The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-04-27 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS,

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

A heavy snowstorm took place at Nottingham on
Sunday, continuing fur several hours.
Viscount Mahon has been elected to the School
Board for Westminster by a majority of neatly five to one
over Ms opponent, Mr. George Potter.
. . . .

The military plans tor re-organising the deft:nue of
the French territory are being steadily carried out.
There has been formed in California a corporate
company that proposes to reclaim, by a very extensive
system of sea walls, all the marsh laud en the state.
The prisoners in the gaol at Plymouth have for
some months ateoe I cccli fed on Australian preserved bed
aud mutton, mid rot the slightest complaint has been made
respecting it. The money saved has bees considerable.
Prince Arthur occupied the chair on Tuesday night
at the anniversary festival of the City of London Hospital
f-r Dis,ases of the Chest. Subscriptions were announced to
the amount of £4,700.

It is announced from Potsdam that the Princess Im-
perial St Germany, the Princess Royal of England, gave birth
to a daughter on Monday evening. The Princess has now
seven children, via., three sons and four daughters.

From the let to the 20th inst., the Exchequer re-
ceipts amounted to £4 309.957, a substantial increase over
the corresponding period of las year. The expenditure
during the three weeks was nearly seven millions. The
balance at the Bank exceeds five millions and a quarter.

On Tuesday the Queen came to Loudon from Wind-
sor, and in the afternoon held her second Drawing Room at
Buckingham Palace. On WiOnesday the Queen had an
afternoon party., also at Buckingham Palace. Her Majesty
a,e,mnalll.d from Windsor by Prince Leopold am!
Princess Beatrice.

---- -----
The other evening a spectator while in 'ganders'
Menagerie, at Shrewsbury, foolishly tried to shake hand web
a large Bengal tiger. The greetins was not reciprocated ;
the tiger showed lain claws and the man felt them, lie Ii
now under surgical treatment.
• • • • •

The Prefect of the Paris police has delegated a
number of inspectors to watch over the morals of the
audiences at catt concerts. The mission of the police is not
only to prevent improper songs being sung, but to see that
the singers do not offend public morality by their gestures.
A writer in the current issue of Good Health says :
"We must say that to us the only argumf at for the tolera-
tion of smoking is in the high moral excellence of many of
the men who indulge in it."

In the London papers of last week was the following
advertisement
" Court.-ITermann V-zin.'
"Court.—Ada Cavendish."
A collection of twenty-five pins, very well made, t
Is said, has just been found in the subterranean vaults of
Thebes. Mode more than three thousand yea! s ago, they
show that the modern invention is only a re-invention.

On Friday in last week, an old woman, named Ann
Gilchrist, died at Canterbury at the advanced age of lot
yea] s and four month'. ate retained her mental faculties
up to the last.
The aceount of the victualling of Paris during the
slece, says Gabgnani, is terminated. One hundred and
seventy lei lions were expended, of which eighty-five, accord-
ing to the Constitutionnel, have totally disappeared, without
any one being able to say chat has become of them, and
must therefore be set down as a dead loss.
- - - —•

All the Nonconformist places of worship in Oke-
hampton were closed on Sunday out of respect to the
memory of the late vicar (Archdeacon Downall), and in order
that the congregations might attend the pairsh church,
where funeral sermons ware preached.
- .

•
The cultivation of opium has been ttiea in the pa,,,t
year in several parts of the colony of Victoria, successfully
as far as the quality is concernpd. The corainprchil resulti
are not yet stated, but it appears thal the article has
realised to the grower from 22,5. to 305. per lb. Tlicre is a
duty of 105. per lb.
- •

The death is announced at nombu-q, after a long
Illness, of Lord Andley, of lieleigh Cagle, Stafford::litre
Pis hordehip was born In 1817, and succeeded to the title
while in hie minority. lie was also a Count of the 1104
Roman Rio plre. Bit lordnhip wan twice wanted, sod haves
toe daughters by his Mid wife, who was a daughter of the
late Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell.
The Committee of the Ballot Society have passed
two resolutions, expressing satisfaction at the course taken
by the Government in their condivt of the Secret Voting
Dill, and urging them to proceed with the measure In spite
of all opposition.
- - -

