The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1875-08-21 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

TKE STOTTEBRIDGE. OBSERVER.'  nals is not, h.') w ever, a local matter. The law on the subject should undoubtedly extend to the whole of the United Kingdom; and there is a ghastly absurdity in the fact that had Lebrun committed his crime at Southampton he would have been duly hanged at Winchester in private, whereas, having committed it in Jersey, he has been publicly strangled at St. lieliers, When the Private Executions Bill was debated in Parliament, an honourable and learned Member incidentally observed that en-pension ?ler co//em and coram public° was a common laW right, and that English people liked to be hanged openly. Similarly, the J-erseyites might plead that, as their island is so close to France, where publicity in executions yet lingers, they have a "right," under the "Grand Coustumier," to be put to death in the sight of the world. But if that line of reasoning is to hold good, it strikes us that the Jerseyites have equally a "right" to be guillotined Instead of being hanged. If they plead that their customs are medimvally Norman, and that they do not recognise the mode of capital punishment adopted by revolutionary France, it must thn be conceded that a Jersey murderer has an indefeasible "right" to be broken on the wheel, and to break him thereupon would not be more illogical than to hang him in public. The variation in practice between the United Kingdom and the Channel Islands is as stupid as it is unseemly.  of a prickly pear. The nostrils are most peculiar; , they are situated at the extreme end of the nose, and the two valves seem to rise from the inside with exactly the same quiet motion as does the hydraulic lift when it rises level with the platform at the Great Western Station, or, again, its action may be likened to the working ,of the ha of the Lest of the trap door spider. The upper lir‘ is full and cleft in the middle' and covered inside wish tufts of stiff bristles like those of the walrus. Dr. Marie, late prosector of the Zoological Society, has published in the 'Transactions,' vol. 8, of the Society a very able monogram of this animal, the anatomy of which he has thoroughly made out and beautifully figured. Dr. Murie considers that these peculiar stiff bristles inside the mouth correspond to and are the homologues-of the whale-bone in the mouth of the whale, and it certainly appears to me that this is a fact. These bristles May be said to be prehensile, as they will, I find, gently clasp one's fingers when the manatee takes a lettuce rrom one's hand. The manatees are said to be whale-like in habit, and when at . home to leap out of the water in a whale-like manner, and they were formally abundant in the entrances of the Orinoco and the Amazon. They also ascended the rivers and took up their abode in the freshwater lakes. Formerly they were very abundant in Cayenne, where the flesh was sold for 3d. per lb., and this, as was the case with the. unhappy dodo, caused them to be nearly exterminated. I advise cur readers to lose no time to go and examine for themselves this extraordinary animal. The price asked for the manatee is £400: In 1866, Mr, Clarence Bartlett brought to England a manatee caught in the River Maroni. It unfortunately died just 'before the ehip arrived at Southampton. 'Guy Fawkes,' the baby hippopotamus—the Hippopota.midion,' as my friend Mr. Edward Karslake calls her—is very jealous of the new arcival. To pacify her, Mr. Karslake proposes to give her a new title—Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile."