MISCELLANEOUS.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 996, 16 August 1872, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

A grocer had a pound of sugar returned with a note stating " too much sand for table use, and not enough for building purposes." An experiment in emmigration is now being tried by 150 persons who will form a colony in ths State of Nebraska enmposed enthely of Englishmen. The initiation and carrying out of great public works seem to be the characteristic of the age. Even in Central America they seem to have thrown aside their revolutionary recreations in favor of public woi-ks and immigration. The principles of federation having been accepted, the next step was to sanction the raising of a Federal National Debt for the construction of public works. Of matters on River Plato the River Plate 'Times' says:—"The Welsh settlers?, who are to be removed to the Rio Negro, will have grants made to them of seeds, cattle, implements horses, and sheep, besides sixty square acres of land to each adult, and to facilitate matters, a pecuniary subsistence of 150 dollars per head per month will be allowed for a year, until such time as the settlers shall have brought the land into cultivation and be able to support themselves. Agricultural laborers are much wanted.

To judge by a special Washington despatch, published by the ' New York Tribune' of a recent date, no slight uneasiness prevails in consequence of Senator Sumner's resolution providing for a Special Committee to investigate the sale of arms to the French Government during the late Franco-German war. The French Government paid for arms to the United States 54,000,000f. This is equal to about 11,000,000 in gold, or .at the rate of exchange at the time and the premium on gold, about 14,000,000d0l in currency. The arms were purchased by agents of the French Government, -who received two and a-half per cent, "commission for their part of the business. It will be the duty of the committee, if it is appointed, to find out who got the 4,0()0,000dol stopped between the French Government and that of the United States. Another striking feature of this business is that it is proved that the American Government workshops were set to work to their fullest capacity, to manufacture cartridges for the French Government while it was at war with Prussia. This is, says the ' New York Tribune,' probably the most serious charge in the whole preamble which accompanies the resolution, and it is one on which there can be least doubt. Some of the most profound international lawyers in Washington are searching for a precedent for this act. They say the United States have committed a more flagrant violation of the neutrality laws than any committed by England during the American war, and that the only parallel would have been the building of rams in the dockyards to assist the rebels, The gravest apprehensions are entertained as to what the course of the German Government towards the United States will be unless the charge can be explained.