CLIPPINGS OF THE MONTH.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1568, 21 December 1865, Page 3

CLIPPINGS OF THE MONTH.

(From the Spectator of September.)

September is come without the cholera, which keeps circling round the basin of the Mediterranean, and seems to have at present no Northern' impulses, so we may reasonably hope to escape that unpleasant excitement for this year. If it comes at all, it usually appears in July, or at latest in August, though culminating in deadliness in September. As we are also assured that thecattleplague,though most fatal to individual graziers and dairymen, is not likely to affect any 1 very large per-centage of English cattle, and the hay harvest and root crop are so good that the healthy cattle will probably gain in flesh this winter (as compared with last) as much as we lose by the diseased,"our autumn prospects are not so bad. The wheat is supposed to be pretty good in quantity but injured in quality by the rains, and the American wheat has likewise suffered. On the whole, however, the food horizon is much clearer than it was. The heavy cloud that hung over beef is slightly lifting, and with the present improved weather even bread may be said to be " looking up." Holland is beginning to complain of a cattle disease lik® ours, which, of course it considers imported, as there is always an alleviation in regarding one's calamities as the fault of another. Every additional week, however, convinces cool observers more completely that the Rinderpest is not contagious, but only epidemic, or " epizootic," as an ingenious gentleman, who objects to the implied compliment to cattle as a demos, has magnificently termed it. The graziers must feel it a melancholy satisfaction, in the midst of their anxieties, to inquire of each other whether the epizootic has yet appeared among them. Though the disease is « epizootic," and not infectious, the Ministry were nevertheless compelled to give way, about Ireland, and issued an Order m Council recently prohibiting all import of cattle thither. Indeed, a 8 no one can be absolutely certain concerning the nature and limits of contagion, it might be thought advisable

to avoid even a very infinitesimal risk of a spread of the disease, through that cause, to ao pastoral and poor a country as Ireland. Our Consul-General in Warsaw reports that when a similar disease prevailed in Poland in 1857, no remedy was so efficient as strong iron water. It was first discovered by observing that the cattle which drank at a strong chalybeate spring either* did not suffer or generally recovered, while the cattle on neighbouring pastures were carried off very rapidly. This quite agrees with all we have hitherto learned of the disease, —the tonic treatment for malarious low fever being always now followed with human patients by every educated medical man. A cow in Scotland is said to have been cured with a good dose of whiskey, but that, perhaps, was due to the cow's Scotch temperament. Anyhow, tonic and stimulus seem the approved nineteenthcentury treatment for men and cattle alike. The Convention of Gastein has been published in extenso, and agrees pretty closely with our account of it. Kiel is to be the port of the Federal fleet, and the ships of war both of Prussia and Austria are to lie in it for the present, but the garrison oi Kiel itself and the works for the fortification of the port are to be left; exclusively to Prussia. In other respects the convention seems even more favourable to Prussia than we had anticipated. At least it is stated—though not in the text of the convention —that the duty of defending all the Duchies (Holstein no less than Schleswig and Lauenburg) against attack is to be entrusted to Prussia, and if occasion should arise, the resources of all are to be placed at her disposal for that purpose. It seems likely that the Hungarian tendencies of the present Austrian Cabinet make them anxious to withdraw as much as possible from an expensive and responsible business that cannot interest any but the German provinces of Austria, and that the nominal occupation of Holstein (except Kiel) by Austria is only temporary, till Prussia thinks it is safe to engross the whole. She has already secured Lauenburg at the south and Schleswig at the north of Holstein, and it is scarcely likely that Austria should have entrusted both the breadexteriors of the sandwich to her keeping, if it were not intended that she is to have the Holstein beef in the end as well. The autumn concourses have begun. The Queen has "inaugurated" a new statue of the Prince Consort at Coburg with a considerable English attendance in the town. The fete to the French fleet at Portsmouth has attracted great crowds. And our studies are beginning to be even more sociable than our amusements. The Archaßological Association has been spreading itself about in the neighbourhood of Durham, visiting old Roman altars to the Dolychene Jupiter and hearing discourses on the Eoman ancestry of the Nevilles. The International Social Science Association, with many English members, has just assembled at Berne. -Very soon the British Association is to hare the most brilliant and distinguished meeting it ever held, at Birmingham, and in October the Social Science Association is to have one almost as brilliant and distinguished at Sheffield. Besides this there has been a working men's exhibition opened in Birmingham by Lord. Lyttelton, and in "Wakefield by Lord Houghton. We are becoming a sociable people. There are evidently no autumn amusements more popular than opportunities for the " concourse of fortuitous atoms." The Queen, who is staying at Rosenau, near Coburg, was present on the day of the late Prince Consort's birthday, at the removal of the veil from the colossal statue of him just erected in that city, and laid her garland, with those of the two hundred young Coburg ladies who walked in the procession, at the foot of her husband's monument. The artist who modelled the statue is Mr. Theed, of London, and it was cast in bronze at Nuremburg. It is said to be a very good likeness. It represents the Prince standing in the robes of the Garter, with the collar of the Garter and the Coburg order, carrying a field-mar-shall's baton. The Queen had her usual brilliant weather for the ceremony, and as all her family were with her, the day must have been one of real gratification to her feelings. The Times has taken advantage of the occasion to lecture the Queen on her absence from English society, and the ultra-Radical Star replied vehemently in her defence. It is a curious fact j that the cheap press is usually much the most loyal to the person of the Sovereign, —at least now that the Sovereign is a woman. The Telegraph leaders on the Queen are usually hymns of vulgar but tremendous magnificence. There has been a scandal in Italy which will operate very unfortunately, we fear, for the Government in the approaching elections. A few weeks Bince a colonel of a regiment was accused of having shot in cold blood, after Aspromonte, seven Italian volunteers who had deserted to Garibaldi. It seems that the story was either true, or true with only such qualifications as would not have much altered its aspect in the eyes of the public. The journals of Italy commented very severely on the circumstance, when the Secretary of War, General Petitti, sent round a circular to the army, reminding them of the duty of keeping up esprit de corps in an army, and of making common cause with any of their brethren who might be slandered by the public. In answer to this injudicious appeal, a number of officers wrote to some of the papers in Genoa advising them not to take further notice of the affair till the incriminated officer should have been able to produce his defence. And a duel between an editor and one of the officers was the consequence. Of course this result of General Petitti's circular produced a great ferment in Italy, and Signor Lanza, the Minister of the Interior, issued a second circular trying to explain the other one away, and assuring the prefects under his department that the Minister of War did not and could

not have intended to menace in any way the exercise of the political franchise. Whether this was so meant or not, the colleagues of Signor Lanza did not take his explanation well, and he, not General Petitti, has resigned. The public will certainly interpret this resignation as a wish to interfere on the part of the army with the civilians, and already a very had feeling between the ai'mv and the people of Italy his arisen about it. A more unfortunate omen for the coming elections, when all good Italians will need to pull together against the priestly party, cannot be conceived.