The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-06-01 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN,

The Protestant Bishop of Cork, Dr. Gregg, died on
Sunday. He was in his 80th year, and had completed a
ministry of 60 years. He became Bishop of Cork in 1862.
The State apartments of Windsor Castle will be
open to the public upon the usual days, commencing from
Monday morning.
Post-Office Savings' Banks have been introduced
Into Japan, and in two years the number of depositors has
more than quadrupled.

At the Embassy dinners at Constantinople in cele-
bration of the Queen's birthday it has been usual to drink
her Majesty's health only. On the present occasion, how-
ever, it was remarked (says the Correspondent of The Times)
that after the Queen's toast Mr. Layard proposed the "Health
of the Sultan, the ancient ally of England.'

A compassionate fund is being started at Ports-
mouth with the countenance and support of all the Staff and
other officers in the garrison, for the relief of soldiers' wives
and children who are going out to India and the colonies to
join their husbands and fathers, and of the widows and
children of soldiers on their arrival in England from abroad.
"Beaconsfield houses" and "Beaconsfield streets "
are springing up all over London.
The Queen has invited Prince and Princess Frederick
Charles and Princess Louisa Margaretha to Balmoral. The
visit will be made in August or September.

One of the newest ornaments worn by Parisians is
a rosary. It is among the fashions now so eagerly adopted
from Spain, and it is used as a belt.—Court Journal.
On Monday the Crown Prince and Prindess of
Germany paid a visit to the Empress Eugenie and Prince
Louis Napoleon at Chislehurst.

At the Wharncliffe Silkstone Colleries intimation
has been given to the men that they must submit to a
reduction to enable the proprietors to continue working the
colliery.

- -
The Shah of Persia has left St. Petersburg for War-
saw. The Czar accompanied him to the station

Prince Bismarck has been advised by his physicians
not to take part in the proceedings at the Congress, on the
ground that the debates are likely to excite him beyond
what he can bear. But it is expected that he will attend
at the close of the proceedings, so as to be formally a party
to the Congress.

The Registrar-General reports that last week
measles showed fatal prevalence in Portsmouth and
Plymouth, and scarlet fever in Sheffield and Newcastle-
upon-Tyne. Small-pox caused 61 deaths in London and its
suburban districts, but not one in any of the nineteen large
provincial towns. The 1,381 deaths in London include 14
from measles, 17 from scarlet fever, 20 from diphtheria, 116
from whooping cough, 20 from different forms of fever,
16 from diarrhcel, and 59 from different forms of violence.
A public park, laid out in .an oramental manner,
was formally opened at Bradford on Saturday afternoon ;
the Mayor, Mr. Briggs Priestly, to whom a massive gold key
was presented for the purpose performing the opening cere-
mony. The expenditure incurred in purchasing and laying
out the land is about £42,000.
-

Robert Carruthers, LL.D., editor of the Inverness
Courier, died at Inverness on Sunday night. He had been
for fifty years editor of that journal, and was well known in
literary circles as the author of a Life of the late Pope. He
was also associated with the Messrs. Chambers in some of
their most important literary enterprises.
It is a curious fact that the decision of the Govern-
ment to employ Indian troops in Europe was telegraphed
to India the day after it was come to by the Cabinet. The
telegram appeared in one of the principal Indian journals.
So much for Cabinet secrets. —Truth.

At the last meeting of the Barnsley Boarel of
Guardians, a member pointed out an increase of £22 per
week in relief, owing to trade depression during the last
half year.
It having been determined by the Russian Govern-
ment to do away with trial by jury in cases of attempted
.assassination for political motives or acts of violence com-
mitted against public officers in the execution of their duty,
special laws to meet this subject are being drawn up by the
proper authorities.
- - - -

- -
At the last ordinary meeting of the Brighton and
Sussex Natural History Society, there was placed upon the
table for inspection the skull of a crocodile which had been
unearthed at thickileld, and presented to the Free Museum
by Mr. Henry Willett. It was incidentally mentioned that
the curiosity was found between the Weald Clay and Pur-
beck rocks, thus clearly proving from a geological point of
view, that the Weald of Sussex had, on many occasions,
been alternately raised and depressed by the forces of Nature
at work within the bowels of the earth.
An American paper, speaking of the great un-
certainty which attends the breeding of trotting horses, re-
marks that it is like "grabbing for one eel in a bucket of
snakes."

