MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 48, 23 December 1871, Page 17

MISCELLANEOUS.

There are 908 agricultural societies in Prussia. Steam omnibuses have been introduced into Paris. Blondin is about to “ do” the falls of Niagara once more. An extensive bed of lead ore has been discovered in Jersey. Mr Justice Mellor has purchased a cotton mill at Preston. A tax on matches has been adopted by the French Assembly. The King of Spain, though unpledged, is a staunch teetotaller. The trot is coming into fashion with lady equestrians in England. The restoration of Lincoln Cathedral is being actively proceeded with. The Canton of Geneva has a publichouse for every 72 inhabitants. It is proposed in London to erect a national monument to Dickens. The Dundee scavengers have struck for an increase in wages of Is a week. Mr Disraeli is reported to be failing fast. Age is visibly telling on him. A new public park, provided at a cost of £IB,OOO, has been opened at Dundee. Large numbers of lambs on the Yorkshire Wolds have died from an epidemic. 21 ships of war are now in course of construction for the British Government. There are 700,000 cats in London, to feed which 300 horses are killed every week. The export of coal from the United Kingdom during the present year has averaged upwards of a million tons per month. A Clapham laundress attempted to commit suicide by gashing her leg with a razor. A line of railway, 600 miles long, is being constructed through the Nubian desert. Marshal M'Mahon is writing a bools on the surrender of the French army at Sedan. The Duke of Edinburgh has presented his pet elephant to the Dublin Zoological Society. The number of persons employed in the textile industry in the United Kingdom is 973,000. Iron railway carriage wheels are now being imported into England from Nova Scotia. Sharks and seals have been caught at various places on the British coast this autumn. The daily consumption of Government gunpowder in England is from 38 to 40 barrels. Dr Dasent, sub-editor of the Times,, has succeeded Mr Froude as editor o Fraser’s Magazine. Some Irish agricultural laborers in Warwickshire have had a bloody affray with sickles. A veteran who served under the Duke of York in Holland in 1795, died lately at Norwich. At Ormskirk, a lady fell into a thrashing machine in motion, and had one leg chopped off. ' The death rate in Britain is highest in the first quarter of the year, and lowest in the third. At a ball at Southsea, Capt. Weigall, of the 77th Regiment, died suddenly from heart disease. Mr Spurgeon has entirely dropped the prefix “ Bev.,” and is now styled “Pastor C. H. Spurgeon.” In Belgium, 900,000 persons, or onefifth of the entire population, receive relief from the poor-rates. The reorganisation of the French army is reported to be proceeding in a very satisfactory manner. There are about 31,000 lunatics in the various county and borough asylums in England and Wales. Columbia Market, built by Lady Burdett-Coutts, is to he transferred to the Corporation >f London. It is reported that the French normal diapason pitch is to be the standard at Covent Garden next season. According to Mr Davenport, M.P., drunkenness is decreasing in London, but increasing in Lancashire. The great ordnance works of Herr Krup, at Essen, cover 250 acres, and give employment to 8000 persons. The National Education League in Britain has now upwards of 300 branches, distributed all over the Kingdom. At Treves a priest has been sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for com-

paring the Emperor William to Beelze--2-|. inches of rain fell at Malton, Yorkshire, in six hours, in the beginning of September, being equal to 233 tons per acre. , The Milan police are arrayed in high shiny hats, black trousers, globes, and coats, the latter reaching nearly to their feet. . The number of persons who received the Order of the Iron Cross during the last war is officially stated at about 40,000. The practice, unusual in London, of selling meat by auction, has been adopted at the City of London meat market. The “ Lancet” has ascertained that during the last five years 71 separate donations of £IOOO each have been made to London charities. The King of Bavaria lias forbidden persons in the civil and military services of that kingdom to be 1 reemasons, members of the Internationale, or other secret society. At Aberdeen, a Mr Sutherland, locally known is “ The Rescue,” has saved 13 persons from drowning during the present bathing season. The parishchurchyardof St George’s, Blackfriars, London, is being turned into a pleasure garden. A Waterford paper announces the arrival there of a lady who had just buried her sixth husband. She is still under 40, rich, and childless. Nat Langhatn, a once famous member of the P.R., and the only man who heat Tom Sayers, has died, aged 51. According to Lord Shaftesbury, “ a man without a wife is but half a beitig, and does no good in this world.” The watchmaking trade in Switzerland is active at present, the demand for labor being in excess of the supply. Professor Goldwin Smith has undertaken the editorship of a new magazine about to be published in Canada. The British Mercantile Marine has about 200,000 sailors, of whom, on an average, 2,300 are drowned every year. A “ Country Brewer,” in a letter to the “Times,” mentions incidentally that he is part owner and lessee of ab'out 130 full licensed public houses. The value of an appoitment in the Indian Civil Service was estimated by the Lord Chancellor in a recent speech at £IO,OOO. Messrs John Taylor and Sons employ 56,000 peisons in their mines in Great Britain, besides those working in their mines in other parts of the world. The London “ Echo” says:—“Even our sports are deteriorating. W e play cricket in armor, turn down foxes under the very noses of our hounds, and all but train our pheasants to stand fire.” In some parts of India the ladies and gentlemen are having “foxhunts, with jackals for the foxes, and the ladies, in good old English fashion, riding well to the hounds. Sir W. Sterndale Bennett has given the directors of the Royal National Opera Company permission to perform (for the first time on the Operatic stage) his cantata “ The May Queen,” which was to be produced at St. James s Theatre in October, under the direction of Miss Rose Hersee, who was to represent the May Queen.