ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 314, 2 August 1848, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

The Roman Catholic Association of France did not expend a farthing in England ; in 1846 they expended £40,865 building chapels, &c. It is said that about 30,000 dollars a year is paid to hired singers in Boston, and that a common question on leaving the church is not "What do you think of the sermon?" but, " What do you think of the music ?" The weight of the tracts distributed by the Anti-Corn-law League amounted, according to Mr. Cobden in a recent speech at Hamburgh, to 128 tons. German buttons are now offered for sale in Birmingham 25 per cent, under the price at which the manufacturers there can produce them. Such is the effect of free trade. England pays annually to Holland, Belgium, and Holstein, about £700,000 for butter. Lieutenant Burke, of the Bombay Engineers, has published a pamphlet, in which he states that one of the salt beds of Scinde contains an area of 300 miles of salt, of an average thickness of three feet, or a supply equal to the consumption of 100,000,000 of people 1600 years. A young lady who has been tried in the State of Alabama for firing a pistol at her false lover, as he was escorting another fair oue to church, was acquitted on the ground that there was no malice, but, on the contrary, an excess of love. The Swedish Government has decided that no ships of the line shall be built for the future ; those now in existence are to be repaired or altered, and the main strength of the marine is to consist of steamers. The Swedish fleet consists of 272 vessels of war, of which 32 are steamers, and requires 21,608 seamen to man it. The Bishop of Chester gives it as the result of his experience, in a diocese mainly composed of manufacturers and colliers, that sittings let at small rents are liked better than "free seats." The Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England have just purchased the extensive premises of Mr. Alderman Copeland, M.F., adjoining their institution, for the sum, of £16,000.

The Phrenological Journal, which is published in Edinburgh, is, after an existence of twenty years, to be given up, not being sufficiently patronised. The American public is much puzzled to know what President Polk's object is in sending out an expedition to Palestine, to explore the Dead Sea. The editor of the Maine Farmer believes that the object is to fish up the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and to annex them to the United States. The railway calls for January amount to £4,677,000. Of these, £211,000 are on foreign lines. The freightage of flax along the east coast of Scotland is estimated to amount to £120,000. The increase in the Irish consumption of sugar last year, was about 5000 tons, being nearly a fifth of the whole increase of the United Kingdom. The total sum spent in the relief of the poor in Manchester, in the year just ended, was £48,321 13s. Id. This is an excess of £18,655 above the previous year, and of this sum £14,325 was spent in the relief of Irish cases. The artisans of Birmingham have subscri.bed a sum of £924 18s. 9d., which they have -presented as a new year's gift to the Queen's Hospital in that town. The population of New Orleans is 79,988, a diminution of 16,000 since last year, and 23,000 since 1840. More than two-thirds of the failures which happened in Berlin during the last year are believed to have been caused by speculation in railway shares. The population of the town of Hamburgh amounts, according to the last census to between 122,000 and 123,000 souls, of whom more than 20,000 profess the Jewish religion. The proposition for admitting members of the Jewish persuasion to all commercial assemblies has been rejected by a majority of se-venty-seven votes. During the year 1847} there were no less than 191 persons called to the bar by the Societies of the Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn. An English newspaper, entitled the Neighbour, the first ever published in Chili, has been established at Valparaiso. The small remains at the establishment at the Brighton Pavilion have been broken up and dispersed. Several of the domestics were transferred to the other royal residences, and those who left the royal service entirely received three months' pay as a gratuity. The sum subscribed for the establishment of an English bishopric at Victoria, or Hongkong, in China, now reaches upwards of £18,000. It is stated that a company has been formed at Copenhagen for establishing steam communication between Denmark, the Faro Islands, Iceland, and Scotland. The communications, which will take place every fortnight, are to be commenced on the Ist of April. The Government have accorded a reduction of port and anchorage duties to the steamers which may undertake them. The Queen of the French has presented to the Pope, as a new year's gift, a magnificent tiara, set with the splendid diamonds formerly belonging to the Duchess de Penthievre, which are encased in violet coloured enamel. A boy, aged four years and nine months, died in Manchester, in consequence of having drunk a glass of strong whisky and