The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-01-16 00:00:00

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-SI7OOESSION TO PROPER _ he financial
year 1873-74, Legacy and S‘ Duties were paid
on sums amounting to £l4v„ ,4,442, and the revenue
from this source amounted to £3,425,850. Seven years
previously thelamount on which the duty was paid was
not much over 106 millions, and the duty little more
than 2,i millions. Property passing from husband to
wife, or the converse is exempt from duty.

THE YIELD OF INDIA- RUBBER. —The beet

idia-rubber. comes from Para, in Brazil. In that
;ountry the yield begins towards the month of August
and continues quite abundant till January or
February. . The milky juice of the herea, which
furnishes the greatest quantity, becomes rather too
thin and watery during the rainy season to be worth
the trouble of collecting it then. At Other times this
juice, as it flows from the incisions made in the trunks
of the trees, is about as thick as rich Cream, and very
nearly the same colour. After a while the gummy
substance separates from the rest and consolidates in
one single mass that floats in a sort of opaline liquid.
Usually it is in the evening that the aforesaid incisions
are made to obtain a supply- of the juice, which is
allowed to run all night into vessels placed for the
purpose at the foot of the trees.

DEATH OF MR. JAMES CHA.DWICK.—Mr.
James Chadwick, one of the founders of the Anti-Corn-
Law League, died at Leamington on Monday, in his
ninetieth year. He made a fortune as a Manchester
manufacturer, which he greatly increased by invest-
ments 'after he had retired from business. Mr. Chad-
wick took a very keen though not conspicuous interest
in public affairs, and at the general elections last year
he niade a point of going to vote becausesit was his first
,opportunity of doing so, as he had always wished, "by
ballot." He was a munificent subscriber of money in
furtherance of Liberal volitice, and Mr. Cobden once
said that Mr. Chadwick's was the most eloquent
speech he ever heard against the Corn Laws, even at
a League meeting. Its words were simply these :
"Mr. Chairman, I cannot make a speech, but I will
give you a thousand pounds."
THE POST 'OFFICE AND. ITS SERVANTS.—The
case of the suspended letter-sorters has now been finally
disposed of by the Post Office authorities. It will be
remembered that thirty-two sorters who had signed a
petiani to the Postmaster-General for an increase of
wages' were originally, suspended from duty, on the
alleged ground that the petition had been published
in some of the daily papers. 'Of these'32.sorters three
were restored to duty on the' day; following their Sus-
pension. After the interval of a week 25 others were
allowed to resume duty on certain conditions; some
were reduced to the newspaper sorter class, 15 others
were reduced to the class of junior sorters, by which
they forfeited 6s. per week of their pay and were
rendered ineligible for promotion for four months, and
one resigned his situation. The remaining five were
altogether dismissed the service. The whole of the
dismissed men deny that they were in any way in-
strumental in the publication of the petition in the
newspapers, which must have been supplied to them
through their ordinary channels of communication.
Mn. CRUIRSHANICS ETCHINGS.—Mr. George
Cruikshank has issued a cheap edition of his well-
known series of etchings entitled "The Bottle." The
I ethinge originally appeared in 1847. They are now
re-published by Curtice and Co., Catherine-street,
Strand. A more appalling story of ruin caused by
drunkenness was never told than in these ethings. This
most salutary and artistic of picture-books costs only
6d., and we recommend it to persons in the habit of
distributing tracts to poor people. Here is a tract
which has a louder and more arresting voice than
nine-tenths of the pious little prints which they
scatter: a tract which shows how steep and swift is
the road of destruction when once "the bottle" finds
its way into the cottage. Plates such as these are well
worthy of the imprimatur of the Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge and the Religious Tract Society.
It is not too much to say that in their efforts to do
good the literary committees of these inestimable bodies
have organised dulness into a system. A stupid story
falls as fiat in a poor man's home as it does anywhere
else, and if the corporations we have named would dis-
tribute a few hundred thousand copies of these etchings
by the Hogarth of the century, whey might economize
the cost, without harm to anyone, by staying their own
printing-presses for a little.—The Times, Saturday
Jan. 9.
DEATH OF A SURVIVOR OF L,UCKNOW.—The
death has taken place of Captain Edwin Harmar,
fourth son of Mr. W. Harmer, who died at his
father's residence, The Elms, Kingston-on-Thames, on
Tuesday in last week. Captain Harmar joined the
32nd Regiment of Light Infantry at the age of
eighteen. Soon afterwards he went to India, just
before the mutiny of 1857 broke out. He was present
at the disastrous battle of Chinhutt, where he was
struck down by sunstroke; he was also in the
_Residency of Lucknow during the eighty-seven days'
siege, during which time he was most seriously and
permanently wounded. The deceased was one of the
first three to land in England after the mutiny, and
was honoured by a telegram from her Majesty in-
quiring after his health, and subsequently was
specially presented to her Majesty by the Duke of
Cambridge. Captain Harmer was thirty-eight years
old at the time of his death.;
A DOG IN A LONDON -PRINTING-OFFICE.—The
following somewhat eccentric behaviour is recorded of
a youthful Newfoundland dog during a visit to a news-
paper press-room. The animal, on-entering the room
after inspecting the job press for some time, went up
to it, and stuck his nose between a pair of cog-wheels,
leaving between them a piece of skin about the size of
a dollar. He next turned his attention to the bed of
the steam-press, which seemed to be shooting in and
out in a playful manner. On seeing it apparently re-
treating from him he made a closer inspection, but was
almost instantly knocked down by the return of the
bed. This somewhat roused his ire; a battle ensued,
but, being repeatedly knocked down as each paper
was struck off, he finally retired, and watched the
operation at a distance. Being shut up lathe room
during the next day, he made his bed in an empty ink-
barrel, but, being black himself, the condition he was
in was not noticed until he was taken for a walk in the
Lowther Arcade, when it was found that he was as full
of ink as one of the ink-balls used by printers in the
early days of printing, and, "being an affectionate
and playful creature, the consternation he created can
im
agined."
Two be
Two YEARS' NOTICE TO QUIT.—The follow-
ing is an extract from Mr. Disraeli's election speech at
Aylesbury on the 31st of January last year, Mr.
Gladstone's address announcing the dissolution of
Parliament having ben published just a week
before :

