LATEST ENGLISH NEWS.

New Zealand Herald and Auckland Gazette, Volume I, Issue 27, 20 November 1841, Page 2

LATEST ENGLISH NEWS.

By the Lysander, from Plymouth the 15th July, we have received London journals to tbe 10th July. The whole of the United Kingdom was in a ferment with the elections, which were verv generally contested. Several Members had been returned, but the majority of the contests were still pending. From the following extract from the Standard it would appear that the Tory party would have in the new House a majority of 60 but the Times calculates upon 70. The Parliament, it was expected, would meet about the 23rd July. Lord Stanley was spoken of as Secretary for the Colonies. From the Standard of July 10 tli. We take the following summary from a minis • terial journal, which, of course, would not exaggerate the success of the Conservative party : « returns up to twelve o’clock last night were, for Reformers. Tories. English boroughs 176 166 English counties 14 98 jJk Ireland -.21 * Scotland J2l _K> Total 232 285” This calculation gives a Conservative majority of fifty-three already; and as the unfinished elections are for the most part county elections, there is reason to hope that this majority will be augmented. The elections for the West Riding, for North Cheshire, and for Hants, have terminate in victories to the Conservative party; .Lord Morpeth has been dismissed, and Lord Milton with him and the West Riding substitutes two Con-

Stanley, and replaced him by a Conservative. Upon the fate of these two eminent persons— Lord Morpeth and Mr. Stanley, the Morning Chronicle has the following paragraph « Perhaps no better test of the popularity or unpopularity of a government can be found than a reference to the manner in which its members are returned to parliament. If the government is thoroughly unpopular, it is morally impossible that those who compose it should be able to secure seats for large and independent constituences. We may go further, and say, that unless a ministry is thoroughly popular, unless it is thoroughly identified with some great principle of civil or religious liberty, or some great measure of piactical reform, and unless it does actually in a great degree represent the feelings and conviction of the intelligent middle classes of the country, it is exceedingly improbable that those connected with it should be returned for first-class constituencies,” Thi* test has been applied to some first-class constitueneies. The registry of the West Riding is the largest in the kingdom, containing 30,000 names. This constituency has dismissed her Majesty’s Secretary for Ireland, a leading Cabinet minister, by a majority of more than one thousand. North Cheshire lias dismissed one of her Majesty’s ministers. Liverpool rejected Lord Palmerston, by a majority of some thousands. Lord John Russell, it is true, came in fourth on the London poll, by a questionable majority of nine votes, and Sir John Hobhouse has the honor of representing Nottingham. If we ascend from the men in office to their patrons and masters, we see the result of their appeal to first-class constituencies. Mr. Josep'.i Hume rejected at Leeds; and Mr/Daniel O'Connell in a fair way of being dismissed from Dublin. Compassionate people will ask what has become of Lord Morpeth, Mr. Stanley, and the rest of the discarded ministers ? When Messrs Hume and O'Connell have to beg for seats, the prospects must be dreary to the recruit mendicants. The Conservative majority is sixty already, for there has not been a seat lost on the Conservative side. Lord Worsley, indeed, by the aid of his father’s immense possessions, and an unscrupulous use of influence, has saved himself in North Lincolnshire. The Conservative majority will be sixty—a number, we repeat it, not more than sufficient by a single unit to ensure good government.

