ENGLISH EXTRACTS,

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 491, 17 April 1850, Page 2

ENGLISH EXTRACTS,

Lord Campbell, it is understood, has declined writing the lives of the three Lords Chef Justices, namely, Kenyon, Ellenborougb, and Tenterden ; assigning as his reason, that though he remembered Kenyon, and had pleaded before Ellenborough and Tenterden, all three were too recently dead for the truth to be told, having surviving relatives sure to take offence if the lives were written in the manner in which he should wish to write them. Thus the very argument — a knowledge of the men — which best enables Lord Campbell to write the lives in question, forms the not improper ground for his refusal. — Athenceum. In a recent lecture at King's College Hospital, Dr. Farre related a not uncommon occurrence, and there is a proverb as applicable to doctors as to cooks : " A woman brought to me a strumous child, whom I perceived to be suffering from ophthalmia. I was about to direct my attention to the eyes, when I was stopped by the mother, who informed me that 1 his eyes were under Mr. A — .' I was thenr about to examine the limbs, ' His limbs, Sir,-; are under Mr. P — .' • Why, then,' I inquiredg have you brought him to me V * For hisstomach, sir, his stomach.' " '

.Rise of the Pictorial Press. — At thej annual dinner of the Artists' Amicable > Soj riety, on Wednesday, M. Limdells sketched

in mn interesting manner the riie of the pictorial press. He rejoiced in being able to bear testimony to the success of the union which of late years had subsisted between the pen and the pencil. There were three flourishing works in existence that placed the utility of the combination, if he might be allowed the term, beyond a doubt. The success of the Pitkwick Papers, which gave birth to one atyle of illustration, was in the first instance due more to the artist's pencil than the author's pen. It was not generally known that poor SeymoOr conceived the characters of Pickwick and Sam Weller before even a line of the work was written, and it was ever to be regretted that the success which attend- ' ed the conception resulted in the death of the * author. Then, again, there was the immortal ; Punch, vrhich owed its popularity to- artists ; for s veral months after he was brought oul 'he was a losing concern, but a happy idea ol • Harry Matthew, of bringing out an illustrated Punch's Almanac, profusely illustrated, placed Punch in a position which he has never receded from. The last instance of the success of the union was the Illustrated NewSi We remember the day when that also was a losing affair, but it was suggested to the proprietors, on the occasion of the Queen's first visit to Scotland, that they should send artists to follow her as the daily papers did reporters. '""They adopted the suggestion, and the success of it coald be seen in the immense number ol papers sold during the recent visit of Her Majesty to Ireland. The fact was the system of illustrating newspapers, and such like publications was as yet only in its infancy. A the public taste increased illustrated works would multiply^ and it was, therefore, for the interest of both high and low art to encourage and promote such periodicals.

An Evil and its Remedy. — "In London, a gin-shop is obviously a gin-shop, and the woman who enters it can hardly pretend that she does so for any other purpose than that of taking a dram ; consequently no respectable servant maid is likely to find herseli within the seductive influence of a retail spirit shop. Not so in Scotland, where licenses are granted for retailing spirits to grocers, who retail groceries and spirits in the same shop. Every maid servant, therefore, who enters the grocer's shop, for the purchase of a little brown sugar or any other grocery article, finds herself exposed to the temptation of a glass of whisky. Nor is this temptation confined to the purchase of a glass oi spirits. It is the general custom of { grocers in the Scottish towm to offer their cnstomers of this class a glass of whisky gratis ; an offer which it would be too great a stretch oi charity to suppose is generally declined. The habit of drinking ardent spirits is therefore induced among a class in Scotland who enter upon it without any loss of character, as they wouhl in England, owing to the different class of shops in which spirits are retailed in the two countries respectively." Thus writes a Scotchman about a national evil. Here is the remedy : — Let the magistrates, who alone have power in the case, refuse to grant the certificate on which the Excise license to retail spirits is obtained. If, in the presence of an evil of the most demoralising nature, they refuse to apply the remedy, a heavier responsibility than we should like to bear must rest upon them.

