The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-05-17 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS,

BRITISH AN.) FOREIGN.
.--
Reu,er's telegram from Calcutta me the Maha-
rajah or Sandia Is about to visit the Viceroy.
The Legislature of Nevada, just prior to final ad-
journment. pausal a raeolution thsnlang the chaplain for the
brevity of his prayers

- -
A oouviet "lamed Brit e mcsped from the New
Model Convict Prison, Calednnian-road, Islington' on Satur-
day. On the escape of a prisoner the governor forfelts LSO.

Prince Adalbert, of Prussia, with his smite, visited
Chatham Dockyard on Saturday, to Inspect the establish.
ment and the various vessels now constructing or com-
pleting.
The annual dinner of the Royal Marines (Artillery
and Light infantry) will Lake place at Willis ROO= 00
Thursday, the Nth WM. General Sir A. B. Stralubmn, Lei?.,
will preside.
Sydney papers announce that during March last
New South Wales experienced the heaviest rainfall that had
been known for year.
The honour of knighthood has been conferred upon
Mr. Sidney Smith Saunders, late her Majesty's Consul.
General in the lonian Islands.
Lord Churston, who succeeded to the title on the
death of his grandfather, took his seat thelother evening in
the Houselof Lorde
The amount paid by the Government for the Castel-
lani collection of antiquities, intended for the British
Museum, is £27,000.

The truateee of the MArquis of Bute have conceded
20 per cent. advance of wages to the drivers and tippers in
their employ at Cardiff Docks.

The President of the Board of Trade and Frances
Countess Waidegrave gave a grand dinner on Saturday, at
their residence in Carlton-gardens, to the Duke of Cambridge
and a distinguished party.
Miss Rye has received from "T. M. B." the
sum of &AO, in aid of ha Emigration Home for Destitute
Little Gills at Peckham.
A Vienna journal contains the following announce-
ment :—" Anna Agrikol, sick nurse, watches dead bodies, re
pain straw chairs, applies leeches, and makes pastry, demerit',
and delicacies."
It has been discovered by Minnesota farmers that
two sures of sunflowers will supply a family with fnel
through a long winter. The wood of the stalk. and the oil
of the seed, it is said, make roaring and cheerful fire..
Oregon editors will soon lose their reputation far
uttering delicately couched sarcasms. The editor of the
Utah Mining Jnurmiai calls one of the Church dignitaries ap
old ecclesiastical pelican,"
On Saturday, ma a man named John Slattery was
croedng the Dublin and Kingstown Railway, he was knocked
down by a train going to Kingstown, which passed over hla
body, sod c upletely cut hiM in two.
That very diatinguiehed French officer General
Chanty has been in England recently. lie pawed some days
with Major Brackenbury, R A., who was permitted to ad.
company his Staff during the late Franeo-Gurnan war.
A New York paper announces that by the recent
burning of an icehouse, twenty thousand tons of lee were
reduxd to ashes.
" She only wore a single rose," is the language of •
song. Rather alight costume. Wind wasn't probably east
that day.—Amer. wen Paper.

-
Barnum' cannibal is on the strike. He wants to
wear. silk hat and red necktie whle on exhibition, and have
a day off every week to sea hie conein.

The Guardian says the present Lord Lytton, better
known by Ida name In literature "Owen Meredith," will pro-
bably write hie father'. life.

Upon the occaeion of the visit of his Majesty the
Shah of Perils to this country, her Majesty the Queen will,
it is understood, hold • grand review of the trona, la
Windsor Great-park, In honour of the illustrious visitor.
The Lords of the Treasury have sanctioned the esta-
blishment of a Money Order office at Vienna for the tempo-
rary accommodation of those visitors who will require to
send and rectlve retnittaimes between Vienna and England
during the time of the Exhibition.

On Monday, the 12th ind., at Lowestoft, the 100th
binhday of Lady Smith. wido• of Sir James Edward Smith,
once Frei'. lent of the Lionean Society, RILL celebrated by a
dinner to 100 of the oldest people of both sem.

-
At the annual meeting of the members of the
B.rmingham gun trade on Tuesday, It waB repdrted that
daring the peat year the number of burela proved was
815 883, as compared with 891,228 In 1871, and 852,079
1870

The Globe says it is not generally known that the
late Karl Delawarr would never cmusent to receive say salary
for the performance of his duties as one of the Army Purchase
Oommlaaloners.

That oaf ortunate set of men known as Washington's
body servants lu thinned out suracidly by death of late, that
111. feared not more than. few thousand of them will be
left to take part In the centennial oelebration.—Amencan
Paper.

