MISCELLANEOUS.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3359, 30 November 1871, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

Sir Michael Costa is writing a new oratorio. Italy has 2S publics libraries, aud Switzerland 25. Monogamy is now iv the ascendant in Turkey. A large new masonic hall is to be erected in Liverpool. The Irish potato crop ** scaro" 13 reported to have collapsed. Scores of families in Cornwall are migrating to Lancashire. Mr Johu Stuart Mill is suffering seriously from consumption. Tbe Empress Eugenic is in Spain, on a visit to her mother, The Emperor Napoleon has been fjate-h tinting in Devonshire. 32 violent deaths occurred in London recently in a single week. Mr Kieh ard Bentley, the well-known publisher, is dead, aged 70. The foot and-mouth disease is reported to be decreasing in Ireland. An international medical congress is to be held at Eome in May next. " Enormous" finds arc reported from the Soutb African diamond fields. Italy is at present the great field for the operations of tbe Internationale. Nearly £1000 has been collected in Spain lor a monument to Marshal Prim. Dr Hill Burton is preparing a revised edition of his " History or Scotland." A destructive fire has taken place at the Pyramid Cutlery Works, Sheflcld. Mr Lowe aud Mr Goschen have been taking tbe air on' tbo top of Snowdon. A homoeopalbist has been elected medical officer to the Southampton workhouse. The Pall Mull Gazette says it is easier to find ammunition in England than lodging or food. A company for manufacturing sugar from beet-root has been formed at Sleaford, Suffolk. An elephant at the Jardin des Plan les in Paris, was instantaneously killed by lightning. Stepney Green, London, is to be converted into a public recreation ground, at a cost of £8000. A reaping machine, while cutting a ten-acre field of wheat, near Shrewsbuiy, killed 72 rabbits. Tbe membership of tbo churches of the Baptist Missionary Society numbers about 28,000. Upwards of 1000 tons of fruit and vegetables are daily brought to Covent Garden market. Efforts arc being made in Glasgow lo iai-0 tbo sum of £50,000, to found a Technical College. Tho King of Spain is increasing in popularity, owing to his affable aud unaffected manners. Sir Leopold M'Clintock, of Franklin expedition renown, has been appointed a lleai'-Admiral. Miss Gee, an actress, aged 19, committed suicide in Jersey by swallowing cyanide of potassium. There arc about 4000 building societies in Britain, with an estimated membership of 1,000,000. Borings are being made, with a view to tbo construction of a tunnel under the Clyde at Glasgow. The railway servants in Scotland aye agitating for tbe reduction of the hours of labor lo ten daily. A splendid monument to the memory of tho French soldiers who fell at Melz is to be erected there. A. bargo laden with petroleum took fitc on the Thames lately, but burned out without doing damage. The Bank of Ireland, Dublin, was robbed of --.'IOOO through a clerk leaving liis desk for a few minutes. M. Thiers has decided that the statue of Napoleon I. shall be replaced ou the Vendome Column. Tbe Guicowar of Baroda bas bad built for himself a carriage " consisting largely of gold and silver," Tourists bave this season visited the Nortb of Scotland in greater numbers tban in almost any former year. The foundation stone of a Seamen's Orphan Institution, to cost twenty thousand pounds, has been laid at Liverpool. The health of the Princess Christian

