The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-11-14 00:00:00

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Entomui ARMIES.—If complete readiness
for war is the best means of ensuring the continuance
of peace, the tranquillity of Europe must have been
effectually secured this year, in which large additions
have been made to the forces of every European
POW fle. The proposed legislation in reference to the
German Landsturm will increase the military strength
of Germany to an extent hardly yet realised, though
the Spener Gast& estimates the increased foroe arising
from a first call of the Landsturm at 300,000 men.
The French Army will, beginning from this year, be
increased within twelve years to 1,500,000, a form
supplemented by a Landsturm organization not less
extensive than that of Germany. Russia will in the
same period muster a standing army of 750,000 men,
and a reserve of 1,740,000. Austria has made so much
progress in the development of her military resources
that she could take the field with from 500,000 to
600,000 men. Italy could follow with 400,000 men.
and Turkey with 200,000; while we have 500,000 men
to defend our own soil, and could contribute from
70,000 to 80,000 men towards the prosecution of a
European war.--Pall Mall Gasette.
INFECTIOUS DISEASE AND MIDDLE-CLASS
HOMES. —One of the great needs of the present time is
the provision of some establishments to meet the
requirements of the middle classes in the case of an
, outbreak of infectious disease (remarks The Lancet).
Hospitals have been provided for the accommodation
of our fever-stricken poor. but nothing has been done
to meet the occurrence of a case of scarlatina in the
household of a professional man, for example; and
scarlatina has of late been the unwelcome visitant of
many such a household. There is nothing calculated
to embarrass the heads of a household so much as the
outbreak of some infectious malady among the children
or domestics. The isolation of the sufferer is at best
difficult, and occasionally impossible, in a private house,
and the removal of the unaffected portion of the family
is attended with great expense and discomfort, to say
nothing of the fact that them is risk of the disease
having already extended to them, in which case
another fresh centre of infection becomes established.
Again, on convalescence being established, where are
the patients to g'? for nobody is willing to receive
them. We cannot help thinking that it would be a
good project to meet these requirements by the pro-
vision of some establishments where a fever-stricken
child, with its mother or nurse, could be received, and
to maintain, in connection with an institution of this
kind, some vehicle specially adapted for the removal
of such oases. We suspect that many parents would
be glad to avail themselves of the accommodation
afforded in this way, and to pay liberally for a pri-
vilege of the kind.
ELOQUENT ADVICE FROM A MAGISTRATE.
The following is from the Detroit Free Press :—" Can't
you fin! nothing to do but loaf around the wharves
and gallop up and down the alleys, eh ?" remarked his
honour, as a young man, charged with vagrancy, was
rushed out. "I am a stranger in this town, dead.
broke, and nobody to borrow of," replied the prisoner.
"I can't help it that you are dead-broke," said the
court. "I'd be glad if everybody owned a silver mine
and two coach dogs. The offiJer says you have been
wandering aimlessly around, sleeping upon bales of
hay, taking free lunches, and make no effort to amass
a fortune. You don't seem to have any aim—any
ambition." "Yes, I have, replied the prisoner.
"Where is it, sir—where is it ? ' asked his honour,
leaning forward. "Did you ever hear of Cicero taking
free lunches? Did you ever hear Plato gambolled
through the alleys of Athens? Tell me, sir, did you
ever hear any one say that Demosthenes slept under a
coal-shed or on a bale of hay? If you wanted to be a
Plato there would be fire in your eye, your hair would
have an intellectual cut, you d step into a clean shirt,
and you'd hire a mowing machine to pare those finger
nails. Sir, you have to go up for four months."
THE NESTOR OF POETS. William Cullen
Bryant, the Nestor of American poets, claimed an
original poem in school when he was but ten years old.
At thirteen he published a political satire on Mr.
Jefferson's "Embargo," which made quite a popular
hit, and was only in his nineteenth year when " Thana-
topsis "—one of the finest compositions he has ever
produced—appeared in the Worth American Retie le.

