The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-10-16 00:00:00

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

The amornit realised by Chandery Fee Stamps last
year was £115,078 4s. 4d.

The North Wales collier 3 have given notice of a 20
per cent. increase of wages as agreed at the MAAS meeting at
Wrexham. A strike is considered probable.

The value of printed books exported in the last nine
months was £646,443; last year, £627,951.
This' year the value of live and .dead poultry and
game brought into the United Kingdom was £157,329, against
£134,883 last year.

The number of trout taken in Loch Leven during
the past season was 5,093, and they weighed 5,668 pounds.
It is computed that at present there are about 2,500
shorthorn breeders in the United States of America, where
the art of shorthorn breeding is described as only in its
Infancy.
- There are more licensed publichonses in Westmin-
ster than in the other Metropolitan districts. According to
a late return there are 854, and the licence duty paid to
March last was £14,804.
St. Petersburg, last week, the second circular
iron-alad, the Admiral Popoff, was successfully launched in
presence of the Grand Duke Constantine. She is armoured
with 18-inch armour, and will carry two 40-ton guns.
A small boat; containing 'three of the boys of her
Majesty's training ship impregnable, was upset in a squall
off Plymouth Roe on Sunday. One boy swam ashore, another
was rescued by a marine who bravely switra out from the
beach, but the third boy was drowned.
The Berlin papeis report that the reduction recently
effected in the postal tariff has been taken advantaire of by
agitators in foreign countries to inundate Russia with
political pamphlets .of a ' revolutionary character. These
pamphlets are sent in the shape of letters, and, being printed
on tissue paper, escape official notice.
Two Frenchmen started from Paris at noon on
Tuesday on a bicycle excursion to Vienna. They are mem-
bent of the Velo Sport Society. Their velocipedes are of.
Englishmsnufaeture. They hoped to reach Vienna in tan
days.
A Subscription List has been opened at Derby for
the ',benefit of the few surviving veterans of the Peninsular
War and the Bettie of Waterloo who reside in that neigh-
bourhood.

I At

An agricultural building, which was being erected
for the Centennial Exhibition at Fairmount Park, Phila-
delphia, was blown down on Tuesday during a gale of wind,
and eleven men were injured, two of them fatally.

The Home Secretary has requested the Local Go-
vernment Board to procure from boards of guardians a return
of the parishes in which the Free Libraries Act has been
adopted, preliminary to procuring from the managers of the
free libraries further information as to their operation and
success.

Advices from Christiansand report that the barque
Martha, homeward bound, has been totally lost at a place
called Hjaerringvik. Part of the crew managed to lash
themselves on portions of the floating wreck, and thereby
reached the shore, but five others were drowned in the
vessel.

•
Owing to a dispute between Holland and Venezuela,
the representative of the latter Power at the Hague left that
city on Saturday. The Dutch Charge d Affaires at Caracas
has at the same time been recalled.
One of the most curious recent acquisitions of the
Zoological Society, a manatee, has unfortunately died at the
gardens in Regent's Park The manatee, from a habit it
has of sitting upright in the water and " combing " itself, is
suppOsed to have given rise to the mermaid myth.
L The New York Herald says the Mayor of Wilming-
ton, N.C., ha hit upon a novel method of ridding the city of
thieves.- Be has notified the police that if the robberies that
are of so frequent occurrence there are not abated by the Ist
of October he will discharge every man in the force.

We learn from Constantinople that the Italian
PoTernmettt has asked the Turkish Government for explana•
tions of its recent financial measures, and that the repre-
sentatives of the other Powers have taken a similar step, but
in a semi-official manner. The local banks are preparing a
petition against the meaeures.

