ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 587, 19 March 1851, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Hi has been entertaining herself !tic feats of our brawny friends, ers. ightful accident has taken place rn Counties, a train having dashit a gang of workmen before they t of the way. The very fact of a gross negligence somewhere. ,sses but on every line in England 3|e gangs are at work on all sides, and if this IKrt of accident were to be amongst those Mhich cannot be prevented, a railroad would Me the worst of executioners. It is true there Pfas a fog, but are the railroad labourers to be

Hilled in dozens every November? As the ■Kquiry is adjourned, we do not feel justified saying all that we should otherwise. Ht. The address of the Synod of Thurles lias len published ; it is little more than a violent jtribe against the colleges. For some years st the Pope has chosen the Roman Catholic elates almost exclusively for their views on ucation, and, contrary to all precedent, has Jjgptsed over the names given by the priesthood, IHid selected men of his own. Notwithstandthe more violent of the resolutions condemnatory of the colleges, were passed by the majority of only a single vote ; and the minhave published a protest against them, suspension of ecclesiastics connecting / fymselves with the colleges, and the admonrHljbn efthe laity against attending them have gget with the most decided disapproval, not Barely of the very large minority of the Synod, grat one of the whole body of the Roman Cathd|ic gentry.

of Carrier Pigeons taken by Sir John Ross.—We {North BriwKph Mail) have learned from a private source, Mwiat on Friday last two of the carrier pigeons Bnken out by Sir John Ross when he left the Hirt of Ayr, and'some of which were to be BHgspatched home in the event of his either Sir John Franklin or being frozen in, HH|rrived at Ayr, finding their way at once to Ualie dove cot which they occupied previous to taken away. The birds, we under- ? Hand, arrived within a short time of each ■'"ltther, but neither of them conveyed anything Km the shape of a letter or note of any kind. BWne of them seems to have had some docuWpent attached, but which has apparently been MEhot away. The time they were liberated by ■Mir John Ross is of course uncertain, but ia|jS|ferig into consideration the well known powgfeffirs of flight possessed by the cartier pigeon, |||g cannot be very long since they left our gal|g||»nt countrymen. The distance the creatures have traversed . cannot be far short of

00 miles. Sir John Ross, we believe, ik five pigeons with him, which, it may be I I membered, were stated in the last accounts ceived of him, to have been at that time all ive.— London Doily News, Oct. 24. Growth of Cotton in India.—lt will ! recollected that in the month of June last tr. Bright brought forward a motion in the ouse of Commons, in the following terms: -“That an humble address be presented to r Majesty, praying her Majesty to appoint commission to proceed to India to inquire to the obstacles which prevent an increased ■owth of cotton in that country ; and to rent upon any circumstances that may be und injuriously to affect the industrial con.lioii of the native population, being cultivars of the soil, within the presidencies of bmbay and Madras.” The Government, iwever, did not assent to the appointment of je Commission, It is now understood that |s|||e Manchester Chamber of Commerce has a,..ZWsolved on sending out to India a special SaEgfammissioner; and that the gentleman to jjjyiom this important and onerous service will, all probability, be entrusted, is Mr. Alexigajpder Mackay, the author of “The Western SE'Orltl,” a work on the United States of ggimerica, which deservedly enjoys a high reijTgrfeut ation.— Morning Chronicle. Hayti.—ln the Island of Hispaniola, now fohfeuomi noted Hayti, so jealous are the swarthy ■jWiabitants of those rights which they have acthat every white man. is viewed with |3|i|spicion ; and, to prevent his gaining any Ei|Ogree of superiority, he is placed under a g||iriety of disabilities by the laws which have established in this ex-Queen of the White men may reside on the Bftwand ; but they are expressly forbidden to gSgfcrchase land, or even to inherit any such peraoent property, in what manner soever it have been acquired. A white merchant fj|» a y import cargoes, and ship them off to other Ullgiands ; but the produce of the country is Wf aceJ u °der an interdiction, and secured from j unhallowed touch. He may procure a SjHMihood by his labour; but the merchandise 1 ..Tn' 1 ' le 13 permitted to import he dares not ''ms’ 11 33 a retailer, He is viewed as a being W® 10 ’ s degraded from his forfeited rank in soand the descendants of his fathers ! ||jS av<?B exact from him that homage which his ggogenitors once extorted from their ancestors.

