ENGLISH NEWS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume III, Issue 123, 3 October 1846, Page 3

ENGLISH NEWS.

It is rumoured that the officers of the Guards intend erecting a cenotaph to the memory of the late Major Somerset. The Carlton Club is, like the Conservative party at large, now split into two sections, Peelites and Protectionists. On Tuesday week, the annual election of the House Committee took place, and the occasion was seized upon as a trhl of strength between the two parties. The result was, that the Peel te* were beaten hollow, tht Protectionist list being carried by a ltrge majority. — Brighton Gazette, March 16. Eighteen thousand medals are about to be struck off for the officers and men of both services who shared in the late war with China. A pension for life of £100 per annum has been granted by her Majesty to Mrs. Loudon. It is c< nferred in consideration of her deceased husband's labours and writings on subjects of natural science. The annual expense of Parkhurst establishment for young convicts amounts to £25:6:1 1 each inmate. In the saloon of the Philosophical Institution at Bristol was lately exhibited a statue of " Eve at the Fountain," dressed in Honiton lace ! - - A new motive power has been discovered, based on the condensation of carbonic acid gas. By chemical means and great pressure the carbonic acid is brought down to a temperature below the freezing point. Heat is then applied when its expansive power far exceeds that of steam, while the enormous weight of the furnace, Sec. is dispensed with. — Morning Post. An Irish king-at-arms, waiting upon the Bishop of Killaloe to summon him to parliament, and being dressed, as the ceremony required, in heraldic attire, so mystified the Bishop's servant with his appearance, that not knowing what to make of it, and carrying off but a confused notion of his title, he announced him thus : — " My Lord Bishop, here's the King of Trumps !"

Thomas Moore, the Poet. — We much regret to have to announce that Thomas Moore, Esq., of Sloperton-cottige, has lost his eldest and only remaining son, in Africa.. No official account has yet reached his parents, but we believe Mr. Moore died of the prevailing fever. — Witts Gazette,

Increase of the Commerce of the Port of Liverpool. — As an evidence of the rapid increase of the commerce of the port, we are assured that the town-dues for the half year ending 26th of February, as compared with the corresponding period of last year, is in excess by upwards of £4500, and it is more than probable the gross income from this sourcfi, tor the whole year, will produce upwards of £80,000 ; this amount, when contrasted with the receipts for the years 1834-5 (a little over £44,000), will at once evidence the rapidity with which the commerce of the port has increased in the last ten years, having nearly doubled itself during that period, as evidenced by this data. — Liverpool Paf er. Accident at the British Museum. — On Feb. last, an accident which might have been attended with great loss of life occurred attheßritish Museum. A large stone, weighing nearly eight tons, which was to form part of the architrave in the front 'of the left wing, had been just drawu up by the crane, and the men were steadying it into its proper position when the chain broke, several of the links flying away into Great Russell Street, and the enormous mats, crushing the hand of a man, named Keller to atoms, fell through the scaffolding to the ground,snapping in two an immense beam of timber as if it had been a lath, and dashing to tpieces part of the stone substructure between two of the columns. Three men, who must otherwise inevitably have perished, saved themselves when the scaffolding was tumbling to i pieces by springing up and catching hold* of

other parts of the architrave, to which they clung so long — hanging by their fingers before they could obtain any footing to raise themselves upon it— as to cause the most painful anxiety to those below, who expected nothing less than their instant destruction. Only a few seconds before the ponderous block fell several men were working immediately beneath it, and so great was the fear that an awful sacrifice of life had been the consequence, that those who ran to the spot hesitated at first from apprehension of beholding some dreadful catastrophe. — London Paper.

