The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-04-23 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

According to the latest returns the casualties from
the earthquake in all parts of the island of Chin are 8,000
killed and 10,000 injured The locality which has suffered
most is Nevita, where 1,200 persons have lost their lives.

The British postage stamp saving system is to be
introduced in Italy.
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The sufferers by the recent floods in Dakota, having
appealed to the Government for aid, the Secretary for War
has ordered supplies and clothing to be issued to them.

From Kansas it is reported that the negro exodus
has recommenced, and that large numbers are preparing to
move from the South to that State.

At a meeting of directors of the North British
Railway Company, the refusal of the Parliamentary Com-
mittee to agree to the proposal to reduce the height of the
Tay-bridge to 60 feet was reported. The directors resolved
to proceed with the Bill as deposited in November last, in
which the proposed height of the bridge was stated at
77 feet.

It is stated that Her Majesty has lately directed
letters to be written in her name to therelatives of many of
the officers :who have lost their lives in action in the Trans-
vaal, expressing her deepest sympathy for them in the sad
losses they have sustained.

It has been determined at a meeting of the Com-
mittee who are directing the railway servants' movement to
propose a resolution at a general meeting at Exeter Hall on
the 18th of May asking railway companies to reduce the
time of work for all classes of railway servants to nine hours
a day; but the idea that a strike was contemplated was re-
pudiated._ _

The Chicago Public Health Department has sub-
jected to chemical examination the carcases of 400 hogs,
chosen at random from the packing houses in that
.city. No
trace of trichinae was discovered.

------- • ---
The labour market has been a good deal affected by
the holiday, but remains on the whole in a fairly satisfac•
tory condition.

Her Grace the Duchess of Marlborough has just
completed arrangements for the entire outfit of 15 Irish
families, who will be provided with free passages to Mani-
toba and located there in neatly furnished farmsteads.
In connection with the international exhibition of
wool, woollen manufactures, and allied industries, arranged
to take place at the Crystal Palace in the autumn of this
year, the Clothworkers' Company offtr 16 gold medals for
different specimens of cloth.
"How much is that ? " said a mourner in a flower-
shop, pointing to a wreath of immortelles inscribed, " To my
mother-in-law." "What you like," replied the florist. "I
have it had for fourteen years, and no one has ever offered to
purchase it. Parisian On Dits," in Court Journal.
Sir Stafford Northcote has appointed his son, the
Rev. John Stafford Northcote, to the rectory of Upton Pyne,
Devon Mr. Northcote, on leaving the curacy of St.
Margaret, Westminster, was presented with a large and
handsome hall clock, of which the chimes, like those of Big
Ben, are set to words
"Lord, through this hour
Be Thou my guide,
So through Thy power
--
No foot shall slide."
- -

Mr. Gladstone headed the list of sub;c-;:ibers, which consisted
of all classes.

The concluding three days of last week witnessed a
great glut of fish in the Scarborough market. On Thursday
about 20 smacks, 10 yen Is, 10 long liners, and 3 steam
trawlers arrived with fish, which when sold and packed for
the markets in the various inlan d towns took about fifty
railway trucks to convey the produce. On Friday there was
very nearly the same quantity, and on Saturday a large
number of heavy catches were noted, the weather having
been favourable for all kinds of fishing. Prices ruled high
at all the markets.

One of the largest military funerals ever witnessed
at Barnsley took place on Monday afternoon at the cemetery,
on the occasion of the interment of Sergeant Gill, one of the
oldest members of the Barnsley Rifle Volunteers.
There are four octogenarian members of the House
of Commons :—Mr. W. B. Hughes (Carnarvon Burghs), 81;
Mr. Bass (Derby), 82; Sir Harry Verney (Buckingham), 80;
and Sir Robert Walter Carden (Barnstaple), 80. There are
as many as twenty-six septuagenarian members.
Sir Frederick Roberts and his Staff reached
Plymouth early on Tuesday morning on board the steamer
Trojan, which left Cape Town on March 30. General
Roberts, who landed at four in the afternoon, left Plymouth
at half-past eight at night in a sk,ecial saloon carriage
attached to the Great Western Express for London. It
. _ . . .

seems that upon the arrival of the Balmoral Castle at Cape
own on the evening of the 28t14 General Roberts went to
the residence of General Smythe, where he received the
despatches instructing him and his Staff to return to England
instead of proceeding to the Transvaal.

The funerakof the late Dr. William Morley Punshon,
LL.D., took place on Tuesday in the grounds at Norwood
Cemetery. The cortege left the residence of the deceased,
Tranby-house, Brixton-rise, at twelve o'clock. The coffin
which was of polished English oak, was placed in an open
hearse anti bore the following inscription :—" William
Morley Punshon, LL.D., horn 31ay 29, 1824, died April 14,
1881." The following of carriages was very large, there being
representatives of ministers and laymen from every part of
England.

"The black gown in the pulpit will soon be but
a relic of the past, according to Mr. Mackeson's new statis-
tics of the London churches. The surplice is now used, we
learn on this authority, in two-thirds of 877 churches re-
ported on. A correspondent says that there is not now a
single church in Kensington, or not more than one, in which
the gown is worn.'—Globe.

Mr. William Crompton, aged 65, was cut to pieces
and killed at a railway level crossing, Lower Darwen, near
Blackburn, at ten o'clock on Saturday night by the midnight
goods train from Springvale to Normanton. fie resided in
Over Damen, and was foreman at a stone quarry.

-
An Egyptian blue-book shows that there are in the
land of the Pharaohs 5,370 schools, 5,725 teachers' and out
of 850,000 children in the co!:ntry, 140,000 go to school.
Almost the whole of the schools are village schools ; and
the subjects taught are reading, by the use of the Koran, the
simple rules of arithin,tic, and writing.

Three hundred and fifteen boys competed for the
prizes offered to Vermont boys under 17 by two of the
Trustees of the University of Vermont and the State Agri-
cultural College, for the best yields in corn and potatoes.
Frank J. Hubbard of Whiting took the first prize for corn
with 122 bushels of shelled corn to the acre, the prize being
25 dols. and a scholarship in the University for four years.
Lewis S. Breed, of •Goshen, took the first prize for pota-
toes, with 492 bushels to the acre, the prize being the same.
"More than half a century ago Prince Metternich
wrote thus —'He: who can collect and arrange his thoughts;
to whom Heaven has granted a dispassionate nature ; who
enters without hatred or love into the great questions of this
world, with all rational beings on his side, must gain the
victory or perish; but dying thus, at least he dies in good
company.' This passage might well have been written in
Curzon-street during the last few weeks."—Globe.
The Shah of Persia has sent an autograph letter to
Alexander 111. In this epistle, the Persian Monarch ex-
presses his hopes that the relations between Russia and
Persia may continue on the same amicable footing as during
the reign of the.late Czar. The Shah promises that Persia
will ever be found on the side of Russia.
Captain Middleton, who recently accompanied the
Empress of Austria on her visit to Shropshire for the hunt-
ing season, met with a most serious accident during the
steeplechases at Towcester on Monday. The captain had
ridden in several races, and in the last but one his horse
bolted and threw him on some iron railings. It was feared
he had sustained a fracture of the skull.