Ditto, ditto, ending December
  31, 1831 256,321

Increase L67,595

Being upwards of 33 per cent. increase of the first six months of the year, and upwards of 135 per cent. increase on the travellers between the two towns during the corresponding months, previously to opening the railway.—­Gordon, on Steam Carriages.

Caliga.—­This was the name of the Roman soldier’s shoe, made in the sandal fashion.  The sole was of wood, and stuck full of nails.  Caius Caesar Caligula, the fourth Roman Emperor, the son of Germanicus and Agrippina, derived his surname from “Caliga,” as having been born in the army, and afterwards bred up in the habit of a common soldier; he wore this military shoe in conformity to those of the common soldiers, with a view of engaging their affections.  The caliga was the badge, or symbol of a soldier; whence to take away the caliga and belt, imported a dismissal or cashiering.  P.T.W.

The Damary Oak-tree.—­At Blandford Forum, Dorsetshire, stood the famous Damary Oak, which was rooted up for firing in 1755.  It measured 75 feet high, and the branches extended 72 feet; the trunk at the bottom was 68 feet in circumference, and 23 feet in diameter.  It had a cavity in its trunk 15 feet wide.  Ale was sold in it till after the Restoration; and when the town was burnt down in 1731, it served as an abode for one family.—­Family Topographer, vol. ii.

Brent Tor Church, Devonshire, situate upon a rock.—­On Brent Tor is a church, in which is appositely inscribed from Scripture, “Upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”  It is said that the parishioners make weekly atonement for their sins, for they cannot go to the church without the previous penance of climbing the steep; and the pastor is frequently obliged to humble himself upon his hands and knees before he can reach the house of prayer.  Tradition says it was erected by a merchant to commemorate his escape from shipwreck on the coast, in consequence of this Tor serving as a guide to the pilot.  There is not sufficient earth to bury the dead.  At the foot of the Tor resided, in 1809, Sarah Williams, aged 109 years.  She never lived further out of the parish of Brent Tor, than the adjoining one:  she had had twelve children, and a few years before her death cut five new teeth.—­Ibid.

The Dairyman’s Daughter.—­In Arreton churchyard, Isle of Wight, is a tombstone, erected in 1822, by subscription, to mark the grave of Elizabeth Wallbridge, the humble individual whose story of piety and virtue, written by the Rev. Leigh Richmond, under the title of the “Dairyman’s Daughter,” has attained an almost unexampled circulation.  Her cottage at Branston, about a mile distant, is much visited.—­Ibid.