The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1867-12-07 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

ITEMS FROM .A.MERICAN JOURNALS.  The horns in Wisconsin are dying of a mysterious disea.  Brigham Young pronounces his benedictions in detail they frequently equal In length a flve•mmute speech. About one million children gather weeWy in the Methodist Sunday schools of the rafted States, and are instructed by 160,000 teachers. ,  Arteinus Ward's estate, it is announced, Will be less than 16,000 dollars.  The negroes of St. Louis have started a semimonthly paper, called the Neer Rra.  It may not be generally known that Kansas is more than twii,e as large as the State of New York.  A petition in favour of the eight.holtr law signed by 50.000 names, is about to be laid before the American Congress.  _ Miss Nellie Marshall, a contributor of sketches to the cheap weeklies of New York, publicly denles that she is to marry an English lord.  Lord and Lady Amberley are mentioned as visiting .the public institutions of Bostog, in which they are greatly interested.  The most surprising religions change tecently reported la the conversion of a Mormon elder to Catholicism.  The manufacture of flax in Illima is in a prosperous condition; the flax mills there are now worked to the extent of their capacity. - '  .• A boy in New London bud week tried tel stand on his head, and an injinlxt his neck that lie has net been aide to raise his head since. .  The Rev. Mr. O'Neill, a coloured preacher. bag been arreated at Indianapolis for marrying a ci loured 'roan and white woman, in oblation of the Indiana marriage jaw. The totalnumber of passenger* carried ore; the St. Louis city railways in October was 1,529,105, being an increase of 215,073 over the same month lent year.  .... In Maine, especially in the larre cities, it is reported that wood la being gradually superseded by coal as fuel, the latter being much the cheaper. •4 A miller in Maine is paid to have fallen into the wheel pit of his mill recently, and executed several rapid and Involuntary gyrations, but was rescued uninjured. General Sherman ban issued an order wanonneing that peace has been made teeth the Klowa, Comanche, Apache. Cheyenne, and Arapahae Indians The right of the Indians to Mint game In the unsettled lands of Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado is to be respected. - ' •  Thirty: bakers in Baltimore have been 'arrested charged with violating the city bread ordinals., and several thousand loaves of bread seised and conasuated• by the public authorities. '  At the annual meeting of the New England Hoe. pital for Women and Children it was reported that the whole number of patients treated tiers was 4.055, divided among thirteen different nationalities. It is stated that about 70,000 persons in the Milted States join the Alethodht Church annually on probation, but go no further—that ill, they do not come Into full communion.  A Mr. Carter WWI murdered recently near Winshero, La, by two outlaws. 'lwo freedmen, who happened to be at isi.rk in a field near by, and witnessed the murder, were also killed by the murderers, to silence their testimony. One of the criminals has been captured. t A wonderful story in related of a lady in Wisconsin, who plunged into a mill-pond to gave two toys from drowning tier crinoline floated her, and clinging to that lbe 1,18 were kept above water, and the whcle party drifted safely to the shore  General. Ileanregard has arrAnged for thwal of a patented electric break to the cars of the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad, of which he is president. This break is a French invention. Ills manipulated by the engineer. odication  A Maine newspaper accounts for the dulness of the shoe business in that State by the statement that " the tardy arrival of cold weather Lenses people to went old shoes longer than usual, and diminishes the demand.. A New York ntreet railway was take* npJately, and It is said that the wooden sleepers were areal to have printed their enact representation on the iron. - The gram, knots, and curvatures, were wanly detected, bath byThe eye End by the touch_  A naturalist in Boston has diseovere,l the sooree grasi,:eniper 111118/C. Ile states that the atraiud prole Iby the gr oppers /ire