MISCELLANEOUS.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 266, 8 May 1860, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Conservative Land Society has just acquired its fortieth estate, and made its first purchase in Oxfordshire. The property is called Fair Acres, and forms the south-east point of the New Cowley district, which it is proposed to bring within the jurisdiction of the Commissioners under the Oxford Improvement Act. The latest news of the once great Mogul is that his two sons, who are imprisoned with their father have begun the study of English. An English sergeant gives them daily lessons. The Ex-King and his son, with their attendants, are kept in close confinement in a wooden building constructed especially for their accommodation. Their residence in Rangoon has excited no interest among the Natives.

The number of deaths in the metropolis last week was 1386, or ninety-five above the average rate. This is the highest mortality yet recorded in 1860.

The famous stave-ship, Orion, has been captured by the British ship Pluto, with 800 slaves on board. She was captured last April, given up to an American cruiser and carried to New York. She was not condemned. Now she has been seized flagrante delicto. No fewer than 2080 slaves have been rescued from the slave traffickers in two months.

The state of San Salvador suffered from a severe earthquake on the 28th of December. The shock lasted two minutes and thirty-five seconds, and did a great deal of damage, throwing down housei and churches in many towns, and rending open the earth. No lives were lost. The volcano of Izalco is supposed to have been the centre of the vibration

Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. have in the press the fifth and concluding volume of Mr. Ruskins "Modem Painters"; a translation into English verse of " the book of Job,", by the Earl of Winchelsea; and a new series of stories inverse, by Mrs. Sewell, authoress of" Homely Ballads." Mr. Murray promises a series of "Lives of Eminent British Foeta, from Chaucer to Wordsworth," by the Reverend Whitwell Elwin, editor of the Quatcrfy Review; and some more of his well-known " handbooks, 1' among them a " handbook of Paris and its environs," and a " handbook of the Southern Cathedrals of England." A reprint of the famous first edition ofShakepeare's Play, printed in 1623 by Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, is in preparation by Mr. L. Booth, of Regent Street. The work is to be— line for line, and word tor word—strictly in accordance with the old folio, possessing besides carefully executed fac-similes of all the original typographical ornamentations, as well as a fac-simile of the Droeshout portrait on the title-page of the original edition.

M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, who has just returned to France, in company with M. de Thouvenel, the New French Minister of Foreign Affairs, is preparing for the press a brochure, in which he is to explain the actual position of the Isthmus of Suez Canal scheme.

According to the Ministerial Gazette of Public Instruction, published at St. Petersburg, the productions of Russian literature during the year 1858 amounted to 1577 original works, 284 translations, and 165 periodical publications. The number of books imported into Russia during the same period from abroad amounted to 2,614,874 volumes, being 10,112 more than in the year 1867. ■ ■ ■ Railways.—The increase in the value of property in New York was 100 per cent, for five years; in Illinois, concomitantly with the extension of the railway system and the developement of resources, previously valueless for commercial purposes, it was 200 per cent. It would have been much larger, had not Illinoit been so remote from the great seaboard markets. As the cost of conveyance constantly raises, according to distance, the remunerative price at which goods can be delivered at the market, undeveloped productive lands, and especially lands containing timber or minerals, and lying near ouch a market as New York for example, would receive a much greater enhancement of value than that whichtook place in Illinois. Lands, along the New York and Erie line, " have risen in value from 6s. and 12s. to £6, £12, and even £20 an acre, according to their proximity to the railway depots. 9