The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-11-19 00:00:00

HOME, FOREIGN, AND COLONIAL,

TUNIS AS A WHEAT-GROWING COUNTRY.--it is not
improbable, when the war is over, that Tunis will
become a great wheat-growing country (says Land).
Its soil, climate, and geographical position have led
a correspondent of an Austrian paper to prophesy for
Tunis a very prosperous future; and though it is
never wise to prophesy unless you know, he has
reasonable grounds for his belief. At present Tunis
exports about 700,000 bushels of wheat, and 400,000 of
barley, every year. With a large Immigration of
Europeans, assisted by European capital and agricul-
tural machinery, it is fair to presume that the deep
loamy soil of its plains, and its fine climate will
generate enormous yields of wheat. Only a thirtieth
part of the Regency is under semi-cultivation. The
rest is almost wholly neglected.
SPEAKING BY THE CARDS.—She. "And will you be
able to give up ,those frequent nights at your Whist
Club for the sake of yaur ducky? Eh, dear? "—He.
"Give them un, my angel? What would I not give
up to gain you ?"—She. "You mean that, really ?"
He. "Really I "—She. "Then, I tell you what, dear:
when we are married we will. tyrkt No Cards' after
the announcement in the papet., so as to let your
whist-playing friends know what to expect."—Fun.

THE CARPENTERS' STRIKE IN PARIS.—AS the car-
penters' strike continues in Paris the masters are ob-
taining hands from abroad. On Thursday in last
week no fewer than nine hundred men arrived from
Belgium, two hundred and fifty from Switzerland,
two hundred from England, and two hundred from
Italy, who at once found work. On Friday a further
detachment of three hundred reached Paris from
Brussels, Antwerp, and Liege some two hundred are
expected before the close of this week from Switzer-
land, and an equal number from the North of Spain.
Thus a total of some two thousand foreign carpenters
will next week be earning their bread in the French

capital.
RELIGIOUS CENSUS OF IPSWICH.—A religious census

of Ipswich taken on Sunday by the Ea's't Anglican,
Daily Times shows the number of persons who at-
tended places of worship in the morning to have
been 14,482 out of a population of 53,000. The
E”Eslar, n,el)o, and Non (-Am form ists
7,264, while 564 were present at public institutions
where the Church service is used. The greatest
comparative increase is shown by the Congrega-
tionalists, who have nearly trebled.
SEE, SEE, OVER THE SEA.—Advertisements are
frequently to be found in the first columns of our
" dailies " coupled with the postscript, " Friends in
Australia, please copy." Having regard to the
distance involved in the required transcript, would it
not be more appropriate to say "please teles-copy ? "
Fun.

THE LATE MR. MACDONALD, M.P.—Mr William
Crawford, secretary to the Miners National Union,
has addressed a circular to the minet s of Great Britain
on the occasion of the death of Mi. Alexander Mac-
donald, M,P., who was president of the Union from
1863 till the day of his decease. The circular in a
retrospective summary, recalls the labours of Mr.
Macdonald in and out of Parliament, and his services
to the cause of the miners, and concludes thus: "That
a memorial of some kind should be erected to his
memory is, I am very pleased to say, the very general
desire of miners everywhere. What that memorial
shall be it is impossible as yet to say. In the mean-
time we ask you to send your mite towards such a very'
desirable object. Moneys, in either large or small
sums, will be received by the treasurer to the fund,
Mr. John Nixon, 34, Lovaine-crescent, Newcastle-on

Tyne."
A "VERY PARADISE."-With reference to the an-
nouncement recently made by the Indian Herald that
tw? officers at the Fyzabad station, lately killed an
alligator of the extraordinary length of 21ift., a cor-
respondent sends for publication the following extract
of a letter received from C. M. Nichols, Tattersall's