A Falling osf. — At the anniversary entertainment of the officers engaged in the Egyptian campaign of 1801, under Sir Ralph Abercrombie, in 1836, above 40 officers assembled, under the presidency of Lord Hill, the then Coraraander-in-Chief, but time has limited the number of the gallant individuals who shared the glories of the campaign, and at the late anniversary only 1 1 were present. The late Dr. Carey. — At a meeting held the other day, of the Preston Bible Association, one of the deputation, the Rev. W. Ackworth, vicar of Bothley, related the following anecdote, in reference to the first missionary, Dr. Carey t — He was once talking with a fiiend about the doctor, when he remarked :—": — " Dr* Carey was an extraordinary man. When he worked in this Country we could not exactly call him a shoemaker, but a sort of cobbler. Some gentleman askc'd me if he was a good hand at the business. ' No,' I said, ' fjr 1 used to order eight shoes at a time, with the expectation that out of the eight, I should find two to fit me, lor though he could make. one shoe well, he never could make another to fit it.' " The anecdote necessarily excited much laughter. — Bradford Observer.

Partis College. — The founder of this institution, the late Mrs. Partis, of Bath, in addition to £30,000, and the freehold with which she endowed the same, as a retreat in age .for thirty decayed gentlewomen, subsequently transferred to the trustees a further sum of £4000, and conveyed two other pieces of freehold for its use, and by her will has left for the same object, free of legacy duty, a sum of £11,000, to which she is entitled under the will of her lat« husband, Fletcher Partis, Esq., of the same city ; also leaves to th« trustees a legacy ol £2000, the dividends to be annually applied for the repairs of the college, and the expenses of the anniversary dinner of the trustees, the surplus to be appropriated in extending the pensions of the objects of her benevolence * bequeaths to the college her dining table and fourteen of her parlcur chairs, to be placed in the committee-room ; and two ma.ble figures, one representing Night, the other Day, to be placed in the chapel of the college } directs her executors to present each ot the trustees and the chaplain with nineteen guineas for a ring, and to give each female member £5 ; leaves £500 to each of her executors, W. B. Ramsay, Esq., Sir C. Price, Bart., and the Rev. Dr. Holland ; and appoints her nephew, the said W. B. Ramsay, residuary legatee. The funded and personal property of which she died possessed was estimated at £40,000.

Value of a Relic of Burns. — The following shows the great value attached to any relic connected with the name of the Ayrshire bard. Among the furniture of " Burns' cottage" recently disposed of by the late occupant Mrs. Hastings, daughter of the well-knosfn " Miller Goudie," was an old table of small size, cut and carved by visitors w'th many rude initials and fantastic devices, which was, in the first instance, sold for a mere trifle* It has since been purchased by a society of Scotchmen in Manchester, for the sum of £10, who intend to preserve it as a memento of the " darling poet," who sang of those " rural scenes and rural pleasures" to which their hearts often wander back in fond reminiscence, when wearied and worn with the toil and tumult of the great manufactering Babel in which their lot is now cast. — Glasg. Courier.

British Seamen.— An instance of generosity and exalted sentiment among our brave and gallant sailor*, has lately been shown by the crew of H. M.S. Warspite, who, as a mark of their esteem for the' loss of their beloved shipmates, have caused a very handsome marble monument to be raised in Kingston churchyard (near that of the Royal George), stating the names* ratings, and ages of the undermentioned, viz. : a quarter-master and three seamen, who were accidentally drowned in Port Royal harbour; also a quarter-master and five seamen who perished, by the barge upsetting on the coast of Syria, in a heavy surf, June 1845.

Life Assurance. — The man of twentyfive years of age, young, strong, full of hope and health, and vigour, thinks, perhaps, that he need not concern himself about life assurance at present, as he has a long lease of life before him. Let us see if this is a sound view which he takes of his own position. According to the row well-known laws of the value of life at different ages, he may expect to live about thirty-seven years. Now, how

