MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 453, 5 December 1849, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

A new species oi fire arms is coming into use in the Prussian service. The invention is described by the Berlin correspondent of the Daily News :—": — " The greater pan of the Prussian infantry are armed with a heavy long-barrelled musket; which is loaded at the breach, and which they call Zundnadel*Gewelir. With this arro half a dozen shots may be fired in the same time as with a common musket. It kills as far and carries with the same precision as a rifle ; as the present practice at Potsdam, witnessed by the King and General Wrangel, proves. Military men here pretend that batteries will not be tenable in the face of infantry so armed, for the Zund-nadel-Gewehr men will be able to pick down the gunners at their cannoti with common range. I have heard Prussian officers express the wish that, ;f; f there is to be a war, it may come on as soon as possible, while the Prussians are the only infantry armed with the Zundnadel-Gewehr." Mr. Macready. — Birmingham, June 27. — Mr. Macready appeared for the first time in England since his return from America, at our theatre, last night. There were on this occasion one or two points remarkable. Tne Birmingham stage, of which his father was then the manager, was the first upon ! which, after his emancipation from Rugby, he essayed as a candidate for dramatic eminence. Mr. Macready selected the Birmingham — the scene of his early associations — as the theatre in which he preferred to appear after his recent ill-treatment at New York. The character of Macbeth was the one in which he was driven by the lawless mob from the commercial capital of the United States ; it was also the character in which he last night appeared before a Birmingham audience, tiis reception was most enthusiastic. The house was crowded, and the waving of hats and handkerchiefs greeted his entrance.