ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Evening Post, Issue 137, 17 July 1865, Page 2

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

The Queen has shown of late, in a variety of ways^that she watches with lively interest all that relates to the health and welfare of the industrious portions of the community. Her Majesty was much moved by the painful narratives of the suffering which attracted so much attention recently, and which cast so much odium on the maladministration of poor relief in the metropolis. The Home Secretary received more than one anxious and animated interrogation, dictated by her Majesty, as to why poor creatures were suffered to die of cold and hunger in the midst of the wealthiest capital in the world. It is to be hoped that this kind solicitude will bo the cause of a reorganisation of the manner of dealing with the poor, and that a little benevolonce of feeling may be the result. The new Act has been issued to make better provision for the ; naval defence pf Canada and other colonies. It is now enacted that colonies may provide vessels, Jand r aise officers, &c. Volunteers raised in a ¦ colony are to form part 0f,, " The Royal Nava Reserve." Her Majesty, by orders in Council, has the placing of vessels to secure its defence. Her Majesty may accept the services of volunteers raised in a colony, and when the offer is accepted the services of the officers and men are to be placed under the Act of 1859, as relates to the Royal Naval Reserve raised in the United Kingdom. The act is not to impose any change on the imperial revenues without the sanction of Parliament, In a report, just issued on the organisation of the War-office is the following passage, signed " Hartington, Douglas Galton, G. Arbuthnot, and W. Anderson :"— " It is with regret, however, that we feel bound to call ] the attention of the Secretary of State to the testimony borne by these gentlemen— all men of experience in the War-office— to the ineffectual nature of past attempts to improve the condition of the civil service. It was hoped that by excluding dunces, and enuring a sufficient, but very moderate, test of education, the efficiency of the public departments would be improved ; but it would seem that so far from this end having been attained, the character of the War-office is such that if the clerks did their work with diligence 10 per cent, of their number might be reduced. We trust that the members of this committee will lead their aid to us in accomplishing such a reform as will remove the evil of which they are witnesses, and obtain for the Government the measure of service which is rendered in private establishments in return for adequate pay." A rather amusing contretemps occurred a few Sundays ago at a country church near one of the largest towns in Lancashire. The incumbent, anxious to raise funds for some repairs to the church, and having but a modest opinion of his own powers as a "pickpocket," and being also unable to secure the services of his clerical neighbours, thought he would write his 'appeal, get it printed, and placed in the pews on the following Sunday. He sent his copy to the printer's, and told the sexton to get the bills on Saturday night, and place them in the pews. On Saturday night the sexton sent his son to the printer's office, where no one but the "devil" of the establishment was present. This youth handed a bundle of bills

to the sexton's son, by whom they were duly distributed in the pews. The astonishment of the congregation and the horror of the clergyman the next morning on finding every pew in the church contained copies of an announcement of the entertainments at the local assembly rooms of a clever Sambo singer, and the fun during the ensuing week may be " better imagined than described." The whole nffiirwas literally the work of the "dovt 1 ," who carelessly give the youthful sexton the bills of the black entertainer in place of those of the parson. A son of the Swiss Colonel Salis having died of a wound recpivL'il in a duel with another pupil of the Federal Polytechnic Institution at Berne, the Academical Senate expelled the students who acted as seconds, and ordered proceedings to be taken against the adversary. By will the Duke de Morny has left the education of one daughter to Millie, de Flahault, and the other to Mdrne. de Cadroc. He lived at the rate of £40,000 a year, and was, it is now said, not worth less at his death than half-a-million sterling. Professor Kiss, the well known Prussian sculptor, is dead. He died suddenly a few days ago in Hcrlin. Kiss's statue of the Amazon is a work of art well known in England. It was one of the lions of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Lately it stood, and probably still stands, in k front of the Museum in Berlin. The Emperor Napoleon lias sent M. Guilemet, a distinguished French artist, to paint a life-size portrait of the Sultan, to be placed in the Salle de Souveraines at the Tuileries. In the House of Commons on 31st March the Attorney-General, in replying to a question of Lord R. Montagu, explained the circumstances under which Mr. H. J. Stonor had been appointed by the Lord Chancellor as judge of a county court.--Mr. Newdegate, whose rising was the signal for a howl from a number of members seated on the Radical benches, asked whether the Government had directed its attention to the recent speech of Cardinal nonnechose, in the French Senate, and the articles in the Journal dcs Debars thereon, which appeared to contemplate that, in certain circumstances, the Pope might intend to reside within the United Kingdom. Lord Palmerston said with regard to the Pope taking up his residence in England, there were so many objections to it that one might fairly say it would be a political solecism, or perhaps he should rather say a a political anachronism. It was well known, however, that a year and a half or two years ago, when a question arose as to the possiof the Pope having to quit Rome, Mr. Odo Russell who then represented the British Government unofficially at Rome, stated that, if circumstances should induce the Pope to establish his residence out of Italy, and it would be convenient and agreeable for him to [ reside at Malta every attention would be paid to his comfort and a suitable residence provided for him.