The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-07-16 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

King Kalakua of the Sandwich Islands, and the
gentlemen of his suite and Mr. R. F. Synge left Claridge's
Hotel on Monday, shortly before two o'clock, for Windsor
Castle, returning to town for dinner.

The English church at Genoa has just been enriched
by the addition of a fine organ, which, if a few local sub-
scriptions be excepted, is the gift of her Imperial Highness
the Crown Princess of Germany, Princess Royal of England.
Two thousand four hundred and fifty-one emigrants
landed in New York on Thursday in last week, including
1,000 Mormons sent over by missionaries now in Europe.

Washington Irving's House, Sunnyside, near Tarry-
town, in the State of New York, remains exactly as he left
It at his death, twenty-two years ago. The pen and papers
are still on his desk as he arranged them for the last
time.

Picking pockets appears to be a favourite profes-
sion in Japan. Nearly 2,600 light-fingered gentry ply their
trade in Tokio alone, of whom over 200 are looked upon as
masters in the art.

On Monday and Tuesday, at the half-yearly horse
fair at Leeds prices ruled as follows : Harness horses, £l5 to
£3O; cart horses, £4O to £6O; Irish hacks, £3O to £45;
ponies, £8 to £2O.

A New York telegram says that the visible supply
of wheat on July Bth was 16,000,000 bushels; ditto, Indian
corn, 14,500,000 bushels. Export clearances of wheat for
Europe during the past week, 1,250,000 bushels ; export
clearances of Indian corn for Europe during the past week,
2,430,000 bushels.

A telegram from Rome says that the total amount
of Peter's Pence brought by the Slav pilgrims, including the
special offerings made by the Bishops, is three hundred and
ten thousand francs.
On Thursday in last week, the Wyoming, from
Liverpool, landed eight hundred Mormon emigrants at New
York. They are chiefly candinavians and Danes, but there
are among them a few English and Weish.

A marble bust of the late Lord Lawrence has been
placed by his family in Westminster Abbey. The site chosen
is in an aisle not very remote from the grave in which the
great Indian statesman lies.
A curious stone-coloured Indian crow was recently
caught in the streets of Calcutta during a violent storm.
The colour of the bird exactly resembles that of the dove, but
the plumage is much more beautiful.
There were 2,408 births and 1,585 deaths registered
in London last week. Allowing for increase of population,
the births were 62 below, whereas the deaths exceeded by
171, the average numbers in the corresponding week of the
last ten years. The annual death-rate from all causes,
which had been equal to 191 and 196 per 1,000 in the two
preceding weeks, further rose to 21'6.

At a banquet given by the Russian Naval Club at
Cronstadt to the officers of the English Fleet, the Duke of
Edinburgh thanked their host, Admiral Vaozakevitch, for the
hospitable reception accorded to the British Sqnadron, re-
marking that the cruise was purely one of service.
A somewhat serious accident happened at Slough
on Saturday while the country volunteer corps were passing
from the railway station on their way to Eton. Air.
Superintendent Dunham, of the Bucks Constabulary, who
had charge of the police arrangements, happened to be
mounted. While one of the regiments was passing, his
horse, startled by the band, reared and fell upon him, in-
juring him rather severely. Re was at once conveyed to his
residence at the police-station, and is reported to be pro-
gressing favourably.

A village close to Dresden was visited on Monday
by a waterspout, which utterly destroyed the greater part of
the property in the district.

On Saturday morning one of the railway officials
at Nottingham saw a man jump from the railway bridge
which spans the Trent near that town, and fall into the river
below. A boat was procured, but when the body was re-
covered life was extinct.

Seventy-three persons died from small-pox in London
last week, and of these deaths 51 were recorded in the
Metropolitan Asylum Hospitals at Fulham, Homerton,
Stockwell, and Deptford, 8 in the Highgate Small-pox
Hospital, and 14 in private dwelling-houses.
The Liverpool Journal of Commerce has received in-
formation from Chicago that the Mutual Union Telegraph
Company are extending thsir wires through Washington
Using the common sewers.

