ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 88, 8 September 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

> A letter from Wiesbaden states that the Chamber of Deputies has passed by ' a .majorityJof 14 to ' 8; tfie bill authorising civil marriages- between persons belonging to any religious communion not recognised by the State,'after adopting-an amendment extending: the benefits of the hill to .all cases in vvhifeh the established clergy may refuse to celebrate marriages. The Madrid journals announce that the punishment -of imprisonment -with hard labour, to which the Protestants of Grenada had been condemned, having been commuted into banishment, orders have been siven to send them to Malaga, whence the 3* are to be, transported to some neighbouring State. < : .V i The jokes of President Lincoln are constantly recorded 5 in lhe American newspapers. Here is his *' last." A gentleman called upon him, and solicited a pass for Richmond.. "Well/ said Old Abe, "I would be very happy to oblige, if my passes were resoected ; but the fact is, sir, I have within the past two years given passes to 250,000 men to go to Richmond, and not one has got there yet." Gold has been found in the streams and quartz formation of the Cnyyni, in British Guiana, in sufficient quantities to remunerate the searchers. It is curious that this is the region which Raleigh believed was an El Dorado. Shakspeare makes Fa lstaff speak of " a region in. Guiana all gold and bounty-" A youns English lady, not knowing one word of French, readied Paris by the train from Havre. She had a written address, " Mrs Brown, Rue des Grands Augustins," which she handed to the driver of a nab which she hailed at the station. The coachman, instead of driving to the place indicated, took a dh'ectly opposite course, and having arrived at the Pare Monceaux — a district just now suffering severely from the chronic attack of improvement which rasres throughout Paris-r-jumped down, opened the door, and brutally assaulted the young: Englishwoman. She. however, made an effective resistance and escaped from the ruffian, who was subsequently arrested, and has been fined lOf. and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. An American paper states that the Pen-aion-oHice at Washington lias lately recorded the nineteen-thousandth application of wives made widows by the war. A letter from Cracow states that among the Russian officers remarkable for their cruelty is General Count Toll. Having been appointed to guard the railway, he arrogates to himself the right of life and death over all the inhabitants of the districts through which the railway passes. He sent for a wealthy Israelite named Berck, and said to him, ''You are the owner of a house in this town?" •' Yes," replied Berck. "Is there not a tailor living in that house?" "\"es." " Howis he employed I" screamed the general, clenching his fists at the same time. " He lives by l\h labour." " You are a liar ; he makes uniforms for the insurgents." "I have not seen him, and I cannot tell anythingf about that.'' "Well," replied the general, " to teach you to know henceforth what your tenants are doing you shall receive 2000 lashes." The general's decree was punctually executed by the Cossacks, and the unfortunate Berck died two hours afterwards. A farmer, at Cutchoque, Long Island, in the United States, has recently ploughed up 01 silver spoons, which are supposed to have baen buried there by Kidd, one of the old bucaneers. A visitor to the graveyard of the' Anglo steamer, which was lately wrecked on the coast of North America, gives the following description of it : — It may afford a me'ancholy consolation to some of those who have suffered from the loss of the Anglo-Saxon to know -something of the spot where so many victims of carelessness, want of discipline, and cowardice lie buried. Between Cape Race and Cape Ballaid ihe land retires in a semi-circular bay ; the line of the shore, however, is not even, and tin's bay may be said to be formed by several j smaller bays, lhe first, the. scene of the calamity, fxtendins from Cape Race to the entrance of Clam Cove. Within this bay, at about four miles and a half from Cape Race, in a recess formed by the sea retiring between projecting rocks, the AngloSaxon was wrecked nearly at noonday. The ship lies in between six and seven fathoms of water, and on the 16th of May the masts were yet visible, standing about six or eight feet from the water. At about a mile and a quarter from the wreck bold rocks, covered with trees, mark the spot where Clam Cove indents the shore, and, after piercinsfthe land for some distance in a direct line, tarns at a right anjilo and runs on for about 100 yards. This bend is on the sea side bordered by rocks covered with low firs ; on the land side theve is a level breadth from which the rocks risr> precipitously to the plain above, and these rocks, like those opposite, are more or less covered with trees, a deep belt, of which surrounds the whole cove. On this level 134 bodies, as nearly as it was in my power to estimate, Jie buried. Old men and young men were there buried side by side ! — two sometimes in one grave, a woman and a child, a man and a youth. It was ; a terrible sight to see the boats bringing I in now one, now two or three dead bodies — bodies of those, wha had died in the prime of life, or in the full flush of the confidence and the hope of youth, within a few days' sail of the land where their friends waited to greet them, or where their new future was laid. Some were much changed, but the countenances generally appeared to indicate that the last moments had been painless, and that they had passed away in peace ; tKe eyes even. of some were closed, and the clenched hands were often the only evidencss of a violent death. The murder of Minntszewski, a Pole, who had betrayed the national cause, affords a striking instance of the certainty with which the secret committee of Warsaw carries out its decree against traitors. Thore happened to be a street fight near the door of Minniszewski's house, an^ one of his attendants took the chief of the brawlers into custody. Just then a barrel organ began to grind forth, " No, Poland is not lost,'' and the remaining attendant, having a sharp ear for forbidden tunes, and being moreover a man of zeal, arrpsted the offender before hehadgot to the third door. At that moment the long meditated blow was struck. The appointed executioner had followed Minniszewski into the house, and seizing him from behind and laving his hand over his mouth to silence his cries, stabbed him to the heart. The executioner got into a.. carriage when he had done the deed, and calling to the police agent, who had an ear for music, said to him, "You amuse yourself by running ; after organ-players, and you don*t see that in that house a man has been assassinated.', The agent rao into Minniszewski house" and saw a fresh example of the power of the 3?o4iisii fcaUonal government.