The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-05-22 00:00:00

CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE.

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The Times, of Monday, published the following :
Sir,—ln The Times of April 30 your Egyptian
Correspondent mentions that an attempt is about to
be made to transport to England the syenite monolith
usually called Cleopatra's Needle, and now lying half-
buried in the sand in the outskirts of Alexandria.
The engineering difficulties to be overcome may be
condensed into two headings :-1, We have about a
mile of transport by land over undulating sand hills;
2, water transport from Alexandria to London. The
question, therefore, is to devise a method of meeting
both these antagonistic requirements by one and the
same means.
The fallen monster is first to be deprived of its un-
manageable square form by converting its section into
a cylindrical one, by building around its four sides a
casing of timbers firmly bolted together. The cylin-
drical form will permit of the mass being rolled down
to the sea-shore on ordinary timber ways.
The wooden casing would be applied piecemeal, so as
not to disturb the repose of the leviathan, its sandy
bed Jigging scooped out from underneath only in short
lengffis at a time.
At the same time that the timber casing is applied
for "facilitating rolling, it is also intended to perform
the double duty of increasing the bulk and redu-Ang
the specific gravity of the whole, so as to enable it to
be self-supporting in water.
On calculation, it will be found that to secure the
requisite amount of flotation the diameter of the
obelisk, which is now about Bft., will have to be in-
creased to about 20ft., and since also its form is taper,
rather more timber will have to be applied to larger
ends to insure perfectly horizontal floating line.
To tug this huge cigar-shaped Egyptian mummy to
England, lift the same on to the Thames Embank-
ment by the force of successive tides, and then roll
it into situ, not removing the protective covering till
it is erected complete would not only be a _simple and
inexpensive operation, but would be entirely free from
the great risk and expense attendant on the transport.
of the Luxor needle to Paris for which a special yes-
BPI was constructed, and which, notwithstanding all
the care expended, was seriously damaged cm route.
J. L. HADDAN, M.I.C.E.
25, Great George-street, London.
CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.

A shopkeeper in New York, has posted on his
window the following notice :—" The public are requested
not to confound this shop with that of another swindler
who has established himself on the opposite side of the
way."
A person at Pike's Peak, writing to a Minnesota
journal, says that the miners are very much discouraged in
that region; they have to dig through a solid vein of silver
four feet thick before they reach the gold.

Some of the questions proposed for discussion at a
meeting of a Western debating club, were these: "Is it
necessary that females shud reseave a thurry litterary educa-
tion?" 'Ort femalls to take part in polytix ?"

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An American school-girl, in writink toler 'mother,
sari, "I get along nicely pith all may teachers except Miss
; but I don't blame her, becaingi she 4coiclentilly• shot
the young man she was engagedto,,aiid it naturally makes
het feel kind of cross, especially on cloudy days."
A sentimental American gentleman intends to
petition Congress to improve the channel of affection, so
that henceforth the "course of true love" may " run
smooth." .
A Chicago paper politely remarks that it has
"another flagrant fiction impaled upon the fork of fact,"
and recommends it to editors as much more gentlemanly
than the rough words, "another lie nailed." .
" Lsee very little of you," said a gentleman at a ball
to a young lady whom he had not met for a long time before.
" Lknow it," was the artless reply, • 'but mother wouldn't
allow me to wear a very low-necked dress to-night, the
weather is so cold."
A California paper says:—" The milkmen of San
Francisco have formed a mutual aid association. One holds
the can while another pumps."
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A merchant in New York, who has lost his fortune
in a petroleum oil well speculation, has been unkindly ad-
vised to let well alone for the future. _

Somewhere in the West a sable knight of the lather
and the brush was performing the operation of shaving a
hoosier with a very dull razor. "Stop," said the hoosier,
"that won't do."—" What's the mt(iter, boss?"—" That
razor pulls."—" Well, no matter foh dat, sah. If the handle
of the razor don't break, the beard am bound to come off,
sho."
A Milwaukee chap kissed his girl about forty times
right straight along, and when he stopped the tears came
Into her eyes, and she said in a sad tone of voice, " Ah, John
I fear you have ceased to love me." "No, I haven't," replied
John, "but I must breathe."
One of the sweetest things about a young and bud-
ding love is the way in which she will smooth the hair so
gently off your brow, and then smile tenderly in your face,
and show that about four of her back teeth are gone.
After waiting four years a Michigan lover finally
popped the question, and the girl answered, "Of course I'll
have you; why, you fool, you, we might have been married
three years ago ! "
"How," asks a St. Louis exchange, "how can the
world be flattened?' By a St. Louis girl putting her foot
down on it and treading real hard.
The publisher of a weekly paper in Southern Illinois
prints in each issue a chapter of the Bible, and upon being
ridiculed for it by his contemporaries, remarks editorially,
"We publish nothing but what is news to our readers."
A chap who, during courtship, sent his gill some
poetry beginning: "Was it a gleam of golden hair," was
mortified after marriage to see her hang that " gleam " over
the back of a chair.

A Schenectady Justice ogthe Peace decided that a
"verbal contract is not good without a stamp."

When Pittsburg -ladies mean to compliment a
gentleman's moustaches, they call it real "camels hair."
A Milwaukee paper thinks "It is simply absurd to
talk about a woman being qualified to 1111 every position in
life that a man tills. For instance, what woman could
lounge before the stove in a country inn, with back coat
tails arranged to receive the warmth ct l'Anglaise ?"

A "Western editor seeing two washerwomen quarrel-
ling, quoted Tennyson, "Wring out, wild bells 1"
A woman called at aßoston bookstore the other day,
and said she would like to take a look at some " chromos, '
as she wanted to find something to please Harvey, who had
worked on the farm all the summer, and should be rewarded.
'Anything religious ?" asked the clerk, as he ran over a lot
of chromos and engravings. "Wall, no, not exactly
religious," she answered. "Some of it might be solemn-like,
but down in a corner there ought to be a dog-fight, or a man
falling off a barn, or somethin' to kinder interest the young
mind."

---
Indiarubber sidewalks are coining into fashion. For
small towns they are admirable—combining economy sand
durability. The first experiment was made in Danville,
lowa, where three hundred yards were put down on ene of
the principal streets. All the boys in the place ran over it,
but there was no noise. A leading merchant stopped in front
of his house ; then jumped on his heels. The elastic forces
hidden in the rubber threw him over the gate to the roof of
the piazza. But after a few trials he was able to alight on
the steps with the graceful accuracy of a flying squirrel.
The chief drawback to the walk is its odorous familiarity
in hot weather, but it can be neutralised by a weekly wash of
borax, coal tar, and onion ointment. Its principal advant-
age is that it can be stretched. As the town grows, it is
pulled out towards the suburbs.