An accident occurred on Tuesday morning to a train
conve) Mg workmen from the main entrance to the exten-
sion works of Portsmouth Dockyard. The train consisted of
an engine and three trucks, each containing about 100 men.
The first truck struck against an open point, which caused
It to capsize. One man was seriously hurt, and several
others were more or less injured.

Last week's receipt of cotton at all United States
ports have been 19,000 bales, and since Ist September
5,652,000 bales. Shipments to Great Britain, 18,000 bales,
and to the Continent and Channel, 9,000 bales; total since
the Ist September, 4,299,000 bales. Stock at all ports,
342,000 bales.

On Monday morning a man of gentlemanly ap-
pearance, whose identity was not then ascertained, com-
mitted suicide on the railway about a mile outside Ports-
mouth railway station, by placing his head on the rails just
before the arrival of the 6.50 train.

- -
The landslip at Rothbuehl, in Switzerland, is
steadily moving towards Lake Thun, as is reckoned, at the
rate of three metres daily. It is three miles long, one broad,
and of unknown depth. The houses in its path have been
deserted, but Sigriswil and other villages in the neigh-
bourhood are fortunately in no danger.
At the meeting of the Metropolitan Asylums Board
last Saturday, Sir B. 11. Currie warned the managers not
to relax their energies in stamping out small-pox owing
to the decrease in the number of cases for the present
epidemic was one of the most obstinate which had ever
occurred in the Metropolis.
In Paris, the other night, a sad accident took place
at the barracks to Latour Maubourg, near the Invalides. A
treat was given to a battalion of the 47th in the shape of
conjuring tricks by a female performer. About two hun-
dred and fifty men were assembled in the room, when the
flooring gave way, and they all fell through the ceiling to
the room below. Eight were badly and twenty-four slightly
injured.
At the fortnightly meeting of the Metropolitan
Asylums Board on Saturday the small-pox total showed that
452 patients had been admitted, 87 had died, and 486 had
been discharged, leaving 962 under treatment. These
figures exhibited a decrease in the total number remaining
under treatment, as compared Is ith the returns of the pre-
vious fortnight, of 294.

Prince Bismarck's health is said to be improving
visibly under his treatment at the Kisaingen baths.

The prorogation of Parliament will, it is now
thought, probably take place about the 18th or 20th of
August.

It is said that within the past few days the metro-
polis has been visited by a swarm of mosquitoes, the insects
first making their appearance in the neighbourhood of
Rotherhithe on board some vessels laden with hides from
South America.

Mr. Howard Paul says in his weekly budget to a
contemporary :—ln a residence of a quarter of a century in
London, I have never known so many Americans in this
country. I quite believe that 40,000 citizens of the United
States will visit London this summer, and assuming that
each person spends £5O in England, and I think this a
moderate estimate, the neat little sum of £2,000,000 vall
have been disbursed to the profit of John Bull.
A whale, 52 feet long, was stranded on a sandbank
at Westerland Sylt, a North .ea Watering place, and killed
before the tide could re-float it.

A site has finally been decided upon in West-
minster Abbey for the national memorial to the late Earl of
Beaconsfield. The spot selected is the north aisle on the
pillar just beyond the memorial to Sir Robert Peel. The
work will shortly be commenced.

We may beat Barbadoes and equal Bombay in the
temperature of our July days, but they "whip" us in the
States with the thermometer, as in so many other matters.
On Sunday, for example, 1031 degrees in the shade were
recorded at Cincinnatti, and thirteen deaths from sunstroke
occurred.—GloLe.

The company appointed to revise the Authorised
Version of the Old Testament finished their 78th session on
Friday in last week in the Chapter Library, Westminster.
The second revision of Isaiah was continued as far as ch.
xxvii., 6.

