The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-11-19 00:00:00

THE MANCIIES rER SHIP CANAL.

This week has seen the commencement of the con-
struction of the Manchester Ship Canal. In accord-
ance with the idea of the original promoters, the lower
portion of the canal will be finished first, in order that
it may be used for traffic while the upper reaches are
being completed. Operations are therefore com-
mencing at Ea4tham, and in a very short time a large
body ot men will be at work between that place laid
the mouth of the river Weaver, below Runcorn.
Before long other portions of the canal will receive
attention, and will absorb the labour of an army of
men. Already the required land for a distance ot 15
miles—nearly half the entire length of the canal—has
been secured. Of tho magnitude of the enterprise it
is unnecessary to speak; it may, however, be interest-
ing to note that before even a commencement could
be made with the work the contractor (Mr. Walker)
has found it advisable to collect a large quantity of
Want at Eastham, including locomotives, trucks, and
dredgers, the total value of which cannot be far short
of £lOO,OOO.

EPITOME OF NEWS.

Earl Granville will speak on the Irish question at
Leeds on Nov. 23. _ _

Dr. Bernard Finnegan, Roman Catholic ZBishop of
Kilmore, died the other morning at Cavan.
Notice is given that the State apartments of Windsor
Castle will be closed until further orders.

Prince George of Wales has been again appointed to
her Majesty's sLip Dreadnought, which is to be re-
commissioned.

The statement is published that Colonel Nicholas
Smith, the widowed husband of Horace Greeley 's
daughter, is poverty stricken, and his children liable to
be turned out.

Bradford is gaining an unenviable notoriety for
rabid doge. Two persons have died recently of hydro.
phobia, and the son of the Mayor has lett for Pads,
in company of Dr. Hime, to undergo Pasteur's heatment.

Mr. Cox, M.P., against whom there is a warrant cut,
was chased by the police to Clare Abbey the other
night, but escaped in a boat to Foyne's Island. A later
report says it is understood that Mr. Cox has left for
America to avoid arrest. _ _ _ _

After a brief stay in Paris, the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon
proceeded from the French capital for his place of
sojourn in South France. His visit will, it is under-
stood, extend into an early period of the new year.
At the Birmingham Police-court, Hanmer Whitney,
26, a commercial traveller, in the employ of Messrs.
Berrill and Sons, fruiterers, Bull-street, has been
sentenced to a mouth's hard labour for embezzling his
emnlnvers' money.
Graham Hall, near Grantham, Lincolnshire, was on
Saturday evening destroyed by fire. The mansion was
erected about 1510, and was a fine example of the
Tudor style. Graham was one of 15 manors given by
William the Conqueror to Ralph Paganet. On Satur-
day evening, about half-past six, guests to the number
of 40 were sitting down to dinner, when an alarm of
fire was raised. Mr. Cafferata, of Newark, the present
tenant, was entertaining a large shooting party. On
his wife going to the dining hall, she found It full of
smoke, and some of the guests at the same time heard
the ceiling crack. Before many minutes the whole
apartment was one blaze. The local fire brigades
were quickly on the spot, but the plane was almost
wholly destroyed. The cause of the fire is unknown.
The premises are insured, and it is thought that the
iamage will be about £13,000.
An earthquake occurred on Monday in the South of
France about Avignon.
Her Majesty has conferred a baronetcy on Mr. Henry
Stafford Northcote, DI P., younger brother of the
present Earl of Iddesleigh. He will be styled Sir
Stafford Northoote, as was his late father prior to his
elevation to the peerage.
Mr. H. Farnall, of the Foreign Office, and Mr. A.
E. Bateman, of the Board of Trade, have been
appointed joint secretaries, with Mr. Eyre Crowe, of
the Foreign Office, as assistant secretary, to the Con-
ference on the Sugar Question which is about to meet
in London.

