Thank you for correcting the text in this article. Your corrections improve Papers Past searches for everyone. See the latest corrections.

This article contains searchable text which was automatically generated and may contain errors. Join the community and correct any errors you spot to help us improve Papers Past.

Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Lieutenant-General Sir Wllloughby Cotton, G.C.8., has been appointed Commander in-Chief of the East India Company's forces on the Bombay establishment;

Manning the Navy. — On Saturday instructions were forwarded to the different naval rendezvous at the east end of the metropolis to enter men as fast as possible for several of her Majesty's steam sloops, including the Birkenhead and Rosamond, for whom sixty stokers are required. The Penelope, Thetis, and Geyser are also completing their crews as fast as possible. Lads between sixteen and nineteen are still being entered, though unaccustomed to the sea, and the utmost activity prevails in every department of the naval service. — Britannia, Jan. 16.

Distress in Scotland. — Occasionally, amid the Irish turmoil, is heard the still voice of poignant distress in the North and West of Scotland : there the Celtic race in suffering equally with the cognate race in Ireland, but not like them with iorgetfulness of self-es-teem or decorous bearing. It is curious that the same calamity should attack the same race, in different places, with such marked difference in their demeanour. Something, perhaps, is due to the hardier life of the mountaineers and islanders — always familiar with hardship and penury, they are prepared to face even famine

with fortitude ; something may be ascribed to the fact that the impressible Celtic, race is not the predominant race iv Scotland ; something possibly to the actual intermixture of Northern blood ; something to the sterner character of i he religious training and institutions. — From whatsoever cause, the behaviour of the Scottish sufferers is in marked contrast with that of the Irish ; they do not abandon what work they might have, nor mingle cries of helplessness nnd threats, nor buy arms, nor shoot those who bring them succour. There is much that commands deep respect in their tranquil endurance ; and it ought not to meet with greater neglect than the noisier agonies of their WesternW estem brethren. — Spectator.

The Wooii Trade. — It is mentioned in the Flemish ] apers that, for several years past, the production of wool has been marked by so great an extension in Germany, that 'that country finds itself in advance of every other in which the same branch of industry is made an object of attention. The states' of- -the German League possess 21,981,554 &heep, which furnish annually, calculating at the "average minimum ef 22 lbs. per 10 sheep, 48,500,000 lbs. of wool. This gives, upon a division of the aggregate among 27,500,000 persons, on the principle of population, If Ib. for each individual. The Austrian States produce annually 700,000 quintals of wool, two thirds of which arederivel from Hungary, from Transylvania, and from the military frontiers ; the other third is obtained from Moravia, Silesia, Bohemia, Gallicia, and Austria. As to the quality of the wool, those of the Austrian states, of Moravia, and of Silesia, are the best ; next to which are those of Hungary and of Austria ; and, lastly, those of Bohemia, of Gallicia, of Transylvania, and of the military frontiers. A correspondence has been published in the Times between Mrs. Butler (Miss Fanny Kemble) and Mr. Bunn relative to the return of that lady to the stage. Mr. Bunn offered an engagement at £50 per night, but the negociation was unsuccessful as Mrs. Butler refused to perform under £100 per night. Permission has been granted to the Emperor of Russia to found a Greek chapel iv Nassau, in which masses for the soul of his daughter are to be performed for seventy years. ' . According to Mr. Wise, the American Minister in Brazil, 64,000 slaves were imported from Africa last year, and 5000 since "the month of August, all in American bottoms. A pension of £1,400 a-year falls to the Crown by the decease of John Carthew, Ksq/j aged 86, private secretary to the late Mr. Pitt, when prime minister. The subscription of the Society of Friends, in England, for the relic! of the Irist , amounts,' we understand, to £22,000, which averages £5 from each family, rich and poor. The title of Baronet has been conferred on Colonel Henry Robert Ferguson Davies ; Frederick Currie, Ksq., Secretary to the Bengal Government ; and Anthony Rothschild, Esq., of Grosvenor-place, — in the latter case, with remain Jer, in default of male issue, to the three sons of his brother, Lionel Rothschild. A statue of Mrs. Siddons, the great tragedian, is to be placed in Westminster Abbey. The chosen sculptor is Mr. Thomas Campbell, who has just finished the model. In Mayo there are 470,000 acres of re* claimable waste; in Galway, 410,000; in 1 Donegal, 403;000 ; Kerry, 400,000 ; Clare, 160,000; Sligo, 90,000; Cork, 250,000; and Tipperary 90,000 acres ! The entire cargo of the ship Duke'of Wellington, from Calcutta to Liverpool, consisting of fifty puncheons of rum, and upwards of seven thousand bags of sugar; (being about seven hundred tons in all), was discharged, and deposited in one of the transit- shed» 3 »t^ the Prince's Dock, in the very short space of eighteen working hours. The late Right Hon. Thomas Grenville was the last surviving member of the famous " Literary Club," in which he had sat with Burke, with" Windham, with Garrick, and with Reynolds, and to which he was proposed for election by Dr. Johnson, and seconded by Oliver Goldsmith. In the lowest districts of Manchester and Lesds out of 1000 children born 570 die before they attain their fifth, year. It was stated by Dr.' Lynch, at an inquest held on an elderly man whose death had been accelerated from impure air, in Field-lane, London, that he had seen thirty-six beds in a room in which the fire-place was closed. During the last ihree years of the Peninsular war the yearly deaths in the British' army were sixty per cent. ; of these only four' per cent, died in battle. / A new theatre, under the direction of Mr. Buckstone, is about to be erected in Leicestersquare, London. In England and Wales there are 685 publishers, booksellers, and bookbinders, to each' million of inhabitants ; in Scotland the proportion is as 935 to each million ; and in Ireland' 126 to each million.

