GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 4929, 9 January 1877, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS.

♦ Two steamers have arrived in the Mersey from Canada with 1139 live sheep on board. Mr. Scrivehor, the new Director of Customs in Egypt, was offered a handsome- inducement to forsake the service of the Queen for that of the Khedive. His salary is £3OOO a-year. The Newivendor announces the Dairyman, a monthly trade journal for cowkeepers, milkvendors, and dairy-farmers. ' Mr. Charles McGarel. D.L., J.P., of Magheramorne, county Antrim, has, it is believed, left 1\ millions sterling. The Stationers' Company have appointed a committee of the court to consider the proposal for a Caxton celebration in 1877. It is proposed to establish a regular carrierpigeon communication throughout the county of Suffolk for police purposes, the headquarters to be at Ipswich, and the birds to be used by isolated houses, detectives, outposts, &c. The Baldwin Locomotive Works have just completed the first locomotive for street cars made by them, in which the boiler and machinery, are separate from the car. A trial trip will soon be made on the Market-street railway, Philadelphia. Five thousand two hundred and six books were issued in Bussia during the years 1773 and 1874. Of these 679 were theological, 322 legal, 113 agricultural, 247 historical, 247 geographical and ethnographical, 195 mathematical,'l3s military, 34 scientific, 224 medical, 438 philological, 94 artistic, while 1851 treated of lighter literature, and 447 were translations of foreign belles kttres. A lynx (loup cervier) has made its appearance .in the commune of NeVache, in the Hautes Alpes. It killed four sheep .and scattered the rest of a flock of a hundred, which, it is supposed, were terrified, leaped from the rocks, and have not yet been found.

The population of Birmingham amounts to 290,000, or one-tenth that of London. A probably unprecedented fact has just occurred (says the Army and Navy Gazette) in the 15th Foot. Colonel Henry Grierson has retired on half-pay after a service of fortythree years in the corps, six of which were passed in it in' company with his father, the late Lieutenant-Colonel W. Grierson, who joined the regiment as a captain in August, 1894.- Thus father and son served in"the regiment upwards of seventy-two years. Lately in England a jury was summoned to decide as to the cause of death of Augusta Williams, aged two months, who was suffocated by being overlain. For the convenience of Mr. Coroner Carter, and to save the county expense, the mother was compelled to carry her dead baby in its coffin to the tavern where the Coroner's Court sat, a distance of half a mile, for the purpose of showing it to the jury, after which she had to carry her burden back again. Mr. C. Hooper, coroner for East Staffordshire, held an inquiry recently at Handworth,; Birmingham, upon, the body of '., Elizabeth; Birch,* a single wbmein, aged forty-eight years, aunt to Mrs. _Cox, who was engaged in the BalhamTcase. Ann Edwards, niece of the deceased, said the deceased had complained of palpitation of the heart for two years, but declined to have a, doctor. On Saturday week she complained of pain in the che,st and numbness of the-arms. She kept her bed from.the following Tuesday till Thursday. On Saturday she went to bed and slept as usual, and on Sunday morning she was found dead in bed.: Mr. Frere, surgeon, who was at once sent for, thought death arose from the heart. Deceased., made a will a short time since; but about a, I month ago went to Burton for the day, and another will was.made for ber, which had | sjnee been found, James .Timmins, servant j lat Mrs. Edwards',/ said on Saturday week | deceased complained of shortness, of. breath;.: Jand was sick in the yard. , Mrs.. Cox was j .staying ■witi*. them, a fortnight ago; and when .deceased was sick. Mrs. Cox went to Liverpool the next Monday.' In answer to a. ques-' tion, witness said she was wrong in saying iMrs., Cox <was. there when deceased. was sick, but she Was there on the previous Wednesday. who haft-gone to Jamaica.•>The.,, cxtrqnpr said quired the strictest" investigation, and he. adjourned the inquiry until • the. 25th in. order that a post mortem examination might be made and further .evidence adduced.;..He:instructed the police to make a minute examination' of the house and premises, and-take possession of j any bottles, papers, or other matters of importance. ' : Some excitement has been occasioned in South Wales by the production at the Baptist Chapel, Britton Ferry, of what may fairly be termed a. .dramatic performance, entitled "Joseph and his Brethren:" The Western \Mail having. obtained a printed copy of the work, publishes extracts from it, ;showing a regular dialogue for several persons, stage directions, and-.the familiar "enter" and " exit" used precisely as in the acting editions of theatrical literature. The. author of "Joseph and his Brethren" remarks, i n a prefatory note:—"The difficulty and objection to presenting or performing such a Sundayschool dialogue as .' Joseph and his Brethren' is its great length. To avoid this objection and prevent tediousness, the dialogue has been arranged in six parts, in order that the singing, recitations, &c, on. the general programme, may be introduced between.the parts. The effect will be very fine." There is also a caution; that, the recitation is "to be performed without change; of apparel or costume," qualified by the statement, however, „ that " Joseph may be-designated by a coat of many oolors." • A correspondent of the Western, Mail •thus .describes,.some : of : . the'; observations of the Sundays audience in the.chapel A grown-up .woman packed in the ; crowd exclaimed in one breath, ' Don't shove there—and where's r his coat of many colors? and Where's the sacks V Another replies, ' Don't I want to see ; Joseph as -well as you ?' A youngster, close ,by, after the sentence was passed on the baker to be-hanged, called out to those near him, ' Look there, how quiet that. chap is taking it what's going to be-huhg.' "*' .;