At the Middlesex Sessions, Mrs. Jeffries was found
guilty of keeping a disorderly and ill-governed house,
at 15, Brompton-square. Sentence was postponed,
Mrs. Jeffries meanwhile remaining in custody.
Ur. Percy F. Marks proprietor of the "Society
Herald," has been fined £5) at the London Mansion
House for publishing a malicious libel concerning
Captain Selywn, M.P., imputing cow.srdice to him in
elation to the case of Colonel Hughes-Hallett.
A Mitchelstown telegram says it is generally stated
that the incriminated police will not institute prorn
ceedings before the Queen's Bench to quash the ver-
dict at the coroner's inquest ; but it is thought that
the Crown will not proceed against them at the coming
sasizes.

At Dublin, the Solicitor-General has applied, on
behalf of Mr. Frank Joyce, in his action for libel
against the Marquis of Clanricarde, that the consent
order already made should be amended by admitting
the publication of letters the subject of the libel. The
application was granted.
At the meeting of the Council of City Guilds of
London Institute, a letter has been read from Miss
Anna Louisa Cohen and Miss Lucy Cohen, offering
£lOOO to found a Scholarship in connection with the
Central Institution, in memory of their uncle, the
late Mr. John Samuel, one of the first members of the
Executive Ccmmittee.
An extensive robbery has been committed at Athens
at the Numismatic Museum, attached to the Uni—
versity. Amongst the articles stolen are a quantity of
gold coins at the Quintus Flaminius series, a number of
Attic tetradrachms, including the well. known Mahn.
dates Aristion series of the towns of Asia Minor, and
also several Etolian tetradrachms.
Mr. Morgan Howard, Q.C., and Conservative MX .
for the Dulwich Division of Camberwell, has been
appointed Judge of the Cornwall County Court, No. 59
Circuit, in succession to the late Mr. Montagu Bere,
Q.C.' who died on the 20th of last month. Mr. Howard,
who travels the South-Eastern Circuit, is also Recorder
of Guildford, and the result of his appointment as
county court judge will be to vacate his seat as
ogmber for Dulwich, which he has represented since
1885. .

