ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume II, Issue 91, 13 June 1846, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Marriage in High Life. — The marriage of the Honourable Charles Hugh Clifford, eldest son of Lord Clifford, of Chudleigb, with the Honourable Agnes Petre, daughter of Lord and Lady Petre, was celebrated on the Sept. 30, at Thorn-lon Hall, by the Rev. Joseph Lidden, private chaplain to Lord Petre. The bride was accompanied to the altar by her si&ter, the Honourable Charlotte Petre, and the Honourable Miss Clifford, who acted as bride's-raaids. After the ceremony, a magnificent dejeuner was served in the grand saloon, of which Viscountess Maynard, Sir Ralph Howard, Mr. and the Honourable Mrs. Neave, and a distinguished party of upwards of sixty persons, partook. — Suffolk Herald. It is stated that the number of deaf and dumb in the United Kingdom is 14,328, of which only 1,018 were under the course of instruction. In France the number is 20,189, of that number only 798 were educated. Lord Primate Beresford has declared his intention of bestowing £1000 on each of the three provincial colleges, towards the foundation of divinity schools for students of the Established Church.

Majority of One. — It 's not perhaps generally known that the declaration of American Independence, passed in July 1775, was carried in Ct ngress by a majority of one — perhaps one of the most curious facts in modern history — Six states voted for, six against that measure; and the delegates of Pennsylvania were equally divided in opinion, when at length a member, who had hitherto strenuously opposed it, suddenly changed sides, and decided the question. Chateaubriand says, in new colonies the Spaniards begin by building a tavern, and the French a bull room.

Diamonds in the Desert. — The French Consul at Bahia has addressed a remarkable report ( jo, the 'Minister of Foreign Affairs at home, announcing the discovery, at the distance of eighty leagues from the capital, of an abundant mine of diamonds — a source of incalculable wealth to the province. It lies in a desert place, uninhabited, and scarcely accessible — and was discovered by mere accident. The head of a rich English company has already exported, it is said, nearly £200,000 worth of its produce ; and as the working of the mine is left to any one who will,, there is a race at present for its .treasures. Eight or nine thousand emigrants, from all parts of Brazil, have already pitched their tents on the savage and unwhdasome spot — and" to the inhabitants of a crowded European state, the very thought of a jewel mine to be ransacked at pleasure — diamonds to be had for the fetching — is a temptation likely, we should think, to attract adventurers, even if the Upas tree stood in the way.

Warsaw. — In consequence of the fear of a scarcity of corn, the Council of Administration of the Kingdom of Poland has resolved to maintain in force until further orders the prohibition to export rye, barley, and oats, and likewise to forbid the exportation of peas, oatmeal, straw, and hay. — Globe.

Sewing Machine. — A Frenchman is said to have invented a machine capable of doing every description of sewing except the stitching of button-holes.

Curtseying. — Among the advertisement* in the Times, we find the following novel announcement: — "The art of curtseying taught in four lessons, for one guinea, from the reception curtsey to that most in vogue in elegant society."

Herodotus in his " Urania," makes mention of Themistocles coming upon the men of AnJros for a round sum of money, and to that purpose saying unto them that he had brought two goddesses unto them — Persuasion and Necessity. The men of Andros answered him, they had likewise two~ great goddesses with them, which forbade them, to give him anjr money; and thoiX'Wer*--*Pive>tjf;*,n<l Impossibility,

