The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-09-25 00:00:00

AMERICAN ITEMS.

During the month of July a single tobacco company
in California manufactured 1,500,@00 cigars.
Twenty-five young Mormon women are studying
medicine at Salt Lake.
Deer are nurkterons in Virginia, where they have
greatly multiplied since the war.

- -
A conscientious farmer in Lewiston, Me., before per-
mitting his load of hay to go on the scales to be weighed,
wiped the mud from the waggon wheels.

Owing to the absence of delegates, a Grand National
Industrial Convention which was to have been held at
Indianapolis lately did not come off.

Tom Thumb is a successful yachtsman, Ms boat, the
Maggie B winning the second prize—a silver punch bowl, at
the Oak Bluff, Conn., regatta.

_
During the 175 years of its history Yale College
has had only 10 presidents. Mr. Woolsey occupied the chair
25-years.
Statisticians say that there are now over two mil-
lion " Williams" in the United States, without counting
any little bills._

A dense column of flies, which took twenty minutes
to pass a given spot, journeyed through the village of Me-
chanicsville, New York, the other day, southward bound.

The first camp meetings in America were held in
1767, by two Baptist ministers, wha preached in that part of
Virginia lying between the Rappahannock and James Rivers.
As an instance of the disuse of Latin, even in col-
legiate institutions, it may be stated that the triennial cata-
logue of Amherst College, always heretofore printed in Latin,
is this year printed in plain English.
A compositor in Fremont, Ohio, claims to have in
his possession the original composing stick which Benjamin
Franklin used while learning the printing business. Ills
made of copper, and is quite a curiosity.

A stock company at Hornellsville, N.Y., is going
Into the manufacture of vegetable acids used in printing
calico. A large tract of woodland, well filled with beech
and maple trees, from whose sap the acid is to be extracted,
has been secured.
At Lynn, Mass., the other day, a railway work-
man, who returned a pocket book containing 390 doh. to its
owner, a wealthy man, was told by the latter, by way of
compensation, to "come down to the beach some day, and
he should have a ride."

A number of the residents of Pittsburg have re-
quested the newspapers of that city not to chronicle their
departure from town for the summer vacation, as the bur-
glars in the neighbourhood are thought to take advantage of
such publication to make attacks on houses left without
defenders.

Tramps are liberal patrons of the fast peach train
which runs through New England to Boston These "road
sailors" not only treat themselves to free rides on the cars
of the train, but also to the luscious fruit which the former
contain.

A boy in lowa recently found a pocket-book with
a large sum of money in it and returned it to the owner, who
gave him a five-cent piece. The boy looked at the coin an
instant, and then, handing it reluctantly 'back, sighed and
said, "I am very sorry, but I can't change it."
Whilst on the trip to the fishing banks, the schooner
Wyoming, of Gloucester, Mass., was attacked by a mammoth
swora fish, who ran his sword through the planks of the keeL
After much struggling, the fish got loose. breaking, in his
endeavours, his sword, filo me two feet of which he left stick-
ing in the side of the schooner.
There are many drawbacks in this worla. One
among them is consequent upon treading upon -a lady's long
skirt, now worn so long. She finds it a very unpleasant
I drawback if she is proud in her gait and sweeping along.
I The man who does it goes round the corner from the effect/
of her eye.,

. -
New York customs officers discovered among the
trunks which arrived on the Ville de Paris, at that port
lately, a false-bottomed one, in which sixty yards of silk, one
half-dozen forks, five silver spoons, four lockets and chains,
a gold watch, three pairs of slippers, and a broche shawl were
concealed. The total value of the articles does not exceed
250 dols.

An American editor says it will give our distant
readers, especially our English readers, some idea of the wet
weather we have been having when we state that about ten
thousand people have opened our office door within a week
and inquired, "Did I leave my umbrella here ? " It made
him qu'te nervous and ill. He was cured by a callous sub.
who advised his principal to send for a wet-enary surgcon.