The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-05-01 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.
BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

A Levee was held by the Prince of Wales at St.
James's Palace on Monday, which was attended by most of
the members of the Royal Family now in the metropolis.
The presentations were about 300 in number.
According to a Return printed last week, the esti-
mated expenditure of the Consolidated Fund for the year
1875-76 is £29,660,000, and the actual issues in the year
1874-75, £28,678,068.
Nearly £lOO,OOO has been realised by the sale of the
Manley Hall collection of pictures. Among the works last
sold were paintings by Millais, Frith, Turner, and Landseer,
which fetched severally from 2,000 to 7,000 guineas.
Mr. Rose, the Free Church minister of Poolewe
Ross-shire, was taken suddenly ill while conducting service
in the Macdonald Free Church, Glasgow, on Sunday, and
died the same night from apoplexy.

- - -
Monsieur Michel Chevalier has agreed, at the re-
quest of the Committee of the Cobden Club, to preside at
the next dinner of the Club, which will take place early in
The Sheffield Blind School becomes entitled to a
bequest of £20,000 by the death of Mrs. Caroline Davenport,
sister of the late Mr. Daniel Holy, of Sheffield. Under the
will of this gentleman the sum was to be applied to the pur-
pose named within five years of his sister's death.
The Duke of Cambridge presided at the anniversary
festival in aid of the funds of the Infant Orphan Asylum, at
Wanstead. In proposing the toast of the evening his Royal
Highness stated there were at present 600 boys and girls in
the schools, the annual cost of whose maintenance and
education was £lB,OOO, and the fund was supplied mainly
by voluntary contributions. The subscription made in the
room amounted to upwards of £I,BOO.

A party of five students from the senior class at
Harvard intend to travel on foot through Ireland, England,
France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. They propose
to start immediately after Commencement, and be absent a
year.
Blondin is making a fortune in Australia. He re-
duced his prices during January last at Melbourne to three,
two, and one shilling, and the result was that his large tent
was filled at every performance. His nightly receipts for
three consecutive weeks averaged the magnificent sum of
£6OO.
An entire village has been destroyed in Savoy owing
to the imprudence of some children who were playing with
Lucifer matches in a barn. Sixteen houses were consumed
with all their contents, and 62 persons have been rendered
destitute.
In a note, addressed to the European Powers the
German Government have intimated that they withdraw
their proposal of an .international regulation of the Pope's
position, but that they reserve to themselves, and recognise
in other States, the right to resist by all possible means the
aggressions of the Vatican.
Unmarried women in China can always be distin-
guished from matrons, as the hlir is allowed to fall over
the back in long tresses or in the form of a queue, or caught
up at the back in a simple bow, fastened with a silk cord.
Iu Canton it takes the form of a plaited tail at the back,
and a fringe over the forehead. After marriage it is taken
up and dressed into the form at a teapot, having its handle
above the head In Swatow it is made to resemble a bird
resting on the crown of the head, or of a horn bent back-
wards and rising from the back of the head.
According to the return of the Registrar-General,
2,254 births and 1,600 deaths were registered in London last
week. Allowing for increase of population the births were
143 below, whereas the deaths exceeded by 45 the average
numbers in the corresponding week of the last ten years. The
annual death-rate from all causes, which in the three previous
weeks had been equal to 28, 27, and 25 per 1,000, further
declined to 24. The 1,600 deaths included one from small-
pox, 6 from measles, 34 from scarlet fever, 61r0m diphtheria,
85 from whooping-cough, 23 from different forms of fever,
and 13 from diarrhcea.
There are now at least sixty foreign professors and
teachers in the service of the Japanese Government in the
schools of Tokio, Yokohama, and some other cities. There
has been a very great improvement in educational arrange-
ments- in Japan since young men wore first sent from that
country to be educated In Europe and America. At that
time- only a few years ago—the highest'school in Japan was
a mere languagv-school at Tokio. Now there is a polytechnic
school, an engineering college, and many other schools of
high grade. Now a ycung Japanese can receive a fair educa-
tion at home, at a cost to the Government, for tuition,
boarding and clothing, of about £6O. Therefore in future it
is probable that only ULO most prominent students, who are
expected to acquire a superior tillnOtitian, will be debt abroad.