The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-08-21 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

The sword ,of Sobieski has been presented ta the
Hungarian National Museum by the widow of Count Ifsdedy.
It is observed that of late the recruits at Aldershot
are finer men than have been noticed in the army for a very
long time.

So satisfied have the Great Eastern Railway Com-
pany been with the electric light at their Liverpool-street
terminus, in London, that they have increased the number
of lamps from sixteen to thirty-one. The system is also ex-
tended into the booking offices, and instead of being con-
fined, as heretofore, to the main platform, has now been
carried to the suburban platforms also.

Two railway accidents occurred in France on Tues-
day. At Hauterive, near Vichy, a slow train was run into
by the express, five carriages being destroyed and nine pas-
sengers injured, none of them fatally. On the Tarascon and
Cette line a train went off the rails. The stoker was killed
and several passengers were injured.

Several thousand Irishmen from ad parts of Soot-
land held a Heme Rule gathering on Saturday in Glasgow.
They marched through the principal streets to Maryhill,
where resolutions were adopted, to the effect that our land
laws must be assimilated to those of the Continent, that a
few years will show whether the democracy of Great Britain
and Ireland or the House of Lords shall conquer, and that
legislation for Ireland can be effected only in Dublin. Later
in the day some serious rioting took place.

An extensive coalbed, estimated as capable of
yielding 3,000,0001 b, daily far a century, is now being
worked near Bisgashe, on the Kiou Kads, Japan. The
Minister of Public Works has visited it with aa English
engineer, in order to examine the feasibility of a rail-
way therefrom to Modji, a town on the inland sea, and
the works are to be oommenced this summer. These
is also an idea of making Modji a naval station, that
Indian and other foreign vessels stopping at Akamagasaki
might coal there.

The prevalent lack of width in ladies' skirts is mot
to be characteristic of the newest fashion in bonnets. The
article that has just come over for the milliner's show season,
Is a Tam O'Shanter hat. Some of them are wonderfully sug-
gestive of the Freneh cook's chapeax. The Tam O'Shanter,
however, is very becoming to certain ladies' faces, and it is
expected to become extremely fashionable.—Court Journal,

Advices from Gibraltar state that on the afternoon
of the Bth inst. new colours were presented by Lord Napier
of Magdala to the 2nd Battalion 24th Regiment, to replace
those that were lost on the 22nd of January, 1879, on the
occasion of the capture of the British camp at Isandlama by
the Zulus.

The population of Eastern Roumelia, according to
a return of the Department of the Interior, amounts in all to
815,513. Of this number 673,231 are described as Bulgarians,
176,759 Turks, 42516 Greeks, 19,524 Gypsies, 4,177 Israelites,
and 1,306 Armenians. The city of Philippopolis itself con-
tains 24,503 inhabitants, of whom 10,909 are Bultiarians, 6,658
Turks, 4,781 Greeks, 865 Gypsies, 1,134 Israelites and 806
Armenians.

The canal to connect the sea of Azov with the Cas-
pian, by utilising the waters of the Terex and Koubati, will
shortly, according to the Russian papers, be considered by
the Minister of Works, and then discussed by the Imperial
Council, in order to be sanctioned by the Czar, but the work
will not in any case be commenced till next year.

Six thousand and twenty-four candidates presented
themselves at the various examinations of Trinity College,
London, during the past academical year. Those in the
theory and practice of music numbered 5,0E4, and those in
geueral knowledge 1,000. At the higher examinations there
were 353 candidates, while the entries at the local exarntnfs-
tions were 5,689. About 11,000 papers have been separately
examined.
Mr. F. J. Minaai writes to The Times from
Ilfracombe, under date August 13 :—" Your scientific readers
may like to know that a vivid display of Aurora Borealis was
seen gere last night. It was first noticed about 10.16, when
a bright arch appeared beyond the Welsh coast, extending
over nearly 40 deg. of the horizon. Prom this darted bright
streamers towards Stella Polaris, with others in a parallel
direction."

A new journal, L'Osmantli, has begun to appear at
Constantinople. It is printed in French and Turkub The
prospectus declares that its object will be to speak the
truth concerning the wishes, the spirit, the religion, and the
laws of the Turks. This is quite necessary, it contends, in
an age when so many calumnies about Turkey are being
circulated everywhere. The first number contains a great
deal of information and news from the provinces and the
East generally.

The whaler Eclipse, steamship, has arrived at Shet-
land from the Greenland whale fishing. Captain Gray states
that on the 12th of July, when 4 deg. north of Jan Mayen
Islands, he spoke the Arctic exploring yacht Eva, with Mr.
Leigh Smith on board, all well. The Eclipse has 4,000 seals
and 33 whales. Most of the latter are small. They will yield
140 tuns of oil.

