MISCELLANEOUS.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 918, 25 January 1872, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

The new pier at Anstrutlier, over which £50,000 has been spent, has been smashed by the sea for tho third time.

A newly erected four-story house in Dundee, fell in with a crash the other day. Fortunately no one was hurt.

The Emperor of Germany has accepted a pair of golden spurs of exquisite Workmanship from a Bavarian peasant. Mdlle. Schneider has been presented, by an unknown admirer, with a magnificent gold and diamond comb,worth £BOOO.

An Indian Rajah is about to make a tour, in the course of which he will marry the daughters of three different Rajahs. Fifty-nine vessels were paid off at Liverpool in two days lately. On the following days the polico and magistrates were fully employed. The giving of port wine to racehorses, both during training and before running in races, is becoming common in England. There are 19 " free and easies" within five minutes' walk of the Cross, Glasgow, and each is thronged on Saturday nights. The streets of Pekin arc in such a state that several deaths from drowning in the mud holes in them have lately taken place. Tho centenary of Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, which occurs on the 25th January, is to be celebrated at Glasgow by a public dinner. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution has now 230 boats, and has saved 20,000 lives since it began operation, or about 800 a-year. A woman was recently committed for trial in London for begging, who had already been 76 times in custody for the same offence.

A single firm of furniture manufacturers in Vienna employs over 4000 workmen, and produces annually about 450,000 pieces of furniture.

The number of paupers in London is nearly 120,000. Large though this number is, it is 14.000 below the figures for the same period of IS7O.

The Queen is reported to have said lately, " Laughter has so long been a stranger to my lips that it seems almost a new sensation." The eldest son of one of the wealthiest princes in India, the Maharajah of Lahore, has died in Paris of starvation. His father had disowned him.

The late Grand Vizier ef Turkey left debts exceeding £BO,OOO. He was too much occupied with State business to look after his private affairs. Many of the Parisians who took refuge in Brussels during the war, have taken up their abode there permanently owing to the cheapness of living. A carriage containing three ladies was lately fired on by Brigands at Rome. On reaching homo, one of the ladies found a bullet in her chignon. According to Miss Emily Davies, female education in America is greatly over-rated, and is in no way superior to that imparted in France and England.

The " London Echo " says " it has been calculated that something like 37,000 girls are seduced annually iu England under the age of 19, and 13,000 at a later period." During the last session of Parliament, Messrs G. and C. Bentinck, Newdegate, and Beresford Hope deliverd 357 speeches among them, Mr Hope alone making 116.

Notwithstanding the strike of engineers at Newcastle, the exports of steam-engines from England, in August show an increase as compared with tho same month last year. Bronze 9-pounder guns, for mountain service, are being cast at tho Royal Gun Factories in England. These guns weigh only 2 cwt. each, are 3 feet long, and of 3-inch bore.

A man died at Watcrford the other day, and at the " wake " which followed his son killed 'himself by drinking nearly a quart of whiskey. Farther and son were buried together. The Pall Mall Gazette says that " secret" drinking is, without doubt, an increasing vice amongst women of all classes, and especially amongst those who rank as gentlewomen " The Birmingham Gas Company was lately swindled by an employe of £25,000. It afterwards came out that for 50 years the Company's business had been carried on without a cash book. The North British Mail mentions a proposal to construct a tunnel, with suitable approaches, under the river Clyde, at Finnieston street, Glasgow, a central point for a large amount of traffic.

The weight of the "War office correspondence is 4,000,000 ounces a year, and tho letters issued daily amount to 14,000, the cost of the postage on these letters being about £50,000 a year. A London resident, whose name has not transpired, but who is said to be the renowned Professor Holloway, has offered to give half a million for the benefit of the poor in that city, when he can see a mode of satisfactorily effecting this without fear of pauperising the classes he seeks to benefit.

A " roving correspondent" at Rome at Rome declares that the Pope is entirely in the hands of the Jesuits and the Ultramontranes, who never lo?e sight of him lest he should make peace with the Government, or, in other words " reconcile himself to the King "

Emigration from England to the

United States is increasing rapidly. During the last three months for which an official report was made, tho departures from Liverpool wcro 5000 in excess of the preceding quarter. Among these emigrants aro many skilled labourers and mechanics.

At the Social Science Congress at Leedp, one of the sections had a discussion on the law relating to the prevention of contagious diseases, During tho proceedings a gentleman drew tho attention of the chairman to the fact that a number of ladies were prosent. The chairman said that it was intended that ladies shonld be there. The gentleman thereupon said that as the ladies wauld not go, he should j and amidst laughter and shrill hisses he retired.

An honest farmer of Surrey has written a letter to a relative in Virginia, to say that all the talk in the newspapers about a sanguinary engagement between the Germans and the English at Dorking is a stupid hoax—that ho lives in the neighbourhood of Dorking, and that nothing of the sort has occurred there at all.