ENGLISH NEWS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume II, Issue 77, 28 March 1846, Page 3

ENGLISH NEWS.

New Steamers. — The tenders for engines for the following steam- vessels have been accepted from the undermentioned contractors : — For the Vulcan, steam-frigate, at Blackwall, by Messrs. Boulton and Watt, 700 horse power, £36,100 ; for the Niger, steam-sloop, 400 horse power, building at Woolwich, £21,400; the Dauntless, steam-frigate, 500 horse power^ at Portsmouth, £31,320, by Napier, of Glasgow ; the Termagant, steam-fri-gate, building at Beptford, 620 horse power, by Seaward and Capel, for £21.400 ; the Simoom, steam-frigate, building at Glasgow, by Napier, by the same firm, for £29,000. The Bombay Gentleman's Gazette announces the arrival of the American Semi-Steamer, the Edith, 110 days from New York. She made the voyage chiefly with the aid of her sails. She has two high-engines of forty horse power each, and is propelled by the Archimedean screw. Her engines are to be used only when her sails are of no use. She is intended to carry opium from Bombay to China, and can accommodate 2000 chests, and a dozen passengers. She will probably prove a formidable rival to the weTI-kndiw.n clippers, unless her career can be arrested by British law. It has been declared,, on high profes-

sional authority, that there is nothing illegal in a foreign vessel taking a cargo from any 1 British port in India, to any foreign port in Asia. If this be indeed the case, the number of American opium vessels will probably be, increased indefinitely, and will materially affect the interests of those who have embarked their capital in the clippers.

Health of the Army. — Last week, detachments of the seventy-eighth and seventeenth regiments of foot reached the Invalid Depot at Brompton, from India. " The whole of the men of the seventy-eighth are completely worn out by the fatigue ani sickness they have inhaled from the climate of India. Their account of the maladies in their regiment, and of the hundreds that died, is horrible. The men of the seventeenth who have arrived are all sick, and were so at the time they embarked." Almost the same words might have been used to announce the return of any regiment from service within the tropics for the last fifty years ; there is no improvement. The subject is talked of in Parliament ; army surgeons are called upon for reports ; but no one at head quarters troubles his head about the matter. The average annual mortality of British troops in Britain is 15.9 in 1000; of the household cavalry, from 1830 to 1836, it was as low as 14.5. The average annual mortality of the Foot Guards is 21.6 per 1000, On the comparative scale shown by the returns from our different militaiy stations at home and abroad the rate of mortality in the troops in Westminster stands between the rates of the troops in Canada and those in Gibraltar — just above the former, and just below the latter. The Cape of Good Hope> New South Wales, Nova Scotia, and Malta, all show a lower figure of mortality than the Bird-cage Walk. Yet not one of our military moralists and philanthropists in Parliament takes note of the circumstance. It does not appear difficult to account for the anomalous rate of mortality among the Foot Guards, or to remove the cause. There is no home service more severe than London duty. A regiment of the Line on other home stations, except at Portsmouth or in Dublin,, has literally nothing to do — no duty beyond barrack or fatigue parties. But metropolitan duty — from the necessity of finding guard.* for the Palace* Gavernment Offices, &c. — is one night in four at least, if not in three. Much of it is performed in the marshes of Pimlico, under the shade of the trees, with an occasional change to Windsor, where it is equally severe. Fancy a man turning out of a hot guard-room on a winter night for two hours on the North Terrace ! In Canada, the old great coats are permitted to be cut up into over-coats for winter wear ; one of these is hung in the sentry-box, and each sentinel slips it over his other coat. Such a provision in Westminster and at Windsor might have saved the life of many a brave fellow ; but here the old great-coats are returned en masse to the store, and sold for what they will bring, in order to lower the estimates by some odd pounds. Another cause of the great mortality among the Foot Guards must be sought in the numerous temptations to debauchery the metropolitan station affords. The prevalence of pulmonary disorders may be attributed in no small degree to this source. Barrack arrangements may be said to drive the soldier to haunts of vice. No common rooms are attached to our barracks to which the soldierscan resort while their rooms are cleaning or their messes cooking. The St. George and Wellington barracks in the West-end of London — close to the Houses of Parliament — have not, we are assured, a room apart from the dormitories, " large enough to swing a cat in." Until lately, (if, indeed, any reform has. yet been made in this respect) the officer of the day inspected the messes and rooms of the men at the same time ; and no soldier was allowed to enter his room from the time he turned out to let it be cleaned till it had been inspected. Out of barracks he must go, and out of barracks he must stay until the " roast beef call at one gave him permission to return. These are the causes why, in the time of peace, the lives of more soldiers are thrown away to, maintain the state of Royalty than to hold the garrisons of Malta and our North American Provinces. — Spectator, Oct. 3.