"I have always felt that nothing was more important than
to secure the independence of the British farmer, because I
felt the mare independent he was the mere justice he would
do to the rand, and the better it would be for the landlord.
My own opinion on that subject is this—that machmore might
be done between landlords and tenants than has been done
without having recourse to legislation. But the general opinion
Is that the Legislature must be applied to, and therefore I will
only tell you what probably many of you may already know,
that last year when Mr. Read gave notice of his bill I
consulted with my friends in the House of Commons
on the subject, and I believe there was a not to say unani-
mous but a very general opinion, certainly it was my own,
to support the principle of that measure, reserving, of
course, to ourselves to make such improvements in it as we
could—that is the privilege of independent members of Par-
liament. My opinion has always been, speaking from my
knowledge of the affairs of a particular estate, that if the
tenants generally held under agreements which secured
them a long notice to quit—l would say a two yaiars' notiee
to quit—you would lay the foundation for a complete under-
standing between the two important classes connected with
the land as to the basis en which their interests should be
settled, so that very little legislation beyond that is re-
quisite." Mr. Read's Bill had pro vided for a twelve months'
notice in lieu of the present six months.
A USEFUL HINT.—OId newspapers answer an
admirable purpose as a protection to plants against
cold, both in and out of doors. If pinned up over-
night between pots and glass, there will be no danger
of their being chilled by the frosty air outside. If
used to cover garden-beds on frosty nights in early
autumn, the plants may safely remain out for some
time later, or a late bloom be secured for those not
designed to be taken up.
HOUSETOP GARDENS.—Housitop gardens have
not attained to the importance predicted of them in
the days when the lowering of the price of glass
brought that useful article into demand for a thousand
uses unthought of previously. But sufficient number
of examples are to be found, in London for ex-
ample, to suggest that the covering of roofs with glass
will in a few years become common. The photographers
have given an impetus to the enterprise by showing
how sunlight, previously wasted on unsympathetic
tiles, could be utilized for the advantage of mankind.
A housetop garden not only provides a source of
pleasure, and it may be even of profit, in itself, but it
adds materially to the comfort of a dwelling by
equalizing the temperature of the upper rooms. By
screening the sunshine from the roof, the suffocating
heat that often prevails in houses in the height of
summer is abolished, and in the depth of winter the
chambers nearest the roof are some degrees warmer
than they would be were the roof exposed to the
chilling influence of wind and frost and snow.—
Gardener's Magazine.
THE FREE LIBRARIES ACT.—During Hilary
Term an application will be made to the Court of
Queen's Bench calling upon the Bethnal-green Vestry
to show cause for refusing to carry out a resolution of
a puhlic meeting in favour of the adoption of the Free
Public Libraries Act. In view of this action subscrip-
tions have been raised, and a case submitted to counsel,
containing the following questions :—" irst—is a poll
legally necessary in a parish containing upwards of
8,000 inhabitants? See sections Bth, 18th, and 19th
Viet., c. 70. Secondly—lf not, and the proceedings of
the public meeting are valid, can this vestry be com-
pelled by mandamus to carry the act into operation,
or by whatother means ?" The answers given were as
follows :—" First—We think the terms of the statue
as amended by 29th and 30th Vict., c. 114, must be
followed, and that no poll can be demanded.
Secondly—lf the vestry persists in refusing to appoint
commissioners under the act we consider a mandamus
would lie."
FACTS ABOUT DIAMONDS. —Diamonds are found
of various colours and in various degrees of purity, the
dark andinfer ior being known as bort, and the amor-
phous as carbonado, and only used as cutting and polish-
ing materials ; the colourless, or those which have some
very decided tint (blue or yellow) are most esteemed-
those slightly discoloured are the least valuable.
Diamonds are cut and polished only by their
own dust or powder—an art known from remote
antiquity in the East, but introduced into Europe
only about the end of the fifteenth century,
and now centered principally in Amsterdam.
They are cut chiefly in two forms—rose and
brilliant; the latter having the finest effect, but re-
•quiring a greater sacrifice of bulk, some,crystals being
reduced nearly one-half in weight by the operation.
When washed from the matrix, the diamonds occur in
all sizes, from mere points to one or two hundred
carats (of 3i grains each) in weight, larger crystals
being extremely rale and often apocryphal. The
largest and finest diamonds have hitherto been found
in India ; the largest amonnt--perhaps 800 or I,ooolb.
a year—has been procured from Brasil ; but a greater
Portion of large stones to small ones has recently been
obtained from
Africa, though slightly "off colour "as
compared with those of India and Brazil.—Page's
"Geology in its Relations to the Arts and Manufac-
turers,'