MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 585, 12 March 1851, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Marquis of Hastings, who is an ensign in the 52nd regiment, stationed at Liverpool, fell into one of the docks in that port, and narrowly escaped drowning. Upwards of £6OO have been subscribed towards a monument to the poet Wordsworth. M. Jacqnand, the celebrated French por-trait-painter, has just finished a full-leugth portrait of the Nepaulese Ambassador, and a copy of it is to be placed in one of the galleries at Versailles.

A grand exposition of agricultural uroduce will be held at Versailles, on the Sth instant, in the Grands Ecuries in the Place d’Armes’ opposite the Palace. It is expected that the show of oxen, sheep, and horses, will be unusually fine.

About 600 hands in the employ of Sir Elkanah Armitage, an extensive manufacturer oi iicxs, nankeens, &c., have turned out, and refused to recommence working until they are paid “according to the same rates for the same work that is given at other manufactories."

The Queen’s Hotel at Cheltenham, which cost £47,000, including the land, and the original rental of which was £2,100 per annum, was offered for sale by auction last week. The highest bidder was £14,900, and it was bought in st £lB,OOO.

A mail coach in the French department of the Indre et Loire was totally consumed by fire on Sunday last, owing to the imprudence of a passenger who was smoking. On the Ist of September the hundreth anniversary of the erection of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ Synagogue took place in Kingston (Jamaica). On the same day a black female, who recollects the erection of the building, died at the very advanced age of 150 years. Madame Poitevin, the wife of the wellknown aeronaut, a few days ago, at Paris, made a balloon ascent from the Hippodrome, on the horse which her husband employs. She was dressed in a riding-habit, and, before starting, paraded round the Hippodrome. She rose slowly amidst the applause of the spectators. Her husband and another person WPFP SPOtPfl in o par nlnnnJ 1 " .u piavcli auuvc ucit It is stated, that, owing to reductions in the number of hands employed, by the late strike on • the Eastern Counties Railway, there are between 200 and 300 railway hands of various classes in Stratford alone without em ploy m ent. — Essex Standard. The mansion-house and lands of Priorbank, Melrose (Scotland), were sold last week to W. Tait, Esq., late publisher of Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, for the sum of five thousand guineas. Priorbank was purchased by General Hugh Gowdie, commander of the Forces in India about forty years ago. Two fires occurred in Liverpool on Saturday night. The extensive oilworks of Messrs. Bankcroft & Co., in Upper Frederick-street, were burnt to the ground, and it is stated that the stock is not insured. The other fire, which is less extensive, occurred at a small inn near Dale-street, and a child, four years old, was burnt in bed.

Newly discovered Metal.—According to a paper read before the Stockholm Academy of Sciences, a new metal has been discovered by M. Ulgren, and has received the name of Aridium. This substance is found principally in the chrome-iron ores of Reoras. Its oxides show some analogy to those of iron, but may be distinguished from them by several reactions. Thus, with prussiate of potash, a solution of the peroxide gives, indeed, like iron, a dark blue precipitate, but on adding excess of the prussiate, it passes into a dirty green. Metallic aridium has not yet been obtained.