Grouse prospects in the West Highlands are re-
ported to be favourable. Coveys are numerous and healthy,
though young, being as a rule fully a month behind last
year. The weather during last week has been wet, but the
birds have had capital shelter.

An inmate of the Wigan Infirmary has died through
being choked while eating his dinner.

The young Maharajah of Mysore is evidently bent
upon being a reformer. Heretofore, the national flag of
Mysore has borne a monkey proper; this emblem is now
exchanged ior a two-headed peacock. Why the two heads,
we fail to see. A peacock has enough eyes in its tail to look
about in all directions.—Globe.
Last week a fire occurred at Cincinnatti, Ohio,
when several factories were burnt down, including the
Union Furniture and the Marquois Carriage Works. One
man was killed, sixteen seriously wounded, and several were
missing. The loss in property is estimated at seven hundred
thousand dollars,

The Paris correspondent of the Daily Telegraph
writ's :—As the Jockey Goddard was riding Pythagore at a
steeplechase at St. Ouen this afternoon he fell from his
horse, cutting his forehead severely. Before the unfortuiiate
man conld be picked up he was trampled upon by one of
the horses behind, his breast bone beiag, it is said, fractured.
Goddard is in a very critical condition. '

The arrivals of live stock and fresh meat at Liver-
pool last week from the United States and Canada showa
slight decrease in live stock and an increase in fresh meat.
The totals were 1,578 cattle, 105 sheep, 5,315 quarters of beef,
350 carcases of mutton, and 76 dead hogs.
The Daily Telegraph remarks:—" The three hun-
dredth division of the present Session of the House of Com-
mons took place on Monday evening. Assuming the average
time occupied by a division to be seven minutes, it would
appear that forty-three hours—equivalent to more than live
ordinary sittings—have been devoted to the task ef walking
through the lobbies."

Colonel Dawnay has intimated his purpos,e of call-
ing the attention of the House of Commons to the fact that
the repeal of the malt tax has failed to benefit the farmers,
and to the advisability of imposing a duty on the importa-
tion of foreign barley.

On Sunday throughout several of the metropolitan
churches and chapels appeals were made on behalf of the
"Open Air Mission" The day was recommended by the
authorities of the mission for the sermons on its behalf.
Amongst those who had given their approval of the move-
ment were the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of
London, and several other Church dignitaries and prominent
members of the laity.
Mdme. Jerichau Baumann, the well•known Danish
painter has succumbed to an attack of diphtheria, at Stads-
borg, near Copenhagen. A panic prevails at Stadsborg in
consequence of the sudden outbreak of the disease. Numerous
persons have died of it, includiw the editor of Dagbladet, the
leading Copenhagen newspaper.
An accident happened on Monday evening upon the
circular railway which has been running for some time in
the Alexandra Palace grounds. The train, consisting of a
small engine with vertical boiler and three open cars, travels ;
round a circle. While proceeding at a considerable pace the 1
last two carriages were thrown off the line and two women „
sustained rather serious injuries, one having several ribs
broken. Two boys were cut about the face and a man had El
his leg injured.

Over 600 cabin passengers sailed from New York
for Europe on Saturday on eight 43teamers, making a total
for the week of between twelve and fifteen hundred.

A telegram to the Daily News says that Griscom
the "Chicago faster." ended his forty-five days' fast at noon
on Tuesday. He ate his first meal on the stage of the
theatre. Re had two quarts of milk, one quart of cream,
toast, strawberries, whortleberries, boiled potatoes, crackers
and coffee.

Preparations are being busily made at Berlin for an
heraldic exhibition, which is to be held there in April and
May, 1882, under the presidency of Prince Karl of Prussia,
the brother of the Emperor of Germany. It is intended to
be as complete as possible, at least so far as Germany is con-
cerned, in the departments of heraldry, genealogy and family
history, and seals.

At the Greenwich Observatory on Tuesday 1466
deg. of temperature were registered in the sun, and 861 deg.
in the shade.

