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Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 135, 6 August 1853, Page 10

By the Mary Jane we have advices from Wellington to Monday last. As usual, however, we have no late Papers, the 23rd July being the last. We have had to complain of this for months past, and are tired of the iteration. Nothing- particular has occurred at Wellington ; Sir George Grey was to leave for the North last Tuesday; his furniture is advertised for sale, and part had been shipped for England. Nothing whatever was known respect, ing his intentions as to calling the General Assembly together. He had been questioned and pumped in vain. The elections for the Provincial Council are to come off next week ; the names of the Candidates is legion. The prophecy of the Times is accomplished, and every third colonist is a Candidate. At Taranaki, Mr. C. Brown has been elected Superintendent ; at Nelson,.Mr. Stafford had the shew of hands for the same honour, and the polling

was fixed for the Ist August. No later news than that given in our last had been received from Auckland. Our English advices are later than those received at Wellington.

We are at all times glad to chronicle for the information of our readers those public and private festivals which bring' the routine of society in the colony into close and by no means invidious comparison with that of the " Old Country," especially as by our so doing our subscribers in England are presented with a more faithful transcript of colonial life. As at home, so here, there is a full proportion, among the incidents of daily life, of " marrying and giving in marriage." The marriage, on the same day, of two daughters of an old settler on the Peninsula, well known to most by the cognomen of " Sandy Mdnlosh," is recorded in another part of our columns, but it will be interesting to state that in the evening of the day a sumptuous dinner was laid in the new barn of Mr. E. Hay, under the caterership of Mr. John Hay, late proprietor of the Pigeon Bay Inn. Upwards of eighty persons sat down to table, the personal friends of the brides and bridegrooms; the Rev. W. Aylrher presiding, and Mr. Rowland Davis acting as croupier. After the cloth was removed, dancing in the true Scottish style was vigorously carried on until daylight, in honour of the occasion.

The Madiais. —The following admirable letter on the subject of the persecution of the Madiais hcis been addressed by Lord John Russell to the British Minister at Florence, SirHenry Bulwer :—- ---" Fqreign Office, Jan. 18, 1853. 11 Sib, —According to the last accounts received from you, the Grand Duke of Tuscany still hesitates on the subject of the Madiais. But this is a matter on which hesitation implies capital punishment. Jt is the same thing in effect to condemn a man to die by fire, like Sa-' vonarola, or to put him to death by the slow torture of an unhealthy prison. It seems to be imagined, indeed, by some Governments on the Coutinent, that if they avoid the spectacle of an execution on the scaffold, they will escape the odium to themselves, and the sympathy of their, victims, which attends upon the punishment of death for offences of a political or religious character. But this is an error. It is now well: understood that the wasting of the body, the sinking of the spirits, the weakening of the mind, are but additions to the capital punishment which long and close confinement too often involves. If, therefore, as has been lately report^ ed, one of the Madiais were to die in prison, the Grand Duke must expect that throughout Europe he will be considered as having put a human being to death for being a Protestant. It will be said, no doubt, that the offence of Francesco Madiai was not that of being a Protestant, but that of endeavouring to seduce others from the Roman Catholic faith; that the Tuscan Government had the most merciful intentions, and meant to have shortened the period of imprisonment allotted by law to his offence ; tha?}' euch offences cannot be permitted to pass unpunished. All this, however, will avail very little. Throughout the civilized world this ex- . ample of religious persecution will excite abhorrence. Nor will it be the least of the reproaches addressed to the Government of the Grand Duke , that the name of Leopold of Tuscany has been thus desecrated, and the example of a benevo-?. lent sovereign thus depai ted from. The peaceful, mild, and ingenuous character of the Tuscan . people makes this severity the less necessary and the more odious. As this is a matter affecting , a Tuscan subject, it may be said that her Majesty's Government have no right to interfere., If this means that interference by force of arms ; would not be justifiable, I confess at once that nothing but the most extreme case would justify such interference. But if if, he meant that her Majesty has not the right to point out to a friendly sovereign the arguments which have prevailed in the most civilized nations against the use of the civil sword to punish 'religious opinions, I entirely deny the truth of such an allegation. You are, therefore, instructed to speak in the most serious tone to the Minister of Foreign affairs, and to lay before him all the considerations stated in- this despatch. You will do it in the Most friendly tone, and take care to assure the Government to which you fire accredited that none are more sincere in their wishes for the independence and happiness of Tuscany than the Queen of Great Britain, " I am, &c. J.Russell.",.