The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-08-15 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

The Lords of the Admiralty have instituted a series
of rewards, to consist of medals and annuities, the latter to
be limited to £.20, for conspicuous gallantry in action.
Five new board schools will be opened in Sheffield
next week
At the Wesleyan Conference on Tuesday the stathil,
tics were read, showing the total number of the society to be
351,645, being an increase for the year of 3,005.
About eighty arrests of persons compromised in the
the Commune of 1870 were made in Marseilles on Monday
night.
It is said that all men of war carrying a medical
officer shall be supplied with an apparatus for analysing the
water for the ship's use.
It appears from Colonel Henderson's report on the
metropolitan police for 1873 that there are in London more
than 800 cabdrivers who are total abstainers from intoxica-
ting drinks.
During the year 1863, 1,805 persons suffering from
accident in the metropolis were taken to the hospitals and
1,063 from other causes.
Sir Edward Watkin calculates that in England
there are 17,000 violent deaths every year, against winch he
sets 42 deaths from railway accidents.
The Spanish steamer Minerva exploded her boilers
in Havannah harbour on the 23rd of July, and eight persons
were killed and ten wounded. The steamer was run ashore
to prevent her from sinking.
Mr. Hallet, the proprietor of the Pension Anglaise
at Lausanne, was drowned a few days ago whilst bathing in
Lake Leman. lie does not appear to have been a swimmer,
and was tempted out of his depth by the use of an air-belt.
The Provost of Eton College has received the com-
mend of the Queen to order a week's extension of the sum-
mer holidays in honour of the marriage of the Duke of
Edinburgh with the Grand Duchess Marie. Her Majesty's
gracious command has been communicated to the boys, who
are now enjoying their vacation.
"Wanted, to correspond with a gentleman, with a
view to marriage ; money no object so much as a kind
husband and comfortable home—Address," - Advertise-
ment in Manchester Examiner.
A match at base ball took place at the Crystal
Palace on Monday, between the Boston and the Philadelphia
(Athletic) trams, in which the former were victorious by
nine runs.
The number of journals at present published in
Sweden amounts to 256. Of these, the most important, of
, course, appear at Stockholm, which can boast of as many as
I 78. Only tive.of these are published daily. At Gothenburg
there are published 12 ; at Upset, 6, at Jonkoping, 8. Of
' the newspapers taken collectively, 10 are published daily,
16 three times a week, 65 twice, and 77 once a week. Of
periodicals not newspapers, 24 are monthly publications, 15
fortnightly.
Galigna lii reports that Admiral Chaigneau has
fallen a victim to an act of fatal imprudence. At seven in
the evening he was cleaning a six-shot revolver, when one
lof the barrels, which was still loaded, unknown to him,
went off in his face The ball passed through the left cheek
The Postmaster-General reports that the revenue , between the two jaws, and lodged in the membrane of the
arising from telegrams continues to increase, the nuns carotid artery. Being displaced by a violent liti f coughing,
ber of such communications, exclusive of communica- it produced an internal hemorrhage, which suffocated the
miral In less than five minutes. lie was sixty-six years of
tions for the Press, having risen 17 per cent. above the Ad
previous year, while the income from wires laid down age'
From some statisC:3 collected by the Nationa
from the Post-office to private houses has risen from
t 38,000 to g 47,000. He adds : Agricultural Labourers' Union as to the recent lockout in
the Eastern Counties, it appears that the struggle lasted
"There has been a large Increase In the telegrams for about eighteen weeks, and cost the union, In moneyexpended
newspapers ; the number of words received for transmission for lock-out pay. migration and emigration, nearly £25,000.
having risen from about 26 to nearly 38 millions. That is, Originally 2,400 men were locked ,nt, of whom 870 have re-
in other words, nearly 50 per cent. This number, however, turned to work without surrendering their tickets; 400 have
great as it is, gives no adequate idea of the work done, be- migrated, 440 emigrated, and 350 have returned to work
cause many of the messages have been sent to more than one since the lock-out pay was stopped, several of these last
newspaper. Thus, in reality, the actual number of words 2 v elermloned the Union. There are still 350 unem-
forwarded last year was more than 214 millions. On one ',toyed. The secretary attributes the failure of the struggle
occasion, when an unusual number of events of Mterest to want of union and cohesion amongst the men ; the re-
were reported from various parts of the country, upwards of fusel of labourers to migrate to districts where work and
300,000 words of news, or about 150 columns of The Times, better wage. could be obtained; and the injudicious admire
were transmitted from the Central Telegraph Other iii lion of old men into the Union, who expected life annuities
London in a single night. The increase in the businesa done from its funds.
for newspapers has been accompanied by an increased pay- The highest authority in France has !pronounced a
ment of £10,000." new seedling potato recently originated in that country as
As to the Money Order Office and Post Office far superior in productiveness,arhranardrle!
to
Savings Banks, the Postmaster-General tells us not tnrgitkeVenenv.aannetrt proves far superior under all conditions.
only that 230 additional money-order offices have been
Owing to the light crop of tobacco this season, caused
opened at home, but that the system has been very
the want of rain in the growing districts of
much extended abroad, Smyrna, Valparaiso' the b.Y
America, and t tobacco
he email stack on hand of previous years, a
Mauritius, Coquimbo, and the whole of Egypt being scarcity of the plant is already felt. Prices for the raw
now included in its sphere of operations. The inland material have in consequence been considerably increased,
orders sent during last year show an increase of about and at a meeting of the tobacco trade of Scotland it has been
8 per cent, on the previous twelvemonth, their aggre- agreed to raise the prices of the manufactured article.
gate amount being in excess of 25 millions. The pro- A novel use of the telegraph is about to be put into
portion of such ordersto the population in England and operation in New York. The court rooms in that city are to
in Scotland is about one order in the course of the be telegraphically connected with the offices of st.be leading
lawyers, so that the state of the calendar and the progress of
year to every two inhabitants; in Ireland about one
to every five. The depositors in the Post Office trials can be announced, and the parties summoned when
Savings Banks have increased meantime by about mites to b;Thqueitet'alegThs useful as is
actin
odnedt,h'.' isntotchkisuresepheangct nem.;
120,000, and the offices themselves by nearly 250. In In business circles."

