The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-12-11 00:00:00

Count Windl zu Eulenburg, who was betrothed to
Prince Bismarck's daughter has died of typhus fever.
-- - -

M. Louis Blanc, in a letter published on Saturday,
urges the Republican party to act in a conciliatory spirit
during the forthcoming elections, with the object of securing
the establishment Gf a real Republic. •
A grand banquet of eighty covers will be given by
the King of Spain on the 28th of December. The membPrs
of the diplomatic body, the generals of the army, and the
leading authorities, with their ladies, will be amoug the ,
guests.

There is an appreciable subpidence of the alarm at
first entertained in France in regard to the Suez Canal pur-
chase by England The French press is taking a philosophical
view of the matter, the Temps remarking that, as between
the two countries, England only was in a position to to:#:1%
advantage of the opportunity •
A well-known litterateur, very short-sighted„ read
recently for two hours one of his warks tea tree in thb Park,
and mistaking it for one of his friends that he encountered
In the fog, but who slid away and left the tree to represent _
him after the opening chapter.—Court Journal. -
According to the returns supplied by the Govern-
ment emigiation officials, it appears that there is a decrease
of 32,711 in the niunber of emigrants who left Liverpool port • •
during the last eleven months, as compared witn the corres-
ponding period of last year.
Various parts of Italy have been visited by heavy rains,
which have done severe damage in some localities, the rail-
ways in several places being so injured as to cause interrup-
tion to their traffic. The waters of the Tiber had risen on
Saturday evening, and the city was in some parts inundated.
The Bolton magistrates have memorialized the Home
Secretary:in favour of an amendment of the law with regard
to the granting of licences for the sale of drink to be con-
sumed oft the premises. The memorialists attribute the in-
crease of drunkenness, especially among women, to the
facilities fcg obtaining drink afforded by the present system
of licensieg grocers and provision dealers indiscriminately.
A crowded meeting of the bondholders of the dif-
ferent issues of Turkish loans was held in London, on
Thursday afternoon at the Cannon-street Hotel, when two
schemes for the arrangement of the Turkish debt were sub-
mitted—one by Mr. Palmer, and the other by Mr. Hamond,
M. P. The latter scheme was adopted. It proposed to
relieve Turkey of £78,500,000 of debt, and to effect a saving
of £6,300,003 per annum on her revenue.
From April Ist to the 4th instant the Exchequer
receipts amounted to £48,128,422, as compared with
£47,374,399 in the corresponding period of last year. The
expenditure has been £50,408,537.
The simultaneous collection in the commercial rooms
of all the leading hotels in the United Kingdom on the 28th
of October last produced £1,154 on behalf of the Commercial
Travellers' Schools—less £23 incurred for printing, postage,
and incidental expenses.
The council of the Church of England Temperance
Society have caused a bill to be drafted, embracing two pro-
minent points :-1. The suspension of the further issue of
grocer's licenses for sale of intoxicating liquors. 2. The sus-
pension of any further issue of public and beer-house
licenses until the limit is reached of say 1 in 500 of the popu-
lation.
A conference of the licensed victuallers of the
United Kingdom has been held at the Cutlers' Hall, Shef-
field—all the principal towns being represented. The chief
subject dealt with was that of closing-time, and resolu-
tions were passed demanding that the same hours of closing
be adopted throughout the while kingdom. A similar
gathering took place at Birmingham.
A New Orleans paper thus discourses :—" If men
are the salt of the earth, women are sugar. Salt is a
necessity, sugar is a luxury. Vicious men are the saltpetre,
hard, stern men the rocksalt ; nice family men the table
salt; pretty girls the fine pulverised white sugar ; old maids
are brown sugar; good-natured matrons the loaf-sugar, and
young men are loafers."
The other Sunday an interesting incident occurred •
at the conclusion of the services in the English Episcopal
Church at Carlsbad, in Germany. As there was no regular
organist, the clergyman had requested that if any lady
present was willing to play on the melodeon the following
Sunday he would be obliged if she would inform him. A
lady who was a stranger to the minister came up and
volunteered her services. Discovering that she spoke in
broken English, he said, "Do you think you are competent
to play?" Said she, "1 thihk I am. perhaps you insY not s. •
doubt it when I tell you my name. Ills Jenny Lind Gold-
schmidt
A New Zealand correspondent, in describing the
town of Wellington, writes :—" One of the curiosities of the
city is the lamplighter and his horse. He dees his business a ,ty
by contract, and has trained his steed to assist In the dusk
he stay be seen flying from lamp to lamp at fall gallop, ma=
Under the lamp the horse stops, the rider stands on the ';rekliti
horse's back, strikes a match, and the lamp is lit. He drops
at once into the saddle, and off he goes again at fall speed, re-
peating the process till the whole city is lighted up with re-
markable celerity."
Lord Chief Justice Cockburn has never been in the
Central Criminal Court since, as Attorney-General, he con-
ducted the case against Palmer, the Eugeley poisoner.
Palmer, it will be remembered, was a sporting man, and,
awful though his position was, he could not but admire the
marvellous skill with which the Attorney-General pieced
together the damning links of evidence. When the jury
retired to consider their verdict, he turned to his solicitor
and said, with genuine admiration, "It's the riding that's
done it,"—Court Journal.
As an indication of the progress of taste and culture
among;the poorer classes of London one has only to make a
visit tq the bazaar now being held in connection with what
Is called. "The Flower Mission." This mission has been
started by a number of ladies and gentlemen—some of them
of high rank—who are anxious to open the hearts of the sick
In the London hospitals and the poor generally to the influ-
ences of religion. Those who take an interest in the
" Flower Mission" send bouquets to central depots, from
which they are forwarded to the hospitals and the homes of
the - ir, with suitable passages of Scripture attached. In
this , no less than 4,000 bouquets were sent from two of
the di ts lately. „ •

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