The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-10-10 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

The Manchester Examiner says that from 15,000 to
16,000 colliers in South-West Lancashire are now out on
strike.

The compensation paid to officers of the late Eccle
*tastiest courts in the year ended Starch 31 last amounted to
£72,611 Os.

A Cape Town paper, in its report of the condition
of the place, says:— Matrimony Matrimony has succeeded the measles
at Urahanfs l'ewn. Fifteen couples are preparing for the
altar."

--daribalili has mg' ned an address to the Italian elec-
tors, in which he recommends them to vote for all those
persons who are now in prison for political iheinous.

The net Excise Duty on licenses to auctioneers, ap-
praisers, tte., In the year ended the 31st of Mardi was
£56,476 10s.

The 6111111 of £1,530 1;s. 10d. was received in the
year ended the 31st of March as forfeited suitor's money,
rents, de., of County Courta

A North Carolina paper contains an advertisement
of " the great American house movist."

The amount paid in the late financial year for the
Army Purchase Commission nu £713,973 las. 2d.

Rumours prevail at Santander that Don Carlos haa
been seriously wounded in the stomach bye ball.

Fears of an inundation have been excited in Egypt
through the rising of the Nile and the bursting of the em-
bankment of the gagssig Canal. The Government, however,
are nutting great efforts to avert the disaster.
During the year 1873 65,493 travellers crossed the
St. Gothard pass, 26,114 the Spltigen, and 27,071 passed over
the Simplon.

In the last financial year the stamp duty on licences
and certificates yielded .£135,643.

kvording to authentic intelligence, on the Rhine
and In other parts of Germany this year's vintage promises,
both in quantity awl quality, to equal the famous ISII. The
wine easksin the Rhenish cellars being altogether insufficient
for such a harvest, fresh cats are manufactured and bought
up everywhere with the utmost despatch.

- - - -
The recent typhoon in Japanese waters is said to
have destroyed a thousand junks, six thousand houses, and
three hundred lives.

The sum of £32,927 Ha was received in fees by the
Clerk of the Parliaments in the year ended the 31st of March

The net produce from the Crown lands in the last
financial year was £375,000. The total net receipt, with
balances, was £487,095 24 74.

. _
The gross fees for telegraphic messages in the last
financial year were in cash £496,720 105. MM., and in postage
stamps £1,20.5,295,448 14s. 3d., making £1,502,109 13s. Id.
the net produce was £1,957,823 15s. 2d.
Sixty thousand pounds per month is stated to be the
revenue of the Suez crumb
The stun received as public income from the
revenues of India for the British troops scrving in that
country was £883,000 In the year ended the 31st of March
last.

The award to the Itritigh claimants made by the
mixed Commission appointed under the Treaty of Washing-
ton was, by the terms of the Treaty, to be paid within one
year from the date of the award. The American papers
states that at noon on the 21st of September the amount of
the award, 1,229,e19 dots. in gold, less 24 per cent. allowed
for expenses, was paid over by the State Department to Mr.
Watson, the British Charge in Washington, and Mr. Howard,
agent of the British Covenunent.

The late Alexander Durnas is said by the Paris
Figaro to have left behind him an unpublished romance of
the most thrilling interest. 'Me work is the dowry of a little
girl in whom the novelist felt a great interest, and as, dying
poor, he could give her no money, he bequeathed her the
romance, reckoning that after his death Its value would be
trebled, and would provide his protege with a handsome dot.
The strike of colliers in the Wigan and St. Helens
district has become almost general, anti it nucomputed that
over 15,000 men are now idle. It In believed that the strike
will not last long, as only about 4,000 of the men are
unionists.

Mr. Knipp, at Essen, after many previous experi-
ments in the same line, has turned out east steel plates sup-
posed to be equal to the strongest manufactured in Eng-
land. As soon as the new jO centimetre 0511505 is ready,
the solidity of the novel plates will he tested by the novel
run.

