The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-07-10 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

The Queen has been pleased to accept a copy of
"The Life of the Prince Imperial," by Miss Barlee, w‘hich
was recently published by Messrs. Griffith and Farran.
The Athenaum, says that Mr. Henry Ludlam,
F.G.S., late of Piccadilly, has given by will lus select and
most valuable collection of minerals to the Royal Geological
Museum in Jermyn-street, London, This collection is said
to have cost Mr. Ludlam £15,000.
The German explorers have brought their excava-
tions at Olympia to an end for this season, having uncovered
the Altis and its surroundings. Valuable discoveries have
also been made with respect to the Heraion and a good many
interesting articles having been found. Further explora-
tions will be made late in the autumn.
The great annual Rose Show at the Crystal Palace
opened on Saturda3r, under the auspices of the National
Rose Society. The display was, considering the weather, a
very brilliant one, and there was a large concourse of
visitors. _

•--------
Lord Lytton embarked in state at Bombay on
Saturday on board the Himalaya, in presence of a crowd of
Europeans and natives. In response to a call from the
Governor of Bombay, three cheers were given for the Earl
and Countess of Lytton.

A brief letter -from Dorchester, Mass., to the Boston
(U.S.) Advertiser, tells the following :—" There are in this
town two twin brothers, whose resemblance to each other
is so strong that strangers can hardly tell them apart. These
brothers and several young men were in the habit of getting
up very early and going to swim in the Resovoir Pond, and
once Eli going, as was his wont, to Nathan's house to call
him by tapping on the pane, saw his face reflected from the
glass, and taking it for his brother, called out, 'Come on,
they're all waiting for you.' "
Central Asian pilgrims who recently arrived at
Cabul, corroborate the reports of Russian reverses on the
Chinese frontier.

In a report on the trade of the Samoa Islands for
1879, which has just been issued, it is stated that the im-
ports had increased to £59,720, and that by German mer-
chants alone goods had been imported to the value of
£47,020. The articles which have been most in demand
were manufactured goods, clothing, linen wares, and beer.

The Citizen states that the City Lands Committee
have unanimously passed a resolution that, in their opinion,
Temple Bar should be re-erected in Epping Forest. The
Epping Forest committee have passed an equally unanimous
resolution that, in their opinion, Epping Forest is not
adapted for the reception of Temple Bar.
An ingenious mirror, not over nine inches in its
largest dimension, has been invented and patented, by
which, when inclined at a given angle, the full length of the
figure is reflected. It is specially adapted for carriages.
An official contradiction is given to the reports re-
cently circulated abroad, that small-pox is greatly prevalent
in Belgium at present. It is declared, on the contrary, that
the sanitary condition of the country is most satisfactory,
and is especially good in the capital.
A very fine sample of coal has been sent into Cape
Town from Basutoland where coal is said to exist in large
quantities.

Mr. Thomas Strcde, of Richmond, Victoria, who
may be regarded as one of the founders of that colony, died
there on the Ist May. In 1838 he founded, and for some
time afterwards carried on, the Port Philip Gazette, the first
legally-registered printed newspaper in the colony, the only
complete file of which is no in the British Museum. Mr.
Strode also established the Maitland Gazette and the, Pas.
twin' Tinyes, the latter being still published at Denillquin,
New South Wales.
The Queen held a private investiture of the Order
of the Bath at Windsor Castle on Tuesday afternoon, when
Admirals Sir G. Sartorius, Sir T. Symonds, and Sir J.
Drummond, and Lieutenant-General Sir Garnet Wolseley
were invested with the riband and badge of the military
division of the first class.

Mount Vesuvius has been lit up by the electric light,
three lamps being placed at the tramway station, nine along
the tramway, and three on the cone.
The Russian consular reports just published, give
the total number of manufacturing establishments in Russia
as £15,000, and the value of the total annual production as
500,000 roubles.

There were 25 Britisb and foreign wrecks reported
during the past week, making a total of 700 for the present
year, or a decrease of 81 as compared with the corresponding
period of last year. The approximate value of property lost
was £850,000, including British £710,000.
A distinguished company assembled on Tuesday
night at a banquet given at the Mansion House by the Lord
Mayor of London to the Metropolitan Board of Works.
Among the guests was M. Challemel Lacour, the new French
Ambassador, whose health was proposed by his Lordship.
His Excellency, in acknowledging the toast, remarked that
he regarded it as doing honour to France and as expressive
of sympathy towards her—to France renewed by her work
and her liberty—to France, peaceful, creative, and devoted
to the work of civilization. Her interests, he considered,
were in hearty accordance with those of England, and he
thought that conciliation and good understanding were the
best means of promoting the welfare of the two countries.
There were 158 deaths from sunstroke in New York
within four days last week.

George Bailey, a Liverpool constable, his son,
Frederick James Bailey, 9, and a brother-in-law were rowing
between Bangor and Rhyl on Saturday when the boat upset,
and the policeman and his son were both drowned.
Friday's London Gazette contains an Order in
Council relative to the transhipment in the River Merge)? of
animals brought from Her Majesty's possessions in North
America to the port of Liverpool.
pupil
It is announced that M. Thomas, a of the
School 'of Rome, has just discovered in one of the libraries
of that city some important fragments of a Latin historian
of the classical period. As the facts treated of relate to
Alexander the Great, it would seem as if the author of these
fragments is no other than Trogus Pompeius. The MS. is
of the twelfth century.
In London last week 2,493 births and 1,300 deaths
were registered. Allowing for increase of population, the
births exceeded by 100, whereas the deaths were 80 below,
the average numbers in the corresponding week of the last
ten years. The annual death-rate from all causes, which in
the two preceding weeks had been equal to 171, and 181,
further rose to 18-5. During the thirteen weeks of the
quarter ending last Saturday the death-rate in London has
averaged 194 per 1,000