ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 692, 20 March 1852, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

The protestant clergy of Hungary have determined in synod that a petition shall be presented to the Governor, in order to inform the Emperor of the state of oppression under which the Protestants in Hungary are labouring, and entreating the Governor to use his influence for its speedy removal.

It is extensively rumoured, that after the brilliant success which has attended the Exhibition, Prince Albert intends te apply his abilities and influence to a subject on which, if he succeeds, he deserves something more than a statue. It is nothing less than the “regeneration of Ireland.” The plan that is spoken of is an extension of the industrial project of Strafford; the purchase of large extents of land, partly waste, but reclaimable ; and the locating upon them persons professing various kinds of industry, invited from all the seats of industry in. the world. Such a plan gave Ireland the linen trade, which has since flourished to such a degree as to redeem a whole province from the fate which, without that project, must inevitably have awaited it. The province said to have been selected is the one most in need of such a timely assistance —that of Connaught ; and the estate mentioned is that of the late Mr. Thomas Martin, M.P. for Galway, son of the man celebrated as the author of the humane Act for the prevention of cruelty to animals. The property is said to be eminently fitted for such a design, both from im; rovability, water power, facility of transit, and an extended sea board ; and it is exceedingly desirable that the report may turn out correct. There is no doubt but that any project fully entered upon by his Royal Highness, at the present time, would command enormous support, from the deserved popularity of the Prince; and where is there such need of improvement as in Ireland ? Barclay & Perkins pay the Income-tax Commissioners £6OOO a-year, which estimates the great Brewers' profits at £200,000 a-year. The following, from the San Francisco Public Balance, shows us the height of impudence in California : —“A young spark who boarded at one of our piincipal hotels, bad managed for a long time, by one artifice or another, to postpone the payment of his bill. At last the landlord became quite impatient, and stepping up to his juvenile boarder slapped him gently on the shoulder, and asked him for some money. ‘ I have not a red cent, about me at present,’ was the laconic reply. ‘ But my dear sir,’ said the landlord, ‘I cannot afford to keep a boarding-house without being paid.’ ‘ Well,’ exclaimed the young philosopher, ‘ if you cannot afford it, sell out to some one that can.”

The Old Missionaries in India.—They assumed the character of Brahmins of a superior caste from the Western world ; they took the Hindoo names, and conformed to the heathen Custom*; of this hauglity and oxcluclvo race, producing, in support of. their pretensions, a deed forged in ancient characters, to show that the Brahmins of Rome were of much older date than the Brahmins of India, and descended in an equally direct line from Brahma himself. They composed a pretended Vedra, in which they sought to insinuate the doctrines of Christianity in the language and phraseology of the sacred books of the Hindoos. They wore the cavy, or orange robe peculiar to the Saninsses, the fourth, and one of the most venerated sections of the Brehminical caste. They hung a tiger skin from their shoulders, in imitation of shiva, they abstained from animal food, from wine, and from certain prohibited vegetables; they performed the absolutions required by the Shasters ; they carried on their foreheads the sacred spot of sandal wood powder, which is the distinctive emblem of the Hindoos ; and in ord*-: to sustain their assumed character to the utmost, they affected to spurn the Pariahs and lower castes who lay no claim to the same divine origin with the Brahmins. In carrying out this system, the Jesuits not only contended that that they were justified in the employment of such means by the sanctity of the object they were to rccomplish, but they derived encouragement and facility from the many points of resemblance presented by the religion of llielr own church ns comaared with the practices of the idolatry whuh they came to overthrow.

They introduce:! the Braminical rites into the I ceremonial of the church ; and, in fine, bv a system of mingled deception and conformity, and a life of indescribable privation, tbev succeeded in superseding the authority and the influence ot the Franciscans throughout Southern India, and in enlisting multitudes of it'.mit al converts to the church.— Tennent's Christianity in Ceylon. The Haynau Property in Hungary.— Held Marshal Haynau has found it impossible to keep the property purchased in Hungary with the sum of money presented to him by the Emperor. His desire to part with it is announced to arise from the absence of labour and the difficulty of procuring it from other parts of the country. It may be true that the labourers have refused to work for their new neighbour ; they have, however, done more. Haynau has failed to get in a single crop of any kind. Everything has been destroyed by the peasantry, the crops above and in the ground have been wasted by fire or other means, the buildings burnt down, and every method of agrarian outrage adopted in order to make the place too hot to hold him.