many chances are there against his continuing regularly to set aside the annual sum he designs as a provision for his family in the event of his decease, when he is not impelled by the fear of loss in failing in his engagement with another party, by the formality of the contract between them, by the periodical demand of the company. If he hoards his savings, they will amount to littl*, compared with what an Insurance Company would give, and are liable to be continually encroached upon for trifling objects. His graod aim is to improve these savings as much ds he can, with perfect security. Is he likely to be able to invest them from time to time so readily, or so seturely, as a company which receives them from him in small annual (or even quarterly) payments, and without ttouble to him invests them safely and profitably. And what bright prospect, whit fair chance of health, long life, or good fortune, can be set against the moral Certainty he acquires that those for whom he is anxious to provide are assured beyond all accidents or risks of the sum he is desirous to secure for them, even should he die the next day after having paid only the first annual premium ? How many chances are there against his obtaining the expectation due to his age ! Of every hundred persons of the same age, ten will be cut off in ten years. What assurance has he that he will not be one of the ten ? In the next ten years eleven more will be gone to their graves ; and at the end of the thirtyseven years, of the hundred who thirty-seven years previously were living men of twentylive, only fiFty-six (little more than half) will remain. Who then that would leave any one for whom he has a regard in difficulties were he cut off, will be so rash as to delay insuring because he has a chance of a long life ! But this is not all. If he delays, he may be attacked by disease* He will most likely have about nine weeks' sickness between twentyfive and thirty-five, the effect of which, on his constitution, may raise considerably the premium for insuring his life. Between thirtyfive and forty-five, he is liable to about twelve weeks' illness — fifteen between forty-five and fifty-five. Lastly, should he have tbe singular good fortune to have all these chances turning in his favour — to attain a long life — to acquire independence — to have preserved good health, so that delay would not have increased his premium ; he cannot be so selfish as to complain, when he receives a return but a little short of what he has advanced (with its compound interest)— *to grudge that little difference which has gone to alleviate the sufferings of others who have been less fortunate) while he has so large a proportion of his payments returned to him, and has enjoyed so long the security he sought for his family, or his old age. — Mr. Reid's Circular.

Favorite English Dishes. —Let us examine a few of the dishes which usually furnish forth the mahogany, not merely "in houses where things are so-so," bat in those of higher pretensions, where French cooks are unknown, and female domination prevails. It is strange that any doubt should ever have been entertained of the truth of BruceV account of the Abyssinian mode of preparing a rump-steak ; it is scarcely different from our own. The animal it is true, is first killed, but its flesh is eaten no less raw ; it is submitted to the action of fire, but that is only done to save appearances. Your genuine steaker, be he hungry stag, from Capel-court, or plethoric broker from Change-alley, is a very Abyssinian in taste, and likes his " vittles," as he calls them, " onderdone." It is no make-believe gravy that contents him ; the native hue of the beef, the scarlet ingrain, i* the only colour he prizes. There are some i who gloss over their cannibal propensities by garnishing this description of food with the shreds of that much abused esculent root, the onion (in whose absence all cookery is futile), which are rudely manufactured into a kind of savage sauce, and scattered like shorn ringletf over the.ampje surface of the palpitating steak. Others, who think to achieve cookery by overlaying it, like the early painters who. indulged in back-grounds of plated gold, have a fashion of adding' oysters smothered in butter by way of sauce. The combination is, as may be supposed, detestable, for there are but a. few ways of managing an oyster, either to embed it in a scallop shell, dissolve in soup, embalm it in a pate, or swallow it in its native simplicity ; and this last method, as De Foe says, "is the course I adopt myself." A boiled leg of mutton is another of the ".Cannibalia" in which the Amphitryons of Britain delight. Tbis unhappy joint is kept just long enough, in the pot to give to the exterior the semblance of its original fleece. It is then deluged in " Perfidious Albion's solitary sauce," and, environed by a few wretched capers, is placed' upon the board. A steel fork, with two ferocious prongs, is then thrust into the unresisting mass, a sanguine stream flows, the carving knife inflicts its deadly gash, a gaping wound ensues, and all the " convives" exclaim, " What splendid mutton !" The Anthropophagi did nothing wotse than this. — Ainsrcorth't Matfatine.'

