The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-10-22 00:00:00

SATT:riID..‘.7, OCT. (22; ISFI,

Out of a thousand trees planted by the Metro-
politan Board of Works on the Victoria, Albert, and Chelsea
Embankments, only one was actually injured by the recent
gal!._ _ _ _

- After many delays for repairs, alterations, and im-
provements by the dockyard authorities, Her Majesty's ship
Inflexible, known as the "naval masterpiece," left the
harbour on Nionday, and anchored at Spithead to take in
ammunition.

The medal for the Jowaki campaign in India is now
in course of issue to the officers and men who formed part of
the expedition.

The fees received from visitors to the Jewel-house
in the Tower of London and paid into the Exchequer last
year amounted to £2,170 3s.

Mark Twain looked up at the moon and delivered
this soliloquy: "How melancholy the moon must feel when
it has enjoyed the fulness of prosperity, and has, as now I
see it, got reduced to its last quarter.

Preparations are already being commenced in
Moscow for the Coronation of the Czar and Czarina. The
ceremony is expected to take place in May next, but the date
has not been definitely settled.

Mr. Bay, inspector of schools in the Hackney dis-
trict, directs attention to the prevalence of bad eyesight
among the children, which he attributed partly to the
circumstance that London school children breathe a vitiated
atmosphere, and have much less opportunity for healthy
recreation than children have in the country.

The Newcastle-on-Tyne Town Council have decided
to apply for Parliamentary powers to bring salt water, into
the borough from the sea at Whitley. The cost of the scheme
will be £50,000.

The new Hotel de Ville of Paris, built on the site of
the old one which was burned by the Communists in 1871,
is now approaching completion. The contractor's estimate for
window frames, panes, doors, locks, fire-places, &c., amounts
to 2.28,000, and it is reckoned that the artistic decorations and
furniture will cost £BO,OOO. A novel feature in the building
will be the placing of 106 statues, eight feet high, in niches
on the four facades. These statues will represent eminent
persons born in karis, and no fewer than 40 of them will be
literary celebrities.

Recently published statistics of suicides in France
show for the last thirty years the extraordinary increase of
78 per cent. From 1851 to 1855 the annual average was
3,639, or one suicide for 9,833 inhabitants, while in the
latest return the annual number is 6,496, or one suicide for
5,161 inhabitants.

The excise duty on medicine vendors last year
realised £4,688 108., independently of £139,762 on patent
medicine as stamp duty.
The Queen and Princess Beatrice returned to
Balmoral on Saturday from the Glassalt Shiel, where they
had been staying for three nights. On Sunday Divine service
was conducted in the Castle by the Rev. Dr. Lee, of Paisley.
The Queen and members of the Royal Household attended.
Dr. Lee subsequently preached in Grathie Parish Church,
but none of the Royal family were present. Sir W. V.
Harcourt arrived at Balmoral on Monday as Minister in
attendance.

The arrivals of live stock and fresh meat at Liver-
pool last week from the United States and Canada, showed
a very large decrease in comparison with the preceding
week, and there were again no arrivals of hogs. The totals
were 862 cattle, 1,667 sheep, 4,006 quarters of beef, and 590
carcases of mutton.

The number of barrels of apples landed at Liverpool
from America this autumn is 17,900.
Last week's receipts of cotton at all United States
ports have been 186,000 bales, and since Ist September, 1881,
777,000 bales. Exports to Great Britain, 52,000 bales, and to
the Continent and Channel, 41,000 bales ; total since Ist Sep-
tember, 1881, 370,000 bales. Stook at all ports, 503,000
bales.

A Committee has been formed g Leipsic for the
organization of an International Exhibilton of the Graphic
Arts to be held in that City. The programme includes a col-
lection of examples of the progress of typography from 1450
to 1850; and a number of specimens of type and wood, and
metal engravings, together with all kinds of machinery used
in connection with printing.

French dandies are becoming more anxious than
ever to copy British fashions, and at the recent autumn
races at Longchamps it was particularly noticeable how all
the young sportsmen were studiously got up in the English
style. Even the Frenchwomen this season have adopted
many of the London fashions—tailor-made costumes,
jerseys, Newmarket coats, and English-looking hats being in
great favour.

The Birmingham Trades Council, at a special meet-
ng, passed unanimously a resolution affirming that the pro-
posal to levy import duties upon corn or any kind of food
was so absurdly unjust as to be outside the pale of discus-
sion, and declaring that the policy of Free Trade had been
advantageoas to the trade and commerce of the kingdom,
and that its reversal in any degree would be injurious to the
well-being of the industrial classes.