The Russian papers announce that the empire was
visited in the month of August with no less than 2,622 con-
flagrations of a more or less serious character, causing
damage to the value of 12,412,474 roubles. 240 of these fires
were occasioned by lightning, 665 by negligence, and 877 by
incendiarism. Of 1,400 the origin is unknown. The greatest
number of conflagrations occurred in the government of
Moscow, namely, 153. The heaviest damage was inflicted in
the government of Orel, namely, to the amount of 2,396,735
roubles.
A private letter from Honolulu, says the New
York papers, report King Kalakana quite ill. A .shoal of
red fish had appeared in the water near the city, which is always
regarded as a precursor of the death of a royal personage.
This sign has preceded the deaths of his predecessors, and
the king is visibly affected by the superstition.
George Hiscock, the steward of the yacht Mistletoe,
who had his right arm fractured in the collision with the
Alberta, was discharged on Friday from liaslar Naval
Hospital He cannot use the fingers of the injured arm, and
the surgeons are of opinion that a year will elapse before he
will regain their use, as the wrist was broken.
A'telegram from New York states that Mdlle.
Titiens, the celebrated artiste, has been serenaded by the
• principal members of thei. Centennial Chotal Union, com-
prisifig 500 voices and ill-orchestra, in the public place
facing her hotel, where the lathes of the Centennial Choral
Tkion assembled in full dress. The scene was brilliantly
illuminated by limelights and Bengal fires.

At a meeting of the Cityof London Court of Common
Council it was reported that 2,000 acres of land, which had
been inclosed, would now be thrown back into Epping Forest,
making its whole extent 6,000 acres The occupants of about
1,400 acres, on which large mansions have been built, would
net be called upon to clear away their buildings, asthey paid
full value for the land, but they would have to pay quit rents,
which would be spent ix. keeping up the forest.

been

It is stated that the Queen before leaving Inverary
placed in the hands of the Princess Louise a sum of about
£2OO for distribut,lon amongst workpeople in the Duke lot
Argyll's employment as an acknowledgment of the extra
labour, they had been given inconnection with her Majesty's
visit to Argyllshire. These gratuities have now been paid in
amounts varying from £2 to £6. A handsome sum was, it is
also stated, left to the poor of the place by her Majesty.

M. Snhr, the head of one of the largest commercial
houses in Copenhagen, died at his residence on the 6th inst.
Our Copenhagen correspondent writes, that the fortune left
by M. Sulu* is believed to reach several million dollars, pro-
bably the largest fortune possessed by any private indivi-
dual in Denmark. —Pali Mall Gazette.

On Saturday morning Marshal MacMahon pre-
sented the red hat to Cardinal Saint Marc, the Archbishop of
Rennes. The Marshal was accompanied by the Ministers for
Foreign Affairs and Public Worship and the officers of his
household. The ceremony was very imposing. At the con-
clusion the Cardinal was entertained at luncheon by the
President.

The Bishop of Winehester, preaching at Southamp-
ton on Sunday morning, commended the State for what it
had done in the matter of education. His lordship, how-
ever, deplored that the divisions existing among Christians
would not permit of it giving more than secular teaching,
and that religious instruction was on the decline in National
Schools.
The Jewish. World learns that an outbreak of cholera
Isexpected in Jerusalem. Great efforts are being made in
all parts of the Holy City to impede the progress of the
die ease by sanitary measures; and Dr. Schwarz, of the
Rothschild Hospital, is circulating a pamphlet in which be
dwells with great force upon the advisabilty of inhabitants
keeping their houses and persons clean.

The programme of the festivitea at Milan in honour
of the visit of the Emperor William juts now been published.
Ills Majesty wili make his State entry into the city on Mon-
day, the 18th, and leave on Friday, the 22nd. During his
stay there will be a review of the troops, an illumination of
the Cathedral, a gala performance at the theatre, a grand
hunt at Monza, an excursion to the Lake of Como, &c. The
German flag will be hoisted with the Italian flag over the
Royal Palace.

