ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 37, 6 December 1842, Page 2

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Very active exertions are now in progress at the East India House, and at the Horse Guards, to forward, without delay, troops to reinforce

the army in Affghanistan. Within the last week, the East India Directors have accepted tenders for 15 ships of large tonnage, which have been regularly surveyed, to proceed to India, and to carry 4,000 men. — : —-o The Marquis of Clanricarde has taken a very proper course in bringing under the notice of Parliament the practice which prevails - in the present day of making a public exhibition of criminals. It is a disgraceful fact, that orders or tickets, as for a place of public amusement, are issued on those solemn occasions when , a culprit should have his attention wholly withdrawn from external objects; and what is called the “ condemned sermon” has been, in a recent instance, turned into a spectacle for the gratification of the morbid curiosity of persons whowere so far favored as to obtain the privilege of hearing it. The cruelty of torturing the feelings of a guilty wretch would certainly be a sufficient reason for abandoning the practice which now prevails; but his mental suffering here is nothing compared with the eternal misery of which he runs the risk, by having his mind forced to the last in the direction of earthly matters, instead of being allowed to turn his undivided thoughts towards the reconciliation with his offended Maker. In the case of Good we have a painful illustration of the consequences that ensue from making a convicted murderer a spectacle up to the latest moment of his life ; for the anxiety of the culprit in this instance, within a few hours of his execution, was, what sort of appearance he should make in the eyes of the crowd who were to be admitted on the occasion of divine service being publicly performed for the last time in his presence. This fact speaks volumes as to the terrible consequences that may ensue to criminals themselves from a continuation of the practice we have been alluding to; for the welfare of the soul may be sacrificed, in addition to the life which the law has doomed to forfeiture. The purpose of the legislature in extending the period between condemnation and punishment, was to give time for religious preparation ; but the interval appears to be filled up with a series of exhibitions, more or less public, of which the unhappy wretch that is about to be prematurely cut off is made the hero. It is to be hoped, for the sake of decency and morality, as well as for the eternal welfare of criminals themselves, that measures will be taken to prevent a repetition of such' exhibitions as those that Lord Clanricarde has drawn attention to. — Globe.

The following is from a correspondent of the Albion. “ The debate of last night was certainly the most lively of the session. There have been other evenings on which orations much more elaborate have been uttered; but there was much more of spirit, of animation, and of heart, in the brief addresses on the Charter petition, than I have heard since Sir Robert Peel became Prime Minister. All the speakers seemed, to have their minds filled with the bulky petition, which contained the signatures of 3,315,752 of the working classes. Lively and interesting, however, as the debate was, I do not think I should go back upon it, if it were not to detail one of its dramatic incidents, of which no report in any one of the morning papers can, or, indeed, properly could, give you an adequate idea. Feargus O’Connor was sitting in that portion of the strangers’ gallery to which only those upon the Speaker’s list are admitted. His place was rather a conspicuous one, it was in the front row on the opposition side of the clock that fronts the speaker. He sat beside Mr. Twiss, the late M. P. This, then, was the position of Mr. O’Connor; while almost immediately below him (for he occupied a seat on the front benches) was Mr. Roebuck. When Mr. Roebuck rose to speak, he advanced three or four paces,on the floor, so as to have a full command of all his movements, and to direct his eye with the greater ease to both sides of the house, he attacking, as he proceeded, the the ministerial as well as the opposition members. Such was it last night, when he spoke of the author of the petition as a malignant and cowardly demagogue, One,” said he, “ that I could this moment lay my hand upon,” and then, without looking up to the gallery, he pointed with his finger at O’Connor. There was a pause in the house: the orator artfully prolonged it; and, as he kept the hand still fixed towards O’Connor, without he himself, looking at him, it seemed as if the finger that thus pointed in scorn to O’Connor was endued with the sense of it, for it remained directed towards him apparently attracted by some magnetic influence, while Mr. Roebuck proceeded to say that he could point him out by name, if he did not think the “ reptile” too contemptible. I, in common, I believe, with the whole house, turned for an instant my glance from the speaker to O’Connor. I could see the flush of fury and the paleness of rage flit in an instant across his brow; and seeing this, I must own I did not. again look at him, for I was more interested by the speech of his assailant, who seemed to feel, in the success and manner of his attack, that he attained a triumph. As I looked at the scene, it reminded me of one that I had read somewhere about the

