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Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 764, 17 January 1871, Page 3

Trade of the Port of London.— The Customs returns for the past year show that 78,774 vessels arrived in the port of London during 1869, of which 74,777 were sailing and 3,997 steamships. The steamships exhibit an increase of 469 and the sailing vessels a decrease of 400, as compared with the previous year, there being a total increase of 69 vessels of both kinds. The passenger traffic returns show that 1,469 passengers were examined by Customs officers at Thames Haven; 33,994 on board steamers comin? up the river, 833 at Gravesend, 4,696 at the various docks and wharves, and 60,536 at Charing-cross and Victoria railway - stations. A total of 210,867 packages wera also examined, as compared with 201.273 in 1868. The cattle landed at the London wharves included 452,839 animals, 61,414 of which were beasts, 3,776 calves, 369,240 sheep, and 18,409 pigs; a total of 135,227 animals were also landed at Thames Haven, making a grand total of 552,066 head landed in the port during last year. There was a large increase in the proportion of sheep and pigs as compared with the previous year, which is the more remarkable, inasmuch as, owing to the appearance among them of the foot-and-mouth disease in the autumn months of the year, orders were issued by the Privy-Council for the slaughter at the lauding place of all cargoes containing any sheep or pigs so affected, a measure which undoubtedly checked the introduction of infected animals into this country. A printer's mista ke.—ln consequence of some transposition, by which the notice of the decease of a country clergyman had got inserted among the announcements of the marriages in a newspaper, a short time sim-e, the announcement read thus:— "Married, the Eev. , curate of parishioners, by whom he was universally beloved. The poor will long have cause to lament the unhappy event."

We have often heard of ships running iuto one another; but the other day we actually saw a house fly. A " Great brute of a husband " is advertising in the paper for a strong, able-bodied man to hold his wife's tongue.

The Least Evil—A man was asked why he married so little a wife.— " Why," said he, " I thought that of ali evils we should choose the least.''''