LATEST ENGLISH INTELLIGENCE.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 175, 12 July 1845, Page 73

LATEST ENGLISH INTELLIGENCE.

Our papers received by the Louisa Campbell are to the 18 th of March.

Parliament was opened by the Queen in person, on the 4th of ''Fel*_ary. The following was the Queen's speech : —

" My Lords and Gentlemen :

" I rejoice that I am enabled, on again meeting you in Parliament, to congratulate you on the improved state of the country.

" Increased activity pervades almost every branch of manufacture. Trade and commerce have been extended at home and abroad, and among all classes of my people there is generally prevalent a spirit of loyalty and cheerful obedience to the law.

" I continue to receive from all Foreign Powers and States assurances of their friendly disposition. " I have had much satisfaction in receiving at my court the Sovereigns who, in the course of the last year, visited this country. " The journey of the Emperor of Russia, undertaken at a great sacrifice of private convenience, was a proof of the friendship of his Imperial Majesty, most acceptable to my feelings. " The opportunity of personal intercourse thus afforded to me may, I hope, be the means of still further improving those amicable relations which have long existed between Great Britain and Russia.

" The visit of the King of the French was rendered especially welcome to me, inasmuch as it had been preceded by discussions which might have impaired the good understanding happily established between the two countries.

" I regard the maintenance of tliis good understanding as essential to the best interests of both, and I rejoice to witness that the sentiments so cordially expressed by all classes of my subjects on the occasion of his Majesty's visit were entirely in unison with my own. " Gentlemen op the House of Commons : " The estimates of the ensuing year have been prepared, and will forthwith be laid before you. " The progress of steam-navigation, and the demands for protection to the extended commerce of the country, will occasion an increase in the estimates connected with the naval service.

" My Lords and Gentlemen :

" I have observed with sincere satisfaction that the improvement which is manifest in other parts of the country has extended to Ireland.

" The political agitation and excitement, which I have had heretofore occasion to lameut, appear to have gradually abated, and, as a natural result, private capital has been more freely applied to useful public enterprises, undertaken through the friendly co-operation of individuals interested in the welfare of Ireland.

" I have carried into effect, irt the spirit in which it was conceived, the Act for the more effectual application of Charitable Donations and Bequests. " I recommend to your favourable consideration the policy of improving and extending the opportunities for academical education in Ireland.

" The report of the commission appointed to inquire into the law and practice in respect to the occupation of land, is nearly prepared, and shall be communicated to you immediately after its presentation.

" The state of the law in regard to the privileges of the Bank of Ireland, and to other banking establishments in that country and in Scotland, will no doubt occupy your attention.

" The health of the inhabitants of large towns and. populous districts in this part of the United Kingdom has been the subject of recent inquiry

before a commission, the report of which shall be immediately laid before you. " It will be highly gratifying to me, if the information and suggestions contained in that report shall enable you to devise the means of promoting the health and comfort of the poorer classes of my subjects.

" I congratulate you on the success of the measures which, three years since, were adopted by Parliament for the purpose of supplying the deficiency in the public revenue, and arresting the accumulation of debt in the 'time of peace. " The act which was passed at that time for imposing a tax upon income will shortly expire. " It will be for you in your wisdom to determine whether it may not be expedient to continue its operation for a further period, and thus to obtain the means of adequately providing for the public service, and at the same time of making a reduction in other taxation.

" Whatever may be the result of your deliberations in this respect, I feel assured that it will be your determination to maintain an amount of revenue amply sufficient to meet the necessary expenditure of the country, and firmly to uphold that public credit which is indispensable to the national welfare.

"The prospect of continued peace, and the general state of domestic prosperity and tranquillity, afford a favourable opportunity for the consideration of the important matters to which I have directed your attention ; and I commit them to your deliberation, with the earnest prayer that you may be enabled, under the superintending care and protection of Divine Providence, to strengthen the feelings of mutual confidence and good will between different classes of my subjects, and to improve the condition of my people."

Id the Lords, the address was moved by the Marquis of Camden, and seconded by Lord Glenlyon ; in the Commons it was moved by Mr. Charteris, and seconded by Mr. Baring. There was no amendment brought forward in either house.

Mr. Gladstone has seceded from the Cabinet, on the subject of a proposed increased grant to Maynooth College. The honourable gentleman, it is stated, afterwards reconsidered the subject, and intimated his readiness to support the grant and other projected educational institutions of a liberal tendency in Ireland.

Sir George Clerk is the new Vice- President of the Board of Trade, and Mr. Cardwell has succeeded Sir George as secretary to the Treasury. Mr. Deedes has been returned for the eastern division of Kent, vacant by Sir E. Knatchbull accepting the Chiltern Hundreds j the Hon. H. Fitzroy for the borough of Lewes ; Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan for Shaftesbury; Sir C. Trower for Buckinghamshire; Mr. W. P. Carew for East Cornwall; the Right Hon. Sidney Herbert re-elected for South Wilts ; the Hon. W. B. Baring re-elected for Thetford.

The return of Mr. Soames for Dartmouth has been petitioned against by the unsuccessful candidate, on the ground of his being a Government contractor.

By Sir R. Peel's newly proposed tariff, the following articles will be freed from duty: — Bark, barilla, bones, brimstone, bristles, bronze works of arts, camphor, caoutchouc, cedar, cochineal, copperas, cork, ebony, feathers, flax, tow, hemp, grease, greaves, guano, gum, gypsum, hair, hides, hoops, indigo, skins, madder, mahogany, nitre, ochre, oil, quicksilver, rags, saltpetre, seeds, silks, staves, tar, teeth, wool of beaver, hare, or coney.

