The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-10-17 00:00:00

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"e d It tight to e hat we do at all ,
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The eerie of the terrible explosion on the Regent's
Jearfal him iteentleisiteil by large numbers, and vast as
Wts the deAsuctiels wrought,,tit is by common consent
a mercy that the havoc was no worse. The slight loss"
of life on the occasion is a matter for surprise no less
than for congratulation. Some of the evidence given
at the coroner's inquest respecting the contents of the I
bargee, and the ignorance of the fact that fheit was 1
such a quantity of gunpowder being towed through
London in the middle of the night, has produced no ,
etlitnle—eanieetiett earnetegist Alrose-wirr tiweit upon the
lianks of tile ylktrgirl,itatk c..1466.,_ Meanwhile the
repairs of tlie wrecked hornets ate being rivaled on, and
a ftnd is in progresl9rcompgaiagkigkagjeakejectent
the poorer sufferers' by this sudden calamity. But
there are many of -the mtittle
,clopsell who, while de-
clining this description of recompense, ran ill afford
the loss brought ahont by this disaster.! A man who,
after years of patient labour has bought a house, is
awakened hy the roof beim; tom id, or the finniture
lif one room being kuogked Lute the other. lie would'
not come under the designation of being poor and
• needy, and consequently *odd receive no disburse-.
mantra Irwin the Relief Fund.. Still, there are-scores if
not hipilredg,of such canes, and as there is no knowing
at.present where to 'fix the liability, it is probable that
mitt losses will be borne with silence.
or—seal-skin in the shop windows of
Lopatin -'ofterr suggests the thought whether the
animals whose coats ate so valuable, will he
'vinethcanting in imfEcient numbers to meet the
.inereaslnkf demand:for the n.: The poor creatures
are,being mercilessly hunted down, and from the north
'Were now cornea a renewed-complaint of an impeading
_crisis in the trade of the seal fishers. The occupation
o,ne of the chief industries of Norway, and it is no
i unmportint biancli of I ianish, German, and Soottish
trade. .go keen is the competition, and so eager the
desire to obtain possession of the skins, that fears are
• openly expressed in Christiana that an utter ex-
tinction of the race of seals will be the result. There
is naturally a call for the enactment of legislative re-
strictions ; bet an international agreement will doubt--
few be necessary before an adequate remedy is found
for the existing evil.

Closely following upon the accounts of the abundant
harvest, we now learn that the yield of the French
vintage has been a good one. It is pronounced on all
sides to have been an exceptiona year, and the quan-
tity as well as the quality of the grapes surpasses that
recent seasons. In the district of the Garonne the
vintage is equal to that of 1965, one of the most pro-
. ductive of late years, and from the valleys of the
Gironde the news is equally cheering. The weather
has been favourable, and so large is the yield that
many of the growers are complaining of insufficient
Krommodation. From l'rovence it is stated that the
end of the vintage is at hand, and it is impossible for
the grapes to have been more successfully gathered in.
• Amid the tribulationthrough which France has passed,
'the success of her agricultural enterprise cannot fail
to be of the utmost service to the people of that
" country.

