The New=Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 6, Issue 452, 14 August 1850, Page 2

The New=Zealander.

Be just and fear not: Let all the ends thou aims't at, be thy Country's, Thy God's, and Truth's.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 18 50.

The arrival of the Overland Mail has placed us in possession of Wellington Papers to the 13th of July. We find their contents to a considerable extent made up of extracts from our own columns ; we however have marked several articles from their local intelligence which •will be found in other parts of our present issue. The Legislative Council of the Province of New Munster was summoned to meet on the first of this month. We may therefore expect to learn by our next arrivals whether the sapient Councillors of the South have improved in wisdom. It is no scandal to say there was room for improvement, if it were only on the question of Education, on which they last year manifested so strong a disposition to take the infidel ground, which is now, under various specious forms, assumed by Socialists and other latitudinarians, and which all who deem Christianity anything better than a fable must be prepared to resist. The Provincial Gazette contained extracts from the Lespatches of Earl Grey to the Governor-in-Chief relating to the Colonial Bank of Issue, and portions of the Paper Currency Ordinance, designed to furnish the public with full information respecting the principles on which the Colonial Bank of Issue was established, and the legal provisions and instructions from the Imperial Government respecting its management. The first monthly return of the notes in circulation, authenticated by the Treasurer of the Province, showed the amount on the 29th of June, to be £2,403. The amount of coin in the office on the same day was returned at just the same sum. Proclamations encouraging the transmission of specimens of New Zealand produce and manufacture to Prince Albert's Grand Exhibition in London next^ycar, have been issued by the Local Government in the South, and will be found in another column. They are valuable for this, (amongst other reasons) , that they indicate the classes of articles which it would be desirable that natives and settlers should respectively forward. In this respect they show more common sense and practical knowledge than some lists which have been made public. We refer to our Extracts for the additional gleanings we are able to make from this mail.

It will be recollected that the Waikato Coal Committee were directed by the Public Meeting from which they derived their authority, to make — as soon as circumstances would permit — some report to the subscribers and friends of the important undertaking which was entrusted, in this its incipient stage, to their management. We understand that a portion of the coal has already been brought into town, and is stored on the premises of Mr. Nathan, who has not only liberally subscribed, but given this valuable accommodation for the purposes of the Committee. The quantity of coal likely to be immediately received will, we apprehend, be less than was originally anticipated, owing to the engagement of the Natives in other occupations which have prevented their doing all that. was expected from them ; and casual circumstance!, which can be easily accounted for, wilJ jurat*bly render the fir§t

'few tons of coal more costly than some had supposed they would be. The attempt has, notwithstanding, been decidedly prosperous. We venture to affirm that few more successful experiment of the kind are on record then this will be found to tui n out when the case shall be fully and impartially considered by the public. We believe that a Meeting of the subscribers (who alone, of course, aie entitled to determine on the subsequent arrangements respecting an experiment to which they have contributed their pecuniary and other aid) will be held within a few days, — probably on the Thursday of next week. The particular time and place will, however, no doubt be notified by advertisement.

Auckland Mechanics' Institute. — On Monday evening, in compliance with the request of the Committee of this Institution, Dr. Bennett followed up his Lecture on " Spectral Illusions and Natural Magic," by a Lecture on " Popular Superstitions." He confined his observations, however, mainly to the class of superstitions comprehended under the general designation of " Witchcraft," which, as a generic term included many particulars. He entered at considerable leugth into the historical facts connected with the subject, from the days i\hen capital punishment was denounced by the Mosaic law against witches, to modern times, in which that denunciation (founded as it was on the Theocraiical constitution of the Jewish government,) was misapplied to coun-i-nauce the cruelties practised by the infmaous Matthew Hopkins, ("Witch-finder General,") and others, under the sanction of both political and ecclesiastical authorities, — the main instruments in exciting the public panic and the legalized prosecution of witches, having been the celebrated Bull issued in the year i 484 by Pope Innocent VIIL, and followed up by several other Papal Bulls within thirty or forty succeeding years. The Lecturer pointed out, however, that Roman Catholics and Protestants, and the illiterate and the learned, were almost equally implicated in the infliction of torture and death on the alleged witches. He subsequently made some remarks on other superstitions, apologizing, however, for the comparative shortness of his comments upon them on the ground of the length to which his remarKs on Witchcrait — which was the subject of the lecture — had necessarily extended. The attendance was numerous, and included His Excellency the Governor-in-Chiiif, who has throughout manifested a lively interest in the progress of the Institute.

We have been requested to state that the Deputation which waited on the Rev. Mr. Inglis, to present the Testimonial to that esteemed and catholic-spirited minister (which we with pleasure recoided in our last issue) was not exactly, as there stated, a " Deputation from the Presbyterian Congregation" at Auckland, but " a Deputation from Subscribers towards the Puise offered as a mark of affection and esteem to Mr. Inglis." We make this correction just because we have been asked to do so, although we cannot ourselves see any adequate occasion for the captious objection in which we suppose it to have originated. The Testimonial proceeded chiefly — indeed, we believe, exclusively — from members of the Presbyterian Congregation here, amongst whom were some of the best known and most universally esteemed office bearers in the Church ; and we can only express our unaffected regret that a cavil should have been raised in any quaiter so influential as to call for a modification of the previous substantially accurate statement.