The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-05-30 00:00:00

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day 0

LONDON ON WHIT MONDAY.
Tuesday remarked
One fact yesterday soot have saddened all who sincerely
desire the social elevation of the great mass of the people.
We refer to the prevalence of drunkenness. among holiday'
seekers. The evil Was simply scandalous. The return of
parties from the country was attended by noise and confu-
sion that disturbed peaceful people in all parts of London.
In the afternoon and evening d was impossible to walk
along the streets without meeting drunken men—many of
them inclined to be violent and disordeily. Probably the
wretched weather, which drove thousands to take shelter in
public-houses, had something to do a ith this deplorable
state of things : hut nothing can really excuse such shameful
excess. It does not speak well for tins country that so many
people cannot enjoy a holiday without having recourse to
degraded brass of " pleasure" Philanthropists may be as
earnest as they chorsio in tile works they undertake ; hut
little will be effected until a orking men obtain a higher idea
of the OROil to whirh they can yint time end money,
- - - - •

The Globe of

THE QUEEN'S DRIVE. —A considerable number
of years ago, when the "Queen's Drive" had recently
been opened round Arthur's Seat, scarping the rock
here and there, hut opening magnificent views, unex-
ampled in the immediate neighbourhood of a large city,
the Prime Minister of the day happened to be in Edin-
burgh, when the Lord Advocate took him fer : drive
along the road. At a spot where a view :. 41. oda
beauty suddenly presents itself, the subordisai 'pur-
posely kept silence, curious to know what h 't
chief
woula say when he gazes on the scene. 'I say R—,
this road must have cost the Woods and Forests a
pretty sum" was the characteristic expression of the
great Mail BOUL

-
" rota. ' Mrs Maiaproe. "Been to se
the Rooshan Czar, my dear? hot if I knows it!
Why, it WaS than as shot off my poor boy's leg out in
the Chimera! ! "—Punch.
Hviihoetioutt.—ln a very able clinical lecture
delivered some time since at St. George's Hospital,
but recently reprinted in his collected works for
private circulation, Mr. Cresar Hawkins mentions that
the late Mr. Youatt told him that a great many
persons, in consequence of his lieculiar practice,
applied to him after they had been bitten by doge, and
that he always used lunar caustic, which he had em-
ployed upon himself and his servant every time, and,
in round numbers, perhaps to 400 others; and that,
out of the number, one had died of fright, but none
had hydrophobia. The early and complete applica-
tion of caustte to the part bitten is the one only means
which can be relied on. It must, however, be re-
membered, for the comfort of the person bitten
first, that a considerable proportion of persons bitten by
rabid dogs have escaped any symptoms of the disease,
that when the dog bites through clothing the poison is
commonly arrested by the clothes, and that many
vicious dogs are supposed to be rabid without cause.
The symptoms of rabies in the dog have recently been
very succinctly stated by Dr. Bunion Sanderson, and
the proper and safe course is ruthlessly to exter-
minate dogs suspected of rabies. —British Afeclicai
Journal.
A CATALEPTIC TRANCE. The New Haven
'urns! records, as follows, the coat of a young lady
that city, about nineteen years of age, who had been
•ing in a cataleptic trance since the night of \Vallee-
day of last week. She retired on that night in full
possession of health, and in the morning she was
found, body and limb, perfectly rigid, and has re.
niained so ever since, last evening showing no change
in her situation. Respiration and pulsation are regular
awl natural, but she has been unconscious and has
taken but a very trifling amount of nourishment.
Oldt TERMS OF FOWLING. —The old fowlersand
masters of woodcraft would have been e xceedingly boom:
ful over our lisise way of using such words as' flock"
Or " covey" in speaking of birds. According to a
student of such matters, who has been at the paha to
collect some of the technical terms of fowling, it is
proper to speak of a "sege" of herons and bitterns;
a " herd " of swans, drakes, or curlews; a " dep
ping " of sheldrakes ; a " spring " of teals ; a " covert "
of coots ; a " gaggle " (or "cackle? "} of geese;
a "badelynge of ducks; a "sord or " sute "of
mallards; a " muster " of pacocks ; a " rye" of
ph4sants ; a "bevy" of quails; a "congregation" of
plovers : a "walk of snipe; a "fall ' of woodcocks;
a " brood " of hens; a " building " of rooks ; a " mur-
muration " of starlings; an "exaltation "of larks ; a
" flight " of swallows; a "host" of sparrows; a
"watch" of nightingales; arida "charm" of goldfinches.
It would be rather troublesome to remember and
apply such a vocabulary, but most of the terms are so
poetically and quaintly appropriate to the various
classes of birds that their entire loss from the language
is to be regretted. In poetry, at all events, many
of the words would be well worth restoring and re-
taining.
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