The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-08-21 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

When is a plum-pudding like "Paradise Lost"?—
When it is Eden and gone !—Judy.
The declared value of hops imported this year was
£143,685; last year, £168,899.
This year the declared value of poultry and game
imported increased to £131,587, against £112,575 in 1874, in-
cluding Ostend rabbits.
- - -

Mr. William Morris, who had the good luck to live
In 1670, bought the ground upon which Long Branch is built
for a barrel of spoiled cider.

Europe consumes about 300,000 tons or 800.000,000
pounds of coffee per annum, whilst in the United States
200,000,000 pounds, are annually used.
The members of the Midland Farmers' Club have
presented Mr. Illechl with ten Shropshire Down ewes and a
ram, at a cost of about £3O,

The Pio-necr of India says that in 18 or 19 days, out
of 73 persons attacked by cholera at Simla, 65 have died.
A mass was celebrated last Sunday in Lyons in
mcmory of the late Emperor Napoleon. General Bourbaki
and most of the officers under his command were present.
A meeting of colliers was held at Burnley on Satur-
day, when it was decided to ask the masters to withdraw
their recent notice of a ten per cent reduction in wages, and
the meeting recommended the adoption of a sliding scale by
which their wages would be raised in proportion as the
price of coal advanced.
It is estimated that over 600,000 francs worth of
flowers were sold in Paris on Assumption day.

A fatal and singular accidant occurred last week at
Grand-Jouan-en-Nozay. The Marquis de Pons slightly cut
one of his fingers whilst operating on the dead body of a
horse. In the night the finger swelled, got worse, and
three days after the accident the Marquis was dead.—Court
Journal. - -

English pointer and setter dogs to the value of
over loom° dols. were imported into the United States last
year.

"Truth lies at the bottom of a well." We are told
to "leave the well alone "—that is how we don't see much of
truth.—Judy.
In the last seven months the value of steam engines
exported was £1,645,114; in the like period of the previous
year, £.1,829,273.
The total Parliamentary electors in England and
Wales is 2,301,206; in Ireland, 230,436; and in Scotland
230,789.
The decrease in the importation of petroleum this
year was considerable. In the last seven months the value
was £334,114; in 1874, £607,020.

The Royal Mail steamer Boyne has been totally
wrecked at !Jolene, near Brest. Fortunately, no lives were
lost, and it is said that the large amount of specie on board
was saved.

There was a large decrease this year in the importa-
tion of indigo. The amount was £1,479,727; last year it was
£1,943,276.
The declared value of potatoes imported this year to
the end of July was £611,903; last year, £818,761.
Mrs. Orphenia Teepe died a few weeks since at
Woodbury, Connecticut, aged 103. She was a direct descend-
ant of the Goodriches who came over in the Mayflower. The
family has been noted for longevity. .

The New York Times states that some of the most
beautifully situated villas on the Hudson River have lately
been offered at less than one-third their original cost, with-
out finding buyers.
Steps are being taken in Siam to secure the abroga-
tion of the law which allows a man to pawn his wife in pay-
ment of a debt contracted in gambling.

Mr. Joseph Arch has been chosen to represent the
agricultural labourers at the forthcoming Peace Conference
at Paris. _

Numbers of the Franciscan monks receatly banished
from Germany have sought refuge at Quincey, Illinois, and
some eighty more are on their way thither.
Buffalo, dissatisfied with the census just taken of
her population, proposes to have a new one, and subscrip-
tions for the purpose arc coming in freely.

An enterprising cotton mill in Massachusetts has
established a hospital for its crippled employes.
According to a Daily Telegraph despatch, the Pope's
health has so much improved that on Sunday, being the
Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, his Holiness cele-
brated mass at half-past six in the morning at the Sistine
Chapel, afterwards administering the communion to about
fifty persons.
- - -

- -
An order for 445 miles of lead pencils was recently
received by a New York firm. To make them 83,000 ft of
cedar lumber are required, and after they are made they will
load six freight cars.