Let us give our ministers a great majprity, and we estab ish our principles as well as our party. One of our monitors reminds us of the ill consequences of the fatal blunder in 1829. We can be hardly suspected of a wish to extenuate those ill consequences, or to palliate the error that produced them ; it is, on the other hand, to obviate the possible recurrence of such consequences that we wish now to expose their parent error, and to obviate a repetition of it. The original cause of the unhappy mistake in 1829 was the divided Cabinet —its immediate cause the elections of 1826. These elections had, as regards ministerial management, been confided by Lord Liverpool to Mr. Canning. Mr. Canning was a pro-Romanist, and in the management of the elections of 1826 the Protestant principle was for tbe first time forgotten; the parliament elected in 1826 was thus a pro-Romanist parliament, but it was a parliament which the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel could not constitutionally dissolve in 1829, for it had been elected under their own colleagues in the Government, and was not three years old. It was this parliament which forced the fatal Romanist Bill, the ministers were its unwise, but unselfish instruments. They saw that the existence of such a parliament insured the passing of the bill sooner or later, and they devoted themselves to make the best terms that could be made. If we wanted the strongest illustration of the necessity of doing everything at the elections “ while it is yet day,” to secure the ascendancy of our principles, independently of all reliance upon statesmen, we should instance this very case of the connexion between the election of 1826 and the bill of 1829.— Standard, July 10. Two youug Englishmen, says the Gazette des Tribunaux, after breakfasting the day before yesterday at the restaurant of the Maronnies, at Bercy, were crossing the bridge, from the Quai de la Rapee to the Quai de la Gare, when one of them took off his paletot and hat, gave them to his companion, and plunged head foremost into the river. Some bargemen hearing the splash, but not having seen the previous preparations, immediately went off in boats, and, as the diver rose to the surface, seized him and carried him ashore, in spite of his remonstrances, and the joyous laughter of his friend who remained on the bridge. The bargemen conducted their dripping prize before the Commissary of Police, in order to prove theif claim to the reward given by the city to those who save drowning persons. How this question may be decided we know not, but the magistrate had great difficulty in dissuading the young Englishman from lodging a complaint against the bargemen for causing him to lose a wager he had made with his fellow countryman, that he would jump from the bridge and swim down to the Pont d’Austerlitz,”— Sun. A French paper says the rains of last week have drawn out of the earth such clouds of gockchafers that the trees are covered with them, and all the foliage eaten, the whole air being infected with a nauseous odour. The plain of Caen, the Bessin, and the valley of the Auge were simultaneously invaded by these insects, which, in their larvse, as well as in the winged state are the plague of the farmers. Last year many communes in the arondissement of Falaise had the whole of their crops annihilated before they came to maturity, these larvse having devoured the roots, and left the plants to wither from want of nour-

Iron Houses.— M. Rigaud, of Brussels, has constructed an iron house, which, according to the statements published, appears to answer the objects intended in a satisfactory manner. The walls are hollow, and the hot air circulates from a central point in the kitchen, through the intervals in the walls, and by means of valves the quantity to he admitted may be regulated. A house consisting of seventeen rooms will cost £1,165, while a house of the same size in brick would cost £1,157. The rooms are arranged on three floors. The whole weight is 797£ tons, avourdupois (810,000 kilogrammes.) The advantage of this structure of house is represented to be its permanent nature, and the facility with which it may be moved. The expense of carrying it from Brussels to Liege, to Ghent, or to Antwerp would be about £25. — AXhencßum. The largest diamond known to exist in the world is in possession of the King of Portugal, and is valued at the enormous sum of fifty-seven millions of pounds sterling, or about two hundred and fifteen millions of dollars ! Madlle. Fanny Ellister has written to a friend in Paris, giving a glorious account of her success at the Havannah. She says she cleared more than 6,000 dollars by her benefit, and was invited to a grand supper, by the authorities, to which she was escorted by a deputation of twenty-four of the wealthiest gentlemen of the island. She appears to be astonished at the enthusiasm which she creates; as well she may, for it is very unusual for a sylphide of six-and-thirty, who has a son of eighteen, to excite such rapture as a dancer. The River Thames. —The number of deaths by drowning which occur in the River Thames between Richmond and Gravesend; are calculated to amount to the large number of 500 annually, of which about one-third occur in the pool, principally among seafaring persons. LONDON NEWSPAPERS. The Times (daily circulation) 16,455 Morning Chronicle 5,091 Morning Herald .....5,689 Morning Post ........... .3,411 Excess of the Times over the other three unitedly, in daily sale 1,224 Immense Organ. —An enormous organ is now being erected in the Abbey St. Dennis. It contains about 600 pipes amongst which are some measuring 52 feet, and weighing 12,0001b5. This magnificent instrument is nearly completed.— Brittannia. Folly and madness of War between England and the United States.— We are not in a position to fight for national character. We have as much reputation in the field and in the cabinet as belongs to any nation. No Power desires to injure or insult us. It is only by cultivating peace that we can be happy. A war between this country and England would not be war for territory or national aggrandizement, but simply a war to see which can do the other the most harm. Let us imagine it, let us suppose that England, by her improvement in the art of War and by steam ships, runs into our seaports, lays our cities in ashes, or levies contributions. In order to save our towns and their defenceless people, let us in return, by our private marine, sweep her commerce from the ocean, and burn her small towns. Let us thus go on at an immense expense of blood and treasure, to injure each other for twenty years, and at the end of that period we shall not have settled a single point of national honour —for the simple reason, that there is none to settle in the present dispute. It involves no principle of policy which cannot be settled by men desirous of preserving the blessings of peace and promoting the happiness and prosperity of the country. — New York Mirror. The Nile now wears the aspect of an European river. It is to be seen constantly traversed by four steam-boats conveying mails and passengers. That of Mr. Galway is the most rapid. It made the passage from Boulac to Rosetta in 17 hours less than the Pasha’s steamer. On the Nile are also three gun-boats with the Roman flag flying over them. They have on board the columns from Upper Egypt, which Mehemet Ali has given to the Pope. The Arabs gaze with astonishment at these flags, whieh represent St. Peter and St. Paul at full length, with flowing beards, and ask whether they are not standards of the Jews, as the countenances of the figures are decidedly Jewish. Since Mehemet Ali lost the command of the deserts of Arabia, our communications are intercepted at all points; even the caravans from Suez are plundered. M. Love Weimar has in consequence been obliged to relinquish his journey and return to Cairo. Seventy-nine slave vessels have been captured under the late treaty with Spain, from 1837 to 1840 inclusive. The Puseyitks. —This class of schismatics are interfering in a very remarkable way with the appointment of the proposed colonial bishops. The Times , which seems to be falling into the hands of the Puseyites, has this day a letter and article remonstrating against the appointment of a bishop at Malta, because there is already one in that island—that is, the bishop under whom the superstitions of Popery are practised.

