The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-03-19 00:00:00

LIGHT AND PLANT LIFE.—If cress seed are grown
for a few days in the dark on damp cotton-wool, and
then beneath the surface of water introduced into an
inverted glass jar filled with water, they may be ex-
posed to daylight for an indefinite time without signs
of life being developed. But the plants are not dead;
for if after a few days' exposure the cotton-wool is
cut in half beneath the surface of the water, and one
half with its plants is restored to the inverted jar of
water, while the other is placed under an inverted glass
jar containing air only, and then these two jars be
exposed to full daylight, the plants beneath the jar
containing air rapidly becomes green, while the others
never do so.

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PRAYER FOR THE TRANSVAAL TROOPS.—His Grace
the Archbishop of Canterbury has sanctioned the
following special form of prayer, for use in the diocese
of Canterbury at this time: "0 Almighty God,
King of all kings, and Governor of all things, whose
power no creature is abl!, to resist, to whom it
belongeth justly to punish sinners, and to be merciful
to them that truly repent, keep we beseech Thee, our
soldiers who have now gone forth to war, thst they
ling armed with Thy defence may be preserved ever-
nitre from all perils, to glorify Thee, who art the only
Giver of all victory, through the merits of Thy only
Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
A LARGE EXCURSION PARTY.—The great Tourjde
excursion party, so called from its promoter, Dr.
Toup„j4e, of the New England Conservatory of Music,
Boston, is being organized again this year on a large
scale. The tourists will sail from Boston on the 18th
of June in the .F'urnessia, of the Anchor Line, said to
be the largest ship ever built in England except the
Great Eastern. The itinerary includes visits to all the
most interesting places in Great Britain, Central
Europe, and Southern Italy. Arrangements for
travelling, food, and lodging are entirely undertaken
by the managers, the total coat of the long tour to each
excursionist being five hundred dollars, or about £lOO
sterling.
FORTHCOMING EXHIBITIONS IN GERMANY.—Frank.
fort-on-the-Main, the greatest railway centre in South-
West Germany, will, it is anticipated, attract an
unusual number of visitors during the approaching
summer. No fewer than five distinct Exhibitions of
importance will be held in that city this year. There
is to be a Balneloigical Exhibition, including every
kind of appliance for public, private, and medicinal
bathing. Next there is to be an Exhibition of Patents
and Patterns, intended to promote the interests and
protection of inventors. lurther, there will be an
Exhibition of the Geanan Horticultural Society, and
another of all the local industries of Frankfort.
Finally, there will be an International Exhibition of
leather, leather goods, boots, shoes, gloves, harness,
and tanning materials.
TELEGRAPHIC MESSAGES IN PARIS.—The number of
telegrams transmitted from one place in Paris to
another during 1880 amounted to 969,177, and pro-
duced 579,857 f. 47c. In that number are included
334,445 telegraph cards and 123,800 closed messages
forwarded by the pneumatic tube system organised
from the Ist May, 1879. On the Ist June, 1880, the
tax of telegraph cards was reduced from 50 to 30 cen-
times, and that of the dosed messages from 75 to 50
centimes. Previous to that reduction, from Ist June
to the 31st December, 1879, 100,335 telegraph cards
and 26,557 closed messages were transmitted, pro-
ducing 70,177 f. 85c.; during that saine period in 1880,
and with the new tariff, 234,907 telegraph cards and
95,713 closed messages have been transmitted, produc-
ing 118,524 f. 80c. The above figures show that the
circulation of telegraphic messages through Paris has
more than doubled since the reduction of the tax.