South Australia* — The South Australians appear to have had a difference with their new Governor already. A public meeting had been held on the subject of Lord Stanley's Waste Lands Bill, at which it was agreed to< present a petition to the Queen against the bill, and a memorial to the Governor in which he was entreated to suspend or defer the operation of the measures proposed in the bill, until an intimation of the Queen's pleasure should be received in answer to their petition. Before the memorial was presented intelligence 1 was received in the colony that the bill had not received the sanction of the House of Commons, but it was deemed advisable to presets,*

r the memorial to the Governor, and to forward the address to the Queen, that her Majesty might be made acquainted with the feeling of the colonists on the-subject. The memorial was accordingly presented by a deputation, who received an answer "-that does not appear to have been considered a^vecy gracious one. The Adelaide Observer says, that the Governor "reminded us rather of some man-of-war captain of the old school addressing a mutinous crew who had signed a roundrobin, and whom he was dismissing to their duty with a hint that they should be thankful he had not stopped their grog, than of an eulightened English gentleman governing a colony of enlightened Englishmen. " It was proposed to forward to Col. Gawler formerly Governor of South Australia, a silver snuffbox manufactured within the province, of silver produced from the mines of the colony, to be paid for by public subscription, and that it should be accompanied with a short address expressive of the continued esteem and regard of the colonists. Six hundred and forty-one tons of copper ore from the Burra Burra mines, had been shipped on board the Vessels about to sail for England, on account of the South Australian Mining Association. Locusts. — The locusts appear to have - committed the greatest depredations among the vines, some of the old vines being completely barked. All hopes therefore of production from such stocks, is at an end for the present season. — Adelaide Observer.

We extract from the Sydney Morning He- - raid, the following graphic description of a Chinese dinner of State, given by Keying • the Chinese High Commissioner, on his visit • to Hong 1 Kong, to Sir J. Davis, the Governor of that settlement. The account was ■ originally published in the China Mail, November 27.— [Ed. N. Z. tf.] Dinner being announced, the company proceeded up stairs to the sound of music which had not the least resemblance to the " Roast Beef of Old England." A large (able was set out in the spacious saloon, at the • centre of' which sat Keying with Sir John Davis on his left hand, and Major-General D'Aguilar on his right ; and proceeding round the table in the Cliitie.-e order, from left to right, the following, so far as we can remember, were the other guests : — Admhal Cochrane, the Prefect of Canton, J Chief Justice Hultne, Lieutenant Petey, R. N., I Mr. Waller, the Admiral's Secretary ; Mr. j Sargent, A.D.C. to the Governor ; three Mandarins ; Hon. Major Came, Chief Magistrate ; ! the lion. Frederick Bruce; Colonial Secretary ; Captain Talbot, R.N. ; the* Chevalier Liljevalch, Swedish Commissioner ; a Mandarin ; Mr. Attorney-General Sterling; Major Aid- I rich ; Captain D'Aguilar, Military Secretary to the Major-General 4 Dr. GutslafF, Chinese Secretary; a Mandarin; Lord Cochrane, A.D.C. lotheMajor-General; CaptainJßruce, Assistant- Adjutant General ; Mr. Shortrede ; an Imperial Mandarin; Lieutenant Miller, -R.N., A.D.C. to the Admiral; Monsieur JDelessert ;-Lord John Hay, Jt.N. ; Lieutenant Miller, R.N. ; Captain Oifford, R.N. ; a Tartar Mandarin; Captain Lyster, of the Agincourt ; Mr. Mercer, Acting Colonial Treasurer; Me. Elmsley, Secretary to the Superintendent of Trade ; and his Excellency Pwan tsye-shing. To our readers at home it may be interesting to have a pretty minute account of the whole menu of the dinner, especially as it differed in several respects from the description • of Dv Halde, Father Bouvet, and other more -modern writers. From the number of dishes successively served up, we infer that it was a 1 feast of the *' more solemn sort," spoken of -by the former of these authorities ; but instead of a small table for each guest, there -was, as we ha-ve said, only a single large one in the English fashion for the whole -company, and except such a general invitation to be seated as might have passed unnoticed in Europe, there were none of the ceremonious bows to, individuals which /Father Bouvet speaks of. ißefore -each guest was placed a plate and' kwaitz, or chopsticks, on one side, and a knife, fork, and spoon, on the other. The chopsticks, however, were pretty generally used, a little awkwardly it must be admitted, by the English, while the mandarins, probably out of politeness to their guests, occasionally made use of the fork and spoon. Beyond the plates ■were ranged innumerable little pyramids of preserves, pickles, and dried seeds, which from the experiments we made, we presume „were not intended to be eaten, but placed merely for show ; but at the left hand there was a small saucer of sweetmeats and salted relishes, which were partakeij of and washed down with a glass of wine. And then commenced the more important part of the feast, by the army of servants setting before each guest a small bowl, about the size of a moderate breakfast cup, of Bird's Nest Soup, which might pass for very good vermicelli at home, and scarcely merits the celebrity it has obtained, or seems worth the enormous price it is