Private advices from Victoria state tliat the eleva-
tion of Sir Samuel Wilson to knighthood has caused much
satisfaction in the colony, as it is the first instance in which
the honour has been conferrred there independent of any
claim of party or office. Sir Samuel has always held rather
aloof from politics, but is distinguished even among the
wealthiest colonists by his active devotion to local interests
and improvements, as well as by his munificence, qualities
lately illustrated especially by his timely gift of £30,000 to
found the library of the University of Melbourne. —P all
Mall Gazette. '
The Lord Mayor elect of London (Mr. Alderman
Cotton) has hit upon a novel expedient for interesting the
trades of the kingdom in the civic pageant on the 9th of
November. He suggests that the leading trades should be
invited to send in designs of trophies to form part of the
show, that the respective civic guilds should support those
trophies with their banners, and that detachments from
volunteer regiments should take part in the procession.
Among the deaths recorded in our columns to-day
(says the Bristol Times) will be found the name of John
Whitcombe. The deceased, who was eighty years of age,
was a pensioner, having served many years in the navy, and
was present at the memorable engagement between the
Shannon and Chesapeake, fought a short distance from
Boston, United States, of which encounter he was always
fond of giving an account. He was believed to be the last
man alive that took part in it.
On Tuesday, Mr. Crossley, M.P. for Halifax, opened
a bazaar held in connection with the building of a new Con-
gregational Church at Goole. He declared he was not fond
of bazaars, and said he should be glad if money for religious
purposes could be raised in some other way; but there were
occasions and circumstances under Which assistance could
be rendered and work done by those who could not con-
veniently give money, and therefore until they found other
and improved means, of getting what they wanted, they must
occasionally have bazaars as a necessity.
The number or Ivagrant admissions to the thirteen
unions of Dorset daring the quarter. ending 30th September
last amounted to only 364. This is the lowest number re-
corded in any quarter, and shows the largo reduction of 83
per cent, on the coriespouding quarter of the year pre-
vious to the formation of this society. The Dorset system
of dealing with vagrancy has been In operation in that
county for upwards of five years, and has been adopted in
Kent and West Sussex.

A sad calamity occurred in Philadelphia on the
night of the 26th of September. The railway from Phila-
delphia to New York, leaving the station in the western
portion of the city, crosses the entire northern portion,
passing out on the north-eastern verge. It crosses many
Much-travelled highways, a few of them on the same level.
One of these is Kensington Avenue, along which a local rail-
way passes to the populous north eastern suburb of Frank-
fort. " Dummy " stem cars are used on this line, and about
ten o'clock in the evening one of these, crowded with people
while crossing the intersection, .w,as plunged into by a pas-
senger train coming from New York at high speed, de-
molished, and set on fire. Of 30 people in the "dummy"
neariy every one was injured, live being killed, andline
badly hurt that mott.of them will die.

Absinthe-drinking is becoming such a science
amongst the students of Pails that "professors of absinthe"
have sprung up to instruct the young idea as to the proper
mode of imbibing this favourite beverage A regular course
of lectures is given, and we find that there are seven diffe-
rent ways to mix the absinthe. First comes the "Hussarde"
—this is to pour out the water in three equal quantities ;
then the " Parisiemie" adding the water drop by drop; next
the "Puree "—equal quantities of absinthe and water;
poured out simultaneously. Fourthly, we have the " Arne-
- zone," similar to Ilussarde,'!. with .the addition of two
spoonfuls of strop de gomme ; the "Vichy," . a third of
absinthe, a third of orgeat, and a third of water; the
"Bourgeoise," exactly like the preceding, only substituting
anisette for orgeat ; and lastly "I'Abs," consisting of pure
absinthe, with a few drops of brandy.—Court Journal.
The additions to the London biological Society's
Gardens during the past week include four tigers from India, '
presented by. his Excellency the Governor-General of India;
an ocelot from South America, presented by Mr. IL Kutley ;
a golden agouti from South America, presented by Mr.
Henry T. Balfour: a Cuvier's toucan from "Upper Amazons,
presented by Mr. A. Blumenthal: a Chilian sea eagle ,frofn
Paraguay, presented by. Mr.. E. •iielson ; two red and yellow
macaws from South America, presented by the Misses Rix;
three tigers, a leopard, a camel, twa musanga paradoxures
from India, a black lemur from Madfwascar, a crab-eating
opossum from Central America, two Mexican deer, deposited;
a great-billed parrakeet from Gilolo, received in exchange ;-
an American darte,from South America, purchased.-,Nature..
Sir,CharltAteed opened the business of the Social
Science Congress at Brighton on Tuesday by the delivery of
an address upon elementary education. lie thought that
the word compulsion had been used far too freely in the ears
of the poor, aid expressed his belief that any attempt to im•
prison parents who did not send their children to school
would produce a national commotion of a serious character.
After alluding to the recent declaratioes of Mr. Cross on this
,subjea, Sir Charles went on to point out that it should be
the aira-of Schoo).. Boards to obtain teachers of high moral
nhaeatter. The supremacy of England amongst nations
Welidck-mit be determined by guns or ironclads, but by the
"sterling character of her people ; and her hope rested upon
her SOW and daughters now under training in her schools.
On the motion of Lord Aberdare a cordial vote of thanks WU
passed to 81r C, good for Mx /arm