The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-04-27 00:00:00

glisallan NUS attiligena,

HOME, FOREIGN, AND COLONIAL,

THE BRITISH MUSEUAL—A Parliamentary
paper issued on Tuesday morning contains an account
of the income and expenditure of the British Museum
(special trust fund) for the year ended March 31,
1872; returns of the number of persons admitted to the
Museum from 1866 to 1871; and other particulars re-
lating to various departments of the institution. The
total number of visitors to the Museum during 1871,
exclusive of readers, was 418,091 This was a smaller
number than in any preceding year Since 1566; the
numbers since that year having been— in 1867, 445,036;
in 1868, 461,710; in 1869, 460,635; in 1870, 427,247.
The number of visitors to the reading rooms, for study
or research, in 1871 was 105,130 against 98,971 ia the
preceding year.
VICTORIAN GOLD COMPANIES.—III the Stock-
yard Creek district, in Gipps Land—the last newly-
discovered gold field of the colony of Victoria—the
great claim is the Cross Reef Mine, which has eclipsed
in yields nearly every other mine in Victoria. This
company is composed of 10,000 shares, paid up to
£2 2s. each, and held by 75 persons. In 1871 it paid
, upwanls of 105,000 in dividends, and in 1872, up to the
23rd of February, it paid £19,000. The average yield
of gold is 2Lioz. per ton f quartz crushed. One share-
holder holds nearly one-fourth of the mine, and
another nearly one fifth. It would be impossible to
name the numerous companies now in profitable work-
ing at Sandhurst. The Great Extended Hustler's
Tribute Mine, they!d"' from which since ectober last,
when the reef was fidnd, has been unprecedentedly
large, still maintains the pride of place as the leading
mine of the colony, its last return for the fortnight
ending the 24th of Februiny having been 3,1460 z.
A FLASH ON LIGHTNING.—The following in-
teresting communication has been sent to The
Times

Nodal Priory is a large house, the residence of Mr. Charles
Winn. The house is five miles from Wakefield. On Wednes-
day, the 17th of April, at about 0 p.m., a stack of chimneys
was struck by lightning. The stack iebuilt of extremely atrong
stone work, the top of it being more than 50 feet from the
ground. Tile lightning seems to have entered two con-
tiguous chimneys, divided by a thin partition. This
thin partition was untouched, but the stone work of
each chimney, nearly a foot in thickness, was completely
shattered and blown cut, leaving a hole in each chim-
ney nearly big enough for a wheelbarrow to enter Stones
bigger than a man's head were blown out horizontally
first over 25 feet of roof, and then over a fight of stepa ex-
tending more than 20 feet from the call of the house. Thus,
they were thrown nearly 50 feet from the chimney into the
carriage road below. A thunderclap was heard at the same
moment, like the report of a cannon. No trace of the electric
fluid can be observed lower down in the chimney than the
fracture I have described. I read in the newspapi rs that
almost at the same hour of the same day injury was done at
Leeds by lightning.—l ala, Ac., H. STRICKLAND CONSTABLE.
—Nostell Priory, April 21.
- -

Snot, !—Mrs: Malaprop has been studying
what she calls the All Baba Counter Cane. She thinks
the title smacks a little of the shop, but she hopes the
Government will show that they mean business by
sticking to their Counter—Punch.

MORE AMERICAN FRAUDB.—The New York
Herald states that, in coneequence of the investiga-
tion ordered by General Grant, it has been found that,
during the administration of Andrew Johnson, the
collection of the whisky and tobacco dues wad a mere
farce. A " ring " was formed which enabled its mem-
bers to avoid the imposts levied for the purpose of
reducing the national debt, and it is stated that its
efforts were se successful that the State h:us been
defrauded of upwards of one hundred and sixty mil-
lions of dullard. Prosecutions have been ordered
against a large number of people, and. as many of
them are persons who lately occupied official positions
and places of respectability and truet, the discovery
and its attendant litigation are creating considerable
excitement in all parts of the States.
-

DOWN AMON-OST THE COALS !—At the Lam-
beth police-court, in London, a young man wee, the
other slay, charged with being in a house at Coburg-
road, Peckham, supposed for an unlawful purpose.

The prosecutor, ttated from information given Min on
Sumlay eight he went down into the kitchen, but was
surprised to find the gas turned out. Believing something
was wrong he went out by the front door and waited In the
area. In a short time tile prisoner came out from the
kitchen, and prosecutor stopped him, lie denied being there
for anything wrong, but said the cook hid invited lam to
come in. The cook the worse for drink, and so was
. .

prisoner, and prosecutor had missed some bottles of wine.
The Housemaid to prosecutor sold she had occasion to go
into the kitchen shortly after ten o'clock, when the cook
endeavoured to get her to leave. The gas was out, and on a
match bring lighted she caught sight of the primner
looking out of the coal cellar. On seeing her, however, he
immediately returned to the coals. (laughter).
The klagistrate.—Was he inside amongst the c. al
Witness.—Yes, down amongst the coals, sir. (Remare I
laughter.)
Prisoner in defence said he hail been out with the
cook and they both had too much to drink. She in-
vited him and he thought there wll6 no harm to have a
quiet chat in the kitchen. (Laughter.) The magistrate
discharged him, and strongly advised him to keep out
of other people's kitchens in future.
FREEDOM OF WORSHIE.—At the usual monthly
meeting of the executive council of the Association for
Promoting Freedom of Wurship, attention was called
to the opinion lately expressed by the Bishop of Man-
chester. that pew route. "though contrary to the
theory 'of the Church of England, and themselves an
abomination, were sometimes a necessity." It was re-
solved that, without proposing to interfere with exist-
ing pew-rented churches, the society considers that in
new churches for parishes of 1,000 families, the weekly
offertory in aid of endowments is better than pew rents
from a hundred of those families, asspreading the duty of
giv.ng much wider, and being more convenient to the
great body of the trading and industrious cla.,ses,whose in:

,
conies fluctuate, and as also capable of-being rendered
still more certain by means of asustentation fund, as in
Scotland • and it was resolved "That this council
respectfully denies the statement which appears in a
resolution of the Church Building Society, namely,
'that there is a stratum of the population lying beneath
the reach of the ordinary ministrations of the Church,'
and would refer for its disproof to the hundreds of free
churches, like that of Manchester, throughout the
country, which are frequented by the poorest and most
numerous class--the 'poor in vile raiment '—whom
the vinjust and unchristian treatment, condemned by
St. James, now keeps from attending the ordinary pew-
rented churches in all our large towns."
A FOREST ON FIRE.—A fire broke out a few
days ago in a state forest, near Pau. The Prefect,
having put in requisition the services of a detachment
of the garrison, immediately proceeded to the spot;
but, whilst they were engaged in extinguishing the fire
on one side, the flames spread rapidly on the other.
Fortunately the lieutenant-colonel of the 18th of the
Line arrived with about 100 more men, and their
united efforts were crowned with success. About 30
hectares (2i acres each) of young copse were consumed.
The disaster was attributed to the imprudence of a
smoker throwing away a lighted cigar.
THE CARUS'S& —lt is sad for many of IN to
remember with how many generations of these Carlist ,
Pretenders it has been our lot to live (remarks The
Times). This present Don Carlos, Duke of Madrid,
who aspires to rank in the roll of Spanish Sove-
reigns as Charles VII., is the grandson of that
Don Carlos who, after harrassing his country with
civil war fur nearly ten years' made a solemn re-
nunciation of his claims in 1845. Fifteen years
latex, and precisely this very day, the 23rd of April,
his Fon, another Don Carlos, bearing the title of Conde
de Montemolin, also surrendered his pretensions to
the Throne, both in his name and in that of his brother
Ferdinand, their renunciation beiog the only condition
on which they could escape the consequences of their
landing on the coast near Tortosa at the bead of 3,000
mutinous seldiene, whom General Ortega, the Governor
of theellalearie Isles, had won over to their in-
terests Both before and after that time the Cellist
cause Wel been only in so far strong that it was
looked upon as the priests' cause ; but the alliance
of the Church with any worldly Potentate is always
subordinate to her own interest, and as the Pope had
soon substantial proofs of Isabelliee devotion to the
Holy See, he was as liberal of his blessings to the Con-
stitutiosial Queen as he had ever been to her despotic
father; and towards the close of her reign any move-
ment on the part of her Legitimist enemies, being die-
, countenanced by the Pope, had become almost impos-
sible. Even the vacancy of the Throne in 1863 and
the accession of an excommunicated Ring three years
later, would hardly have revived the hopes of Don
Carlos and his partisans had they not found allies
among those enthusiasts who looked forward to the
triumph of the Comte de Chambord and of his White
Flag in France. The Carlist levee des boueliers in Spain
is, or was, only intended as the preclude to that Ultra-
montane crusade which was to re-establish French and
Papal predominance in Europe. It comes just now
rather too late in the day. It will probably turn out
a foolish abortive effort, as so many have been before
and, Pit have any effect even in Spain, it will only
be to strengthen the foundation of a Throne whioh. if
it has no friends, can never be allowed to fall by the
hand of such enemies.
GOOD PICTURES GOOD INVESTMENTS. No-
body can say that Art is on the wane in England after
reading the returns of the Gillott sale .4 modern
British pictures, no far as it has gone, remarks a
London contemporary. On Saturday last a Maelise
fetched 750 guineas, the "Passim; Cloud" of Hook
GOO guineas, and Linnell'a "Hampstead Heath"
1,660. Webster's "Travelling Jeweller" brought
3550; and a second Linuell, "The Woodlands,"
2,500. A Clarkson Stanfield made 2,700; and a Muller,
"The Chess Players," 3,950. Four Turners realised
the sum of 6,750 guineas and the day before a picture
stamped with the magic name of David Cox brought
hard upon £4,000. Two days' sales alone of this Col-
lection have swelled the proceeds to the enoimous
total of £73,200, which is pretty geed proof that the
art of paintin, has enthusiastic patrons; and that the
manufacturer of steel pens knew what he was about
when he used to go the rounds of the studios with his
pockets full of crisp bank-notes. Comparing these
notable prices with the sums which the painters re-
ceived for their work, it seems no longer strange that
good works fetch now-a-days so much money. A
first-rate picture is as fine an investment as a man can
make ; but it mild be first-rate. Nothing else than
instiective good ju4ruest cull have brought toge-
ther such a galleay se Mr, Gillett**.