It is estimated that when the Electric Telegraph is fixed between London and Liverpool, a communication, backwards and forwards, may be made in three minutes. Fresh Preserved Boiled "Beef* —This novel article of importation is made up, after being cooked, in air-tight tin c*ses. It is principally fed on the banks of the Danube, in Hungary, and the pastures being rich, it is excellent in quality. It can be sold at the price of 4^d. per lb. cooked and free from bone. At present the supply is but limited, and, owing to the Danube being frozen, no increase need for some time be expected. —Bath Chronicle.

The True Wealth of England. —The great internal resources of this country depend on its minerals. A bag of coals would not be to comfortable a thing for the Lord Chancellor to sit upon as the woolsack, but much more emblematical of the wealth of England. It is the coal, and not the wool, that has made England what it is, and our mineral resources both in coal and iron are yet in their infancy. We have just touched on the fringe of our mineral wealth, something like the cultivation of New £outh Wales as compared with what it may be. The great increase of railway communication will tend to develope those resources beyond all conception; but any want of uniformity in the gauge will tend to diminish that -development. —(.apt. Law's Ev. Gauge Com.

Natural Advantages of our Sea-girt <Uoast. — Where has that immense influence been ever duly weighed or clearly explained which ti e general outline of a continent or of a country in its relation to the sea hai produced, and will always continue to produce upon its historical development? Since the given by Ritter, geography has been treated in this respect with greater intelligence. It is certain, however, that Europe never would have become the centre of human civilization, had it not been for the peculiarity of its figure and situation, so remarkably surrounded by seas, and stretching almost like the outline of a human form, between the Northern and Southern waters. There are elements enough of a similar description in its outlines by land and sea, which again abundantly prove in bow far England, of all European states, is by far the best adapted to attain the greatest possible development in naval power and in the arts of navigation. One of the most important elements of this progress, and one which has not hitherto been treated with that degree cf care which it deserves, and to which my attention has never been directed either by maps or descriptions, -consists in the number and variety of those •bays and arms of the sea, which, like deep rivers, penetrate far into the interior of the ■country. It is only when one has made the circuit of the English coasts by land or sea, and has had daily opportunities of observing what sharp and decisive limits are drawn between sea and laud, and how few opportunities are offered for such free transition from one to 'the other as might naturally be suppo>ed would exist from their absolute contact ; it is only when one has seen that no ship can come to land, and sometimes not even a boat touch the coast, and that no one can pass irom land to sea without the greatest danger, that any idea can be formed of the vait importance and immense naval value of those bays and inlets which constitute, as it were, the connecting link, and facilitate reciprocal communication. The coasts are often inaccessible in consequence of dangerous sand-banks ; the restless surge at other places beating on the rocky shore under the influence of the smallest breeze, prevents the possibility of passing either from land to sea or from sea to land, whilst in other places, again, steep or precipitous rocks, or a strand strewed with pieces oi rock, make all approach impossible. It is only when all these obstructions to intercourse between, land and sea, even on the ordinary Coast, have been personally seen and examined in nature, that the importance and advantage of such ameliorating, intermediate instrumentality can be fully and clearly understood; "Within these bays the raging waves become gradually calm, by means of them even the largest ships are able to ascend so far into the country that the productions of the remotest quarters of the world are conveyed into the very heart of the national industry, and the manufactures of the looms and forges of Great Britain are received and carried to the extremities of the earth ; on their banks it is that sites are chosen for the foundation of great and flourishing cities, and the most admirable situations afforded for the buildiugi and repairs of ships. Let us lay hefore us the map of England and Scotland, and reckon the multitude of bays, which, like vast rivers of salt water stretch far into the land ; these inlets, sometimes start and sometimes long, known by the names of rivers, friths, or mouths, -which indent the country : let us also have the opportunity of personal inspection, and observe how gradually their sea nature passes ofver, and changes into that of the interior ; ancTniucb will be gained towards an .understanding of the original 'destination and'calling of England to bt a country of nival

