English Extracts.

New Zealander, Volume 2, Issue 91, 27 February 1847, Page 3

English Extracts.

It if mid llmt the Queen so much loves Scot* land as to contemplate visiting it a third time. A portrait of the infant princess is being painted for her Majesty by Sir William Ross. Sir F. Trench has given a long notice of motion for next session, proposing that a new palace shall be built for the accomodation of the Queen and her family. We observe also that a grant is aiked for to add a wing to Buckingham Palace. Towards the meeting of these expences her Majesty has signified her willingness to sell the Pavilion at Brighton. Plymouth has been honored by a visit from his Grace the Duke of Wellington after an absence of 24 years. The Duke left London on the morning of the 28th August, and reached Elliot's Royal Hotel about eight o'clock at night. The precise object of the visit had not transpired on the 29th, but it was understood to have reference to some proposed undertakings by the Ordnance depurttncnt. Among the pensions granted by Sir Robert Peel before retiring from ollice, were jSIOO a- \ ear to Mr. Bernard Barton the Quaker poet; £50 each to two aged sisters of the late Major General MCaskillj and a pension of the like amount to the daughter of Brigadier General Taylor, killed in the late war in India. A return has been ordered by the House of Commons of all the appointments made by the Secretary of State for the Colonies since the Ist of September, 1841, to public offices in any of the colonies or dependencies of the British Crown slating the name and previous employment (as far as it isknown)of each individual so appointed the date and nature of his appointment, and the salary attached to it. The Lord Mayor has been much persecuted. It seems he went lately to Oxford as conservator of the Thames, and the Common Council have hesitated to pay his expences. Taking advantage perhapuof his abstracted mood, which mortification might well induce, some ovorforward und iincourtly pickpocket stole his Lordship's gold watch and valuable appendages, as he was wailing for his cairiage. Tub Potato Chop in England and Scotland.— A correspondent of the Morning Post, gives a .sad account of the state of the potato crop iv Wiltshire. In almost every direction the plant lias more or less failed; in borne places as much as three-fourths of the roots arc dibeased. After the potatoes have been dug up a few days, many turned rotten that had appeared sound at first. Turnips and other edible roots have also suffered. The prospect for the pooi labourers, who depended much on their polato-gi omuls, is represented as very bad indeed. The Liverpool Times repoi Is— " Hopes were cntei taincd by many parties that new varieties of the potato might be raised from foreign seed, which would be free from this disease : bu we learn from Mr. Skirving, that of twenty-five foreign varieties grown by him in his nursery-grounds at Walton, not one has escaped. The sorts tried by Mr. Skirving were brought from every part of Europe and America ; and after so entire a failure, in the hands of so skilful a cultivator as he is universally allowed to be, we fear that tho prospect of renewing the crop from foreign seed is very blight." The accounts fiom Scotland are similar. A correspondent of the Times, who has just made a tour through the most fertile districts of the north of Scotland, says— " I may say, without exaggeration, that I have hardly seen one single field of sound potatoes along the entire line of my route, by Stirling, Perth, Dundee, Montrose, Aberdeen, Petcrhcarl, Frascrsburgli, Banfl, Elgin, Inverness, Cromarly, and Tain, to Wick; and every traveller from the more inland districts, that I have wcl with, describes the same state of things as prevalent in those parts.."