French Revolution, where Vatlier denounced Robespierre, and the latter was driven from the assembly amid the cries of “A basic iyran!” The House of Commons affords such few opportunities for seeing - a scene like this.” On the 6th May, Mr. Roebuck produced a great sensation in the House, relative to the conduct of several members whom he accused of having vacated their seats in favor of opponents, or in other words, of selling their seats. Mr. Roebuck, as reported in the Globe, first enquired of Lord Chelsea, if he was a party to any means by which lie was to vacate his seat; his Lordship declined to give any answer. Mr. Roebuck expressed himself satisfied, and next put the same question to his colleague, Mr. Russell, who also declined, protesting at the same time against Mr. Roebuck’s right to put the question. Mr. Roebuck expressed his satisfaction, and next enquired of Captain Plumridge, if lie were a party to any compromise by which he was to accept the Chiltern Hundreds. Captain Plumridge replied, he was not cognizant of the arrangement until after it was made, which was by his lawyers. Mr. Roebuck thanked the Captain for his candour, and next enquired of Sir J. C. Ilobhouse if lie was cognizant of an arrangement by which a sum. of money had been paid down to avoid the investigation of the committee in the case of Nottingham, and a further sum put down to allow another gentlemen to “ walk over the course.” No answer would be given, Mr. Roebuck again expressed himself satisfied, and proceeded to ask Mr. Elpliinstone whether he was cognizant of any arrangement by which a member was admitted who was not returned by the returning officer. Mr. Elpliinstone admitted such arrangement had been made, but denied being a party to it; whereupon Mr. Roebuck next enquired of Major Beresford whether he was cognizant of any arrangement which he or his colleague was to retire to let in another party. The major declined. The Chancellor of the Exchequer at this stage of the proceedings moved the order of the day on the Income Tax, but Mr. Roebuck insisted on his right to be heard, and after some discussion it was eventually decided that he should proceed, when he delivered a long and powerful speech. Property in Chancery. —ln 1750, the property in the name of the accountant-general of the Court of Chancery was 1,660,000/. It has now increased to 41,000,000/. Sir Charles Knightby had a sale of part of his celebrated stock of Durham cattle on Wednesday week. There were forty lots, which netted between eleven and twelve hundred pounds. The highest price given for a cow was fifty-six guineas; heifer, forty guineas ; and for a bull calf, forty guineas. At an Easter parish meeting in Essex, the other day, a female having been nominated to serve the office of overseer for the ensuingyear, it was objected to by some of the parishioners, upon which she indignantly exclaimed, that as they had a woman for king, she did not see why thev should not have a woman for cversect'. She persisted in the appointment, which was afterwards duly confirmed. The Canton Free Press quotes two inscriptions found on two English tombs at Amoy, bearing the dates 1698 and 1700; the latter to the memory of Captain Stephen Baker, of the Success, and the former in remembrance of Henry, son ot John Dufiill, commander of the Turnbull . The holy sign, with an inscription in Portuguese, on an uprig'ht stone, appears to consecrate the ground — “ Wind may not rove, nor billow sweep, Where rests not England’s dead.” In the Jury Court of Edinburgh, a verdict, with 300/. damages, was lately given against Sir P. C. 11. Durham, for having neglected to place a sufficient fence round the mouth of an old coal-pit, in consequence of which a young woman, in a state of intoxication, fell down the shaft, and was killed. The action was brought by the deceased girl’s father. This form of action, which can be maintained in Scotland, is, unfortunately, unknown in the practice of the English courts. Her Majesty conferred the honor of knighthood, at the Levee on Wednesday, on Mr. now Sir Henry Bishop, the eminent composer, being the only instance of the kind conferred by a British Sovereign, on any member of the musical profession. Sir Henry Bishop received the degree of Musical Bachelor at Oxford about two years ago, and last year he was elected Professor of Music to the University at Edinburgh. He has composed upwards of seventy successful dramatic pieces, besides numerous other works of the highest order; and it is considered by the musical profession that the honor has been most worthily bestowed by her Majesty. A Parliamentary return has just been published of the number of emigrants who embarked from the United Kingdom last year, and the quantity of Crown land sold in each of the colonies. Referring to the statement concerning emigration, we find that the result is, that there left England, 72,104; Scotland, 14,060 ; and Ireland, 32,428 persons, or in all, 118,592 persons; of whom 45,017 proceeded to the United States, 46 to Texas, 106 to Central America, 38,164 to British North

