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New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 783, 15 October 1853, Page 4

T he Baron <Je Raman, a negro, the commercial minister of the Emperor Fauslen, of Hayli, is now travelling upon special mission, in relation to commerce, through Germany, France, and England. The Baron is stated to be well informed man, speaking French fluently, and familiar with the state of affairs in Europe.

Indian Finance. —At the present moment the following memoranda on the condition of the finances of India will be read with interest:—The annual Indian fiance accounts shows a revenue declining, an expenditure again largly increasing, and a revided deflict. In 1849- the total net revenues were £20,275,831 ;in 1050-51. they fell to £20,249,932; and in 1851-2 to £ 19,927,059 ; consequently a loss of .£349,792 in three years. On the other baud, the total charges were £l6, 687,582 in 1849-50; £17,170,707 in 1850-51 ; and 17,901,666 in 1851-2. Whilst, then, there has been a falling-off in revenue to the extent of £349,792, there has been an increase of expenditure in India of £1 213, 284. A saving in the home chargee, disbursed in Finland have been reduced by nearly £600,000, and the consequence is that the deflict in the Indian finances for the last year is only £469,701. The increase expenditure is of course the result of the Burmese war. In 1850- the Bengali “ war charges” scarcely amounted to £85,000; in 1851-2 they had risen to £298,000, showing the increase of more than £200,000 in the millitnry expenditure of a presidency, the total charges of which exceeded its income in the same year by very nearly £2,000,000. The great source of revenue—the tax on iand —is stationary. In Bengali it has oscillated in the last four years from £3,500,000 to £3,560,000 ; in the North West from £4,870,000 to £4,990,000; in Madras from £3,640,000 to £3,470,000; and in Bombay from £2,240,( 00 to 2,300.000. The people of Bengal pay a gross revenue of £10,000,000; in Bengali there was expended out of that sum in the year 1851- £87,800 on public works. The gross revenues, of Madras exceed £5,000,000; there were £2O, 000 spent on public works in that Presidency in 18512. In Bombay the total gross revenues are about £4, 300,000 ; the expenditure on public works was £6B, 590. In all out of the gross revenue of 20,000,000 collected in these Presidencies, there was not £170,000 spent on roads, bridges, canals, irrigation, works, &c., in 1852-2. The net revenues of the Punjab and the Trans-Indus territory are rapidly declining and the charges of their civil government are increasing. The revenue in 1850-1 was £4,420,000; in 1851-2 it was only £970,000; showing a falling oft'of £450,000. The ordinary charges in 1849-50 were only £317,000; in 1851-2 they had risen to £856,200 ; an increase of upwards of half a million in three years. And the surplus of £600,000 in 1846-50 was only £IIO,OOO last year. In these accounts, however, the Punjab is not debited with its military expenditure; and as we have there an army some 30,000 strong, theprobility is that it is a dead loss of nt least £1,000,000 sterling. In 1851-2 the receipts from the province of Scindewere £254,000; the charges £439,000105s in 18512by acquisition of Scinde, j£185,000. As with Scinde so with Sattara; its receipts in 1851-2 were £205,0:'0; its charges, £242,000 ; lost by the acquisition of Sattara, £40,000 a year. By Scinde and Sattara in 1851-2 the Indian Government lost nearly £500,000 ; add the loss involved in the Punjab, and we have au annual burthen of about £1,500,000 sterling by these recent extensions of territory. The enormous cost of collecting the Indian revenue continues unabated. In Bengal a gross revenue of £10,000,000 sterling is collected at the cost of 1,700,000 ; in the North West, gross revenues of £6, 000,000, cost £500,000 ; in the Punjab £170,000; is spent to collect £1,000,000 in Madras it takes £680,000 to collect £5,000,000; in Bombay £310,000 to raise £5,300,000. So that of a gross revenue of £27,000,0000 nearly £3,400,000 are spent in collecting it. Pauperism in Birmingham. —An intereariug table lately complied by Mr. Corder, clerk to the guardians, shows in a most striking manner the great changes in the social condition of the people which have been effected within the last six years. In 1848, we find from these returns, that no fewer than 76,000 persons were in a slate of pauperism, and received parish relief while in 1852 the number had collapsed to 22,000, With the full operation of free trade the number relieved began to din inisb, and rapidly decreased, untill in Lady-day of this year diminution was not less than 60 per cent.— Birmingham Journal, Instantaneous Bi.ossoming of Flowers. —Mr. Herberts, at Onslow House, Brompton, made an experiment on the instantaneous blossoming of flowers. The flowers selected were a rose and a geranium, both of which were entirely destitute of bio sons Some buds were discernable a distance of about two yards on the rose tree. The both flowers were covered with circular glass, and some liquids, apparently chemical substances, were applied at the side to the interior. In two or three minutes after, the glass bowls became dim with vapour; and within a quarter of an hour the geranium was uncovered, fnd evera! full sized blosson Jot the ordinary appearance ami scent were cut from it. The experiment with the rose-tree failed, in consequence, as was stated, of the soil having been prepared too late. Various conjectures were formed as to the mode in which the effect was produced, but the prevalent opinion attribute it mainly to the application of artifica'l heat, with a careful preparation of the soil. No explanation was offered by the exhibitor, nor were the company allowed to inspect minutely. A lady, whose name has not transpired has given to the funds of the Free Church of Scotland a donation of £BOOO.