fhe Convalescent Home is being rapidly recognized
as of almost equal importance with the Hospital itself.
There is no doubt that it is often necessary to die-
- `charge patients who, although cured of their corn-
_plaints, are nevertheless unfit as yet to again enter
upon the struggle with the world. In these circum-
stances the Convalescent Home offers a welcome
retreat where hospital patients may find refuge until
their strength is thoroughly re-established. Lord
"Shaftesbury has just called attention to this matter in
a very pointed way, declaring that the essential part
of a cure was that, after leaving hospital, patients
should get three 14- four weeks Of good air and food.
The Convalescent Home is already a recognized ineti.
[Mita, in many of nor large towns, and that lately
eetablinhed at Glasgow was a source of especial interest
to many members of the Social Science Congress
which has just assembled in that city.
The facilities with which our naval yards and
arsenals are visited by the representatives of foreign
nations, have often been pointed out, but up to very
lately we have troubled ourselves little about
the progress in naval architecture which was being
made by other peoples. One solitary naval attache,
who does duty at the British embassies in the whole of
the European courts, has hitherto been considered
amply sufficient ((wench requirements. The Admiralty,
however, have come to the conclusion that we ought to
•know more of what is passing in the naval yards of our
.neighbours, seeing that our own dockyards are freely
, open to their inspection. So the Controller of the NIITY.
Rear-Admiral W. If. Stewart, C. 8., and the Chief
Naval Archibect at the Admiralty, Mr. Nathaniel
Darneby, have under their consideration the propriety
of paying a stilt to some foreign ports, with a view of
seeing what is going on, and, if possible, of learning
some lessone therefrom.
I.le raising of the third-class fares of express trains
hap created twine comment now that there is so very
-Little else to talk about. From the first the opponents
tif the measure by which the great railways announced
their intention of conveying third-class passengers by
al trains, declared that such a step would involve
countless inconveniences, and a far greater loss in the
hest and second-class than a gain in the third. It
use hell to be impossible to reduce the price
44 travelling to any considerable extent without
reducing at the same time the speed of the trains.
'The tabling of the express thimbelass fares
will, it is believed, practically amount to the
establishment of a fourth class for those who, un-
able to pay the increased rate, are compelled to use the
slow trains. It may be that the advantage of saving
She extra charge will induce some long-distance travel-
hers to patronise the parliamentary trait., and if tide
happens to any great extent the change will relieve
the fast traffic to a very appreciable degree, and per-
haps ensure a stricter regard to punctuality than is at
present observed upon many of our lines.
Forecasts of the weather to be expected during the
coming winter have been made, and from these the
conclusion is drawn that it will be the coldest since
that of 1870, when the Thames was blocked with ice,
and the defenders of Paris were slain in hundreds by
the frost as they stood at their posts. The Freech
capital is a very different place now from what it was
in the days when it was invested by the Germans. The
dress designers in the fair city, which gives the fashions
to all Europe, have made their arrangements upon a
basis of calculation that there will be a plenty of frost
anti snow, and the latest novelties ara accordingly con-
structed upon that principle. I have not such an
aramrate acquaintance with this subject SS with
sonic others, but I am toll that all the new
tissues are to resemble furs, and as a few years
age young ladies were said to wear Dolly
Vardeus, at now they will put on a garment
known as a " eameL" Such is the name which has
been invented for it by the Parisian modistes. The
idea is, however, only a development of the taste for
the roughest material and the rudest make, which
began with the adaptation of the Ulster great coat as
worn by the Irish neasantry. Oftentimes in Switzer-
Imio daring the past summer Lnlishmen have
been tiressed so like goitles, that the natives found it
Mile...able to distinguish between the two. And, to
tt-me nearer home, there is no dolt that at our
fashionable watering places the taste for walking
stielas haa this season shown itself in a perfectly plain
bit of ash cut from a wood, without any varnishing or
scraping 'A hat,-ver.

if all one great railway companies, the most enter-
scorns to be the Midland. It was this powerful
oorporatiol which introduced the practiee of carrying
-third-elms passengers by all trains; it was the Mid-
band which first put Pullman's sleeping cars upon a
line of railway in this country ; and now it is the
Midland which creates a revolution in railway traffic
by reducing first-class fares to three halfpence per
mile, and abolishing those of the second-class. Such
ite bold stroke of policy has never before been
heard of in the history of our railroads, and its
announcement created a tremendous sensation upon
the Stock Rxehange, where the shares of the
lines in competition with the Midland, and also of
many others were fer the time to souse extent depre-
elated. Of course when a great company like this
irritates such a change, it is clearly mien that other
Boards of Directors must in self-defence follow , hence
the general and widespread interest caused by the in-
telligenv that after the present year there were to be
no second-class carriages upon the Midland Railway.
The new first-class fares will not differ materially from
those of the existing semina-class ; and it is therefore
probable that many who could not be tempted into
the second-class carriages will for alimat the same
money now be induced to go into the first. At the same
time the Midland second-class service is an excellent
One, and the carriages are very corc.fortable. The public
will watch with some interest the result of this experi-
ment, and it in hoped its effect will be such as to en-
courage other corporations to follow it with advantage
to themselves, and to the convenience of the corm
inunity.