In the year which just expired, 2214 ships, of the burden of 329,493 tons, entered the port of An.werp, of which 243 were under Belgian colours. In 1845 the number of ships was only 1924, of the burden of 287,850 tons. A court-martial has been held at Malta on a private of her Majes.y's 88th regiment, for having threatened, while 1 intoxicated, to strike his superior officer, Sergeant Gallagher. He was transported for fourteen years. . The Eastern Counties and Great Northern Railway are about conjointly to erect two immense docks at Wisbeach, in connection with their lines there. One of the docks will cover an area cf thirteen acres. In the .town of Nottingham, there are as many as eigfit-and- twenty different sects ; and of the Methodists alone, seven separate and distinct bodies. The correspondent of the Edinburgh Register states that two millions sterling would .not cover the amount expended in presents s eftchcKew, Year's Day in Paris. A large quantity of guano, deposited by bats, has been found amongst the caves at Jamaica. It has been successfully applied in sugar plantations. The Pope has abolished the custom of kissing the cross on his slipper, commonly called " kissing the Pope's toe," and, instead, extends his hand to be kissed. The number of houses erected, or in the course of erection, within the municipal borough of Liverpool last year, was 3260 ; the number of warehouses, 44. These numbers are rather less than in 1845, but more than any other year. Ibrahim Pacha has sent two of his sons to England to be educated. They are placed under the care of the President of the Pestalozzian school, at Worksop. It is stated that Keeling and Hunt, the foreign fruit-brokers, of Mouument-yard, London, have received a government order to procure £20,000 worth of seed potatoes from the Mediterranean, the Azores, or wherever they can best be had, as speedily as possible. It is estimated that on the yearly supply of the London market — 150,000 beasts and 1,500,000 sheep — the saving by railway con-veyance-is £675,000. The Count St. Marie computes that their fifteen years' occupation of Algeria has cost the French^s47,ooB lives, and one hundred and fifty millions of francs. The European population of Algeria, which in 1831 only amounted to 3228, was in 1844, 75,354; and the public revenue, which in 1831 amounted to 1,048,479 francs, amounted in 1844 to 1 7,695,996 francs. In 1815 they had 52 acres of dock and basins at Liverpool ; the tonnage was 709,842 tons. In 1825 there were 71 acres of dock and basins, and the tonnage was 1,238,820. In 1835 there were 99 acres of docks and basins, and the tonnage was 1,786,426. In 1846 the docks and basins increased to 120 acrjs, and the tonnage to 3,016,531.

The Young Queen oi Spain. — A correspondent of the Morning Post says : — '• In a former letter I mentioned the pregnancy of the Queen. I have now to acquaint you that her Majesty miscarried, a few days ago, without any suffering, of a six weeks' child. Her general health was not in the least affected, and she only kept her room two days in consequence. This untoward event is kept as secret a* possible."

Duties on Tobacco. — Seventeen-twen-tieths of the ordinary customs revenue of Great Britain are derived from less than a dozen articles. Amongst these, one of the most important is tobacco. The quantity of tobacco and snuff entered for home consumption in the United Kingdom, during the year ending sth^ of January, 1846, amounted to 55,323,944 lbs., and the revenue derived therefrom was £4,223,276. Duties reaching nine hundred per cent., ad valorem, are imposed upon this commodity. The result might have been readily foreseen, had ordinary economical principles been attended to. The smuggler shares as an equal partner with the treasury in the enormous tax levied upon tobacco. There is evidence that one-bait of the tobacco consumed in these realms is in- j troduced in fraud of- the revenue by the smuggler ; and when we consider the low prime cost and the great bulk of the article, some idea may be formed of the extensive immorality — the amount of law-made crime — engendered by such traffic. Nor is such immorality confined to the mere smuggler. Throughout the trade, • amongst a large proportion of the manufacturers and dealers in tobacco, frauds upon the revenue, both by smuggling and adulteration, have become, as it were, a part of the ordinary course of business. The effect has been to throw the command of the trade into the hands of illicit traders, inasmuch as, whenever the fair traders — the manufacturers of duty paid tobacco — endeavour to meet the competition to which they are subjected by the smuggler and the adulterator, they are always defeated by a greater reduction on the part of the fraudulent traders. It if obvious

