ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 351, 25 November 1848, Page 156

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

The Cause of Rebellion.— There appears to be in Paris nearly 1 50,000 men utterly unable to maintain themselves and their families by regular industry in ordinary employments. There you have the key to this year of calamities and wonders. Paris has not work for half its population. Idleness and hunger fed the growing agitation of last winter, kindled the ambition of political adventurers, sounded the tocsin of reform, gathered the provincial meetings, demanded the fatal banquet, manned the barricades, compelled Louis Philippe to abdicate, established the Republic, and consigned France for years to miseries unspeakable, inconceivable,, yet to be revealed. The third and hitherto the bloodiest revolution of France, with all its European consequences, is only a development of . that general disaster which has filled our own-country with depression, insolvency, and want. Our share in the crisis has been recorded in the Share-list, the Gazette, the rate-book, and in many a private tale of misfortune. France shows her portion in the sufferings of the age more emphatically and characteristically set forth in revolution and civil war. The insurrection has been suppressed. But the difficulty remains, for its causes still exist, and defy artillery and dragoons. There are 6till those -150,000 men, armed or unarmed, but equally doing nothing, and equally dependent on the State. If. they have been decimated in the recent struggle, still 1 30,000 remain. How are they to be employed ? When it was lately proposed to sot them at ,task work, thousands of skilled artisans replied that they should not procure bread for their families on the pittance they would get on these hard conditions. They could not compete with hardy -rustic labourers. The State, however, had no congenial work to give them. Again, the railroads, though unfinished, will not yield an early profit on the outly, and ask for capital which is not forthcoming. General Cavaignac has not solved the great social enigma. — Times.

Emerson's Lectures at Exeter Hall* — This gentleman, who . has been engaged by the committee of the Metropolitan Early Closing Association to deliver three lectures in Exeter Hall, commenced the course on Friday evening, the 24th of June. Subject — "Napoleon." He considered Napoleon to represent democracy for Europe of the 19th century. He was the strong man of the middle class. Of democracy, Mr. Emerson remarked:— The democrat and the aristocrat both take their stand with respect to the institution of property. The democrat, having none, desires to acquire it ; the aristocrat, possessing it, wishes to conserve it. From the most part, men incline to be democrats when they are young, and aristocrats when they are growing old. The democrat is the young aristocrat; the aristocrat ■is - the democrat run to seed. On Tuesday evening, the 27th, Mr. Emerson delivered his celebrated lecture on " Domestic Life." Among the distinguished individuals present were Mr. Thomas Carlyle, Dr. Elliotson, Dr. Southwood Smith, Miss Cushman, and Mr. Spencer T. Hall. Public questions (said the lecturer) may or may not concern us, but his domestic life is a question of the highest importance to every individual, In the present .-society, it is mean and urisanctified. We are afraid of poverty. The ends for which we labour are material. Means are sought for to beautify the dwelling — those means being the base ones of wealth. But was the beauty that was to be purchased coveted by the finest minds? — by Milton? by Jean Paul Richter? by Samuel Johnson, even? The houses of the rich are confectioners' shops, where we get sweetmeats and wine.' Those of the poor are copies of these to the extent of their ability. Beauty, elegance, and taste, are misunderstood ; so is hospitality. When a friend alights at our gate, let us not hu.ry to 6et before him fine viands, and to prepare for him a luxurious bed. These he can buy with money at the next town : but in the gladness of our countenance, in the wisdom of our conversation, let us give him that which cannot be purchased with any money. The man is yet to be born who, greater than paßt hero or sage, shall carry reformation into our households, and model anew our domestic life. On Friday evening Mr. Emerson delivered his farewell lecture to a crowded and respectable audience. Monckton Milnes, Esq., M. P., occupied the chair. The subject treated by the lecturer, was " Shakespeare." It is impossible to convey the faintest notion of this grest subject by Mr. Emerson, Before the audience retired, it expressed in the most enthusiastic manner, by cheers and waving of hats, its warm appreciation of the rich intellectual treat it had enjoyed, and its best wishes for the lecturer's safe arrival in America.— English paper, July 1.

Church and Statb.— -The Annuiy Tax. — It was announced a short time ago that the goods of two respectable parties in Edinburgh, who conscientiously object to the payment of this most unjust and unpopular-impost, were to be sold by public auction at the instance of the clergy. As the Scottish Anti-State Church Association had, by the circulation of placards, directed public attention to what was about to take place, an immense crowd collected at both sales. On the auctioneer taking his place at the first sale, he waa assailed with such a storm of hissing, groaning, and yelling, that his voice was completely drowned. As this was repeated with still greater vehemence at every renewed effort which he made to proceed with the sale, he was obliged to desist, alter having been able only to put up one out of the large number of articles poinded. This was an Elizabethan bed, valued at £25, for which not a single offer was given. During the short time that elapsed before the second sale began the crowd continued rapidly to increase, in numbers, bo that

altogether, we think, there could not be fewer than two thousand persons present. The reception which the auctioneer received was still more uproarious than at the previous sale. The sale was declared to be at an end before a single article had been exposed. The attempt, therefore, to dispose of the goods poinded to pay the stipend of the city clergy was completely frustrated in both instances.