The 265th anniversary of the existence of the
Pilgrim Fathers; Memorial Church, New Kent-road, London,
was celebrated on Sunday. Preaching at the morning service,
the Rev. Lloyd Harris, pastor, said that the former members
of that Church were punished beckuse they preferred the
simple truths of the Gospel to the traditions of men. When
in 1616 the Church was founded by Henry Jacobs, it was the
only free Church in England, all others that had existed
before it of a similar character having been rooted out by
King James and his followers.

It is estimated that the pawnbrokers' of the United
Kingdom---4,372 in number—take in during a single year no
fewer than 200 millions of pledges. This calculation is
founded upon a curious return made by 731 pawnbrokers in
the principal towns of England, whose business during last
year was represented by a little over 32/ million of pledges.

- -
Her Imperial and Royal Highness the Duchess of
Edinburgh attained her 28th year on Monday, having been
born on Oct. 17, 1853. Her marriage with the Duke of Edin-
burgh, second son of Queen Victoria, was celebrated with
great pomp at St. Petersburg on Jan. 21, 1874.
At the meeting of the Metropolitan Asylums Board
on Saturday it was stated that there had been a decrease of
44 small-pox patients in the total remaining under treat-
ment, the numb-3r for the fortnight just ended being 434, in-
cluding 22 convalescents in camp at Dareuth, as against 478
for the preceding fortnight. The numbers admitted for
the past fortnight had been 113, discharged 191, and
died 22.

New Zealand fungus is exported in large quantities
to China, where it is much used as food. The fungus is
found on various kinds of decayed timber, in damp locali-
ties of the North Island, and is gathered by children and
Maoris' _ _

A procession of the Salvation Army in Bridgwater
on Sunday was followed by a large gang of roughs, who
several times broke into the procession, and finally tore down
the banner. lathe evening the Army met in the Skating
lt,nk, when stones and rotten eggs were thrown in all
directions, every window in the building being smashed.
The mob fought their way into the hall, compelling
the Salvationists to retreat. Many of the congregation
fainted.

So satisfactory are the Reports furnished to the
War Office of the progress made by the Students of the
Royal Military College, at Kingston, Canada, that the
Secretary of State for War has intimated to the Canadian
Minister of Militia his intention of making permanent the
arrangement, by which four commissions in the Army were
granted last year to cadets who passed out of the College.
One appointment will be made to the Royal Artillery, one
to the Royal Engineers, and two to the cavalry and infantry
of the line.

Signal lights were burning on Fair Isle, which lies
between Orkney and Shetland, during the last week, show-
ing that some shipwreck has taken place somewhere around
that precipitous island. The steamship St. Clair was em-
powered to call there going north on Monday night, as the
islanders, in case of a shipwreck, have no chance of keeping
strangers long owing to their scanty means.

Notices are posted in Windsor Great Park caution-
ing visitors against approaching the red deer during the
present month, many of the animals becoming fierce and
dangerous in October.
A double-beaded snake bits been captured by a
Canadian at Smith Falls, Ontario. The reptile uses both
heads in eating,
Serjeant Simon, M.P., speaking at Batley, said
among the many causes assigned for the present depression
in trade there was one hardly ever alluded to, namely, the
want of technical education. Primary education had been
provided for to an extent beyond what its most sanguine
friends had anticipated. It was the duty of every intelli-
gent community to supplement tills education by technical
instruction, which would be to the working classes what
the Universities were to the wealthier. It was notorious
that French workmen could beat the English in all the arts,
although until recently France was badly off hi the matter
of primary education, and although we were surrounded by
energetic capitalists it was shown that woollen goods were
often spoiled by ignorance of the art of dyeing and machi-
nery by ignorance of the elementary principles of mechanics
on the part of workmen.

The Bishop of Bath and Wells, presiding at the
missionary conference held at Yeovil on Monday night, re-
marked in his opening address that in his diocese there were
567 churches. Of these 284 contributed to the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel, whilst the remaining 283 did
not help that organisation. He was glad there was a
majority of one on the side of those contributing, but hoped
the result of their deliberations would be that not even one
church would be found not giving aid.