Lord John Russell's amendment on the sugar question was lost by a majority of 94. The division was considered as a test of the strength of the two parties in the House.

Mr. Eivart gave notice, at the opening of the session, of a motion for the total abolition of the punishment of death.

The Income Tax is to be continued for three years longer. The subject of Post Office espionage has again been brought before Parliament. The motion for an inquiry into the right of Government opening letters moved by Lord Howick, was lost by a majority of 95. Sir R. Peel said that some change should take place in the mode of exercising the right. After the close of the debate, Mr. T. Duncombe gave notice of a motion to call the officers of the Post Office to the bar of the house.

The Government has denied in the strongest terms that it ever entertained the slightest intention of entering into a negotiation with the Papal See upon the subject of a concordat. The Anti- Corn-Law League is again in full activity. The winter in Europe has been unusually severe. Our latest English papers (March 15) state that the frost had not then broken up, and that skating was still pursued in the parks. Lord Brougham is preparing a life of Voltaire, in English and French.

We notice the announcement^of the death of Mr. Larnan Blancbard, well known as a pleasing writer in periodical literature ; the Marquis of Westminster; the Earl of Effingham; Sir. T. Fowell Bnxton; Baron Gurney; Lord Wynford; Lord Mornington ; thej Right Hon. W.

Sturges Bourne ; the "Rev, Sidney Smith ; and the Marquis of Sligo.

Mr. Platt is elevated to the bench in place of Baron Gurney. - There was a talked-of visit of the Queen to Ireland in the ensuing summer. Sir Charles Metcalfe has been raised to the peerage, by the title of Baron Metcalfe, of Prim Hill.

Fifty-two thousand hundredweights of chicory paid a duty of £54,000 last year, which shows the tremendous extent to which coffee is adulterated.

The criminal annals of the metropolis, as well as the provinces, have lately shown an excess add enormity of crime almost unexampled. On the Ist of January a murder was committed at Salt Hill, Buckinghamshire, by la man named Tawell, a member of the Society of Friends. The victim was a woman, who was formerly his servant, and with whom he had cohabited. Tawell visited her at her house, and poisoned her by administering prussic acid in a bottle of porter. He was tried at the spring assizes, and found guilty, and received sentence of death.

A magistrate of the name of M'Leod was barbarously murdered at Garradale, Ireland, on the evening of the Ist of February, as he was returning home in his car from supper with a neighbouring gentleman. , . Joseph Barry, living in Shoreditch, cut his wife's throat on the morning of the Ist of February, and then went into bed and cut his own throat; they were both found dead. A cabinet-maker in Hull was taken into cubtody on the sth of February, for murdering his wife, and then throwing her into the kitchen fire. When found by a policeman, ehe was almost burned to a cinder.

A wretched woman, the victim of intoxication, residing in Pe'nrith, seized her daughter, aged eight years, and held her face on the fire till the flesh was roasted. The poor child shortly died. The mother took this barbarous method of punishing, her, because she had often complained to her father of her mother's profligate habits.

A young man of the name of Tapping murdered his sweetheart at Bethnal-Green, by shooting her with a pistol. The ball divided the carotid artery, and displaced the bones of the vertebrae of the neck.

Mr. De la Rue, a professor of music, was murdered and robbed near the Finchley Road, Hampstead. A young man named Hocker, an acquaintance of the deceased, was arrested on suspicion of being the murderer, and the inquest returned a verdict against him. The barque Ann, of Sunderland, returning from Ichaboe, laden with guano, struck on Hasborough Sand, and, while beating over, shipped a quantity of sea water, which, penetrating to the cargo, caused almost instantaneous combustion. The crew immediately took to a boat, and they had scarcely left the vessel when an explosion of gas, engendered by the partially fired guano, blew out the stern of the vessel, which immediately sank.

Two transport ships, with troops, the Runnymede from Australia, and the Briton, from England, bound to Calcutta, have been wrecked side by side on the Andaman islands, in the bay of Bengal. No lives were lost. An English gentleman, his wife, two children, and a female servant, were burnt to death on the Ist of February, in a cottage they rented at Don ny brook. Ten persons were drowned in Hayes Wood coal-mine, on Tuesday, the 4th of February, by a rush of water into the pit. On the 2d of March, eight persons were drowned on the lake opposite Hare Island, Athlone, by the sinking of a feiry boat. Seven lives were lost on the Royal Canal, Dublin, in a crowded packet-boat, by the passengers rushing suddenly to one side of the vessel to speak to their friends before leaving. The water rushed into the cabin windows and suffocated seven persons.

On the sth of March, three men were killed and seven others wounded by the bursting of a steam boiler in the yard of the Messrs. Samuda, Blackwall.

Sixteen persons were lately drowned at Dundrun, in an excursion for mussels, owing to the overturning of the boat. A desructive fire took place at Bridgetown, in Barbadoes, early in January, which destroyed the principal portion of the town. The loss of property is estimated at more than half a million.

Considerable excitement of a religious nature prevailed in Switzerland at the date of our last papers. It was feared that Austria might interfere, in which event France could not remain passive. Santa Anna, the ruler of Mexico since 1836, has fallen. His successful rival is Paredes. The soldiers of Santa Anna deserted him by thousands ; but a few that remained faithful to him fought to the last. According to some accounts, the general made his escape, according to others, he was taken and shot.