ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 689, 10 March 1852, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Mr. Douglas Jerrold has written a letter containing the suggestion that a penny subscription shall be commenced to present Kossuth with a copy of Shakespeare. Mr. Jerrold remarks :—“ It is written in the brief history made known to us, that in an Austrian prison he was taught English by the words of the teacher Shakespeare. An Englishman’s blood glows with the thought that, from the quiver of the immortal Saxon, Kossuth lias furnished himself with those arrowy words that kindle as they fly—words that are weapons as Austria will know. There are hundreds of thousands of Englishmen who would rejoice thus to endeavour to manifest tbeir gratitude to Kossuth for the glorious words he has uttered among us, words that have been as pulses to the nation.’’ The Siberian Arctic Expedition.— Lieut. Pirn started for Dover and Calais on Thursday morning. He travels by railway, vid Berlin, to Warsaw, and thence to St. Petersburg. It is hardly to be doubted that his Imperial Majesty will afford all the desired assistance, and that we shall see this spirited enterprise'conducled in a manner worthy of its great object. Captain Spencer Robbins, a foreign service messenger, has been appointed by Lord Palmerston to accompany Lieut. Pim, R.N., as far as St. Petersburg. Frightful Disaster. —On Sunday night last, not far from Marseilles, and near the Isle d’Hyeres, the steamer La Ville de Grasse, going to Cannes, was run down and immediately sank, by La Ville de Marseilles, coming from Italy. La Ville de Grasse had a great many passengers, nearly the whole of whom have perished. Amongst them was the Russian Count Haag, with his family of seven persons—al! cf whom are lost. The captain, an English gentleman (name unknown), and a child have been saved. Two ladies, after being safely placed on board the Ville de Marseilles, died from terror and emotion. Neither the VVle de Grasse nor her cargo, which included 35,000 francs in specie, were insured. Illness of Lord Plunket.—This distinguished member of the bar and--senate is now suffering from what at bis great age is feared to be his last illness, at his tesidence, Old Connaught, near Bray, about ten miles from Dublin, where, since he bad ceased to hold the Itish seals, on the appointment of Lord Campbell to the Irish Chancellorship in 1841, he has lived in the privacy of the domestic circle. The noble and learned lord has nearly reached his 90th year. He was called to the Irish bar in Hilary Term, 1787. Owing to the exertions of the famed engineer Negrelli, the navigation of the Po, Ticino Mincio, and other rivers in Italy has been much improved. When the communication of the Po with the Adriatic shall be fairly established, its confluents and adjacent lakes will form a net of inland communication, spreading over the whole of Upper Italy, and reaching over to the recesses of the Alps.

Considerable numbers of visitors had arrived in Alexandria from Europe en route for Upper Egypt. It is probable a more th u n usual number may be expected this season. It is curious to observe the gradually increasing proportion of American tourists, during the last iew years, who have visited Egypt, and the gradually decreasing proportion of travellers from Continental Europe. From a return recently male, by order of Parliament, it appears that Liverpool is now the greatest port in the British empire in the value of its exports and the extent of'its foreign commerce. Being the first port in the British empire, it is the first port in the world. The value of the exports, in the year 1850. amounting to nearly thirty-five millions sterling(£34,B6l,B47), or considerably more than one-half of the total value of the exports of the three kingdoms for that year. This wonderful export trade is partly the result of the great mineral riches of Lancashire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, and the west Riding of Yorkshire ; partly of thematchless ingenuity and untiring industry of the population of those counties ; partly of a multitude of canals and railways spreading from Liverpool to all parts of England and the richest parts of Wales. During the last five years the increase of the exports of Liverpool has been from twenty-six millions to nearly thirty-five millions, whilst that of London has been from little less than eleven millions to rather more than fourteen millions. The exports of Hull —which is, undoubtedly, the third port of the kingdom —though still ■ very large, have rather declined, having been £10,875,870 in 1846, and not more than £10,866,610 in 1850. The exports of Glasgow, now the fourth port of the empire, show a fair increase, from £3,024,343 to £3,768.646. No other port now sends out

