Miscellaneous.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XI, Issue 686, 4 June 1859, Page 3

Miscellaneous.

(From English Papers to March 18.)

ANNIVEBSARY OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE

AUSTRALIAN COLONIES.

Some short time since we re-printed a short report of a meeting held in London, on the 26th January, to celebrate the above occasion. Our readers will probably be glad to read the. speech delivered by Mr. Fitz Gerald on the occasion, as reported at greater length by the London papers :—' Mr. Fitzgerald in proposing the toast of the Houses of Lords and Commons, said I have much | pleasure, sir, in responding to the call which has been made upon me to propose the next toast for this evening—the more readily that it is one which will be received with enthusiasm by all present without making any great demands upon my powers as an advocate. It has been arranged, by way of compliment, that the representative of the smallest and youngest colony of England should propose the greatest and oldest institutions of the mothercountry. lam to propose to you the health of the Houses of Lords and Commons. (Cheers.) I suppose there is no one present who does not remember that the government of the colonies, a few years ago, was very different from what it is at present. I suppose we all remember that a few years ago not a mail arrived from Australia on these shores which did not come laden with a heavy burden of bitter complaint and angry remonstrance. I have only" alluded to this to remark —and I think it is well worthy of remark—that during all that time it was never proposed, so far as I have ever heard, in any of the Australian colonies to establish any novel or new-fangled form of government. The voice of discontent found expression inthis one sentiment alone—we want to be governed, so far as is possible, by the ancient forms of English Government, by a parliament of kings, lords, and commons. It was much the same feeling on the part of the colonies as that which in Ireland, before she was represented in the British Parliament, found expression in the memorable manifesto at Dungannon —that this country ought to be governed by no laws but the laws of the king, lords, and commons, of Ireland in parliament assembled. It seems to me to have been much the same feeling in the colonies; and forasmuch as nature has placed a physical impossibility in the way of our sharing the representative system of the mother country, we naturally claimed, and the wisdom of the Home Government at last conceded to us, local Parliaments, framed as nearly as possible after the models of the old institutions of England. And upon an occasion like the present, when we have assembled to celebrate the birth of the eldest of that great family of States which have sprung up on the shores of the Southern ocean, it is not irrelevant to the object of our meeting that we should do especial honour to those great Legislative Assemblies of the mother-country which for so many years have been set before our eyes as the models for our imitation, and which stand as the great prototype and exemplar of the legislatures of almost every country in the world where liberty is revered. I ask you, gentlemen, to drink, with undisguised admiration and respect, the health of the peers of England. It was the remark of a poet, rather than of a politician that Princes and lords may flourish or may fade, . A breath can make them as a breath has made; but we, sir, who have seen somewhat on the other side of the world of the manufacture of lords, we know that it is not quite so easy a task as the poet imagined. We know, sir, that the object of an Upper House, which really does the work, stands in the position, bears the character of an Upper House, is faithfully and adequately to represent the more conservative, the more stable, the more dignified elements of a community. This has been the most difficult and the least satisfactory part of the work of constructing these new colonial constitutions. We, reversing the experience of the poet, have found,it, I think, rather easier to construct "a bold peasantry " than a princely peerage (laughter). That colony will indeed have something to boast of which shall ever develope a real Upper Legislative Chamber to do the work which, century after century, has been successfully done by the peers of England—surrounding, guarding, and adorning the seat of the Supreme Executive authority, whilst they have ever retained the respect, because they have never arbitrarily opposed the well-ascertained wishes of the great mass of the people. Well will it be for us colonists if we shall ever live to see a state of society grow up in which the great evils which are inseparable from the accumulation ot wealth in the hands of a few individuals will be mitigated, as they are to some extent in this country, by an hereditary nobility of sentiment, by a traditionary gentleness of manners, of which the peers -of England are the highest exponents. (Cheers.) I give you gentlemen, "The Commons of England, Past, Present, and Future," so that each may give to the toast the colouring most gratifying to his own political sympathies. For my part, Radical though I am, I will

