ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 346, 25 November 1848, Page 2

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

The distinguishing, marks, on the shelljackets hereafter to be worn by ;military.j)jficers in substitution of the frock-coats are to be — for subalterns, one ring of gold lace round the cuffs; for captains, two rings; and for field-officers, three rings. - ; The Admiralty have ordered materials to be supplied for Sheerness, Portsmouth, and. Devonport dockyards, for the erection, in the respective neighbourhoods, of drilling batteries for the Coast Guard force. Mr. Charles Kean has sent a contribution of £10 towards the statue of Mrs. Slddons, about to be placed in Westminster Abbey. The estimated charges for improving the approaches to the castle and town of Windsor will amount to £83,420, of which £60,000 are supplied by the Windsor, Staines, and South - Western Railway Company, and £23,700 by the Great Western Railway Company, in return for certain advantages accorded to them for stations, &c. During a heavy thunderstorm in the neighbourhood of Hull, on June 25tb, - the electric fluid entered a farm house at Mount Airy, near Brantingham, and drove out the chamber-window, split the posts, and burnt a portion of the covering of the bed in which the occupier of the house was lying, and yet he remained uninjured. All the accounts agree in stating that the health of the Emperor of Austria is very precarious. His Physician has advised him to change his residence from Innspruck to Ischel. " " " On Thursday night, the 22nd ult., Count Yon der Lippe, Goveraor of the German fortress of Ulm, put an end to his life by shooting himself, i The local rates at Leicester are eighteen shillings in the pound ! It is believed at present to be the most distressed town in the country. During the great fight in .Paris, the insurgents in the Faubourgs dv Temple and St. Antoine went to the / ensionsjles jeunes Jffles, where many parents had sent their chilflxen for safety, took the little ones, and ■ placed them, bound so that they could not run away, — as barricades, to prevent the National Guards from returning their fire, which they continued most murderously, from behind and between the children » ' During the recent fighting in Paris, several wounded persons, as they were borne away, were fired upon from : the windows jwerlooking the combat, .-,],[' l "^l In some localities in Paris, so strongly h'fid the insurgents entrenched' themselves, that the barricades could not be forced^ and .the houses between them were obliged: to J)e knocked down, to clear the way for an attack by bayonet,

The Constitutionnel gives .the following affecting anecdote :—": — " After having been so unfortunately wounded, the Archbishop of Paris was carried to a house in the Rue St. Antoine, and afterwards to the Hospital of the Quinze Vingts. On the way he was escorted by. some Gardes Mobiles. The physiognomy of one of these brave lads had struck' him, having seen him fight and disarm his enemy, after being wounded several times. Calling him to his side, he had strength enough left to raise his arms, and taking a little wooden crucifix attached to a black collar wliich he had, he gave' it to the young hero, saying to, him, ' Never quit this cross : lay it on your heart, it will make you happy.' Francis Delavrignfere, • such was his name, swore, with his hands joined, and in the attitude of prayer, ever to preserve this precious souvenir of the dying prelate," the Youno Garde Mobile. — Among the incidents related of the late insurrection at Paris, the following is given :—: — The youthful Martin Hyacinthe, eighteen years of age, and a simple Garde Mobile, gallantly mounted a formidable barricade in the Faubourg dv , Temple, notwithstanding a shower of balls. Seizing the flag which surmounted it, he would not qnit hold of it, even to fight. When the battalion had returned to General Changarnier's head-quarters, at the Chamber, the young Martin was presented to the chief of the executive power, to whom he presented ihe flag which he had taken. General Cavaignac inr.mediately and spontaneously detaching bis cross from his breast, decorated Martin Hyacinthe with it amidst the repeated cheers of the crowd.