exports of the value of two millions a year, though Southampton comes near to two millions, and Cork passes one million. Ireland. — The Emigration Movement. Although winter has fairly set in, and thus early there is a prospect of its being a severe season, the flight of the people proceeds almost as generally as it did during the months of spring and summer. The arrivals of emigrants in Dublin do not appear to be quite so numerous, yet the leading shipbrokers find it difficult enough to provide accommodation for the applicants for passage who swarm the offices along the quays and docks here. A respectable medical practitioner in the metropolis and his numerous family were among last week’s departures for New York, and, if report speak truly, next year will witness the exodus of no inconsiderable body of the members of another profession, that of the law, the business of which has declined, and must still farther decline to a point at which it would be hopeless to expect that provision could be made for one-fourth of the persons who had heretofore derived a competence from this fast fading branch of Irish resources. Sneaking of the flight from the South, the Tipperary Free Press says,—“The emigration of the people has progressed, and is progressing to an awful extent. On Thursday over 60 carloads of peasants from the counties of Tipperary and Kilkenny arrived io Waterford, to take shipping for Liverpool en route to America. In most instances they appear of the better class, and were well and comfortably clothed. A singular fact is, that among them were several old men and women, who were going doubtless to join their children in the land of freedom. ’ From the north riding ofthe same county it appears by a local paper, that the guardians of the Nenagh Union have came to a unanimous determination to further thin the population by promoting the emigration of paupers to the Australian colonies. It is tn contemplation to send 1,000 at least of the ablebodied and youthful paupers, the majority of whom are to be females. The advantages of this step are thus described by the Nenagh Guardian z—- " To do so will cost about £6,000, that is, at the rate of £6 to each pauper. This sum, it is anticipated, will be given as a loan by the Exchequer Loan Commissioners, to be repaid at the expiration of five years. The incalculable advantage to be derived by the country fronS ’h?: emigration OF T,OOO Inmates are quite apparent to every discerning person, Because the maintenance and clothing of that number in the workhouse for a year would amount on the lowest calculation to £4,000, not taking into account the rent paid for the auxiliaries in which they are sheltered, nor the expense of the staff appointed to superintend them. Many of the present inmates have been charged either on the union or some electoral division those six, ay, seven years past, and the result is now quite obvious from the impoverished and poverty-stricken condition of our fertile union.” — Times, Nov. 4. The Canterbury Settlement. —Some strange rumours are afloat in reference to the Canterbury settlement and its ecclesiastical condition, which, if true, are likely to do the colony serious injury, and which, if untrue, ought at once to be officially contradicted. It will be remembered that when arrangements were made for establishing the Canterbury settlement, it was considered advisable to send out a bishop and a staff of ecclesiastical officers, and the Rev. Dr. Jackson was appointed to the episcopal superintendence of the see. As it was necessary to obtain the formal sanction of the Bishop of New Zealand to the new bishopric the consecration of Dr. Jackson was delayed. In order, however, that the church might not be at a stand still in the settlement Dr. Jackson undertook to go out without consecration, it being generally undertood that the Archbishop of Canterbury would issue a commission to Dr. Selwyn, the bishop of New Zealand, to perform the ceremony on his behalf. To the utter astonishment of large numbers of persons who subscribed, to the establishment of the bishopric, Dr. Jackson has returned to England. Not a word is said about bis consecration, indeed, rumour says there are some serious, if not insuperable impediments in the way of its taking place. No official notice' has been taken of the matter, and statements of a most painful character are daily gaining ground. The directors of the Canterbury Association are bound in honour to those who have so liberally contributed to their funds to clear up the mystery in which the matter to which we have adverted is at present involved.—Sunday Times, Nov. 16. An English fleet of five ships-of-war had appeared before Vera Cruz. The ships ate the Indefatigable of 50 guns, the Cumberland of 70, carrying the Admiral’s flag, the Wellesley of 70, the steamer Express of 61, and the Calypso of 10. The appearance of this fleet has given rise to a good deal of speculation as to the purpose of its visit to the gulf. The Trait, however, concludes that this purpose has no connection with the exist-

ing relations of Mexico and the British capitalists, but refers, in all probability, to the engagements of England towards Spain on the subject of Cuba. The Panama Star contains an account of a severe gale at Mazatlan on the 28th October, in which the British sloop-of-war Daphne lost all her masts and four men, and lour small schooners were totally wrecked. The journals have announced the breaking out of a disease in grapes in France and Italy. From communications made to the Academie des Sciences at Paris, it appears that the malady was first noticed in the hothouses of Mr. Tucker, at Margate, in 1845; afterwards in hothouses in Belgium. In France it first appeared in 1847, in the hothouse of Baron de Rothschild, at Sursennes, a short distance from Paris ; thence it spread into the adjacent vineyards, taking a wider circle every year, and at present it almost entirely surrounds Paris. It is called the the O'idium Tuckeri, and consists of a microscopic mushroom, developing itself on the fruit. The present belief is, that it arises from the cultivation of grapes in hothouses, and if the fact shall be clearly demonstrated, that process of cultivation will have to be prohibited in France. The production of grapes occupies millions of acres, and gives employment to millions of hands in that country, and most probably will not be allowed to be endangered by the continuance of aristocratic hothouses.— Literary Gazette. A pair nf gigantic cockle-shells, weighing together 560 lbs., and measuring three feet two inches in length, two feet two inches in height, were landed in Liverpool a few days since, from a ship arrived from Manila.— Leeds Mercury.