water, which his father left upon the table. It is said that the government of Peru has fixed the price of guano at £3 per ton, free on board, and the stock, taking the average consumption of the. last three years, will be sufficient for a hundred years to come. An American paper mentions as a proof of the advanced civilisation of the Cherokee Indians, that the tribe has incurred a public debt of 100,000 dollars. In order to be quite up to the level of the model republic, the red borrowers should repudiate. A prisoner in Coldbath Fields House of Correction has lost his life by swallowing two shillings, in order to hide them. Utterers of base coin are in the habit of swallowing counterfeit mouey to escape conviction ; Mr. Smyles, the surgeon of the prison, says they may expect, sooner or later, the same fate as this man ; metal producing internal disease. Since 1830 Algeria has cost France a quarter of a million soldiers, and £36,840,000 sterling. The town council of Hawick, instead of foiming a race course, have agreed to expend their surplus funds in improving the town lands, and in supplying the inhabitants of the town with water at threepence per pound on the rent. There will be upwards of 500 rooms in the new houses of parliament, and 150 staircases. Mr, Macready has announced his intention of retiring from the stage at an early day. Visiting in India. — I must now give an account of Mofussil society. We will suppose a married couple going to a new station

— as, for instance, my wife and myself coming to Cuttack. Well, we arrive wretched enough about eight o'clock in the morning, after a long dark journey. All that day we are engaged in setting things to rights. The | next morning I order my carriage, and go out to make my calls ; for in India, unlike England, the stranger calls first. The hours for calling are from half-past ten to one, after which time you would not be admitted anywhere, as it is supposed the lady of the house is just going f to tiffin, (lunch,) which she takes at two, and then goes to sleep for two or three hours. Of course the first person I call on is the commanding officer. I drive in at the gate of the compound and under some trees, up to the house-door, and so under the portico ; for every house had a very large portico to protect the horses from the sun. My carriage is a phaeton — the britska, phaeton, and buggy, being almost the only vehicles used in India. The britska does very well for a judge, and the buggy a sort of carriage for a single man. Mine is a phaeton with two ponies ; on the box sits the coachman — dark brown face, large black moustachios, white calico tunic and trousers, white turban turned up with pale blue as livery, and blue and white cummer-band round the waist ; except only when it is wet, and then he wears a crimson skull-cap, and a scarlet full cloak with sleeve. A syce or groom runs by the side of the ponies. Arrived at the door I call out, "Sahib hy?" (Gentleman in?) meaning, Is your master at home ? If not I leave a card ; if he is, I enter the house, and follow the servant who has answered me. I should have told you there are no such things as bells or knockers here. Every door is open, unless in the very hot weather ; and there are always six or eight servants lounging about in the verandah. As I step out of the carriage each one of these sloops down, touches the ground with the back of his hand, and then pats his forehead three or four times, signifying, I suppose, that if I were to order him, he would throw dirt upon his own head. In reply to the question, "Sahib hy?" one of the men answers, " Hy, khadaurem," (He is, representative of God ;) at the same time holding his bands pressed together as if he were saying his prayers. He precedes me into the house, still in the same attitude. He sets me a chair, while another man comes in, unfastens the rope of the punkah, and, taking the end of it out into the verandah, sits down and pulls it, and very soon falls asleep, still, however, continuing his occupation. Presently in comes the master of the house, dressed in white jacket, black neckerchief, (if any,) white shirt, white trousers, white stockings, and shoes made of some skin. I should have told you th_t the servant who shows me in takes my card to his master, with which card his master plays the whole time lam there. In a few minutes in comes the lady, in clothes hanging loosely about her ; she probably does not wear stays in the morning ; her dress is white muslin, and her face, as well as those of her children, if she have any, is of a ghastly pale colour. This is universal in India. There is not much conversation at a first visit, so I soon rise and go to some person to whom I have a letter of introduction, when he at once volunteers to accompany me on the rest of my calls. These first visits are made by the gentleman only ; his wife does not accompany him. In the course of a few days the gentlemen return the call, bringing their wives with them. Daughters are out of the question ; beyond the age of six, they are a genus unknown in India. They go to England at that age, comes out again to India at eighteen, and probably marry in Calcutta, and settle