Hotel, ' Townsville, Queensland, dated Boiling
Down, Alligator Creek :—" I am just now recruiting
after my second attack of fever at an establish-
ment fifteen miles out of Townsville, where they
kill sixty bullocks a day merely for the hides and
tallow. The country itself is a very paradis
without bourn, but it is infected with countles
numbers of alligators, the more sociable of which pack
themselves in heaps outside your hut doors and under
the window-holes—and with wallabies, bears, kan-
garoos, and oppossums. My place is just by the creek,
in which you can count alligators by the thousand. I
was going home to supper, 5.30 p.m., a few evenings
ago, when just on the other side, only thirty yards
from me, I espied a veritable monster, an alligator at
least 271 t. long. My cnly regret was that I hadn't
Dyson's rifle with me. I mentioned the circumstance
to some of the bays, to whom this cayman, and others
even longer, appeared to be well known. I will shoot
him for your new natural history museum, or for any-
one who cares to pay carriage home."
THE LABOUR MARKET.—The latest reports from in-
dustrial centres show trade to be fairly good. In
several of the largest trades there is an increase of
business. The market br all description of iron con-
tinues firm, at, if anything, increased prices. In the
galvanised branch of the trade the orders in hand
will ensure full work for some months. The coa
trade continues active. The prospects of business in
the cotton trade continue good. With increased
orders for exportation and a good supply of cotton
the manufacturers consider the outlook for the season
as very favourable. Shipbuilding on the Tees, Wear,
Tyne, and Clyde still continues active. Never in the
history of this country have such large and splendid
vessels been built as are now being constructed on all
these rivers. Engineers are very busy, and all the
large establishments are in full operation. At Sheffield
trade is very good. At Birmingham and Wolver-
hampton all the hardware branches show signs of im-
provement. The linen, carpet, lace, woollen, and
hosiery industries are fairly busy, profits are on the
whole much better, and there is more animation in
each trade than has been observable for several
months. The minor industries in the metropolis are
active, and a good prospect of work lies before the
operatives in the larger trades. Trade in the Leeds
district keeps active, the only exceptions being the
building, cabinet-making, upholstery, and printing
businesses, which are on short time. In the leather.
industries a good deal of overtime is being worked,
and the cloth, flax, And yarn trades are busier now
than they have been at any period of the year.
ECHO ANSWERS.—Short.sighted Swell (to Game-
keeper, who has been told off to see that he "makes a
bag") : "Another hit, Wiggins! By the way—rum
thing—always seem to hear a shot somewhere behind
me, just aiter I fire ! "—Wiggins (stolidly) : " Yes, Sir,
'zactly so, Sir. Wunnerfle place for echoes this 'ere,
Sir ! "—Punch.
WATCHING THEIR NEIGHBOURS.—In an article en-
titled "Across the Way," the Globe remarks :—Some
people are not ashamed to acknowledge the amuse,
ment they derive from watching their neighbours.
They will entertain their friends with full accounts
of all that passes across the way, as though their
neighbours were acting a play for their diversion.
They will often display wonderful acuteness in piecing
together fragments of information, and evolving theories
therefrom. The girls opposite are not going to school,
they will have a governess at home. How do they
know that? Oh, they have observed so many people,
evidently governesses, calling at the house between
ten and twelve this morning. They are sure the
people across the way have come into money, for they
have had new curtains and carpets throughout the
house, and on Sunday all the girls went out in
new sealskins. Sometimes, of course, these careful
observers are wrong in their guesses. A tender
romance, or a choice bit of scandal, built up from
inspections of the opposite house, may vanish into
thin air on closer acquaintance. How mortifying
it must have been for the old lady who-used to ex-
hibit to her tea-table gossips -" the 'Poor mad gentle-
man opposite who amused himself by blowing
bubbles," to learn that the supposed lunatic was no
other than Sir Isaac Newton, engaged in experiments
regarding the refraction of light. Similar disappoint-
ments await many an inquisitive opposite neighbour.
THE PRlNTER.—Printers are for ever getting into
trouble, and as long as the world continues to hold
forth at the old stand just so long will the intelligent
compositor be set up as a target at which to fire a
goodly portion of the public laughter (says the
Detroit Free Press). The latest good one comes from
Mississippi, where a certain office was printing
the acts of the Legislature and a religious
tract at the same time. The tract was written
by a Baptist minister, and his surprise and
indignation each struggled for the mastery when he
received a few thousand copies of his work" from the
printer, and on the very first page read: "Be it
enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives
of the State of Mississippi that ' bap ' means to put
under the water and tize ' means to take out." The
compositor had got hold of a piece of copy from each
of the jobs and had somewhat mixed matters, but the
author will not be convinced but that the typo, actu-
ated by Satan, did it on purpose.
A MELANCHOLY OCCURRENCE.—Mr. Carttar has held
an inquest at Swanscombe, near Northfleet, Kent, on
the body of Caroline Edwins, a married woman, and
her infant aged twelve days. On Tuesday in last
week, her husband, a bricklayer, left her in good
health after dinner, and at about half-past three a
daughter, aged three years, went to her married
brother and said her mother was on fire. The brother
entered the house, which was full of smoke, on his
hands and knees, and opened the window, and then
made his way to the fireplace, where he found his
mother with her face on the fire, her head fixed
between two spikes on the top bar of the grate, quite
dead, her face being black and charred. The child,
which was picked up near her, was also frightfully burnt,
and died alter giving two cries. It was stated Mrs.
Edwins had fits five years ago, and while in them was
conscious, but unable to move, and it is supposed she
had a fit on Tuesday, and fell on the fire. The jury
returned a verdict that she died from burns through
falling into the fire, and that the child died from burns
from the mother so falling.
SALT LAIKE.—A gentleman has been making a care-
ful study of Salt Lake, and gives to the world several
interesting points connected with that remarkable
body of water. He says that four barrels of the water
will leave, after evaporation, nearly a barrel of salt.
The lake was discovered in the year 1820, and
no outlet from it has yet been ascertained. Four
or five large streams empty themselves into it,
and the fact of its still retaining its saline proper-
tiep seems to point to the conclusion that there
exists some secret bed of saline deposit over which its
waters flow, and that thus they continue salt: for,
though the lake may be but the residue of an immense
sea yelach once covered tha whole of this reeion, yet,
by its continuing so salt with the amount of fresh
water poured into it daily, the idea of the existence of
some such deposit• from which it receives its supply
seems to be only too probable. For the past fifteen
years until last year—the lake has been gradually
rising ; but in 1879 it receded some two or three
feet—a most unusual occurrence, owing to the excep-
tionally warm summer. There arc no fish in the lake,
but myriads of small flies covers its surface. The
buoyancy of the water is so great that it is not at all
an easy matter to drown in it. The entire length of
the Salt Lake is eighty-five miles, and its breadth
forty-five mile Compared with the Dead Sea, the
Great Salt Lake is longer by forty-three miles, and
broader by thirty-five,