American Enterprise. — Upon this subject a gentleman in New York gives some interesting particulars. — " I bad a visit to-day from Mx. Sidell, an engineer just returned from the Isthmus of Panama, where he was the chief of a division that explored, surveyed and marked out the line of railway from the river Chagres to Panama. Nothing can he conceived equal to the energy, the cleverness, the perseverance and the talent, which the emigrants to California displayed while waiting in crowds at Panama for conveyance to San Francisco. They built schooners almost without" materials — without the necessary tools ; they replenished their purses by a thousand ingenious contrivances; they were never at a loss, and never without hope. Their presence on the Isthmus has caused a new set of ideas to spring up in the minds of the New Grenadians, and trade, agriculture, and commerce, have revived in that country under the stimulus of their example. To jgive you an idea of their operations, I will relate a single circumstance. Livingston, Wells, and Coate, of this city, early last winter resolved to establish an express conveyance across the Isthmus. They established a house at San Francisco, and placed three agents between Chagres and Papama to take care of their property. They sent out an iron store home and an iron life boat, rowing twelve oars and carrying tails, to navigate the river. The boat, though weighing but eight hundred pounds and drawing but eight inches of water, was dot able to ascend the rivers in dry seasons.' The principal agent therefore took his opportunity, and sold her to a party of emigrants at double her cost. These persons, undertook to carry her across the • Isthmus. jßy the mule path then in use it would haVe

been impossible ; so they took her up a branch of the Chagres river above Gorgona, dragged «nd floated her by turns along its bed, then cut a way through a level forest a few miles, and launched her again in a small stream which emptied into the Pacific, and was navigable at certain times of the tide. They all embarked and arrived safely at Panama. The boat was afterwards sent up to San Francisco, and realised several thousand dollars profit. —

Spectator. Assassination in Romb. —The Constitutional publishes a long letter from Rome, 23rd September, from which the following is an extract: —" Assassination during the last days of the Roman Republic was an expedient of the secret societies. A band of hired assassins, gorged with wine, were charged with these executions ordered by invisible chiefs. In a general way these odious acts were coloured by some pretext. In one case it was a spy who had perished ; in another a traitor whom popular indignation had punished. The murderers,, remained anonymous; the murderers were never officially known. Nevertheless, in tbe cafes and in the public places they boasted of their exploits, and their crimes were for them a claim to honour. The executions of St. Calixta have leen denied ; but nothing is more certain or more authentic. A man such as is produced by revolutions —sauguiDary by nature, and carrying off his ciiraes by a sort of ferocious joviality —Zambianchi had under his orders some soldiers of the finance, or Customhouse officers, men who were rendered fanatics by his words and by his example. He established his head-quarters in the small church of Saint Calixta, in the centre of the Transterere. His emissaries brought in his victims, and be himself pronounced sentence on them. The execution took place in the night, and the bodies were interred in the garden. Tbe number who were thus made away with is' estimated at twenty, which is no exaggeration. Eight bodies which had been buried in that fatal spot have been recognised. In this manner the life of the cure of the Minerve was sacrificed, a man of the most exemplary character. The cause of his being arrested and taken before Zambianchi is not known. He was brought before him while the assassin leader was at dinner, who told him to sit down, adding that when his repast was finished he should have him put to death. On hearing this the poor priest was seized with a fit of agitation, when Zambianchi said to hira^ ' What, you are about to have the honor" of manyrdom, and yet yon tremble V 'My son,' replied the priest, ' I pray to God that at the hour of your death you may not tremble more.' As soon as the demagogue had dined, the cure was taken out and shot at the toot of a tree in tha garden, Zambianchi looking at the execution from a window. Carrier could not have done better. The glorious swords of our soldiers put an end to these infamies, but assassination continued seveial days after the entrance of our troops into Rome. One priest was killed in a small street, near the Place Colonna, occupied by our regiments, and two others were put to death on the St. Angelo Bridge. The murder of several French soldiers testified the rage felt by those wretches, who, thanks to our intervention, lost the honor and the profit of their sanguinary dictatorship. Some days after the capture of Rome, one of our soldiers asked his way of a passer by, who took some pains to point it out to him. This person was a French priest, the Abbe Rhodez. He was followed by several Italians, and, at the corner of the street, he received two stabs from a poignard. The assassins then ripped up his body, tore out his entrails, and twisted them round his neck. The wretch who ga\e tbe first blow was named Trabalza ; he was condemned to death by our court-martial."