at some four or five months' journey from their parents, who have been so anxiously looking forward to seeing them. — Acland's Manners and Customs of India. An instrument for measuring the capacity of the lungs, called the Epirometer, has recently been invented by a person of the name of Hutchinson. It. consists of a certain tubular arrangement, communicating with an index dial : the person whose lungs are to be measured blows through a caoutchouc tube ; the expiration-is measured by the tubes and index. The machine is much used in hospitals in testing pulmonary diseases. Dutch papers mention the discovery of an extensive bed of coal at Batol Apie, on the seuth of Borneo. As steam navigation is on the increase in the East, such a deposit will prove of infinite value. This discovery, conjoined with the fact, that coal is also met with in the isle of Labuan, would seem to demonstrate that the Malayian islands are as rich in mineral as they are already known to be in metallic and vegetable produce. Mr. Morse, the American electric telegraph inventor, is said to have effected improvements in his apparatus, by which communications are impressed on paper at the rate of fifty letters per minute. The following distressing and discreditable statistics are extracted from a recent little work, entitled 'The Poor Man's Four Evils:,

— The quantity of spirits entered in 1845 for home consumption in the United Kingdom was 26,672,477 gallons ; of wine, 6,838,684 ; of ale, 480,000,000 : the population was 27,000,000. This would give for each person eight pints of spirits, which, at Is. 6d. a pint, amounts to 125. ; two pints of wine, at 2s. each, comes to 45. ; in ale, £2 a-year for each person — being in all upwards of seventyfive and a half millions sterling spent in the country for preparations in a great degree unnecessary and destructive. In Lima, according to Yon Tschudi, ice is considered so essential, that a scarcity of it for a few days would have the same effect as the deprivation of bread elsewhere, and excite popular tumults. For this reason the mules used in its transport are held sacred even in the heart of a revolution, for party would risk the popular odium that would attach to any interference with their services. This ice is obtained on the Cordilleras, at a distance of twenty-eight leagues from the city ; and on being broken from the glaciers by the Indians, in great blocks, is lowered down the side of the mountain with ropes. It is then covered with, a kind of grass, and packed on the backs of mules, each mule carrying two blocks, and is then transported to Lima by means of relays of mules stationed at intervals of two or three miles. Here it is used to the extent of between fifty and fiftyfive hundredweight daily ; about two-thirds of which are applied to the preparation of ices, chiefly of milk or pine-apple juice. The rest Is hawked about the streets for sale by Indians, who carry it in pails on their heads, and whose cry of * helado' is constantly heard in all quarters of the town. Anecdote op Lord Hardwick. — He was at length called to the bar in his twentythird year ; and enjoying as he did the good opinions of bis former master the attorney, and of his present patron Chief Justice Parker, and recommended to all who knew him by uniform good conduct, it is not very surprising that he should have met with immediate success. Still, many people were surprised ; and on one occasion at a circuit dinner, ' Mr. Justice Powis, addressing the flourishing junior, who was sitting nearly opposite to him, said, " Mr. Yorke, 1 cannot well account for your having so much business, considering how short a time you have been at the bar ; I humbly conceive you have published something; for'look do you see, there is scarcely a cause before the court but you are employed in it on one side or other. I should therefore be glad to know, Mr. Yorke, do you see, whether this is the case ?" Yorke. " Please ye, my lord, I have some thoughts of publishing a book, but as yet I have made no progress in it." The judge, smiling to think that his conjecture was not quite without foundation, became importunate to know the subject of the book ; and Yorke not being able to evade his inquiries, at last said, " I have had thoughts, my lord, of doing Coke upon Littleton into verse; but I have gone a very little way into it." Povis. " This is something new, and must be very entertaining ; and I beg you will oblige us with a recital of a few of the verses." Mr. Yorke long resisted ; but finding that the judge would not drop the subject, bethought himself that he could not get rid of it better than by compounding a specimen of such a translation, and accordingly recited the following verses, as the opening of the proposed work : — 11 He that holdeth his lands in fee, Need neither to quake nor to quiver, I humbly conceive ; for look, do you see, They are his and his heirs for ever." ' The learned judge took this for a serious attempt to impress upon the youthful mind the great truths of tenures, and meeting Mr. Yorke a few months afterwards in Westminster Hall, he inquired " how he was getting on with the translation of Littleton ?" — Campbell.