report a decline ahm in the Missing Letter
Department," and in those which come back to the
_ _ .

, ,Lient," and in those wincn come
Dead-Letter Office. This seems the more wonderful
when we read thatthenumber of letters posted last year
without any address was 18,700, out of which nearly
500 contained cash, checks, or bills of exchange, to the
aggregate value of more than £13,000. Strange that
such carelessness should be found in a commercial
country. It is not so strange that during the same
time nearly GOO postage-stamps of various values were
found loose in different letter-boxes. In most cases,
these had been detached from letters and newspapers.
to which they had been affixed by slovenly and heed-
less hands, while others had fallen out of letters con-
taining remittances in postage-stamps not properly
fastened. It cannot be too widely known that
registration is now compulsory, not only in the
case of letters which contain coin, but also in
the case of those in which jewellery or watches
are enclosed; nor can the public be too often
warned against the constant practice of posting
newspapers for foreign parts with stamps insufficient
to defray their transit. "Many persons," says Lord
John Manners, "seem to forget that, as regards news-
papers going abroad, the postage, when the paper
weighs more than four ounces, is generally double, and
that in no case whatever is the halfpenny stamp suffi-
cient, and also that all newspapers, in order to reap
the advantage of the cheap newspaper rates, must be
posted within eight days after publication." "A re-
f erencee to the British Postal Guide," he adds, "would
keep every one right in these matters."
The following statement in the report will be of in-
terest to some of our readers :
A large number of valentines still continue to be sent
every year through the post and some idea of the ma,ni-
tole of the extra work tkereby thrown upon the department
may be gathered from the fact that on the eve of last
Valentine's Day, no fewer than 36 extra mail-bags, each Mt.
long and 21t. wide, were brought into requisition at the
chief office alone for the conveyance of valentines posted
in London for despatch to the different parts of the king-
dom."

Telegraphic particulars respecting the recently
reported floods in Upper Seinde state that several towns and
villages have been entirely swept away, and that Jacobadad
is in great danger.

The Ultramontane Canton of Schwyz haa adopted
woman's suffrage, women being declared eligible not only
as electors, but as candidate. for all public offices. It is
expected that the other parts of Switzerland will follow tkis
example.

The annual conference of the small body of Chris-
tians called "Swedenborgian'," commenced its session on
Monday evening in the Church belonging to the denomina-
tion, situated in Argyle-square, King's cross, London. The
proceedings were purely tonal, consisting mainly of the
reception of credentials from lay representatives of the
various societies and of their signing the conference

Coals have been reduced a shilling at several of the
collieries in Fife and Clackmannan, and are now selling at
91. per ton. The miners in the district have struck work,
refusing to accept the proposed reduction of 15 per cent. in
their wages, they offered no compromise, hut the masters
seem determined not to yield, anti a protracted struggle is
expected.
From the let of April to the Bth instant the total
receipts into the Exchequer were £24,166,788 as compared
with £24,322,375 in the corresponding period of last year.
The total payments amounted to £28,004,725 as compared
with £30,776,040 last year The balance in the Bank of Eng-
land was £1,346,161, and in the Bank of Ireland E. 565,302.
At the half-yearly meeting of the Metropolitan
District Railway on Tuesday, Mr. J. S. Forbes, who was in
the chair, stated that the recent experiment of raising the
fares had been a failure, and on the opening of the ex-
tension line to Hammersmith on the Ist of September the
list would be revired. A letter from Mr. Gladstone on this
subject was read, in which he advocated also the substitution
of two classes for three.