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CONFIDING SIMPLICITY. The following in-
stance is related of questionable and confiding sim-
plicity in a rather unexpected quarter. A sad-eyed
boy, dirty and tearful, went into a police station at
Detroit, 'U.S., and having stated that he was a home-
less waif, asked humbly to be sent to the State Reform
School. "Wouldn't he prefer to go to the work-
house ?" "Oh, no; he had a brother in the Reform
School, and he would like to be with his dear brother.
Still, he didn't want to go out and steal something, to
qualify himself for the school." This touched the
heart of a gentleman present, who, after consulting
the sergeant, said, "I guess we can fix it, my deo.
boy. lam going to leave my wallet on the desk, and
the sergeant and I will go upstairs. If you take the
wallet it will be stealing, and then you can be sent to
the Reform School, as you wish." So the wallet was
deposited on the desk, the men went upstairs, and
when they came down, not only was the property gone,
but the boy. He had exceeded his instructions and
vanished, leaving the owner ef the wallet minus sic
dollars. "Singularly enough," adds the Detroit Free
Press, "the lad hasn't yet come back to be sentenced
and sent the school."

ON) AND EVEN.-Mr. Muff (to his Keeper):
" I can't understand it! The first Season you were
with me there were no Foxes; the second there were
no Pheasants; and this Year we've had neither one or
the other."—Keeper "Well, Sir, I never Shot no
Foxes, and you never Hit no Pheasants; so we ain't
neither on us answerable, as I can see.—Punch.

A SH9CHING DEATH—An inquest has been
held at the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum on the body
of Stephen Sale, aged 15 years. The deceased was th
son of the engineer of the asylum, and he was employed
to assist his father in the work. On Tuesday morning
in last week, he was sweeping up the engine-room with
a new, long hair-broom. While doing so the flywheel
band caught the broom and drew it in, and as the on.
fortunate lad did not let go the broom he was likewise
drawn into the flywheel, which was going round sixty
times a minute. He was taken down and brought up
the other side, and then thrown violently against the
wall. His cries of agony brought to his assistance his
father, who at once fetched Mr. George Stanley,
51.11.C.P„ and assistant medical officer, but his ser-
vices were of no avail, for the lad died three minutes
afterwards. The jury returned a verdict of " Acci-
dental Death," and reoommended that railings should
be put round the engine.

FAILING FEROClTY.—According to an English
paper published in Africa, when a young lion reaches
the age of two years he is able to down a horse Cr an
ox; and im he continues to grow and increase in
strength till be reaches his eighth year, when his
talons, teeth, and mane are perfect, and he grows no
more. For twenty years after he arrives at maturity
his talons and fangs shows no signs of decay; but after
that he grows " chubbish." He is no longer a match
for the tremendous buffalo; he prowls around the
cattle kraals, and snatches a lamb or a kid just as be
did when he set out with his parents nearly thirty
years before. A woman or a child at night shares the
same fate. His strength and sight now decline more
and more, till the mighty lion grows lean and mangy,
and crawls about from place to place, eating any offal
he can pick up, and despising not even so small an
animal as the field mouse; and he starves and dies, or
is fallen on and slaughtered by a few cowardly hyenas,
or is discovered, unable to move, beneath a tree, and
knocked on the head by some wandering Kaffir.
A RELEVANT REMARK. Lady Teacher :
"You must recollect that all I am telling you happened
one thousand eight hundred and eeventy.four years
ago ! : " Lor' lilies'. How the time do gip
away."—Punch.

RELICS OF DR. lartrrowrorra.—A few articles
once the property of Dr. Livingstone, were sold in
London, the other day, by auction at Messrs. Phillips
and Son's Rooms in New Bond-street. They were of no
intrinsic value, but were prized as relics of the distin-
guished traveller. The fact that they really were a
part of his camp equipage is attested by a certificate
from the British Consulate at Zanzibar. The first lot
—five air pillows, forming a bed, a pair of old gaiters,
and a black glove, sold for £4. A pocket titter and a
cup fetched £4 10s. A double-barrel fowling piece
sold for .tin 10s. Seven enamelled iron plates, or rather
plates which had been enamelled, for with long and
rough use very little enamel was left on them, brought
£3 his. ; four saucers and a bowl, 1:1 15s. ; four iron
bowls or deep dishes, £1; five others, £1 us. Four
small circular mirrors, about 3m, in diameter, which
he probably took as articles of barter or for presents,
and were therefore not so intimately associated with
his person sold for 7s. only, and five others for 13s.
Two egg cups, the last of the lot, fetched j7s.
PAVED WITH Gout—The Melbourne Argus
says —"It: may appear rather strange to say that the
streets of this colony are paved with gold, yet there is
no doubt that on some of our mining townships, where
the tailings or quarts crushings are used for street
roadways or footpaths, the saying might be applied,
though only in a limited stage. Mr. E. Marks, of
the laboratory, Bendign School of Mines, give the
Bendigo Advertiser the following information :—'From
the numerous places along the roadway of Highstreet
and Pall-mall I collected a parcel of the tailings or
blindings so liberally spread by the City Council, and
having well mixed them I selected a portion for assay,
with the following result :-11b, weight treated in the
laboratory yielded 1-16th of a grain of gold, equal to
Met. 20gr. per ton. From official sources I learn
that about 250 tons of the tailings have been dia.
tributed, by which you will see that 51b 10oz. troy of
gold may fairly be assumed to enter into the composi-
tion of our street paving.'"