On Tuesday night a great public demonstration took
place In the Nottingham Market-place, in reference to the
lock out of the agricultural labourer. In various parts of
England. owing to their allegiance to the Agricultural Union,
Addresses were delivered by kir. J C Cox, of Belper, and
Mr. H. Taylor. A resolution of sympathy was carried.

- - -
As • means of preventing fraud by the "supple.
meriting" of cheques, as in some cum which have been re-
cently reported, It is suggested that the remedy agakst tam-
pering with cheque. for a len MT] than £lO is very simple—
Write the words in red ink, "ruder ten pound,"
The towers of the Cathedral of Cologne have now
reached the height of 230 feet. The construction of the
spires, which are to ffling the total up to 800 feet, will be
commenced. 81.1 years more are required for terminating
the work.

An American paper Bays :—" We commend to our
lady readen the new-tashioned three-decker hate for theatre,
concert, opera, and church use. They are constructed with
a window in trout and rear, to enable persons sitting behind
the wearer to see what is going on."

-
Concerts are common in the open air, but thie I. not
enough a saloon steamer haa been fitted up as a concert
hall, and during summer will 'walk the waters like a thing
at life," while an orchestra will discourse most excellent
music, and divas warble their beat.

A deputation from the Chambers of Commerce and
representatives of the Trades Marks Protection "octet) on
Tuesday had an interview with Mr. A Peel, the Under-
Secretary of the Board of Trade, and submitted several
amendments, which were favourably received.

•
From April Ist to the lOth instant the Exchequer
re.lpta amounted to £7,62,,,234 as compared trith F. 8,357,770
In the corre.nnding period of It year The expenditure
has been £9,633,475. On Saturday Jest the bal.ce in the
Bank of England was £7,981,456, and in that of Ireland.
£1,124,433.

,
The new volume of the Duke of Wellington's cor-
respondence will deal with one of the most important period.
in the political career of the great duke, including the war
between Russia and Turkey, the agitation about Catholic
Emancipation, the election of O'Connell, the duel between
the Duke and Lord Winchilliek fad the affair, of Portugal.

A Kentucky MIII2 has carefully pregereed for twenty
years the bouglet Jenny Lind held in her hand at one of
her concerts in Lonisyille

A new rifle' an improvement on the Chaesepot
model, has been finally adopted by the French Gunnery Com-
mission, alter andergolng many testa

. - -
The oyster fieheries of the south coast of England
have been so monopolised by companies under powers
granted by the Board of Trade that the inhabitants of many
productive districts are now supplied from France.

-
The Weat Yorkshire colliery proprietors have re-
solved to make a uniform reduction in the price of coal.
amounting to &butt Ss. yr r ton. The men's wages are to be
reduced proportionately.
_

• x; A htO eby named Joseph Cavan has died very
euddenly at Dundee. It has been found that he wa s playinr
with a coloured solulature balloon, which burst, and he
afterwards chewed the skin. It is believed that he was
poisoned with the paint used In colouring the toy. He was
eight years of age,
-

It is stated that, in consequence of the recent Radical
sucoessee, U. niers &prepared to recommend the dennitive
establishment of the Republic.

At a meeting of the Liverpool School Board, on
Monday, it was Mated that the annual cost of supporting
the fifteen reformatories and industrial school. was about
£36,000, so that If a thousand children were swept off the
streets and placed in those institutions their maintenance
would entail • cost on the community of £15,000 • year,
A mass meeting of male and female factory opera-
tives at Dundee. on Monday evening, passed resolutions In
favour of Mr. blundella's bill for shortening the hours of
labour in factories to 54 hours per week.

About one hundred more clickers in the boot snd
shoe trade were locked out at Leicester on Monday. The
Manchester carters' strike threatens to tatend to the rail.
way servants.
- -- • -

There was a strike of laundry women at the Brighton
Workhouse on Monday m 'ming In consequence of thelr beer
having been stopped. Seven of them were taken before
ahe magistrates and sentenced to short terms of imprison-
ment.

A meeting was held at Barnsley on Monday night
in support ot Mr. Plimsoll's movement, and a resolution sru
pused calling upon the lahabltants to subs:rtne to the
defence fund.

A Deputation had an interview- with the Colonial
Semester, on Monday. in support of Mr. Alderman M'Arthur's
motion tor the annexation of the Fiji Wanda Lord Kim-
berley assured the deputation that the subject was already
engaging the earnest attention of Her Majesty's Government.
• • • - -•- •

-
The blindfold game st chess which Mr. Tilsciction•ne
has played with ten members of the City of I—didon (he..
Club finished on Monday bight. He won against Mt. drew
again.t two, lost one game, and one player was absent
. .