that there can be but one effectual remedy for this state of things — namely such a reduction of the duty as will enable the honest, dutypaying trader to drive the illicit dealer out of the raaiket. This, the most experienced persons in the trade, and the best informed oncers of the revenue department, concur in stating, would be done by reducing the duty on unmanufactured tobacco to Is., and on cigars to 5s per Ib. That this may be done, not only without permanent loss, but with ultimate gain to the revenue, has, we think, been made clear. — Economist.

" A Pretty Quarrel as it Stands. — Florence, Dec. 22.— There is a good deal of gossip just now about a curious affair which originated some time ago at Lucca, in a quarrel over a whist table between a Florentine banker and a French artist. It seem that the .banker mistook an observation made by the artist, and then, irritated by an insulting rejoinder, slapped him in the face ; whereupon the banker was conveyed by- the police beyond the frontier, for they will not allow duelling in Lucca. By private engagement the parties a.terwards met at Leghorn, to fight in Corsica, the banker attended by a Florentine lawyer, and the artist by an English gentleman, a near connection of a member of your ministry. After some parley between the seconds about ihe choice of weapons, the lawyer secretly proposed to the Englishman that they should use pistols without balls, a proposal which the Englishman indignantly rejected. The thing soon became talked about, for the Englishman never attempted to conceal his indignation ; and the lawyer was so outraged that he sent the other a challenge, which was at once accepted. It was settled that they should meet in France, whither the Englishman hastened, but " found no foe to fight withal." Weeks elapsed, and no lawyer ; and it is said that the Englishman still awaits the coming of the Florentine, who never intends 10 come." — Correspondent of the Atlas. Lucky Escape from Assassination. — A letter from Vienna of the 13th says: — " The Prince Archbishop of Vienna, M. de Milde, has just had a very narrow escape from assassination. In the morning of Wednesday last, while the prelate was still in his bed, his valet de chambre came into his room, and pulling open the curtains, exclaimed, ' Monsiegueur, Jesus Christ has appeared to me during the night, and ordered me to cut the throat of the Archbishop of Vienna. 1 Immediately on pronouncing these words, he drew a razor from his pocket, and held it towards the throat of the prelate. M. Milde, who perceived that his servant was labouring under an attack of mental alienation, ha 1 the presence of mind to say to him, ' Listen, my friend ; if the Saviour has really charged you to take my life, you must do it, for no one should disobey God's commands ; but you must do nothing without first addressing a prayer to the Almighty. Pray, and I will resign myself to die by thy hand.' The domestic placed himself before a crucifix and began a silent prayer : whilst he was so engaged, the prelate arose and went into an adjoining room, locking the door after him. The servant was afterwards secured and placed in a lunatic asylum. — Galignanis Messenger.

Lablache and Mario. — From Harvey s Theatres of Paris we learn that Ladlache's mother was an Irish woman, and produced this fine fellow to a native of Marseilles, at Naples, in 1796. Mario is stated to be the " son of General di Candia, several times appointed Governor of Genoa and Nice by the King of Sardinia. Mario, who was born at Cagliari, in 1816, was educated among the King's pages at the Royal Academy of Turin, and subsequently became an officer in the Piedmontese guard. From his early youth he was passionately fond of music ; and both Meyerbeer and Donizetti are said to have prophesied his future excellence as a singer. On his arrival in Paris, in 1836, the manager of the^ Academic Royale, whose curiosity was excited by the encomiums lavished in private circles on the young amateur, took an opportunity of bearing him sing, and immediately offered him an ennagament, which Mario, after much hesitation, accepted. This greatly irritated his father, who spared neither entreaties nor commands to hinder his son from embracing the career of a public singer. Mario, however, persisted in his resolution, but so far yielded to the general's wish as to consent to let bis Christian name alone appear in the bills.