A DEPRESSED MANUFACTURE.—Owing chiefly
to a recent change of fashion the manufacture of artificial
flowers in the metropolis is at present in an excep-
tionally depressed and unsatisfactory condition (re-
marks a contemporary). Probably not a third of the
young women and girls usually engaged in this occupa.
thin can now find anything like regular and sufficient
employment, and but for the fact that for a short time
before Christmas some other branches of business to
which they can turn their hands are exceptionally
busy, there would be unquestionably much poverty and
distress amongst them. No such general stagnation in
the artificial flower manufacture has been experienced
for several years. The makers have long since over.
come toe difficulties to which the withdrawal of the
protective duty upon foreign artificial flowers exposed
them some fourteen years ago ; and during the Franco-
Prussian war, when their French and German rivals
were so busy in the work of mutual deatruction, their
business increased enormously, and attained unprece-
dented dimenan no. London manufacturers--and in
this country artificial Hower making is almost ern'''.
sively a metropolitan occupation—have hitherto out-
stripped all competitors when price is taken into
account, and the improvement in the quality and DI
the taste displayed in the products of their workshops
since the withdrawal of the protective duty has
astonished no one more than the English makers
themselves.

_
CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.
A Mobile paper is Indignant at a contemporary for
aprianueing that • Mobile is the fourth coffee-pot in the
comatry.” Investigation proved thaa "cotton port " was
Mast,
The /Vete Haven Register says: "In line. in the
article upon Yale College, in our last issue, for ' alum water'
read sling mate,'
- - • - •

....
A warning to doctors is issued by the San Fspncisco
News Letter, which announces its intention in future of
publishing after each death notice the name of the attending
physician.
A Western paper, describing the Whet of a young
orator, says lie broke the ice felicitously with his open-
ing, and was almost immediately drowned with applause."
There is said to be a " leading citizen" in a Massa-
chusetts town, who, after having heard the church com-
mittee discuss whether it was best to have an aisle in their
new church, broke in with a recommendation to have gas.
- • - - • •

-•• •
An American gentleman breakfasting with another
found his host eating some hard dry junk, which was offered
to the guest. •• Why do you eat such stuff? asked the latter,
in astonishment. Because," replied the former," "by
twelve o'clock I get a thirst on, for which I would not take
ten dollars."
--•- •

A minister who has been recruiting among the
springs of Saratoga writes that the belle of the season wears
a dress valued at the amount of his salary for two years, and
a set of diamonds equal in value to the cost of a comfortable
mission church, with infant-room attached, gas fixtures and
cabinet organ included.
A Vermonter has had three dollars damages awarded
him for being butted over the fence by his neighbours bull.
The smallness of the sun is due to the plaintiff's avowal
that he was trying to get over the fence as quickly as possible,
so that the bull only helped bun in carrying out an intention
conceived of his own free will.

A writer in The St. Paul Press tells a new story of
Horace Greeley. liorace wrote a note to a brother editor in
New York, whose writing was equally illegible with his own.
The recipient of the note not being able bread it, sent it hack
by the same messenger to Mr. Greeley for elucidation. Sup-
posing it to he the answer to hie own note, Mr Greeley
looked over it, but was likewise unable to react it, and said
to the boy, "Go take it back. What does the fool mean l"
" Yes, air," said the boy, " that is just what he says."