The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-02-15 00:00:00

PASSING EVENTS, RUMOURS, ac.

Sir David Bristlier died near Melrose on Monday. fin
death had been anticipated for some time; and his great
age he was in his eighiy•seventh yesr precluded all hope i.f
his recovery. sir David was perhaps the most distinguished
man of acivtlce the present century has yr. duced. His
earliest investigative, which almost began with the century,
were on the constitution and properties of light, and
throughout his career he devoted himself mainly to this
branch of knowledge.

The trades' unionists of Manchester and its neighbourhood
are making an sff,rt to obtain support for the hill which it
is proposed to introduce into Parliament giving protection
.to the funds of .the unions, giving the societies a legal status,
and allowing their membets to take legal means for the
protection of their rules without being subject to a charge
of conspiracy. -A deputation of the Trades' Political As-
sociation had an interview with the members for Manchester
on Saturday. noth members promised to *consider the bill
attentively, and Mr. Bright said he could not see anything
unreasonable or unjust in the measure. A trades' depute-
Sion waited njwm Mr. Philips, M P. at Bury, on Saturday,
and obtained his approval of the principle of the 1011.

nix Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh has written
from Melbourne to his Excellency the Governor, requesting
him to express to the Reception Committee his satisfaction
at the nianuer in which he was received in South Australia
The cost of entertaining his royal highness will be under
X 15,000. which is comidered, says the Register, to be very
reasonable.

On Saturday evening Lord Renelagh, at the annual meet-
ing of his corps at Beaufort House, Welham Green, took
occasion to reply to the adverse criticisms which have re-
cently been passed upon hire relative to his assertion that
the volunteer force, as an army, is a share. is the course
of his speech his lordship said that it was absurd to argue
that the army will supply staff officers in the event of in-
vasion, for it mu uld have to be officered first, am! then the
militia, but doubted whether there would be able men
enough for the staff of that force: then what were the
volunteers to do? They clearly ought, in the matter of stall
organization, to be independent of the army.

Mr. Kitts, government mining surveyor to the colony of
Victoria, who is in England for a few weeks on leave of
absence, say's there are in the colony thirty-nine dividend-
paying alluvial and sixty-live quartz mints, giving in the
aggregate a profit of £1..289,997 per annum, and that these
do not constitute more than one.half of the dividend mines
In Victoria. "I know," he says, "no part of the world
where a working man may do better. Miami' wages range
from £2 to .g 2 les per week. Such an income, where beef
is :M. per lb., and mutton lid., and where a freehold of
5 to SO acres of land may be obtained by selection before
survey, Is more valuable than double the amount in England.

With reference to the immigration, which is quite large,
from Canada to the United States, it is reported from Quebec
that a motion has been introduced into the House of
Assembly of that province "to take Into consideration the
lamentable emigration of the inhabitants of the province of
Quebec to the United States, and to devise means fur the
arrest of the same." The mover, iu the course of a long
address on the subject, said the cause of the evil was the
little encouragement given to the settlers in the eastern
. . . ,

townships, and the want of sufficient industrial resources.
People were forced to emigrate in search of eniplopuent,
and he proposed as a remedy that the question of manu-
factures receive the earliest attention of the House, and that
a liberal Homestead Law, similar to that in the United
States, he enacted. The debate consumed almost the entire
Sessions of January 25th and 27th.

In New York during the year, 58,943 males and 21,539
females were arrested, making a grand total of 80,532. Of
these there were arrested on charges of bigamy, 10; burglary,
415; forgery, 105; intoxication, 17,708; iutpxication and
disorderly conduct, 9,428 : grand larceny,' 2128; petit
larceny, 4,785: murder, 53. The nativity of the larger
number of those arrested stood as follows :—United States
. black and white) 25780: Fnxiand, 2,764 ; Scotland, 970
Ireland, 58,128; Germany, 4,0;9. France, 645; Italy, 101:
Russia, 119; China, 31; Africa, 4. The following are the
principal occupations of those arrested :—.Actors, 58;
brokers, 3i2; prostitutes, 5,971 ; editors, 30; washerwomen,
212 ; tobacconists, 563; merchants, 808; reporters so called`,
42: physicians, 142; printers, 'JO; lawyers, 14. Besides
these, 13,906 had no occupation.

