The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1882-07-15 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

THE LATE GENERAL SKOBELEFF.  General Skobeleff died at Moscow of heart disease on Friday in last week. He was born in 1843, and was consequently only 39 years of age.—The Times, in an Obituary notice from their St. Petersburg Correspondent says :  "It is with feelings of emotion for the loss of a personal friend as. well as of interest in the untimely fate of a Russian celebrity that I forward to you the sad news of the death of General Michael Dimitrich Skobeleff, which tock place very suddenly at about one this morning, in the Hotel d'Usaux, at Moscow. According to a private telegram the 'White General,' the hero of Plevna, has fallen a victim to an affection of the heart, brought on, it is thought, by a contusion received on the green hills before Plevna in the late war. His end seems to have been without any warning whatever, for only a week or two ago he was heard of as making a (weed ride of 70 or 80 vents in little more than a single night to meet his Cossacks manceuvring in the south, and only yesterday Colonel Gredekoff, the author of the 'Ride to Herat,' received a letter from him, dated Moscow, the day before, full of his usual animation and good humour. Without any exaggeration, it may be said that this loss of the national hero will be felt throughout the Russian Empire. The national party, to which the general seemed to have finally attached himself after the celebrated incidents of patriotic oratory at Paris and Moscow, has thereby received a terrible blow; and the Army can show no other man with such wonderful power and influence over his troops as were possessed by Skobeleff. His heroic tourage was equalled, when necessary, by a remarkable warmth of heart, and he had an almost magic power of identifying himself on occasions with the most humble of his men. At times he seemed to display almost feminine outbursts of feeling, as your Correspondent well recollects, for instance, when he accompanied the general behind the bier of the late Mr. M'Cahan, at Constantinople, in the spring of 1878. General Skobeleff was born on the 29th of September, 1843, and was - therefore, thirty-nine years of age. After the death of his father two years ago, and the cruel murder of his mother in Bulgaria, the general was the only surviving member of the family bearing the name, and now there remain but his two sisters, Duchess Eugene Leuchtenberg and Countess Bieloze6ky. The latest accounts state that the deceased general was staying at Moscow on his way from his command at Minsk to his estate, a few miles the other side of the old capital. He spent most of yesterday in the Exhibition, and returned to his hotel in the evening in excellent spirits."  Writing from St. Pet( rsburg on Sunday night the correspondent of the Deity News says : "The sudden and premature death of the young Russian General, the 'White General,' as he was named by his soldiers, has cast a deep gloom over this city, and the sad event forms the chief subject of discussion. All the reading organs of the Russian press, irrespective of party, bewail the great loss the country has sustained in the death of a man who, during a shore term of service, bad attained to such high rank, and by his abilities and generous qualities enjoyed such unbounded popularity both among military men and civilians. The Moscow Gazette, commenting en the event, says :—" In