ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume II, Issue 102, 22 July 1846, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Xl*B NEW SEC. R^TAKY ;FOR *H« CotONIES. — By the way ? there; is a rising .hope of the Conservatives, and Peel's right arm, William Evrart^Sladstone^ Vice-President of the Board of Trade and* Easier of the Mint. That youngs man, what a- disappointment ! In person he is of good stature, and, like Stanley, has a pretty good-natured, rather, pouting mouth, while the upper part of bis face, like Stanley's, has a " knitted ;" if not a frowning , aspect. But what disappoints me most is the smajtlness of Ac "head. Under Stanley's careless locks you can see hidden a good solid mass of forehead : but this noted young man, this philosophic worker out of church principles, I want for him capacious skull and breadth of face. Can such * small head carry all he knows ? We must tafSrmen as th,ey are, and not as we image diem. "The head is spall, but it is well | shaped^ You notice that tUeupper part of the

fac» rather expresses severity ; »nd I *>m told that old Gladstone, and the.'faraily generally, hare been noted ittLiverpool fpr what is.called a " crusty," temperament. ■If thi* be so, and this young man inherits it, he. is aa f xample of the power of principle, for he'seems to have his temper singularly under control. Wis roice, top, is sweet and plaintive ; he has amazing, clearness of speech and volubility of utterance, but with a tendency to -run into a mellifluous monotony which- he will probably correct. Are his abilities as good as they* say, or he is he an example 6f being " cried up ?" Oh, no, man can doubt that his abilities are great*. Ido not refer-to his' books on Church- and' reputation, but to his conduct in the House. ' He proved " «; friend in' need" to Peel, in conducting the tedious business and. details of the new tariff; in fact, everything devolved on the Prime Minister and hit Vice-President of the Board of Trade ; and though Peel's great facility and practice, in addressing the House,. »n«blei him, to expound and state^the prindiples add detail* of the^ftiff,. with more fullness, force, And weight, it isjs uniyermlly acknowledged that young Gladstone shone in the^epartnvmt. of " facts and figures," and displayed a capacity for official business of the very first prder. — I Peel and hi* Era. -

Mr. John Duncan, th« African Traveller. — Letters have been received'by the Royal Geographical Society from Mr. Duncan, of recent date, intimating his return to Cape Coast, after an absence of eight months in the interior of Africa. The .details of his journey are shortly expected by thSp Geographical Society. . We are informed -that since the days of Mungo Park, of whom, tie brings authentic information, no traveller has accomplished a journey of such magnitude and interest in that continent ; he reached the latitude of 13 degrees 6 minutes north, longitude 1 degree 3 minutes east, passing through a country hitherto a -perfect blank on all our maps, and receiving on his w.ay many proofs of kindness and goodwill from the native kings and Cabareers, which may ultimately have ! the effect of checking, if not entirely putting au end to, the slave-trade in that hotbed of slavery, Dahomey. Mr. Duncan brought with -him in safety to the coast, many specimens of rare animals an 4 birds. — Times, Dec? 27. Mr. Dickens' daily morning -paper has made its- appearance. The opinion is, that it will not pay. '£50,000 have been handed to leading counsel in railway cases.

Advantages o* Railways. — The following is a strong illustration of the wonders railways will have worked in the event of threatened invas : on : — In 1806 it took a body of troops, proceeding by the Paddington canal for Liverpool, and v thence by transports fot Dublin, seven days to reach their destination by canal, relays of fresh horses' for the boats being in readiness at all the stations. Marching to the same spot occupied a detachment only fourteen days. The seven days are now reduced into almost as many hours, an entire battalion being conveyed between Liverpool and London in six or seven .hour?, reaching hea.l quarters in full vigour, and ready to oppose their concentrated strength to the progress of any foreign armament. . <

' Buttons fkom Clay. — The principle of forming Mosaic tesserae- by the. pressure of dry powder has been applied to the manufacture of various kinds of buttons. • They are* called agate buttons, and are made, of Knolin, or China-clay, brought from the neighbourhood of St. Austell, in Cornwall. This kaolin is the same as the ,celebrMed pottery-clay of the Chiuese, which is obtained. from disintegrated granite. The buttons are pretty and clear in appearance, and very haTd. They ate manufactured in all shapes and sizes, plain and ornamented ; and/ as compared with the ' cost of mother-Bf-^feail," are' said to be about one-third the nrice. — Chambers' Journal.