---
At Manchester on Monday, a boy named Thornton,
14 years of ago, was charged with setting fire to the
property at Manchester of the Industrial School of
which be was an inmate. On Thurday, November 3,
he set fire to a large quantity of wood in a cellar,
and had not the fire been speedily discovered it would
have proved very serious. The following Saturday he
fired a quantity of tarred string in a shed. He was
sentenced to one month's imprisonment, and five years
in a reformatory.
A verdict of Death from an overdose of opium "
was returned on Monday at an inquest held at Boston,
Licolnshire, on view of the body of John Thomas
Brocklesty, labourer, aged 42. Deceased, after having
had a quarrel with his wife, and having taken two
pennyworth of opium, went to a public-house, and
after drinking beer fell asleep. He slept until ten
o'clock on Sunday, when he died at his mother's house.
A girl, aged 14 years, jumped out of a first class
carriage at Bishopbriggs Station, on the N orth British
Railway, on Sunday night, and stated that she had
been assaulted by a young man. The accused was
arrested, and at Glasgow on Monday he was fined 155.,
or ten days' imprisonment, for assaulting the girl by
kissing. The defendant gave his name as Edward
Wisdom, and said he was a commercial traveller.
At Liverpool Assizes, on Monday, Thomas Lazarus,
a labourer, was sentenced to eighteen months' impri-
sonment for having flogged his young on in such a
manner that death resulted from his injuries. At the
some assizes Henry Houlgrave, for shooting with
intent to murder a gamekeeper, at Robey, was sen-
tenced to penal servitude for life.
The officials of the Yorkshire Miners' Association,
whose headquarters are at Barnsley, had on Monday
night issued 30,000 voting papers to the associated and
non•associated collieries throughout Yorkshire, to
ascertain the miners' opinion on three points—eight
hours' working daily, the desirability of observing
holidays each week, with one week's holiday simul-
taneously all over the United Kingdom, to secure 10
per cent. advance. The results were not to be known
until the county conference opened at Barnsley.
Ur. Justice Grantham, at Liverpool Assizes on Mon-
day, in trying an action for money lent by an ex
collector of a friendly society, said that many such
societies were trading upon the working classes by
practictally robbing them. Poor people, instead of in.
vesting their savings in good securities, preferred to
hand them over to collectors, of whose honesty they
knew nothing, simply because they did not care for
their neighbours knowing the amount of their savings.
The officials of such societies drew large salaries, and
sometimes, when those who put their pence into them
sought to withdraw, the society was wound up, and
there was nothing to pay.
On Monday the Grimsby borough magistrates sent
James Woody, skipper of the smack Orient, to prison
for six weeks with hard labour for ill-using his cook, a
lad named James Wood, from Leeds. Repeated
thraehing was proved, and it was stated that the pri-
soner inflicted punishment on the lad by compelling
him to walk the deck with a bucket of water on his
head for four, six, or eight hours at a stretch.
Coroner Warren opened an inquest at Prees on Mon-
day, on the body of George Pickerill, who was brutally
murdered on Friday night. It would seem that the
unfortunate man when sitting in his chair near the fire
was struck a violent blow with an iron stanchion across
the face, his nose being completely smashed and jaw
fractured. His right arm was also broken in two
places. He must then have been attacked with a
butcher's knife, eleven dreadful wounds in all being
inflicted upon him. When found the old man lay on
the kitchen floor, which was covered with blood.
Robbery is supposed to have been the object of the
crime, RR several articles of clothing were taken from
an oak chest, though the murderer missed £5 which
was in a secret drawer in the chest.
After some preliminary evidence Horace Robert
Wells, aged 20, reeently a clerk in the local post.
office, was at Windsor on Monday remanded on a
charge of stealing four £1 postal orders and upwards
of £43, the property of the Postmaster-General. The
latter sum is alleged to have been abstracted from the
money. order clerk's drawer.
John Whittaker, 36 years of age, died on Monday
afternoon at the Leeds Infirmary. Deceased was in a
public house several weeks ago, when, it is stated, a
man named James Coulson, who is at present under-
going six months' imprisonment for warehousesbreak.
ing, struck him on the jaw, breaking it in two places,
and also causing internal injuries. 'Whittaker was
taken to the infirmary, and so serious was his condition
on Monday afternoon that it was decided to take his
depositions. With that object the stipendiary magie-
trate went to the infirmary, but, although he put a few
questions, the man was unable to answer them, and
he expired soon afterwards. Coulson was present,
under a writ of habeas corpus.
About eight o'clock on Monday night an extras
ordinary shooting affray took place at Oxford. Mr.
Frederick Blagrove, jeweller, of Cornmarket-street,
left St. Michael's Church, of which he is a church-
warden, after the evening service, to return home.
Outside the building be met his brother George' with
whom for some time he has had a disagreement over
a family matter. George called Frederick a thief
and a scoundrel, whereupon the latter ran inte his
house, across the way, and returned with a revolver,
with which he fired twice at his brother. George, who
was formerly in the army, and had an artificial leg,
managed to avoid the bullets. Frederick was taken
into custody, and on being charged with the offence
before the magistrates on Monday, he Was remanded.
At Lambeth Police-court, on Saturday, Henry
Valentine Pickering, 70, a clerk in holy orders, residing
at 36, Lorrimoressquare, Newington, appeared. on
remand, on a charge of indecent conduct towards John
Debonr, a native of Holland, a hairdresser's assistant,
at 2, Carter-street. Mr. W. H. Armstrong defended.
Mr. Armstrong trusted that until the case was fully
gone into the judgment of the public as to the truth of
the charge would be suspended. He believed he should
have a full answer to the shocking charge. Mr; Chance
said he should be only too glad if such a thing could be
done. He must hear the case fully out. In the course
of the proceedings Mr. Armstrong intimated that he
should contend the affair was based on a conspiracy.
Mr. Chance said there was no foundation whatever at
present for that. Ultimately his worship committed
the accused for trial. Mr. Armstrong asked for a
reduction in the amount of bail (two in £500) ; but
Mr. Chance declined and ordered the same bail, with
notice to the police. The prisoner was removed in
custody.

