ENGLISH SUMMARY.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 1, Issue 41, 3 July 1858, Page 3

ENGLISH SUMMARY.

(From the London correspondent of the "Age.") London, April 16, 1858-

Nothing of transcendent importance since my last monthly. The luU has come after the storm this time. Whether it is to precede another tempest of excitement remains to be seen. The public mind is calm for the moment about ttie Indian Question, and the disturbed Alliance Question. Legislation as to the fut live management of India stands over until next session. The bill introduced on the subject has not been received with much favor. The principle was good — the Council to ba composed of men of Oriental experience, selected on an elective arrangement, and by constituencies composed of men interested m one shape or other with our great Eastern dependency ; partly also by the chief commercial cities of the United Kingdom. In reference to this p\'Oposal, the great industrial centres of London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Belfast, were selectsl tor,ta n a member e.ich to the Council .Edinburgh and Dublin have eacli put in a claim against (Glasgow and Belfast, which claim may hold good in point of metropolitan inanity, though not of commercial importance. The bill, however, | resented more seriously objectionable features, and some downright anomaues ; and howe er <rood the principle the details were decidedly faulty, and so the matter stands over. The excitement about our French relations has subsided into a feeling of misfrust, making itself felt in the Government departments by the filing up of block-ships for coast defence, preparation for a Channel fleet, and the "intention oi increasing the militia regiments to their full strength. Popularly it is most demonstrative in reference to the trial of Bernard for participation in the Orsini conspiracy, and the approaching bookseller prosecution for pamphlets of Colonel Titus cast in Cromwell's time — "Killing no murder" — defending tyrannicide as no crime — ala Walter Savage Landor. There is a very general feeling against

the pending trial and expected prosecution. '1 u^-y are regarded as a concession to the Tuileries, and I believe that in consequence, acquittal will be the result in both cases.

A second letter has been published by the French Government as having emanated from Or3ini, but its authenticity is doubted. It conveys a sort of confession of regret for the attempt for which he has been executed. By his will Orsini requested that his body might be brought to London and laid beside that of Ugo Fuseolo, the Zautiote Poet and Statesman, of Italian execration, who devoted his life to the liberation of the country of his ancestors, who died in a London garret, and whose political principles have bern i'lhei'itcd by Mazzini. r lli3re have been statjmerits circulated by the Moniteur, accusing O> sini c f the crime of robbery in his \ r -vious career.. It is only justice to the memory of a man who, howe.er evil the last act for which he has suffeieJ, had throughout his previous life a most honorable character, and has been highly respected, by all who knew him here, — to mention that the crime of robbery thus pai tieularised, was a charge laid by the Groverument in Home, three or four years after it had been reinstated by French bayonets, and the charge had reference to the confiscation of the stores of the deposed authorities, which confiscation in his capacity of Governor of Ancona for the Republic, it was his duty to see carried out. Is not this attempted assassination of a man's memory as heinous a crime as the attempted tyrranicicle ? News has come of the continued progress of Russian warlike exertion in the PaciQc. Even the winter it is stated has not interfered with the enlargement of the fortifications of Klcolaieff, at the mouth of the Amour, now a very formidable affair. China is stated to be the object in warlike view from this point ; but we all feel that Russ'an aggression in that direction can be hardly relied on in the future as limited to China — a realm at present affording no pretext for the hostility of the Czar, beyond the temptation of weakness. All you colonies should look out in time. The Russian Pacific (what a misnomer?) settlement i 8 swelling up belligerently ! Merchants of many nations are nocking into it, and a steam line has been laid on between it and St. Francisco. Do you call that nothing ?

Public feeling here has still a distrustful eye on the doings in France and Russia, as the debates in Parliament show, and the tone and conversation in club and coffee-house. The thivty years peace which followed "Waterloo is not regarded as very likely to be repeated in our time. The doings tin's moment across the channel are not calculated to strengthen pacific assurances. A mandate from the Tuilei'ies is enforcing a conscription for seamen, between forty and fifty thousand strong ; the Minie rifle is being substituted for the musket universally among the French infantry ; and a camp for 100,000 men is preparing at Chalons. The reviews at this place in the approaching suinmeT 1 , it is expected, will attract crowds of foreign visitors, before whose eyes Emperor Sap will display with no little pride bis pet troops with the African war-bronze on their countenances — turbanued Zouaves, little linesmen, with the tidy "Kepi," chasseurs of Africa and Vincennes, big cuirassiers from Alsace, and picturesque spahis from the lrnd of Abdel Kader, not forgetting those slender Arab t'ralleurs who did such wicked service at the Malakoff. The spectacle will be a godsend to the sight-seers — this moment without anything very alluring to congregate them. The soldier plays "first fiddle" in France now-a-days, and gets his spoonful of preferment in civil as well as military matters before anybody else. Everything is military from the theatre to tho biveau; and the art bellicose is "the gay science," as well as the profitable one, under the Imperial rule. And while on French topics, I must not omit Paris architectural improvements — improvements by the bye which the mob of the Fau-bom-g3 will not be very grateful for in the next barricade attempt. There have been two diplomatic objects kept in view in all this removal of old streets and building up of new. The first has been employing the "dangerous classes ;" the second breaking up the lines of communication between the old suburban quarters of disaffection. A good military position has been thus established for the occupants of the Tuileries ; but after all it may prove in the hour of extremity as little available as Louis Philippe's famous ranrpart schume. However this may be, the pilgrim to the forthcoming Chalons fetes will be astonished when he halts in ths capital, at the transmogrification of at least the south western port-ion cf it — grand lines of streets, wide sweep of boulevards, mansions, fountaius, architecture, and sculpture — taste and money expended without stint, to do ths de«signer justice. While referring to the Emperor, I may mention that what I told you some months ago about hi 3 secret Corsican police guard, is now corroborated by the "Leader" and "Times" Paris co\*respon~ djnt. When apparently most unprotected, those individuals are about him in every disguise, from that of the fashionable equestrian of the 13ois de Boulogne to the Savoyard or Auvergnar shoe--blacks; sometimes as an innocent looking farmer from the Rhine departments, in ill-cut coat and old fashioned whiskers ; sometimes as the Parisian ouvrier in blouse and beard. The Corsican countenance peers out very generally in the varying disguise, however. Pietri and Allessandri have stocked this ignoble force pretty well with their insular court "yinen.

We have no such unlucky circumstances to dictate London improvements of that class which is contributing to the architectural edification of France, and they a^e not progressing here on a very remarkable scale. Poor old Temple Bar is to be tabrn away and consigned to a most incongruous exile in one of the parks ! It is a difficulty for cabs and waggons certainly, but it has historic associations, and is one of the very few things left in the city to remind us of the past, and in spile of the advantage in mere convenience I will not class its approaching deportation as an improvement. As for the rest, we have expanded Cannon street up to St. Paul's, and are running up there a very fine line of warehouses ; and we are getting a bazaar in the Palais Royal style near Oxford street, Regent's Circus, to be" called the Crystal Palace. We are getting up something stylish in. Covcnt Garden too.