SIR JOHN COODE'S scheme for the protection of the foreshore at Hastings, by means of two stone groynes and an extended breastwork at the east end of the town, was completed last August. The total cost has been £30,000. Sir John remarked that the beach was accumulating at the rate of 40,000 to 50,000 tons per annum. EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF STRANGULATION.--An extraordinary case has occurred at Howick, near Preston. A little boy named Fisher, the son of a farmer, was climbing an apple tree, when he slipped between two branches. His jacket turned up fast round his neck, and as he could not get a button undone, he was strangled. A MONSTER DOGFISH.--A gigantic dogfish, weighing ten cwt., has been hauled ashore by a fisherman at Mazargues, in the Department of the Bouches-du-Rhone. The animal made a desperate struggle on the bank, and its head had to be battered in with a club before it could be mastered. A monster of a similar kind, some time ago, ate up a boatman and his boy, whose boat had been capsized in the river. IT has been calculated that, after Prince von Bismarck's recent great speech, 1,218 telegrams, containing 194,296 words, were despatched to 326 different places on the world's surface. Two hundred and thirty-five telegraph clerks were employed at sixty Hughes' apparatus, 155 Morse's, and seven Estienne's, to carry out the work; and the number of words in the Chancellor's speech is computed at 10,997. A PECULIAR CASE.--Captain Russell has had under treatment a valuable and favourite cat, belonging to a resident of Spittlegate, Grantham. The poor animal was taken with a choking sensation about three weeks ago, and, as it could not eat, soon grew very thin, and appeared to be going "the way of all flesh." After vain attempts at restoration, pussy was taken to the afore-named veterinary surgeon, who prescribed for her. She was fed with a spoon for some days, and at length a substance was discovered to be forming by the side of the neck. Supposing it to be a boil, he lanced it, and found it to contain a piece of metal, which he at once extracted, in the shape of a sewing-needle with a piece of cotton attached. The cat is now recovered, and but little the worse for the painful operation.--_Grantham Journal._