ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume III, Issue 211, 7 August 1847, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Dinner to Mr. Cobden at Rome. — A dinner has been given to Mr. Cobden, which went off admirably. It was given entirely by Italians, which of course, made it the more complimentary. The healths of the Pope and the Queen of England were drunk together as one toast ! Amongst the company was a celebrated improvisatore ; and in the course of the evening he delivered an improvisation upon Mr. Cobden, the last verse of which drew forth tears from those around, a*nd which translated, conveyed the following sentimeut : — " When you go back to England, say you found Italy a corpse, but upon it was planted a green branch, which will one day flower again and bring forth fruit." Mr. Cobden said that, remembering that they were so near the waifs of the Vatican, he considered it the most cheering proof of the wide spread sympathy for free trade principles which he had yet seen in the course of all his travels. He was delighted and surprised, he said, with all the Italian free-traders he had met. The Society of Friends in Philadelphia has sent three remittances of £500 each for the relief of the poor in Ireland. The Emperor of Russia has enrolled his infant grandson, just born, in two regiments of his guards. Prince Mourid Ali, the eighty -fifth son of Feth Ali, Schah of Persia, who had 104 children, of whom 39, are still living, died lately at Khoi, a small town in Persia. He was a man of a cultivated understanding, and employed himself chiefly in astronomy. A gentleman from Strasburg won no less a sum than 150,000f. at the gaming-house at Hamburg, on the 28th ult., and on the following day lost it all back again, together with as much more. Lately, at Burnley, one of the elephants in Wombwell's menagerie bit off the tail of another. A considerable time elapsed before the bleeding could be stopped ; no ill consequance has, however, ensued. Colonial Expenditure. — It appears from papers printed by order of Parliament, that the yearly cost of the British colonies is £3,171)646, of which the military anil naval expenses are actually £ 2,630,804 : 3: 7. Some of the items of this sum are as under : — 1843-4— Military and Naval Expenses of — Gibraltar, £ 221,537 :8: 7 ; Malra,' £ 140,702 :11 :5 ; lonian Islands,. £131,227 : 5 : 1 ; St. Helena, £28,000 :I 9:5; Sierra Leone, Gambia, and Cape Coast, £ 38,332 :17: 4 ; Cape of Good Hope, £297,061 : 10 : 5 ; Mauritius, £87.031 : 8 : 6 ; Bermuda, £96,161 : 5 : 10. The Windward and Leeward Command, viz.

— Barbadoes,T*inidad,&c.,£3 l9,s6o: ll : 2; Jamaica,. &c, £209,811 : 2 : 6 ; Lower and Upper Canada," £526,034 : 16:6; Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward's Island, and Newfoundland, £176,660 : 12 : 9.; Ceylon, £111,7.28 : 3: 3 ; Australia, New Zealand/ New South Wales, and Van Diemen's Land, *£ 195,954:3; General Military Charges, £48,941 : 2 :2. Lucky Owner of a Lucky Horse. — Mr. John Pluramer, so well known in the sporting world as the owner and breeder of the celebrated mare Alice Hawthorn, died at his residence, at New Parks, near t Ross, in January last, aged 46. Besides Alice Hawthorn, he was the breeder of the Jovial Bachelor, the Provost, and other distinguished horses. , He was also the owner of Rebecca, by Lottery, the dam of the same Jovial Bachelor, the Provost, Alice Hawthorn, Rowena, Annandale, Fair Helen, Johnny Armstrong, &c. It may be worthy of remark to mention that when Mr. Plummer commenced his breeding career, he purchased of the executors of the late Dr. Cock, of Easingwold, the mare Rebecca, for £35 (the mare being at the time in foal,) with a further contingency of £10 should the mare produce a colt. She did produce a colt, her first foal beyng the Jovial Bachelor ; aud thus, for £45 Mr. Plummer became possessed of one of the best brood mares in England, or at least she has since proved herself so. Her stock have been distinguished on the turf, particularly the Provost and Alice Hawthorn. With respect to Rebecca, Mr. Pluramer has been in the habit of letting her for a brood mare to Mr. Andrew Johnson, of Hallhealtlis, at a salary of £100 per year; and she is, at the present time, a brood mare in Mr. A. Johnstone's stud ; Rebecca has been a fortune to her owner," her progeny having been sold for large prices. Mr, Plummer preferred breeding to that of training; and never after 1841, the first year of Alice Hawthorn's appearing in public, did he train on his own account, with the exception of the mare going. 4"or a month or two to Charles Peck's. In 1842 and 1 843, Alice was let to the late Leonard I Hesseltine for those years, for 500 soys. In 1844, she was let to Mr. Gerard Salvin, of Croxdale, near Durham, in conjunction with Robert Hesseltine, for the sum of 800 guineas; and in 1845, Robert Hesseltine again became her lessee for the enormous sum of 1,200 guineas. Thus, in four years, she obtained for her owner something over 2,500 -soYTsj-,— whilst Jier - lessee* realized handsome sums in stakes and bets. In 1842, she won 1,745 soys. ; in 1843, 2,166 soys. ; in 1844, 3,465 soys. ; but in 1845, her racing powers appeared to be gone, the mare having a severe attack of distemper during the summer of that year, which to a certain extent put a stop to her brilliant career. By the death of Mr. Plummer, the following nominations for the Great Yorkshire Stakes, 1848, at York, August, become void : — Br. f. by Lanercost, out of Miss Matthews, by Waverley; and bl. f r Lucaria, by Lanercost, out of Ebony, by Muley Muloch. It is rather a remarkable circumstance, that some men may breed horses all their lives, and never be fortunate enough, to produce a good one ; whilst a Yorkshire farmer, for the trifling outlay of £45 purchased the best brood mare in the country.; Lord Exeter, Lord Glasgow, and a few others, have expenJed large sums in breeding for the turf, but never produced such an animal as Alice Hawthorn, who, during her racing career, was styled " the Queen of the Turf," — Newcastle Journal.