The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-08-01 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

A telegram from Vienna states that there was a
shock of earthquake in that city at sunrise on Sunday morn-

In charging the grand jury at Cam Midge on Mon-
day, Mr. Justice Keating congratulated the county on its
freedom from serious crime. The calendar contained only a
few ti,ding cases of assault.
The ityJndations on the borders of Moravia hare
swept away 200 houses.

Lord Hatherley hen given the awn of £5O to the
scholarship fund of the College for Blind Sons of Gentlemen,
Worcester.

The following incident occurred to M. Ilecurt,
Minister of the Interior, who was a surgeon, daring the insur-
rection in Paris. Ile passed behind one of the barricades
with the captors, and found forty men lying on the ground
in the blood and mire. " Ah," said he, this is in my line !"
and he very eomposedly took out a ease of instruments The
• tfect I this :union was eleetiical- the win de of the forty
prostrate insurgents rose up as one man, Ana took to their
heels.

A young American, fifteen years of age, named
Charles Rand, of Chicago, has just made a min...still ascent
of Mont Blanc. Ile was acco,panied by Mr. John Ritchie,
of Boston, Massachusctia. The fiat was performed on the
13th and 14th inst.

It understood that at the ensuing shooting season
the 'Duke of Rutland will entertain at Longehaw House,
Derbyshire, a distinguished party of visitors, amongst those
who have accepted invitations being, it is said, the Irince of
Wales.

The Glavow Herald points out anew danger, against
which farmers 31Id cattle breeders should be warned. A
heifer which had been grazing on the farm of Italglus died
suddenly under mysterious circumstances. A post mortem
examination discovered the fact that the animal had been
feeding on the fragments of rifle-bullets, and had actually
been poisoned by the action of the lead, a dozen pounds of
which were found in his stomach. The beast had been
grazing near the ground where the butts of the 4th and 7th
Stirlingshire Rifle Volunteers are erected.

Experiments were made on Tuesday on the Metro
politau Railway with two important inventions. One of these
was a self-acting method of exhausting the foul air in the
tunnel by means of the pneumatic tube, and the other was
the continous vaccuum break, by which the engine-driver
has immediate control over the whole train. Both processes
were successfully worked.

Calignani records the death of the Marquis de
PaMinitel, at the advanced age of ninety-nine. Ile uas
hidden during the whole time of the Terror by one of hi
tenants, and was never molested.

Daring the past 12 months the sum of £378,017, or
£MB39 more than in the previous year, has, by local efforts
and connexional organisations, been raised and expended in
this country in the erection of chapels, organs therein,
schools, ministers' houses, and re.torations, including
£ait,s4s for the liquidation of former debt, leaving only
Zi2,80l ass the remaining current temporary debt.

The New York advices continue to express antici-
pations of as active business during the autumn is in.i,orted
goods. A number of large dealers trom the North-W.:4 and
\Peg had arrived, and connti y merchants were manifesting
confidence. Stocks in the hands .4 retailers in the interior
are rep,rted as being exceptionally light, and crop prospects
in the West are represented to be encouraging in the extreme.
The market for cotton manufacture was fairly active.
_

It is stated by several of the Madrid papers that the
Spanish Government has sent an energetic note to the French
Goveniment respecting the conduct of its agents on the
Pyrennean frontier.
The wheat crop of California this season is estimated
at about four million quarters, the largest y ield yet attained,
and of nhich nearly three millions will be available for ex.
portation.

An Ambassador from the King of Aehant es has
arrived at Cape Comet Castle with 4.1,P00 on account of the
It ar Indemnity. A large number oi traders have also
ari teed.

The Master of the Rolls has been occupiell for the
pat fortnight in trying a suit, instituted by the Com-
missioners of Sewers of the City of London, to determine
the validity of a number of enclosures amounting to nearly
8.000 acres, made or sanctioned by the lords ot the manor in
Epping Forest daring the last twenty years. When the bill
was instituted it was demurred to on the ground that the
right claimed was unknown to- the law, but the demurrer
was overruled, and tiothow but the question of tct. whether
the plaintiffs Red otlims have aright of common of pasture
ovor the saste lands of the Forest, now has to he tried.

An application hoe been made to the Board of T-ade
for a license dirs Ming the formation of an association, under
the tame of the Working Nlen's College Corporation, with the
es go of its being registered with limited liability, though
without the addition of the terse "limited" to its name The
objects for which the association is proposed to be estAlished
are enumerated as firstly, the taking over of the property
and the liabilities of the company re4istered in 1557 under
the name of the Working Men's College : and, secondly, the
placing of a liberal education within the reach of the working
classes by carrying on the institution known as the Working
ghetto Coll ge. now situated in Crest Ormond-atrect, and
other similar institutions.