i A Comfort to ,TftAVKU.Eks.r— W*. have just seen a new invention, .cabled, the " Railwny Pq.cket Companion." .It is the #ize of the Court Guide, and contains * small bottle of' water, a tumbler,* complete, set of surgical instruments, a packet of . lint, .and directions for making a will. It is very elegant,, being bound to look like a book of poetry, and its utility cannot be doubted for a moment, when the bills of mortality are, proving evtry day the great charms of railway travelling. We can conscientiously declare that the '■' Railway Travelling Companion" should be in the pocket of every gentleman who is in the habit of going on a railroad. It should be sold at every station. — Punch, . '■

A Nice Point.— Tfie Bishop of Exeter has given it as. his opinion that a clergyman speculating in railways comes under the statute against " dealing for gain or profit." As the statute only says dealing — and railway * speculation involves rather shuffling than dealing — some of the Rev. stags maintain that they do not violate the act of Parliament.—

, Portrait o^ Sic Robert PEEL.r^-Any one may read on the floor of the Houie of

Commons, still more than in the print shop, the living portrait of the Premier. The glance, sidelong, with which he enters the house, the look askance at his opponents, the anxious; eye with which, on rising, he regards them; the shrink ng back when a murmur from the opposite benches reaches his ear ; the stealing adroitly into a new topic when he finds one unpalatable ; the abandonment of opinion or associate when he perceives them to he obnoxious ; the skill with which he lays out his arguments to catch a cheer, the satisfaction with which he receives it — above all from his opponents ; these signs mark the adroitness of the debater, and the infirmity of the statesman. When, after such an appearance, he Vesumes his seat, amid the cheers of his opponents and the silence of his friends, you have revealed to you his character and his policy. His character is to dread attack, and to make any compromise in order to avoid it ; his policy is to shape his views according to the opinions of those who are most likely to thwart him. The effect of such a character is to make him adopt the opinions of others, and to borrow them from those who are most opposed to him.

Miserable Delusion and Scandalous Exhibition. — The Millerite delusion in New York is leading to the most infamous practices. In Greene county, at a village a few miles back of Catskill, a company of Millerites, consisting of various ages and both sexes, a few weeks ago, in expectation of the immediate end of the world, concluding that clothing was no longer necessary, shut themselves up together in a state of perfect nudity for several days together. The discovery was made by the neighbours, through one of the young women, without a particle of clothing, being seen to go to the well for a pail of water, and the poor deluded creatures could not be induced to resume their apparel till the authorities of the place interfered and compelled them to do so. These facts are stated upon authority, the Sun says, the most unquestionable. — Philadelphia Ledger.

Railways in the Papal States. — Extract of a letter dated Florence, Oct. 2 :—: — " Perhaps you have read in the papers of the revolution at Bologna and some other of the Pope's states ; the country is in a very disturbed state. The Cardinal of Bologna arrived here a day or two ago, having escaped from that town, dressed as a servant. They say that the Pope and Cardinals have retired into the Castle of St. Angelo, at Rome. The priests are feared and hated among the «nidJKug uuJ Junei clusßcoj iliey are, Indeed, a very bad set. The Pope is very much against railways, and won't hear of one being constructed in his states. Some people took the measurements, and surveyed the ground from Civita Vecchia to Rome secretly ; it came to the Pope's ears, and being very much enraged, he ordered that any one found with instruments for making, &c, railways, should be arrested and put in prison. So one day some of his wise gendarmerie found a poor tinker travelling along with his tools, and pounced on him as a railway man ; the poor tinker swore he was not, but they said his instruments were too like the others ; at last they determined to take him to a neighbouring convent of monks to be judged. The monks set him to mend a big cauldron, and finding out his ability, before they gave a favourable sentence, made- him mend all the utensils of the convent, which were not few, you may suppose, as the cunning priests live well." A letter in the St. Louis Republican from the editor of that paper, dated at Warsaw, September 17, represents the state of things among the Mormons, or * rather ' among the bands of lawless men who had assumed the title of Anti-Mormons, as most deplorable. They were carrying fire and : faggot into the Mormon settlements in all directions, and did not confine themselves to. the Mormons only, but laid waste the dwellings of all those suspected of favouring those fanatics. It is stated that 60 houses had been burnt down in Adams and Hancock' counties. The AntiMormons had entered into an extended combination, ' and announced their determination not to stop short of the expulsion of every Mormon from Hancock county, in which is Nauvoo ; and it was apprehended that a conflict would result between the two parties. The Union publishes a letter from Mr. Pakenham, the British Minister, transmitting an extract of a despatch lately received by her Majesty's Government from the Governor of New Zealand, containing information of the friendly and generous assistance afforded by an officer of the United States navy- I—Captain'1 — Captain ' M'Keever, of the St. Louis — to the local authorities and the European inhabitants of that settlement, in a case of great emergency ; and expressing to the Government of the United States the high sense which her Majesty entertains of the services rendered by Captain M'Keever on the occasion referred' to. " '■ The British Museum. — The trustees have recently opened one of the large rooms in the new wing' at the west end ; this will be called the Chinese room, from the circumstance of i.o Chinese hell, presented bf-her : Majestyl

