LATEST ENGLISH NEWS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 384, 7 April 1849, Page 4

LATEST ENGLISH NEWS.

The arrival of the Diamond yesterday puts us in possession of papers to the 18th of November. In England no event of importance had occurred. The cholera was not so extensive and fatal in its consequences as previous advices had led us to apprehend. The returns of the number of deaths, according to the authorised report of the Hegistrar- General for the week ending November 11th, from all causes, amounted to 1165, being eleven beyond the average weekly return of the five preceding years. A few cases had taken place at Glasgow. In France, as the day approached for settling the Presidency of the Republic, the friends of General Cavaignac and Prince Louis Napoleon were becoming more earnest and intriguing. The chances were about equal. If the latter should be selected another outbreak was expected. The fdtes of the Constitution terminated peaceably. The state prisoners had arrived in Dublin from Clonmel, and the proceedings in the writs of error had commenced. A report prevailed in London when the Diamond sailed, that the contract for conveying the mails, via India, to the Australian colonies, had been obtained by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, and that it would commence with the January mail. Sir Robert Gardiner had been appointed Governor of Gibraltar, in place of Sir Robert Wilson, whose period of service had expired. We find the following in the Times of the 9th November: — The Assemble Nationale has a letter from London, stating, that some days ago the members of the ex- royal family of France narrowly escaped being poisoned. All of them were simultaneously attacked after dinner with acute pains, and the exDuke de Nemours having drunk nothing but a glass of water, the few drops that remained were analysed, and found to contain a very strong dose of very virulent poison, produced by the decomposition of the copper of the conduit pipes and reservoirs by which Claremont house is supplied. The medical treatment of Dr. Clarke soon neutralized the effects of the poison, and restored the sufferers to health." — Sydney Morning Herald. [From the New Zealander, March 23.] We have been favoured with the perusal of the Sydney Morning Herald, of the 12th current. Four ships from England had arrived the previous day ; namely, the Columbus, Post Office packet, the George, from Cowes the Bth, the St. Vincent, with emigrants, from Plymouth, the 13th, and the Diamond, full of passengers, from London the 9tb, and Plymouth the 19th of November. There is very little news of any kind. The question of the extension of steam communication to these colonies is but a question still. Rumour insinuates that the January mails would be transmitted by steam. If so, they must shortly be here, as eighty-nine days have since elapsed, and, if our recollection serves, seventy-two or three days were all that was supposed to be requisite to reach New Zealand.