ENGLISH NEWS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 424, 25 August 1849, Page 3

ENGLISH NEWS.

The weather in London during the Easter week had been unuMially cold, and in the early part of the week following (April 16 & 17) the squares and more open parts of the metropolis were covered with snow. The Epsom races were postponed in consequsnce of the course being covered with snow. A vessel was about to be despatched with four hundred male convicts to Moreton Bay, New South Wales, a great number of ih-n* being Pentonville exiles who, from good conduct, have had their sentences mitigated. Hts Royal Highness Prince A.bert laid i ihe first stone of the New Docks at Great Grimshy, Lincolnshire, on the 18th of April. An immense concourse of spectators was present, by whom his Royal Highness was enthusiastically received. A full report o! the Cohden banquet proceedings at *\ akefield in Yorkshire, occupying thiee close columns in length was transmitted by the electric telegraph to the limes, in which the whole, down to their close near 12 p.m., was published by 3 a.m. ; the whole process (>f reporting, transcribing, telegraphiog, re-tianscriliing, tjpe setting, and printing, being accomplished — actually finished — at one end of the countiy in less than four hours alter the words were spoken almost at the oilier end of it. A Hampshire journal calculates that nearly i 10,000 lbs., of tobacco have been smuggled ] into Ports-mouth by the seamen and marines of her Majesty's ships Plumuer, Reynard, Sidon, St. Vincent, and Polyphemus, which have recently arrived at that port irom Gibraltar. This smugj rg has been effected in ■ spite of the peculiar vigilance of ihe Customs' I officers, who have, however, nrtde more titan 20 seizoies, ami have obtained convictions against several of the smugglers. j Private letters from Bologna announce, that the celebrated composer Rossini has become insane, in consequence of a furious attack made upon him by the Ultra-Republicans of that city, by which his life" was endangered. Field Marshal Wiudischgratz had resigned the command of the Austrhn ermy, and General VVeldc'u had been appointed his successor. A letter from Turin of the 15th April an- ■ ounces that the peasants throughout Tuscany had risen in favour of the Grand Duke. Guerazzi had fled to Leghorn. A splendid dinner was given to Mr, Macready in the " Verandah" at New Orleans on the 24tn March. General Lewis presided; and many of the first j ersons in the city including several judges were present. The convict Rush was executed at Norwich for the murders at Suufield Hall, on the 2 1st April. An account had been published of the marriage of Jenny Lind to a Mr. Harris at Bath, which was subsequently contradicted. A grand ball was given at Boulogne to the English visitors. The theatre was enlarged for the occasion, and Irom 1800 to 2000 persons were present, including a numerous attendance oi English ladies. A new opera by Meyerbeer entitled Le Prophete w<»s performed for the first lime at the French Opera a: Paris, April 16rh. The subject is the elevation of John of Leyden, the celebrated Anabaptist, to the sovereignty of Munster. The piece was brilliantly successful. Among the stage effects a rising sun, represented by means of the electric light, is described as dazzling the eye like the real orb of day. A skating dance is also introduced, the stage being made to represent a frozen lake, with a leafless forest covered with snow in the background. The " last scene of all" represents the blowing up of John of' Leyden's palace by his own hand aud the burning of the city, in which the horrors of a re 1 fire are depicted with so terrible an approach to reality that " all the spectators shuddered with dismay, and involuntarily locked behind them to see whether the d >ors were open in order thatthey might escape in time." Mr. Duffy had been tried a second time but the jury would come to no decision. Half were for a verdict of guilty and the other halt for an acquital. Ultimately they were discharged and Mr. Duffy was admitted to bail. According to the Registrar General's return the number of deaths in London for the week ending. April 21, was 1066, being an, excess of 103 on the spring average. Of these were only two cases of influenza and two of cholera. A duel was fought by M. Ledru Rollin and M. Denjer in consequence of a dispute between them in the Chamber during the sitting en the 11th April. Shots were exchanged but no mUchief done. The French Go-_ vernment had determined on sending an arAllied force to occupy Ctvita Vecchia the principal seaport of the Roman States. General Oudiuot who takes the command of the expedition, .which is to- consist of 14,000 men, left Parfe6l7th' ofoApriJifor Toulon. ' Sir :G.- Anderson, C.B. — (-From last .nijjht's.cGazrf/eV) -r- Downiog-stree,t, Mai ch 22/ lS49?~Tbt Queen hai been graciously

pleased to give orders for the appointment ef Sir George William Anderson, Krit., Governor and Commander-in- Chief in and over the island of Mauritius and its dependencies, to be an .Ordinary Member of the Civil Division of tl c Third Class, or Companions of Most Hon. Order -of the Ball). Sir Oeorge sails i tl>i>. morning on board the Carnulic for life Mauritius.

A Fkmale General. — The lovely family of the Emperor Nicholas was brought up from the ctadle by English nurses and governesses, under the superintendence of an old Scotchwoman, who was under nurse to the present Emperor in his infancy. This individual holds the rank of general officer (for everything in Russia is measured by a military scale), and has been decorated with the Order of St. Andrew, eniiobled and enriched. Some five-and-forty years igo she came a servant girl to Russia in a Scotch tradei's family, who turned her adrift iv St. Petersburg!!. A lucky chance piocured her the situation of under nurserymaid in the Emperor Paul's family, where she was placed about the persotr of the present-Emperor to teach him to speak English. His attachment to her was so great that when he married , lie raUed her to the head of his nurseiy establishment, where she' lias honourably gone, through all 'he military gradations cf rank to her present one of General. 1 suppose si c will die a field- marshal. — M iss Romer's Bird of Passage. The " Nemesis of Faith," an open attack on Ci ristianity, and indeed on religion of every kind, might, notwithstanding the ability displayed in some portions of the argument, have been passed over with the indifference best adapted to all such perversities of intellectual power, but for reitain intrinsic circumstances connected with it. In the first place, though not less remarkal-le for its oftensive tone than for the exiravagance of its i< fidelity, it is the production of Mr. J. A. Fronde, brother of the zealot so distinguished in the early history of Pusejism ; and himself, until very recently a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. Since the publication of his book, however, he has resigned his fellowship, judiciously acting upon the hint given him by the authorities ol the College, »h>> had caused a copy of the " Nemesis of Faith " to be burnt, iv due form, at the hall rire. Secondly, before the woik appeared, the Council «f London University College were it quested by the directors of a school recently founded in Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land, to select a master for that seminary; and not knowing, it is presumed, what Mr. Froude had in the press, most unluckily ; selected him as one peculiarly qualified to become the instructor ol colonial youth. A. . choice so singularly illjudged, which render^ the council obnoxious to the charge of unpardonable carelessness ai the very least, has not, of couts?, abated the popular piejudice against "godless colleges." University College was founded avowedly on the principle of excluding religious instruction ; but this principle, the oily one on which a national system of secular education can be based in a community divided into numberless religious sects, will be subjected to a new and invidious construction, if those who adopt it not merely abstain from teaching religion, but 'exert themselves to promote irreligion.