drink with enthusiasm the oia, unrefornied House of Commons for the sake of its glorious memories, its traditions of immortal orators, and illustrious statesmen, by whose wise and bold policy England waa enabled to grasp that mastery of the seas without which the colonies whose birth we celebrate would never have existed. (Cheers.) I will drinK to the reformed House of Commons, with its sound, practical, sagacious men of business, who in the last 25 years have achieved political reforms which we can now only look back upon and wonder how they were ever accomplished without revolution. And I will drink too, sir, the new-coming House, reformed ever again and again as it will be, if it is to continue truly to reflect that great national heart from which it is the emanation, and I will couple with that toast a most earnest hope that, come whafc changes may, that new house will deal with the great task to be entrusted to it—those social problems, whose solution will be found only in the moral, intellectual, and physical condition of the great mass of the labouring poor of this country—that it may fulfil, I say, its task with at least the same success as attended th© labours of its ancestors in the days that are gone—(cheers) ; and I am able to couple with this toast the name of a nobleman whose tenure I of,office in connection with the colonies will ever be remembered for' the, more than common urbanity and, courtesy with which he has tTeated those who have been brought in official contact with him; and the name of a member of the House, of Commons, who is known to and respected by many of us; mainly that he spent several of those years of his life, which are ordinarly spent by men of his class in peninsular excursions, in visiting colonies and becoming personally acquainted with their inhabitants. (Cheers.) I propose the "Houses of Lords and Commons, with the Earl of Carnarvon and Lord Alfred Churchill."

On the 29th January, Count Cavour, in his character of notary of the Crown, drew up the matrimonial contract between the Princess Clotilde and Prince Napoleon, in the presence, of General Niel,/ the French Ambassador; Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne, and the grand dignitaries of the state. In the evening, a deputation of the National Guard was presented to the Princess at a monster banquet, Later in the evening, a serenade took place on the Place Royale, by the band of the National Guard, in honour of the betrothed couple, which was accompanied by enthusiastic shouts of-the people—"Viva il Ec!" " Viva i Sposi!" The town illuminated in the evening,and all the "properties" used on the festivals of the " Statuto" were lavishly displayed. There were the garlands of coloured glass globes and cambric fuchsias, with pistils formed by colored crystal lamps, before described. There were trees on the Piazza San Carlo, consisting of gaspipes^ rising from the ground, disguised by boughs of evergreens, with branches of gas jets and ruby lamps for fruit. There were asters formed by a coloured lamp for the centre, with gas jets for petals, looking like daisies from Brobdignag in a state of combustion.

The next day the marriage was celebrated. The benediction was pronounced by the Archbishop of Verceil, assisted by the Bishops of Casale, Pigneroli, and Biella. On the same day, the Prince and Princess left Turin for Genoa. Before their departure, the Muicipality of Turin gave the Princess a beautiful silver candelabrum, and they presented an address to the Prince. At Genoa, the newly-married pair were well received by the people—the young; ladies of the town presenting a bouquet to the Princess. They sailed from Genoa, escorted by three ships of war, on Tuesday morning, and landed at Marseilles on Wednesday.

It is stated that the financial clauses in the marriage contract are nearly as folio ws—

"The Princess receives a marriage portion of 500,000 lire arid 100,000 lire in jewels. France, on her part, promises to the Imperial pair an appanage of 200,000 francs a year, besides 100,000 francs to the Princess as pin-money."

The Abbe Mdigiio writes to the 'Photographic News' the following account of M. Niepce de St. Victor's illustration to Professor Wheatstorie of his discoveries on a new action of light, which was performed in the laboratory in the Louvre. " Our friend wished Professor Wheatstone to see with his own eyes the curious experiment of his tube, or of a photograph made by light which had been stored up for several months. Mr. Wheatstone, the illustrious physicist, very willingly accepted the invitation, M; Niepce took- a tubeNsbntaining a piece of pasteboard which had been impregnated with tartaric acid, insolated for a length of time, and rolled up in it, in the month of June last, and the tube then hermetically closed. He and Professor Wheatstone placed themselves in a dark room; M. Niepce had a sheet of sensitised paper, oh which he placed a piece of paper printed upon in large letters; he then, opened the tube, holding it vertically, with the orifice downwards, and this orifice he placed on the printed paper which covered the sensitive paper; the tube was left in this position for about ten minutes, at the end of which time he removed it. The circle on the paper, blackening in all its parts where it was not protected by the printed letters, at once visibly manifested the action of the light; the printed paper being' removed, the characters were found to be very neatly traced in white, cr forming a negative proof; this negative was treated like ordinary negatives, that is to say, it was fixed, and Professor Wheatstone placed it in his portfolio, to produce it before the Koyal and Photographic Societies; a proof obtaiued by means of light"that liad been imprisoned for six months. The experiment, therefore succeeded perfectly." Professor Wheatstone will perform this experiment himself in London, adds the writer. It occurs to us, however, as an obvious question, whether we do not confuse and obscure our observations by continuing to talk of the agent in these processes as "light"? M. Delange has issued a circular to the Prefects directing them to repress the contradictory comments in the journals on the Emperor's speech.