The last returns show that the population of Japan
anmunts to 33,000,000 ; the country contains ;17 district. 4,
milli 12,000 towns, 70.000 villages, including nhwericr
7,0,0,009 of small and large houses, tool ley,Oo Budnitiat
temples. The Buddhist priests and otia,r families are aloot
twice as numerous as the schismatic or Shinto sect. More-
over, the population is divided into 29pr1nces and princesses,
1 300 noblemen, I,ooo,ooopeasanls ; of whom WO,OOO thousand
are lal,ourers, 800,000 merchants, tradesmen, and shop-
keep,Ao. The number of lame and blind is put down et
100,000, and the prisoners 6,4434 only.
-

The Durham, Captain Anderson, from Gravesend for
Melbourne, sailed from Plymouth Sound n Sunday morning,
having on board, among other pasaengers, the menibers
the Astronomical Expedition rent out by the German
Government to observe the transit of Venus from the Auck-
land Islands.
The Prince de Joins-jib eis an old salt, and loves to
drop in on any of his seafaring aconaintanees. Ac riling
to profuse few days ago, lie called at at,. Stain house in the
litighbourin od of at. Germain the host was absent, lout
isle hely showed the Pi ince over the premises, head ~eilar to
garret, and the grounds which occupied two hour, the
husband then arrived, and was not toe person expected.
Where does M. So-and-so reeide i" demanded the prince.
"On the opposite Mae of the r.iad, monagigneur, but I
thought yen tairde to rent our house," aniorered the lady.
The prince laughed, Joined In a glass of beer and Pt
()our* Journal.

A Scotch paper announces that tho French Govern.
ment intend to adopt the Entili,h netting Act to that
country, Owing to the enorr..z.us increase of betting- houses
In Paris, and the tbreeiened increase of such establishments
at Boulogne ai.et ocher places.
Some of the Austrian papers demand reparation for
the detention of Ilauthaler, tie Tyrolese priest, is hi was at
first suspected of beim: A folumines c`fefelle.ete to the et-
tempted assasetniSion of Pince Bismarck. Hauthaierliimself,
howes:cr, in a letter to the Vienna Vaterlead, says he has no
complaint to make ag tha judicial or prison officials,
although the charge preferred against him was doubly painful
to a man, like himself, ti 3 years of age and subject to conges-
tion of the brain. Ile explains that he had expected Prince
Bismarck's carriage to take a contrary direction, and that
when it turned round upon the spot inhere he was Standing
he sprang aside, the driver possibly losing two or three
seconds by laving to lessen his speed. He denies having ex
changed a word with K unman, or having even seen him before the shot was fired. Prince Bismarck is said to have written
it letter to flauthaler, expressing regret at his apprehension

t

- -
The Prince Imperial au the Chateau of
areueek.er, la ftwitz,lawd, to join his leather, the Empress
Eugenie. who le sta)ing there.
According to the Chineqc code of law regulating
Instill...my, two persons of the same surname dare not
A landdip occurred on the 22nd inst. at Azagra, in
swo, when the rocks overhanging the place utterly
destroted the village. Two hundred bodies have already
been taken out of the ruins.
Thirty houses hive been destroyed and as many
lives lost at Eureka, in the United States by the bursting of
I waterspout.
- • •

New Yoik papers of the 10th instant report a case
strongly re,embling Asiatic chokes at Brooklyn.
A Manchester gentleman, who haa discovered an
Ingenious method of coupling railway carriages for the pur.
poses of the break, is now in London, negoeiat,tig for the sale
of the right to use his invention in the I:nited Kingdom.
Limpal Weekly Albiyn.
A blacksmith named Wel, aged 18, fell a distance
of tel fathoms don the South if etk.h pit shaft at Selham
on Saturday last elide bringing up seine flatsheets in the
cage. Another man, named Archibald, had the fingers of
his right hand taken off at the saint time, idols. preventing a
flatsheet from falling down the pit shaft

A society has been formed in America, the object of
which are declared to be the "exposure, resistance, sod ex-
termination of all secret societies. Freemasonry particularly
and other anti-Christian and anti-Republican agencies."
The King of the Sandwich Islands have recently
sent a message to Ids Parliament, asking for 50.000 dollars to
build him a palace tar humeelf, , the assembly contented Itself
with voting him 15,000 dollars.
The president of a cremation club in lowa has
named his last baby "Cinderella." his next boy he intends
to name alter the great lawyer, Coke, and the next daughter
Char-lotte
- - - - •

A reduction of Is. per ton in the price of Ruabon
coal hits taken place. This A Hie first result of the reduction
of wages of 10 per cent, which took place at Chick and the
other North Wales collieries a few It eeks ago

The receipts into the Exchequer from all sources
between the let of April and the 25th July were £i1i,916,724,
as compared with 1:21,5n7,648 last year. In the same peried
the payments were £26,9ti9.127, as compared with £29,095,634
last year The balance in the Bank of England on tatuflley
was .C 1,098,551 and in that of Ireland, £589.545.

