NEWS IN BRIEF.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 194, 4 December 1876, Page 3

NEWS IN BRIEF.

A sensation was caused in London by the arrival of 102 Canadian oxen in splendid condition from Montreal.

A pointsman on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, for extinguishing a lamp, was sentenced to five years' penal servitude.

There is no special style in engraving engagement-rings. A spider's web with a fly in it lias been suggested as a pretty device.

Cobb and Co., in New South Wales, are going to breed mules for coaching purposes. They are importing Spanish asses from America.

The Glasgow Union Railway are going to erect a new hotel in connection with their station at St. Enoch Square, at a cost of £IOO,OOO. The annual coat of the Glasgow fire department will, it is calculated, be increased in consequence of the improvements from £4,900 to £8,500.

The number of lunatics in England and Wale 3, on the Ist of January last, was GJ,GIO, being 1,123 more than in the previous year. It is announced that the Rev. Dr. Wallace, of Old Greyfairs, Edinburgh, has succeeded the late Mr. Russell as editor of the Edinburgh Scotsman, at a salary of £2,000 per annum.

Captain Webb says :—" Swimming is a most toilsome exertion, as it calls into action muscles which are seldom otherwise used, and the progress made is so slow in comparison with the exertion as to ba one.

Signs of industrial progress in Russia have not been wanting of late years ; and we now learn that the exhibition fever has also extended to that country, two being announced to be held there during the present year.

Miss Thomson's picture "Balaclava," during its three months' stay at the galleries of the Fine Art Society in Bondstreet, was visited by nearly 50,000 persons.

British cavalry officers first took up the game of Polo a few years ago in the Punjaub, when stationed at Lahore ; and it was so well liked that regiment after regiment adopted it. It is an undoubted fact that most all the Canadian mechanical exhibitors at Philadelphia are Scots, and they are just as wide awake and progressive as their Yankee neighbors.