power and mistress of the seas. It will then be seen how often the wild and stormy sea which beats against precipitous rocks, as at Dartmouth, becomes at last as still as a pond, and terminates among rich meadows and woody hills ; or how that which rushes on between dangerous sand-banks, further on its course, becomes a deep and safe harbour, and laves the docks of immense trading cities, as at Liverpool and London ; and the conviction will always become stronger, that it is only a people to whom nature had offered so many facilities for intercourse between sea and land, that can have obtained the call, to struggle with all their might and all their skill to obtain and secure naval pre-eminence. — Carus's Journey through Great Britain.

Married and Single. — I have observed that a married man falling into misfoi tune is more apt to retrieve his situation in the world than a single one ; partly because he is more stimulated to exertion by the necessities of the helpless and beloved beings who depend upon him for subsistence ; but chiefly because his spirits are soothed and relieved by domestic endearments, and his self-respect kept alive by finding that, though all abroad is darkness and humiliation, yet there is still a little world of love at home, of which he is the monarch. Whereas, a single man is apt to run to waste and self-neglect, to fancy himself lonely and abandoned, and his heart to fall to ruin like some deserted mansion for want of on inhabitant. — Washington Irving.

Scenes in the American Congress. — Another rich scene has occurred in Congresi. A Mr. Sawyer a blacksmith, and who has the honour of representing the state of Ohio, has been very indignant because one of the New York papers has remarked on the fact of his making a practice of eating his dinner in the House of Representatives. It seems that every day about two o'clock this said Mr. Sawyer enters on his duty of feeding. About that hour he is seen leaving his seat and taking a position in the window, back of the Speaker's chair to the left. He unfolds a greasy paper, in which is contained a chunk of bread and sausage, or some unctuous substance. This he disposes of quite rapidly, wipes his hands with the greasy paper for a napkin, and then throws it out of the window. What little grease is left on his hands he wipes on his almost bald head, which saves an outlay for pomatum. His mouth sometimes serves as a finger-glass, his coat sleeves and pantaloons being called into requisition as a napkin. He utes a jack knife for a toothpick, and then he goes on the floor again and abuses the Whigs as the British party, and claims the whole of the Oregon as necessary for the spread of civilization, and of course opposes all the seductive arts of education. Such is Mr. Sawyer's mode of dining. The New York Tribune spoke of his indelicate feats, and for having done so the reporters of that journal have been excluded the house. Mr. Sawyer, on bringing this matter to the notice of the house, distinctly admitted that it was virtually true, but as distinctly advertised the author of the offensive notice, that if it were repeated he would seek of him personal satisfaction ; in other words intimating that he would flog him. The American press is very indignant at the expulsion of the reporters for thus speaking the truth. The New York Express goes on to regard further elegancies of American legislature as follow :—: — " Members of Congress appear in their seats in a state of drunkenness, and when in that state they indulge in the use of language too indecent or too profane to meet even the vulgar gaze ; they are tolerated in an exhibition no less disgraceful to the nation at large than to the representatives of the people. We have seen men make merry when they should have rather wept at scenes which have been acted upon the floor of the house ; scenes where the words liar, scoundrel, and even worse words, have been used, and when all this has been- deemed no cause for expulsion, censure, or reproof of any kind. If it were possible — and we are heartily glad for the respect we have for Congress, that it is not — to report all the proceedings of Congress, just as they occur, many of the members, and those the most deserving of censure, and yet most sensitive when they receive it, would find Congress presenting a much worse appearance before the public, than it has ever received at the hands of the most skilful reporter. The pencil of the artist, with Hogarth to guide it, could not more than delineate all the confusion, dissipation, egotism, and folly, almost daily displayed upon the floor of the house. , Suppose that a Daguerreotype impression ■should be made of the proceedings of the house for one week, how many men are there of the , responsible majority who would like to see it ? If in this age of invention there should be aj 'discovery like that the Arabian Tales tell us ( 'of, where men are checked in the twinkling of, an eye as they are acting out some folly of their own, and there, in all their grotesquetaess of attitudes, put to sleep for all the world] ito gaze upon them — or if, going beyond «U

this, all the bombast of language and ranting of manner, and murder of the King's English, could be put into print, What a figure would some men we know of cut, in Congress, before the world.

