The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1867-10-19 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

INTERESTING ITEMS FROM AMERICAN  JOURNALS.  A Mrs. Maria Starks. residing in Ontario connty, N. V., cut 81111 hairvested this season over twenty-five acres of whdat with her own hands.  Hasheesh eating is growing common in Springfield, Mass. It is worse than habitual smoking or denim drinking. The New York Herald has a special cbreespondent who dates from "the vicinity of the North Poic"  Out of a list of 110 persons summoned ae. jumrs for the approaching October term of the District Court In the parsh of East Feliciano, La., eighty-one are set down as coloured.  Silver ear-rinp, very long and very attenuated, are corning into fashion in America.  Three editors and one newspaper publisher have been returned to the Canadian Parliament.  Speaker Colfax, in a recent speech at Worcester, Ohio, declared 'Umbel( in favour of making the Presnlent '' dance no air A young lady is reported at New Haven, who goes through the Zouave drill with a 1211 i musket on parlour skates.  There are already in the field nine candidates for the Secretary of State m Illinois. The election does not take place until next year.  The Shenandoah Valley is being rapidly filled up by emigrants front the North.  A veteran of the Penironla and 'Waterloo, Captain Labrnsh, aired 102, was lately present at a breakfast er the New York Athenasam Club. •  An individnal in Petersburg, Va., whik is bove work, has devoted his iiteulthts to training four chickens to draw a carriage in which a roost, is perched., A shrewd villain in Nuhu, N. H., lately wialkol deliberately up to a store window and broke a pans ,if French and when asked to pay for it as deliberately drew out a WO dol. bill, which the storekeeper look, giving Min 70 dole, in change. The bill proved to be counterttat.  William Sigley, a prisoner confined in the Liverpool Borough iMol, committed suicide mi Saturday morning by hanging himself with a rope which he had twaittd from the oakum that he was picking.  Fall River, Maseacliusetts manufactures eightpifive thousand two hundred miles of printing cloths yearly, consulting lorty-eight thousand one hundred bales at cotton. In Minnesota, recently, two men were kept all night flat on their back and motionless, feigning death,. by a fernchat animal which they supposed to he a bems but which the m.orning light showed to IA a Newton/1,14.nd dog. Of the costly churches now being erected Roston, d one is Catholic, one Unitarian, an one Trinit7 au Congregationalist. The Unitarians are erecting tvi,i there, and the Episcopalians are about adding two more, *et specially expensive.  • - -An American paper says that a little girl named Florence Lucinda Story, only three years eleven !mouths old, is astonishing the people of Essex, where she lives, and of Salem, with her wonderful musical talent mpie.4 Jaye some two hundred tunes on the melodeon with great irrecisioo of time, and is possessed of a strong musical vok.a.l. The pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church at 'troy, New York, is said bs ho the richest minister is the world, hi his own name he counts 1,r,00,000ii4f&; his father Is worth 3,000,000 dolt, and his wife s,ooo.nrWdols. Its ealary Is 4,000 dole., but he gave it all away last Sr.!Se besides adding 31,000 dols. to it in donations. .  In order to facilitate the recruiting of tlic French army, the helzht of .Idiers for cavalry reginonts hag lately been reduced by two centimetre.. .  It is estimated that the awn already afl this year for foreign wheat iniportevl into this country as been at least between seven and eight million. sterling th enroot of the total paid op to the corresponding date vif last year. Russia has hten the principal gaoler by the rhovenient, and neat to her Prussia, the United states, and 'turkey. _ _  • -The Court Journal says :—" The queen's journey to or from Sootiand costs upwards oi 04. The distance from Witidsor Castle to Balmoral is 002 which is usually performed IT 10 hours."  - ta The New Orleans Picayune says that 'at uegro funeral in that city recently, the men appearicedr ci in black and the women in white. In front so -effixy ictrse, with ail the pump of nodding plumes SOri mourtilln driwory, moved slowly, while just behind four AWOL! ilica h ire a richlyolocoratwl coffin upon their alimilderi. riliere were some 1,500 persons in the proceesion as it licnycml silcntly through the streets, and altogether it was .ari impressive though peculiar sight. _  " A young Senteltmen, nam4l hue; Vraerfi,rd Pollok, who arrive I in this c:ty al.oir two years snide, and shortly afterwards Eldisted in the Filth UNO4mi Suit el Cavalry as a private I•oblier, lie., by the death of Ids iath, Ira Scotland, Wien lie r to ar baronetcy and Thronzh the intercession of the late ziir Frat oat Bruce, General Grant has diachereed from the Yen-ii 14,r POMP rinnthe rest the yonthiol Ir•rndef nasalise iraaf ,t the duties of farrier of Ida rvgirnent If obi  A few days since, it is reoort,4, a ma captu near Bethlehem, Ky, , a savke burg tau Louis. It W 441 about ten inches in length, .4. tit,Lit the tmet, there P• 1111 hut rue vertebra art flue mew Vlsere were two eyes in e di head, rind rath 11111 l th liAn the SV,I9 appearance nod sire. !Mmethoes it would dlirt oat ens Songue ant sometime. the other, and at thneabath denatamoney.  - "A correspondent, writing from Englund, grime 11 At In the Ilegisrer at Portsmouth, the bienplam 3 Dickens, on Ire date Dior 8, 1814, it fold the ic,n, is:. of Francis Pickwick, and alinaet inateki,te!y cq-k• it Dm, ii Eliza Dicke,,s and aext a ODA hi ice rice ii co.• a•e.  Tiiil,ows Orr,. of Lb, na•oe 4 Mr. D.t.x••n• chsra.ter. Mr. Dickens' own 11.112 S i 8 ChAries.inhn 11, Minns Dirk,ns; and his father, Mr. Thomas Dicken., is ,orrred lit the Poriosonth Register as a ooandian."—Boston Corrtuonwait&