slate, paper, screws, and other things by the
foreigner. He believed that this was largely due to the
regulations of the Government and to the restrictions placed
upon workmen by trade unions. The only fear was that
trade would be so regulated by the Government and the
trade unions I.s to be driven out of the country.
The Correspondent of The Times, writing from
Rome under date Feb. 24, says A fearful catastrophe
has occurred at Parma. An Artillery officer and six men
were trying to uproot an old horse chestnut tree with
dynamite in the public promenade, when owing to the
officer's carelessness an explosion ensued, killing six persons,
and wounding aixty.three. Among the I.illed are the officer,
two soldiers, and two children. Among the seriously
wounded are four noblemen and several gentlemen who
were out for their afternoon walk and attracted to the spat
from curiosity to see the experiment. Some of them are
not expected to eurrive.

•
In consequence of the masters reducing the standard
wages a halfpenny per hour, the masons of Perth have
struck work.
The Shah of Persia is expected to arrive at St.
Petersbursr shortly. The Emperor Alexander has instructed
Prince Menschikoff to meet the Shah on the f;ontier and
offer him Imperial hospitality during his stay in Russia.
Mr. Marshall E. Dovvlin, of North Adams, Massa-
chusetts, has invented a covering for the udder of a cow to
keep it clean and 'to keep it warm during the cold weather.
so as to increase the flow of milk." It consists of a pouch
made of leather, and provided with straps so that it may ,be
secured to the udder.

A sum of 400,000 crowns, in gold and bank-notes,
has been found in a drawer of the klte Pope's writing-desk,
without any indication as to its destination.— Vanity Fair.

In the new drinking-fountains for Paris, of which
a large number are in course of preparation, At special ar-
rangement at the foot provides for the wants! of thirsty
dogs.
-

General Valentine Baker, in common with lI the
other English officers in the Turkish service. has received
his pay punctually up to the present time.— Vanity Fair.

- - -
A woman has just died at Grimisuat, near Sion
(Switzerland), at the alleged age of 114, leaving two
daughters aged 86 and 82.
Earl Bathurst died on Sunday night at his resi-
dence, IS, Half Moon-street, Piccadilly, London, at the age
of eighty-seven years. He is succeeded by Mr. Allen
Bathurst, his nephew, who represents Cirencester in Parlia-
ment.
- - - - -

It has been announced that England, Austria, Italy,
Holland, and Sweden are to send detachments of police to
Paris to watch their sections during the Exhibition. It Is
now further decided that these are to be supplemented by
a contingent of detectives of all nations, who know their
own pickpockets by their faces.
Materials for a line of railway twenty miles in
length are in course of delivery at the Royal Arsenal, Wool.
wick Twelve thousand sleepers have arrived in barges,
being part of a contract for 30,000, and anGther contract
has been entered into for a further supply by the 31st of
March.
George Cruikshank had, before his death, made con-
siderable progress with an autobiegraphy, which commences
nearly eighty years ago, and comprises " recollections " of
many well-known literary characters. This work, the
Athenceunt says, will be completed and edited by his widow,
Mrs. Eliza Cruikshank.

"It is curious now to see a lady in full dress. Her
bust resembles marble. She cannot bend easily, she can
scarcely sit down; she can but just walk, even when the
height of her heels does not altogether prevent her from
doing so. Perhaps you are aware that high heels diminish
the size, of the foot, and render the instep more prominent.
—Paris Correspondent of Whitehall Review.

Representatives of the cattle trade of the North of
England held a meeting in Leeds on Monday, and passed
resolutions deprecating the Duke of Richmond and Gordon's
Cattle Diseases Bill, on the gronnd that restrictions onvs
importation of cattle were uncalled for and would act in-
juriously both to the trade and the consumer. It was
decided that deputations consisting of butchers' associations,
town councils, and chambers of commerce should be formed
throughout the country to wait upon the Privy Council,
with the view of obtaining a modification of several clauses
in the Bill.

