The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-06-26 00:00:00

THE PROPOSED AERIAL POLAR
EXPEDITION.

Among the communications to the Aeronautical
Society, (whose meeting was held in London, at the
Society of Arts, on Mcnday night), was one by Com-
mander Cheyne, R.N., with reference to his proposal
for a balloon expedition to the North Pole. As an
Arctic voyager, Commander Cheyne deemed both
l'ind and sea journeys to the Pole impossible of attair-
ment ; and, not without some practical knowledge of
balloons, he had come come to the conclu:,ion that the
atmosphere was the free and open road by which the
attainment of an object of enterprise which had ex-
cited English adventurers since the days of Henry
VIII. might be best accomplished.
A London Committee, consisting of the Dean of
Westminster, the Master of the Temple, Dr.
Vaughan, the Minister of Finance for Canada, Sir
Samuel Tilley, and members of Parliament and
scientific men to the number of seventy, had now been
formed, with some sixty-four local committees in sup-
port, and over £1,400 collected towards the purpose of
carrying out a new Arctic exploration and dis-
covery of the North Pole, the ultimate cost of which
was estimated at 00,000. The proposition was to send
out a ship to the farthest attainable point, then to
form outside stations by the guidance of which the
wind currents 'could be utilised at various heights as
curves of sailing, by which the balloon might reach
within more or less practicable distance of the Pole,
and the completion of the journey made by such
sledging arrangements as could be conveyed loy the
three or four balloons that would constitute the aerial
fleet steering by trailing ropes. By abandoning some
of the balloons and the stores, and using their re-
maining gas to completely fill the one or two balloons
by which the return journey to the ship could be ac-
complished, the party would be brought back in
safety.

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.

"The more shirtee Merican man get washee, more
money Chinaman makee," is the way an almontheyed
Philadelphia laundryman translates "Cleanliness is next to
godliness."

Josh Billings says: "The mewl is a larger burd
than a guse or turkey. It has two legs to walk with, and
two more to kick with, and it wears its wings on the side of
Its bed."
A Laplander will make three good meals of a tub of
oleomargarine, his wife will take the hoops for a crinoline,
and the boys will use the staVCS for snow-shoes. So you
see, children, how a little oir will smooth the rugged edges
of life's pathway,

The New York Herald asks Mr. Edison to invent a
new kind of theatre chair, which can be raised or lowered,
according to the height of a person or a bonnet, so that the
tops of heads or bonnets in a row of seats would be on a
level.
A beautiful young actress is described by an
American critic as having a face a painter might dwell
upon. What a delightful residence!
Doctors in Tennessee are said to have a rather hard
time. If the patient lives he seldom pays, if he dies the rest
of the family want to shoot the physician.
The editor of a New York paper, in reply to a
Pittsburgh editor, who contended that an "Immense for-
tune" was not likely to give happiness, offers to settle the
question by having it tested to his own person.
A reporter describing the dresses at a fashionable
assembly in Boston, remarks:—" The largest part of the
dresses were literally on the floor."

A New York gentleman is blessed with fifteen
daughters, and he is looking about for fifteen likely young
men to bless each of them with a wife.

Upon the marriage of Miss Wheat, of Virginia, an
editor hoped that her path might be flowery, and that she
might never be thrashed by her husband.
A German savant has (he asserts) discovered a
method of extracting the soul of man or beast, and, making
it into a paste with glycerine, administer doses, graduated
according to circumstances, so that he can make a coward
brave, or a hero a poltroon, at will.