The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-02-06 00:00:00

Disctilantans Ittelligetzre;i

11021 E, FOREIGN, AD COLONIAL

G.AS SirenEs.—The whole of the money called up on
gm, shares in the United Kingdom is under thirty
millions sterling.
Cumions EQuiPmF,NT.—In the Franco-German War
every third German soldier had a map of the country
throdgh which he was travelling.
ABUSE OF POST CARDS.—Post•eards in France are SO
frequently used as a channel for abuse and anonymous
accusations, that a Deputy has laid a proposal betere
Parliament to suppress these handy missives.
A HANDSOME BEQUEST.—The sum of three million
dollars (M 0,000 has been bequeathed by a Chicago
merchant, the late Walter L. Newberry, for the fouuna•
tion of a free public library.
INTERESTING TO DRINEERS OF TEA.—Tea drinlrers
will be interested to learn that tver half a ruqhon
pounds ot willow leaves, disguised as tea, was sent by
m Aerica to Shanghai last year, to be shipped thence as
Chinese tea.

BOG SENTINELS.—MiIitary Germany even intends to
give her dogs an army education. Thus, dogs are to be
carefully trained in the various garrisens and sent out
with sentinels placed at isolated posts, in order to guard
against surprise.
TILE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY.—The additions to the
Zoological Society's Gardens during the past week in.
elude a macaque monkey, from India, deposited;
two white-billed parrakeets from Celebes, a bearded
lizard from Australia, purchased; a common utter,
British, received in exchange.
OYSTERS.—It is reported that the supply of oysters
in the North Sea Deep Fishery is very prolific. The
season has just commenced, and within the last few
e,,yp four cargoes of the bivalve have been brought into
IVnitstable. Prices, however, a're low. Some large
purchases have been made for the London market.
"PlCCADlLLY."—Concerning the origin of the name
"Piccadilly," a correspondent writes: In a dictionary
published by N. Bailey, 1733, is the following—" Picka-
dilly, a great street near St. James's, bugt by one
Higgins a taylor, and so called because he got his estate
by making stiff collars, in the fashion of a band, then
called Pickadillies, formerly much in fashion."
TILE SLAUGHTER OF BEASTS IN ALGERIA.—In the
11 years from 1873 to 1884 the number of lions killed
in Algeria was 202, for which a premium of f!400 has
been paid by tile Government. The number of panthers
destroyed in the same period is 1214, and the money
paid by the Government £720. About £4OO has been paid
for 1882 hyxnas, and £lOOO for 27,000 jackals. The
large felitho are almost extirpated p:incipally in the
webtern provinces, and the lion of the desert is fast
becoming a myth.
MONEY SPENT IN ELECTRIC LIGHTING.—Between

1875 and 1883 the amount of capital embarked in
electric lighting companies of various kinds in Great •
Britain was £12,919,264.
CUDDLING INFANTS.—A coroner said, in the course of
an inquest, last Clhristmas, that the practice to which
young mothers were addicted of " cuddling " their
infants at night was responsible for the death of about
500 children a year.
MlLictico Cows.—At present there are 3,700,000 cows
kept for milk purposes in the United Kingdom; esti-
mated at 440 gallons as the yield for the season per
cow, the total is 1,628,000,000 gallons of milk. Of this
725000,000 are consumed in various ways. leaving
900100,000 to be converted into cheese and butter.
This is equivalent to 126,000 tons of cheese, and 89,285
tons of butter.

THE EARTH'S INEQUALITIES.—Taking the greatest
depth of the ocean as five miles and the height of the
highest mountain as five mile, above the level of the
sea, and remembering the globe itself has a diameter
of 8000 miles, the comparative insignificance of all the
surface inequalities of the earth is at once forced on
our attention, but it is better seen if we take a circle
66f t. in diameter having on its surface a depression of,
lin., or a globe if t. in diameter with a groove on its
surface eve-sixtieth of an inch in depth, which would
represent on a true scale the greatest inequality of
mountain height and ocean deep on the surface of the
earth.—" Engineer."

AMERICAN FIRES.—The annual fire record of New
Yolk nearly equals that of London, notwithstanding
the difference in the size of the two cities. Thus,
while London suffered from 2351 fires last year, New
York was visited by 2249 conflagrations, bell% at the
rate of one to every 42 buildings in the city. Twelve
persons were killed outright, 23 fatally hurt, 109
seriously, and 190 slightly injured. The increase of
fires may, it is considered, be partly due to the corre-,
seonding increase in tall buildings throughout the
American city, there being now 14900 structures in'
New York over four stories high.
FATE OF DISCOVERERS.—One of the:saddest chapters in
human history is that which relates to the fate of ment
who have been benefactors of their kind. As re's
formers, inventors, teachers of philosophy and religion;
they have fallen victims to the cruelty of the ignorant,
and superstitious, or else have been suffered to perishi
in poverty and obscurity. The early discoverers and'
explorers of America, though not all deserving men by
any means, nearly all came 'to an untimely end:
Columbus died broken-hearted; Roldin and Bobadilla
were drowned; Ojeda died in extreme poverty; Balboa
was beheaded, and so was Sir Walter Rayleigh;
Naravez was imprisoned in a dungeon and died of hard-
ship; Cortez was deposed from power and disgraced;
Alvarado was destroyed in an ambush; Pizzaro was
murdered, while De Soto perished in the wilderness,
and his body was sunk in the Mississippi.
LORD AND LADY BYRON. —I was making some
researches in an old file of the "Morning Post" a day
or two since, when I dropped upon the following
paragraph, which will doubtless intetest my Byronic
readers, as showing the view then (1816) taken by our
morning contemporary of what was styled "one of the
greatest scandals of the age " : "Though the separation.
of Lord and Lady Byron has taken place by mutual
consent, it is nevertheless certain that on the part of
his lordship the consent was given with great
reluctance, and not till after he had in vain written ,
three letters to her ladyship entreating reconciliation.
Lady Byron, on due consideration of all the cons,
remained inflexible; and it may easily be conceived
that the provocation must have been great indeed which
steeled a bosom so tender, and rendered obdurate the
heart of one of the sweetest and most amiable creatures.
with which Heaven has ever blessed and adorned the' '
society of man." Pretty severe, by inference, upon.
the author of " Childe Harold." " St. Stephen's'
Review."
THE Berme MUSEIIM.—Among the rare bcoka
acquired by the trustees of the British Museum at the
Ellis sale there is a volume containing designs for lace,
with some descriptive text. This form of decoration
appears to have been applied to dress in the earliest
ages. We find fringed borders on the robes of Egyptian.
Princes and Princesses, and minute directions are
given in the Levitical Law for the fringed borders of
sacerdotal vestments. Mary de Medicis, it appears,
was the first who introduced the custom of wearing lace
into the Court of France. She brought the fashion
from Venice. Network, which is so closely related to,
lace, was undoubtedly produced in England under the
Plantageoets. It seems that the establishment of the
lace manufacture in England is due to some refugees'
from Flanders, who settled at the village of Crinfield,'
in the county of .Bedford. Buckinghamshire was the:
chief seat ot the lace manufacture in England during
the seventeenth century. The earliest lace made int
this country was of the kind called Brussels point.'
This is the kind which we find in the numerous portraits
painted by Sir Peter Lely in the time of Charles IL;
and that this fashion continued up to George I. we are
assured by Sir Godfrey Kneller's -portraits._

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