The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1873-02-22 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

MODE OF PODONING.—A girl about 18 years of age, the daughter of honest parents in Perugia, has committed suicide through having been crossedin a love affair by her parents. The hot-headed girl told them 41.1 they would not consent to hermarriage with the young man of her affection, she did not know what to do with her unhappy life, and that she must die. She was talking thus in the coolest manner possible whilst drinking a cup of coffee, in which she had previously boiled the heads of a quantity f lucifers, and in two hours after she was a corpse, to the despair of her parents, who, out of love-for her, had tried to prevent a marriage which they knew could not turn out for the happiness of their child.  WHAT A SATIRE !—ln a leader on the abdica• tion of the King of Spain, The Times remarks :  The friends of Spain may see in the history of the last week much to encourage th,m, and those whp were disposed at first to condemn King Amadeus' Abdication as • fainthearted surrender of great opportunities may modify their lodgment by the light of what has since happened. The King has gone, and there has been no trace of daorder which &server to be remembered. It thus appears that his presea ie was not the “serttal condition if order and peace It was supposed to be. He had no such function to fill ail that of " raviour of society." He leaves Madrid and retires to Lishin, where, with a just feeling of his position, he has declined to receive the Ministers who hastened to wait on him. What eaatire it cilia upon the pains poor Prim took toiled a Prince to accept the Crown, with no other result than to terminate at the Fame time his own life ant the Republican interregnum which had survived long enough to suggest the lesson that no change was wanted ! What a satire on the vanity of a people, and on the wisdom of • ruler who strove to gratify it, that for the purpose of obtaining a pledge that one puppet should not be put up instead of another, thousands of lives should have been wasted, millions of treasure squandered, and an Empire overthrown!  THE OLDEST INHABITANT !—A very old inhabitant of France perished last autumn at Chantilly. Thin was an exceedingly ancient carp, a perfect patriarch among fishes, his age being no less than 375 years. He was a young fish in the reign of Francis 1.,. and having been, we may presume, one of these privileged fiehes that pass their lives in marble basins, Ms expressive eyes must have witnessed not a few changes in the costumes and manners of successive human contemporaries. His last owner purchased him in 1871 for 1,900 f. Be met his fate from the jaws of an enormous pike, which attacked him, with what intent it is difficult to understand, seeing that the carp WAR over three feet in length and about two and a half feet round the thickest part of his body. Wives WANTED !—ThCre is a certain district in Guzerat which appears to be the paradise of women. According to the Bast Goftar, a native paper, the young men amongst the Lavia Koonbies are literally pining for want of wives. "At present," it observes, 'it is a very difficult matter to get a bride even for a large suin of money. The scarcity in so great, that though the Koonbies are permitted widow marriages, widows, ton, are scarce, an that the poor fel owe spend their lives in celibacy." Everything marriageable within their reach has been appropriated, and still the cry is, "Give us wives, whether widows or maidens we care not, only give us wit,. 5." What is to be done in this painful emergency? Tart Bombay Gazette sarcastically requests the Bombay Association to take up the matter. "The association," it remarks, "was established for the purpose of contributing to the welfare of the people of India," and it is obvious that a province starvim; for water is not to be compared with a province starving for wives. In Bombay itsrlf the flindoos "kirk up a dreadful caste row when one of their sect, bolder than his fellows, seleuts a widow to be his bride." Then why .not send these widows where the men are lest f anti iioue, and where they are certain to receive better treatment?