News has just been received of the death of M. F.
d'Oxholm, a young Danish nobleman who had entered the
Russian service, in consequence of a wound received in a
cavalry affair close to Adrianople. The deceased was a son
ot Chamberlain d'Oxholm (at one time Danish Ambassador
at the Court o 18t. James's) and an English lady, and had
shortly before he fell received the Cross of St. George from
the hand of the Emperor Alexander in front of his regiment,
in recognition of his splendid gallantry. A special telegram
from Grand Duke Nicholas, the Commauder-in-Chief, in-
formed the family of the sad event.

The Agent-General has received ad vices that the
ship Gauntlet arrived at Brisbane on the 17th inst.

"In the latest of his excellcnt series of letters to the
Manchester .Examiner on 'Free Trade in Land,' 31r. Joseph
Kay attributes to Mr. 3fechi the extraordinary statement
that the land of this country might be made to produce five
times as much human food as it produces at present. I
felt sure that Mr. Mechi never had said anything so extra-
vagant, but thought it best to get his denial in his own
words. lere it is I never said or thought that we could
produce five times our present quantity of human food; but
I did say and write that if every acre of farmed land in the
United Kingdom produced as much human food as my poor
farm does, our present quantity would be multiplied by
three!—Mark Lane Express.
- - -

On Monday the -Lords of the Admiralty visited
Chatham Dockyard, and made an official inspection of the
armour-plated vessels now fitting out for sea. These are
the Monarch, Northampton, Penelope, Superb, Belleißle, and
Euryalus.

An eye-witness has just said to me, "Never did I
see suah men as the prisoners taken at Plevna—you have no
such men in England—and nevcr did I see the creatures of
God treated with such contempt. They were barely clothed,
marched through the snow, starved, frequently at the end
of a day's march not a crust of bread among the whole. I
saw their corpses by the roadside, with the hands stiff, in
the attitude of prayer."—Vanity Fair.

A lady in Maine boasts of hair eight feet and one
inch in length, and that she has refused an offer of 2,000
dollars for it.

A friend of mine has a cook, an Irishwoman, and a
Roman Catholic. One night last week the cook asked for
leave to go out, as she was anxious to attend her chapel, in
the Grove-end-road, to hear an "Aquarium Mass" for the
Pope. —Troth.

The annual conference of the Central Association
for Stopping the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors on Sundays
was held in Manchester on Tuesday. Mr. B. Whitworth,
M.P., who presided, said he believed the Sunday Closing Bill
for Ireland would be passed this year, but not exactly in the
form in which they would like to see it, but still in a form
that would add greatly to the influence and the progress of
the measure in England. In the evening a large public
meeting was held in the Free Trade Ball, at which the
Bishop of Manchester occupied the chair. The Bishop,
while praising the aims of the association, said he feared
that their proposal was not feasible at present.
•

A terrible -accident happened on Sunday (says the
Paris Correipondent of Tne Times) in the Grand Hotel,
Boulevard des Capucines. The lift of the left staircase hav-
ing lost its balance by the fracture of the chair, bounded up
with fearful velocity, crushing against the roof three per-
sons inside it, and very seriously injuring the fourth. Among
the three persons killed was a Russian lady who was living
on the second floor, and who was ascending by the lift while
her husband preceded her by the stairs. He had arrived on
the second floor, and was waiting for her when the lift shot
up past him like an arrow. Prince Orloff, on being informed
what had happened, hastened to pay a visit of condolence to
his unhappy countryman. Of the other victims, one was a
Frenchman staying at the hotel, and the remaining were at-
tendants—Further particulars say that the lady killed was
the Baroness Schak, sister-in-law of the German writer and
traveller. Her husband escaped providentially. He was
about to take his place, when he changed his mind and re_
solved to descend by the stair. He bad not turned awe
before he heard the crack of the machinery, and saw the
moving chamber dashed to pieces. The true cause of the
accident appears to have been the yielding of one of the
pistons, and the pressure failing suddenly, the consequent
rebound. This took the cage from the second story to the
top of the building with giddy rapidity, first crushing the
victims against the roof, and then jerking them with the
debris of the apparatus to the basement.