On -Monday morning a return was published of
certificates of nathrallsation trued to aliens by her Majesty's
Secretary of State lor the Rome Departn,ent, giving the
113.1110 S arid deseript!ons
sof, such
,sabenp, and statit,it the
• .--

countries to which they lwlong. Since 1868 only one' alien
—namely, Paialeli Railt, ii. A., born at Marseilles—obtained
the right of sitting to parliament aud being cf liter Majesty's
Privy Council.
In the House of Lords, on Monday evening, the
Lord Chancellor gave that he would wove a resolot.iiii
with respect to a member of their I..rilships' Hume who had
had the misfortune to become bankrupt. The resolution
would be to the effect that, it appearing that the noble lord
in question had discharged all his debts under the Irink-
ruptey, and there being no other debt. due by him, tit ir
lordships were satisfied as to his Tight to resume his place in
the House under the Act of last session.
After the sale of "the wild beasts" by auction at.
Edinburgh the other day, it was attempted to convey the
elephant by railway to Manchester; but the huge animal
not contented with the infra dig. horse-box, smashed it to
pieces by guiding its head right through the ire ut end of the
enclosure, and without the least ceremony ilts hindquarters
through the other end ! The temporary destruction of the
property did not mar the amusement of the spectators. It
proceeded on the Journey on its poor feet.
A Paris journal draws attention to the fact that
several surgeons Milonging to ti. Val de Grace were summarily
executed by the Versailles troops in enileavoui Mg to protect
a number of wounded insurgents near the Place Si. Sulpice.
It appears that it has been attempted by the tiovenrinent to
hush up the affair ; but the Dolheau 80.1118.1 has awakened
the vtgilence of sum mitractable students, and a private
inquiry me the imitter has higun. Two well-known sur-
geons, w-ho had disappeared since the repression of the in-
surrection, are stated to have been among the victims.

On Saturday, a prisoner in the House of Correction,
Clerkenwell, London, undergoing a sentence of 14 slays im-
prisonment, was working on the treadmill when he m fed
out that his legs were broken. Die whole of the prisontrs,
to the number of about 100. were immediately called off and
the wheel was utopia d, when it was found that either Irwin
accident or design hislegs had got entangled in the maeld-
very, and that both Vere broken. Ile was inunediattly
picked up and taken to the Infirmary, where he was attended
by Dr Smiles the prison surgeon. There was great alarm
among the 300 prisoners at work on the wheels, but order
was quickly restored

A 4puted point in the history of the Infallibility
dogma haa been elucidated by the Archbishop of Paris in his
recent pastoral. Ile affirms, in contradiction of what was
not a very rare (minion about a 3 ear ago, that the dogma was
subscribed by his lamented predecessor, Monsignor Darboy.
The latter wrote to the Pope on the tad March, 1671, ex-
pressing his adhesion, pure and simple, to the dogma. The
Pope answered him in a letter of March 20, which the late
Archbishop was never allowed even to read. While In
captivity he was so utterly isolated from his flock that he had
to leave unfulfilled his intention of promulgating the dogma.
Ilis correspondence with the lioly Father has now been
published.
- - - -

