Middlesbrough & Stockton Gazette and General Advertiser. — 1874-03-12 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

NOTES OF THE WEEK.  ftillg..4aiperor William of Germany is recovering, and was able to take a drive out on Saturday.  LORD DERBY has telegraphed instructions to Aden, respecting the remains of the late Dr Livim;stone. The body is expected to arrive in England in about six weeks.  A corrox mill at Musselburgb, near Edinburgh, was destroyed by fire on Friday night. The loss is estimated at .£30,000. lhe fife originsttd through friction in the machinery.  A Jzwisu family, consisting of twelve persons, have been burned in Constantinople. The tire was confined to one house, but all the efforts of the spectators were unavailing to save any of the inmates.  THE Acheneese are making desperate efforts to prolong the war against tile Dutch. A despatch from Penang states that a number of inland fortresiea have been strongly garrisoned. They affirm that the English treaty of 1857 is a forgery.  THE Lancashire mine owners have given notice to their men of a reduction of fifteen per cent. on their wages, to take effect after the 24th inst. A fall in wages in Staffordshire is also anticipated, as the price of coals was reduced on Monday 4s per ton to householders, and 3s per tun to irouniasters, The best coals at Earl Dudley's pits are now selling at 21s 6d per ton.  Mit PLIMSOLL'S work is bearing good fruit, the maritime authorities having been stirred up to look sharply after the condition of vessels before proceeding to sea. On Monday two Belfast shipowners, father and son, were sent to prison for two months, and fined £l5O each, for sending the Ninivid to sea in an unseaworthy condition. _ _  A desperate affair is reported from Mexico. The inhabitants of two towns having quarrellad, a pitched battle was Nreed en to settle the disput, tieventeen persons were killed. • During the following night the vanquished town attacked the victors in their homes, and slew the women aud children. Troops have been sent to keep peace between them.  A RIOT, attended with fatal consequences, has occurred at Vesth. A butcher having committed suicide in prison, the populace attributed the act to the ill-treatment he had received. The Town Hall was set on fire, and the tnob refused to allow the firemen to approach the building. Ultimately the troops were called out, and fired, killing four persons and wounding a great many.  A comastort occurred off Portl4nd on Sunday, between the steamer American, homeward bound, and tho Aracan, from London for Hong Kong. The Aracan ran into the American, cutting through her plates, smashing her ports, bulwarks, tltc., and driving the splinters into the saloon. The American was taken in tow by the Union Company's steamer Syrian, and brought into Southampton on Vfouda.y, The Aracan sank forty minutes after the collision, the crew having been taken on board the Syrian.  ON Sunday morning, a stone mason, named Sharpe, was found dead in a back street in Crief, Perthshire. He had been seen the previous evening worse:of drink, and on the body being removed a deep wound was discovered in the right groin. It was known that he had some money on him on Saturday, but the money and watch and chain were gone. Two itinerant hawkers and a photographer have been apprehended on suspicion of having being connected with the sad affair.  A TERRINIC explosion occurred on 'Friday night at Sheffield, through the breaking of a chain attached to a crane in the Britannia Foundry. '.l.hree tons of molten steel were being raised when the chain snapped, and the metal was poured out on the ground, some of it falling into a pit with water. A dreadful explosion was the immediate result. The building became a total wreck; men, metal, and debris being thrown with great violence in every direction. Twelve persons were very seriously injured, and several are not expected to recover. The chain was quite new; and had been tested to bear a strain of ten tons.  A ooveesmarringuiry has been instituted into the alarming mortality during the last two years in the Bishop Aneklana district. Dr. Thorne, one of the medical officers of the Local Government Board met the Urban Sanitary Authorities of Bishop Auckland and Spennymoor, and the Rural Sanitaly Authorities of the Auckland Union. He explained to ,these bodies that the attention of the Local Government Board had been called to the high death rate in these districts by the Registrar General's Returns. The average death rate throughout 1( ngland VMS 2,242 per 100,000; while in the Aueltlard tegistration district the rate was 2,396 from all causes, 124 being from fever, 198 from scarlet fever. In the Bishop Auckland Board of Health District, the death-rate during the past two years had been 32.5 per 1000 from all causes, i.e. 291 in 1872, and 36.1 in 1873, truly appalling death rates; and those rates ho added, were calculated after deducting the deaths occurring in the Workhouse of persons who were not previously resident in the Local Board district, from "fever" alone, whereas during 1872 and 1873 the death-rate rtached(in this Local Board district last year five till* that obtained in London and the large cities: One of the most painful features noticeable, he thought, was the waste of infant life in the Auckland Union. In healthy rural districts an average of 12 out of every hundred children bon) alive die within the first twelve months of life, and in large towns about 15 or 16 out of every 100. In the Bishop Auckland Local Board district it was 20.6 in 1872' and 25.0 in 1873. But in the Spennymoor Local Board area this death rate was even higher, f.,r in 1872 it actually reached 28 3, i.e., out of every 100 children bora alive, more than 28 died dur' lag the first year. I.This alarming state of matter he attributed to defective drainage— in many cases the fluid loon the sewers finding its way back through the soil into the wells. This grave state of matters requires iinmediate altaration, and the meeting at which the above Amtements were made, broke up with a formal vote of thanks to Dr Thorne for the explicit manner in which he had explained the evil and the remedy.  I