The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1866-10-20 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

SUMMARY OF NEWS.  A disastrous fire broke out at day break on Wednesday morning, at Messrs. Hackett's Tap Mills, Matlock. The mills were totally destroyed. The damage is estimated at £10,000; and 200 people will be thrown out of employment. One man named Hallan perished in the flames. The last seen of him was at the top of one of the windows calling for" help," but no ladder could be found long enough to roach the window. It Is supposed that the firs was caused by a flue from a blacksmith's shop attached to the mill. The premises were insured.  It has been .announced that a Constitutional Association has been formed, with the object of increasing the numerical power of the Conservative party by careful attention to the Parliamentary register, Mr. C. Piffard is the honorary secretary of the new association, which has taken for its motto the significant phrase, l'as eat a al, hone dueirs.  A murderous and nearly fatal attack was made on an official in the Nottingham gaol on Tuesday morning. A convict named Carpenter, who, notwithstanding a sullen and reserved temper, had been treated with some extra leniency, attacked a warder named Slade without any apparent cause, and seizing him by the hair of the head, savagely stabbed him in the left eye with one of the points of a pair of scissors, inflicting a very dangerous wound. Fsrtunately he was speedily secured and fettered, or the warder might have lost Ms life at once. During the present week great Reform meetings have been held in various parts of the country. Mr. Bright attended at illasgow and mot with a very warm reception. He was entertained by the Scottish National Reform Leagne. There has been a shameful trade outrage at Nottingham. In consequence of the strike in the building trades of that town, the masters have been compelled to put on noursociety hands, and several of these, it seems, took up their quarters at an eating-house. On Monday ' night a great crowd of turn-outs assembled in front of this eating-house, shouting and threatening, and at last three or four of their number, with blacken.' faces, rushed into the place, and savagely assaulted not only men but women. The outrage was so unexpected, and so quickly perpetrated, that the fellows managed to escajw for the time being, but they were arrested shortly aft( muds. They have been brought before the Magistrates and remanded. Lord Malmeabury presided on Monday at an agricultural dinner at Christchurch, Hants, and in replying to the toast of the House of Lords, defended that hotly from an attack recently made on it by Mr. Bright. Ito said that Mr. Bright, " speaking in that off-haunt matmei iju which he treats all subjects," not long ago chose to assume that any Reform Rill accepted by the Commons would be rejected by the House of Lords, which had therefore better be swept away altogether. Lord Malmesbnry frankly said "be was not going to toll " his hearers whether the the present Government intended to bring in a it, lona Bill or not, but he wanted to know what right Mr. Bright had to say that if mien a bill should pass the House of Corumone under any Government, the blouse of Loeb was sure to reject it. His Lordship pointed omit that the subject of Refonu has never been discusseAl, or even nowt.' in the Upper House since ls:e2; that a generation has passed saw since that period; and that few of the peers who then sat is the House, remain among its members; and he theref ore declared it a calumny to say that the Lards would now inconsiderately reject a Reform measure. The noble earl further showed that it was a popular error to suppose that the Upper Hoase always had little to tin. tp to the mouth of May that was so, from the constitutional rule rending that all money bills must be initiated an the other house ; but after that limo tha business of the Lords was quite as great as that of tho Commons, and much of their lordships' labour c insisted in amending the crude and im• perfect measuressent up to Meats