The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-02-15 00:00:00

gligtliantotts I(,ittriligenct,
ROME, FOREIGN, AND COLONIAL.

TWO PERSONS SUFFOCATED EY CUARCOAL.—
A shocking case of suffocation by charcoal occurred at
the village of Newstead, near Nottingham, on Sunday
afternoon. A man named William Green, of Bud.
worth, and Herbert Godfrey, a youth sixteen years of
age, belonging to the same village, were engaged in
the manufacture of charcoal in a small hut on the
Newstead estate. At three o'clock on the day of the
occurrence two men, named Green and Phillips,
entered the hut and found the two poor fellows quite
dead. It would appear that they bad foolishly Yen-
tured to sleep whilst the charcoal was burning, when
suffocation followed. The bodies were taken to Blid-
worth to await the inquest to be held over them.
A DEATII-RED DISCLOSURE.— There died in
Coventry a few days since an elderly unmarried man
named Palmer. Just before his death, being unable
to speak, he wrote down the strange information that,
in an old coat, up the chimney, would be found 1:550
in sovereigns. The relatives to whom this disclosure
was made at once went to the chimney indicated, and
there found a coat, and in the pocket the cash as
described. The dying man then became distressed,
and gave the surprised relatives to understand that
there was some more money about the house; but he
could not tell them where—he must himself find it.
As Palmer was unable to do this, he died, taking the
secret of the hiding place of this additional hoard with
him. A suggestive part of the story is that there have
been already a number of applications for the house
lately occupied by the deceased. Palmer always ap-
peared a very poor man, earning, apparently, an
honest but scanty living by the sale of sweets for
children.

A WOMAN KILLED AT A RAILWAY STATION.—
At Lawley.street Station, Birmingham, on Satur-
day night, a woman, apparently about 35 years of
age, was in the act of alighting from one of the car-
riages, when she was drawn beneath the carriage, the
train, it is stated, not having come to a standstill. The
consequence was that the left leg was nearly severed
from the body, and the right thigh badly lacerated.
She was immediately taken to the hospital, but ex.
pired before she reached it. Her name was afterwards
found to be Hannah Spencer, wife of a bricklayer,
residing in Lichfield. She was on her way to visit
her aged mother. She has left four young children
behind her.

HOW INFANTS ARE DISPOSED OF !—The fatal
facility with which babies may be disposed of without
the cost attendant upon preliminary ceremony of
placing them out to be "nursed," was illustrated by
an inquest held at Shrewsbury on Monday night. On
Monday week a bargeman on the canal near Shrews-
bury accidentally fished up with his boathook a basket
of the description used for packing fish in. The mouth
of the basket was carefully sewn up with twine, and
from its weight might have been supposed to contain
something valuable; but the bargeman, suspicious, as
he explained to the coroner, of " a dead cat or
summit," placed the basket on the side of the canal,
and shortly after went to breakfast. Another work-
man passing by opened the basket, and the first thing
he beheld was a flat-iron. Under this was the body
of a child wrapped up in flannel and other clothes.
The medical evidence showed beyond doubt that the
child had been alive when placed in the water, and
the inquest Was adjourned in the hope that some evi-
dence might be forthcoming tending to prove the
identity of the murderer. There was, however, not
toe slightest clue obtainable from marks upon the
basket or any of its contents, and the joy returned an
open verdict.

WHY DO THEY NOT DISARM I—lt is hard to
think (remarks The Times) that men like Louis Napo-
leon and Bisinark, men who aspire to leave their mark
in history, shculd not shrink from the great havoc they
inflict on the living generation, and should find it im-
possible to devise smile plausible scheme for a general
and simultaneous disarmament. The first Napoleon
went to his grave with the brand on his name of a
" man-devouring ruler," because he mustered half a
million of soldiers for an enterprise which, in his fond
conceit, WILS to establish perpetual peace on earth.
But even all the borrow) of the Russian campaigu con-
densed into a single season had not such lasting con-
sequences on the welfare of mankind as a system
which dooms nearly the whole manhood of Europe to

years of inglorious and unprofitable garrison life, while
women or invalids are left to till the ground, while
large tracts of land are either imperfectly reclaimed or
he waste for want both of capital and labour, while
uncertainty and mistrust hang on all industrial and
commercial enterprise, while £33,000,000 are hoarded
up in one bank, and the whole human family seeing
affected with Midas' curse. .