Marshal Narvaez had been appointed to the Embassy in Paris.

Many of the Parisian workman employ a person daily to read the newspaper to them while at work. A train carrying ‘2,800,000 dollars across the Isthmus of Panama, was attacked, on the 26th ultimo, by robber*. They succeeded in capturing a small amount, which was, however, afterwards retaken. Some lives were lost in the affair. Hunter’s Experiments on Animal Grafting.— Mr, Bransby Blake Cooper, in delivering lately an oration at the Royal College of Surgeons, in memory of the immortal genius, John Hunter, gave the following amusing illustrations of Hunter’s peculiar views respecting the blood of animals : —“Hunter had more clearly recognised the great importance of this fluid than any physiologist who bad gone before him. His views with respect to the importance of the blood to the animal economy led him to the belief that the blood was endowed witli a life of its own, more or less independent of the vitality of the animal in which it circulated. The follow, ing experiments seemed to have been instituted with the view of establishing the fact that the blood of a living animal could, even under the artificial stimulus induced by the introduction of the part of another animal into itself by ingrafting, nourisli and support it, so as to convert it into a part of itself. Hunter transplated a human tooth to the comb of a cock, where it not only became fixed, but actually became part of the organic Structure of (he cock’s comb ; he proved this by injecting the cock’s head, and on dissection (as the preparation on the table illustrated), the blood-vessels filled with the colouring matter of the injection were traced into the capillaries of the lining membrane of the cavity of the tooth. The most striking instance of this incorporation of a foreign organic body with a living tissue, was shown by the learned orator in another preparation made by the immortal ft unter, in which the spur of a cock had been removed from its leg and transplated to its comb, were it not only continued, but bad acquired a far greater size than the spur ever acquired in its natural situation. The result of this experiment involved a very interesting physiological inquiry—how the capillaries, which were destined by nature merely to furnish blood fitted for the elaboration of the tissues of the comb, should, under the stimulus of necessity, to use Hunter’s own expression, be rendered competent to eliminate the horny matter of the spur, even to the extent of an hypertrophied condition. The orator then took an elaborate review of the digestive organs of various animals, and found that, in certain instances, they were capable of becoming modified to meet contingencies to which an animal might be exposed, by which change the animal might be rendered capable of existing and even thriving on a kind of food entirely of an opposite character to that originally intended by nature lor its support and nourishment, and illustrating which Mr. Cooper mentioned, that Hunter fed a seagull (naturally a bird of prey) with grain, and after twelve months, he destroyed the bird, and, upon examination, found that its normally membranous stomach had become much thickened, and so changed in character, as to resemble in appearance the gizzard of the graminivorous fowl rather than that of a carnivorous bird. Another striking instance of the periodical modification of the digestive apparatus-was found by Hunter in the crop of the pigeon during the period of incubation. This crop, which at other times was similar to that of birds in general, during incubation assumes a grandular character, which enables it, in addition to its ordinary function, to secrete a milky fluid, which is ejected, and affords a nourishment for its young progeny, rendering the crop, in fact, a kind of mammary gland.

