ENGLISH INTELLIGENCE.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 39, 3 December 1842, Page 155

ENGLISH INTELLIGENCE.

The absence of all arrivals during tlic past week h.is compelled us ag.iin to look through our latest English papers, and select such matters of interest as the crowded stale of our columns for the last few weeks have prevented our noticing.

New Steam-Frigate — the Largest in the World. — The Admiralty have given instructions for the building and equipment of a new steamfrigate, which is to surpass, in size and power, everything of the land yet afloat. She is to be of 650 horses' power ; to have engine-room for 600 tons of fuel ; complete stowage under hatches for one thousand troops, with four months' stores and provisions, exclusive of a crew of about 450 men ; and is to he armed with twenty guns of the heaviest calibre, besides carronades. The Cyclops, Gorgon, Geyser, and other war steamers now talked of as wonders for magnitude, will sink into insignificance as compared with this ; the largest of them will be little more than half her size. For the sake of greater expedition, she is to be made out of one of the new frigates lately built (the Penelope, 44), cut into two, with 55 feet in length added. The designer of the vessel is John Eyde, Esq., the able assistant surveyor of the navy (well known to all naval architects for his invaluable work on the " Equiqment, Displacement, &c, of Ships and Vessels of War"), and she !s to be completed at Chatham dock-yard, under his immediate superintendence and direction. The engines are to be on the Gorgon plan, and the conii mission for building them has been given to the inventors of that plan, Messrs. Seaward and Capel. The vessel is expected to be fully completed and ready for sea before the close of the present year. The conduct of the Government in this matter — conduct alike admirable for its vigour and promptitude — is, under the existing circumstances of the country, of a nature to give very general satisfaction. By nothing can such disasters as have lately befallen our arms in the East be so effectually repaired, or their recurrence more certainly prevented, than by the fitting out of a few such leviathans of war as that which we have now described as being in progress. With half-a-dozen ships of this force at command, 6,000 men might have been landed at Scinde (at Kurruckee) within six weeks from the first receipt of the news from Affghanistau (under favour, on the part of Ali Pacha, for the passage through Eygpt, from this side, to the Red Sea). With such a force, there is hardly a corner of the world which British thunder could not reach in early time enough to uphold, against all opposition, British influence when linked in honourable alliance •with the interests of human civilization and happiness (may we never know any other !) It is, moreover, a simple mechanical fact, which admits of no denial, that Great Britain can show forth a power in this way (thanks to her mechanics ! thauks to her workshops ! thanks to her practical science !) which no other country in the world can at all approach, far less rival. Every year, for the last half-dozen, has witnessed some paper decree for the formatiou of a French steam navy, with engines of 300, 400, and 500 horses' power, but where are they ? It is notorious, that all France | has never yet been able to produce an engine, good for anything, of more than 200 horses' ' power. Were such an order as has been just given by our Admiralty, for a pair of 325 horses' power to be furnished in vine months, to be given by the French Government to French manufacturers, it could not be executed (if at all) hi as many years. — Mechanics' Magazine. Alison's Opinion of an Income Tax. — " A greater error in finance never was committed than the introduction of the Income Tax. In appearance the most equal, it is, in reality, the most unequal of burdens ; because it assesses at the same rate many different classes, whose resources are widely different. The landed proprietor, whose estate is worth thirty years' purchase of the rental at which he is rated ; the fundholder, whose stock is worth, twenty or twenty-five of the same annual payments; the merchant, whose profits one year may be swallowed up by losses the next season ; the professional man, whose present income is not worth five years' purchase ; the annuitant, whose chance of life is as twenty, and the aged spinster, in whom it is not two — are all rated at the same annual sum. The tax, in consequence, falls with excessive and undue severity upon one class, and with unreasonable lightness on others ; it extinguishes the infant accumulations of capital, and puts an end to the savings of industry ; while it is comparatively uufclt by the great capitalest and opulent landed proprietor. Unlike the indirect taxes, which are paid without being felt, or forgotten in the enjoyment of the objects on which they oxz laid, it brings the bitterness of taxation in undisguised nakedness to every individual, and produces, in consequence, a degree of discontent and exasperation which nothing but the excitement of continual warfare, or a sense of uncontrollable necessity, can induce a nation to bear." — Alison's History of Europe. Scarcity and Distress in Ireland. — The accounts from the country this morning are very deplorable. In Carlow crowds of people assembled, stating that their families were starving, and that they were most anxious for any kind of work to obtain the means of existence. A subscription was set on foot, and £300 was collected. A number of labourers were then set to work on the roads. In Cork extreme distress prevails, and crowds of tradesmen and labourers are to be seen at the corners of the streets. The Cork Reporter attributes the good order that prevails amongst the suffering population to the temperance system. In Galway (says the Vindicator of Saturday) great excitement prevailed in the market on that day in consequence of the alarming increase in the prices of provisions. Supplies of flour, oats, and oatmeal from Liverpool and London were daily expected. — Morning Chronicle. Important Invention in Propelling Steam-Boats. — A trial waslately made on the river Mersey, of Mr. Edward Finch's patent propeller, which, was eminently successful. A small steamer, called the Lapwing, of 45 tons burden and 18 horse power, has been constructed at the wellknown engineering establishment of Mr. Rigby, at Hawarden, for die purpose of trying the merits of Mr. Finch's invention. We are informed that, in coming round from Liverpool, although so