Thirty-one notices of motion for the next session
have been placed on the order book of the Rouse of Corn.
1120118.

A light of extraordinary brilliancy is said to have
been obtained by Herr liannecker, by directing the flame of
a spirit lamp of peculiar construction, urged by a current of
oxygen, against a cylinder formed of carbonate of lime.
magnesia, and olivine, compressed by hydraulic presintre.
The olivine employed is a native silicate of magnesia.
Lady William Ruseell, widow of General Lord
George William Russell, died at an early hour on Monday
morning at her house in Audley.square, London, after a
lingering illness. She was the only daughter of the Hon.
Theophilus Rawdon and Lady Elizabeth Hastings, eldest
daughter of Theophilua, 11th Earl of Huntingdon, and
married, June 21, 1817, Lord George William Russell

•
From the want of necessary places of worship for
persons of the Baptist persuasion at Bournemouth, the
ceremony of immersion according to the rules of that Church
has been performed publicly in the nes. The persons
baptised used bathing machines, end the services on the oc-
casion were delivered by the minister standing by the side of
the vehicles before being drawn into the water.

Five board schools,- completing the first scheme of
eight designed by the School Board, were opened at Brad-
ford on Monday. The whole number will cost about k 1113,000.
Vice-Admiral W. L. Castle, who was for tnAny
years actively engaged in the suppression of the slave trade
on the African coast, died last week in the 76th year of his
age.

Scotch ironmaatera met on Monday in Claegow,
and resolved that as the miners of the Clyde ironworks had
returned to work, further meetings were unnecessary. Mr.
Alexander Macdonald has addressed a large miners' meet-
ing, held at the same place. He advised them not to strike
against reductions, but to wait the result of the conferences
of masters and men in Northumberland and Durham.

It is stated in the Postniaster-Generale report that
during lastyear 10,7001etters were posted without any addresa
whatever, and that nearly 500 of the letters contained cash,
cheques, and bills of exchange to the value of more than
£13,000.

A Vienna paper states that the prohibition of Free-
masonry in Austria has been repealed.

The Japanese GOvernment has removed all restric-
tions upon the exportation of silkworms eggs,

During the loot three years 29,129 dogs wandering
about the streets of London, and not under proper control,
have been seized by the police. The majority were sent to
the dogs home at Battersea, and many of them have been
reclaimed by their owners.

Considerable attention has been aroused in Spain by
astaternent which has appeared in the Alphonsist journals to
the effect that neither the el-Queen Isabella nor her husband
either ought or could return to Spain, even if her son should
become King. Prince Alphonse is also said to have an-
nounced that he declined to enter into relations with
those persons who had been the cause of the fall of his
mother.

The French mine-owners are afraid of the incunion
of English coal and iron if a French tunnel between Dover
made.

I alais

Mr. Justice Archibald, in charging the Grand JttrY
at the opening of the Liverpool aesizes, spoke of the con-
tinuance of cases of brutality. The remedy, he said, must be
found in the promotion of education and civilisation, for the
administration of justice alone was not sufficient to eradicate
the seeds of crime. He could not help thinking that some
determined effort might be made by philanthropic persons
to promote relining influences.

At the close of the Volunteer Artillery meeting at
Shoeburyness, the ceremony of distributing the prises took
place under the presidency of Sir Garnet Wolseley, the in-
spector general of the Volunteer force. Previous to the dis-
tribution Colonel Fisher, the commandant of the School of
Gunnery, addressed the troops in highly eulogistic terms,
and in the course of his remarks expressed his opinion that
this body of Volunteer Artillery represented is most reliable
force. On the whole, he considered the shooting excellent,
and that the troops had done good steady work.

"Playing of church organs at weddings is coming to
be one of the line arts. One organist, after waiting a tedious
time for the belated bride, revenged himself by giving to the
audience, "Love Not," with every variation and on every
stop-combination he could think of. What shall we any
to the new fashion that Is coming in—borrowed from the
bad custom of the theatres—of following words of special
pathetic or rhetoric effect with a low orchestral accompani-
ment ? "—Court Journal.

"A ourious innovation in high life marriages in
Paris is to be noticed; that of only inviting young, and,
above all, single persons to lunch ; the grave and heavy re-
latives being invited at a monster dinner. it is also a com-
pliment of a delicate nature for the bridegroom to present
the bride with sprayer book printed in as many languages
as she speaks, the vignettes also to be as expressive as an ad-
ditional tongue. Since January, the practice is becoming
mor•i general for French newly-married couples to travel
during the honeymoon."—Court Journal.