MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 668, 27 December 1851, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Colonial Empire.— In an able article headed “ Shall we retain our Colonies ?” the Edinburgh Review for April shows that the colonies ruled by the British sceptre, not including continental India, comprise an area of about four millions of square miles, inhabited by about six millions of souls, of whom at least a million and a half are British or of British descent, and average an annual import and export trade to the amount of nearly thirty millions sterling. It is shown, moreover, that, vast as has beenYhe progress of the United States i| has been not only equalled, but surpassed by the strides forward of our principal colonies in recent years. Between 1790 and 1850, the population of the United States multiplied from four millions to twenty-four, or an increase of 500 per cent. That of Lower Canada multiplied, between 1784 and 1848, from 130,000 to 770,000, or 600 per cent. ; and that of Upper Canada, between 1811 and 1841, from 77,000 to 723,000, or 840 per cent. Between 1830 and 1850, the United States population increased from 12,866,000 to 23,674,000, or not quite 83 per cent. ; while the population of the Australian group sprung up from 51,910 in 1826, to 350,000 in 1848, showing an increase of nearly 600 per cent, in twenty-two years. In commerce also the comparison is very favourable. While the commerce of North America and the Australian colonies (imports and exports) increased in seventeen years, between 1829 and 1846, from £8,150,000 to £14,900,000 yearly, or more than 80 per cent. ; that of the United h?.d in tne same period f.o i * > - 149,000,000 dollars to 235,000,000, or 60 per cent. It is shown, again, that as mere customers the colonies are of unrivalled value to the mother country. The total export of British pr. dace and manufactures, in the year 1849, was £53,843,000 of declared value; of which £16,594,000, or nearly one-third, went to the colonies, and only £9,565,000, or less than one-sixth, to the United States.— Sydney Herald. The Canadian legislature is awaiting the result of the negotiation between Sir Henry Bnlwer and the United States Government in regard to a reciprocity of trade. If this should prove ineffectual, measures of a retailatory character will be submitted to the Parliament. It is proposed to close the Welland Canal against American vessels bound to any port on the Lakes, no obstacle being presented to those which go direct from Lake Erie to the ocean. Mr. Merritt has introduced a set of resolutions, for apetition to the Queen, praying that England will impose on the productions of foreign countries the same rates of duties that these countries impose on the productions of British colonies. This proposal, though expressed in general terms, of course aims only at the United States. A Visit from Wild Elephants in India.—A curious incident took place at Manantoddy the other day, Six wild elephants took it into their heads to visit a thatched bungalow - belonging to Mr. Kennedy, a coffee planter, who was then absent at Calicut. Not finding the master at home to give them

a warm reception, they very unceremoniously walked into what was considered to be the hall, where a few jars of jam were lying on the table. They broke the jars one by one, and, after feasting on the contents, which they must have found really delicious, they went about searching the rooms formore; but finding none returned to demolish the unfortunatebungalow, a work which we are informed they accomplished in the twinkling of an eye. This done, they thought it high time to depart, leaving Mr. Kennedy’s domestics to pick up the fragmentsof the jars and bungalow. —Bangalore Herald.

Sketch of a German Parliament. — St. Paul’s Church in Frankfort will take its place in history as well as St. Stephen’s, Westminster. The German parliament, the first and probably the last, elected by universal suffrage to represent the whole Germanic population, and frame aunited central Government and constitution, sat in the Panlus Kirche, until June, 1849, when its remnant retired to Stuttgird, and expired in its own smoke. The church is a moderate circular building of red freestone, standing in a small square area, of which the Exchange forms one side. A porter mug, bottom up, would give a very good idea of its ground-plan, elevation, and proportions. It was not selected, certainly, for its architectural beauty, to be the seat of the German parliament; but the convenience of its interior makes up for the defects of its exterior. The British House of Commons is not so comfortably and roomily accommodated. The president’s chair occupied the place of the pulpit; the precentor’s desk was the tribune; and what may have been the elders’ seat was sufficiently capacious for the clerks and a table or two. Right, left, right centre, left centre, extreme right extreme left, were divisions in the arrangement of the bench made by the necessary passages for the congregation to their seats. A circular gallery above admitted the public and could accommodate about a thousand people. Below it, on the same level with the seats of the members, the ladies, the diplomatic corps, the reporters, and strangers with a member’s ticket, or with the universal ticket, a gulden, were conveniently seated. The chair was taken at a quarter-past nine every morning, and the house seldom rose before two, and often had an evening sitting from four to eight or nine. What first strikes the traveller is, that all the members wore moustaches, beards, tips, or other hairy appendages of all dimensions and colours, which to the English eye, not accustomed to see gentlemen in such fantastic chin accoutrements, gave the assembly the appearance of a masquerade, or of a meeting of old clothesmen. Two eyes, a nose between a maoo of hair below, hiding all expression of the most expressive feature in the human countenance, the mouth, has the effect of a paper mask over the face, or of an exhibition of wax figures. The most eloquent and impassioned public speaker, with the lower half of his face wagging up and down the bunch of hair attached to it, as he opens and shuts his mouth, appears too like a child’s toy of Mr. Punch, with a moveable joint in the under jaw opening and shutting by a string, not to excite the risible propensities of the spectator from the shaven lands of Europe. These are trifles to remark ; but as an indication of character, either in an individual or a people, affectation is no trifle. Weakness of character, and affectation of appearing to be what one is not, are most clearly shown in trifles. The majority of an assembly h.~rn and bred with bsardlsss chins effecting in manhood to appear like knights of the middle ages, as represented in ancient paintings, by wearing beards, moustaches, tips, and fantastic hats or caps, to give picturesque effect to their heads, do not convey to the observer of character the idea that these are men of real sound sense and independent mind, or that such fantastically dressed up imitative heads have much of their own inside of them.— Laing's Observations on Europe.