French Affairs. — Amnesty and condemnation divide the Attention of France at present. President Bonaparte has issued a partial amnesty for persons imprisoned on account of the' insurrection in June, 1849, by which seren out of twelve hundred are set fr«e. The remaining five hundred are in prison for " other offences" — mostly, however, of a sort collateral to the main offence. This step displeases the extreme parties on both sides. Of the Conservatives it is a sheer defiance. To the Mountain it is a boon void for imperfectness — that party demands the freedom of the other five hundred. But the important trait of the affair is the absolute independence assumed by the President : be " cuts" all parties in the assembly, takes his own course, and makes a decided hit at popularity. The trial of the prisoners at Versailles, for the demonstra'ion in June, 1849, has had more curious incidents, The prisoners tested their defence on a paradox, and were condemned on a repartee. They pleaded by implication that there was no insurrection ; and it is clear from the evidence that ua plot had been matured, although some of the leaders contemplated a plot if the opportunity should have turned up. But the conspiracy evaporated bVh/re it "could be put together. The

overt acts were incoherent improvisations. There was no insurrection properly so-called, but only, if we may so term it so, an insurgibility. The defence, however, rested on the abstract " right of insurrection," which is said to be guaranteed by law ! This is the national love of paradox surpassing the sublime. The constitution does grandiloquently confide itself to "ths patriotism and safekeeping of all Frenchmen ;'* and the Roman expedition was a clear violation of the clause which forbids intervention by arms against the people of a ioreign state ; but the idea of pleading a right to rebel, before the tribunal of the powers that be, shows a wonderful reliance on the indigenous love of antithesis. Of course the Judge said, that the law could not recognise the right to rebel, and the Advocate-Ge-neral Tery properly observed, that on the right to rebel against the Administration the National Assembly alcne could decide. On which duplex repartee, upholding the administrative right to set the constitution at nought, the Judge refused to hear the defence out! He wished to appoint counsel to plead some other defence more pleasing to the judicial mind : but the prisoners repudiated their defenders, and the advocates in court declined to defend the men against their will. So, in the midst of some altercation with the accused, the Judge severally sentenced different parties to transportation and imprisonment.- So much for the constitution, or the guarantees of legal forms. No party in France really venerates either ; the constitution is but a programme, and the Code Napoleon is made a startingpoint for eliminating a law & converso. France is governed by the sword —openly at some seasons, at other seasons by the sword sheatheJ with intrigue. —Spectator, Nov. 17.

Arrangement oe the Dispute with Morocco. — M. Vallat, the French consul at Mogador, has arrived at Paris. Before leaving he obtained all the satisfaction demanded and the usual salutes were exchanged between the fort and the French ships of war. — Atlas, Nov. 17.