Arclidnacon Denison, at a visitation lunch a few
days since, referred to his well-known repugnance to Govern-
ment school inspection. One of her Majesty's inspectors
proposed to come to his (the archdeacon',) school twenty-five
years ago. Re sail to the iuspector, "I love you very much ;
yon are a very nice man ; bat as sure as posiible if ever you
come here I'll tell the Iroys to put 300 into the pond." The
gentleman did not go, and MRS a very wise man for not going.
'rho next school inspector who went to his school asked
particularly whether the children sang ; and Mrs. Denison,
who came up at Its.. time, told the children to sing " Goosey ,
goosey, gander," and whether the inspector thought it was a
cut at him or not, he never went again.
On Saturday, a painter named Hesketh, of &holes
Wigan, was suddenly killed in consequence of his incautious
handling eta loaded gun. Ile was employed at El inolcy Ball,
Pemberton, stint, in the conrse of his duties, he had to re-
moves gun from one corner of the room. Ile began to play
with the weapon, saying he would be a rifleman, although he
was told the weapon was lOall,ll, WllOll, p irmic Weal., the
charge exploded, and entering ids head just below the chic,
killed him almost Instantly. Deceased was marital, and has
left one child.

The death is announoed of Mr. Richard West-
macott, It A., In his 74th year. He was the son of Sir
Richard Westmacott, the ccl brated sculptor, was brought
up under his father's eye, and in IS2O he went to Italy, where
he spent some live or six years in studying the gillerh s
ancient art, boon after hie retires to England, in 1827, lie
began to exhibit at the Royal Academy. In 1838 ha was
chosen an associate of that body, to the full honours of
which he was scimittod i:1 1849, and ten years later he was
appointed Professor of Sculpture. He hail retired sonic
years from the active work of his proferston, but was well
known both as a lecturer and a writer Oil artistic subjects.
Last week the mortality irk London and 20 other
large town, of the Unitcd ifiugdem was at the rote of 25
deaths annually to every 1,000 persons estimated to be living.
In the nictrepolis 2,252 births 61i1i 1,410 deaths were re-
gistered, the fcriner having lava 109, and the latter 171 below
Ike average. Forty-eight persons died from small-pox, 77
from measles, 11 from scarlet fever, 7 from diphtheria, 72
from whooping-cough, 22 from different forms of fever (of
which 3 were cernflod as typhus, 10 es eni eric or typhoid, and
3us simple continued fever), and 13 from diarrinta. The
mean tetnnerature aas 402, and all but corresponded with
the average of the stone week In 50 years.
A novel strike (says the Birmingham Poet) has take
place in Birmingham The labourers "'gaged in the con
eduction of the postal telegraphs in this distract received, a
tiled time nod, an circler fornidding teem to mete overtime.
Hitherto the teen have received 203. per week, and have
worked overtime. In consequence ot this privilege, as they
considered it, being withdrawn they asked that their wages
should be raised to 245, per week, urging the fact that they
had logo as, from home to work. This request was not
complied with, end on Monday morning they came to the
head office in Birmingham and demanded the day's wages,
whi,..11 was alwaye kept ill hand. The money waapaid Went
and they left, and are now on strike.

The Bishop of Winchester presided on Monday night
at the biennial testi.] on behalf of the Royal National
Hospital for Consumption, near Ventnor. It appeared from
the report that the entire design of the institution is ap-
proaching completion by the tree:ion of tight pairs of
houses, which will afford accommodation to 100 hopatients.
from all parte of the kingdom. The chairman said that the
imtitution hat every elf meet of success hut one, aod that,
WM money. It seas announced during tire evenieg lr.
Wlllilllll Leaf had promised to build the fifth block ui the
hmpit al, and that donations and subscriptions to the amount
of nearly £6.000 had been prombed.

From the lieuistrrr.Genersre return it appeare thet
the rates of mortality in the following pieces per 1,000 of the
re,pulation were :—EirminghAn, Wolverhampton, aed Not-
tipgioun. 20; Loudon, Norwich, and Leicester, 2!; Leeds.
Sal old, Sunderland, and Sheffield, 24; Hull, 25 ; Newcastle-
on-Tyne and Oldham, 2!; liristol and Portimouth, 27; Man-
chester, 2.0; 13ritkiford aid Liverpool, 29; Glasgow, 3);
Edinburgh, 31; and Dublin, 32. The deaths in the metro.
;,olio were 1,410, a great Improvement upon the three pre-
vious weeks, Iviea Ur: fig-Ares vr.r. 1 04% 1,5E9, aiall,CO.