The Daily News states that nine students have oeen expelled from the Royal Military Academy, Woolwie'j, inconsequence of some practices too ft nd atrocious to be psr= ticularised, and to investigate which the Master-General of the Ordinance had assembled a Committee of inquiry. Twenty three scholars have also been dismissed from the training school at Carshalton, and the principal of the school, Dr. Andrews, has been dismissed for not taking timely steps to crush the evil, when it became known. Plate Robbery.—Mr. Thomas Charles Sirrell, gold and silver refiner, of Barbican, a tradesman doing a large and profitable business of an apparently respectable character, was on Friday, the 4th October, arrested by the police on a charge of receiving a quantity of stolen plate with a guilty knowledge of the mode in which it was obtained. A large quantity of plate was stolen from the residence of the Rev. Mr. Richards, a Catholic clergyman, at Bootle, near Liverpool. The officers visited Mr. Sirrell’s on Wednesday, at noon, and seized goods to the value of £60,000. They telegraphed the seizure to Liverpool, and received instructions to arrest Mr. Sirrell ; they did this, and from discoveries they replied with directions to arrest parties at Liverpool ; this was also done, and Mr. Sirrell has been taken before the Liverpool magistrates. Since his apprehension the prisoner’s shop has been closed. Notwithstanding the apparently fair system of business, it is notorious that the police have constantly bad their eye upon it; and whenever a large robbery of plate was known, immediate caution was given to Mr. Sirrell not to purchase any. Mr. Sirrell’s answer, however, was, that he gave a fair value to all, and that he could not use more discretion than he had all along shown. Crucibles were in daily operation at the house, and therefore, he had more than ordinary facilities for destroying the identity of silver. Some idea of the extent of his business may be formed from the circumstance that when he was informed that be must proceed to Liverpool, he inquired of his clerk what cash he would want, for he would only be away a few dajs or so ; the clerk said £l4OO might do, and Mr. Sirrell accordingly gave him a cheque for that amount, to meet the shop’s disbursements. On the 10th October, M'Auley, M‘Guire, and Mr. Sirrell, were brought before Mr. Rushton. The prisoners were all remanded, and the magistrate refused to take any amount of bail for the appearance of Mr. Sirrell. On the 17th October, the prisoners were again brought up, when they were committed for trial. When the police arrested Mr. Sirrell, last week, for receiving stolen plate from Liverpool, they examined his general stock and saw enough to induce them to seize the whole, on suspicion that it was the produce of robberies. It was removed from Barbican to the Scotland-yard station. By Monday a large portion of it was recognized. Mr. Lovegrove, of the London Coffee-house, claimed a number of spoons and forks. It has been ascertained that a pair of salt-cellars, part of the packets sent from Liverpool, were stolen from the house of Mrs. Tinly, a lady living iu that town. Sirrell and the other men were yesterday committed for trial. Attempt to Escape from Russian Tyranny.—Fatal Result.—A frightful tragedy has just been enacted on the Prusso-Po-lish borders. On the Ist of the present month, ten Tscherkessen delivered themselves up to the district commissary in Krussuitz, stating that they had deserted from the Russian garrison at Lowicz, because they were not permitted to return to their own country after having voluntarily served in the present campaign in Hungary. They were all well armed and mounted, and the district commissary, not knowing what to do with them, forwarded them to his superior officer, the landrath (provincial councillor) in Inowraclaw, together with a written reclamation of the fugitives from the commander of the Caucasian troop in Lawicz. The landrath enquired of them what they wanted, and why they fled ? The unhappy men all declared that they wished to take service in Prussia, being disgusted with the brutal ill-treatment they had met with from the Russian officers. They requested to be allowed to proceed to Berlin, but the landrath, whose name must not be omitted (Fernow), replied to them that that was impossible, and that they must deliver up their arms and allow themselves to be

reconveyed across the frontier, in obedience to the treaty between Russia and Prussia, which requires the immediate delivery to either of every deserter. They were then con-, ducted to barrack, which they refused to enter, saying they could accept none but free quarters. It was the intention of Landrath Fernow to have them disarmed the moment they entered. They then declared themselves willing to return to Poland, but refused to give up their arms on any account. The civil authorities then called in the aid of the military, and 30 dragoons were ordered to take their arms by force. Seeing the dragoons approaching, the Tscherkessen spurred their horses round and fled, pursued by the dragoons. During this flight several shots were fired b** both parties. A corporal of dragoons was shot dead, and several others wounded. Two wounded and one unwounded Tscheress were also taken prisoners, and the bodies of two dead were brought into Inowraclaw in the aftemOOD. T'hp tamainrlaw 1 ~ mtu inu null" ses on the roadside about 2000 yards from Moraclaw. Here they barricaded themselves in, and were formally surrounded. One house was set on fire, but the daring men fled into the other. Infantry was then ordered up from another neighbouring village. Fortv men arrived and opened a fire on the second house with rockets. It soon caught. Four or its courageous tenants rushed out of the door, nring their rifles, but were received with a shower of balls, which put an end to one and wounded the other three ; the fifth was burned io death in the house. An infantry private fell a victim to their rifles during the time they occupied the second house. In this incredible affair three Tscherkessen were killed and five dangerously wounded ; three of the latter connot survive their wounds, so that only four will be delivered up to Russia, iwoof the soldiers were killed, and four wounded. And all this blood was shed to deliver up ten innocent men to the tyranny of Russia, from which they had fled. The event created a great sensation in Prussia.