The Correspondencia. de Espana states that from the
beginning of the Cuban insurrection up to the month of
January last 133,555 soldiers died in the hospitals from
wounds or disease, and 12,500 on the fields of battle;
37,726 were discharged; and about 100,000 insurgents were
either killed in battle or shot after being made prisoners.
The Russian Government has decided to give an
experimental trial to an explosive called heracline, which
is said to be more destructive than even dynamite.
Princess Elizabeth of Roumania may be added to
the list of Royal poets, as she has translated some national
heroic poetry into excellent German verse.
Stringent measures are being adopted in Prussia
against the Socialists.
Midhat Pasha will be among the contributors to the
next number of the Nineteenth Century.—Whitehail Review.
As an illustration of the development of the
Canadian cattle trade, all the lines running between
Canada and Liverpool and Glasgow, with accommodation
suitable for the transport of cattle, have been secured until
August next. The numbers coming forward by the St.
Lawrence route will average about 1,000 head per week.
The total production of silk cocoons in Europe
amounted upon an average to 58,000 tons per year during the
last five years. Italy stands first in the list of silk producing
countries; it produces 39,000 tons per year. France produces
about 10,000 tons, Turkey 4,000, Spain 2,200, Austria 1,900,
Portugal 250, Greece 200, Russia 160, Germany 100, and
Belgium and Switzerland only 100 tons together.
They are showing plenty of forethought at the Paris
Exhibition. They have actually provided a medical staff
and ambulance, so that if any one is taken ill in the building
medical attendance may be at once forthcoming. Thus far
there has been no demand for the doctors' services; but as
an average weekly attendance of 300,000 persons is antici-
pated, it can hardly be expected that there will be no urgent
case requiring medical relief. _
The Australian cricketers made their first appear-
ance in London on Monday at Lord's Ground, where they
played a match against an Eleven picked from the best
players of the Marylebone Club. The recent rains had ren-
dered the wicket a remarkably difficult one, and the extra-
. . _

ordinary termination of the match created great excitement.
In their first innings the M.C.C. scored only 33, while the
Australians succeeded in putting together 41; but in the
second innings the bowling that had produced this unlooked-
for result was surpassed as the M.C.C. only succeeded in
making 19 runs, and the Australians won easily by nine
wickets.

The Maidstone Journal states that the hop bine is in
a very forward condition this season. In many places it has
reached the top of the poles Everywhere the bine has a
clear appearance, with an exception here and there caused
by the rather too bountiful supply of rain that has fallen
throughout the present month Dry warm weather-is now re-
quired to ensure a good crop.

The fan alone of a Parisian actress in Dumas' new
play east 20,000 francs.

The ship Herschel, of 787 tons, Captain G-. Kock,
sailed from Hamburg on the 21st inst., and had on board the
undermentioned number of emigrants bound for Mary-
borough, Queensland :-94 married people, 120 single men,
31 single women, 78 children between the ages of 12 and 1,
and 15 infants, making a total of 338 souls.

By an accident which occurred on Saturday evening,
at Cornwood, the Great Western Railway near Plymouth was
blocked for ten hours. A train of twenty-three trucks, con-
taining prize cattle, returning from the Devon County Show,
ran off the line. No person was injured, but there was much
destruction of line and plant.