small a vessel, she performed some part of the trip at the rate of 12 miles per ho'ir. The invention seems to he a very simple rontrivance. The p.iddle-boxes r.re still preserved, hut, instead of paddle-wheels, two plates are npplied, the broadest parts of which are at their extreme ends, fixed obliquely at an angle of 40 degrees, one on each side of the vessel, at the ends of the paddle-shaft. These plates, or propellers, are made of wrought iron, and appear very strong and compact, and about 1 1 feet long and 3 feet G inches wide in the broadest parts. They are entirely out of the water twice in the revolution ot the paddle-shaft, when the engine is on her centres, and have the deepest hold of the water when the engine is at half-stroke, or at its greatest power. ' They thus act like oars, or sculls; no back water is created, and the disagreeable beating of the baddlc-boards on the water, and consequent vibration of the vessel, is avoided. — Liverpool Albion. Distress in the Manufacturing Districts. — The private letters received yesterday from Leeds by the deputations at present in London from the northern manufacturing districts, represent that nearly 20,000, or one-fourth of the population of that once most productive and nourishing town, are subsisting on the poor-rates. In Newcastle-upon-Tyne the industrial part of the population is also represented as suffering much from want of employment. A meeting was consequently convened there, presided over by the mayor, at which it was officially stated that 1 1 ,000 of its population are receiving parish relief. From Wolverhampton, the deputations have also had accounts representing the number of persons out of employment there as immense, and as giving expression to their feelings and sufferings strongly indicative of discontent. The deputations, since the commencement of their sittings, have been in the habit of receiving similar accounts of the depressed state of trade and consequent want of employment among the operative classes in various other quarters of the country. — Morning Chronicle. Lord Western has, it is said, intimated to his tenants that, if they find themselves affected by the changes brought about by the proposed ministerial measures, he will, upon application, cancel their existing leases, and thus leave them free to enter into fresh bargains under the new state of things. — Globe. We bide our Time. — Whether the country will be long as contented as it seems at present is another question, and a ticklish one for the Premier. The passing of an income tax, like, the occupation of Affghanistan, is the beginning not the ending of troubles ; and we confess we should scarcely be surprised to find that, before even the three years had passed, a storm of remonstrances had blown up, wheh it would be difficult for Sir R. Peel, even with his act of parliament in his pocket, to oppose. — Times. At the Kingston assizes, .Mrs. Napper obtained a verdict for £900 against Mr. William Hole, the originator of that grand swindling concern the " West Middlesex Insurance Association," with whom she had lodged that sum in consideration of au annuity of 4576 10s. There were eleven other actions against the same defendant for sunis varying from £G0 to £2,500, in all of which verdicts were given against him. The bobbin-net trade, which was so extensive in Leicestershire in 1829, is now become nearly extinct. Gratitude of a French Lady. — Mademoiselle de la Champagne, a French lady of property, who recently died in the town or Avranches, in Normandy, bequeathed £1,200 to the British nation, in grateful acknowledgment of the liberality and kindness which she had experienced from the government and people of England during her residence there as an emigrant, at the time of the revolution. The mayor of Avranches has obtained permission of Sir Robert Peel for the application of the money towards building a ward in the town hospital, to be appropriated" to the relief of British sailors shipwrecked on the coast, or of other destitute English persons. A Locomotive arrested by Worms. — On the completion, a few days since, of the railway on the Tressell and Bridge o/er the Congaree Swamp and river, a general migration of the caterpillars of Richland took place towards ths St. Matthew's shore. An army of worms, occupying, in solid column, the iron rail for upwards of one mile, presented, as was supposed, but a feeble barrier to the power of steam. A locomotive, with a full train of cars loaded with iron, and moving at the rate of 12 miles aa hour, was arrested, notwithstanding, at midway in the swamp by these insects, and, through the agency of sand alone, freely distributed on the drawing-wheel, was it able to overcome them. It was a sanguinary victory, in which millions were crushed to death ; though the caterpillars maintained their ground, and enjoyed a triumph in resisting for a brief period even the power of the locomotive. — Charleston Patriot. Thb Thames Tunnel. — The whole of the tunnel, 1,172 feet in length, is now completed, and will be opened in a very short time as a public thoroughfare for foot passengers. The workmen are busily engaged in erecting the staircase on the Wapping side, which is all that remains to complete this extraordinary work. ' The machinery, steam-engines, and surplus materials are advertised to be sold, including the powerful apparatus called " the shield," by means of which the work was accomplished. It is said to contain 150 tons of iron, and to have cost £10,000. Stkam-Boats for the Pope. — The Journal dv Havre gives an account of the arrival in that port, on Tuesday, of the three steam-boats, the Archimedei, Guasco, and Papin, built for the Pope in England. They came into harbour with the Papal standard flying at their sterns. They are of about 80 tons burden, and have engines of about 30-horse power. They ore long and delicately modelled, like the Bermuda schooners, but more solidly and elegantly built. The Archimedes is much more ornamented than the rest. She has a gilt shield on her stern, and her prow is also gilt. Her wheel, which is of mahogany, is placed ut the stern, and the whole of her finishing indicates her to be intended for a pleasure yatch, rather than for ordinary service. The two others are like tug-boats. The uilan who man them ore dressed much like those of France, and have pointed on their hats " Marina Ronfefau"