About four hundred factory operatives from Roch-
dale arrived in London on Saturday, on a five days' visit to
the metropolis. The day was spent in visiting the National
Gallery, the Foreign Offices, Westminster Abbey, where
Dean Stanley called his visitors' attention to the points of
interest, the Houses of Parliament, where Mr. E. Jenkins
kindly acted as guide, and the Tower.

Among those who turned out at the burning of a
vessel in Honolulu were King Kalakaua and the Prince
Royal, both of whom assisted. the firemen until the vessel
was scuttled.

In Ottawa (Can.), a man won five dole., the other
day, by jumping off the suspension bridge at that place a
distance of fifty feet, and swimming twice across the river.
Telegrams from America (says the Liverpool Courier)
report better weather, the news coining in time to have a
very cheering effect on the prospects of the price of bread.
stnffs. First•rate authorities he the grain trade now give the
opinion that, with a good crop saved in the States, we may
look forward to cheap, instead of dear bread here.
Mrs. Brownell, while crossing the railroad track at
Farming-dale Station, on the line of the New Jersey
Southern Railroad, slipped and fell between the tracks. A
train was approaching, but she laid quiet upon the track,
and an entire train passed over her without doing her any
injury.

Among a lot of old books recently purchased by
Pittsburg (Pennsylvania) antiquarian was discovered a draft
for £163 18s. 4d. drawn in favour of John Anderson,, payable
six months after date, and accepted by Sir Walter Scott,
whose handwriting the endorsement is traced.
His Highness Ibraham Pasha (nephew of the
Viceroy of Egypt) visited the Prince of Wales at Marlborough
House last Saturday. His Royal Highness afterwards re-
turb ed his Highness's visit at the Alexandra Hotel.

A somewhat serious outtu eak of foot and mouth
disease has occurred amongst the fine herd of shorthorn
oxen belonging to her Majesty the Queen at the Home Park,
Hampton Court, where between 40 and 60 animals attacked
with the disease are now isolated and under veterinary
treatment.
•On Tuesday morning, in London, a bull, which
formed part of a herd that was being driven through \Val-
worth, became unmanageable, and after knocking down a
boy, inflicted mortal injuries on an infant and tossed a little
boy in such a way as to necessitate his removal to St.
Thomas's Hospital.

The Act to amend the'statnte 21 George Hr., c. 49,
on the profanation of the Lord's Day, and to amend the law
concerning the remisdon of penalties, has been printed.
Doubts which were entertained are now reversed, and it is
declared to be lawful for her Majesty to remit, wholly or in
part, any penalty floe, or forfeiture in an indictment,
icformation, summary conviction, acting, or any other pro-
cess.

At a late medical examination a student had failed
In everything Botany alone bad remained. The good-
natured professor took up a specimen of the plant tobacco,
and asked what it was. The student looked at it with
puzzled gaze, but knew it not "Something you take many
times a day," said the professor gently. "I have it," shouted
the student it's absintho."—Court Journal.

Dutcher, who recently walked five hundred miles in
less than six days at North Adams (Mass.) is now going to
walk for a record and the championship of America. He has
had no professional training, and thinks that a good walker
needs none. If he is successful in his new undertaking, he
proposes to go to New York and walk against the best man
that can be picked out to match him.
According to the weekly return of national income
and expenditure the receipts from the Ist April up to Satur-
day were £26,353 872, as compared with £25,428,617 last
year. All the items under which the receipts are ranged
show an incrilase, that for customs being £229,000, for excise
£529,000. and for stamps £64,000. The expenditure was
30,816,722, as compared with £29,878,336 last year.
During 1874 there were built in London 7,764 new
houses and 145 new streets, and two new squares were
formed, the length of the new streets and squares being 22
miles and 862 yards. 3,542 new houses were in course of con-
struction. The length of new streets and squares opened
during the last quarter of a century is 1,181 miles and 54
yards. There does not appear, according to the return, to
be any immediate pirpect of a cessation in the growth of
buildings; the tendenoy is rather the other way