The revenue received from April 1 to the 12th inst.
amounts to £48,085,273, or £257,603 less than the
£48,342,876 received in the corresponding period ending
November 13, 1886. The expenditure up to tbe 12th
inst. was £51,679,636, being £2,184,012 less than the
expenditure for the similar period of 1886. The balances
on the 12th inst. amounted to £1,341,744, and on
November 13, 1886, to £1,453,663.
On Tuesday morning Joseph Walker was hanged at
Oxford for the murder of his wife at Chipping Norton
on September 16. Since his condemnation he has been
penitent, and freely admitted his offence. He also
discouraged the efforts made for a commutation of the
death sentence. At eight o'clock Berry, who was the
executioner, entered the condemned cell, and Walker
submitted quietly to be pinioned. He walked without
assistance to the scaffold, stood firmly under the beam,
and died instantaneously. Walker being a tall and
heavy man, a drop of only 2ft, 10in, was allowed, this
being the shortest that Berry has ever given.
A boy named John Lewis has picked out from
amongst nine others the prisoner David Rees as the
man who murdered and robbed Thomas Davies near
Llanelly on Saturday last. The boy swears that he saw
the murder committed. Another man was with Rees
at the time, and, after striking Davies to the ground
with the hatchet, they took from him the bag, and ex-
tracted the money. The bag contained £590, and of
this £325 is missing. The hatchet has on it the
Initials of Mary Richards. It has transpired that
Rees was to have been married on Saturday; The
inquest has been opened and adjourned.
A shocking accident occurred on Tuesday afternoon,
on the High Level Bridge, Newcastle-on-Tyne. Two
platelayers, named Henry Cunningham and Peter
Dixon, were engaged upoh the line about the time the
Scotch express was due, shortly after four o'clock. The
men moved out of the way to allow the express to
pass, but in doing so they got in front of a light goods
engine, which knocked them both down, kiliing Dixon
Instantaneously, while Cunningham was so severely
injured that he is not expected to recover. The engine
went over Dixon's stomach, and he was absolutely
cut in two. _

At Birkenhead on Tuesday, William Bruce, aerated
water engineer and manufacturer of essences, was
summoned by the Inland Revenue authorities for sel
ing essences to be used in the manufacture of sarsa-
parilla and ginger beer, in the preparation of which
methylated spirits were employed. The defendant had
been in the habit of supplying mineral water manu-
facturers with essences, and had received testimonials
in favour of their use. Defendant said he was not
aware that he was infringing the law. He was fined
£l5.