On Tuesday the Crown Prince of Germany and the
King of the Sandwich Islands visited the Crystal Palace
during the time the Temperance FOte was being held, and
are said to have been much interested in the orderly bearing
of the immense multitude there assembled.

The New York Commercial Chronicle, in reporting
the gross earnings of the 44 leading American railways for
the first half of 1681, shows a total of 102,171,690 dols.,
being an increase of 12,491,161 dols. over the same perbd of
1880. These railways report 17,058,006 dols, gross receipts
for June, being an increase of 3,989,521 dols. over June,
1880.

Mr. Childers has decided to take steps for raising
a couple of battalions of militia on the Borders of England
and Scotland, as 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the old 2tth
Regiment, the King's Own Borderers, to take the place of
the 2nd and sth West York Militia, the connection between
which two regiments and the borderers has been severed.
The two new battalions will have their head-quarters at
Berwick-on-Tweed, where the King's Own Borderers are
shortly to be established under the Territorial Scheme.

A large number of the Dundee jute spinners and
manufacturers have held a meeting te consider the pro-
priety of lessening the production, in view of the present
unremunerative rate of prices for yarns, and after a discus-
sion it was agreed to stop the works on Saturdays. Several
of the principal manufacturers refused to agree to this, but
among the remainder there is a good deal of unanimity.

At the half-yearly meeting of the Cambridge Junior
Conservative Club, it was proposed and unanimously re-
solved: "That the system of foreign Governments granting
from their public revenue bounties in aid of the manufac-
ture of articles in competition with British productions is
reducing and tending to the extinction of British commerce
in the articles so aided; that the system has already
seriously injured our sugar industry and threatens its total
extinction; that it is now being applied to the mercantile
marine, and is capable of indefinite extension; and that it
Is the duty of her Majesty's Government in its negotiations
for the renewal of the French Treaty to endeavour to obtain
a cessation of this practice."

The Philadelphia Correspondent of The Times tele-
graphed on Monday night that a coroner's inquest has been
held on the body of Mr. Thomas Fitzgerald Callaghan,
Governor of the Bahamas, who, returning to England on
sick leave, arrived at New York from Nassau on- Saturday
night, and went to the Metropolitan Hotel, dying four
hours after his arrival. At the inquest it was shown that
death had been caused by paralysis of the heart, induced by
a long attack of interixiittent fever. The body will be em-
balmed and taken to England by his wife, who accom-
panied him.

The Emperor William was lately presented by a
gentleman of his suite with a pen, of which the donor praised
the novel invention of its supplying itseif with ink while
writing. The Emperor thanked him and said: "I should
like to own a pen that would write nothing but what is good
and true! Next, I wish that all journalists and reporters
might have one just like it !"
A Tenant Farmers' Society has just been formed for
Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely, for the purposes of dis-
cussing subjects bearing upon agriculture and promoting the
general interests of the tenant farmers. Membership is
limited to tenant farmers and owners farming two-thirds of
their own property. A general meeting was held at Cam-
bridge on Saturday for the enrolment of members and °the'
business.

The University of Greifswald can now boast of the
largest electro-magnet ever constructed. Twenty-eight iron
plates have been bent into a horseshoe shape, and connected
by iron bands, forming a cylinder 195 millimetres in diameter
and 125 centimetres in height, the total weight being 6'.5.8 kijn-
grammes. The magnetising helix consists of insulated copper
plates and wires, having a total weight of 275 kilogrammes.
In London, on Wednesday, an inquest was held at
Whitechapel as to the death of Edward,Watson, aged 46, a
pensioner from the 60th Rifles. The deceased, who had
lately followed the occupation of a labourer, on the morning
of Friday last was discovered dead in bed. He had com-
plained greatly of the heat of the past few days, and from a•
post-mortem examination it was ascertained that death was
due to effusion on the brain from exposure to the heat. A
verdict was returned accordingly.