I A Perthshire paper says,— " To allege that tho crop of tins valuable vegetable is this season, ' a failure,' is to describe, in a very inado« quatc manner, the extent of the disastrous calamity that has, according to all accounts, overspread the length and breadth of Perthshire. It is not a mere deficiency we have to deplore ; the crops, as well in the Highlands as the Lowlands, is an entire, a total wreck. Jn tho hedged garden as in the open field— in the cottar's plot as in the broad acres of the land-owner— there is evidence, too unmistakable for cavil, of the presence and power of the epidemic. The sUlks, which at this period used to be very verdant everywhere, present a sterile and sooty appearance. Vitality is extinct, and as is indicated by the offensive odour, puridity is in progress. The ruined crop of this favourite root will occasion a loss to this locality that will bo more or less severely felt by all classes. The potatoes of Perthshire have, for many years, been a prominent and principal commodity in the London market; the Yorkshire of Scotland, as well as the corresponding county of England, has acquired distinction by the production of this staple esculent. 'Hie average value of the last three, years' shipments to the metropolis, exclusive of tho county, was X'loo 000 — the precise sum that was deemed adequate, by the late Government, as an outlay in tho purchase of Indian corn for the whole of Ireland. The exportation of potatoes was, during seven months of the year, the chief traffic of the port ; it furnished a principal source of the navigation revenue j and the land transit, previous to shipment, supplied to the tollgatherer a large portion of the aggregate of his quarterly income. "--Adverlisvr. Novnr, Religious Community.— A portion of the property lately occupied by the Socialist community at New Harmony, noar Stockbridgc, in Hampshire, which has just been dissolved, has been taken possession by a singular sect, called, from the name of the farm which they occupy, " Little Bentleyites." They live in an open community of man and women, hnving all thiugs common, admitting all who arc willing to enter and conform to their rules ; and Since it has been established they have been joined by several of the inmates from the Andovcr Union, who, however, finding tho self-im-posed regulations even harder they had endured at tho latter well-known place, soon left it. On entering the community each member si ilka his patronymic, and puts his property, if he possesses any, into the common slock, which, however, he is not allowed to withdraw on leaving the establishment. The males allow their beard and hair to grow, their dress is a state of semi-nudity, they live with the barest accommodation of decency, not being allowed the use of beds or even of chairs, and they subsist entirely on uncooked vegetables diet and seeds. They deny themselves the slightest desire of enjoyment or gratification equal witli the most ascetic cynic of old, and no book or publication is allowed to be road, with the exception of the Bible, of which they chiefly select the prophet Isaiah, as being most congenial to their views. Singular and repulsive as are many of their observances, several persons who have realised a little property have joined the community, which last wock was thrown into groat consternation by the presence of a woman demanding her husband, who had invested nearly 400/. in the concern. In the end she came o/F triumphant, in the possession of her recreant husband, but not until she had obtained the assistance of the women of the neighbouring pariih, who threatened, unless her application was granted, to duck the principal in a horse pond.— London Paper, Sept. 2. Education or tut, Sor.DiEit.— The Times state* immediate measures are now contemplated by Government for improving the condition of the soldier :— " For some weeks past, a strict examination has been taking place ot the eandidatos for tho different masterships in the normal and model schools ; and it is calculated that by April next, at tho latest, t this new ma-» chinery may bo in full operation in the asylum at Chelsea j which is to be extensively altered for the purpose. The arrangements at present in progress include the immediate departure of the Chaplain-General for tho Continent; where he will be employed in investigating the systems of education, accommodation, and discipline, adopted in the armies of Belgium, Holland, Prus« sia, and France ; and the results of his mission will be embodied in a report to tho Secretary-at-War, which wili probably introduce some matured plan to the considerhtion of Parliament." Tr.MPKRANCE. — Donnybrook Fair. — Yesterday week, the Rev. ])r. Sprnlt held his usual temperance meeting near the Fuir Green of Donnybrook. Thousands attended, and the reverend gentleman had the satisfaction of administering the "Total Abstinence Pledge" to some hundreds. That any of these hundreds broke their pledge in the course of that very evening it would be ungenerons io ufllrin ; but certainly there were some other hundreds about the fair who would do well to take the pledge at the earliest opportunity. The fair of that day went off very merrily, and with good order to it 3 close. One excellent method to secure this orderly conduct was adopted, equally ludicrous and prudential. A huge police-van went round from time to time, «• weeding" the fair of all its very drunken people who were unable to take care of themselves, ami likely to do anybody ehe a mischief. J3y these means the first elements of disorder were abstracted, and all the lamous fights of olden times prevented by thus nipping the sliillelabs in the bud. The Queen is now mother of five children, viz ;.— Princess Royal, born Nov. a 1, 1840 j Prince of Wales, born Nov. 9, 1841 ; Princess Alice, born April 25, 1843 ; Prince Alfred, born Augr 6, 1844; Infant Princess, born May, 25, 1846. The Moon in Lord Uosse's Telescope. — With respect to the moon, every object on ifs surface of the height of one hundred feet was now distinctly to be seen ; and lie lm<l no doubt that, under very favorable cirduinslances, it would be so with object* sixty feet in height.— On id surface were craters of extinct volcanoes, rocks, and masses of stone almost intnnerable. — lie had no doubt wbatevertb.-itifsuch ü building as ho was then in were upon the surface of tho moon, it would be rendered distinctly visible by these instruments. But there were no bigns of habitations such as ours-- no vestiges of aichilectural remains to show that the moon is or ever was inhabited by a race of mortals similar to ourselves. Il presented no appearance which could lead to the supposition that it contained an) thing like Hie green fields hikl lovely verdureof this beautiful *» orld of outs. There was no water visible — not a sea, or a river, or even tho measuie of a resesvoir for supplying (own or factory j all seemed deflate. Hence would arise the reflection in the mind of tho ChristianWhy had this devastation been/ It might be further inquired— Was it a lost world? Had it suffered for its transgression ? Analogy might suggest the question— Had it met t lie fate which Scriptuie told us was reserved for our world f — It uas obvious tli.it all this was mysterious ccnjodui e.—Vr. Scoiesht/'s Lecture on Astronomic