MISCELLANEOUS.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 898, 9 December 1871, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

The number of persons employed in the textile industry in the United Kingdom is 973,000" Iron railway carriage wheels are now being imported to 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 suceeded Mr Fioude as editor of Fraser's Magazine. Some Irish agricultural labourers 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 Kegimeut, died suddenly from heart-disease. There are 90S 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 purchase 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 la 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. Twenty-one 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 book on the surrender of the Frencb army at Sedan.

The Duke of Edinburgh has presented his pet elephant to the Dublin Zoological Society. A. sub-coinmittee of the Liverpool Town Council, appointed to enquire into the conditions of service in the police force in that town, urge in their report that the aim of the authorities should be to get men who were trustworthy and of some education into the force, rather than men of immense stature aud physical development only.

Mr Spurgeon has entirely dropped the prefix ' Rev.," and is now styled " Pastor C. 11. 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 abuot 31,000 lunatics in the various county and borough asylums in England and Wales. Columbia Market, built by Lady Burdett-Coutts, is to be transferred to the Corporation of London. It is reported that the Frencb normal diapason pitch is to be the standard at Covent Garden next reason.

According to Mr Davenport, M.P., drunkenness is decreasing in Loudon, but increasing in Lancashire. The great ordnance works of Herr Krupp, 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 comparing the Emperor William to Beelzebub. Two and a quarter inches of rain fell at Malton, Yorkshire, in six bcurs, in the beginning of September, being equil to 233 tons per acre. The Milan police are arrayed in high shiny hats, black trousers, gloves, 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 seventy-one separate donations of £IOOO each have been made to London charities. The King of Bavaria has forbidden persons in the civil and military services of that kingdom to be Freemasons, members of the Internationale, or other secret society. At Aberdeen, a Mr Sutherland, locally known as " The Rescue," has saved 13 persons from drowning during the present bathing season. The parish churchyard of 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 Langham, a once famous member of the P.R, and the only man who beat Tom Sayers, has died, aged 51. According to Lord Shaftesbury, " a man without a wife is but half a being, and does no good in this world." The watchmaking trade in Switzerland is active at present, tbe demand for labour 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, 2300 are drowned every year. A " Country Brewer," in a letter to the " Times," mentions incidentally that he is part owner and lessee of about 130 full licensed public houses. The value of an appointment 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 persons in their mines in Great Britain, besides those working in their mines in other parts of the world. It is stated that a watch on which a London workman has been engaged five years will cost, when finished, over two thousand pounds. The London " Echo" says : —" Even our sports are deteriorating. We play cricket in armour, 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. Elder Knapp, the great revivalist of religion down in Arkansas, when about to baptise a new convert, called out in a loud voice—" Does any one know any reason why this man should not be baptised ?" aud to his surprise a long specimen of apt Arkansas traveller shouted in respotue Mister Preacher, I don't want to interfere in that 'ere business of yours, but if you expect to get the sin all out of that old cuss you will have to anchor him out in the river over night." The entire assets of a bankrupt were nine children. The creditors acted magnanimously, and let him keep them.

An attorney observed to a brother in Court that he thought whiskers very unprofessional. " You are right," replied his friend ; " a lawyer cannot be too barefaced." Mr D. F. Main's home station Upper Taieri, was destroyed by fire on Sunday morning, the 26th ult. It is insured in the New Zealand Office for £450.

A Clergyman in the country had a stranger preaching for him one day: Well, Saunders, how did you like the sermon to-day Y" " I watna, Sir, it was rather o'er plain and simple for me," replied the beadle. "Hike the sermons that bejumble the judgment and confuse the sense ; od, Sir I never saw any that could come up to yoursel' at that."

A young man who was caught pressing his sweetheart to his breast the other night, justifies himself on the ground that he has a right to strain his own honey. *