being deposited there. It is placed in the centre of the apartment, and attached to it is the following inscription :—": — " Chinese bell, from a Bud,dhist tsinple, near Ningpo, presented by her Majesty, 1844!" — Globe. ' Profit and Loss. — This is the season at which careful men and good managers balance their books. Let us see how our colonial accounts stand — set off the annual profit against the annual loss. Imprimis, then : — We have lost a year. Matters are actually at this present Christmas, 1845, pretty nearly or altogether where they were at the same time in 1844. The squatters in Australia are where they were ; New Zealand is worse than it was ; the West Indies, except for the progress they are beginning to make by their own exertions, are in statu quo. There has been a great deal of discussion during the year ; many facts have been placed in a true light ; many fallacies have been shelved ; but no action has yet been taken upon the new and better lights. Ministers, and legislators, and private individuals have been put in a condition to act more wisely next year than they have done in years past. But whether they will remain so is in the category of possibilities. Nothing has yet been done. We have lost a year — that is a lumping item. j Per contra. — We have got rid of Lord I Stanley. We were right when we told our readers, that, be Premier who would, Lord Stanley was gone for ever. Abrupit, evasit. The fiery Lord has at last got a plausible apology for breaking out of the ring-fence of the Colonial Office — within which he had been kept sitting on a furze thicket — and catch him coming back again. We have got rid of Lord Stanley — an item of profit almost enough in itself to balance that of the lost year, which is about to be lighted the way which fools have been lighted since time immemorial. Lord Grey is not to be Lord Stanley's immediate successor. Lord St. Ger mains, the next best, with whom Dame Rumour flattered our hopes, is not to be Lord Stanley's immediate successor ; but in the Post-office a man like him seems quite as much needed as in the Colonial Office. Mr. Gladstone is to be Lord Stanley's successor. This is doubtless an improvement. Mr. Gladstone is a man of ability and high principle, and with habits of continuous industry. We have got a working man instead of a wrangler. But something too much of the schoolman there is about Mr. Gladstone to admit of our welcoming his accession w office without some lurking remains of apprehension. We have not forgotten Mr. Gladstone's conduct when the sugar duties were on the tapis. The course he took with regard to them was undeniably wrong ? and, what was worse, it betrayed somewhat of the priggishness of the theorist rejecting practical knowledge because it cut him out. The change that has taken place in the Colonial Department is a gain — though not so great as we were once, led to hope it might be, either under Sir Robei t Peel or Lord John Russell. These are the great items of the account. Some others there are. To the side of loss, we refer the reiurn of Lord Metcalfe, and the uncertainty as to who is to be his successor. To the profit side, we refer the final extinction of the British and Foreign Anti-slavery humbug. It is true that the office is still open. Its zinc door-plate is still visible beside that of the comparatively dignified and cleanly ramoneur society that inhabits the same house in New Broad-street. But, after the last exhibition of Sir G. Stephen, even Exeter Hall must cut the concern. Conceive a Christian knight patching up an alliance with a renegade — a convert to Mahometanism for the sake of money — to promulgate groundless accusations against innocent men ! Venerable spinsters of the Anti-Slavery Society, if perjury alarm you not, think at least — oh, think of the horrible heresy of four wives and concubines ad libitum. Will ye contribute your sixpence to men who ally themselves with the holders of such shocking doctrines ? On the whole, we close our books cheerfully, though fretted at the loss of a whole year spent in inaction. On colonial matters, sound intelligent opinion is more, prevalent — especially in high places — at the end than it was at the beginning of the year. One great stumbling block to the progress of good measures has been removed from the Colonial Office. Cant is more than ever at a discount. I "It moves still," as Gallileo said, after the infallible church had compelled him to declare that the world was the immoveable centre of all things.— Colonial Gazette, Dec. 27.