A good example of the rapidity with which alarms
of fire in the city of London can he circulated was given soon
after nine o'clock on Monday night, when an alarm of fire
was raised for the Civil Service Supply Stores, Queen
Victoria-street. The steamer from Watling-street was on
the spot in time to be measired by seconds, that from
Clerkenwell arrived almost simultaneously, and the head-
quarter's brigade from Southwark was also represented with
very great promptitude. Smoke had been seen issuing from
the upper floor, and it was soon found, upon an entry being
forced, that the gas had been left alight with some oil in a
pan over it, and this had boiled over. The rapid attendance
of the firemen, however, prevented what might have been an
extensive fire.

The Council of the Statistical Society have again
decided to grant a sum of £2O to the essayist who shall gain
the "Howard Medal" in November, 1882. On this occasion
the subject is the state of our prisons during the last
century, and its influence on the severity and spread of
small-pox. The essays are also to present a comparison of
the mortality in prisons from smapox at that period with
the deaths in prisons from the same cause during the last
twenty years. Particulars of the conditions of the competi-
tion may be obtained from the Assistant-Secretary, King's
College, Strand, London.
"It may further assist rough calculations at this
stage if we state that, to pay 1 per sent, per annum in a given
half-year, the London and North-Western Ordinary stock
requires £170,000; the Midland, £120,000; the N orth Eas-
tern, £llO,OOO ; the Great Northern, £50,000 ; the Sheffield,
£2B,ooo.—Pall Mall Gazette.

A funereal ascent of Mont Blanc has been planned
at Chamounix, (according to an American paper), although
the wintry weather has now probably put a sto,p to all such
plans for the present season. A rich American had at-
tempted the ascent four times, and on his last failure vowed
that he would reach the summit dead or alive. He died Bud,
denly soon after, and in his will left an immense fortune to
three nephews, on condition that they carry his ooffined body
to the top of the mountain. Unwilling to lose the legacy,
the perplexed heirs are considering how they can best fulfil
the conditions.

Sir George Campbell addressed a meeting of electors
at Dysart on Tuesday night and referred to the grievances of
Scottish farmers. He thought the Bill produced by the
Farmers' Alliance was very much like the Irish Bill in dis-
guise, and Mr. Gladstone had told them he would not be a
party to introducing the Irish Bill into Scotland. In these
circumstances he thought the only practical question was
compensation for farmers' improvements, and he maintained
that if improvements remained good at the end of a lease tha
tenant ought to receive value for them.

The stamp duty on patents for inventions was last
year £179,563.
The South of Scotland Chamber of Commerce met
on Monday at Galashiels and received the report of the dele-
gates to Paris, which was to the effect that there would be a
great difficulty in the British and French Commissioners
being able to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion, but no
treaty would be made which would injuriously affect any
of the leading industries of the country.

Sunday being the day appointed by the Sunday
School Union for special prayers for Sunday schools and
young people, supplications were made for these objects
in various ohurches and chapels throughout the metropalig.
A Committee has been formed to carry ciut the pro-
posal to place a memorial in Rer,dlng to the officers and
non-commissioned officers and ram of the 66th Berks Regi-
ment, who fell duringlhe Afghan campaign last year. Con-
tr_ibutions have already been received to the amount of
about £4OO. The subscription list will remain open until
December 31, when the Committee will decide on the form
the memorial shall take, and this will, ol course, depend
greatly on the sum subscribed,
Mr. R. S. Eisbey, many years attached to the
M orsir,g Post, and latterly of The Times, died on Tuesday
morning, after a very short illness. his last engageraent
was a reporting tour beginning with Sir Stafford Northcote's
speeches at Hull and Beverley, goinq on to Leeds for Mr.
Gladstone' speeches, and finishing with the Conservative
demonstration at Neweastle-on-Tyne. A severe cold brought
on congestion of the lungs, which ended fatally. Mr. Kjsbey
was fifty-six years old. Shortly after joining the/Morning
Post staff he was called to the bar.

A telegram from Paris states that a water-spout has
passed over a district of Algeria of such terrific force that no
fewer than 66 persons lost their lives.
A great fire has occurred at a spinning mill in
Philadelphia, and it is estimated that twenty lives were
lost.

-- ---
In Paris, on Monday morning, a mass was cele•
brated at the Expiatory Chapel in the Rue d'Anjou, in cele-
bration of the eighty-eighth anniversary of the execution of
Marie Antoinette, which took place on Oct. 16, 1793.

