The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-01-15 00:00:00

THE. ELECTRIC LIGHT.

The Dukehf Sutherland, the Marquis of Stafford, Sir
Arnold Keraball, Colonel Green, Sir Eustace Piers, and
others visaed, on Friday evening, in last. week, the
offices of the British Electric Light Company, 41,
Parliament-street, 'Westminster, to be present at an
exhibition of the new small lamps, invented by Mr.
St. George Lane Fox. The lamps are made of various !
powers ; those shown on Friday were giving a light of '
about ten candles each. Seven light i were burning on
a very small Gramme machine, capable of working
twenty, and it Cvas shown that each lamp could I4e
turned on and off as easily as as without 'affecting the
others. The system was explained to the visitors by.
Mr. Fox, the inventor, and Mr. R. Ward, the Com-
pany's engineer.

In London, on Monday evening, the Charing-cross
station of the South-Eaitern Railway Company was
illuminated by the electric light, the permanent use
of which has been decided on by the company for
this station. The system of light is that of the Brush
company-, who also light the Liverpool-street Station
of the Great Eastern Itailwa,y Company and the Pad-
dington Station of the Great Western Company.
Fourteen lamps were lighted 12 inside and two out-
side the station. Two others are, however, about to
be placed at the entrance to the station in the Strand,
making 16 in all, each lamp having an illuminating
power of 2,000 candles. The cables are brought
across the railway bridge from the works of the Brush
Company in Vine-street, Lambeth.

In nearly all the large trades much excitement and
discussion as to the working of the Employers' Liability
Act continues. Meetings have been held during the past
week both in London and the country to consider what
action shall be taken in those trades most affected by it. At
some meetings the men agreed not to contract themselves
out of the Act, but at others resolutiops were passed agree-
ing to adopt the employers' mutual insurance system.

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS,

Conversation between Cincinnati young ladies:
'• She's the most disagreeable girl I ever saw." " Yes, and
the proudest, although her father packed only a hundred
hogs last year."

The philosophic Billings graphically illustrated the
difference between a blunder and a mistake. "'When a man

puts clown a bad umbiella and takes up a good one," saitii
Josh, "he makes a mistake • but when he puts down a good
one and takes up a bad one he makes a blunder."

The bootmaker who says his boots are all right can
have only one-legged men for customers. —Boston Transoript.
The hootmaker who says his boots are all left is even worse
off, for he will have no customers at all—Borne Sentinel.

A merchant of New York being asked to define the
meaning of experimental and natural philosophy, said he
considered the first to be asking a man to discount a bill at
along date, and the second his refusing to do it.

A coloured witness was mamined in a Washington
Court to prove the identity of a white man. District At-
torney; " Did you see the man?"—" Yes, sir, I seed him ; "
—"Was he a white man?"—" Don't know sir!'—' Do you
tell no you saw the man and can't say whether he was
white or black? "—" Yes, sir, I seed him, but dare's so many
white fellers callin' demsclves 'niggers 'round here, I can't
tell one from tod'er ! "

A Mobile citizen having a ticket in a gift lottery was
delighted to hear from the agent that he had drawn thirty
articles, but on writing for them recovered from his elation
on learaing that they consisted of a pint of bitters containing
twenty-eight ingredients, and the bottle and cork.
- -

Religious intelligence in a Tennessee paper :—" Her
matchless and perfect figure was a model and never showed
to so much advantage as when she knelt for baptism."

A Chimgo paper knows a thing or two. It says,
' When a man imagines he is a prophet and a philosopher,
he takes to long hair and a dirty overcoat."
A young man in Pennsylvania attempted to stir
up several rabbits in a hole with the butt-end ef his gun the
other dry. Twenty-three shots have been picked out of
his shoulder, and the doctor is still probing. The young man
thinks the rabbits must have escaped.
- -

People who object to elaborate weddings should go
to lows, U.S., where a marriage was recently celebrated
with the following brief ceremony :—The happy pair were
told to join tl.eir right hands, and then asked, "Do you
want one another ; " Both replied "Yes." " Well, then
you have one another;" and the couple were man and
wife." _

•
Economy is wealth. And it cannot be too fore bly
brought to the minds of young married folks, that if they
are as economical in some respects- such as both sitting on
one chair, &c.—after the event as they were before, they
cannot well fail of becoming wealthy.

A Connecticut man, whose son was ill, appealed to
the physician, "Do bring him out of it at once, doctor; do
break up the fever immediately, even if you eharge as much
as if you went through a whole course of fever."