America, 2,130 to - (he West Indies, 27 to the Falkland Islands, 65 to Western Africa, 368 to the Cape of Good Hope, 40 to the Mauritius, 4 to Meulmain, 28,724 to Australia, and 3,901 to New Zealand. The commissioners of colonial lands and emigration last year afforded pecuniary assistance to the following number of persons from the proceeds of land sales,- the deposit money for which has been paid in this country. To New South Wales, 16,217 ; to Van Diemen’s Land, 331; to New Zealand, 2,006 ; total, 18,554. The naval and military grants have been rather extensive for some time past, but we fear that the system of charging so high for land, as 1/. per acre, or sometimes 21. or 3/., when put up to auction, must prevent the small capitalists from emigrating; some, by the time their voyage expenses are paid, have little or nothing left wherewith to cultivate the tracts they may have purchased. —London Journal of Commerce, June 4. Killed but not Dead, —Tony Lee, a player in Charles the Second’s reign, being killed in a tragedy, having a violent cold, could not forbear coughing as he lay dead upon the stage, which occasioning much laughter and noise in the house, he lifted up his head, and, addressing himself to the audience, said, “ This makes good what my poor mother used to tell me, for she would often say that I should cough in my grave.” This set the house in a roar, and every one pardoned the solecism he had before committed. Exportation of Machinery. —Never at any time since the, bobbin-lace machinery was first exported by John Cutts in 1816, were lace-machines taken out of the kingdom in greater quantities than during the last month ; as, from the best information we can obtain, no less than thirty-four warp and bobbin-machines have been taken out of this district within that period, one person having taken, we are assured, no less than eight to Lisle. So boldly has this trade been carried on, that machines were openly packed at a neighbouring village, and taken to a wharf in open day. By the practice of the English courts of justice, in excise and customs, and some other affairs, a carrier is held to be irresponsible for all goods he carries; this has been taken ample advantage of, as one of our cai-riers has had the machines brought to the wharf and packed there. Yet, by a decision of the Court of Exchequer, although these machines may be seen thus packed, and the parties should declare they were going to France or Germany, they may be taken by river or canal to London, and declared not water-borne, according to statute, until they are put on board a vessel or a boat on the Thames, with the intent to be shipped. Thus, if the Excise or Customs seize them on the canal or on a London wharf, they are too soon ; and if they watch to see them on board, the ship is soon under sail, and then they are too late, the packages being entered as other goods. Such is the manner in which the manufacturing interest has been latterly protected. —Nottingham Journal. Courageous Enterprise of a Mother.— In a yard in Melbourne-place, North Shields, lately, a little boy let a tin can slip into the well; his brother, less than he and blind, took a clothes prop and sought to fetch it up, when unfortunately he fell in himself. His mother came, saw him rise the third time to the surface of the water, and urged by the peril of her child, had herself let down, head foremost, held by the heels and petticoats by her not less daring and courageous female neighbours; after a third effort to reach him, she caught his hand, and with his additional weight was drawn up, by her intrepid assistants ; had they lost their hold, both mother and son must have been drowned.

The soi-disant Duke of Normanby has been arrested at Neuilly, as having formerly committed some misdemeanours under the name of Claude Perrin. He denies strenuously the identity. He was quite paralysed, but was brought to the Prefecture of Police. St. Peter’s Church, Cornhill, built on the spot where the Metropolitan Cathedral stood, before the removal of the see to Canterbury, has lately received a new organ of a peculiar construction. It has two sets of keys, each of the same compass as the famous Haarlem organ, and both supplied with a great variety of reed and flute stops. There are seven flute stops, all of different tones, among which are the novelties of an oboe flute, suabe flute, clarobel flute, flageolet, and piccolo. There are also seven reeds, among which are the trombone, a magnificent cromhorn, two different kinds of clarion, a new kind of oboe, and a cornopean, the latter an invention belonging entirely to the builder. Among the chorus or mixtures is one termed the echo, which has the effect of a small chamber organ placed in the roof of the church. The design of this has been adapted from the echo in the great organ of Cologne Cathedral. Altogether, the new organ in St. Peter’s Church may be considered as forming an era in organ building in this country, and as having already given an impulse to the art; for we have learned that, since its erection, instruments of a precisely similar character have been constructed at Liverpool, Leeds, Stratford-upon-Avon, Salisbury, and Carlisle.