The Welland Canal, connecting Lakes Erie and
Ontario, has been successfully opened by the passage of the
steamer D. AL Dickenson. This vessel is 300 tons burden,
150 feet long, 25 feet beam, and of 15 feet draft.

A St. Petersburg telegram says that a great fire has
occurred at Riga. Fifteen houses were completely burned
down before the conflagration was checked. The Thalheim
manufactory was among the buildings destoyed.

"The farmers are rapidly settlinethe agricultural
depression question by clearing outof the country. The
Liverpool papers announce another departure of 230, prin-
cipally from the north of England, for Texas. But this is a
serious matter for the nation."—Globe.

A lady named Elizabeth Hirst, widow of a manu-
facturer, was cut to pieces on Tuesday while crossing the
London and North-Western Railway at Batley.
The average attendance in aided day schools in
England and Wales last year was 2,7E0.916, or about ten and
eight-tenths per cent. of the entire population. In 1870 it
was only 1,152,389, or just five-and-a-half per cent. The
average attendance therefore, aften allowing for increase of
population, has nearly doubled in the ten years.

_ _
Twenty-four Mormon missionaries sailed from New
York for Liverpool on Tuesday.

If live dogs are expensive luxuries, dead ones a
times are no less 'costly. A rich Galician recently sent the
carcase of his fav ,urite hound from Brisen (Tyrol) by rail to
Krasne (Galicia) for interment, which act of attachment he
was obliged to engage and pay for a whole car, costing him
upwards of 400 florins.

In the late financial year £32 6s. 4d. was paid to
persons "who suffered by the rebellion in Ireland in 1798."
Maria Pia, the Queen Consort of Portugal, was
born on Oct. 16, 1847, and has accordingly completed her
34th year. Her Majesty is the younger daughter of the
late Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, by his nrirriage with
the Archduchess Adelaide of Austria, and her marriage with
King Louis, the reigning sovereign of Portugal, was solem-
nised on Oct. 6, 1862. Queen Maria Pia is a sister of Hum-
bert, the present King of Italy, and of Amadeus, ex-King of
Spain, as well as of the Princess Clotilde, wife of Prince
Napoleon.
On Saturday evening a case of sudden death
occurred at the theatre at Bristol. Just at the close of the
first act of a drama which was bang represented one of the
supers, named Frederick Evans, fell dead whilst doing the
slight business allotted to him.

At Ely, near Cardiff, on Tuesday morning, a col-
lision occurred on the Great Western Railway between a
mineral and a goods train. One man was injured, and much
damage done to the trucks and their contents, which were
strewn over the line.

During September, 58,452 emigrants arrived in the
United States.

On the 27th inst., her Majesty's reign will reach 44
years and 127 days, the full period of her famous pre-
decessor Queen Elizabeth ; and xfter that date the reign will
be the longest of all the English. Soverigns except three—
viz., Henry 111., Edward 111., and George 111.

The Government have decided to accept the sum of
£250,000 from the Government of Natal as the contribution
of the Colony towards the expenses of the Zulu war, thia
amount covering all charges and liabilities for which the
Colony can be held to be responsible.

A meeting of the coalowners of South Wales was
held at Cardiff on Saturday for the purpose of considering
the circular issued in September by Mr. Wales, her Majesty's
Inspector of Mines, with respect to the use of gunpowder.
The meeting was unanimously of opinion that the proposed
restrictions of gunpowder would have a seriously prejudicial
effect upon the working of coal mines, and in many cases of
rendering the production of coal impracticable.

Tile Buenos Ayres Standard (Packet Edition) says
—"he rains have been incessant. They are most oppor-
tune, and promise a splendid harvest. Shearing begins
about the middle of October. Owing to the great increase
of flocks, the clip is estimated to yield 20,000 bales more than
last year. Immigration is again improving. The lands
south of the Rio Negro are to be surveyed, and the beat to be
set apart for free farms for immigrant families."

A New York telegram says that the visible supply
of wheat on October 14 was 20,200,000 bushels; ditto, Indian
corn, 28,100,000 bushels. Export clearances of wheat for
Europe during the past week, 1,160,000 bushels; export
clearances of Indian corn for Europe during the past week,
1,030,000 bushels.

.
It appears from a recently-issued official document
that in the last financial year £l2O 6s. 4d. was paid in pen-
sions to the servants of Queen Charlotte, and £lO to the ser-
vants of George the Third.

