MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 680, 7 February 1852, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS.

The English Royal Family and Saxe- t Coburg. —ln the protest which Prince Albert, ( the Consort of the Queen 8f England, has addressed on the subject of the regulation ( of the affairs of the Duchy of Coburg, it ap- ( pears from the arrangements of the family ( compact concluded at the time of his marriage, | that in case the succession of the duchy de- ( volves upon the descendants of Prince Albert, ( it is to fall to Prince Alfred, the second son of , of the Queen of England. Negociations are about to take place on this subject, in regard to which the Duke of Coburg will repair to England. — Journal du Commerce d’ Anvers. The English flag has lately taken possession of a small island near Sicily, which peered up over the surface of the Mediterranean some little time ago, then disappeared, and has lately been steadily rising. The lazy Sicilians lounged along the shore, and could not make cut why two of our ships of the line kept cruising about the neighbourhood, till they espied, one five morning, the British lion dancing merrily in the breeze over a tract of land which will probably prove very advantageous in a commercial point of view.— Atlas. Brigandage in Smyrna.—Letters from Smyrna announce that a party of brigands had recently carried on Mr. Van Zennep, the Dutch Consul, whilst he was walking with his children in the garden of his country residence, about four miles from the city. He was forced to accompany these brigands to the mountains, and was there detained until the demand for 50,000 piastres (£415 sterling) bad been paid as a ransom for his liberation. Occurrences of this nature have several times taken place, and large sums are frequently extorted by way of ransom. — Li. verpool Albion. France. —The Paris correspondent of the London Times, in bis letters of the 29th and 30th August, ult., announces that throughout almost every department of France a movement in favour of the revision of the Constitution was earnestly progressing. The Coun-cils-General of the following departments had passed nearly unanimous resolutions demanding the legal revision of the constitution with the shortest possible delay, namely, the de-

partment of the Orne, of which Aletiqon is the chieftown; Bas Rhin (Strasburg) ; Loiret (Orleans); Ain (Bourg); Marore (Chalons-sur-Marne); Indre-et-Loire (Tours); k osges (Espina); Aube (Troyes); Lot, Manche, Upper Marne, Upper Pyrenees, Nievre, Upper Saone, and Ardennes. The resolutions of each council are framed in the most emphatic terms, most of them demanding that the parliamentary elections shall take place with the least possible delay, and that a certain interval should take place between those elections and that for the President. A plot : had been discovered at Lyons, having for its object the destroying or changing the govern- ! ment of the Republic. Thirty-seven of the j conspirators had been apprehended and tried I by court martial, ol whom six were acquitted, I six sentenced to be transported to Noukabiva, i one of the Marquesas; and the remainder : sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. ■ The story of the plot may be told in a very I few words :—Alphonse Gent, its informing spirit, a man of dissolute habits and broken means, and a sort of epitome of all the qualities which are antecedently supposed in a conspirator, was despatched by the heads of the Republican party in Paris to organize a system of regular communication with the South-Eastern departments, the stronghold of their opinions. No sooner had he reached his destination than he appears to have been greatly struck by the facilities for armed insurrection which were afforded by the proxi-

mity of the Genevan relugees ; through the fierce discontent of the peasantry, and through the general vagueness of the popular ideas as to the distinction between violent and constitutional opposition. Crossing into Switzerland, he communicated a scheme for the general rising to the numerous bands ot exiles who are sheltered there under the patronage of M. James Fazy. From them, however, he received no encouragement; few of them, (with the exception ol the well-known Sergeant Boichot) believing him serious. Gent, therefore resolved to conduct the revolt on his

own account; and retracing his steps to France, commenced bis preparations on an immense scale, and with., extraordinary ardour. In a short time congresses of Red

