PROPOSED NEW PENAL SETTLEMENT. (From the "Daily News")

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 670, 15 September 1852, Page 4

PROPOSED NEW PENAL SETTLEMENT. (From the " Daily News")

Sir James Matheson, M.P., proprietor of the Island of of North Rona, has offered it as a gift to Government, for a new penal settlement. This island is situated in the Atlantic, in latitude 59 deg. 7 rain. 15-48 se s West. It forms part of the Lewis property. It liey 38 miles N.E. of the Butt of Lewes, forming a neuil. equilateial triangle with it and Cape Wrath. Its highrst poitit is 360 feet above the level of the sea. Ou a clear day, Cape Wrath and Lowes and Harris Hills can be seen without glnsses. The island resembles a long-necked decanter, with its neck towards the north. Its greatest length is nearly a mile, and its greatest breadth the same. At its north end, about half a mile of its length varies in breadth from 10 to 20 chaii s Half of this portion is stratified rock, without a panicle of vegetation. The eastern 6hore of this part slopes gently to the sea ; the western, though rugged nnd broken is but 90 feet in height. The southern portion of the island is broader and more elevated, averaging threequarters of a mile broad, and the two hills not less th n 350 feet high The. seaward bases of these hills fo m precipitous cliff's, inaccessible in many places. The rocks round Rona are few and small. Gouldig Beag and Gouldig Mohrnre the only rocks more than two chains from the shore. Another small rods, seen jit low water, near the S.W. point is dangerous to navigators anchoring in the neighbourhood. The soil of Rona is good, and the pasture though not luxuriant, is beautifully green. Except about SO acres, the whole island is arable, interspersed with a few small rocks. A small part of the south side had been cultivated, and produced excellent barley. It ia now rented as a sheep farm. There are five or six ruinous huts upon it. The smallest is said to have been a church. There is also a graveyard, in which is a rude cross without any insciiption. There are neither rats nor mice, and but very few birds in the island. There is no peat moss, and not much sea-weed. There is sufficient spring walei on the south shore. Seals are numerous. The tide rises from five to ten feet and the south wind prevails. The best landing places are Poul Houtbam on the south, Skildiga.on the west, andGevah Sthu on the east. So well sheltered is Gevah Sthu, that three vessels anchored at its mouth six years ago, and re* mained one night. But such a thing hadnot occurred before, and has not "been repeated since. The island contains 270 acres, three-fourths of which are arable. Some years since it was inhabited by several families who lived by fishing and on the produce of the soil ; but in attempting to land on a stormy day, all the men were lost by the upsetting of their boat. Should Government accept Sir James Matbeson's offer of this island as a convict prison and penal settlement, it will combine the advantages of Portland prison and a penal colony in New South Wales, being near enough to be controlled by the home authorities through directors of prisons for Scotland, or through a separate board of commissioners ; and from the small size of the island, and its loneliness, it would hare all the terrors, and none of the attractions, of transportation to Australia. The cost of 'maintaining a convict abroad is £4>o a-year. The cost of maintaining a convict in Itono would not exceed a-year, and this on 1000 convicts for four yeftrs, would save .£lOO,OOO. The climate and soil being favourable, the trable ports of Rona might be cultivated by the convicts as a gaiden farm. This would be a good training for such convicta as might afterwards emigrate nnd it' would considerably diminish the expense of the establishment. All other kinds of labour usual in prisons could, of course, be done at Rona. Asa prison made of galvanised iron may easily be removed from one place to another, a great difficulty is obviated as I regards the expense of buildings, which, after serving these purposes in one locality, became useless, as now the transfer from one locality to another is provided for.

Terrible Catastrophe in New York.— One of the most lamentable occurrences that we have ever been called on to record took place at Ward school, No. 26, in Greenwich-avenue, opposite Charles-street, on Thursday afternoon when nearly 50 children lost their lives, and many more were so severely injured that, in all probability, they will not recover. The schoolhouse is a magnificent four-story edifice, with a winding staircase from the first floor to the upper landing. This stairway is not spiral, but formed of short flights of stairs winding round a square well. The outer side of the stairs was guarded by an ordinary wooden banister, of no great height, and not firmly se ured at the bottom, or where the balusters were connected with the stairs. About 2 o'clock on Thursday afternoon one of the teachers in the female department, a Miss Harrison, was taken with a fjinting fit, and in order to her recovery she was curried out into the passageway, where a cry was raised of " Water ! water !" by one of her companions. This cry was not underslood, or else the scholars thought that the water was wanted to extinguish fire, and the next moment the cry of u Fire" was raised, and spread like wildfire through the building. In a moment subordination was at an end. The children fiom the primary department rushed to the stairs, as did also the scholars on the floor above them. The stairway was soon filled, and the press against the balusteis was so great that th»y gave way, precipitating the children over the stairs down to the ground floor. Aa the iush increased, so did the numheis that were hurled over the stairs into the space below, Two of the female teachers made an effort to stop the children, but so gieat was the panic that their efforts were vain, and they were themselves hurried along with the current, and, despite their efFoits, were carried over the stairs into the space below. In the upper room, the boys' department, Mr. M'Nally took his stand with his back against the door, and foi bade any one to go out. Although the paiiic pervaded hit room as well as the rest of the building, yet he stood finn, and thus

•ucceeded in sating the lives of man.,"' perhaps of hundreds, for had the larger hoys rushed U P°» the stair.*, as did the younger children, Heaven only J«nows bow much more sad would have been the disaster tfn^ n it now is. We learn that some of the boys jumped out of the windows, and that one of them had his neck broken by the fall. There were altogether in the building but a few short of 1.800 sobolais. (1,765 we understand to be the number.) While Mr. M'Nally remained firm at his post the destruction of life was goirg on below. Hundreds on hundreds »rait over the stairs, until there was a pile of human beings — a mass of children— eight feet square anil about \'l feet in height. The alarm was now given outside, and the police were soon at hand and took possession of the premises as well as they could, and commenced 'the work of handing out the childien from iheir perilous position. Those that were on the top were, of course, but slightly injured, hut as soon as these had been removed the most heartrending spectacle presented itself. Many of the de<ul dying, and wounded were [ taken to the station-houfe, where the entire lodging room of the policemen was turned in(o a hospital and their beds all used as couches for dead bodies of injured children. Nearly 100 families either mourned the loss ol children or watched anxiously over the forms of the wounded. — New York Herald. The Bishop and the Rector ojp Bow.— • The Rev. W. G. Driffield, the rector of Bow, is an old college acquaintance of the Her. J. E. Gladstone. The intimacy Contracted at college has been kept up, and considerably cemented by the similarity of their doctrinal view?. Mr. Gladstone has accordingly sometimes preached for his friend, and was about to do so again on Wednesday evening. This having come to the knowledge of the Bishop of London, his lord3hip wrote to remonstrate with the rector of Bow, telling him that he could not be aware that he had inhibited Mr. Gladstone, and that proceedings were now pending in the Arches Court. Mr. Driffield replied that Mr. Gladstone denied his lordship's right to inhibit him, and went somewhat into the matter. The bishop &t once forwarded a somewhat sharp rejoinder, as we understood, both to the rector and to hi 3 churchwardens, accompanied by a sealed document— "Whereas, &c, we have inhibited the Rev. J. E. Gladstone, 8.A.," &c. The Churchwardens, having the fear of the Arches Court before their eyes, proceeded at once to advise with the rector, whom they stiongly urged to desist from a measure which would bring him and others so speedily and so directly into collision with their diocesan. The reiult was that the respected rector gave way, and Mr. Gladstone did not officiate.