To a negro, whether male or female, who has acquired wealth and respectability, he is expected to pull off his hat, when he meets either in the streets; and to avoid disagreeable consequences, he reluctantly submits to this ordeal of humiliation. The black ladies are particularly alive to these punctilios, and consider themselves insulted when the etiquette of homage is not paid. They rarely omit to remind the sons of their former masters of their new duties, and to express themselves in the language of indignity, which however unpleasant to hear, must not be resented. The principal object which they seem to have in view, in suffering white men to reside among them, is on account of their superior attainments in the arts, which they find it necessary to cultivate. But on all occasions, they are taught to

Know their station ; but little doubt can be entertained that when their services are no longer required, their presence will be dispensed w’ith On the st«itc of ths morals o£lhs Haytians, it will be almost unnecessary to make anything like a comparative estimate, until a previous question is decided, namely, whether or not they have any. Among the lower orders, the intercourse between the sexes is almost promiscuous ; not one, scarcely out of a hundred knows anything about marriage. For a man to have as many women as he can procure, is tolerated by law, and sanctioned by established custom. To these he may adhere if he thinks proper; but should he spend his time with others he has little consciousness of turpitude, and knows nothing of responsibility. Among these domestic hordes quarrels frequently happen ; and, when they { occur, the man takes his departure with indifference, leaving the women and children to load his memory with reproaches, and to provide for their own support. But notwithstanding these melancholy instances, no provision is made by law for the maintenance of the poor ; and this furnishes a reason why legislative authority has never interposed in these departments of domestic life. Residing in a climate which'seems congenial to deminakedness, they view clothing as an article of subordinate consideration: and while they can procure plantains and a little fish, they feel but little solicitude for other food. In this state of indolent tranquillity and moral depravity, bearing a striking resemblance to that of the aboriginal inhabitants, many thousands spend their days with but few anticipations either for time or eternity. Among the higher orders vice has not resigned its dominion ; polygamy is not considered as dishonourable, and other modes of life are scarcely branded with the name of sensuality. The intercourse, however, is less promiscuous than among the inferior classes, and marriage is a term that exists in something more than a mere name. —Colonial Magazine.

Y! * s -n X 17.11 V* LZA33 1/rxUfiA 11UIX . in iob « • UHdUC S ILLventions consist in principle, of imitations of gold and silver in glass, without the use of either metal—of the perfection of actual gilding or silvering under an almost invisible, yet magnifying coat of glass—or a peculiar mode of adding metallic and pearly brilliancy to colours, to painted and stained figures, and to engravings, ail in glass—of imitations of marbles, alabaster, malachite, &c., in glass covered compositions—of imitations of precious stones —and of other inventions. Among various forms under which these are brought into use in architectural decoration by Mr. Holthrop, to whose management they are committed, are those of ceilings, in which a combination of them, with a peculiar mode of enamelling in white or pale blue on the inner surface of the interspace in glass, (another of this lady’s numerous inventions, also applied with good effect to framed engravings), is capable of producing a dazzling effect, particularly by night, with a good or even an indifferent, light reflecting from it. Mouldings and cornices are made to harmonise with the effects, and the same combinations, varied with the pearly brilliance of painted flower wreaths, and wreaths of silver engraved on a gold surface, all in glass, are made to adorn the walls in form of picture frames. Besides a number of these productions, in varied detail, we saw a specimen of stained glass decoration for windows, in form of armorial bearings, in vivid colours, made peculiarly sparkling and brilliant, and in some phases, pearly, by one of the processes already alluded to. One great feature in most of these inventions is, that the materials wherewith the effects are produced, wherever these consist of gilt copper mouldings, or even gilt paper, velvet, &c., are all protected, mostly within hollow mouldings ofglass, hermetically sealed, so that the gilding, &c., can never tarnish, and the whole is in this respect everlasting. So is it with the marble imitations, which are so firmly imbedded in composition that they are said to be quite well adapted to*'all the risks of exterior construction, for which they are designed, as wall us for chimney-pieces and other forms of interior decoration. Miss Wallace has proposed to the International Exhibition Commissioners, that the hall of glass be allowed In remain as a winter garden,