Column of the Grand Army at Boulogne. — After forty-one years of labour, and (heir suspension, the column of the Grand Army, at Boulogne, is at length completed, on the original plan designed by its first architect, M. Labarre, and voted on the 28th Thermidor, in the year 12 of the Republic, or 1804 of our era. This pillar, which in its unfinished state is well known to a large body of our readers, is of the Doric order — a hundred and fifty feet in height, and crowned by a colossal statue adding fourteen more. It stands on the heights that border the sea, looking over to England. Its foundations are of the rocks, and itself of the marbles, of the neighbourhood — those of the pedestal being dark, and those of the column a sort of ashcoloured gray, variegated with shadows — known now in the country by the name of " marble of the column." The entrance to the monument is guarded by two lions, on platforms ; and the whole surrounded by a double enclosure — one of marble and the other of stone — the latter encircled by alleys of trees. Two bas-reliefs occupy the principal front of the monument and its opposite. The first represents the presentation by the army to Napoleon of the plan of the column which they proposed to erect to his honour : — in the second the Emperor distributes, in the field of Terlincthun, the decorations of the Legion of Honour. The two other faces have inscriptions — one in Latin, the other in French — of which the following is an English translation :—": — " On this coast, on the 16th August, 1804, Napoleon, in piesence of the Grand Army, distributed decorations of the Legion of Honour to the soldiers and citizens who had deserved well of the country. The fourth corps, commanded by Marshal Soult, and the Flotilla, under th« orders of ViceAdmiral Bruix, determined to perpetuate the memory of that day by a monument. Louis Philippe 1., King of the French, undertakes the completion of this column, consecrated by the Grand Army to Napoleon — 1 841." The completion of the works and extensive embellishments was intrusted to Mr. Henry Faudier of Boulogne. Notorious as is the monument, it yet demands this word of description on its completion — for the sake of the remarkable project of which it stands the sole record, and of the striking mutations in its own growth to maturity. The plan itself — its subsequent long suspension — and its final resumption and termination are themselves, as it were, expressions of the great leading facts of the last fifty years. Athenmwn. Show of Washington's Nurse. — We know that Washington after achieving the independence of the United States, and retiring into private life, did not liberate his slaves. He possessed negro slaves in the shape of saleable property until his death. This circumstance is the only blot that rests on the name of Washington. In Cox and Hobby's tour in America, the following touching account is given of the public exhibitioner show of- an' old negress, once belonging to Washington's family :—": — " Slavery presented itself to our view in one of the most extraordinary and offensive forms of which it is possible to conceive, while we were in Providence. The name of Washington, the father of his country, is revered by every patriot of every land. But we here saw, still living, the very woman who nursed his infancy, and she has worn the chain and badge of slavery from that hour to the present time ! X We blushed'f or 'America, '^na were oppressed with sickness of the very heart, to think that, for more than a hundred years after the infant hero had been pillowed on the bosom of this stranger, Joyce Heth should have remained a slave. We were ready to ask when we visited her — Where are the sensibilities of a people who can tolerate so gross an outrage upon every soft and holy feeling, as to allow this living mummy, this breathing corpse, to be dragged through the country, exhibited to the idle gaze of strangers, and often exposed to the rude, offensive merriment of thoughtless yonth ? This mysterious antiquity, whose age was found to be one hundred and sixty-one years, ought rather to have been cradled in silk, and nursed in her second infancy with all the tenderness with which she watched over one of the greatest of men. She was stolen from Madagascar, and was owned by the father of Washington at the time of his birth. It was evident that her person had been shamefully neglected since she had sunk into the helplessness of an almost miraculous old age — her nails being suffered to grow till they bent, like bird's claws, and those of one clenched hand penetrated into her very flesh. She was left in the extremest destitution, and would have died in Kentucky, had it not occurred to some keen and shrewd calculator that something might yet be made by exhuming, as it were, this living relic of a former age, to exhibit as a show ! During many months she had been conveyed from place to place, as the last sands of life were thus running out ; and more had been-jjained than the sum for which Washington's father had sold her in 1727, when as appears in the existing copy of the bill of sale, she was fifty-four years of age. It

was often necessary for her to be addressed in the authoritative manner in which a slave is commanded, in order to rouse what remained of vital energy, so as to gratify the curious ; but, at other times, she spoke with vivacity. She had been the mother of fifteen children, but all have died before her, excepting two or three grandchildren." —This extraordinary woman died -about eighteen months ago. — Stntindlc, Nov. 16, 1845.

