The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-07-31 00:00:00

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.

A country newspaper out West thus heads its report
of a fire :—Feast of the Fire Fiend—The Forked-Tonged
Demon licks with its lurid breath a lumber pile.—Are the
scenes of Boston and Chicago to be repeated 7—Loss, 160
dollars.
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The superintendent of a Sunday-school in Washing
ton is an undextaker, and there is some talk of asking him to
resign; nbt only because he makes the children sing, "I
would not live always" every Sunday, but because on the
back of the reward cards that are given to good children he
has printed a gilt coffin, with a list of his rates for funerals.
A Newark girl hastened the departure of a lingering
gentleman caller the other evening by remarking as she
looked out of the window; "I think we shall have a beauti-
ful sunrise."
A house in Floyd county, lowa, was blown down
lately with a man, his wife, and children in it. The house
was rolled over three times by the wind, knocked against a
tree, and torn to pieces, and the inmates were but slightly
Injured. The wife, who was somewhat deaf, never desisted
from her knitting all that time, and when the final crash
came, she only looked up and said, "Come in, don't knock."
Twenty years ago a poor boy, after attentively
perusing the life of Lord Nelson, secretly left his parents' roof
with a pocket knife, sandwich, and a bunch of twine as his
sole capital, resolving to go to sea and become an admiral
Five miles away from home this brave, ambitious lad was
kicked into a duck-pond by an exasperated mule, and he is
now one of the wealthiest and most devoted agriculturists in
the State of New York.

The potato-bug, or Colorado beetle, which has
gradually been moving eastward during the past four or five
years, has reached Connecticut, and a collection of them has
been left in the office of the Hartford Times. The editor of
that paper describes them as "disgusting-looking creatures
of various sizes; in colour a drab yellow or reddish buff,
marked with black dotted lines, and possessing a tractile
neck and hungry-looking black head, which can be thrust
out or drawn in like a mud-turtle's."
Brigham Young was kissed 4,468 times on his last
birthday by his wives and children. We are confidentially
informed that the Mormon sage has about concluded, after
going through this ordeal, that he won't have any more
birthdays.

AN OFFER FROM BARNUM !—Here is a speech by
Barnum, delivered at Philadelphia. The great showman
said—" I will undertake and give bonds for the faithful
fulfilment of the contract, that if the city of Phila-
delphia will stop selling liquor, and give me as
much as was expended here for liquor last year, to
ran the city next year. I will pay all the city expenses
(pause); no parson living within her borders shall pay
faxes (pause) ; there shall be no Insurance on property
(pause) ; a good dress and suit shall be given to every poor
boy, girl, man, and woman (pause) ; all the educational ex-
penses shall be paid (pause); a barrel of flour shall be given
to every needy and worthy person (sensation) ; and I will
clear half a million or a million dollars myself on the opera-
tion 1 (Cries of 'Hurrah 1') It would be the beat bustness
speculation I was ever in. Unfortunately they wouldn't
give it to me."