•pen to the public, and be decorated at small :ost by her processes. She also expects to ie able to exhibit, in 1851, a species of glass leprived in a great measure of its brittleness. Ihe next inventions to be noticed are those ff Mr. Hale Thomson, which, in principle, consist chiefly of a new mode of silvering all sorts of curved or other surfaces of glass, different from Mr. Drayton’s inasmuch as the nitrate of silver is held in a certain saccharine solution instead of oil ofcloves, thus insuring, I it is said, purity and permanence of colour, i As an ingenious mode of moulding, the silver I is’ lacquered on the glass between the outer and the inner surfaces, wherever, as in vases, cups, or other vessels, a double surface must be shown. The silver diaphragm or midriff, if we may be allowed so to call it, shining, the glass according to its colour produces similitudes of silver cups lined with gold, or purely of silver or of gold, so perfect in ap- I pearance as to have deceived the eve of a gold and silver-smith ; also ornamental vases and cups which vie with the ruby, amethyst, jacinth, emerald and other precious stones, in their vivid reflections of colours. One cup seemed actually to blaze within with the fiery colour of the jacinth, another looked as if it were full of the most sparkling and luscious wine, and a third as if it were hollowed out of one enormous sapphire. One pair of vases of large size and beautiful tint, delicately engraved as if in alto relievo on silver but in reality concave in all its rounded prominences, cost five hundred guineas. That, however, is an extreme price; two or three poundsappears to be the general cost of the smaller ornaments. The only application of this in vention, as yet to purposes more immediately architectural, at least which we observed, consisted of door-plates, with imitation knobs, apparently convex but really concave, and cut into the glass, with a colour like brass —a mere curiosity. Candlesticks showed, however, what might be done in ornamental pillars, cornices, or other decorations in apparent silver, gold, or translucid coloured stone. Metallic reflectors for light-house, railway, astronomical, or other purposes, protected of course, by a glassy surface, merit notice from their brilliance. — Builder.

Science of the Doctrine of Chances. —That doctrine of chances which so profoundly puzzled the ancient pundits is undergoing curious development in our day and generation. It is hardly too much to say that since the time of Price it has grown into a positive science. By its help, the fortuitous element bids fair to get banished from the world, and our social and moral affairs will then proceed with something like the regularity of the solar system. The Catalonians fancied they had plumbed the depths of occult science when they discovered the art and mystery o! calculating the neriodicity of storm and wreck ; they little dreamed that posterity would improve their principle until it covered almost everything in the shape of a human accident. We have found that in the seeming wildness of Nature’s caprices she is fixed and definite. Everything, we have discovered, is periodic. Of a million vessels sailing the ocean, the same number will be wrecked every decade, of a million houses, a similar number will be burnt, of a million living persons, so many will die. The extensiveapplication of this law is one of the most useful results of modern civilization. On every side we can take hostages from Fortune. A few pounds protects your household goods from fire, a few shillings secures the honesty of your servants, and a few pence enables you to travel on everv railway in the country harm-

less. A trifling outlay covers the death or dishonesty of your debtor, a moderate investment brings a fortune to your surviving children. In the moral region ihe series yields returns equally fixed. Of a million of merchants’ and lawyers' clerks, a certain number will yield to temptation and embezzle the money of their employers. Ar. instilution in London answers for character at a certain per centage, another guarantees the payment of all bills 1 We have not yet heard of a society to insure books from the malice of criticism or to carry a play safely through the terrors of a first night. But we see no reason why such an institution should not be. Here, as everywhere, we should find a regulating law. Some at least of the elements of a calculation are known. Of books, one in tbre» falls dead from the press, about one in ten pays the cost of publishing, not more than one in twenty leaves a profit. Of plays, probably not one in fifty ever arrives at the footlights ; of those that do, about one in five gets peremptorily damned, and the remainder “ fret their hour upon the stage, and then are seen no more.” A large majority of books come before us on which the risks would be very high. We wonder what would be the premium on a modern epic Atheneeum. Character of Dr. Johnson. —Johnson grown old—Johnson in the fulness of his fame and in the enjoyment of competent fortune —-is batter known to us than any other man in history. Everything about him, his

coat, his wig, his figure, his face, his scrofula, his St. Vitus’ dance, his rolling walk, his blinking eye, the outward signs which tooclearly marked the approbation of his dinner, bis indefatigable appetite for fish sauce and veal pie with plums, his inexhaustible thirst for tea, his trick of touching the posts as he walked, his mysterious practice of treasuring up scraps of orange peel, his morning slumbers, his midnight disputations, his contortions, his mutterings, his gruntings, bis puffings, his vigorous, acute, and ready eloquence, his sarcastic wit, his vehemence, bis insolence, his fits of tempestuous rage, bis queer inmates, old Mr. Levett and blind Mrs. Williams, the cat Hodge and the negro Frank—all are as familiar to us as the objects by which we have