Adventure with a Boa Constrictor. —Captain C , of her Majesty's 84th foot, was one of the most indefatigable sportsmen I ever met with, and the entire of his time that could be spared from regimental duty was passed in the jungles. He was a man of vast personal strength, could undergo any degree of fatigue, in short possessei a perfectly iron constitution. His habits too were anything but luxurious —a single attendant carrying a rifle of large bore, a small carpet to sleep on, a limited stock of linen, and a good supply of ammunition, accompanied the sportsman, who pursued his game by day, and at night sought shelter in some village, perfectly careless as to his accommodations in the way of food or lodging, his beverage being moreover the simple element, for he never carried with him supplies of any kind, trusting his commissariat aid to Providence and rural hospitality. In this manner Captain C became well known to the natives of the country in every direction where sport was to be obtained; he was sufficiently acquainted with their language to make himself understood, and the kindly simplicity of his manner attached them to his person, and many of them indeed have been known to walk miles to give him early information of large game, which were his favourite objects of pursuit. Captain C was thus quite "at home" in the Wynaud jungle and great western ghauts, where he probably brought to bag single-handed more head of large game—elephants, bisons, tigers, and the like, than any other man ever did before, or ever will again in India. When upon one of these excursions, Captain C happened to be passing the night at a small village in the Wynaud jungle, when a ryot, who had been out very late searching for a stray bullock, came to tell him of a large cheetul or spotted deer, which he had watched to its lair. He had also heard from the villagers that a huge snake had been seen several times in the neighbourhood. He started accordingly after his game at daybreak accompanied by the villager and a favourite dog, which rarely left his heels unless ordered. After proceeding about a mile through very dense jungle, and being, as the villager supposed near the spot where the cheetul had lain down, Captain C of a sudden missed his dog, and hearing a rustling ni the bushes about ten yards off, accompanied by a whimpering noise, he turned in that direction, and saw what he at the first glance took for a tiger, from its colour being a mixture of black and brown, but soon discovered ,whaMhsi%onster really was, an,enormous boa constrictor, which had seized his poor Juno, and was at the moment crushing her to atoms in its terrible coils. The native who was with him saw what it was likewise, and immediately fled. Captain C — afterwards described the appearance of the reptile, when thus coiled round his dog, as somewhat resembling a barrel, every portion in violent muscular motion, and he distinctly heard the bones of the poor animal crack in succession within J itg itefribl« rembr,ace. At last the monster raised his head and fixed two glaring eyes on Captain C , who, in another moment, might perchance have been fascinated by their deadly gleam, but with unerring aim he placed two balls in its forehead. Their effect was not, however, as he expected, fatal, and the snake, instantly uncoiling itself from its victim, came straight at Captain C , who, of course took to flight; but so thick was the jungle, that he found the animal gaining on him, from the noise ie made among the bushes, and therefore sought shelter in a tree, reloading his gun with all possible expedition. Whether the reptile followed him by sight or smell, he could not judge, but Captain C was only just prepared for a second discharge, when the boa reached the tree, and instantly twisting itself round the stem would have soon seized him, but fortunately at the next shot he blew out both his eyes with a charge of B B, yet though the snake appeared for a moment stunned, it still continued its efforts to reach him, until by repeated shots it was incapacitated from rising, not though till Captain C had completely emptied his powder flask, and he even then did not venture to descend, as the reptile continued coiled round the tree, occasionally by a muscular movement showing that its vital powers were not yet wholly extinct. At length, after some hours solitary confinement on his perch, and shouting until he was hoarse for aid, Captain C had the satisfaction to see a number of villagers arrive, by whom the monstious animal was soon completely destroyed. Captain C had no means of accuaately measuring its length but by a piece of stick, which the natives said was a cubit long, and he declared that it measured upwards of thirty of these,

and was much thicker than one of his own thighs, which were of a make that would have well become the leather fie-for-shames of any Life Guardsman ! The head of the boa was cut off by bis orders, and sent to the Hon. Mr. Cole, then Resident of Mysore, and its enormous jaws still may possibly be in existence at the Mysore Residency. — Madras United Service Gazette.

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