The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-04-03 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

The London Gazette appeared on Tuesday night
without a single bankrupt, either in town or country.

It is proposed to increase the salary of Marshal Mac-
Mahon from £24,009 to £BO,OOO.

Spain has agreed to pay to Germany about £1,600 on
account of the compensation due in respect to the Gustav
affair.
A company has been formed for the purpose of esta-
blishing "British Workman Public-houses," the houses to be
conducted on strict teetotal principles.

Only about 40,000 valentines passed through the
New York Post Office this year, against 100,000 in previous
years. The "hard times," it seems, pinch Cupid as well as
"any other fellar."
-

Easter Monday was very generally observed as a
Bank Holiday, not only in London itself, but throughout its
most distant suburbs. Holiday•keepers were astir from an
early hour, and trains, tram-cars, omnibuses, and the decks
of the river steamboats were crowded.
A great electric storm which passed over Chili has
caused considerable damage. The greater part of. the' trees
of the Cousin's Park, and several houses at Santiago, were
thrown down. Over 300 streaks of zigzag lightning passed
over Valparaiso. No lives were lost.
The Norwegian Railway Commission, appointed
last autumn to elaborate a complete plan of railway for
Norway, has terminated its labours. The length of the lines
proposed is altogether 218 Norwegian miles, and the cost of
construction is estimated at 40,382,000 species. For the
greater number of lines the Commission proposes the small
gauge.
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-
An eagle of the Pyrenees, measuring from wing to
wing about eight feet, was caught last week in Finisterre.
To one of its feet was attached a heavy trap which had pre-
vented it from flying.

The Irish papers (the Dublin Correspondent of the
Pall Mall Gazette writes) are well pleased to find that the
number of emigrants from Ireland in 1874 was 16,213 less
than in 1873. The price of labour having risen in Ireland to
an inconvenient point, it is hoped that the arrest of emigra-
tion may bring about a wholesome change. It is remarkable
that out of the total decrease of 1874 no less than 12,366 were
males.
Mr. John Martin, M.P., died at Newry on Monday
morning, at the residence of Mr. Hill Irvine, J P., where
Mr. John Mitchell died last Saturday week. Mr. Martin
attended his friend Mitchel's funeral, but became ill in the
graveyard, and had to be assisted off the ground. He never
recovered from this attack. His death creates a vacancy in
the representation of Meath, for which county he had sat
since January, 1871.

Advices from the Cape of Good Hope say that a
scarcity of hands to carry on work is now the great difficulty
in South Africa, especially in the building trade. At Stellen-
bosch the masons are receiving 12s. per day, and with other
artisans there and elsewhere are in request. European
agricultural and general labourers are in many districts not
to be obtained. Native labourers are being imported from
the interior of the North Dutch Republics to work for private
persons and for the Government.
i• On Tuesday a decree was published by the French
Government prohibiting the importation into France, or the
transport through the country, of potatoes from the United
States and Canada. Articles which have been used for
packing potatoes are also included in the prohibition.
On Monday night Mr. Moody attended an immense
gathering in the Victoria Hall, Liverpool, and delivered an
address to those persons who, during the recent special ser-
vices, had been 'led to accept Christ as their Saviour." It
was understood that about 2,000 such persons were present,
but they occupied no special place in the halL Mr. Moody
exhorted the converts not to keep their new-found religion
to themselves, but to endeavour to save others, and par-
ticularly to reclaim drunkards. He announced that Mr.
Taylor, who had been the means of converting 12,000 persons
In India, Australia, and elsewhere, would hold a week's
special services in Liverpool, commencing that day, and he
solicited both work and prayer on his behalf.

A. descendant of Handel has petitioned the German
Emperor to permit one of the streets of the capital to receive
the name of the great composer of the oratorios. The Em-
peror has stated, in reply to this request, that a new quarter
is about to be added to the capital, whose streets will all be
named after Germany's most eminent musical celebrities,
and that that of Handel will certainly not be forgotten. Tbis
quarter (says the Continental Herald) will be a fitting supple-
ment to the one in which the streets have been distinguished
by the names of great painters.

It is stated in the return of the Registrar-General
that 2,364 births and 1,680 deaths were registered in London
last week. Allowmg for increase of population, the births
were 62 below, while the deaths exceeded by 13 the average
numbers. The annual death-rate, which in the two preced-
ing weeks had been equal to 28 and 26 per 1,000, further de-
clined to 25. The deaths of 89 persons aged upwards of 80
years were registered, against 59 in the previous week; they
Included that of a female inmate of the St. Pancras Work-
house, whose age was stated to be 100 years.

At a party ili Fifth Avenue, New York, a couple
of weeks ago, one of the ladies blazed with diamonds. On
each shoulder she had four stars, the size of a dollar, made
of diamonds; her hair was set thickly with diamonds;
there was a diamond bandeau on her brow; she had diamond
earrings and a diamond necklace ; upon the sides of liLr
chest were two circles. of diamonds, from which dependEd
lines and Curves of diamonds poaching to her waist, from
which she wore a diamond girdle; on her skirt in front
were large peacocks wrought in lines of diamonds; there
were rosettes of diamonds on her slippers, and diamonds
large and small all over her dress and person, wherever they
could be placed.
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A pension of £lB ss. per annum from the funds of
Greenwich Hospital has been granted to Thomas Jesse Hill,
late an able-bodied seaman on board the Royal Adelaide, who
was severely injured while on duty by the explosion of a gun
cartridge, whereby ho lost the sight of one eye and almost
the sight ofethe other, his right arm, and was otherwise much
disfigured. This pension is in addition to one of 2s. 3d. a day,
the highest amount in the power of the Admiralty to grant
to an A.B. seaman, and required an Order in Council to maks)
it legal, which Order her lilajesty, on the receipt of a memo-
rial from the Lords of the Admiralty, has been pleased to
issue. The unfortunate man will therefore now have
pension of 3s. 3d. per day.
Favourable mention continues to be made of the
virtues of sunflowers as preventives of bilious fever, chills,
fever, &c. A correspondent of the "Soil of the South,"
writing from a place in Alabama, which he says was pecu-
liarly subject to fevers, give the results of his experience on
the premises, and in not a single instance where he planted
sunflowers around his negro cabins did their inmates suffer
from fevers • while his wife, two children, and two house
-
servants all had fevers, he not having planted any of the
sunflowers around his dwelling, which, in his opinion, ac-
counted for the difference in the results. - -

Frederick Hunt, who is charged with the murder of
his wife and daughter at Penge, and with attemptingto take
the lives of two of his sons as well as his own, was brought
up for final examination at the Lambeth Police-court on
Monday. Two letters, addressed by the prisoner to Mr.
Guest, a neighbour, were put in, couched in terms which
showed that the writer was in great mental distress. The
evidence collected by the police at this the preliminary stage
of the lnquiry was completed, and Hunt Was committed for
trial at the next Surrey Assize&