! Newspaper Accounts. — Some people have a horror of housebreakers. A strong fellow in a fustian jacket, with a piece of crape over his face, and a pistol in his hand, is certainly a disagreeable visitor to a country gentleman in the' middle of a dark night in December; the hoarse whisper conveying a delicate "allusion to your money bags or your life, is ,far from a pleasing method of carrying on a conversation ; and therefore without descending to anym ore, minute particulars, and piuming myself upon my personal immunity from

such visitations on the score of having no: house, I agree at once that a housebrei&er'is a detestable character, and worthy of'alf condemnation. A murderer, also, lam not prepared to vindicate. A knife forced into the: stomach of an elderly gentleman in a half sleepy state after a bottle of old port— a razor drawn across a beautiful barmaid's throat — or a bullet scientifically inserted through the ear-hole of a deaf old lady .engaged secreting her half year's dividend in a black trunk the garret— are disagreeable objects of contemplation to the philanthropic mind; and therefore at once coinpide in the fervent execration in which a murderer is held by every person I have conversed with on the subject, except the students of anatomy, and two or three popular authors of the conclusive school. But there is another miscreant for whom I have no commiseration ; a wretch, compared with those atrocities, housebreaking becomes meritorious, and murder innocent ; before whose negro-like blackness — to borrow the language of Charles Phillips — the darkness of annihilation becomes white as snow ; whose benediction is a curse ; whose breath is a pestilence ! whose name is hell ; over whose sunless memory shall settle the conflagration of a fury, and whose soul shall shudder beneath appalling convulsions of a fathomless doom for ever. After this description need I say that I mean the unhallowed monster who neglects to pay his Newpaper Bill. — Blackwood.

Influence of the Jews. — "You never observe a great intellectual movement in Europe in which the Jews do not greatly participate. The first Jesuits were Jews : that mysterious Russian diplomacy which so alarms western Europe, is organized and principally carried on by Jews ; that mighty revolution which is at this moment preparing in Germany, and which will be in fact a second and greater reformation, and of which so little is as yet known in England, is entirely developed under the auspices of Jews, who almost monopolize the professorial chairs of Germany. Neander, the founder of spiritual Christianity, and who is llegius Professor of Divinity in the University of Berlin, is a Jew. Benary, equally famous, and in the same University, is a Jew. Wehl, the Arabic Professor of Heidelberg, is a Jew. Years ago, when I was in Palestine, I met a German student who was accumulating materials for the History of Christianity, and studying the genius of the place ; a modest < and learned man. It was Wehl ; then un- j known, since become the first Arabic scholar of the day, and the author of a life of Mahomet. But for the German professors of this race, their name is Legion. I think there are more than ten at Berlin alone. "A few years back we were applied to by Russia. Now, there has been no friendship between the Court of St. Petersburgh and my family. It has Dutch connexions which have generally supplied it, and our representations in favour of the Polish Hebrews, a numerous race, but the most suffering and degraded of all the tribes, have not been very agreeable to the Czar. However, circumstances drew to an approximation between the Romanoffs and the Sidonias. I resolved to go myself to St. Petersburgh. I had, on my arrival, an interview with the Russian Minister of Finance, Count Cancrin ; I beheld the son of a Lithuanian Jew. The loari was connected with the affairs of Spain ; I resolved on repairing to Spain from Russia. I travelled without intermission. I had an audience, immediately on my arrival, with the Spanish Minister, Senor Mendizabel; I beheld one like myself, the son of a Nuevo Christiano, a Jew of Arragon. In consequence of what transpired at Madrid, I went straight to Paris to consult the President of the French Council ; I beheld the son of a French Jew, a hero, an imperial marshal, and very properly so, for who should be military heroes, if not those who worship the Lord of Hosts ?" " And is Soult a Hebrew ?" " Yes, and others of the French marshals, and the most famous.; Massena, for, example, his real name was Manasseh : J but to, my anecdote. The consequence of our consultations was that some, northern power, should be applied to in a friendly and mediative capacity. We fixed on Prussia, and the President of the Council made, an application to the Prussian Minister, who attended a few days after our conference. Count Arnim entered the cabinet, and I beheld a Prussian Jew. So you 'see my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages to what is imagined ,by those who are not behind the scenes." — Coningsby, or, the New Generation,