Mr. Ilubbard's Church Rates Regulation Bill, which is
again to he laiii before Parliament, has been printed. What
it proposes is that any person who, on one of the first seven
days of the year, sends written notice to one of the church-
wardens, claiming to be exempt from being rated to a church
rate, is not to be liable for any rate levied in that year; but
if he is only tenant of the property for which he is rateable,
the churchwarden is to send a copy of the claim to the
owner, who, unless he also claims exemption, is then to lie
rated, and to be entitled to attend and vote at the vestry
meetings. Vestries for making or applying a church rate
are to be designated "church vestries," and are to transact
no other business; and no person thus exempted from
church rate is to be entitled to attend or vote, or to act as
churchwarden. The bill contains a clause providing that for
the church of every parish or district entitled to levy church
rates one churchwarden shall be nominated by the minister,
any local rule or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.
On Monday the magnificent iron-clad frigate Hercules was
unlocked at Chatham in the most successfill mariner. The
full height of her lofty sides out of the water carries an
armour.plating of, at least, six inches in thickness, a still
thicker line of 8-inch plates, covering her rosin box-battery,
and a belt of 9-inch plates protecting her along the water-
line. The First Lord of the Admiralty ;the Right Hon. IL
Corry) Lord It. Lennox, and other distinguished officers and
visitors, arrived a little before two o'clock, when Miss Corry
gracefully performed the ceremony of naming, and the
splendid ship glided softly away as the men on board hove
merrily at the capstans upon the hawsers to the musical
beat of a band of Marines—a novel and very pleasing inci-
dent, whilst the shouts of an admiring crowd and the lofty
strains of the National Anthem proclaimed the perfect
success of what may be termed "the launch."

The cab strike at Liverpool, after existing for about a
week, terminated on Saturday afternoon last. On Friday
afternoon, one of the borough members, Mr. Graves, the
mayor Mr Whitley:, and Major Greif; the headconstable ,
induced both the ear owners and the watch committee to
make certain concessions, and on Saturday, after another
conference, the car proprietors re:reed to give the new re-
gulations—minus Friday's concessions—a fair trial for six
months. Cabs were consequently plying as usual on Satur-
day to the manifest satisfaction of the public, alio were
especially unwilling that the car owners should have an
excuse for miming out their threat of discharging all their
drivers, should the strike continue longer than a week.

A considerable number of Hanoverian soldiers who fled from
Germany after the congaed of Hanover by Prussia took
refuge at first in Holland. The Dutch government being
afraid of getting into hot water by keeping them, they went
to Switzerland, where bribe last year they lived quietly and
almost unnoticed lately, however, unexplained "foreign
Influence" induced the Swiss government to give the Hano-
verian legion," notice to quit, and they marched in a body
into Strasbourg. The French government giving them ready
hospitality has assigned them quarters. The officers have
been sent to 'Bourses, and the rank and tile to nations
villages in Champagne. Paris paper sans the incident has
provoked very unfounded malevolent reflections in certain
organs of the foreign press.

The experiment made by the Marchioness of Allesbury in
establishing a cottage hospital at Savernake, near Marl-
borough, appears to have succeeded admirably. At the
annual meeting, hold a few days ago, under the presidency
of the Marquis of Ailesbury, KG., the report was read by
the Rev. J U Stephens, hon. secretary to the institution,
and the document showed that during the past year an addi-
tion of £144 had been made to the endowment fund. It was
also reported that seventy-nine eases Mid been received into
the hospital (making up nine beds only, forty of which were
discharged cured and twenty-eight relieved, two pronounced
incurable, and two fatal. The report was adopted, and
votes of thanks were passed to medical and other gentlemen
who have aided this valuable institution.