The Shropshire Examiner and all round the Wrekin advertiser. — 1874-12-05 (Wenlock, Shropshire, England)

OLD MAN.— Under recast obituary notices has been seen the death of Mr. James Ballard, of North View, Clays ton, aged 83 years Seventy-three years since the deceased worked in Peel's cotton factory, at Burtonon-Trent, in which the motive Rower of the mill was principally a water wheel, assisted by is steam engine. The hetory was lighted by candles, which were made of a green colour, to prevent them being used elsewhere. The hours of labour were from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mr. Haßard removed to Manchester in ISM and worked as an 6ver400ker. in various mills until within the last , few years. He was the oldest member of j the °Mellows in that distriet, having been initiated in the Devonshire Lodge more than sixty years since. Seventy years ago manners and customs were strangely at variance with those of our days. Deceased, as a youth, witneesed a real man and dog fight within a mile or two of Burtonon-Trent- The combatants were a sweep. who !stood in a hole up to his middle, and a bull dog who was set upon him. The mae, who was armed j with a stick about 30 inches long and three-quarters of an inch thick thick, was victorious. Bull baits were then common in Burton, as many as three hulls at one time being fastened to three places in one street.. A celebrarrd bear, called Nancy, was frequently baited, and her owser, a one-armed man, was named Rupert. The celebrities of the town amongst the dogs were three-legged Dick and three-legged Jack; each of which heroes had lost a , leg in honourable war with bulls.— Manchester Evesing N,tos. 1 REMARKABLE DMAIEI OF A MoMNANDULMT.-' AN extraordinary case of suicide has lately occurred in Paris. Is Kaglaid a nice legal point might occur as to whether it was a imicid• at all. At all events, the remarkable oircusastascos of the I case are to be irrvesfigated. by she Academy of I Sciences in Paris. They are as follow :—A. lyoung man of the name of Goupil, living with his wife and mother, kept a jeweller's shop in the Rue Leggier, where they all lived comfortably and prosperously together. Six mosthe ago M. Goupil lost his young wife, to whom he was tenderly attached. Her death, it is supposed, affected his brain; at all events, for the first time in his life, he took to sleep walking. He was in the habit of putting round his neck a gold link necklace of which his wife was very fond. Every day he deI dared that this necklace became smaller and smaller, and that eventually it would strangle him—a consummation he devoutly wished. No one regarded these forebodinga, as they were consid. red merely the offspring of a mind diseased. He used. however, under the iniiience of somnambulism, to rise is the middle of the night and gete his worktable. There he cut off one of the links of the chain aud rejoined those that were separated, and was seen doing so by his mother, who, from superstitious fears, did not like to interfere. In the daytime M. i.oupil naturally found that the necklace , was narrower, and, ignorant of his nocturnal workmanship, imagined it was owing to supernatural influence. The other morning he was found dead in his room. He had cut off so many links that he could only buckle the chain round his throat by unnat,rally compressing it. When the throat returned to its normal sine the chain strangled him.  DICAN BOYD ON Tux HSl:lit-I OF THE Woitiusso