FRENCH LAND LAWS.—It is curious to observe that
even in a nation so bound to the soil as the French,
though there exists in the Code Napoleon stringent
laws that give the tenant compensation for improve-
ments on his tenancy, still, that in practice in almost
every lease, there was a saving clause which con-
tracted the tenancy out of this compensation clause,
as every plea was invariably being put forward by the
tenant on the slightest pretence for compensation, and
endless litigation was the result. In some of the agri-
cultural districts of Picardy there were twenty years'
improvement clauses, and it worked fairly and well in
this way: if a tenant laid out judiciously £2O the first
year and left in the second year, his landlord would
repay him £l9; if he left after nineteen years, only
£l. These farms were held on yearly tenancies, but
this clause made the tenant's investment safe.—Land
and Water.
IRISH MIGRATORY AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS.---The
hay-farmers on the north side of London are accus-
tomed to say that the Irish labourers, who twenty or
thirty years ago, where among the best of their hands
at mowing time, have almost entirely disappeared.
From the Parliamentary report on migratory agricul-
tural labourers just issued, it appears that the old
Irish custom of coming to Euglanif at harvest time to
earn money to help pay the rent is by no means
extinct. Last year 22,900 left their homes, chiefly
from the West and North-West—nearly three-fourths
being natives of Connaught. Of these 74 per cent.
sought employment in England, and 16 per cent. in
Scotland. In other parts of Ireland this migratory
habit seems practically extinct; and it is noteworthy
that women have almost everywhere abandoned this
occupation since 1841.
A XEY TO THE WHOLE AFFAlR.—Scene—Street
Corner of a Scottish Seaport Town.—Stranger (from
below the Tweed).--I say, my man, can you direct
me to the potatoe wharf ?—Loafer. The whit? ,
Stranger. The potato wharf ?--Loafer. Na— 00,
ay, I hae it nao. It's the Tawtae Quay ye want
[He did.l—Ji4y.
ARCHIEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES.—In the excavations
now being carried on in the neighbourhood of the theatre
at Ostia, an altar of remarkable beauty hasjust been dis-
covered. Upon it are subjects illustrating the birth of
Romulus and Remus, sculptured in such high relief that
some of the figures are almost detached from the ground.
On one side is the Palatine, washed by the waters of the
Velabrum, and the shepherd Fanstulus looking down
from the cliff upon the twin boys; on another are Rhea
Silviaancl the god Mars, with a genius above them draw-
int; them together ; while oa the third are cupids playing
with the helmet and arms of the divipity.. it is the
most important work of art disoovered for some time
at Ostia, and is in a fine state of preservation.

T‘
,
.4r-4

A GREAT REFRACTING TELESCOPE.—A very in-
teresting scientific work, the most important of its
kind yet attempted in the kingdom, has just been
completed. It is the great refracting telescope, con-
structed by Mr. Grubb, of Rathmines, Dublin, for
the Austro-Hungari,n Government, and is to be
placed in the Obseo,..itory at Vienna. A commission
appointed by the Government to examine the works
has transmitted to the Austro-Hungarian Entbassy in
London a report expressing their full approval of the
manner in which the task had been completed. It is
a matter of no little pride to Ireland that she has
produced tlke largest refracting as well as the largest
reflecting telescope in the world.
THE FOREIGN COAL AND IRON TR&DES.—The
gian iron trade appears to be in rather an tuioertain
state, and it is difficult to predict the course which
affairs will take. At present prices are pretty well
established, and the construction workshops have em-
ployment assured to them for some time to come.
The rolling mills have also plenty to occupy them
during March, while some of them have orders which
will occupy them for a still longer period. The pro-
duction of manufactured iron of various kinds in
Fiance in 1880 is officially returned at 952,308 tons,
_ea
compared with 857,-071 tons in 1879. Steel was made
in France to the extent of 384,626 tons last year, as
compared with 338,265 tons in 1879. There is little
change to note in the general tone of the German iron
trade. The Belgian coal trade has remained in much
the same state. The market for industrial coal has
been quiet, without much change one way or the other.
The aggregate production of mineral combustibles in
France last year amounted to 19,412,112 tons, as com-
pared with 17,110,979 tons in 1879, showing an aug-
mentation of -2,301,133 tons last year.
A NEW Corrox PLANT.—A curious plant has been
discovered in Wisconsin, which produces a species of
cotton and flax on the same stalk (says Land and
Water). Experiments have been made, resulting in
the production not only of good cloth, but excellent
paper. This plant can be planted in the spring and
cut in the autumn or winter. It bleaches white as it
stands, and will yield from three to four tons an acre. •
This plant is sometimes called the "paper plant."
It may be mentioned as a proof of its fertAW that
from a single root, transplanted last spring, grew
twenty large stalks with 365 pods, containing sixty
seeds each, From this root alone were obtained seven
ounces of pure cotton, and over a pound of flax. It
grows from six to seven feet high.
MARCH FOGS AND MAY FROSTS.—The Evening
Standard says :—A rather singular fact has been cpm-
municated to the Agricultural Society in France,
which, if it be as reliable as is stated, might, with
advantage, be borne in mind by farmers, gardeners,
and others, and serve as a useful indication enabling
them to know beforehand when white frosts, so pre-
judicial to vines or crops, are to be looked for in May.
Nothing, it seems, is easier than to do this, all that is
necessary being for agriculturists to note with atten-
tion what days in March are foggy. They may be
sure that on the corresponding days or nights in May,
there will be a white frost, and can take their pre-
cautions accordingly. The coincidence has been
proved, it is said, by a number of persons, and
especially by two French savants, M.M. Lefevre and
Millet, who affirm that in no single instance have
their calculations proved false. During upwards of
forty-four years one of these gentlemen has kept ma
account of every March fog and every May frost;
the total of each invariably tallied. His colleague
has done likewise for the last eighteen years with a
similar result. How this coincidence is to be
accounted for is not stated in the French contemporary
where attention is drawn to the fact. Without
implicity relying on it farmers might test the value of
the plant said, on trustworthy authority, after forty
years' trial, to be infallible.