The Liverpool Journal of Commerce of Wednesday
states that the ship Compadre, from Liverpool for San Fran-
ciso, on which 35 guineas had been paid on re-insurance at
Lloyd's has been spoken at sea, all well.

The church-bell threatens to become a nuisance in
Nicaragua, where a singular religious frenzy hag broken out.
The people affected by it believe that they are the recipients
of divine communications. Whenever any person feels the
Inspiration of a "communication," he or she, as the case
may be, rushes at once to the church and rings the bell.
nor ceases to pull the ropes until the whole population has
assembled to hear the message which is forthwith delivered,
often at considerable length.

There has been a heavy fall of snow in Switzerland
and the Tyrol.

A Chinese witness in a Philadelphia Court, after
taking an oath with a particularly loud kiss of the Bible, was
asked if he considered himself bound thereby to tell the
truth. He complacently answered that the only form of
oath that he would respect, he said, was to cut off a
chicken's head while repeating certain words in Chinese. A
chicken and knife were provided by the opposing counsel,
but the judge said, though inclined to permit the ceremony,
he would adjourn the trial for a week to consider the ques-
tion.

An abundant harvest is reported from Manitoba.
The average yield of wheat per acre is twenty-eight bushels,
just ten bushels higher than the highest average ever reached
at Minnesota, which ranks as the best wheat-growing State
In the United States.
Recently on one day no less than seventy-two thou-
sand persons passed through the rooms of the Magazin.%
du Louvre in Paris, and the receipts amounted to one mil.
lion seven hundred and forty thousand francs.

In the late financial year the revenue derived in
stamp duty on male servants was £137,593, against £140,291
ss. in the previous year. The duty is 15s. a year.

Mr. Gladstone has forwarded to the Public Library
Newcastle-on-Tyne, copies of such of Ms works as he is at
present able to dispose of, in thankful recollection of the
kind welcome given him by the town of Newcastle now
nearly twenty years ago.

In London last week 2,550 births and 1,460 deaths
were registered. AllAing for increase of population, the
births were 27 below, whereas the deaths exceeded by 11,
the average numbers in the corresponding weeks of the last
ten years. The annual death-rate from all causes, which
had been equal to 166 And 1811 per 1,000 in the two pre-
ceding weeks, further rose to 19'9.

"Lion-mouse.—lf it be in your power write me at
once. I cannot think why this long silence, and can no
longer bear it. But I feel quite sure that,you would not allow
any one or any thing to separate us now after what has
passed; it would be too cruel, Please write decisively at
once to the old address ; it will be sent on to me. My only
hope and wishes are that you are well, and that I may see
you again. send some token that you see this."—Adver-
tisement in The Times.

The second annual Congress of German numis-
matists has been held at Dresden, under the presidency of
Dr. Erbstein. At the same time an exhibition was opened
of coins now in use throughout the world, which is said to
have been the most complete collection of the kind ever
seen.

A report has been issued in connexion with the
recent census in the United States, indicating the distribu-
tion of rainfall in the States, and that of population rela-
tively to rainfall. It appears that the highest annual rain-
fall has been 160 inches. This was reached one year in
Puget Sound. The average annual fall in the United States
exclusive of Alaska, was, in 1880, 29 inches. This average
implies a large area unfit for the purposes of vegetation,
which, with the rapid evaporation that occurs, requires
much more moisture. Hence, population is found to centre
chiefly on buch parts as have from 35 to 50 inches of rain.
The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens,
Regent's Park, London, during last week included a Rhesus
monkey from India, presented by Mr. Frank Smyth; two
beautiful parrakeets, an Australian quail, a Regent bird,
three modest grass finches from Australia, two banded grass
finches, two bichenos finches from Queensland, a melodious
finch from Cuba, a blue-beaked weaver bird from West
Africa, a black-headed finch from India, two Ceylonese
hanging parrakeets from Ceylon, presented by Mr. T. H.
Bowyer Bower; two dunlins, a ringed plover, British, pre-
sented by Mr. Edmund A. S. Elliott, M.R.C.S. ; a common
viper, British, presented by Mr. L. A. Sandford: two
axolotis from Mexico, presented by Dr. Heneage Gibbes,
a leopard tortoise from South Africa. a radiated tor-
toise from Madagascar, three bell's cinixys from Angola,
presented by Sir John Kirk, C. M.Z S. ; a hog deer, a hybrid
Mesopotamian fallow deer, a hybrid muntjao born in the
Gardens.