An anonymous btnefactor, "T. W. F 1.," has paid
into Messm. Smith, Parn and Smiths • I 'myth donation of
£l.OOO for the Reformatory and Rehire Union. Toe com-
mittee of the Royal Alfred Aged Merchant aeamen's Lodi•
lotion, at Belvedere, Kent, have received a similar amount
from "It. It."

It k stated that about R-3,.100 has been already col-
let t d or promised towardsthe erection of th English church.
which will he the find Protestant church ever yet erected in
Rome, the chapel which has hitherto served for the I-loglish
realdents being outside the walls of the city. A site has
been obtained for the new building in the Piazza San
,I.vestro, adjoining the Piazza di Spagna.
- - -

- - • - . „
A professor in a college had taken hie class out, on
a pleasant afternoon, to exercise them la practical surveying.
The next morning they were to be examined on the same.
The first pupil was cede I up. Said the professor, "How
w...uld you go to work, Sawney, to survey a lot of land r
(Deep thinking, but no answer.) "If a man should come to
you to get you to survey • lot of land what would you dc?'
" I think," said the student, thought! ally, '1 should tell him
to get somebody else."

The Daily Telegraph's cwreepondent it Brnaeels nays
the clergy and Jewite of Belgium are maklme great efforta
to organise a pilgemage anti the heart of France, to the
celebrat, shrive at Ptrey to M.•ntal. th..re to pray for the
restoration of the tomporie power f the Pope. Snheerlp-
Lion, are heirat oi no In fartherance of the pliszPrage.
in inte.roie a t• take tlit-e next month. In cane>
Lion with tPe same object each province of the realm in also
Invited to ded'cate a banner td ''Our Lady of the i•aertd
avert.'

On Tneedsy Lord Elrho, M.P, introdned to the
Holum Secretary a deoutatinn from the C`arity Organisation
dodoy. who submitted certain recnnmendations for the
better rem essios of vagrancy and menelcity. Sir. Bruce, in
repbing, said that he regarded at the moat immediately
practicaVe Ingsestinn, that which recommended that the
11-me Office should adirem to the authoritisa of the various
c 'unties a &cigar catlinr their attanUm to the aystems
alcpted in other places, and begging them to confider which
wee the best 0311/14) they iould pursue in theft own diettiotn.

Ancient and modern Greece ii now known among
American clamdcal students as whale on and petroleum
The Emperor of Germany returned to Berlin on
Sunday. The statement that an attempt had been made on
the life of his Majesty Is mid ta be entirely unfounded.

On Tuesday, the 13th, the Pope oompleted the Blst
year of OH ace, hts Holiness havlig been born on the 13th
May, 1792 He wu too unwell, however, to give any
audience. although deputations were in waiting to con-
gratulate him on his birthday.
A French inventor proposes to photograph de-
spatches to ritlercocopic Scene.., and biol.l thaw through
tube sunk in the Straits of Dover. When at their deaUna-
lion, the despatches could be enlarged again.
In London, on Saturday afternoon, about two
o'ci.cit, a girl, apparently about 19 year, Of age , Went Oct o
Lambeth-bridge from the south side, and, Wing oeher
bonnet and shawl, suddenly lumped into the river. The
TI awes police from the Royalut endeavoured to save her
but without success.

A new music school is abont to be established in Lon-
don under the title of the " National Academy for the higher
Development of Pianoforte Playing in England. The wheats
bu received the approval of three of the most distinguished
of the Continental pianists—Melina. Schum•on, Herr DI.
Hans von Pillow, and flerrdielnecke, and its director Into be
lir. (hoar Beringer.
-

The Smi Francisco Arta is respoasible for the story
that a Nevada lawyer had na a cilent • man accused of
murder, and that the principal witnesa in his favour being
his wife, who was Incapacitated from giving teetimooy by
reuou of her relation to him, he sot the murder trial post-
poned, brought Butt for divorce in her behalf and secured it,
and then triumphantly placed her on the stand to secure the
acquittal of her husband.
At a travelling menagerie a monkey attracted par-
ticular attention , and one of the visitors said, "If that
fellow had on • pair of spectacles he would look like Major
B " The major happened to be just behind. and tapped the
speaker on the Nhoulder. Turning round the speaker very
formally remarked, "I'll be banged, major, If I know whose
pardon to ask, yours or the monkera'

• -
The Observer makes the following announcement
regarding the dissolution of Perllamentc—" It is stated on
good authority that the general election will, barring unfore-
seen contingencies, be held next spring. Parliament will
meet as usual in February for, short session. The Estimates
will be visaed. and the neceesary business ol the session
transacted, and then Parliament will be dissolved, to re-
assemble as soon after Easter as possible.