The loss through the burning of the Sublime Porte
has been quite as great as was supposed. The strong chest of
the Minister of Justice has been opened, and the deeds,
titles, securities, and other documents which it contained
were found to be consumed. The coin contained in it was
fused into a shapeless mass. The ruins of the Porte have
been examined by the Sultan's architect, who reports that
they cannot be restored, and that new buildings of greater
solidity must be erected, at an estimated cost of £lOO,OOO.
Letters from Constantinople state (says the Pate
Mall Gazette) that the rinderpest is rapidly carrying off the
comparatively few head of cattle in Turkey which have
escaped the ravages of war. A few weeks ago the disease
was confined to the European provinces of the empire; but
lately it has shown itself and is rapidly spreading through
Asiatic Turkey. Thousands of cattle are dying every week
in the villayets of Smyrna and Hudavendighiar ; and unless
the Government promptly adopt and put in force energetic
and vigorous measures to prevent the further spread of the
contagion, one of the richest sources of the wealth of
Turkey will, it is added, infallibly be destroyed. Already
meat is becoming scarce in the capital.

The Registrar-General for Scotland states in his re-
port on the first quarter of the year 1878, that the observa-
tions made at 65 stations of the Meteorological Society of
Scotland, show (as the mean of those stations) 288 hours of
sunshine in the three months, being four hours more than in
the corresponding period of last year. This total is double
the number shown in the weekly returns to the Registrar.
General for England as the result of observations made at
the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. The difference be-
tween the two countries is much less in the summer.—The
rainfall of the quarter was deficient, both in England and in
Scotland,
The Countess of Newburgh, a peeress of Scotland in
her own right, died recently at Rome at the age of 82.
Cecilia Bandini, Princess Giustiniani in the Roman States,
the only child of Vincent, sixth Prince Giustiniani, was born
on the sth of February, 1796, and was naturalized, along with
her son, by Act of Parliament in 1857. She married, in
September, 1815, Charles, fourth Marquis Bandini, of
Ls.nciano and Rustano, in the Roman States, but was left a
widow in 1850. Her son, Sigismuud, fifth Marquis Bandini,
and Prince Bandini Giustiniani in the Roman States by
creation, now succeeds his mother in her Scottish titles, as
Earl of Newburgh, Viscount Synnaird, and Baron Living-
stone of Flacraig. He was born in June, 1818.
"If Landseer might visit the Paris Exhibition he
would see something after his own heart. Two shorthorns,
a white bull, and a roan heifer represent there the cele-
brated Elmhurst Stock farm. The neck and head of the
bull, with its wealth of locks closely curling over the greater
part of the forehead which broadens out between the
massive horns, suggest the idealism of antique sculpture.
The hair of the heifer is fine and thick as Angola wool.
Each has an almost roguish expression of eye and face, re-
minding one vividly of the character the great animal
painter loved to impart to his studies.'—Mayfair,
Why do all our ladies dress in black this season?
That they do so is a sombre fact which anybody may note
In any public place; and I am told that the true reason is
that nobody has any money, and that black garments are
worn as being more economical than any others, since when
sailing under that colour nobody notices how often you have
appeared in the same frock.—Vanity Fair.
An inquiry has been held in Loudon, at the Pro-
vidence Hall, Paddington, as to the death of the Rev, John
Mackenzie, aged 65, of Edinburgh. Admiral Donald
Mackenzie said the deceased was his brother and a clergy-
man of the Church of Scotland. On Monday he left the
witness at Eltham, saying that he was going to Brighton to
reinain there until Saturday. On Saturday afternoon witness
received a telegram from the police stating that his brother
had died at Bi,hop's-road Station of the Metropolitan
Railway. He was a delicate man and had complained of in-
digestion. Henry Crocker, inspector at Bishop's-road
Station, said that on Sitivday afternoon he noticed Mr.
Mackenzie sitting on a sat apparently in a fit. The witness
went up to him and found that he was dead. Dr. Prince,
who was called to the railway station, said that when ha saw
Mr. Mackenzie he was quite dead. The witness had no donbt
that death was from syncope, from fatty degeneration of the
heart.—The jury returned a verdict in accordance with the
medical evidence.