The Allgemeine Zeitung states that several steamers
have been lately built at Rostock for a Russian commercial
firui, designed specially for service on the Caspian Sea_
They will be worked with two screws, and the heating
apparatus has been so designed as to allow the use of Rus-
sian petroleum. With machinery and cargo these vessels
will draw only 41 feet of water. Their first employment is
to be the transport of great quantities of rails for railroads
to be made through Russian Turkestan.
"It is believed that as a result of the latest Minis-
terial deliberations, all the principal bills now being urged
by the Government are to be energetically pushed forward,
with the single exception of the Sootch Endowments BilL
The prospect of an early termination of the Session is thus
very much obscured, and it appears likely that September
may find Parliament still hard at work."—Mondays Daily
7Wegraph.

There has just died at Chiselhurst, at the age of 63,
Mr Alex. Gamble, who for the past 35 years was connected
with the late Emperor Napoleon and his family. He was
the one who attended the late Prince Imperial at his first
attempt to ride a pony, and he led the Prince's favourite
horse at his funeral. He was constantly in attendance on
the Emperor throughout the Franco-German war, was present
at Sedan, and stayed with Napoleon during his captivity.
The Philosophical Society of Glasgow have resolved
on holding in that city an exhibition of coal-gas apparatus
and appliances ; of oil lamps, oil gas, and other artificial
means of illumination; and of electricity, showing all the
modes of generating the power, and its applications as an
illuminating agent and as a motive power. The exhibition
will be open for four weeks from the 28th September. Awards
for merit are to be given to such subjects as exhibit special
ingenuity or excellence.

In London last week 2,602 births and 1,670 deaths
were registered. Allowing for increase of population, the
births exceeded by 214, and the deaths by 65, the average
numbers in the corresponding week of the last ten years.
The annual death-rate from all causes, which had been equal
to 24-9 and 24•2 in the two preceding weeks, rose to 238.
During the past six weeks the metropolitan death-rate has
averaged 22.2 per 1,000, against 24-9 and 171 in the corre-
sponding periods of 1878 and 1879.
A Reuter's telegram announces the death, at
Bergen, in Norway, of the celebrated violinist, "Ole Bull."
He was born at Bergen in 1810, and had led a somewhat
adventurous and chequered career. He has for some years
past lived in the United States, and had intended shortly to
return there.

A summary of the agricultural returns issued last
night shows an increase in the number of acres under wheat
in Great Britain, as compared with the year ended June 4,
1879, of 1-10 per cent. ; oats, 5 3-10 per cent. ; and potatoes,
8-10 per cent. ' • and a decrease in barley of 7i per cent.;
and in hops 1 440 per cent. There is an increase in the
number of cattle of 1 per cent., sheep and lambs 5i per
cent., and pigs 4 3-10 per cent.

" Vice-Admiral " -writes to The Times any
given farm there are probably at least fifty rabbits to one
hare. To a sportsman the shooting of one hare is
reckoned a greater feat than the shooting of many rabbits.
Let, therefore, some member move and carry a proposal to
omit the word "hares" from the Hares and Rabbits Bill, and
he will render this most useful measure far less unpalatable
to the sportsman at a very small cost to the farmer.

On Monday afternoon, while Mr. M. T. Bass, M.P.
for Derby, was walking to the lawn-tennis green at his
shooting-lodge, The Tulchan, Morayshire, his foot slipped,
and, falling homily, he severely bruised his head upon the
concrete surrounding the green. On examination it was
found that, in addition to the injury to the head, Mr. Bass's
shoulder was dislocated.

A sad accident happened at the Slough Junction,gf
the Great Western Railway on Puesday evening. Mr. Gueit,
of the locomotive department, while engaged upon the line
stepped from the down rails to avoid the 4.50 train from
Paddington. He incautiously passed on to the up line, and
was knocked down and instantaneously killed by the Milford
express. He leaves a widow and family.

"We recorded on Saturday the death of Miss
Augusta Vaughan, eldest daughter of the late Mr. Justiee
Vaughan, and sister of Mr. Halford Vaughan, formerly Pro-
fessor of Modern History at Oxford. Inheriting her father's
genial disposition and masculine understanding, diligently
cultivated by reading and conversation, she devoted many
years of a lonely life in London to works of charity in con-
nexion with the parish of Christ Church, Regent's Park, for
which she succeeded in procuring a suitable vicarage-house,
and over the interests of which, dven after the power of active
usefulness failed her, she watched with assiduous sympathy
to the end of her life."—Obituary notice in The Tinute.