A painful incident occurred on Saturday on the
starting of the Loch Lomond excursion of the Social Science
Congress in Glasgow. One of the party was Mr. Charles
Walter Eddy, hon. secretary of the Royal Colonial Institute,
who no sooner arrived at the railway station than Ile fell dead
upon the platform of apoplexy. The deceased gentlevn
was the guest of Mr. Whitelaw, M.P., and was to have read
a paper before the Congress.

The ObrervaOar d'Aveanes mentions the recent dig.
-
covery, on the site of the old l'orte de France, at Avesnes, of
a little cannon, which, to judge from its form, belongs to the
fifteenth century. It therefore probably s 4 reed in the
defence of that town in 1477. Two curious coins were found
at the same time and place—one a silver piece, of Louis de
Bourbon, Bishop of Liege, brother of Charles the Bold, the
bishop whose assassination by Guillaume In la Merck was
used by Scott as an incident of "Quentin Durward ; " the
other, a gold piece, of Jean de Borneo, provost of Saint
Lambert, elected Bishop of Liege, in 1404. Be died in 1505.
The English coal cutting machines have been in use
for some months past in Austria. The tieue Frei Prone is
Wormed that the Austrian Government, in view of the im.
portant effects which the invention is likely to have as
regards the Austrian coal industry, is about to appoiut two
commissioners to prepare a detailed report of the machines,
and the probable economical consequences of their general
employment.
The migration of the Tartars from the Crimea has
been going on so extensively that but few remain who are
fit for military service, and these are beginning to leave,
Mussulman colportcurs are travelling about the country
with pamphlets which urge them to leave the Russian
Dominions. The Government is consequently expediting the
military levy.
One of the vessels recently lost in the typhoon in the
Eastern Seas is the barque Malvern, belonging to Messrs.
Wilson Brothers, of Sunderland. All her crew have been
lost with her She was commanded by Mr. Myles, formerly
of Dundee, who had his wife with him. The Malvern had a
crew 01 15 hands all told. She was on her homeward voyage
from Bankok River, laden with rice, at the time of the
disaster.
It is stated by a Vienna paper that the Sultan ia
11l and requires complete rest. lie has been reconciled to his
nephew Prince 3lurad Effendi, and has solemnly sworn to
respect his legal rights as heir to the throne. The Prince on
his side has undertaken to maintain the Sultan's sonata the
positions they hold.

On the site of the old Whitecross-street Prison in
London, the Midland Railway Company are about to erect an
extensive goods station and range of warehouses, forming
the city goods dep-t. The warehouses, built of red brick,
with Portland stone dressings, will, when completed, he
among the loftiest buildings in the city, the total height
being Soft.
On Monday, Dr. Lyon Playfair„ M.P., as president
of the Health Department of the Social Science Congress, de-
livered an address on sanitary matters, in which he strongly
urged the necessity for preserving cleanliness, and for the
reorganisation of our system of loud government.
" Ile fact that Watts' hymns have been translated
Into the Choctaw language, and have become favourites with
the braves, is perhaps not generally known, but it is never,
theless a fact. It is very affecting to think of a noble red
man sitting on a fence and singing "Slow doth the little buoy
bee," while he watches his wife carrying borne woul, ana
acting in a very animabotindustry-like way."-- Court
Journal.
The following were the average prices of Dtitieh
corn, per Imperial measure, as received from the insr,ectorn
and officers of Excise, for the week ending Octulier a:—
Wheat, 465. hI barley, 425. ad. ; oats, 275. CI Correspond-
ing week last year i—Wisest, 625. 84.; barley, 44 ; oats,
Ls. Oel.
A telegram from India gives a most encouraging
account of food prospects there, and throws a strong nett
upon the excellence of the Government arrangements during
the famine. The waste of grain hardly exceeded a percent.,
and the relief works are founi not to have Cost mare
than twice as mach as they would have done inurdlaary
times.