said to cost. This was a prelude to a succession of other soups, stews, and hashes, most of which were so excellent that the genius Archoeus, who, according to the fanciful Van Helraont, keeps post in the upper orifice, as a sort' of custom-house officer to the stomach, to watch -all contraband food, must certainly have found his occupation pone, and declared for free trade on the occasion. We can speak for ourselves, that after having partaken of all the dishes set before us, we never rose from a table with more inward peace and satisfaction. Having made a jotting on our -return home, we are enabled to give a pretty full, but by no means complete, list of the messes, but without being certain under which class, — soup, stew, or hash, — they ought respectively to be ranged. After the Bird's Nest "Soup there were venison soup, duck soup, never to-be sufficiently-praised sharks' finsoup, chestnut soup, pork stew, a sort of vegetable pates, with gravy in a separate saucer, stag sinew soup, shark-skin soup, second only to his eldest brother of the fin, earth-nut ragout, a gelatine soup, made we are told with the pith of stags' horns macerated, mushroom and chestnut soup, stewed ham, sweetened -with sugar or syrup, a stew of bamboo shoots, another of fish maws, esculents with hot sauce, slices of hot cakes and cold jam puffs ; with numerous other nondescript soups and stews, in large bowls, placed in the centre of the table, of which vegetables, pigeons' eggs, and more especially pork seemed to be component parts, showing Chinese cooks, like Beaumont and Fletcher's, to be " thoroughly grounded in the mysteries and hidden knowledge of all soups, sauces,and salads, whatsoever." In such a labyrinth of novel dishes, even the most practised gourmand might have been excused for feeling a little at a loss ; and our eutertainers seemed to appreciate the circumstance ; for when any particular good mess came upon the table, they would put some upon the places of those near them and-Keying, with the most refined Chinese politeness, more than once took a tit bit from his own dish, and with his chopsticks conveyed it to the mouth of the honoured guests beside him. Lest there might have been any one who could not contrive to make a sumptuous dinner from such materials, there were in the centre of the table roast peacock, pheasant, and ham; and tea was several times served to relieve this active "alimentary progression," never dreamt of by Ude or Brillat Savarin. It is worth noting as a remarkable circumstance, that during the whole dinner there was not a grain of rice on the table, not even mixed with other food, though almost all writers tell us it is never wanting at a Chinese dinner of any sort. If, according to Sir John Davis, the appearance of bowls of rice at such feasts is the signal of the repast approaching its termination, the party on the present occasion must have broken up long before the host was tired of his guests ; for the rice signal was never given. There was no lack of good wines, liquers, and mandarin samshoo at dinner, nor were the Chinese unmindful to do due honour to them by frequently pledging their guests ; and this soon came to be no light matter, for they were never satisfied with a mere -sip, but insisted on bumpers every time, and that the glass should be turned upon the table in proof of its having been honestly emptied. The effect on themselves was scarcely perceptible, though we remarked a formidable looking Tartar opposite where we sat, who besides his share of champagne and other wines, discussed the greater part of a bottle of mareschino, and made serious inroads upon another of noyeau, j stroking his chain, and exclaiming " Hohi " at each glass. The succession of soups must have occu- - pied nearly three hours, and when it at length came to a close, Keying rose to dedicate a cup to the Queen of Heaven, and forthwith a series of low benches covered with crimson cloth, were ranged from one end of the room to the other, and were speedily loaded with roast pig, hams, fowls, and other substantial dishes, and before each a cook, or butcher, we we could not tell which, sat down eL-la Chinois, and taking a knife like a cutlass, commenced slicing it down, in defiance of the maxims of the Carver* Guide, grasping the joint with the left hand, the long nails served for both fork and spoon. The ceremony is intended as an acknowledgment of the bounty of the Queen of Heaven, and is gone through before the guests to show them, that even after the exuberance of dishes with which they have been served, there is still enough and to ipare. The sliced meat was set upon the table, as were also cold mutton and pork, none of which were eaten ; and then succeeded a dessert of fruits and pre&erves, with abundance of wine, • cordials, and samshoo. The " most prolonged breakfast," says Sir Walter Scott, " cannot well last above an hour," but he does not set any limits to dinners, as in his own practice he observed none. The one we are speaking of had already extended almost to four hours : and to the best of our recollection, the more substantial food was not entirely removed when the dessert came upon