LIFE IN '...ALIFORNIA !—The San Francisco
Monitor tells the following story
A German family, owning a rancho about three miles below
Dublin, Alameda county, had on several occasions been
robbed of Joints of fresh meat left by the butcher in a box
at their door on his early morning rounds. Determined to
punish the offender, they poisoned a uuautlty of meat with
arsenic and placed it in the box. The neat day the meat
was gone, and a Spanish fanlily, named AllVirO, ten in num-
ber, who lived hard by, were taken vidlently 111. Tive died,
and the lives of the Mhos, were despaired of ; bat the
Germans had the satisfaction of knowing who stole their
beef. Such is the value attached to human We in California

MACDUFF.S CASTLE.—ThiS Old castle, which
has long been in a dilapidated state, is now fast going
to decay (says the Dundee Adverttser). The castle is
supposed to have been Macduff's principal stronghold,
and is believed to be nearly 1,000 years old. It is
situated at the eastern extremity of the village, on the
brow of the hill, facing the sea, and close to the beach;
and what remains of it consists of two separate square
buildings, with a tower, and traces of a spiral stair in
each. Underneath the western building is a large
cave, in which there is a well, and it is supposed that
there had been a subterranean passage from the cave
to the castle in former times. In the eastern building
there are the remains of what has been a dark chamber
with arched roof, accessible by a secret spiral stair.
The northern and eastern walhs of this part of the
ruins, together with the arched roof, fell on Saturday
morning—a result probably due to the severe gales.
Although the action of the weather has honeycombed
the stones to the depth of from four to eight inches,
the masonry of the western building is still in a very
strong condition.

THE WINTER IN Itt7SSIA.-A letter from St.
Petersburg of the 29th January, in the Nord, ear :

The severity of the winter increases : we have touched 30
deg. zero of Reaumur. At Moscow the temperature has
sullenly descended to 33 deg R. The day before yesterday
at Valilai, between that city and this, the thermometer
marked 42 deg, below zero. Mercury freezes, and only the
imtruinents with alcohol show the temperature. You may
imagine what is taking place on the railway between this
capital and Moscow. Only by the most inconceivable efforts
is the trafflocarried on. The goods trains, when they stop
at a station for any length of time, have the greatest dna-
gully in starting again. The frost attaches the wheels to the
rails; four or live locomotives are required to break them
away, and sometimes this cannot be done ; the engines or
the coupling chains break. In short, there is a violent
struggle with nature in which man and iron have the wont
of it.

GERMAN LAW.—I have come across a judicial
anecdote, the scene of which lies in Germany, and it
illustrates very ludicrously the matter-of-fact and
methodical nature of the Teutonic mind, as well as its
severe adherence to logic (says a writer in Once a
Week.) A complaint was made to a magistrate that a
blow hail been given in the course of an altercation,
but the witness who was relied on to prove the assault
could only say that he heard the blow given, as he was
at the time in a certain inn near which the occurrence
hail taken place. The defendant, who denied giving
the blow, urged that it was impossible, even if it had
been given, that the witness could have heard it from
where he was. The magistrate resolved to try the
point by actual experiment, and proceeded to the
inn, while an officer of the court accompanied the com-
plainant to the precise spot where the quarrel had oc-
curred, and there and then gave him a good, sound
whack. The magistrate, on resuming his seat in court,
said he heard the blow perfectly well from inside the
inn, and the defendant must pay a double fine—one
for the original blow, the other for the experimental
and official thump.

A KNOTTY QUESTION !—The flute of Frederick
the Great has been deposited with all becoming pomp
in the Instrumental Museum of Paris. The question
has however, arisen as to whether it is the genuine'
and celebrated flute, for in the Royal Museum at
Berlin is to be seen in a glass case the flute which
purports to be the true historical flute of the great
warrior. The instrument in the Paris Conservatoire
is richly ornamented, while that at Berlin has only
ivory rings. Could it be possible that the great I re-
derick possessed two flutes? Here is a question for
the savans and for German flutosophers.

ANCIENT NORTHIJIIDRIANS.—There is residing
at 94, Bell-street, North Shields, an old woman,
Margeret Marley, reputed to have reached the vener-
able age of 106. She lived in one house on the llopery-
stairs 50 years. She was in the full enjoyment of her
faculties until very lately. Joshua Miller is residing
in Newcastle-on• Tyne at the age of 107. He was 14
years in the Royal Navy, a boatman on the Tyne,
and a pitman in the Northumberland collieries. Alex-
ander Dryburgh, an old Trafalgar hero, one of the
crew of the " Old Agamemnon," died last week in
Newcastle-on• Tyne. He had seen much service in
various parts of the world. He was 84 years of age.
THE VALUE OP POE'S AUTOGRAPH.— Horace
Greely, in his Recollections of a Busy Life, gives some
correspondence that passed between himself and a
stranger regarding Yoe's autograph. We quote:—