GAS AND ELECTRIC LIGHTING IN THE CITY OE
LONDON.—The annual amount paid for gas consumed
by the public lamps of the City of London is about
£1.4,000 (says the Citizen). The amount agreed upon
for the electric lighting, by way of experiment, of three
districts for twelve months, from sunset to sunrise, is
£8,060. It is roughly estimated that the cost of the
experiment, including the plant, machinery, fixing,
replacing, and Bo on, will be about four times the price
now paid for gas; but eliminating these expenses,
which would not be recurrent, the cost would only be
twice that of gas. In the districts where the experi-
ment is in operation gas will not be used unless the
electric Ha- t -611-uld

A "Suaeaisz " PARTY.—A merry surprise party,
on the proper Transatlantic model, invaded the house
of the American Consul at Vienna on Washington's
birthday. While the Consul and his _wife were
quietly chatting with a visitor, the American Register
tells us, suddenly the door opened, and a file of forty
spirits entered, representing Washington and his
descendants, white robed, and bearing the national
flag and traditional hatchet. After rushing all over
the house, dancing, singing, and mystifying their in-
voluntary hosts, the spirits unmasked and disrobed,
mysteriously producing at the same time all the viands
necessary for a good supper. They laid the table, en-
joyed a good meal, and after much merriment donned
their ghostly robes and masks, and departed as
mysteriously as they came.
SHORTHORNS IN SOUTH AUSTRAL4.-Mr. J. R.
Angus's Collingrove herd of shorthorn cattle, which
he selected at great expense from the stocks of Lords
Fitzhardinge and Braybrooke, Colonel Kingscote, and
others in 1879, have, since their exportation to South
Australia, done remarkably well, having adapted
themselves to the change of climate and taken to the
colonial pastures much better than was anticipated.
The increase in calves is also extremely satisfactory,
as up to the end of December, 1880, the herd had 20
additions by births since being landed, a large propor-
tion being by the valuable young sire Oxford Beau 7th
(42,082), which Mr. Angus bought of Colonel Kings.
cote. The bulls Baron Graham (41,030) and Duke of
Hazlecote 62nd (41,392), which were bred by Lord
Fitzhardinge and Colonel Kingscote, have been em-
ployed in a much larger herd of colonial shorthorns,
and have got upwards of 50 calves, which de great
credit to their sires.

CHESS BY TBLEGRAPTI.--The telegraehic match be-
tween the Liverpool Chess Club and alcutta players
has concluded in favour of the former, thee Liverpool
Club accepting Calcutta's offer to draw in the Calcutta
game on the 36th move, having previously won the
Liverpool game, which Calcutta resigned on the 16th
move. The first moves in the match were telegraphed
on the 27th of October last, so that it occupied a
little over four months. But for some slight delay in
the Christmas holiday season and the subsequent
hoafvseombeeeonf tchoempCaleltceudtta
inplatyhereere,
the absence
ma tferho mw
ohnolmd e
months, as originally contemplated. The match,
which 'was a friendly one, free from all conditions
and stipulations, the honour of victory being the only
stake, was unique in chess annals.
FORBIDDEN Frsx.—Not only are the French people
fond of dining and connoisseurs in dining, but they
may be appealed to on their gastronomic side. For
instance, nothing pleased them better in M. Thiers
than his well-known partiality for the good things of
life. M. Thiers' great weakness was a dish, strictly
Provencal and essentially vulgar, called brandade, con-
sisting of salt cod and oil skilfully combined. Doctors
in late years forbade M. Thiers to eat codin any shape
or form, and, much as he wished it, Madame Thiers was
inflexible. But M. Thiers had an ally, M. Mignet, and
front time to time this gentleman used to reach the
Hotel St. Georges with a voluminous parcel under his
arm. .He would bow rapidly to the ladies, and pass into
the great man's study. Then an urgent plea of import-
ant work was put forward, the doors were locked, and
intruders sent away. Directly they were alone the
two friends undid the parcel, which was simply a tin
box wrapped in a newspaper, and containing an
unctuous brandade, made by the best Provencal cook
in Paris. With lingering delight the two friends
consumed this forbidden delicacy ; and, when the box
was entirely empty, and the doors were unlocked,
Thiers would be heard exclaiming: "My dear
Mignet, it is the masterpiece of human genius! "
And everyone thought he referred to some great
literary achievement. But Madame Thiers one day
caught the two culprits at their work, and reproached
M. Mignet BO severely that after that he never
dared enter the hotel with a parcel under his &rm."—
Alanchater Times