MISCELLANEOUS ENGLISH NEWS.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 727, 2 April 1853, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS ENGLISH NEWS.

(Prom our late files.)

The Great Ministerial Secret. —We do not profess ti be in the secfets of the Cabinet, but we have been furnished with information from a source .upon which we can rely with mi c’i confidence, and we believe the following will bo found, when the day of revelation comes, to constitute the ministerial proposals on financial mat-ters:—-The malt duty is to be entirely repealed, and Schedule B (of 84d. in the pound) on the farmers’ rental is to be altogether abrogated. The other schedule in the Income-tax Act, which imposes a tax of 7d. on trades, incomes, and professions, is to be most materially altered—namely, to be reduced from 7d- in the pound to 2d., and thd charge to be made Upon all incomes at and above £SO per annum, instead of £l5O as heretofore. The property tax is to be raised fron 7d« to Is. in the pound—the funds are to be taxed towards the maintenance of the poor, and the tax on carriages, horses, dogs, &c., is to be entirely abolished. Such, we are given to understand, is to be the grand financial seneme of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The repeal of the hop duty has been mooted, but not finally decided upon, an alteration in the sugar duties has been contemplated, but still remains in obeyance—whilst a tax upon railways has been fully discussed, and may be proposed ere the world is many months older. —Nottingham Journal. In consequence of the great drain of silver coin from England into these colonies, the following Royal Proclamation has been issued declaring that silver is only a legal tender to the amount of forty shillings. For all amounts above £2 gold can be demanded, and the banks are obliged to furnish it:—“ Whereas, it has been represented to us that in our colonies in Australia, New Zealand, Ceylon, Mauritius, and Hong Kong, the silver coins of our United Kingdom pass current as an unlimited tender for payments, and it is expedient that the regulations which govern the circulation of the coins ot our United Kingdom as by law established, should be enforced in our said colonies, now therefore we, by the advice of our Privy Council, have thought fit to declare, and ordain, and, by the advice aforesaid, we do hereby declare and ordain, that within and throughout our colonies in Australia, New Zealand, Ceylon, Mauritius, and Hong Kong, the coins of our United Kingdom shall pass current in the manner directed in the several acts of Parliament which regulate the currency of the same, and that the several coins of our United Kingdom shall not be a legal tender in payment of sums exceeding 405.” Quarantine is again attracting attention. It appears that, on the 2nd of September, Government gave orders to the proper officers of Customs “to examine very particularly the masters of vessels arriving from the Baltic and North Sea, as to the state of health among the passengers and crew, more especially with reference to the cholera” ; and in the event of cholera patients being found on board, the vessel in to be detained, “ under a precautionary quarantine,” for a period within the discretion of the medical officer employed on the occasion. At the same time it is directed, that although persons suffering from cholera are to be prevented from communicating with the shore, no restraint was to be “ placed upon persons on board in the enjoyment ot good health, whether passengers or crew, who may be permitted to have the same free communication with the shore as if the yellow flag had not been hoisted.” »• Upon hearing of this, the Manchester Chamber of Commerce immediately memorialized the Government upon the subject, expressing regret at the step taken ; as “ they did hope, that after the honest and searching inquiries that have taken place on this subject, and especially after the result of the sanitary conference recently held in Paris, to which this country was a party, our trading and shipping interests would not be again uselessly annoyed and injured by a measure of this character.” They express a doubt as to the meaning of the phrase stating that the healthy should be permitted to have “ the same free communication with the shore as if the yellow flag had not been hoisted”; and trust they arc correct in supposing it to mean, that healthy persons will be allowed to leave the ship at once. But if that be an erroneous construction, and healthy persons will only be allowed to “ communicate” with tho shore, than they ask that “ the course may be forthwith abandoned.” They think that quaran-tine-regulations are at all times “useless and injurious,” whether directed against epidemic or endemic diseases. “In attempting to control an atmosphere' charged with epidemic miasmata, they would be ridiculous, if not cruel and costly; in endemic cases, they obviously tend to the destruction rather than to the perservation of life. The foul atmosphere of a ship, during and immediately after a voyage, is itself an exciting cause of disease even upon a healthy frame: to retain in such an atmosphere a person already in disease, appears to be little less than to doom the sufferer to death.” They condemn the course adopted, as setting an example to Europe of an adherence to “ antiquated and nugatory precautions” ; and they urgently pray that the letter of September 2d may be revoked The memorial is signed “Thomas Bazley, President.” Baron Rothschild. —Baron Lionel de Rothschild attended in his place in the House of Commons, and voted for the Speaker. It is rumoured says the Jewish Chronicle , that the Baron intends, when an occasion offers, to speak and vote, braving the penalties for so doing. Lord Charles Thynne, uncle of the present Marquis ol Bath, and son-in-law of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, a canon of Canterbury, and Rector of Londridge Deveril, near Warminster, has seceded to the Roman Catholic communion, M. Jullicn, who, for upwards of twelve years, has been the chief public entertainer in a special department, and has done more for the popularisation of music among the masses than any one else on record, is about to leave England, and try his fortunes in America. In the year 1851, during which 7,000,000 passengers, nearly one-third of the population of England travelled on the London and Northwestern Railway only one individual met with his death. Death or one of Burns’s Heroines. —The Glasgow Citizen records the death of one of Burns’s five Mauchline belles —Miss Morton, who married Mr. Paterson, merchant in Mauchline. This event (says the Citizen ), which, considering the advanced age of the lady, need scarcely be melancholy, occurred at Mauchline, on Friday morning, the 15th October. Christina Morton, or Paterson, the deceased, was in her eightyseventh year at the period of her dissolution. Almost to the last she retained her faculties unimpaired; and on one of her grandsons asking her a few horn’s previous to her decease, if she still remembered Bums, she at once replied, “Ay, brawly that.” Mrs. is, therefore the last of Burn’s “ proper young belles of Mauchlinc.” ‘ . Machine for Weaving Bags. —While in on© of .the rooms of the Stark Mills, wo were much interested in witnessing t working of a machine recently invented and put into operation by Mr, Cyrus Baldwin of Manchester, and which is called a bag loom machine. It weaves bags whole—without seam—at the rate of 45 per day, and one girl can tend two, and insome cases three machines, The principal feature of this machine is that it is self-acting.—When it lias wove the length which is desired for the bag, it changes the action so as to weave the bottom of the next bag, which being done it changes back again and weaves the body of the bag. Its operation is very simple and in r genipus. The Stark Corporation have. now.in operation 26 of these machines, and have between SO and 40 more ready to set rip. They emi be made to weave bags of any size, even as large as bed-ticks.