Notes on Railway Mechanism.—ln an article on the engines and vehicles of railway transport in the great exhibition, the Times has the following interesting memoranda :—“ Nothing can more strikingly manifest the progress which has been made in the art of locomotion since the opening oi the Liverpool and Manchester railway —an interval of scarcely more than 20 years — than a comparison of the railway mechanism at such epoch with the railway mechanism as it exists at present, and a retrospect of the progress it has undergone in that interval. The first rails laid down on the Liverpool and Manchester railway had a form called fisb-bellied—now out of use—and weighed 351bs. per yard. The strength of these was, at the time, considered great to superfluity, and the form was regarded as eminently favourable to their durability. Experience, however, soon prove 1 their weight to be utterly insufficient, and their form to be a source of weakness. The weight of the rails now laid down on many of the railways which carry the greatest traffic amounts to from 80ibs. to 901bs. per yard. The first engine placed upon the Liverpool and Manchester railway weighed, with its tender, seven-and-a-half tons. There are now several engines which, with their tenders, exceed sixty tons ; and at the beginning of last year there were in the service of a single company not less than thirty-six engines, having the average weight, tenders included, of forty tons. The carriages have undergone a corresponding increase. The first carriage placed upon the railways weighed about three tons ; some of those now in use are very little short of double that. The quantity of the traffic and the speed of the trains since the opening of the railways has gradually increased far beyond any limit which had entered into the contemplation of the engineers who projected and constructed these lines of communication. Thus, in 1831, the average speed of the railway passenger trains was seventeen miles an hour ; it was gradually increased until, in 1848, it attained thirty miles an hour. The speed of the fast trains in 1831 on the London auu ivialiCfieStui' railway was iwerHy-foar—lmilcc 25hcur ; in 1848 their average speed on the Grand Junction London and Birmingham was 50 miles an hour. The number of trains per Jay which arrived al, and departed from, the Euston Square station of the Birmingham line in 1837 was 19 ; in 1848 it was 44 ; and at present the number is still greater. In 1831 the number of trains arriving at, and departing from, the Liverpool terminus was 26; in 1848 it was 90; and now it is above 100. A corresponding increase has taken place in the weight of the trains. In 1831 the average weight of a passenger train, tender and engine included, was 18 tons ; in 1848 the average weight of the engine and ten-' der alone was considerably above 20 tons, and the average weight of the passenger trains, engine and tender excluded, 75 tons. In 1831 the average weight of a goo s train, tender and engine it-cluied, was 52 tons ; in IS4B it was about 170 tons. Thus, the number of trains for some of the principal railways has increased 150, on others 250 per cent.; the weight of the engines has been increased 114 per cent., the weight of the carriages 30 per cent, the average speed 90 per cent.” The road structure has undergone corresponding changes.”

Charitable Establishments in France. —For some years past the elements of a statistical account of pauperism and public charitable establishments have been collecting at the offices of the Department of the Interior, under the direction of an Inspector-General. There exist in France 1,133 administrations of hospitals and benevolent institutions established in 1,130 communes. The departments which have the greatest number are the Vaucluse, Var, HautRhin, Nord, Seine-et-Oise, and Bouches-du-Rhone ; those which have the fewest are the Seine, the Hautes-Alpes, Corsica, the HautesPyrenees, the Haute-Saone, and the Tarn. The department of the Seine has only two hospital administrations, but one of them-—that of Paris — is so considerable from the immense revenues at its disposal, by the number of establishments which it diiectu, and by the number of poor which it assists, that it reckons for a fifth part of the hospital assistance given in the whole of France. From 1800 to 1845 the amount of donations and legacies officially made to the poor was not less than 122,000,000 f., exclusive of sums given direct and authorized by the prefects. The venal value of the productive estates of the hospitals and almshouses is estimated at 500,000,000 f. They have also large revenues derived from other sources, such as the duty on the receipts of the theatres, grams from the communes, &c. The most considerable revenues of the hospital administrations are those of Paris, which are about 12,690,823 f. ; of Lyons, 2,279,990 f. ; of Rouen, 1,136,900 f. ; and of Marseilles, 1,069,257 f. The food of the poor stands for a sum of 22,191,141 f., of which the charge for wheat or bread is nearly one-half. The number of beds in the hospitals and almshouses in France is 126,142, of which there are 15,353 in the department of the Seine. The number of patients in the hospitals in 1847, was 486,083, and in the almshouses 77,053. America at Fault in Ireland.—The American Ambassador, in his zeal to be civil to Ireland, In s overshot the mark, and has, therefore, been piously rebuked by the nominal Archbishop of Tuam. Mr. Lawrence, in answer to a Galway address, begged to be permitted to hope gieat blessings for Ireland ; and one of these bles-

ings— the Bible. Yes :in a hasty moment the American hoped that “ all Irishmen would be instruc ed in 'li? book which all Christians revere.” Upon this John M'Hale informs the imprudent diplomatist that this once he is forgiven for the impropriety : he was tlon’nl. ss t ken by surprise. Henceforth, however, no more impromptu replies ; but well-considered, cut-and-dried answers, in which there shall be no word about the Bible ; a book not to be vulgarised amongst the ignorant laity. Bishops, if you please ; but no Bible ; When Tellier—who, as Louis the Fourteenth's Confessor, had charge of the Royal soul, which, to Royal satisfaction, he fitted fur its future flight—when Tellier was opposed by a citation of the doctrines of Saint Paul and Saint Augustin, be was —like M’Hale—vehement in bis wrath. “ Saint Paul and Saint Augustin,” exclaimed the Jesuit, “ were hot headed fellows, who, in these days, woul 1 have been thrust into the Bastile." Just as —in these days the Telliers of Ireland would thrust the bible into a dust-hole.— Punch.