Canada.—The British American league had been called together, to naee*t at Toronto, on the Ist November, to take into consideration matters of importance. The plan proposed to be pursued by the League was as follows :—Every branch of the League, in all the constituencies in Canada, is to agitate in its respective location, so as to induce its representative in the Provincial Parliament to vote for the introduction of a bill to authorise the assembling of the people of Canada, by means of delegates, in convention, for the purpose of determining on what changes in the constitution are necessary ; and having done so, a measure in accordance with their views is to be brought into Parliament, and, when carried, sent home for consideration to England. It is for this purpose that the convention of delegates of the British American League was to meet. A union of the North American provinces will also be considered. —Spectator. The private letters from New York by the Europa maintain the favourable tone which has characterised all the recent advices. Money was in slightly increased demand, but the stock-market continued firm, without the least variation from the pr'ces of the preceding'week. The news received from England by, the Hibernia to the 20th of October of the increasing excitement of the Liverpool cotton market had scarcely had time to produce its effect, but a rise tff half a cent was demanded, and fears were entertained that during the next few months a wild and dangerous business in cotton was to be looked for. There was nothing fresh from California, but a month's later news was expected by the Empire City, which would be dup in the course of four or five days. Upwards of 200 berths had already been taken for the return trip of that vessel, and the emigration both from Boston and New Yotk, large as it had hitherto been, seemed still on the increase. One new feature in the movement was, that in many cases entire families, instead of single individuals, were now embarking. The cargoes carried out consisted mostly of frame houses, bricks, and building materials, and in one instance there had been a considerable consignment of coffins. With regard to the project for the Nicaragua Cana\ a general feeling was entertained that it would be speedily carried out under a perfectly harmonious arrangement between the goverments of England, France, and the United States. — Times, Nov. 20.

Port Natal. — The following extract of a letter, with which we have been politely favored by the party to whom it was addressed, will be read with interest by those who have friends in this fast rising and important member of our colonial empire, ai well as by those who may be dubious as to what quarter of the world they shall fix upon as their future residence ; — " Captain Faddy, Royal Artillery, has recently relumed to PietMariizburgfiora a two months' hunting excursion in the interior. He started in April, having persuaded some of the Boers to drive their waggons in a north-west direc-

tion for twenty days, and go into a country abounding with game, of which they rendered a pretty good account, having shot 137-ele-phants, 42 buffaloes, 17 rhinoceros, 1 lion, &c. One night a lion killed one of the horses, having bit him through the fore arm. The animal dashed in at the horse' over all tho people. In the course of the trip the party discovered four new rivers, called by the natives the Pongolo, Umzuti, Umsbatus, and Guavoomo. The country through which they passed is well watered and woo Jed ; the natives are friendly, but poor, owing to the devasation occasioned by Panda's inroad about a year ago ; and another of this tyrant's visits was expected by the unfortunate Amazie. The party also fell in with several new nations, who have splendid horses, are most daring fellows, and speak a language not hitherto known. The party all returned well but thin, and in excellent condition to work. Every day seems to afford stronger proofs, as the country is better known, that it offers great advantages to settlers, and the attention of ..those emigrating has lately been turned towards it." — Bell's Messenger, Nov. 12.

Hayti. — The new Emperor of Hayti, Fauslin the First, has resolved to support his throne -by creating an aristocracy. He has accordingly created six Princes, and sixty Dukes, Marquises, and Barons. The creation of a new Duke with the title of Trou-Bonbon has excited much hilarity in the island. The constitution granted by the Emperor consists of 200 clauses ; the most remarkable feature in it is the hatred displayed towards the whites — " No white man, whatever be his nation," says one of the clauses, " can be allowed to remain on the Haytian territory as a master or proprietor, and cannot acquire the quality of Haytian." Another clause declares every African, and Indian, and their descendants, qualified to become Haytians. The other clauses enact that Hayti and the adjacent islands dependent thereon shall form the territory of the empire one and indivisible ; they guarantee liberty ; allow freedom of worship, but declare that the Catholic clergy shall be 1 specially paid and protected ; they allow liberty of the press, of instruction, and of trial by jury in criminal matters. There are to be two Assemblies ; a permanent Senate, nominated by the Emperor ; and a chamber of Representatives, elected for five years, but not sitting for more than four months in the year. The Senators and Representatives are to receive a monthly indemnity .of -200. gourdes (the gourde is about sf. 60c.) The Emperor is declared inviolable ; the imperial dignity is hereditary in a direct line, but to the exclusion of women ; a territorial property is to be provided for the crown, consisting of estates in cultivation, and the Emperor is besides to receive 150,000 gourdes a year, and the Empress 50,000. — French Papers.