GERMAN LITERATURE.

New Zealander, Volume XVIII, Issue 1727, 27 September 1862, Page 6

GERMAN LITERATURE.

I From the " Saturday Review,” July 19.]

The third and last volume of the Voyage of the Novara is interesting in many points ot view, and C=peciallv for the notices of English colonies which it contains* It begins with an account of Sydney, at which the frigate stayed for more than a month. A description of Auckland, in New Zealand, follows, and also of such parts of the interior of the northern island as the officers were able to reach during a brief stay. The Novara from thence went on to Tahiti, and from Tahiti to Valparaiso. At Valparaiso, the scientific members of the expedition left their comrades, and crossed to the shores of the Atlantic by land, following the coast line of the Pacific until they reached the Isthmus of Panama, which they traversed to join the mail steamer at AspinwalL Their observations throughout their voyages arc more social and political than scientific. Their sympathies are strongly English and anti-French. They see little but what is good in Sydney and New Zealand, and little but what is evil in Tahiti. The democratic Government of New South Wales does not alarm them. On the contrary, they freely express their admiration for the zeal with which the English Government has atoned, by introducing free institutions and free trade, for the acts of violence which have often marked the extension of its colonial empire. They are lavish of panegyric upon the care with which the English Government provides for the safety and well-being of its emigrants during the voyage. Apparently, their enthusiasm is excited by the contrast which the German emigration presents. Of its horrors they have terrible tales to tell. No attempt is made at Bremen or Hamburg to place any check upon the avarice of the shippers by whom the emigrants are conveyed to Australia. The price charged is higher than in England, and the treatment horrible. The immorality exceeds anything that has been related of the poorest districts in Dorsetshire. The ships are often visited by the worst forms of contagious disease, and there are grounds for suspecting that, to save trouble, the patients have been occasionally sewn up and thrown overboard before they had acquired the full title to rank as corpses. In New Zealand, the Austrians were much struck with the appearance of thrift and well-doing that marked the native population, and contrast it favourably with the results upon aboriginal races which have followed colonial enterprise in every other part of the world. The war had not then broken out; but they notice it, and record that its earliest symptoms were then appearing. Whib| they were at Auckland, five Maori chiefs, friendly the Government, waited on Colonel Browne, and' inj formed him that there was to be a large meeting or Maori chiefs, at which proposals for the election of a Maori king would certainly come under discussion. Under these circumstances, they desired to know what line the Queen’s representative desired that they should take. Colonel Browne, in reply, assured them that be had the most perfect confidence in their loyalty, and that ihey T might do exactly what they liked. It is curious to contrast this indifference with his later view, that an acknowledgment of the Maori King was in itself treason to the Queen. Of French colonisation, of which the Austrians witnessed a specimen at Tahiti, the authors express the most undisguised contempt. It is costly to the mother country and damaging to the colony. The French settlements in the Pacific, of which Tahiti is the most important, cost a quarter of a million sterling to found, and about half that sum for yearly maintenance; and, in spite of this large expenditure, the prosperity" and population of the island has steadily fallen away since the French domination began. The administration has from the first been very bad; and under its influence both commerce and agriculture have declined. The book before us give* also some details of another French attempt at colonisation in another part of the world. It so happened that the official who was Imperial Commissary at Tahiti during the visit of the Novara, had been previously Director of the penal establishments at Cayenne. The account of Cayenne which M. de la Richiere—such was the name of the Director—gave to the Austrians, may probably be relied upon as correct. It is certainly terrible enough. The average annual mortality" among all classes in the settlement is from 28 to 33 per cent. In one year 2000 prisoners died out of a total of 6000, and of the doctors who attended on them 18 out of 36 shared their fate. Six hundred prisoners are constantly in prison, and the utmost limit to which a transport’s life can extend under the deadly poison of the climate is five years. Whether the French Emperor will thank M. de la Richiere for this frank communicativeness to his Austrian guests remains to be seen; but his testimony proves that Cayenne is rather honored than injured by the nickname of “ the dry guillotine.”

London Fires. —The report of the select committee appointed by the House of Commons, on the motion by Mr. Ilankey, has been printed. After calling attention to the tact that the number of fires in London has increased from 458 in 1833 to 1,183 in 1861, and noticing that London now, taking only the area of the Metropolitan Board of Works, covers about 170 square miles, and has 360,000 houses, the committee express their opinion that the parochial arrangements required by law for the extinction of fires should be discontinued; though maintained at a cost supposed to be nearer £IO,OOO a year than £SOOO, they arc useless, °r worse. The Fire Brigade establishment of the Insuranc eoffices is also totally inadequate to the general protection of London from tire, nor can the offices be expected to undertake the task; their object is the especial protection of those parts where the largest amount of insured property is to be found; they arc, moreover, anxious to give up the brigade. Butin efficiency is such that the committee consider that the services of the existing staff ought to be made available in connexion with any new system which may he adopted. The valuable services ot the Society for the Protection of Life from Fire, also demand public acknowledgment. In Liverpool the fire brigade tonus an integral part of the police force; the arrangements are very efficient, and yet the annual expense is bat about £2,800. At Manchester and Glasgow also the arrangments are made under local Police Acts; the expense is about £2,000, and half of it is recovered from the owners of the properly in which fin* occur, or from the Insurance offices. It was proposed m the committee that such a charge should be made up° n owners or Insurance offices in London, but the numbel® were equal on a division, and the chairman gave his vote with the Noes. In these three towns there is an almost unlimited supply of water at a high pressure, so that hose pipes arc applied to the water mains, an the use ol lire engines almost dispensed with; but sue a supply for the whole of the metropolitan district, requiring as it would a new system of tire mains, could not he effected without a cost of about £3,000, 000, better regulations, however, might be made for too immediate attendance of the fire-cock men. committee came to the determination to recommend that a lire brigade be formed in the metropolis as pW of the police establishment. They add that it will probably still be found advisable for the owners ot arge property, such as the docks, to maintain hrebngades of their own, and that it may be reasonable for owners ol large property where gooes are peculiarly exposed to the risk af fire, to maintain some specif protection for their own property beyond that wblCu » provided at the general expense. — Tima.