The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-05-09 00:00:00

THE STRIKE AT THE DURHAM
COLLIERIES. _ .

DARLINGTON, Tuesday.

The strike in the Durham collieries continues. -In I
what is known as the Auckland group, out of seventy I
collieries only eighteen were at work, and the majority I
of these pits are extremely small. The largest pits, I
belonging to Messrs. Pease, and Bolckow, 'Vaughan
and Co., still remain idle. The effect of the strike
has already proved very severe. Blast furnaces are
being generally damped down --that is, filled with
coke to prevent their going out. In a few cases
there are stoeks of coke, which will last for a few
days or a week, and one large firm, Bell Brothers,
of Portclarence, with seven or eight furnaces in
blast, will, it is stated, be able to keep at work,
as their pits are working. A very gloomy feel-
ing prevails throughout South Durham and Cleveland
at the prospect of fifty thousand ironworkers and other
men employed in connection with them bein.g added to
the fifty thousand already out at the pits. Most of the
finished-iron works will have to close in a day or two.
At the works of the Darlington Iron Company, the
largest rail mills in the north, all has been stopped but
one mill. Household coal is fast rising in price. To-
day one large colliery advanced the rate 5w per toe.
At [Mlle of the collieries there are stocks of coal which
have accumulated, but the men on strike refuse to fill
them. At one of Messrs. Pease's collieries to-day,
however, some labourers were employed tilling waggons
from the pit, and some coke burners had returned to
to work. There is a strong feeling against the strike,
and a belief that the colliery owners will not give way.

At a meeting of the Durham coalowners at New-
castle on Tuesday it IVAA determined that no conces-
sion should be made in regard to the 5 per cent.
reduction of enginemen's wages, but that now the
employers would hold themselves free to seek a further
reduction if necessary. An application from the
Miners' Association to make five days a week's work
was rejected. A strike committee was appointed.

A mass meeting of coke burners from twenty-seven
collieries was held at Consett on Tuesday afternoon.
The speakers complained that the coke burners were
not represented in the council meetings of the Durham
Miners' Association, of which organization they were
members. The miners had agreed to work on the 10
per cent. reduction, but the coke burners, whose wages
had not advanced in the same ratio as the miners, had
refused. It VMS ultimately decided to form an associa-
tion of their own. The unmarried have agreed to
allow the married men 10s. a week for the first fort-
night of the lock-out.

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.
By the suleititntion of an f for an 1 a newspaper
paragraph was made to say that " the Rev. Mr. has
received a calf from Maine, to be settled over a Congrega-
tional Church in Portland, with a salary a 3,000 dollars."

On the occasion of an eclipse in Virginia a coloured
individual became.greatly elated. Brass de Lord." he said,
" iiiitger's time hab conic at last, and now we 's gwine to bah
a black sun."
• • •

A Missouri woman won a house and garden in a
mine, and then she had to buy a rifle to keep her adorers
from wearing out the steps.

A Nevada judge, after the jury had been impannel-
ed and the council ready to proceed, pulled out a revolver
and judicially remarked, "If any man goes to frolicking
around in this court-room during the trial of this cause, I
shall interrupt him in his career." The strictest decorum
prevailed in the court-room.
"Never marry for wealth," says an American con-
temporary, "but remember that it is just as easy to love a
girl who boon brisk house with a mansard roof and a silver-
plated door bell as one who hasn't anything but an auburn
head and an amiable disposition."
Mark Twain says—" It is a blessed thing to live in
a land of plenty, if you have plenty of land."
That was a graphic bit of description by a Western
man, who, looking out upon the country the morning after a
snow storm, said it appeared as if Nature had put on a clean
shirt.
- - •

If your mother tells You to do a thing, it is tyrong
to reply you won't It is ietter and more bevoming to Plu-
mate that you 4kll oas she bids you, and then act quietly
in tile matter ig:nr I jig to the dictates of your best judgment.
So says Mark Twain.
_ . .

The following is Josh Billings' notion of a thorough-
bred gendeman :---A bob-tail coat, a pennie papur koller, a
white kottou weskit, yeller trowsers without any cloth intothe
legs, shiny lether boots, a pair of yeller gloves, and inside of
'mu all a thing got up in imitation of a man, but. as the
konnterfeiters say, mawly executed, :UM not kalkerlated to
deseve. Mustash holispensabul, iid bran,s onnecessary.
Fine specimens on exhibitpm.
It is stated by some wiseacre that the heart of a man
weighs about nine ounces—that of a woman eight. As age
increases, a man's heart grows heavier, and a woman's
lighter, after thirty. Some girls lose theirs altogether at six-
teen. Yet are they not therefore heartless.

A reporter of an lowa paper wrote —"Yesterday
mernine, winter and spring kissed each other in the sunrise,
and each ,iwead its choicest bouts on the purple air." Ile
WaS married next day, says one paper ; though another paper
denies it, and explains that the reporter had been bitten by
a digs in eck before, the exact condition of the animal not
being km wn at the time.
\ Vida% the ex-senat3r from Texas who recently
died, had considerable humour in him, and altogether he
was not a bad sort of a mat A pretty good story in told of
him. The incident occurred about the time of the collapse
of Ow CAdederacy, and the ex-senator was crossing the
Mississippi to make his way into Mexico. Ile assumed the
character of on ultra-union man. On the ferry-boat with
him was a Federal soldier. Ile got into conversation, and
the soldier told Idin that if he could fall in with Wigfall hod
hang him to the next tree they met. •• Yes," vehemently
remarked " and I, too, siould lw pulling at inn.
end."
Ile dignity of a Georgia court having been affronted
by to, applauding spectator, the judge somewhat vehemently
remarked :-- Now, dry it up I will let pin know that this
inns. camp-meeting for exuberating your enthusiasm ; this
court shall be respected at the risk of outraging the seven-
teenth commandment to the constitution ; arid if you oion
your fly-trap, or pat-a-pat with them number fourteen
brogans of yours again, I will send you to gaol for thirty
day."