SCOTLAND.
We are informed by a correspondent, that Messrs. John Bartholomew and Co., Calton, have reduced the labour of the workers in their factories one half-hour per day, with a promise, that if the present reduction work well, and physically, mentally, and morally improve the condition of the operatives, a still farther reduction of another half-hour (making a reduction of not less than a twelfth part of their time) will take place in the course of next winter.—Glasgow Argus. Two other manufacturing firms at Glasgow had previously reduced the period of labour one hour, with the best results. Strange as the circumstance may appear, the streets of a royal burgh in &otland have during the past week been submitted to the action of the plough. The burgh is Peebles, which is in course of receiving improvements. The streets having required to be lowered and reposed, a strong plough has been employed to tear up the old causeway and subsoil; and so effectually has this been performed, that by one or two days' operations of a man and a pair of horses, the labour of many men for a week or more has been spared. The hint is worthy of the notice of railway excavators.—Caledonian Mercury. In prosecuting a search for iron-stone and other minerals upon the estate of Sir James Boswell of Anchinleck, the Lugar Iron Company have opened out a large seam of plumbago, or black-lead, which is said to be of a thickness of more than eight feet. The only black-lead mine hitherto known in Great Britain is that in Borrowdale, at the head of Derwentwater Lake.
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