Government Pensions for Merit. — The Queen has approved of the following pensions :—£2oo: — £200 a year to Mr. William Carleton, the celebrated novelist and illustrator of Irish life, manners, and character; £100 per annum to the sisters of the late Professor M'Cullagh, whose fame as a mathematician sheds a lustre upon Ireland ; to Mr. James Sheridan Knowles, £200 per annum ; and to J. C. Adams, Esq., the astronomer and discoverer of the planet, £200 per annum.

Endowment of the Catholic Clergy* — It is said that, owing to the conduct pursued by many of the Irish Roman Catholic prelates in regard to the question of repeal, and especially in allying themselves with the Young Ireland party, government has taken into serious contemplation the long talked of measures of connecting the Roman Catholic clergy with the state by an endowment. The only obstacle to the proposal of an immediate adoption of such a measure is said to consist in the unsettled condition of the Papal power, and the consequent difficulty of obtaining a firm basis for any agreement that might be made between the contracting parties. — Hants Independent.

Reform. — " Never, in the whole history of English society," writes the Nottingham Mercury, " were the people more determined in their demand for reform than at the present moment. They feel that they have been deluded and hoodwinked by smooth-tongued placemen and place-hunters but too long, — that in all seasons they have been 'taken in and done for,' by the political nonentities, who have managed by some means or other to take possession of the seats of power, and lord it uncontrolled above their betters. But the time for trickery is pact, the hour of change is at hand, and whether the Whigs be willing or unwilling to welcome the catastrophe, their popularity, their policy and their principles are now marked out for the lumber-room, in which they may serve to explain to the future students of the political history of England the extent to which their forefathers were victimised by quackery and falsehood in ' the days that are gone.' " Union of Repealers. — "Mr. J. O'Con- j nell is determined to die hard," writes the Times j correspondent ; " and, therefore, another ' dodge, : is to be tred before closing for ever the doors of Conciliation-hall, and thus cutting off all chance of levying the accustomed supplies towards the i 6ustainment of the clique who, for years paßt, j have battened on the misery of the ' poorest population on the face of the earth. 1 An official notification in Monday's Freeman informs the public that at a special meeting of the committee of the association, it was resolved to postpone the gathering until the 10th of July, upon the miserablejplea that further time was necessary to collect the opinion of the country upon the question of the projected alliance. This is by far the most flimsy subterfuge that has been yet resorted to to defer the inevitable deposition pending over the head of the 'leader.' The country has already unmistakably ' pronounced,' and that, too, in perfect accordance with Mr. John O'ConneH'B 'open and advised' ccnvicthat both he himself and his association had ' lost the confidence' of his quondam admirers and patrons. If the Confederates had one ounce of ' pluck,* or a tithe of the spirit of Mitchelism in their whole body, they would a week ago have pitched the articles of treaty into the fire, and spurned any compromise with any such palpable humbuggers." "* The estimated charges for improving the approaches to the castle and town of Windsor will amount to £83,420. One of the Paris journals states that about 1,000 Parisian milliners have left for London. The cost of carting a puncheon of rum from St. Katharine's Dock to one of the London railway stations exceeeds the whole freight from London to Rotterdam. Chinese Sayings. — Some of the ordinary expressions of the Chinese are sarcastic enough. A blustering harmless fellow they call a " paper tiger." When a man values himself overmnch they compare him to " a rat falling into a scale and weighing itself." Overdoing a thing they call " a hunchback making a bow." A spendthrift they compare to a rocket which goes of at ones. Those who expend their charity on remote objects, but neglect their family, are said " to hang a lantern on a pole, which is seen afar but gives no light below." Mr. Whishaw lately afforded a select number of scientific gentleman a "private view" of a number of his telegraphic inventions, at his offices, Gray's-Inn-square. Among those exhibited were several hydraulic telegraphs, a sub-way telegraph, called the " Telekouphenon," by which the lowest whisper can be heard for about three quarters of a mile; and the " Telegoigraph," a mechanical telegraph, with a rotary motion, which, like the other specimens, appeared likely to answer most of the purposes for which it was intended.

The graduates of the University of London which now consists of 25 colleges and 400 members, are agitating for a representative in Parliament.

The Standard publishes a current report that in case ministers are defeated on the Sugar Duties bill (which it is expected they will be), they have determined on resigning office, and that in all probability Lord Stanley will be tent for by her Majesty to form a new adminiitration.