The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-07-11 00:00:00

Two MEN KULL ON A • RAILWAY.—On
Wednesday morning two surf firemen on the Gloagow
and PaisleY Eailwav, nhiht•!...aged in removing two
sleepers near I isk sta•_, were knocked down by
a liaising train and kiL They were warned' by
'Their companions, but contulued to work until escape
was impossible.
. .

•
COOGIA'S Coster. —The little stranger, which
was I liso.vered within the limits of the bolar system
by NI. Coggia, of Marseilles, on the MI April, is
rapidly beomning an object of interest. its nucleus
was then a star of the n.nth magnitude; it has now
advanced to the fifth, and will, tat the lath July,
have attained Go the third. With regard Go bright-
ness, the progress is still more marked. The hunin-
oeity is at present forty times as great, and in the
middle of July, when at its best, it will be 150 tin:
as great, as when the comet was first observed.
. .

the present time the distance from the sun
70.000,000 miles. Its position is in the north, a little
to the east of Charles's Wain, where it may be seen on
any clear night after about ten or eleven o'clock.
Father Secchi, of the Papal Observatory, has ex-
amined the comet spectniscopically, and found evi-
dences of carbon and carbonic oxide. A French
astronomer has been speculating on the possibility of
its poisoning our atmosphere if its tail of carbonic oxide
should chance to come too mar to ; but all fear of
that contingency he admits is removed with regard to
the comet of 1874, which will never approach very
near the earth. Since Dr. Tyndall's celebrated ex-
periments seven years ago, the theory of the matter of
comets has undergone great change. The professor
showed experimentally how a few ounces of tlie oxide
lif allyl converted into vapour would be quite enough
to furnlsl a cloud—a comet being nothing more than a
chemical cloud -of the magnitude and splendour o
Donati's comet of 4.1858. Sir John Herschel has
• similarly estimated that the weight of a great comet
would lie between a few ounces and a few pounds.
Coggia's comet will he nearest the earth on July If.
CHURCH COMMUNICANTS IN SCOTLANIL—AR
interesting, though imperfect return has been obtained
by the House of Commons, relating to the number of
communicants on the rolls of the established Church of
Scotland in 1873. The total is stated as 446,340, but
it is observed that this is" considerably under the
actual number of communicants standing on the roll
in every parish in Scotland." For, in the first place,
68 returns have not yet been received; and, further, a
very great number of the returns show only the number
of communicants who were present at the celebration
of the Communion in 1; 73, and not those who stood
on the roll for that year, "and were entitled to claim
Church privileges." Perhaps we (remarks The Times)
may assume that the whole number may reach half L.
million. We are not aware of any other means of
estimating, or guessing, the number of persons belong-
ing to the Established Church of Scotland, except by
observing the number of marriages celebrated, accord-
ing to its rites; and these are about 45 or 46 per cent.
of the whole number of marriages. If we take that
ratio, we should find about 1,560,000 persons—men,
women, and children—belonging to the Established
Church of Scotland. A ratio of communicants ap-
proaching one-third of the total seems large. The
returns above referred to, furnished by the ministers
or Session clerks, show as many as 191,520 male com-
municants and 254,826 females, or nearly 43 per cent.
men to 57ier cent. women. This is probably a higher
proportion of men among c?mmunicants than could
be Shown by the Church of England.