Animal Mechanism.—Means or Locomotion in the Leigh and Earthworm. —There are two creatures whose inodr* of progression we must describe before we pass on to the interesting class of insects. These are the leech and the common earthworm. Belonging both of them to the Annnlula, or ringed animals, their elongated bodies, clad in a tough skin formed of successive rings, are destitute of feet, by which they change their position in the element which they inhabit. They are notwithstanding, capable of moving with some rapidity,—the one through the pools which it haunts, and the other along or beneath the surface of the ground. The leech crawls along the stems of aquatic plants by the help of two flat suckers with which it is furnished, one at each end of its body, Tiling one of them down upon the surface on which it is moving, it stretches forward the other until it finds some suitable place of attachment. The hinder one is then lifted and brought up by a contraction of Us body to the position just behind it, and fixed m be-

I fore. By a repetition of this process it travels along; but when it wishes to traverse the watery fluid that surrounds it, it tbrows its lithe and riband like body into a series of rapid undulatory movements, in which the tints of its vdlXlgated skin are seen to great advantage. These graceful movements depend upon the contraction of muscular bands which lie beneath the skin. Some of them run along the length of its body in a straight line; others wind around it spirally ; and a third set pass round it from side to side. In addition to these muscular bands, the rings of the earthworm are furnished with hooks, all of which bead backwards towards the hinder extremity of its body. When it wishes to penetrate mould, it seeks for some crevice into which it can introduce its finely-pointed head and a few of the foremost strings of its body. These are kept from slipping out again, when it shortens its length by the construction of its skin, by means of tbe books with which they are armed. The thicker part of tbe body follows like a wedge to enlarge this opening, and is retained there by tbe hold which its hooks obtain of the sides of tbe passage, while its head makes a further advance In this way tbe defenceless creature can move along tbe surface of the ground, or quickly, when alarmed, take refuge beneath it. Working Men. —Tbe expression (t Working class,” or “ Working men,’’ must mean either those men who physically work without thinking,—in which case it will not be very acceptable to those who arrogate it, and a wind or water mill, working day and night, would be the beau ideal of a working man—or, it must mean men who work and think. But if this is meant, who is not a working man, and who is* Is the physician who follows his vocation at any hour of the day, the lawyer who sits up laie at night, the scholar who sacrifices his health to his science, a conscientious editor whose work never rests,—are all these, who rise much earlier and go to bed much later than those who call themselves working men par excellence , no working men lisa Humboldt, who braves, in the pursuit of his noble and chivalrous career, fever, beasts cf prey, and insupportable insects, under a thousand privations ? is a Cbampollion, who exposes himself to tbe burning sun of Egypt, to learn the lesson of tbe past ? is a Parry, who dares the ices of the Pole? a Davy, a Ilerechel, who enjoy no rest so regular, m> health so sound, as that of any farmer, —are not all these hard-working men? The division is entirely artificial and untenable, and therefore, if acted upon, highly mischievous. It is to be regretted, then, that so fictitious a thing is made not (infrequently, a ground of political division, as though the interests of those who apply their mind to the changing and moulding of materials were separated from those who consume their productions, or assist them essentially in discovering the best way of mastering the material.— Lieher. The Heir Apparent.—lt is said that two sons of noblemen, at school at Eton, were asked to Windsor Castle to spend the day with the Prince of Wales. His Highness having, in the course of the day’s amusements, given himself some airs, which the young Etonians had no relish for, one of them gave him a sound drubbing. The circumstance reached the ears of the Queen, who, having ascertained on inquiry that her son Lad given sufficient provocation to merit the thrashing, had the good sense to express her satisfaction at the lesson taught him. Ecclesiastical Turnpikes.— “ Aye, John,” S lid a country preacher to one of his flock, whom he had missed for a good many Sundays from the Free Church ; “aye, John, so I’m told you’ve begun to think that we are not in the right road, and that you are going back to the Establishment ?” “ Weel, Sir,” was the reply, “I winna deny but that 1 bae been ganging that gate, and I canna just say that I’veony serious thought ©'turning back in the meantime. But dinna think, minister, that I hae ony fault to find wi’ your road—it’s a bravv road, doubtless, and a safe road—but, eh, Sir, the tolls are awful deer!” A Candid Culprit.— At the Clonmel Sessions a man was brought up for trial on a charge of stealing. The magistrate: Are you guilty or not I Prisoner, looking inquiringly at his Counsel: I am—guilty. Counsel : No you are not. Prisoner ; Oh, I am, Sir, Counsel You’re not; I know better than you. Prisoner: Musha begoira, may be so ; at any rate I’m satisfied. On being sentenced, the prisoner informed the magistrate that he knew he was guilty.