A gushing youth once wrote me to this effect Dear
Sir,—Among your literary treasures, you have doubtless pre-
served several autographs of our country's late lamented
poet, Edgar A_ Poe. If so, and you can spare one, please
enclose it to me, and receive the thanks of yours truly " I
promptly responded, as follows—" Dear Sir,—Among my
literary treasures there happens to be exactly one autograph
of our country's late lamented poet, Edgar A. Poe. It is his
note of hand for fifty dollars, nith my endorsement across
the back. It cost me exactly 60 dollars 76 cents (including
protest`, and you may have it for half that amount. Yours
respectfully." That autograph, I regret to say, remains on
my hands, and is still tor sic at the original price, despite
the lapse of time, and the depreciation of our currency.
ATTEMPT TO SHOOT A SWEETHEART. —A
young man named Henry Thomas Torr was brought
up before a magistrate at Rotherham, on Saturday,
charged with attempting to shoot Caroline Pitt, a
young woman with whom he has been keeping com-
pany for nearly two years. The prisoner and the girl
had had a quarrel, and when the former paid his usual
visit to the damsel at her father's house, on the out-
skirts of Rotherham, on Friday evening, he asked the
girl if she intended to go with him any longer ; on her
replying that she would "ask her father," and tell
him the next day, he said he would put an end to that
state of things, and drew the pistol from his breast
pocket. The young woman screamed and seized her
lover by the wrist. The noise had the effect of bring-
ing the girl a father an brother to the rescue, and
the fellow was relieved of the pistol, which was loaded
with powder only. The prisoner, who is a member
of the local Volunteer Rifle Corps, was remanded.

. ,
ORIGIN OF A WORD.—Professor Whitney men-
tions, in a paper upon word-making, that people in
America put on a "pair of rubbers," because, when
caoutchouc was first brought they could find no better
use for it than the rubbing out of pencil marks. But
overshoes of this material are not universally called
"rubbers." In Philadelphia, with a reference to the
nature of the substance of which they are made, they
are called "gums.' A Philadelphia gentleman and
his wife coming to spend the evening at a house where
they were very much at home, he entered the parlour
alone; and to the question, "Why, where is Emily?"
answered "Oh, Emily is outside cleaning her gums
upon the mat ; " whereupon there was a momentary
look of astonishment and then a peal of laughter.
RAW OYSTERS.—" Oysters," says old Fuller,
"are the only meat which men eat alive and yet
account it no cruelty." The idea of eating any
creature whilst still alive does, it must be confessed,
savour a little of ferocity, and, as King James was
wont to say, "he was a very valiant man who first
ventured on eating of oysters ;"or as the poet Gay
has sung of the first raw-oyster eater in the well-known
lines :

The man had sure a palate covered o'er
With brass or steel that on the rocky shore
First broke the obey oyster's pearly coat,
And risked the living morsel down his throat.
The popular idea with regard to eating raw oysters is
that the animal is killed as soon as
The damsel's knife the gaping shell commands,
And the salt liquor streams between her hands.

But this is a mistake ; if the oyster is not dead before
it is opened, it is undoubtedly swallowed alive.
A NEWSPAPER DENOUNCED BY THE HOLY SEE.
—On Sunday, in all the Roman Catholic churches
throughout Scotland, the ClaBgow Free Press, a Roman
Catholic organ, which has lately been devoting its
columns to the propagation of pro-Fenian sentiments,
was publicly denounced from the altar in accordance
with instructions received from Cardinal Barna
Prefect of Propaganda. 'fhe Cardinal, in his letter,
which is dated Rome, 16th January, says that it has
been reported to the Sacred Congregation "that the
journal entitled the Glasgow Free Press does not desist
from disseminating writings which cause great scandal
to the Catholics of Scotland." In carrying out the in-
structions of his Eminence, the Vicars Apostolic have
framed a pastoral address, in which they forbid
all ecclesiastics under their jurisdiction from taking
any share in the publication of the paper in question,
and require of them, under pain of suspension, to ab-
stain from writing, or in any way whatever contributing
to it. _