A violent thunderstorm broke over the southern
portion of Belgium a in.. days since, and committed pest
damage. Neu MODS the electric !laid fell upon the tower
of the old abbey of Cambrom Csateau, which was speedily
In names and totally destroy. d. The rest of the building
was saved. In the neighbourhood of Namur the lightning
struck a farmhouse at Saint•Deniwßovesse, and caused a very
considerable fire, and an adjoining hotuie was also Injured.

- -
With se little dit.play aq was weeistent with the
ocessinn, Lord %etland was on Tuesday laid to hi, long }wt
in the Old Church of Mar. be-by-the-Sea. The wishes of the
lamented nobleman, that his funeral should be *Wetly
private, were respected by the public bodies and the
masonic brethren of the Yorkshire town of Richmond;
though they would have strongly desired to pay • last
tribute of esteem to the venerable Past Grand Master of
English Freemasons.

A rather novel claim for damages is about to be tried
at AIIMAM. It appears that a young man offered arose
to a lady; between the leaves was placed powered cayenne.
pepper, and the lady in smelling the roe went into a ftt of
meeting, and ultimately got so seriously 111 alto render the
constant attendance of two or three medical men neceesary.
She had to go away for a change, and the Inuiband claims
about 700 rupees as damage..

Under the title of " Miseellemeotie Statistics," a
huge blue-book has just been issued which contains • vast
amount of statistical information on almost all subjects. A
few of the topics are Agriculture, Banks, Railways and
Canals, Crime, Rates, Cooperative Societies, Local Taxation,
Factories, Mines, Wages, Wrecks, Population, Accidents,
Revenue said Expendttare, Education, Electoral Btatletics,
Pauperism, Prices of Food, Fisheries, &c.

One of the many curiosities of the Vienna Exhibi-
tion le a German translation of Homer's Iliad in stenography,
by Professor Schreiber, at Vienna. It consists of 600 micro-
scopic pages, condensed Into so minute • compess as to go
Into • nutalielL The Roman writer, J. C Sollona (300 years
DC ), in his "Polyhlator," speaks of • copy of Romer so small
that the Mad could be contained In a nutshell, and Pliny
affirms that Cirerothad seen the work.
The Court of Queen's Bench has decided in the case
of Gregg v. Smith, that ladles who carry about a "missionsa7
basket* are not pedlars within the meaning of the Hawkers
and Pedlars Act. A mimionsry basket appeared to be a
bsaket used to oontidn various kinds of underclothes, which
are carried round to the houses of the poor, and sold to
them. The Mir who carried ronnd the baskets and sold
the clothes did not receive any payment for making the
clothes, nor did they retain the proceeds of the sales.

At • large meeting of agricultural labourers held in
Liscarroll, in the county Cork, a mutual association was
formed, to co-opseate with the English Union, to Improve
the condition of the class. Addresses were delivered by
Messrs. O'Leary and Gardiner, delegates from the &nal&
Union, who declared that there was as much need of im-
provement in Ireland as in England; that the combined
efforts of the labourers In the two countries could not fall
to be successful in earning the rate of wages, and procuring
comforts for the labourer which be was at prevent denied.
The project was received with great enthusiasm
At the quarterly meeting of the executive committee
of the Lancashire Union of Conservative and Conatituti nal
Associations, held in Manchester on Saturday, resolutions
were passed regretting that the Chancellor of the Exchequer
has thonght proper to provide for the payment of only one-
half of the amount of the Alabama indemnity, and disap-
proving of the reduction of the sugar duty The meeting
also expressed • hope that the abolition of the income-fax
will be made a leading question at the next general election,
and urged upon all constituencies throughout the United
Kingdom the necessity for considering their prospects of
successfully bringing forward Conservative candidates at the
next election.

In rpeaking at the annual meeting of the London
Diocesan Board of E location on Monday, the Marquis of
Salisbury expressed his belief that the religious inspection of
scholars was absolutely necessary for their efficiency In
relit/tons matters ; for now that the State saw alter their
secular education, and had them examined as to it, there
was the more necessity that the relief no element should be
thin after, so that It thould not be overridden. Inspection
stimulated both the scholar and the master. The good ct
inapection was In reality so apparent that it seemed almost
• surprise that anybody should object to It, and in the cage
of the Diocesan Board of Education the cmt was very small
and the machinery very simple. There was no doubt that
the opinion of an Inspector was worth ten times that of a
schoolmaster, as be came as • stranger, and armed with an
authority that no doubt impreased the icholars as wet an
their teachers.