has not improved during her stay on the Continent, as was hoped. Tho Mayor of Bolton suggests the revival of the stocks in that town as a fitting punishment for drunkards. It is said that the Duke of Edinburgh is about to undergo a course of instruction in steam at Portsmouth. An edict has gone forth in Constantinople, forbidding the uso of donkeys as beasts of burden in tho streets. At Oxford three ladies were hurt hy the fall of an elm branch, weighing two tons, in New College Gardens. Three hnndred policemen were appointed to " protect" the thirty thousand troops engaged in the Hampshire Campaign. A conference, to consider the reform of the House of Lords, is to he held at Birmingham on November 28th. A grand fair has been held in the ruined village of Saint Cloud, for the benefit of the unfortunate inhabitants. Only a third of the potato crop in Scotland is expected to be realised this year, and in many districts much less. Tho Liverpool School Board find themselves called upon to provide school accommodation for twenty-five thousand children. In a crowded Highland inn lately, a nohle lord was obliged to sleep upon a dining table, and two M.P.'s underneath it. A golden bird of paradise, half lifesize, and covered with jewels, was exhibited at'the Milan Industrial Exhibition. Afc the Kelso Annual Bower Union Show, one of Lord Polwarth's Leicester rams was sold, to go to Australia, for £'155. During the year ending on the 00th June last, the Glasgow (Corporation) Gasworks yielded a profit of £08,203 4 s Id. Aali Paska, the lately deceased Grand Vizier of Turkey, is said to have been the most learned man in that empire. The Fronch ironclad, Normandie, has been broken np, her framework being rotten, though she was only ten years old. The Society of Bill-Stickers in the United Kingdom numbers ahout 400 members. " A distressed Churchman," writing to the " Birmingham Post," records the moral shock sustained by him on meeting the street a bishop in trousers. According to Mr Spurgeon, a bazaar is one of the most legitimate, and certainly one of the happiest, modes of obtaining money for a good cause. The Fraserburgh fisherman have caught more herrings this year than in any previous one. In fact, several nets have been lost through being overweighted with fish. ld<,ooo bank employes have subscribed £700 for a testimonial to Sir John Lubbock, in recognition of his efforts in connection with the Bank Holidays Act. It is stated to he the intention of the authorities, in consequence of Sir Hope Grant's report on the Easter Monday review to abolish all volunteer field artillery.

At Ling, in Upper Austria, an Education Congress was lately held, at which 2000 male and female teachers met to discuss the subject of religious and secular education.

Mr Macgregor has been navigating tho Zuydor Zee in his P.ob Hoy canoe. (( In a fortnight spent among the Dutch," he says, " I have not seen ono beggar, or blind mau, or idiot, or shoeless or drunk person."

At Kidderminster, Mr J. B. Edge, a volunteer, firing ata 500 yards range, made 325 points in 100 consecutive shots. He wagered that he would score au average of centres, and won with 25 to the good.

Republican clubs now exist m Birmingham, Leicester, Manchester, Newcastle, Dundee, Glasgow, and other large towns. In London a paper entitled the "■ Bcpublican," hasbecn started as the official organ of the movement. At Listowel, Kerry, a panic was caused by a rumor that all the children in the National School were, by order of the Government, to be branded with the letters V.E. The parents, in frantic haste rushed to the school and hurried their children away.

Two vessels of tho Swedish navy have fetched from Greenland three aerolites, the largest of which weighs nearly 00 tons, and which are to be closely examined. Tbey were floated 25 miles on floats brought from Sweden for the purpose.

"Confessions" are bea"* l regularly at nine o'clock nightly at Sl. Alban's, Holborn, London. The ■' confessionals" aro somewhat novel — banners of violet stuff, fixed in position in the left side aisle, on one side of wbich is a chair for tbe " priest," and on tbe other o kneeierfor his penitent.

The following mysterious advertisement appeared in the " agony column" of tbo "Times" on several days in September:— " Wanderer to Crete. — Stay Ha! Stay! Twenty orange and copper twenty lemon blue thero then comingbrassorange gold. Happynow.be happy too. Shoot when you can; so will 1." Tlio entire Russian army has been armed wiib an improved needle-gun, named, after the manufacturer, the Krinck pattern. 700 girls are employed in the cartridge factory at Woolwich Arsenal, and their number will shortly be largely increased. For attempting to throw bis wife and infant cbild out of a window, a man in London was sentenced to a month's imprisonment.

The " Association for Promoting tlie Reunion of Christendom" lias recently celebrated its fourteenth anniversary in London.

The " Morning Post says the King of Wu. lemberg is about to make Prince Tcck (husband of Princess Mary of Cambridge), a duko. r Jhe centenary of the birth of Mungo Park, the African traveller, was celebrated at Selkirk on September 10, by a public dinner,

At the Surrey sessions, a solicitor, named Harvey, was sentenced to six months' imprisonment, for indecently assaulting two young girls. Near Malton, a Mr Lamb swallowed a wasp while taking a drink. The insect stung his throat, and he died before medical aid could be obtained. The Clyde Trust, since its establishment more than a century ago, has spent i'5, 3 10,00f on the improvement of the river and harbor of Glasgow. At the funeral of the youthful Duchess of St. Albans an immortelle from the Queen was j-laccd on the coffin, containing the words, "A last tribute of love."