A Duellist.-— “Much the same sort of feeling,” resumed the lady, “seems to have overshadowed another successful duellist. I mean the well-known Captain Best, the antagonist of Lord Camelford. The duel was forced up6n him. An abandoned woman promoted it; and Lord Camelford, before he went to the ground, told his* second that he was conscious he himself was in the wrong; that Best was a man of honour ; but that he could not bring himself to retract words which he had once used. He fell, at once the aggressor and the sufferer. But Captain Best was never his own man afterwards. He died at the early age of forty-eight, at a boarding-house called ‘the Blanquets,’ near Worcester. Sorrow and remorse had done on him the work of years. In his closing hours, he is said to have told those who were m his confidence, that the recollection of that duel and its results had embittered every moment of his life ; that the whole scene Was as fresh in his memory as if it had happened yesterday ; and that there were times when Lord Camelford seemed to stand before him and gaze on him with an earnestness and tenacity that rendered life a burthen. In consequence of some embarrassments—whence contracted I know not, for he inherited West India property to a considerable amount —he Was for some time within the rules of the Kind’s Bench. In his domestic arrangements, too, he was unfortunate. His marriage proved disastrous, and was dissolved by act of Parliament. But he once and again declared that every sorrow would have sat lightly on him could he but have succeeded in wiping the stain of homicide from his brow.” —The Bishop’s Daughter. On the occasion of the marriage of the hereditary duke of Russia, the Emperor Nicholas has conferred three acts of grace upon Poland. By the first, all who are under sentence of death have it commuted into imprisonment for life ; and all minor punishments, with very few exceptions, are entirely remitted. By the second, the inhabitants of the Grand Duchy are released from all the debts they owed to the treasury up to the end of 1831, and of a great many claims which the government had upon them up to 1837, and also from all prosecutions commenced for frauds upon the revenue, and all punishment of imprisonment, when not attended with a higher degree of criminality. The third act pardons a number of offenders, banished to Siberia, and lessens the terms of exile for others. A marriage between the Princess Imperial of Russia and the Duke of Bourdeaux has been finally determined on by the ex-Royal family of France and the Emperor Nicholas.

A Curious Fact on Food and Manure.— It has been before stated that every part of a plant contains nitrogen as well as carbon ; but as an invariable rule, the seeds of all plants contain a much larger quantity of nitrogen than the leaves and stalks, and a lesser quantity of carbon ; inversely, the leaves and stalks contain a much greater quantity of carbon, and a lesser quantity of nitrogen. Now, when a horse is fed on grass, his food consists almost entirely of carbon ; and the result is, that when he has a sufficient supply, he gets fat—that is, that particles of oily fatty matter are deposited on the muscles undei the skin; but it is well known that a horse in this condition is quite unequal to any work, and the least exertion reduces his bulk. But when the same horse, under, other circumstances, is fed on corn, his food consists principally of nitrogen; and although he may never, under this keep, get as fat as under the other, still the increase he does acquire will be pure muscle, or, as it is technically called, sound flesh; and on this keep he can perform infinitely more work, with less fatigue, than on food containing no nitrogen. A more complete instance could not be adduced to show that animals as well as plants can only assimilate that food which is presented to them : in the first case, carbonaceous matter being the food of the horse, carbon is deposited in the shape of fat; in the other, when more nitrogen enters into the composition of his food, the deposit of muscle preponderates. So it is with wheat. With a manure that only supplies carbonaceous matter, starch is the result; with a manure containing nitrogen, gluten is formed : both cases being completely analogous, and affording unerring proof of one simple and uniform law. The Thames Toe-nail. —Sir Mark Isambard Brunei had the satisfaction of first walking under the river Thames. His tunnel is a great triumph of art and perseverance, and will remain a splendid monument of skill to future ages. Of course our readers have heard of the impression made by a French gentleman upon his English auditors as to the immense size of Sir Isambard, when he said to them; “ Monsieur Brunei is great man—giant engineer—his great toe-nail (tunnel) goes all across de river Thames onder de vater from von side to de oder. The New Cardinal. —The elevation of our countryman, Mr. Charles Acton, has proved a source of much joy to the English in Rome, Protestant as well as Catholic. He is the son of Sir John Edward Acton, of Aldenham, Shropshire, who was formerly prime minister of Naples. He was educated at Cambridge,

and is the first student from that university who has had the honor of being raised to the' degree of Cardinal. He has been long distinguished at the Roman Court by his unwearied attention to the duties of his office, by his unbounded charities, by his varied and profound learning, but above all, by his humility, and bther virtues. He is the fiftieth on the list of English cardinals, and the seventh since the eighth Henry.