The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-04-11 00:00:00

Miscellaneous lintelligente.

HOME FOREIGN, AND COLONIAL.

A ZEBRA IN HARNESS. —lt had hitherto been
thought impossible to domesticate the zebra, and train
it to render any service as a beast of draught or bur-
den (says Go/it/nun For some time past the Paris
Jardin de Acclimatisation, in Paris, has had a carriage
drawn by those animals, and, although their action in
harness was somewhat unsteady, they showed ex-
emplary docility. A further progress has now been
made, and one may be seen carrying children on its
back round the gardens. The victory over a nature
believed to be indomitable was, however, only ob-
tained after the most patient efforts, and two years'
instruction was necessary to arrive at the desired
result.

SEA BATHING AT OPORTO.—The Portuguese
have great faith in sea bathing, and few persons Lake
less than twenty or thirty baths in the year. It is
tillought that the earlier in the day and the later in the
year a bath is taken, the snore efficacious it is. The
bathers, men and women, wear a fairly decent costume
of blue or red serge. Hundreds of small square wooden
frames, covered with canvas, are put up on the sands,
in the bathing season, for dressing in; and these form
a perfect little town with streets and cross streets, in
wiiich it is quite easy to lose one's way. Often an un-
fortunate bather is seen coming out of the sea with
dripping and clinging and waterlogged garments, his
face and hands blue with cold, and looking in vain for
his own dressing-house in a crowd of others exactly like
it—New Quarterly Magazine.
BEREALT FOR THE EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.—
Miss Faithfull says that this institution has been
organized in Praed street, London, in order to form a
centre between those who need work and those who
can give it. Thanks to the numerous offers of various
employments from public bodies and private persons,
a wonderful success has been achieved; training has
been supplied in several branches, correspondence has
been organized with our leading cities and colonies,
generous gifts have not been wanting from those who
appreciate and understand the difficulties surrounding
such a movement, and a staff of unpaid M well as
salaried workers is connected with anottice which desires
to be practical rather thanmerely charitable. Employ-
ment has been obtained for ladies as cashiers, trans-
lators, sub-wardens in prisons, matrons in hospitals,
and emigrant shim house decorators, designers, glass
stainers, illuminators, law writers, china painters,
copyists, proof readers, compositors, saleswomen,
book-keepers, laceworkers, shorthand writers, ma-
chinists, &c.; while others have been placed in posi-
tions of trust in connection with canons companies
and business enterprises, and a vast number of ser-
vanta, housekeepers, companions, and governesses.
She adds:—" Until a woman ceases to be a 'Jack
all Trades,' she will never be master of one. With
training she yields to no one in a belief in woman's
capacity. Without it, she knows from many a painful
experience she has no chance whatever, and in her
opinion parents are neglecting a mat duty if they do
not adapt the education and pursuits of their daugh-
ters to the exigency of the times they live in."

ANCIENT CUSTOM—The City Press Bays :
"In accordance with a custom of long standing, about
60 of the younger scholars of Christ's Hospital attended
the service at Allhallow's Church, Lombard-street, on
Good-Friday, and they afterwards each received a new
penny and a small packet of almonds and raisins. The
will-of one Peter Symonds gave rise to this annually-
recurring custom, and it also provides for the payment
of a guinea to the rector for preaching the sermon. At
Bartholomew-the-Great the rector, after the sermon,
proceeded to the grave of an unknown donor and dis-
tributed 21 sixpences to as many poor widows, receiv-
ing for himself a similar amount for his sermon. This
custom has been 2,bserved for two or three centuries,
and is consistent with the will of the benefactor.

CHRIST'S HOSPITAL—In accordance with an-
cient custom the boys of the "Blue Coat School" went
on Easter Tuesday in procession to the Mansion }liaise,
to be presented to the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress.
There were 726 of them in all, and each boy wore on
his left breast a badge with the inscription, "He is
risen." The boys were received by the Lord ;Mayor
and the Lady Mayoress, who were accompanied by
many private friends, in the saloon of the Mansion
House, whence they marched round the Egyptian HalL
As they took their leave, and returned through the
saloon, each of the Grecians, according to custom, re-
ceived from the Lord Mayor a guinea, the probationers
10s. 6d. each, the monitors 2s. 6d. each, and the re-
maining 649 is. each, all in coins fresh from the Mint.
The total sum thus apportioned amounted to
£59 19s. 6d.

DEATH FROM CHLOROFORM AT CAMBRIDGE.—
An inquest was held before the borough coroner of
Cambndge on Saturday evening. respecting the death
of George Betterson, age 68, of Wisbeach, which took
place in Addenbrooke s Hospital on the previous
Thursday. The deceased was admitted to that institu-
tion eight days previously for the purpose of under-
going an operation for cataract. The patient was
examined in the usual way, and NAM told that chloro-
form was about to be used, to which he raised no
objection. During the inhalation of the chloroform
the patient commenced to straggle, and his pulse
stopped. Artificial respiration and galvanism were
applied, but the heart's action was never restored. He
was a decreptt man, rather feeble and blind, but there
W. 14 nothing to show why chloroform should not be
administered. A poat-morhwt examination of the body
disclosed an increase in the size and weight of the
heart, and slight fatty degeneration of the muscular
fibres, but no valvular I license—The jury, after a
lengthy deliberation, found that death resulted from
chloroform, but that every precaution had been taken,
and blame attached to no one.

TITLES WITH A MEANING.—A ;Titer in the
Boston (Massachusetts) Transcript says that in old
New England the title of esquire was bestowed on not
more than a dozen of the principal gentlemen of the
colony. "Mr." was also a title which conferred dis-
tinction; in a list of a hundred freemen you will not
find more than four or five so styled. In the old re-
cords occurs the following entry :—" John Plaistowe,
for stealing four baskets of corn from the Indians, is
ordered to return them eight baskets, to be fined £5,
and hereafter to be called by the name of John, and
not Mr., as formerly he used to be."

APPALLING THOUGHT. What a host of
"Home Rulers" we should see avowed, if Women
could offer themselves as Candidates at a General
Election !—Punrh.

DETERMINED ATTFAIPT TO MURDER A CURE.
—The Gazette du l'alais relates the incidents of an at-
tempt to assassinate one of the expelled priests of the
Bernese Jura, the Cure of Epanvilliers. He had re-
tired to a farm at Tremblat, within the French frontier.
A few days ago, about seven o'clock in the evening, he
ascended to his chapel in an upper story, and had just
comwenced evening prayers when he was disturbed by
a loud noise, occasioned by a large billet of wood that
was thrown with vi knee against the tivall window of
the chapel. At the same moment was heard the shot
from a gun, and a ball, striking the wall on the right
of the altar, about a foot from the cure, glanced off and
fell upon the floor. Frightened, but not disconcerted,
he quickly put out the light awl chrsed the shutter that
opened towar Is the inside, wtoch had been displaced
by the block of wood. This precaution saved him, for
a second and a third shot were fired immediately after-
wards, but the balls struck the outer wall near the
small window, the assassin having no point to aim at
in the dark. Whilst this was going forward the rez-de-
drasss,e of the house on the opposite side was also
attacked, a window was smashed in and stones were
thrown into the room ; hut although eight shote were
fired against the house there was no projectile found in
the room. It would seem that none of the assailants
have yet been captured.