The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-12-26 00:00:00

AN ARTISTIC RELIGIOUS ENTER-
TAINMENT.

Vienna is treated just now to a new kind of artistic
religious entertainment by a Russian lady artist, Ella
Adaiewsky by name (writes the correspondent of The
Times). It consists of a number of transparent pic-
tures, representing subjects from the Nativity, which
are brought out before the spectator. An invisible
orchestra and choir perform a mutat°, composed by the
Russian lady artist. The public are in the dark during
the performance, which lends a sort of mystery to the
thing well calculated to impress imaginative minds.
The entertainment, though new in Vienna, was in-
vented some thirty years ago in Berlin, when a
sort of artistic religious mystery was the fashion
there. A revival of it in these times of hard
struggling between State and Church may seem so
much the more strange as it is not a specula-
tion, all the profits being given to benevolent
institutions. All the eight pictures have been
painted by Vienna artists. The first of them is
symbolical, showing the representatives of the old
Covenant and the ecursors of Christ, viz., Adam,
Eve Moses, David, and John the Baptist. One shows
the She. herds ',waving the Message; another, again,
the Shepherds adoring Then come the three Angels,
Mary, with the Child in the manger, the three Kings
of the East, and last a Christmas-tree, with the Virgin
and Child in the sky above. Artistically some of
them come out very well. The music is pleasing and
will be still more so when the orchestra have learnt
their parts better than. at first.

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.
A newly-fledged parent, who ha.s undoubtedly been
too curiously impertinent in domodic matters, asks—'' Can
putting a clean shirt on a baby be properly called shifting
thj responsibility ?"
The following stanza, on the mnrriage of Reuben
with Martha Cheevis, is exceedingly well told aud
witty :
At length she seized the proffered prize,
A happy one, believe us.
For matrimony made her Wise—
Before she was Miss Cheevia"
A down.ea.st editor says, " Somebody brought one
bottle
.of spared water into our office, with a reimest to

One of the measures which the Government will lay iit,fi:•=giturf!erm.ozet;
of Ipof Ft.aanewrists re,.:nxrupf.,,tc:h.llbil,s,
before the House of Commons next session will deal will tell • four-shilling lie for two-pence."
with the position of friendly societies—a question which The people of Johnson County, Indiana, are ex-
of great interest to immense numbers of the industrial is periencing the keenest pangs of mortification
.because, after
little
classes. The recently issued report of the Registrar szezreindei ndgoloarptywotshoarlfrtdo
dlgotraw.4l
ottnoer itl,Tit'll al
contains much that explains the frequent failure of knife, in twenty-four hours,
these institutions. He particularly objects to the pro- Our musical young ladies have abandoned pianos
s ision by which in most of the oldest-established and taken to brass bands. They carry them on their heads,
societies, sick pay or superannuation is granted for The New York Commercial Atlccrtiser ventures the
assertion that nine men out of every ten who call
life to a member who has been rendered incapable ot "jewty," also wear their hair parted in the middle. duty
work through illness. Not long ago a society which The young men of Chicago aresaid to be classified
had been in existence eighty years was dissolved in according to their skill as velocipedists into the "timid
consequence of the drain upon its resources through toddlers," the ' wary wabblers," and the " go-it-gracefula"
this cause. It has been suggested;that if this regula- A man down East describing the prevalence of duel-
a
tion should be continued there ought to be a separate, lag-
summed up with, "They even tight with daggers in
room pitch dark" "Is it possible 1" was the reply,
fund for the purpose. i "Possible, sir? Why I've seen them !"
At a time when amusements are being temporarily A Cincinnati woman, arrested for stealing fifty
supplied to the inmatee of so nanny charitable institu- muds of beef, apologized for taking so much by stating she
mu
Lions the case of those whose mental eclipse is per-
no knife to cut It.
manent and hopeless, comes almost unbidden to the
recAordNoer
,4,irezi,'lreanneoduitoCree %:thho.slutVal:e'lhiecteerelnehat
mind. In olden times it used to be thought that any beat the beet that beat the other beet is now beaten by a
sort of treatment was good enough for the insane. The beet that beats all the beets, whetter the original beet, the
beet that beat the beet, or the beet thakbeat the beet that
more sternly they were held in check, as people beat the bee, .
fancied, the better. The great principle enunciated An actor recently had a benefit at a Salt Lake
by Goethe, that in every case these unfortunates should Theatre, at which the receipts conaisted principally of corn
be dealt with, as far as possible, as if they were sane, 1 in.t he e a r;. se whe.
ue CI : .
.t atoe • , white mice, young pigs, and two
is not even yet fully applied; but we are at least a
anshy ne the 1' Oof i '
of Burlington, Vermont
good deal nearer its full application than our anceetorancestors.driving into fowl:10U sel2tion morning, was met by a friend:
One still point requires to be frequently urged—the need who hailed him with the question, " Have you voted?"—
of providing occupation and amusement for the in-
.T.. Ali
mn
tro.i'.'
ow.. hen will
."4;lf,s: yet,,"
are,pra tliLic‘lab.uu.sas nafe ocifow but I have hoes out all
mates of the lunatic aqhuni. In a report just issued he rote „....ob.