The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-11-30 00:00:00

Illistrilantous

HOME, FOREIGN, AND COLONIAL.

STRANGE FREAK 01 A GIRL.—SOMO time
ago what seemed to be a boy presented "himself "tothe
captain of the Eskilate, of Hartlepool, and was bound
apprentice. On the voyage to Genoa the 'boy" per-
formed the hazardous duties of a seaman until the
suspicions of the crew were aroused, and "he" was
discovered to be a girl, eighteen years of age, of Dutch
parentage. Her mother is dead, and her father, who
is married again, resides in London.
"LEGION. "—ln the financial year 1871-72
13,824 attorneys, tcc., took out their annual licence, or
certificate, for which £9 has to be paid by those re-
sideut in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, and £6 by
those resident elsewhere, half duty only being payable
for the first three years of being in practice. The
number is 127 more than in the preceding year. The
tax produces above £90,000 a year.
A LUCID NOTICE.—The following notice to
guests is posted in an hotel at Lahore, Hindostan,
kept by a native landlord :—" Gentlemen who come in
hotel not say anything about their meals they will be
charged for, and if they should say beforehand that
they are going out he breakfast or dinner, etc., and if
they say that they not have anything to eat, they will
be charged, and if nst so, they will be charged, or un-
less they bring it to the notice of the manager of the
place, and should they want to say any thing, they
must order the manager for, and not any one else,
and unless they not bring it to the notice of the
manager, they will be charged for the least things
according to hotel rate, and no fuss will be allowed
afterward about it. Should any gentleman take wall
lamp or candle light from the public rooms, they must
pay for it without any dispute its charges. Monthly
gentlemeus will have to pay my fixed rate made with
them at the time, and should they absent day in the
month, they will not be allowed to deduct any thing
out of it, because I take from them less rate than my
usual rate of monthly charges."
DGWNING STREET AND CHELSEA—The sesult
of the appeal of the mob waters against tho decision of
the Magudrate on the proceedings taken against them
by the Government under the Parks Act yid probably
remind many who have lead Mr. Carlyle's Occasional
Discourse on the Nigger Question, of the name therein
appliet to the typical Illackamoor. It appears likely
to be a case of Quashee.—Punch.

_
THE TEA PLANT IN AMERICA.—III 1859 and '
1860 a special appropriation of 10,000 dots., was expended
by the Bureau of Agriculture in introducing tea culture
to the people of the United States (remarks the
Washington Chronicle). Selections of seeds were made
by Mr. Fortune, of England, as the agent of the
United States, and these were conveyed in Wardian
cases to this country, germinating on the voyage.
When further developed in the Government green-
houses in Washington, they were distributed in limited
numbers under the franks of Northern and Western
Senators and Representatives, and in very large quan-
tities, through various means of conveyance, to the
South. They seem to have perished under the frosts
of the North, and but few have been heard from in
the South. At the time of their reception "the busy
npte of preparation" for a Civil War possessed all
minds. Mr. Connolly, of M-street North-West, has
just presented to us a cutting from a plant in his
garden, with its glossy leaves and greenish-white and
orange-coloured blossoms. This plant has never re-
ceived any protection in all the eleven winters it has
lived, and though not large, is prosperous enough to
encourage experiments in more favourable localities
and by more practised cultivators.
LOOK BEFORE YOH LEAP.—It is possible, said
an experienced Uncle to an adolescent Nephew, to be
tolerably comfortable in marriage, if your wife enjoys
good health and you enjoy as much money as will en
able you to afford to gratify all her inclinations besides
your own.—Punch.
SUDDEN RETRIBUTION.—" A very remarkable
coincidence., says the Ballarat Courier, "In which
some perceive the hand of a retributive Providence,
happened last week to a miner engaged in one of the
quartz mines near Bnninyong. This man, while
self ering under some real or imaginary wrong from one
of his mates, gave expression to his feelings in a
torrent of abuse, and concluded by wishing the drive
would fall and smother the object of his fury. The
words were scarcely uttered when a lump of earth,
which, as described by his mates, was large enough to
crush a horse, fell from between the cappiecer on to the
shoulder -A the author of the imprecation, crushing
him to the ground, neck and heels together. He was
quickly extricated from his position, when it was found
, that no bones were broken. The man had received a
flesh wound near the small of the back, which had
saturated his clothes and tilled his boots with blood
Although he is able to move sbout he is still very
weak."

THE DIFFICULTLEE IN THE WAY !—ln a letter
to The Times—in replying to a previous one by "The
Son of a Wiltshire Labourer "—Mr. Richard Jeffries
remarks
It is the labourer himself who will not rise. In a vilimm
with which I am acquainted great efforts have been made
by a farmer awl a gentleman living near to provide
proper school instruction for the children. One labourer
was asked why he did not send his children to school
Ile replied, "Because he could not afford it." "But," said
the farmer, "it is only threepence altogether." "Oil, ;
he could not afford it." The farmer explained to him that
the object was to stroll a School Board, which, in other
places, had the power to fine for not sending children to
school. "No, he could not afford it." The farmer's books
show that this labourer, his wife, sad two children received
235. 6tl. per week, his cottage rent free, and a very Isrge
garden at a low rent. Yet he could not afford the 3J. a week
which would enable his children ultimately to take a better
position in the world! The same farmer, who is a liberal
and large-minded man, has endeavoured. without success,
to introduce the practice of paying in cash instead of beer,
and also the system of payment for overtime. The men
say no, they would rather not. "In wet weather," they
Bay we do no work, but you pay us and if we weeks little
Inter in harvest, it only makes it fair." They would not
take money instead of beer 1,1 another case which came
wider my personal obstrvation in the middle of last summer,
a farmer announced his intention of paying in cash iustead
of allowing beer. In the very press of the haymaking. with
acres upon acres of grass spoiling, his men, one and all,
struck work because he would not give them beer, and went
over to a neighbour's held adjacent, and worked for him for
nothlog bat their share in the beer!
A TALE OF Holoton.—ln the little town
of Minnelinsk, in Russia, there lived a miller with
his family. A few weeks ago three 'Tartars surprised
the miller, his wife, and a young girl whilst they
were asleep. The malefactors, after finding them,
subjected the miller and his wife to the most cruel
tortures until they told them the place where the
money and other valuables were, The monsters then I
killed the poor miller and his wife with their axis!. 1
sparing the young girl, who had to witness the fearful
scene. After they had packed the goods th. mur-
derers sat down to prepare tea in a Russian self-boiling
tea-kettle (called samovar), and whilst doing so one
of the ruffians, feeling annoyed by the lamentations
of the poor girl, poured seething hot water over
her. Meanwhile the son, a sturdy young peasant,
returned home from • neighbouring village, and whilst
crossing the garden stumbled against the corpses of his
parents, which had been thrown out by the aasatiAlUS,
and perceiving them through the window, Le at once
resolved to avenge the monstrous deed. He therefore
went to fetch a crowbar from the shed next to the Mill,
, and thus armed stood before the door waiting for the
malefasten to come out. The darkness of the night
favoured his undertaking. Two of the murderers were
, killed outright by one vigorous blow. The third Tartar
tried to resist, but the miller's son stunned and than
, killed him. The recovery of the poor little girl is
, despaired of.