New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, July 18, 1849.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 413, 18 July 1849, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, July 18, 1849.

The latest intelligence from England via Sydney by the William Alfred is to the Bth March. From the Sydney Morning Herald, which we have received to the 21st June, we learn that among the measures introduced in the House of Commons since our last advices, is a Bill by Mr. Lewis, one of the Under Secretaries of State, abolishing turnpike trusts and highway rates, and substituting in their place a county rate to provide the means of keeping the roads in repair and of paying off the debt incurred by the different trusts, now exceeding £8,000,000. In the House of Lords Earl Grey explained a new system of transportation ; those sentenced for seven, fourteen, or longer term of years are to be subjected to hard labour and reformatory discipline for the first twelve or eighteen months in an English gaol, and are then to be sent to hard labour on board ships or in gangs on public works at Bermuda or Gibraltar. The Irish Habeas C orpus Suspension Act was passed in the House of Commons by a majority of 168 to 13, and on the 26th February was passed by the House of Lords. The news of the fight at Chillianwalla had been received in England and had created a great sensation ; it was reported that Lord Gough would be superseded by Sir Charles Napier, as Commander-in-Chief, and that several regiments would be immediately sent out from England direct to India.

The Perseverance which arrived on Sunday from Port Cooper, had a quick run of twen-ty-two hours. The Fair Tasmanian had made a favourable passage to Port Cooper of twenty-two hours, and had landed Mr. Thomas aud his party, who had commenced the surveys of the Canterbury Settlement. We are sorry to learn that the house of Mr. Watson/ ,the police magistrate at Akaroa, has been destroyed by fire, which was so rapid in its progress that very little of the furniture or property it contained was saved. The cause of the fire was accidental.

On Wednesday last the semi .weekly mail between Wellington and the Hutt was dis r continued, as it was found after a trial of six months, that the greater part of the correspondence between the town and that district was kept up by means of the carters and others coming to Wellington, very few persons having availed themselves of the Post Office as a medium of communication.

On Saturday, including local mails, twenty mails, containing upwards of three thousand four hundred letters and newspapers were received at the Wellington post office. So unusually large a number of mails in one day made it late in the afternoon before the letters were ready for delivery, but with a view to the accommodation of the public, Mr. Hoggard kept the post office open until past seven o'clock in the evening so that nearly all the letters were distributed the same day. The William Alfred brought the January and February mails from Sydney, i

Owing to the prevalence of southerly weather- the" William Alfred was twenty-two! days on her passage 1 from Sydney. t'he^

barque Agenoria was to sail shortly after the William* Alfred; frith, horses and stock for *this,>l?o£t,~ so that she may be daily expected.