"It is important that the journals should say to the population, for this is the thought of the Emperor, that war ■without a legitimate motive is impossible, but that if the preservation of his honour demands it, if one of those causes should arise to which Prance is at all times passionately attached, the government will not retreat from the idea of war, for war would then be a necessity. Lefe the papers say and say again that towards whatever .result the will of the Emperor may lead it, it is the duty of the nation which has so ,often received the benefit of his wisdom, and which he has made so great, to follow without hesitation." A pa Per of Madrid,' Las Novedades/has discovered that the first crinoline was worn in Spain, during the reign of Philip IV., (1621-65) by a noblelady of the highest rank, who happened to have committed a faux pas, and wished to hide its consequences., . After much reflection, she hit on the costume which is so highly, in fashion how-a-days, and introduced it at once into the beau monde of ■ the then most elegant nation in the world. The real purpose for which the new garment had been invented came however to be known before long, and the dress was then baptised the guardainfanta, a name which it has kept unto the present day. The veteran statesman, Metternich, sees the coming whirlwind, and has done an act of rather undiplomatic kind, but which the crisis must excuse. He has just revealed, in an autograph note to the Emperor Napoleon 111., for the purpose of repelling the charge made against Austria of havingl been the life and soul of the European coalition against his great uncle, the actual fact of a secret proposal made after the disastrous retreat froia Moscow, when France seemed on her last legs, for a relinquish meat of hostilities on the part of Kaiser Franz and a peace as far as Vienna tfas concerned, abandoning to the kingdom of Italy any claim to. Lombardy, in return for the renewal of the Campa Formio Treaty, securing Dalmatia and the coast of Istria to Austria. The part Murat and Prince Schwarzenberg played in the transaction is dwelt on, and the willingness of his Imperial waster; to support the husband of Marin. Louisa on the Imperial throne of France is set forth. All this is done " by permission,*' and an authentic copy of th© archives forwarded, showing its acknowledgment at Wilna In 1812, by the Due de Bassano, acting for Napoleon I.—Paris Correspondent of the Globe.

The presence of a Reform Bill, or, as ministers • cd\l it, a Representation Bill, has imparted, some life to the out-of-door agitation.' In tile metropolis - there Iwve been a great number of public meetings. The campaign opened by the assemblage of a-mob ■in' Hyde-park,-on Sunday, the 6th March, which ■H-tis addressed by small democrats, who used violent language and expressed ultra opinions. The peace however, was not broken. Then followed meetings '■Stf the"boroughs. Sir Benjamin Hall attended two hi the borough he represents, and took the opportunity to vindicate himself fromthe charges of dealing unfairly with the early information hehad of Lord Ebrington's resignation. At all the metropolitan meetings the ■ Representation Bill has teen torn in pieces and denounced. But with differences. While St.Tancras asks for manhood suffrage,Taddington only demands ; a fair share for the industrial body. At the West- > niinster -meeting, Mr Thomas Prout, the veteran .reformer, presided. Sir De L. Evans and Sir John -Shelley were speakers. Mr. Murrough came forward as the advocate of Mr. Bright; and his friend •"Mr. Man tell, of Sheffield," described by his friend Murrough as one who was "as illiterate as any ■one present." carried a resolution in favour of Tnanhood suffrage against the views of Mr. Bright and the -leaSers of the meeting. Mr. Weinys Jbbson was also a speaker. The meeting was for "kicking" the Government I>ill out of the House. At the Tower Hamlets, Mr. George Thompson reappeared in public, and declared that the bill was a "cool, deliberate, and intentional repudiation of the claims of the working classes;" and Mr. Ayrton said it was a " declaration of war" against them. [The savings-bank franchise was especially ridiculed. Mr. Ayrton said it was a " myth," and Sir Benjamin Hall showed from figures to the St. Paneras people that it would add just one to the constituency of Newport ■; the vast majority possessing ..£6O being already entitled to the franchise.] In Lambeth, Mr. Williams, Mr. Roupell, and Mr. Ernest -Jones figured as leaders. Here again Mr. Bright's franchise was repudiated and manhood suffrage carried. At Chelsea, there were Mr. Hanbury and Mr. Byng, the Middlesex members. Chelsea objected to equal electoral districts, and demanded two members for itself instead of being muddled up with Middlesex. t In Finsbury Mr. Shaen, Dr. Epps, and Mr. T. Dun-' • combe have discussed and decided against the bill. The greatest, but on the whole the most unsuccess- • ful meeting was one held in the Guildhall on the 11th . March. There was great uproar. Mr. Ernest Jones was refused a hearing. When Baron Rothschild presented himself the cries for " Kothschild" lasted ten minutes, the shouters not knowing that he was before them and vainly essaying to speak. Through- ■ out "the meeting was of the most"riotous description," and it ended abruptly. The Lord Mayor presided over this tumultuous gathering. The speakers were Mr. Samuel Morley, Mr. 'Peter Taylor, and Mr. Serjeant Parry. None of the city members were permitted to speak. The resolutions submitted are supposed to have been carried. They condemned the Government bill. [The most important fact connected with this meeting was the absence of Lord John Russell. A letter was*read from him in which he said he thought he had better reserve his opinions -for the House of Commons; but in which he distinctly objects to the disfranchisement of freeholders, the voting papers, and the exclusion of the working classes from the suffrage.] There have, •moreover, been demonstrations against the bill throughout the whole country. Reports have come to hand of those held at Birmingham, Norwich, Newcastle, Shefßeld, Southampton, Devonport, Bradford, Leeds, Hertford, Wakefield, Oldham, Kendal, and Bridge water. At Birmingham, Mr. Bright made a long and able speech. He pointed out that he had warned his constituents not to trust the Government. Had he not proved right? The bill offers things that not only nobody wanted, but which men stand aghast at; and refuses with the ■ most insolent contempt nearly everything they demand. Going through the provisions of the bill, Mr. Bright denounced the voting papers, the disfranchisement of freeholders, the tampering with borough boundaries, the permission given to freeholders to vote in boroughs as freeholders, the savings-bank clause, and all the "fancy franchises." He declared that Mr. Disraeli had insulted the country with his "miserable bill;" and said that it was not possible a measure so little worth considering could pass into law. Appealing to the passions of his hearers he said the middle classes have no • patriotism, the working classes no appetite for freedom, and denounced, as he did in October, the few hundred families who fatten on the .£70,000,000 of taxes. '.»...