- -
THE BELLE SAUVAGE !—A woman in Paris,
with rather an Indian type of features. has of late been
very much remarked for the pecuiiar dinner she orders
at the several restaurants to which the accords her
patronage. She is about twenty.six years of age,
wears a plaid dress of rather a "loud pattern," her
features are very regular, and her teeth are exquisitely
white. She orders but one dish, composed of about a
pound of raw beefdeak, cut from the sirloin. She eats
but little bread, the better to eat more meat, which
she pronounces to be delicious, and would take more
heartily only for its high price.
NAPOLEON'S FAVOURITE OCCUPATION. —Ac-
cording to the Paris correspondent of the Examiner
the Emperor Napoleon, M playing at questions and
answers at the Tuileries a few nights ago, said that
his favourite occupation was "seeking the solution of
insoluble questions." The whole of the answers made
on the occasion by the Emperor and Empress Were
respectively as follows:—" What quality do you pre-
fer?" "Gratitude," and "Devotion." "What are
your favourite occupations?" "Seeking the solution
of insoluble questions," and "Doing good." "What
should you like to be?" "My grandson," and "What
1 I am." "What historical personages do you most
hate?" "The Constable de Bourbon," and "Lopez."
"What faults do you most easily pardon ?" "Those
by which I profit," and "Those which passion ex-
cusses."

-
Aw INTERESTING ExrEnltiENT.—Many per-
sons have heard it asserted that a tallow candle, when
fired from an ordinary gun, with the usual charge of
powder, at a deal board three-quarters of an inch
thick, will pass through the board, but very few who
have not seen it done believe a. The other lay a party
of riflemen and other gentlemen, for the purpose of
deciding a bet on the subject, adjourned to the butts
of the North Middlesex Thfles at Child's-hill, where a
board of the thickness described having been fixed in
an upright position, a common halfpenny dip was fired
at it from a fowling-piece, from a distance of about
fifteen paces. The candle struck the board with its
full length, and passed through, leaving a hole exactly
the shape of the candle. The remains of the candle
were found scattered in pieces resembling snow-flakes
on the high mound of earth in rear of the board. A.
second candle, when fired from the fowling-piece

passed through the board, making a circular hole,
which was, however, very jagged round the edges. A
third candle carried away a large piece of the board
nine inches long and three inches broad, breaking
away the boundary on one side of the hole made by
the first shot. A candle fired from a rifle failed to
pass through the board, the groves of the rifle strip-
ping. the tallow from the wick as it passed out. The
smoothbore fowling-piece was loaded each time with
2) drachms of powder, a small piece of paper as a wad,
and a common tallow dip, which had not been
specially prepared in any manner.
WHAT IS A ROYAL PALACE f— The question
as tritFe exact ih:finitien of a Roynl Palace came up
again the sother tlay ;--!this time in the Exchequer
Chargber. Tie goods of one ef Iler Majerly:s pen-
sioners at Zampton Court have lately.been.peized by
the -sheriffs under a eivif procesli. It was contended
that the sheriffs bad no right to seize, and the Attorney.
General brouzht an action against them. He argued
that as the building and grounds and the guard of
honour, are kept up by the Crown, and as the apart-
ments are exempt from rating, the palace is a royal
domain. The counsel on the either side contended
that her Majesty's dignity would be in re affected by
keeping Hampton Court Palace as a sanctuary for in-
solvent debtors than by the action of any civil process
within the palace. On the mere principle of occasional
occupation by her Majesty, the Opera House and the
British Museum might be claimed as Royal Palaces.
The court took time to consider its judgment.
AMERICAN LIRRARIES.—A Boston paper says
that Mr. Charles Francis Adams, Minister to Eng-
land, is possessor of the largest private library in
Boston. It contains 18,000 volumes, and includes
those that belongel to his father and grandfather.
The late Theodore Parker's library, bequeathed to the
Boston Public Library, contained 10,000 valuable, and
some of them rare, taroks. The library of the late
Abbott Lawrence (10,000 volumes) has been sold and
scattered, as also has been that (7,100 volumes) of
Rufus Choate. The libraries of Edward Everett and
W. H. Prescott, each containing about 7,000 volumes,
have been preserved by their families, as also that of
Daniel Webster, containing 5,000 volumes, chiefly on
law. Mr. George Livermore, of Cambridge, is
believed to have had the richest library in old Bibles
and Biblical works in the world ; at his death nearly
all his books (4,000) were bequeathed to Harvard
University.
IMPROVEMENT OF HOUSES IN IRELAND.—The
degree of improvement in house accommodation in Ire-
land is better measured by relative than by absolute
figures. The percentage of families living in houses of
the first and second class, and in those of the third and
fourth- the fourth being mere mud cabins with one
room, and the third larger and roomier, but still built
of mud—was as follows at the dates given :

1841. 1951. 1861.
It & 2nd class. . 19 per cent . 28 per cent. . 33 per ceuti
3rd clAss 39 „ 49 „ .. 49 „
4th class