The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-09-05 00:00:00

SUICIDE OF A RUSSIAN NOBLEMAN.

A very tragical event has occurred at St. Peters.
burg. Captain 11--., an English traveller, was quietly
sitting at a small table in the gardens of " Ishr's
Mineral Waters Establishment" the Cremorne of St.
Petersburg), when he suddenly felt himself bonneted
from behind. Turning round, and feeling himself
insulted by a man he had never seen before, the cap-
tain retaliated by knocking off the hat of his assailant,
when the latter at once rushed on hint, and was
about to inflict some heavy blows, when a well-planted
facer from the Englishman sent him flying across
tables and chairs. The lookers-on now interfered to
prevent a continuation of the fight, but the stranger,
who appeared to be flinch excited by what be had
drunk, tried hard to get at the captain, vowing that
he must either kill him or commit suicide. Both
alternatives were, however' for the moment staved '
off. for the police took away the Englishman, who woe
followed by a large crowd eager to give evidence in
his favour; while the Baron de B—., the originator of
the fracas, was led off to a am:bided apartment, front
which he wanaged to escape, whilst the Englishman
was being examined at the policeistation. Sad to tell,
the wretched young man got into his carriage, and
driving over Stroganoff-bridge. over one of the prin-
eip .1 branches of the Neva, threw himself ntothe
rapid stream, and was seen no niore. The story is in
everybody's mouth, but w. one throws the slightest
blame on Captain who only defended himself
against an assailant maddened with drink. The
unfortunate baron, only twenty-seven years of age,
was from Courlsaid, and was well known in society.

THE RACE OF THE TEA CLIPPERS
FROM CHINA.
The annual race of the tea-ships from China has a
scientific as well as a commercial interest. Year after
year the sailor is learning more and more how to utilise
the winds and currents at sea. The routes which should
be followed by outward or homeward bound ships are
no longer a matter of opinion or a subject of specula-
tion. Of old, when each captain garnered up his own
experience for his own use, it was iinpossible that even
the most practised seaman could have just views re-
specting sea routes traversing many thousands of
miles. Even the journey across the Atlantic was
pursued for many centuries by experienced sea captains
with so little knowledge of the proper means by which
they might have availed themselves of the winds and
currents of that ocean, that the average period occupied
in the journey was nearly four weeks longer than it
should have been. In the year 1770 the Board of
Customs at Boston sent to the Lords of the Treasury
a memorial, in which they stated that the packets
from Falmouth to Boston were commonly a fortnight
longer than the conimon traders from London to
Providence, Rhode Island, a difference which arose
from the fact that the captains of the latter ships were
acquainted with the habitudes of the gulf stream, while
the Falmouth captains were not.
The publication of Captain Maury's "Wind and
Current (harts" called the attention of navigators to In London, on Saturday morning, about four
the advantages which would necessarily accrue to coin- o'clock, a police-constable saw a dense mass of smoke
merce if the experience of all who traverse the sea issuing from a house in Seymour-street. Euston-road.
could be collected together and the reonts incorporwed He raised an alarm for the purpose of arousing the
in charts. At the meeting of the British Association inmates, consisting of Mrs. Harris and J. Jackson,
of 1853 it was stated that the merchants of Bombay sewing-machinists, and the following lodgers
estimated the annual saving winch would accrue to Chaney, Mrs. Cabadine, Mr. J. Ballard, and J.
British commerce, in those waters alone, from the use Penny. Each of these persons having families, the
of properly constructed "wool and current charts," household mumbered many persons. After some time
would be from two to four hundred thousand pounds. he succeeded in making the residents sensible of their
Since that time the course of research suggested by impending danger, when a scene of a painful character
Captain Maury has been widely extended. The blank presented itself, for the inmates, owing to the rapidity
spaces left in his charts have been filled up, and in with which the flames progressed, were unable to
every sea a multitude of observations, far better and descend by the staircase, and they, in consequence,
more exact than those contained in the old sea-logs with two aged females, made for the roof, and they
made use of by Maury, have been collected and sum- could be seen groping along the tiles and around the
marised. "In a little while," says Maury, "more chimney stacks. At the same instant the two aged
than a thousand navigators were engaged day and females before alluded to had their heads out of the
night, and in all pars of the ocean, in making and third floor window crying for assistance. The smoke
recording observations according to a uniform plan, and sparks were rising so high, and the latter kept
and in furthering this attempt to increase our know- falling upon the roof, that at one time it was feared
ledge as to the winds and currents of the sea and other that every person who resided in the house would have
phenomena which relate to the safe navigation of its been burned to death. Just at this conjuncture Con.
waters." doctor Joseph Hoy arrived with the fire escape, and he
The result has been that there is no important sea- succeeded in bringing down the two half-stifled aged
voyage which has not been materially shortened, females, and he afterwards assisted the other jeopar•
The average time from England to Australia before diced individuals to safety. By this time the engines
the publication of Captain Maury's charts was 124 had arrived, but a long time elapsed before they could
days, and the return journey occupied about the same get the mastery over the flames, and not until the
time. Since then the outward journey has been re- entire building and all it contained were reduced to
duced to 97 days (on the average), and the homeward ruin&
passage has been made---under canvas alone —in 63
days. The average passage to California—the route
which of all others most tries the prowess of a slop
and the skill of her commander—used to be about 183
days; it has now been reduced to 135 days. A less
important reduction has been shown in the voyage
from Europe to China, yet even here the outward
passage has been diminished by ten days. We may be
sure that the captains of the homeward bound tea-ships
are not among the number of those who despise the
teachings of the improved "wind and current charts."
Every air-current which may help their progress, the
turnings in the road, the crossings by the way, the
regions to be avoided on account of baffling winds or
deceitful currents, all these things, we may depend, are
now being carefully studied by the captives of the rival
clippers. Each year their track becomes more sure,
and the winds and currents of the various regions they
have to cross become better understood; and, as we
have said, the knowledge which is thus being stored
up has a scientific as well as a commercial thterest.
We are beginning to understand something of the
movements of the two great oceans which surround
our planet; and if we recognise a complexity in the
phenomena presented by either, which at present
baffles our attempts to discover exact laws in their
succession, yet al,eady a most important advance has
been achieved in the determination of the general laws
which regulate the motions of air currents and sea
currents. Great go al has already sprung from this
knowledge. The public interests have been served,
the conventenee of society has been enhanced, ship-
wrecks and disasters have been prevented, and lastly
results have been obtained whch promise for us a new
and yet more important extension of the hounds of
human knowledge.