the table, tfhile the toasts we think had ■commenced beforehand. The £rst was " The Queen of England andthe -Emperor of China," which was drunk with tremendous applause, the Chinese being especially vociferous, huzzaing, clapping their hands, and beating the table in the most approved English public dinner fashion, the band in the adjoining room striking up what we presume was an appropriate air, but which sounded to our ears not unlike a Highland Pibroch. A few other toasts followed, among the rest the King of the French, and the King of Sweden, each of whom had a subject among the guests ; and Keying then called upon the Governor for a song, as a condition to giving one himself, which he afterwards did, and very well too, and joined lustily in the applause with which it was received. Pwang tsye-sing gave us two songs : the Emperor's son-in-law excused himself on account of a hoarseness brought on doubtless by the unwonted excercise of his lungs during the visit ; and an attendant Tartar, a descendant of Genghis khan, we are told, chaunted a wild lilt, having many of the characteristics of an old Scottish or Irish air. On the part of the English guests, besides the Governor, songs were sung by the Major-Ge-neral, the Chief Justice, the Honourable Frederick Bruce, and Mr. Shortrede. The Chinese are fond of enlivening their entertainments with shows and dramatic exhibitions, and most authors speak of these as invariable accompaniments. The present dinner was an exception, probably because visits to foreign powers never having been before dreamt of in China, players form no part of the ambassador's retinue. However, a substitute was found in a game which we do not remember ever having seen described. Two flowers (dahlias) were given to Keying, who first twirling them round his head, and then holding them to his nose, gave one to the Governor and one to the General, who were desired to hand them round the table. In the mean time a drum was kept beating in the outer room, the performer at random making a sudden stop ; and the person in whose hand the flower then chanced to be found was required to quaff off a bumper of wine. This sport, from the sort esprit de patrie with which it was kept up, created a great deal of amusement, the Chinese being especially mindful to watch their victims, and laughing good humouredly when caught themselves. In sporting phrase, the pace of the evening had been uncommonly fast, and all " caroused potations pottle deep ;" but whether it was the excellence of the drink, or the counteracting effects of the ragouts, every one, European and Chinese, seemed quite able to carry his liquor discreetly. The company broke up about eleven o'clock, Keying and the rest of the Chinese accompanying their guests down stairs, and taking leave of them at the door, both appearing to be mutually satisfied with the meeting. At half-past six o'clock next morning, the Minister embarked on board the steamer for Canton, having embraced the Governor at the door of his residence, and the General at the wharf, whither the gallant officer accompanied the Imperial Commissioner. A man so famous in the western world as Keying, was of course the observed of all obj ervers during his visit. He is, we should suppose, of some fifty years of age, his tall and majestic form being graced with manners at once dignified and courteous. His whole deportment, in short, was that of a perfectly well bred man of the world, and but for his dress and language, he might have been taken for a fine specimen of the old English gentleman of the highest class. As we saw him on I three public occasions, his bland countenance i was beaming with good humoured benevol ence; but it is of an intellectual cast, and lighted up with a twinkling eye, which, as occasion demands, would be equally expressive of penetrating shrewdness as of social glee. We have heard it said by those who have met both, that Keying, in intellectual qualities, and as a statesman, is sui passed by Hwang, the Lieutenant-Governor, whose duties prevented him from accompanying him on the occasion. But both are admitted to be men in point of intelligence greatly in advance of their countrymen ; and it is indeed a fortunate thing for commerce and for the cause of humanity, that to such men should be entrusted the important but delicate duty of paving the way to the free intercourse of their countrymen with the rest of the world, from which they have been so long and so wonderfully separated.