Ascent of Mont Blanc. —The following account of a recent ascent of Mont Blanc is given in Galignani's Messenger :—Great excitement was caused in the town of Chamouni on the morning of Wednesday, the 28th, in consequence of the departure of Mr. Gretton, late sth Fusileers, and Mr. Richards, of the county of Wexford, Ireland, with a party of mountaineers, for the purpose of ascending to the summit of Mount Blanc. Crowds as- • ornhlnH _* . % •» — nuucaa LUVLL SiarL- aS me BSZaTGous nature of the ascent was well known, their guides having left their watches and little valuables behind, and the two gentlemen made their wills and prepared for the worst. The ascent is always accompanied with great peril, as steps have to be cut up the sloping banks of the ice. and one of the larn-Ast olario.c k.. to be crossed, where one false step entails certaie death. A night has to be passed on the cold rock, and spots have to be traversed where not a word can be spoken lest thousands of tons of snow should be set in motion, and hurl the party into eternity, as was the case some years back when a similar attempt was made. At three o’clock the report of a cannon at Cbamouni announced that our adventurous countrymen had gained the Grand Mulets, the rock on which they were to take up their quarters for the night.’ The next day all was excitement —nothing else was thought of in the town. The Flegere and Brevan were crowded with anxious observers. About eleven o’clock the fog clearing away from the summit of the Father of the Alps, the little band were seen to be slowly approaching the top, and a few minutes after, the report of a cannon in Chamouni announced the undertaking successful. The clouds, however, soon obscured them from our view, and we saw nothing more of them until about half-past seven p.m., when, preceded by some of the best music Chamouni afforded, and carried on the backs of some enthusiastic Frenchmen, they were received at the Hotel de Londres with loud cheers, firing of cannon, and exprassions of delight at their safe return. The guides give DraisD KotK iYontio«v,n». o WWW iUI me VUUHIUb'S and courage they displayed. The Railway Wonders of Last Year. The unblushing individual who inflated the first bubble prospectus in the early days of scheming must regard, if he be still in existence (and we have good rssson to believe that he lives a prosperous gentleman,) with superlative amazement the last report of her Majesty’s railway commissioners. When in his dazzling document the preposterous “ promoter ’’ certified the forthcoming goods’ transit at six times the amount his most sanguine “ traffictaker’’ could conscientiously compute; when he quadrupled the boldest calculations —when, in short, he projected his prognostics beyond the widest bounds of probability, and then added a few cyphers at the end of each sum, to make “ round numbers”—he was not so mad as to believe that be lied in the least like truth. Mad as he was not, he never could have supposed that $n after-time would come when his

lying prospects would be pronounced as far short of, as his mendacious imagination endeavoured to make it exceed, the truth. But that time has ariived. We should like to see the expression of his countenance while conning the report of her Majesty’s Commissioners of Railways for the last year. At the end of every sentence he would be sure to exclaim, “ Who would have thought it ?” When the schemer in the infancy of the giant railway system turns to the passenger-account for the year 1849, he declares he is fairly •“ knocked over.” He finds that the railway passengers are put down at sixty-three millions eight hundred thousand ; nearly three times the number returned for 1843, and a hundred times as many as took to the road in the days of stage coaches. The passengers of 1849 actually double the sum of the entire population of the three kingdoms In short, in everything, except the dividends, our scheming friend finds that recent fact nas outstripped hits early fictions. He told the nervous old ladies and shaky “ half-pays” on his projected line, that railways are quite as safe as stage coaches—What say the grave records of 1849 ? The lives of five prssengers were lost during that year, and those by one accident—a cause, of course, beyond the control of the victims; eighteen more casualties took place, for which the sufferers had themselves alone to blame.—'Five lives lost by official mismanagement, out of sixty-four millions of risk, is no very outrageous proportion ; especially when we reflect that, taking as a basis the calculations of 1843, the number of miles, travelled over per rail during last year, may be set down at eight hundred and forty-five millions ; or nine times the distance between the earth and the sun. —Dickens' Household Words,