. Griffin, a tenant farmer, was bathing near. Sandgate; and Jeffreys, his friend, was waiting for him on the beach. A constable came up, and exhibiting handcuffs, talked of arresting Griffin, but Jeffreys remonstrating with him, words provoked blows and the constable was worsted. He returned with two persons to effect the arrest; but Griffin and Jeffreys said they had a charge to prefer against him. On reaching the station house. Griffin and Jeffreys were thrust into a cell, searched and handcuffed, by order of luspector Colman. The next day the Magistrates of Hythe dismissed the case, and Griffin bringing his action against Colman for false imprisonment got £10 damages, in the County Court. Colman appealed. The Judges of the Court of Exchequer held that Colman had exceeded his duty in taking the charge without making inquiries, and in treating Griffin and Jeffreys with severity, that the arrest was illegal, and all the parties to it trespassers, and they dismissed the appeal with costs. " Any man," said Baron Martin, " who interferes with the liberty of the subject must act at his peril." The appellant's counsel remarked, that " a man is bound to assist an officer if called upon to do so." The chief replied—" Not at all. If a man does not see the assault he has no right to interfere. I have yet to learn that the mere word of a policeman can turn all her Majesty's subjects into thief takers."

A young man, arrested in the act of committing suicide, was brought before the Lord Mayor on Saturday. In court he made a most painful statement.. "I killed my father by giving him poison some days before he died, and I did so by my mother's command. She told me to give it to him. I did not know what it was. I did it innocently. Just before.she died she confessed to me that it was poison, and she begged of me, in God's name, not to mention it to any living being till after she was no more. I kept it a secret up to this time, but it has made me so miserable that I got tired of life." The young fellow had made two previous attempts at suicide. He was remanded that the chaplain might talk to him; as the Lord Mayor, confirmed in his impression by the statement of the prisoner's brother, thought him labouring under a delusion.

Baron Rothschild of Paris, emulous of the glory of ,M. Pereire, has just finished his splendid mansion at Ferriere, at the bottom of a valley ■where there is neither a prospect in front nor'behind. But to show the power of gold, he is making -a view, by throwing up an artificial hill on one side and digging a vast lake on the other. In this work, and in the embellishments of the mansion, he has (says the 'Independance Beige), already spent eighteen millions of francs, or £720,000 sterling. To be quite original/the Baron has formed the frontage of each of the four sides of his chateau of a different style of architecture—Egyptian, Greek, Gothic, and Elizabethan, which is said to be greatly admired by the numerous friends of the great financier. In one point, however, M. de Rothschild has been unsuccessful, in spite of his determination of building and furnishing " regardless of expense." He had got it into his head to have the great saloon at Ferri6re painted by M. Ingres, but in spite of the most lavish offers, and in spite even of the Baron's ■repeated personal solicitations, the member of the Institute de France .has hitherto steadfastly refused the work, for which now M. Hereaux, the "peintre ordinaire to M. Scribe," has been engaged. '

"We understand that two new baronetcies areabout to be conferred—one on Mr. Cunard, the great ship •owner, to whose energy and enterprise we owe the of the line of steam packets well known by his name ; and the" other on Sir Charles .Nicholson, whose well deserved reputation in. the Australian Colonies fully testifies the new honour!— ■Globe. ':■'.■■' ' .