been surrounded from childhood. But we

have no minute information respecting those years of Johnson’s life during which his character and his manners became immutably

fixed. We know him not as he was known

to the men of bis own generation, but as he

was known to men whose father he might have been. That celebrated club of which he was the most distinguished member contained few persons who could remember a time when his fame was not fully established, and bis

habits completely formed. He had made himself a name in literature while Reynolds and the Wartons were still boys. He was about twenty years older than Burke, Goldsmith, and Gerard Hamilton, about thirty years older than Gibbon, Beauclerk, and Langton, and about forty years older than Lord Stowell, Sir William Jones, and Windham. Boswell and Mrs. Thral.e, the two writers frsiH whom wo derivs most of our knowledge respecting him, never saw him till long after he was fifty years old, till most of his works had become classical, and till the pension bestowed on him by the Crown had placed him above poverty. Of those eminent men who were his intimate associates, towards the dose of his life, the only one, as far as we can remember, who knew him during the first ten or twelve years of his residence in the capital, was David Garrick ; and it does not appear that, during those years, David Garrick saw much of his fellow-towns-man. Johnson came up to London precisely at the time when the condition of a man of letters was most miserable and degraded. It was a dark night between two sunny days. The age of patronage had passed away. The age of general curiosity and intelligence had I not arrived. In the reigns of William the Third, of Anne, and of George the First, even such men as Congreve and Addison would scarcely have been able to live like gentlemen by the mere sale of their writings.

But the deficiency of the natural demand for literature was, at the close of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, more than made up by artificial encouragement, by a vast system of bounties and premiums. There was, perhaps, never a time at which the rewards of literary men were so splendid, at which men who could write well found such easy admittance into the most distinguished society, and to the highest honours of the state. The chiefs of both the great parties into which the kingdom was divided, patronised literature with emulous munificence. Congreve, when he had scarcely attained his majority, was rewarded for his first comedy with places which made him independent for life. Smith, through his Hippolytus and Phadra, would have been consoled with three hundred a year but for his own folly. Rowe was not only Poet Laureate, but also land Surveyor of the customs in the port of London, clerk of the council to the Prince of Wales, and secretary to the Presentations to the Lord Ciiauceilur. Hughes was secretary to the Commissioners of the Peace. Ambrose Phillips was judge of the Prerogative Court in Ireland. Locke was Commissioner of Appeals and of the Board of Trade. Newton was master of the Mint. Stepney and Prior were employed in embassies of high dignity and importance. Gay, who commenced life as an apprentice to a silk mercer, became a secretary of legation at five and twenty. It was to a poem on the death of Charles the Second, and to the City and Country Mouse, that Montague owed his introduction into public life, his earldom, his garter, and his ’ Auditorship of the Exchequer. Swift, but for the unconquerable prejudice of the Queen, ; would have been a bishop. Oxford, with his , white staff in his hand, passed through the crowd of his suitors to welcome Parnell, when ; that ingenious writer deserted the Whigs, f Steele was a Commissioner of Stamps and a Member of Parliament. Artbur Mainwa- • ring was a Commissioner of the Customs and > Auditor of the Imprest. Tickle was secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland. Addison was Secretary of State. — Macaulay. i Generosity Rewarded.—As the two Neapolitan * pifteiari,’ who have been of lat& i going through the streets of Paris playing 5 the musette, were yesterday following their . usual avocation of picking up a plentiful barr vest of sous in the Rne Tailbout, a poor blind man, who was playing the flageolet oa

the opposite side of the street, missed his step and fell. The Neapolitan who was acting as collector, after looking to his comrade for assent, went over to the blind man and handed him the money he had just received, adding the words, ‘You are worse off than we are!’ A bystander remarked to him, ‘ You have done a noble act!’ ‘Ah, ah!' remarked the other, ‘charity is not yet dead in France!’ And, as if every one heard him, money was thrown down on the instant from all the windows in the street. — Galignani.

A Picture of Humility.—The Church and State Gazette tells an anecdote of the Hon. Mr. Spencer, now ‘ Father Ignatius -—Habited in the garb of the Passionate order, bareheaded and barefooted, he applied to a cabman in the Strand to carry him to Buckingham Palace to see his sister, Lady Lyttelton. The cabman, looking knowingly at the rev. gentleman, replied, ‘ No, no, poor fellow! "What Asylum have you made your etcape from ?’ and declined accepting his fare, though offered in advance.