The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-11-27 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

The carpenters of Macclesfield have given notice
that they require an advance equivalent to 6s. per week, and
a reduction of time from 54i to 54 hours.
In the year ended the 31st of March the excise
licences on maltsters amounted to £15,500, and on brewers
to £454,799.
The proposed land-tax in Natal is causing a great
emigration from that colony.
The declared value of steam engines exported this
year was £2,245,922 ; in the previous year, £2,691,702.
In Berlin the weather is so mild that many deaths
are being caused by its unseasonableness.
The Queen and Princess Beatrice and suite arrived
at Windsor from Scotland at 8.50 on Wednesday morning by
special train.
The death is announced of Mrs. Sarah Elizabeth
Friend (nee Pearson), the foundress of the West of England
Institution for the Blind, the affairs of which she conducted
for 37 years.
It is stated that the One year volunteer system in
France has been the means of discovering that 36 per cent.
of the upper class young men are apparently short-sighted.
After the clergyman had united a happy pair not
long ago, an awful silence ensued. which was broken by
an impatient youth exclaiming, "Don't be so unspeakably
happy.'
Sixty millions sterling is a large sum for the British
public to lose in three years; and that is the amount which
It has been cdmputed has been lost in Foreign Loans since
1872.
The Ottoman armour-plated navy is said to be the
most powerful afloatin the Mediterranean. The iron-dads of
the Porte are big constructions, all of them launched
recently from the best English docks.
A client complained to his counsel that the latter
rambled too much in his argument to the jury. "Oh," ex-
claimed the barrister, "don't you know scattering shots hit
the most birds 1"
The Queen has subscribed one hundred pounds to-
wards the Mansion House Fund for the relief of those persons
who have suffered from the recent floods. The fund already

xceeds £4,000
The value of printed books exported in the last ten
months was £734,076, against £710,827 in the previous year.
In the last ten months the weight was 68,760 cwt.
Lord Denbigh, speaking on Tuesday at the opening
of a homeopathic hospital at Birmingham, expressed a wish
to see similar institutions established in all the great centres
of industry, lie had himself practised hommpathy during
forty years.
From April let to the 20th inst. the Exchequer
receipts amounted to £45,292,236 as compared with
£44,195,627 in the corresponding period of last year. The
expenditure has been £48,527,865.
Kangaroos are considered perfectly acclimatisable in
France ; several landed proprietors have introduced them to
their grounds, where they are hunted like other game, the
flesh is sold in the markets as an article of food, and is con-
sidered a great dainty.
The Lord Mayor of London had the satisfaction of
receiving at the Mansion House, on Tuesday, his first,pair of
official white gloves, in recognition of the fact that there was
no business, night charges or summonses, to be adjudicated
upon. His lordship half intimated his intention of putting
the spotless gloves under a glass case.
From a despatch received at the Colonial Office on
Made}, it appears that just before the murder of Mr. Birch
three proclamations had been posted in Perak explaining
that with the concurrence of the Sultan the government
would be administered by Britiqi ',facers. It was these pro-
clamatiens which were torn down, as stated in the first offi-
cial telegrams.
Advices from Tashkend bring intelligence of severe
fighting in Central Asia. The ,Kiptschaks surprised
Namanglian. and On the sth inst. attacked the citadel and
the Russian camp. For three days the garrison resisted.
Relief then came, and the Kiptschsks were driven out with
the loss of 3,800 dead. .Anarchy is said to reign throughout

Khokand.
An extraordinary mission in conn.frxibn with the
Established Church has been held_ba..-Nettingham during the
past week. All the churelser-fh—the town except two have
taken part in the movement, and each parish has been
placed under the control of a special " missioner," who had
charge of all the arrangements. Services have been held
daily in the churches, some especially for men of business,
others for women, &c. The Nonconformist ministers of the
town addressed a letter to the Rev. Canon Morse, vicar of St.
Mary's expressing their sympathy with the movement, and
their hope of its success.
It is worthy of note, and attention is called to the
fact in the Registrar-General's weekly return, that no death
has been referred to small-pox during the past four months
in London, which has an estimated population of 3,445,160,
although the corrected average number of fatal cases of this
disease in the corresponding period of the last ten years is
337. This complete humanity from fatal small-pox in London
for so long a period is without parallel since civil registration
was established, and may be safely assumed to be"entirely
unprecedented.
In London last week 2,462 births and 1,603 deaths
were registered, the former having been 116 more and the
latter 71 less than the average numbers. The deaths included
61 from measles, 96 iron scarlet fever, 14 from diphtheria,
(3 from whooping congh, 27 from different forms of fever,
and 30 from diarrhoea. The fatal cases of scarlet fever
showed a further decline from the 129 and 116 returned in
the two previous weeks, and exceeded the corrected average
number in the corresponding week in the last ten years by
but 7.
The Marquis of Lorne has addressed to the officiating
clergymen of the various parishes a letter asking for their
support and sympathy in the cvork of the Church of England
Incumbents' Sustentatiou Fund, which aims at raising the
incomes of all existing benefices to £2OO a year. There are
nearly 4,00 benefices below that amount in annual value.
His lordship thinks that a line might be drawn between
benefices which have a reasonable chance of augmentation
by the E-elesiantical Commissioners and those which are not
likely to be accepted by them, and that, with respect te the
latter class, diocesan societies might co-operate with this
fund, as they do with Queen Anne's Bounty, with a view to
their augmentation.
A curious sale has just been held—namely, of the
furniture, rubbish, &c., found in the ruins of the Tuileries,
the Pedals Royal, and the Palace of St. Cloud. The principal
lots were 10,000 kilos, of metal, fragments of chandeliers, and
nvres china. The sale fetched 25,000 f.
A marble memorial to Edgar Allan Poe has been
publicly subscribed for in America, and placed over the poet's
grave in Baltimore. It is to be unveiled this month, and
among the guests invited to take part in the ceremony. are
Messrs. Allred TeDllysol3 and John H. Ingram. Neither the
Poet Laureate nor the editor of Poe's works, however, being
able to accept the invitation of the memorial committee,
they have been requested to write something suitable for the
occasion, tO be read during the proceedings.
In Paris, on Tuesday evening, M. Paul de Cassagriae,
the indefatigable Bonapartist advocate, addressed a crowded
meeting of Parisian workmen at Belleville in favour of the
Imperialist cause. He compared the oppression of the Re-
publican with the freedom and prosperity of the Imperial
regime, and promised, in the name of the Empire, the sup-
pression of the octrois and the establishment of an income
tax. He also supported the principle of appeal to the people,
and declared that the Republicans did not desire a plebiscite,
because they were afraid of it. M. Cassagnac met with an
enthusiastic reception, and his speech was frequently inter-
rupted by rounds of applause.