Republican deputies had been held in all the large towns; men were regularly drilled, stocks of powder and muskets bad been collected, the Socialist journals assumed a peculiar tone gloomy exultation, and, what was most important, a fixed anticipation of the coming crisis was disseminated through the whole district. All this time Gent was in active correspondence with the leaders of the opposition in Paris, as well as with the committee of refugees in England. The language of his letters is not absolutely inconsistent with the supposition of their complicity in his project ; but a fair construction would refer bis allusions to an agitation within the limits of legality, and not to any armed outbreak. Indeed, common sense and prudence would have forbidden their entrusting Gent with the leadership in so desperate an undertaking. Besides being an underling, be seems to have been as cowardly in execution as he was audacious in conception. It was his faintheartedness which ultimately ruined the plot. The moment of rising was adjourned from day to day, and at last the local authorities, whose suspicions had long been roused, obtained clear intelligence of Gent’s designs, and the means of identifying their author and his co-conspirators. All were immediately arrested, and the rigours of the slate of siege wete forthwith doubled, through all the departments implicated. There was a strong impression in England that the accused had not received a fair trial. From the result of the recent elections of the presidents and secretaries of the Council-General of the different departments, it would appear that the party of order was in the ascendant in all; the democratic party were beaten every where, and was not able to nominate one of its candidates. To this extent the result, looking upon the question as one of order, is as favourable to the Conservative party as could be desired. Looking at the question, however, as between the Bonapartists and the Monarchists, the result is considered unfavourable to the prospect of Louis Napoleon’s re-election. The Orleanists, who follow the leadership of M. Thiers, in opposing the present President and the Ultra-Legitimists, have carried more of their candidates this session than they did last year. Shark fishing at Kurrachee. —There are 13 large boats, with crews of 12 men each, constantly employed in the shark fishing of Kurrachee, the value of the fins sent to market averagingfrom 15,000 to 18,000 rupees, or 1000 to 1200 rupees for each boat, after allowing the banian or factor his profit. One boat will sometimes capture at a draught as many as 100 sharks of different sizes. The fishermen are very averse to revealing the amount of their captures. Inquiries of this sort are supposed by them to be made exclusively for the purpose of taxation. The aver* age capture of each boat probably amounts to about 3000, so as to give the vzhole sharks

captured at not less than 40,000 a-year. The, great harking shark or mbor is always bar- , pooned. It is found floating or asleep near the surface of the water: it is then struck with a harpoon. The fish once struck, is allowed to run till tired ; it is then palled tn and beaten with clubs till stunned. A arge hook is now hooked into its eyes or nostrils, wherever it can be got most easily attache , and by this the shark is towed on shore ; several boats are requisite for towing. Hie mohr is often 40, sometimes 60 feet m length. The mouth is occasionally 4 feet wide. All other varieties of shark are caught in nets, in somewhat like the way in which herrings are caught at home. The net is made

of strong English whipcord ; the meshes about six inches; they are generally six feet wide, and from 600 io 800 fathoms, or from three quarters to nearly a mile in length. Ou one side are floats of wood four feet in lengt) at intervals of five feet ; on the other pieces of stone. The nets are sunk in deep water, from 80 to 150 feet deep well out at sea. They are put down the one day and taken out the next: so that they are down two or three times a-week, according to the state of the weather and success of the fishing. Ihe lesser sharks are commonly founu dead, the larger are much exhausted. On being taken home, the back fins, the only ones used, are cut off, and dried on the sands in the sun ; the flesh is cut off in long strips, and salted fur food ; the liver is taken out and boiled down to oil; the bead, bones, and intestines left on shore to rot, or thrown into the sea, i , when numberless little sharks are generally on the watch to eat up the remains of their . kindred. The fishermen themselves are only ; concerned in the capture of the sharks. So ; soon as they are landed, they are purchased ; up bv banians, on whose account all other , operations are performed. *1 he banians collect them in quantities, and transmit them to ■ agents in Bombay, by whom they, are sold for , shipment to China. — ZJr. Biiist, o_f liombtiy.