Extracts.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 152, 13 November 1847, Page 3

Extracts.

Smelting Copper Ore.— Charles Mouncy Penny, late a miner of Mexico, and William Owen, chemist, of Adelaide, lately earned to be presented to the Legislative Council of South Australia, a petition praying for a patent from the local government for a new invention in smelting copper and lead ores, by which the process could be effected in a few hours. Doubts ( were entertained of the power of the Council to grant a patent, and the matter was allowed to drop. We should think if their invention is what they describe, they may easily turn it to sufficient good account without a patent. The Rev. Air. Woodward, of Queen's College, Cambridge, 8.C.L., who has acted a« Colonial Chaplain in New South Wales, for the last eight years, has formally seceded from the Episcopalean establishment, on the ground that its practices savour of Puseyistn, Upwards of forty millions sterling, are said to be locked up in the English Court of Chancery. The great comet of 1264 and 1556, is expected by astronomers to re-appear the latter end of this, or beginning of next Tear. Cannibalism,— Mr. Kenneth Campbell, a settler on the South Australian side of the boundary, gives the following revolting details of the cannibal practices of the aborigines, in a letter to the South Australian Register. Mr. C. says, " Having been absent from home on the 2nd in- j slant, I was informed on my return by the shepherd that a native woman had given birth to an infant, and that as the evening was cold he bad given her some warm tea, but that the did not seem to care much about it. Shortly after the other shepherd came and told me that on bis return to the station with his sheep, he heard the blacks call out to him. On his approach to the miamis he found a new born infant, which the mother and another woman requested him to kill by dashing it against a tree. He refused, and told them il was a very good child, and that it was wrong to kill it. They repeated their request—saying, that it was very good to eat. In the morning at daybreak I went to the miamis in order to ascertain what had become of the child, and asked to see it. 1 was told it was dead, (plenty galpin) and ( all gone.' I still insisted on being told what they had done with it ; and at length they pointed out a native oven in the miami, in which I was told the child was roasting under the ashes. I told them it was very bad, and that I would send for the police. They said it had died of itself, at the same time imitating the dying wail of an infant. 1 repeatedly taxed them with killing : but they still persisted in denying it. At last, however, the father admitted, ' too much all about piccaniny no good ; and that it would be very good for the piccaniny to eat.' In the course of an hour I returned to make further enquiries, as 1 could not believe that any human beings were capable of such barbarity as to devour their offspring. 1 there fore again threatened them with punishment, unless they showed me the remains of the infant, when they lifted an old jacket, in the corner- of the mianui, and underneath ■ The very remembrance of what 1 saw fills me with horror and I fervently pray 1 may never behold the like again. About mid-day the natives came down to the sheep-yard, several of them having portion* of the infant with them, which they were eating ; when, disgusted and horrified at this further convincing proof, of which both my men were witnesses *as well as myself, I drove them away. Another woman of the same tribe, whom I had seen a short time before with a * white child/ upon being questioned what had become of it, said < it plenty cry, me plenty waddy it ;' and I have been told by another native that it was likewise eaten."