The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-08-28 00:00:00

AMERICAN ITEMS.

Providence (R. I.) station-houses furnished accom
modation for 1,279 tramps in the last eight months.
"A man has tied a coop to my horse's tail! Can I
do anything ?" "Yes," replied the attorney, "go and untie
IL" That was good advice, and didn't cost the man but live
dollars.

There are 30,000 acres containing 30,000,000 grape
vines in California.

The New Jersey State Prison, at Trenton, contains
648 convicts, of whom only 28 are females.
Ticonderoga, N.Y., farmers sacrifice both religion
ad pleasure to business by converting their church into a
heese factory and their racecourse into a cow pasture.
A New York paper notes, as a novelty, the appli-
cation of the camera obscura to railroad cars, exhibiting to
the traveller a moving picture of the country through which
he is passing.

- -
By the recent death of an uncle in France a Chicago
newsboy has become heir to a large property and the title of
Marquis. The boy's father, Aymar de Belloy, was at one
time a prominent grain merchant in Chicago, and, failing,
left his family in distress, from which the tidings from France
will speedily lift them.

- -
A poor Fort Wayne family, in moving into a house
recently, found in one of the rooms a quantity of straw,
which revealed a paper roll containing 7,E00 dole, worth of
bank notes, cheques, and other collaterats.
The Michigan farmers now shear their sheep by
horse power.
One of the suburbs of Evansville, Ind., rejoices in
the suggestive title of Baby town. •

A new source of danger in railroad travel has been
discovered in the spreading of the rails under the influence of
the rays of the sun. An instance was given of this kind in
Neveda the other day, where the heat so expanded several
of the rails as to force them from their position, and even to
draw the spikes from the ties. It was necessary to shorten
the rails in order to replace them.

A new industry is the shipment of live frogs from
America to England for breeding purposes.

Two girls, twins, residing at Southville Flats, New
York, together turn the scales at 420 pounds.

New Boston, N.H., boasts of a family representing
four generations. It consists of Robert Wilson, aged 84; his
wife, aged 74; his daughter, 46; granddaughter, 21; great-
grandson, 3 mouths.

An Oregon man has astonished the authorities of
the Agricultural Department at Washington by sending in a
single shipment 136 different kinds of insects.

The authorities of Pottsville proliose to offer a
reward of 10) dols. for the arrest and conviction of tobacca
chewers who spit on ladies' dreEses.

Guano was first brought to America by Commodore
Stewart, in 1825, and at that time attracted but little atten-
tion. In 1840 it was again introduced, and its use spread
rapidly, and ever since the demand for it has gone cn in-
creasing, until whole islands have disappeared under the pick
and shovel, and numerous fleets laden with the precious
material are navigating the seas in every direction to distri-
bute it to all parts of the civilised world.

Daring a recent tornado in Minnesota, a couple of
sheep were carried fully a mile and landed in a tree top, and
were found pinned together by a board that had been driven
through the bodies of the poor animals.

Three large tobaoco growers- in Connecticut figure
up their losses for the past year at 200,000 dol3.
At Detroit, Mich., are situated the immense car
works of the Pullman Palace Car Company. They cover an
area of several acres, and in them nearly 600 workmen are
employed. Everything appertaining to the construction of
the cars of the company, with the exception of the iron
caging, is done in these shops, and from them the com-
pleted cars for use in this country are turned out, whilst
those that are to be used in Earope are shipped-in sections
In charge of gangs of workmen to their place of destination.
A seaside home, accommodating nearly two hundred
children, is situated at Bath, on Long Island Sound. It It
the ma,agement of a charitable soctety.ot New York,
who bring thither the sick and suffering little ones from the
tenernents and boarding-houses of the metropolis.
A NEW LEATHER.—A German residing in New
York, after experimenting for twenty years, has Annealed
in discovering a method of manufaepiring a very-delicate
article of leather from tissue nape; an it '
can be made as thick as sole leather if desirable. The right
to manufacture this article in the United States has just been-
• sold for 250,000 dollars.
A NOVEL CONTEST.—San Francisco Bay •Proirifssitii
shortly to be the scene of a somewhat novel contest—that is,
a contest of power, not of speed. The owners of the tugs
Neptune and Lookout propose to lash them fast to each
other stern to stern, and then headed in opposite directions,
with full steam on, decide which shall get away with the
other. The match is for 000 dols. a side.