The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-06-12 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

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In consequence of the scarcity of agricultural labon
n East Sussex, the restrictions of the Agricultural Children
Act have been suspended by the magistrates in the Lewes
division for sixteen days, as provided by Section 8 of that
statute.
A correspondent of the Mark Lane Express gives a
curious instance of the cheapness of wheat and the dearness
of provender which had come under his notice, and which
he thought worthy of remark. A farmer had sold a
quantity of wheat, the growth of one field, for £56, and for
the straw which produced that he realised £6O
The returns compiled by the Government emigration
officials at Liverpool show a decrease of 6,915 emigrants dur-
ing-the past month, as compared with May, 1874. The total
number of emigrants who left Liverpool during last May was
11,378. Of these, 9,462 proceeded to the United States and
1,571 to Canada.
Going to the Dogs :—This was done in two ways last
week, very largely. Several people went that way on the
Stock Exchange, and a good many others by paying a visit to
the Crystal Palace.—Judy.
Another proof of the extravagance of Americans in
Paris is given in the statement of a French journalist that
there is a lady there who is acquiring the French language in
taking lessons at the rate of 8,750 dollarsper annum —Court
Journal.
A splendidly-bound copy of the report on intemper-
ance recently laid before the Convocation of York is about
to be presented to the Queen by the Executive Committee of
the Church of England Temperance Society for the Northern
Province.
The Prussian Government has offered two prizes of
the value of about £l5O (3,000 marks) and £5OO (10,000 marks
respectively, for the discovery of a new method of cleansing
plaster casts, statues, etc., and for the invention of a new
material possessing the advantages of plaster, but which
will not deteriorate by repeated washings.
According to the return of the Registrar-General,
2,258 births and 1,323 deaths were last week registered in
London, the former having exceeded by three, whereas the
deaths were 63 below the average numbers in the corre-
sponding week St the last ten years. The 1,323 deaths in-
cluded 2 from small-pox, 32 from measles, 41 from scarlet
fever, 11 from diphtheria, 71 from whooping-cough, 25 from
different toms of fever, and 29 from diarrhcea ; thus to the
seven principal diseases of the zymotic class 211 deaths
were referred, against 201 in each of the preceding weeks.
The fifteenth annual banquet of the Royal Agricul-
tural Benevolent Institution, held at Willis's Rooms, in
London, was presided over by the Prince of Wales. After the
healthof the illustrious chairman had been enthusiastically •
honoured his Royal Highness in felicitous terms proposed
success to the instiutution. When the applause which the
speech elicited had subsided the secretary announced the
list of subscriptions as amounting to £3,000, including £25
from the Queen and a hundred guineas from the chairman.
Under the auspices of the Gaelic Society of London,
a meeting was held to promote the establishment of a Celtic
chair for Edinburgh University. The Marquis of Huntly,
who presided, announced that the Queen had promised to
contribute £2OO towards the object in view ; and a letter from
Mr. Gladstone, expressing sympathy with the scheme, was
read. Afterwards resolutions in favour of the cultivation of
the Celtic language by the means proposed were adopted.
All the three men who are charged with mutiny and
murder on board the Jeferson Borden were brought up at
Bow-street Police-court, on Monday. On being asked whether
they had anything to say, Smith replied in the negative, but
Miller and Clew made statements with a view to show that
they had been ill-treated by the captain and officers of the
ship. Ultimately the prisoners were committed to take their
trial in the United States.
Prince Bismarck is said to have instructed the
German Ambassador at Vienna to thank the Austrian Go-
vernment for the friendly attitude they adopted with
reference to the offer of mediation recently made by Eng-
land.
The Duke of Edinburgh has, it is understood, com-
posed, and in private played several pieces of his own—solos
for the violin and violoncello, and duets for the violin and
flute. It is likely they will soon be published to the world.
The most ambitious of these musical novelties—a concerto
(quintet) in E minor, has recently been played, in an
anonymous form,
in many London drawing•rooms.—Couri
Journal.
Bicycling is getting to be a complete rage in and
about London. In the suburbs of a morning the bicycles
more abound than vehicles. Many of those mounted on tall
instruments go ten miles out of town and back before break-
fast.
Those who are interested in the Arctic Expedition
will like to know that Sir Charles Wheatstone invented for
the use of the expedition an instrument for telling the time
in the dark, which will be very welcome in the long Northern
winter. The invention is due to some adaptation of the
polarisation of light.
The Earl of Albemarle has (says the Athenceum) in
preparation a volume to be entitled "Fifty Years of My
Life," which, it is said, will contain many new facts, social
and political, and about the chief persons and events of the
early part of the present century, including an account,
founded on his own experiences, of the battle of Waterloo.
An introductory chapter will give a sketch of the past his-
tory of his lordship's family. The work will be published in
the autumn by Messrs. Macmillan and Co.
There is a story going the round of the German
papers, and which does not speak much for primary and
compulsory education in Vatherland, that the recent visit of
the Czar was to purchase Catholic children, boys and girls
attending school, at so many thalers per head, in order to
people his vast realm ,• parents were so frightened, it is said,
that they kept their children at home, till a teacher observed
it was only children with blue hair and green eyes that were
required. The countryman's explanation is perhaps the more
likely: "Go to school without fear of being sold, my boy,
the Emporor will tithe good care not to soilhis future
soldiers.', —Court Journal.