Nuisances of New York. — On the public pamps in the streets printed placards were pasted with the words " Death to drink cold water-;" but in spite of the warning several deaths occurred from inconsiderate drinking, principally among Irish labourers. Some of the masons who were at work on the great Astor hotel dropped down dead from the effects of the heat. In consequence of these deaths the builders generally came to the resolution to suspend out-of-doors work every day from the hours of twelve to four, until the weather moderated. The brute creation did not esciipe ; horses fell dead in their harness. The whole effect of these events was very startling to a stranger. The fiercest intensity of the heat, however, seldom lasts for more than three days at a time ; it is then succeeded by an appalling thunder storm, after which the temperature is a shade more bearable for a few days. Millions of flies infest the air, swarm in every room, and settle on every article of food, so as to be truly disgusting. I have seen them congregated in such numbers on the table, that the butter and sugar looked like nothing else than moviug masses of blackness ; and the noise of their buzzing when a candle is lighted in the evening is altogether insupportable. — A Working-man's Recollections of America.

The Duke de Croy. — " The chapels oi some of the chief nobility, with massive iron gates and richly adorned with armorial bearings, are attached to this church, though all in a very neglected state. The Rosen chapel is now occupied by the unburied body of a prince, who expiates in this form a life of extravagance. The Duke de Croy — a Prince of the Roman empire, Markgraf of Mount Cornette, and of other fiefs, &c, and descended from the kings of Hungary — after serving with distinction under the Emperor of Austria and King of Poland, passed over to the service of Peter the Great, obtained the command of the Russian army, and was defeated by Charles XII. at the battle of Narva. Fearing the Zar's resentment, he surrendered to the enemy, and was sent a prisoner at large to Reval, which has been, and is still, the scene of honourable banishment for state prisoners, and which at that epoch was yet under the sway of Sweden. Here, indulging a passion for ostentation, he managed to spend so much, that though only a few years elapsed between his removal to Reval and his death, the residue of his fortune was unequal to mccl his debts, upon which the numerous creditors, availing themselves of an old law, which refuses the rites of sepulture to insolvent debtors, combined to deny him a Christian burial, and the body was placed in a cellar in the precints of this church. It might be imagined that, when these said relentless creditors were not only dead, but, unlike their noble debtor, buried also, the Duke de Croy would have found a resting place; but when that time came, all who had profited | as well as all those who had lost by his extravagance, were gone also, and their descendants cared little how he had lived or how he had died. So the body remained . in its unconsecrated abode, until, accident having discovered it, in 1819, in a state of perfect preservation owing to the anti-putrescent properties of the cold, it was removed into the Rosen chapel, and now ranks among the lions of this little capital. The corpse is attired in a rich suit of black velvet and white satin, equally uninjured by the tooth of time — with silk stockings, full curled wig, and a ruff of the most exquisite point lace, which any modern Grand Duchess might also approve. The remains are those of a small man, with an aristocratic line of countenance. There is something at all times imposing in viewing the cast off dwelling of an immortal spirit — that clay which weighs down our better portion, and which, though so worthless in itself, is so inexpressibly dear to those who love us, and so tenaciously clung to by ourselves. Life had quitted this tenement 138 years. The old Sacristan, a little shrivelled mummy of a man, scarcely more human-looking than the body before us, profits in his creaturecomforts by the exhibition of this dust, which he, stroked and caressed with something oi gratitude and fellow-feeling, and, locking the ponderous door, ejaculated, 'Da liegt mem bester freundP — 'There lies my best friend!' Poor Duke de Croy !"— Letten from the Baltic.