House of Commons, March 1.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume III, Issue 207, 24 July 1847, Page 3

House of Commons, March 1.

Mr. Fox Maule explained the vote of *£6,000 for organizing a body of Chelsea Pensioners to proceed to New Zealand : — It was intended to send a body of pensioners, amounting in number to five hundred men, with their families, to the colony which be had mentioned ; and the object which the Government had in view was twofold. In the first place, the men were to be located under certain advantages, which he would state more particularly hereafter. Certain duties were to be required from them for seven years ; after which they were to be put in possession of the localities in which they had been distributed, and they would become settlers, and valuable settlers too, in the colony. In the mean time, however, they would be obliged to afford defence to the colonists, whenever they might be called upon by the Governor holding the supreme command in the colony. Thus the twofold object of defence to the settle s and colonization would be effected at a, moderate charge.

Many of the Norfolk farmers have lately turned their attention to flax growing. ~ Mr. William Tidd, the barrister, and author of the celebrated law hook known as " Tidds Practice," died on March Ist. He was called to the bar in 1813, hut had previously practised as a special pleader for upwards of thirty years. Many of his pupils have attained the highest points in the profession of the law, and at the head of them rank three Chancellors — Lords Lyndhurst, Cottenham, and Campbell — and the present Lord Chief Justice of England. From the great age at which he died (eighty-six) we presume that Mr. Tidd must have been the " father of the profession." The carriage of Major-General Napier, Lieutenant Governor of Guernsey, was upset lately, in the endeavour of the coachman to avoid running over an old woman, and his Excellency had his head and face a good deal cut, but was not seriously injured. The General has since commended the coachman for his conduct. Ou the 2 1st February, Lieutenant-General Sir Willoughby Cotton, G. C. 8., was sworn in at the East India House as Commander-in-Chief of the Company's forces, and second member of Council for the Bombay Presidency. On the eve of his departure to assume his high duties, Sir Willoughby was honorably entertained by theCourt at the London Tavern. The Eight Million Loan to government for Irish relief was taken on Monday last, (Ist March), in equal portions by Messrs. Baring and Messrs. Rothschild, at 89| for three per cent, consols. The scrip has since borne a premium of rather more than I^, which in a loan to the above large amount will realise a profit of between 1 and £200,000 to the above capitalists. Robert Kerr, aged 28, formerly master of the bajrque Levenside of Greenock, was convicted at the Central Criminal Court, of stealing two packages of diamonds value £3300. The packages were entrusted to him at Bahia to bring to England. At Deal the prisoner absconded from the ship, taking the diamonds with him, and fled to France, where he was apprehended. He was sentenced to 7 years' transportation. An old man, named Simon, has just died in one of the lunatic asylums, whose story has been frequently narrated. When Napoleon had resolved to erect a palace for the King of Rome near the barrier of Passy, the stall of this man, a cobbler byjtrade, interfered with the line of building. He was accordingly applied to to sell it. He asked 20,000f. which, being thought excessive, was at first refused. On a second application he asked 40,000f., which was also rejected. The ground on which the stall stood being, however, absolutely indispensable, he was applied to the third time, when he asked 60,000f. The Emperor then determined never to consent to such an extortion, and the palace was ordered to be erected on the Q,uai d'Orsay. The old man then repented his folly, but too late. Two years after he sold the stall for 150f. ; and the failure of his hopes having affected his reason, he was placed in the hospital where he has just died. — Paris Paper. Chalk is said to have been tried as an article of fuel with the most satisfactory results. Surrounded with coal, it gives a strong heat, and a clear fire, at half the Usual expense. There is an old joke respecting a poor attorney, which is to the purport, that " having lived without causes, he died without effects.''

The New Discovery in Surgery. — The public will have seen with considerable interest that means have been discovered for performing tbe most difficult operations without giving pain to the party upon whom it is necessary to operate. A man may, it seems, have his legs cut from under him without his knowing it, by the new process, while the drawing out of his teech becomes an agreeable excitement, which is so delightful that a boy having been mulcted of a molar, clamoured loudly to have another extracted, and only held his jaw when the dentist consented to oblige him. 'However desirable this invention may be in a surgical point of view, we have every hope that it will soon be applied to the more delicate operations of politics. How useful would it have been during the last session, when the Conservative body had to undergo the painful process of the cutting off of so' many of its members I Had the new process been known, the polkical amputations might have taken place without any of that pain, amounting in some cases to direct mortification, which ensued in several instances. Considering the frequent severings that Sir Robert Peel has been obliged to undergo, and the numerous occasions upon which he wiil again most probably feel it necessary to submit to amputations, the new process must be almost invaluable to the Right Hon. Baronet. As the plan is calculated to prevent pain in all cases of removal, we should recommend its being tried ou the next occasion of a removal from office by her Majesty's ministers. This has always been a most distressing operation

from the suffering it has inflicted on the parties concerned ; and all the friends of humanity must be delighted at the prospect there is of its becoming an entirely painless proceeding. — Punch.

A Delicious Non-sequitur. — The Duke of Richmond, at the Sraithfield Cattle-Club Dinner, gave " The Butchers of the Metropolis," which toast he followed up, with the appropriate sentiment of " Live and let live." In which case we ask the Duke, what is to become of the Butchers ? — Punch.

No Accounting, &c. — On the arrival of the- south train, at a station not one hundred miles from our office, a lady of high rank, immediately on alighting from a carriage, had her veil lifted up, and a dog was presented to her — to lick her face ! — Nonconformist.