Racing Prospects. — Every programme which we have received since the Ist instant, contains features of more than ordinary attraction and importance, and scarcely have we had time to con over the gratifying details, when out comes the First Sheet Calendar, and gives double assurance of the surpassing brilliancy of the prospect of " Races to come." Northampton,' Epsom, Chester, Ascot, Liverpool, York, and Doucaster have gathered round them an additional power, which will give increased lustre to their respective characters. To the Great Northamptonshire Stakes there are 69 subscribers ; weights to

be out by the 29th instant, and declarations of forfeit to be made on or before the Ist day cf February. The Althorp Park Stakes has 26 subscribers, nearly three times the number it had last year. Epsom presents its Great Metropolitan Stakes, numbering 114 subscribers, pointing exultingly to the tempting bonus of five hundred sovereigns ! Weights to be published on the 12 instant, and forfeits to be declared on the 19th. Chester boasts the unprecedented number of 177 nominations for its Cup ; weights to be published on or before the 18th instant, and forfeits declared on or before the Ist of February. The Dee Stand Cup has 10 subscribers; the Marquis of Westminster's Plate, 32 ; and the Cheshire Stakes, for which the weights are to be published the week following tbe Northampton Meeting has 49 subscribers. The New Stakes at .Ascot exceeds its last year's number of nominations by seven — a mystical number that augurs well for sport. The Liverpool Cup has 136 subscribers — 37 more than it had last year — weights to be published on tbe 26th of June, and forfeits declared on or before the 3rd of July. Liverpool has also for its Derby Handicap and Grosvenor Stakes an increased amount of patronage. York arrays on its side great accessions of strength ; and Doncaster, despite the raving of fanaticism, towers in its pride of place with undiminished magnificence. The Bath programme announces 65 nominations for the Somersetshire Slakes — weights to be fixed on or before the 15th instant, and forfeits declared on or before the Ist February. — Sunday Times, Jan. 10.

The French Royal Family at Home. — The Duchess of Montpensier is said to find her mode of life in France very dreary. If she had the ordering of affairs at the palace the place would be alive with gaiety. As it is — see what lives they lead there ! The Ducbess of Orleans on no occasion deviates from her rule of early hours for her two children ; and the young Prince of Wurteraburg, the little orphan of the Princess Mary, is subject to the same discipline as his cousins. The court, indeed, has the air (and the dulness) of a well-regulated private iamily ; " early to bed and early to rise," and getting, of course, wonderfully " happy, wealthy, and wise." The contrast it presents with the Court of Louis the Fourteenth, or even of the times of the empire or the restoration, is something unintelligible to this lively nation. The royal family meet every evening in the silon de famille; the Queen and the Princesses surround a large round table, and occupy themselves with Berlin worsted work, conversing together on their morning excursions or any little topic of the moment. The good Queen Amelia, with her tall, straight figure, and long face, surrounded with formal curls of grey hair, might be mistaken for a rigid schoolmistress presiding over her pupils, instead of a gracious Queen. The expression of her face, however, and her manners soften those rigorous lines ; she is unfailingly kind and amiable : and her reception of those who are admitted into the evening family circle is faultless. The dame d'honneur of each princess sits near her mistress, and joins in the talk and in the work of the party. The King generally stands beside the fire, surrounded by his sons, and enjoying and mingling in their intelligent conversation. The Duke d'Aumale is an indefatigable reciter of anecdotes, and tells them with point and humour. The Duke de Montpensier is the gallant of the family, the ladies' man, sitting in inquisition over the contents of the work-boxes, ami ever ready with a smile and a compliment. The young widowed duchess — the exemplary mother — the supeiior minded woman who takes an interest in other and deeper matters than Berlin tapestry, leaves her own apartments every evening after her children have retired to their hard couches, and passes an hour with the assembled family. She mostly joins the group at the fireplace, or takes the arm of the King, conversing with him while they walk up and down the saloon. At eleven o'clock the Queen rises, giving the signal for separation — and this is the life of the palace. Some interruption to its monotony at the present moment is, however, just promised by the announcement of six balls ; which are to be given in the course of the season ; out of which balls are expected to spring concerts, private theatricals, anfr -other gay doings in the circles of the high nobility. — Atlas, Jan. 2.

Liberty in America. — The land pirates of Mercer, county Ohio, recently held a meeting, styled by the President and Secretary " large and respectable," in relation to the coloured people of that county, and passed a string of resolutions, of which the three following are a sample :— " Resolved, That we will not live among negroes. As we have settled here first, we have fully determined that we will resist the settlement of blacks and mullatoes in this country to the full extent of our means, the bayonet not excepted." " Resolved, That the blacks of this country be, and that they are hereby respectfully request* ed to leave the country on or before the first day of March, 1847, or, in case qf tbej? n«g-

lect or refusal to comply with this request, we pledge ourselves to remove them — peaceably if we can, forcibly if we roust.", " Resolved, That we who are. here assembled, pledge ourselves not to employ nor trade with any black or iLulatto person, in any manner whatever, or permit them to have any grinding done at our mills, after the first of January next."

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZSCSG18470630.2.6

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume III, Issue 200, 30 June 1847, Page 2

Word count
Tapeke kupu
3,615

ENGLISH EXTRACTS. New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume III, Issue 200, 30 June 1847, Page 2

ENGLISH EXTRACTS. New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume III, Issue 200, 30 June 1847, Page 2

Help

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert