The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-04-25 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

Nearly all the master joiners of Kirkaldy have
agreed to give their men an advance of wages, as requested.
A female graduate of the medical department of
lowa University has taken the first prize for Use best per-
formed dissection in surgical anatomy in a class consisting
of twenty-four young men and one other young woman.
The Duke of Richmond has just added a shilling a
week to all the labourers and mechanics on his Goodwood
estate.

An unusually promising wheat crop is again an-
nounced by the Agricultural Department of the Unite 4
States. There is further an increase of 8 per eent in the area
sown.

A series of attempts to get off the Victoria Nyanza
—the stranded vessel lying near Boulogne—though extend-
ing over three days, has proved unsuccessful.

. .
Galignani says that the Dutch people are making
preparations to celebrate. on May 12, the 25th anniversary
of the accession of King William 111. of Holland. There is
to be a fete at Amsterdam, and the other towns intend
rivalling each other in manifesting attachment to their
Sovereign.
• • -•— • -•• • •

At the last committee-meeting of the Cobden Club
a resolution was passed recording the profound regret of
all present at the death of the Hon. Charles Sumner of the
American Senate, long the friend and correspondent of Mr.
Cobden and an honorary member of the club.
Portsmouth has had a visit from the Duke and
Duchess of Edinburgh. They were publicly received by the
naval and military authorities, and took part in laying the
foundation stone of the new school for the orphans of seamen
and marines.

It is stated that famine threatens the inhabitants of
Jerusalem.

" Pops.—Do come back, or communicate. Nothing
known. All to be forgotten. Chances are you have many
friends."—Advertisement in The Tinws.

A French trumpeter lately deserted from Belfort
with all the bag and baggage he could carry. Safely arrived
on Swim territory, he took position on a rock, turned hisfa,ce
towards France and his pursuers, put his trumpet to his
mouth, and played the old melody of liertrand's Farewell."
It has been calculated that in three years hence
there will be no more available space in the six cemeteries
belonging to the city of Paris. The Municipal Council will
shortly discuss a project for creating a great general ceme-
tery for Paris at MBry-sur-Oise, 28 kilometres from the
capital. Five trains daily are to convey the funerals.

From the let to the 18th instant the Exchequer
receipta•amounted to £3,567,380, as compared with £3,615.710
in the corresponding period of last year. The expenditure
has, thus far, been nearly double the income. On Saturday
last the balance in the Bank of England was rather over
three millions sterling.

A speech upon Anglo-American relations vim made
by General Sehench, American Ambassador to Great
Britain, now on leave, at a banquet given In his honour in
New York. The General said that the Washington Treaty
was the best and most mutually advantageous bargain ever
made between two States; that England and America were
mutual friends, between whom a better understanding would
be created by closer acquaintancei

The Pertugueae (Brazilian) Diccionario de Medicina
Popular, gives an account of a man, the subject of elephan-
tiasis affecting the whole body, who, in despair of cure by
other means, allowed himself to be bitten by a rattlesnake.
It is a vulgar belief in many of the states of South America,
where erysipelas is very prevalent, that the bite of the
rattlesnake produces a certain cure without any disastrous
consequences to the patient. Symptoms of poisoning, how-
ever, set in soon after the bite, and death occurred after 24
hours of great distress.
- - -

The Emperor of Russia's arrival in England is fixed
for May 13. His Majesty will proceed direct for Windsor,
but will visit London for a day or two before Ids return.—
The Emperor Alexander is by no means a stranger to Eng-
land, Ile visited London when he wan a young man, and by
Royal request a gentleman has recently looked up the reports
of his Majesty's proceedings while he was in this country.
These newspaper records have been bound up in a handsome
album, to be presented to the Duchess of Edinburgh,
It is stated in New York that the late Mr. Sumner
had in his library the Bible used by John Bunyan wlien he
wrote " the Pilgrim's Progress." The margin lithe honk haa
notes in his handwriting, and contains the autograph of
Bunyan. Among other manuscripts ihthat of "Scott wha
hae wi Wallace bled !" given to the late senator by a friend
who was presented with it by Burns.
Floods in Louisiana have laid eight parishee under
water, about a thousand people having heed placed in sittia•
tions of extreme distress, and the Government haa been
asked for relief. The sonic New York telegram which brings
this information states that the Federal troops stationed in
Arkansas prevent fighting between the Republican and be.
mocratic aides.
Against the proposal to open museums on Sundays
a memorial was presented on Monday to the Duke of Rich-
mond by a deputation of working men, in connection with
the Lord's Day Rest Aesociation, introduced by the Earl of
Shaftesbury. His Grace declined to give an opinion off-hand,
but promised, on the part of his colleagues and himself, that
the question should be carefully considered.

The Franco-Belgian frontier has again been the
scene of a duel between a wealthy Spaniard, lately arrived
from Havana, and a French gentleman unknown. They left
Paris for Tournai (Belgium), intending to fight in that neigh-
bourhood, but were disturbed by the police and driven back
into French territory, wheie they fought with pistols, the
Spaniard's adversary receiving a dangerous wound in the
chest.
The alarm about the high tides of last Saturday was
unwarranted in London. At 3 a m., and again at 330 p.m,
there were certainly high tides which rose to a great height,
but neither was sufficiently powerful to penetrate to the
dwelling-houses at the lowest part of the river-side.

A girl named Elizabeth Constable, eight years of
age, met with her death on Monday afternoon by being
crushed by a riot against•the parapet of the Perth Bridge.
The girl was crossing the bridge with her mother, who carried
an umbrella as a protection against the sun, when the dot,
which had previously been lying down in the road, made a
charge at the umbrella. The mother award unhurt, but
her slaughter wae crushed to death against t parapet by the
animals head.

At the meeting of the Mansion House Committee of
the Bengal Famine Relief Fund, on Monday, it was reported
that the total amount received up to this tune mu £54,000.
A letter was read from Mr. Schalch, Chairman of the Cal-
cutta Executive Committee, in which he stated that the dis-
tress would probably continue in some districts up to AUgllfit,
and in others until November, according to the nature of the
,-rops. In view of this prospect, it eon agreed that the time
had arrived for an appeal to the public, and the ministers of
all denominations will be asked to render their aaaistance.
A further awn of 4,20,000, making 1.60,000 in all, foal once to
be remitted to Calcutta.