An Irish farm labourer, named John Gilloran, was
on Tuesday sent to prison for a month by the North-
wich magistrates for stealing corn from his employer.
The prisoner, it appeared, had a bank book showing a
credit balance of £319. He explained that the money
had been sent to him from Ireland, and asked, amidst
much laughter, that he might be fined, as prison did
not agree with him. He was asked whether he was
connected with the Plan of Campaign, but made no
reply.
Between nine and ten on Tuesday morning two men,
named Walter Jackson, 49, and Henry Wolverton, 34,
both in the service of the Local Board of Health, went
down the sewer in the High-road, Sutton, when they
were suffocalid by gas which leaked from the main
gimpipe and found its way into the sewer.
The Council of the Liverpool Exhibition of last year
have just issued their complete statement of the
receipts and expenditure. The actual deficiency in
put down at £19,135 is. 4d.
A fatal landslip occurred on the Elham Valley Rail-
way at Bridge, near Canterbury, at about three o'clock
on Tuesday morning. A portion of the embankment
just outside Bridge suddenly gave way and buried three
of the navvies. One was extricated alive, though
seriously injured. The other two were killed.
Walter William Neal, the Coventry solicitor, pleaded
guilty at the Warwick Assizes, on Tuesday, to three
charges of forgery; The prisoner absconded to Mel-
bourne, where the Coventry police arrested him. Mr.
Baron Huddleston said he was bound to pass a sentence
of warning, and ordered the prisoner to be kept in
penal servitude for twelve years. The prisoner sobbed
bitterly while in the dock.
Dr. Arthur Douglas Gripper, of Wellingborough, was
on Monday night thrown from his horse near the
gasworks at that place. He was found in an uncon-
scious state, and his fellow practitioners were sum-
moned to his aid. He did not survive the shock, how-
ever, and died late in the evening from concussion of
the brain.
elogularly aeterminea case or snicme was dm
,overed near Canterbury;on Monday. A man named
William Johnson about 65 years of age, has been
living for some Arne past at a public-house at Win.
cheap, the landlord of which was his nephew. He
mysteriously disappeared, and his body was re,
covered from the River Stour at Thanington. Upon
the corpse being pulled out of the water it was
found that the deceased had tied his wrists together
with a cord, over which he must have passel one of his
legs and subsequently rolled into the stream.
It is not the intention of the Government to fill up
the appointment of Commanding Royal Engineer at
Chatham, vacant by the appointment of Colonel
Hawthorne to Jersey. The duties of the post will for
the future be undertaken by the chief cfficer of the
School of Military Engineering.
Sufficient progress has been made in adjusting the
financial results of the late Norwich Musical Festival
to lead the committee to the conclusion that a surplus
of 700 *ill remain after meeting all liabilities. Of
this sum it is proposed to divide £4OO among the local
charities.

In the 101st year of her age the death is announced
of Mrs. Stevens, of Breaston. The old lady was born
at Sandiacre, and when she attained her 100th year a
clock was placed in the tower of Breaston Church to
commemorate the event. She retained her faculties
until within a few weeks of her death.

The strike of 503 miners employed at the Wollaton
Colleriee terminated on Monday, the men resuming
work upon the terms offered by their employers, who
had conceded in part the claim to an advance.
The Duke of Portland, speaking at a luncheon in
connection with the laying of memorial stones of the
extension of Hucknall Torkard parish church, declared
that the tomb of Byron and the marble slab pre-
sented a few years ago by the Greek nation would
not in the least be distarbtd by the alterations.
The memorial tablets to other members of the Byron
family, including his daughter Ada, afterwards Lady
Lovelace, would be rnerected very nearly in their old
positions.
At a late hour on Monday night, the residence of the
Dowager Countess of Caledon, at Tittenhanger, South
Mims, near Barnet, was burglarionsly entered, and a
quantity of jewellery, upwards of £6OO in value, was
stolen. A servant endeavoured to enter a first floor
room, when she discovered the [door fastened on the
inside. Assistance was obtained, and the door was
forced. The room had been ransacked and the burglars
had escaped. Entrance had been effected by the aid
of two short ladders lashed together, and the window
had been forced by a jemmy.
In the House of Lords on Tuesday the appeal from
the Second Division of the Court of Session in Scotland
in the Duchess of Montrose and others v. Stuart was
heard. Their lordships dismissed the appeal, with
costs, holding that the residuary estate was liable to
pay off the share of 050 000 charged upon the two
estates bequeathed to the duchess.
Mr. Justice Mathew and a special jury in the Queen's
Bench Division on Tuesday tried the action of Farrell
v. Webber," for libel Plaintiff, lately manager of the
West Metropolitan Tramways, sued defendant, who
had been a director of the company, for slander and.
libel. The judge ruled that the libel was not privi-
liged, and the jury found for plaintiff with £250
damages.
At the Middlesex Sessions on Tuesday Ann Adams,
found guilty of stealing a quantity of house linen and
carpet from Hyde•park-mansions, was brought up and
sentenced to 15 months' hard labour. Dora Hartford,
her daughter, aged 13, who pleaded guilty to the same
charge, was sentenced to three weeks' imprisonment.
Loftus Hartford, her son, aged 12, who had also been
convicted, was sent to an industrial school for four
years.