-
The Tell of Blidah states that the locusts have
terminated tie-jr work of destruction hi the commune of
Mozadaville, where the damage to the vines is estimated at
20,000ir. The road from Blidah to WCali presents a most
desolate appearance ; the green foliage, which presented no
agreeable a relief to the eyes, having disappeared, leaving
only the bare trunks and branches of the trees. Even the
bitter leaves of the olive plants have been devoured. At
Slidell a large number of the inhabitants are employed in
destroying the insects in the suburbs in order to save if
possihle the zone of gardens and orange trees of winch the
city is proud.
The Journal de Marseille relates that a few days
back, near the port, two fishing boats snot with a slide' of
tunny-fish, pursued by three large sharks, and the first of
the barks was nearly upset by coining into collision with
one of these monstrous creatures. 'I hey are of the same size
as those which some years ago spread terror amongst the
bathing establishment of the Catalans.
. . ^ • •

A "milk club "is to be established in Paris to pro.
mote !sobriety.

Prince Bismarck's health is stated to be improving,
slid the effects of the baths is very beneficial, but his wound
Is not yet healed. lie feels pain if his arm is in a perpen-
dicular position, and has a difficulty In writing. Ilia two
sons are acting as his amanuenses. At times he is subject to
serous excitement.

King George of Hanover is now able to take carrisige
exercise, and as considered by his medical advisers to be
entirely out of danger.
••• • • .

A very interesting and instructive exhibition is now
taking place in Paris, and attracts crowds. By means of a
most artistic application of photo-seidpture, the spectacle of
Pomptii as it was eighteen centuries ago, and is now, Is
splendidly represented the comparison is really cartoon to
to
complete the idea an eruption of Mount Vesuvius is exhibited.
full of reality. It roust have coat much study and labour to
than materially construct, as it were, a city and its life lost
so many a4.es ago. . . -

The Dail p News in informed that the English fleet
in the Pacific is ordered to collect at Panama, and will pro-
ceed to one of the ports at Guatemala to ode: ce prompt pay-
ment of ftenee in compeusattou for the outrage on Consul
Magee.

Five large-sized boars, having escaped from 'a
menagerie, are now devastating the forest of St. Germain.
Marshal Mac Machon has been invited to take part in hunt-
ing them.
A new mitrailleuse has just been tried at Coke, in
the Orison& The barrels are placed horizontally instead of
In a circle, and thus the volley is tired as if by a platoon of
Infantry, twenty Fhots were tired in a minute, but the in-
ventor, Colonel Albertini, an Austrian, maintains that forty-
live mends can be tired each minute, and that his rultrailleuse
will cost mu .11 less than any existing one.

On Sunday at the conmecration of the Roman
Catholic cathedral at Min, there were twenty Papal
bishops ',repent. Including live from England. The Primate
of Ireland officiated. In the ewning the Binho, of Eliatin
entertain...a six hundred persons at dinner.

M. Jarlet, the sup. rintendent of stredst plantations
In Paris, iniorms us (The Garde) that the planes which we
have been aecustomed to admire in Paris are beginning to
suffer and die. As anon as the roots get through the pre-
pared soil and touch the dry, chalky Paris soil they cease to
thrive. On a recent visit to London he was amazed at the
size and beauty if the planes and other deciduous trees in
the west-central squares and in other parts of London.
The Prince and Princess of Wales drove out on
Saturday, and u ere present at a Polo match played at
Burliugham between the officers of the Royal Horse Guards
(Min) and the officers of the tqh Lancers. ller Loyal High-
ness afterwards presented a cap to the sueeessful competitors
—the officers of the nth isomers, in the evening the prows
alai Princess were at the Curt Theatre.

In London last week 2,183 births and 1,640 deaths
were registered, the former having been 75 and the latter 12
below the average for the last ten years. The deaths in-
cluded 2 from entail-pox, 31 from measles, 52 from scarlet
fever, 4 from diplitherm, 20 from whooping-cough, 20 from
different fortesof fever, and 389 from diarrhoea ; thus to the
seven principal diseases of the xymotic class 524 deaths were
referred, against numbers increasing from 178 to 358 in the
four preceding weeks. These 524 deaths exceeded by 47 the
corrected average number from the manic diseases in the
corresponding week of she last ten years ; the only con-
siderable excess occurred in the deaths front dial-rime Tire
52 fatal cases of scarlet fever, of winch 28 occurred ill East
London, showed a attacked increase upon those returned in
recent weeks. The 2; deaths referred to fever were is below
the corrected e eel:ly average, and included 8 certified as
typhus, 17 as enteric or typhoid, and 353 simple confirmed
fever, home staCsties are also gives by the Regietrar-
General as to the aleath-rate in some of the principal Indian
cities. In Calcutta 101 deaths were reterned in the week
ending 13th June, equal to an annual death•rete of 19 per
1,000 ; 20 deaths were referred to cholera, against 32 and 27
In the two preceding, weeks In Bombay the deaths
registered during the week ending the 30th ultimo were 245,
and the rate was 20 per 1,000. In Madras the 288 deaths In
the week ending the sth June showed a rate of 38 per 1,000.
19 deaths from small-ma were returned, against 16 and 16 Ira
the two preceding weeka