_ Some natives in Bengal have petitioned her Majesty, praying for the introduction of the Indian lotus among the national emblems of the rose, thistle, -aad the shatnrock.

Eighteen months ago the fashionable world of Paris began talking, for the first time, of a mysterious personage, calling him.self M. Vries, graduate of the Universities of Nepaul and of Scinde, and private physician of the King of Java. Tho soidisant Doctor lived in grand style in the rue de.. Rivoli; and towards the end of the summer of 1857 gave a magnificent. fete in his.hotel, to which the elite of Paris society was invited. All the rooms of the house were filled with costly exotic flowers, and the finest perfumes of the earth were floating through the air. But what chiefly attracted the attention of the guests were two pictures in life-size; the one representing St. John the Baptist, crowned with white roses, and the other Mademoiselle i Helena Andrinoff, first danseuse of the Imperial theatre of St. Petersburgh, in costume of Bacchante, half'GOvered by a. panther-skin, and holding a goblet in her hand. At the foot of the Latter painting were written, in large letters of gold, the following words :—"Dr. Vries is begged to accept this portrait, which may recall to him the features of one who, given up by all the physicians of Europe, owes to him her health and her life, and will be ever grateful to her deliverer."" What heightened the interest in this picture was, that towards the end of the fete Miss Helena Andrinoff herself, in the bloom of youth and beauty, sat down at the side of her bronze physician, a tall stout, and handsome gentleman, of apparently great muscular force, who, in face as well as in figure, seemed the very counter^ part of Mr. Alexander' Dumas, the great novelist. Ever since then the fame of the mysterious Indian, commonly called the " Doctor noir," increased and soon spread through all the ranks of French society. , On the 17th February, however, was the day of the greatest triumph which the Black Doctor had as yet achieved. On that evening, there sat down, in the grand saloon of the Hotel dv Louvre, all that Paris counts of distinguished men in art, science and literature, to celebrate the marvellous cure which the Javanese physician had recently achieved in the person of M. Sax, the famous inventor and manufacturer of musical instruments. M. Sax had for many years been suffering under a frightful cancer in the face, and the end of his existence seemed to be near, when Dr. Vries, to whom in last resort he had entrusted himself, undertook to cure him, and did so in a few months, without any operation whatever, by means only of some unknown oriental herbs, applied internally. This success at once so fully established the skill of the unknown Doctor, that a number of gentlemen of the highest distinction resolved to present him with a kind of public testimonial, not in the shape of any present, but of a public honour, -by sitting down in his presence. It was thus that the Due de Narbonne, the Count Guy de la Tour dv Pin, Baron Taylor, Thierry, the historian, Berlioz, the composer. Geoffrey, the critic, Saint Victor, Ambroise Thomas, Couderc, of the Institute, and a large number of other literary and scientific celebrities assembled on Wednesday to a sumptuous banquet, to which the Emperor had sent the music of the Guards. The " Docteur Noir," of course, is bow the lion of the day in Paris.

You can rely on it as positive, that Victor Emmanuel's family alliance with Russia is now a jait accompli.^ When Eugene Beauharnais Leuchtenberg's widow, the Grand Duchess Maria, was the person of whom rumour spoke, I did not notice it, aware that a morganatic marriage with a Count Strogonoff was a bar to any such arrangement; but she has a daughter—Maria Maximilianowna, born October 4, 1841, consequently aged eighteen, and it is her hand that the royal widower of Turin has sought and obtained. Already the apartments of his late wife are undergoing repair and embellishment.—.Para Correspondent of 'the Globe. A form of statute was promulgated in the Convocation of the University of Oxford on Tuesday, for omitting the sermons in the Christmas vacation, and for discontinuing the sermons on the days of the abolished state services. Several members expressed opinions strongly opposed to the abolition of, the state services, and in favour of continuing the sermons.

The ' Manchester Guardian'reports a meeting of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, whereat the Reverend W. Gaskell read the following extract from a letter of the Reverend Thomas Belsham (dated Hackney, August 16, 1805), containing an account of a -visit which he had just paid to the Duke of Grafton, in which the following passage occurs, and Mr. Gaskell wished to know whether any member of the society could confirm the -statement made in it—