Hong-kong. —lt was indispensably necessary, however, before steering to the northward seas so little known, to complete our stock m" water, and we made sail accordingly for the island of Hong-kong, one of the great cluster called the Ladrones. Here we found a noble cascade, and the night being perfectly calm, with ’ a sea as smooth as a mill-pond, in consequence of the anchorage being land-locked on every side by lofty islands, we filled our water casks easily and towed them on board in rafts of 10 or 20 at a time—an expeditious method, but practiced only when the distance happens to be small, and the sea unruffled. The islands in this quarter lay so close to one another, that even in the day time it was difficult to discover any outlet, but at night the mountains appeared to form a continuous barrier. The nature of the ground also being black and unbroken, it seemed as if the ships had been transported by some magical process to the centre of a solitary lake, lying in the bosom of a Highland glen. Soon after we had taken up our station near the waterfall, but before this curious basin was lighted by the moon, and when the most perfect silence reigned over the whole scene, a fleet of several hundreds of Chinese fishing boats suddenly advanced, in large groups of 40 or 50 each, from behind the islands. They were rowed about with great celerity from place to place, and in each boat two or three men stood in the bow with flaming torches in their hands which they waved backwards and forwards, while other of the crew were employed in beating in the most furious manner, several large gongs, suspended to the mas s. To give full force and finish to this extraordinary serenade, a chorus of yells and shouts was set up from all the boatmen, at the full stretch of their voices—an uproar which awakened the echoes of all the surrounding hills, and rendered the whole scene so truly diabolical, that the sailors, astonished and delighted at this sudden irruption, insisted upon it that a legion of Chinese devils must surely have been let loose to frighten away the ambassador. But this tumultous and amusing uproar was evidently intended to drive the fish from the centre of the harbour into nets placed across the narrow channels, between the surrounding islands.— Capt. Hall's Voyage to Loo Choo . The Trappists in Ireland. —Mount Melleray, county Waterford, or the black mountain, as it was called, is now a perfect garden, though recently a barren heath, until the Very Rev. I)r. Ryan, abbot of the Trappists, and his exiled brethren from France, obtained a grant of tbe tract from Sir John Keane, whose property is since consideribly enhanced in value, as nearly all the vicinity is taken by industrious farmers, who, acting upon the example of the Trappists, have brought into cultivation an expanse of land for centuries in a wild aad barren state. Fields of rich corn, and meadow pasture upon well-inclosed farms everywhere meet the eye, and the surrounding country presents a most exhilarating When Dr. Ryan came into possession, but Is. 6d. after defraying the expense of himself and his brethren to Mount Melleray’ The order located here now consists of eighty-six members, whose dress is a long brown cloak. Their whole time is occupied in prayer or field labour, except the period devoted to rest. They retire to their beds at eight in the evening, and rise at two in the morning, .throughout the year. Their diet is strictly vegetable, and raised upon their own gardens, never tasting either fish or flesh-meat, and no drink but pure water. In such matters they are rigidly austere. The chapel of the establishment is exquisitely beautiful, and excites the most enthusiastic admiration of every visitor. The abbot is most attentive to all persons resorting there, whether through curiosity or devotion, and visitors are treated with every hospitality. Lesson on Politeness. —Never say how is your wife, your husband, your mother, your grandmother, &c., but how is Mr. or Mrs. , Lord or Lady 1 Two of the strongest offenders against this rule were Nollekins, the sculptor, and Delphini the clown. Nollekins invariably asked George 111, when a sitting commenced how his wife and family were? and Delphini thus addressed the Duke of York, in the hope of inducing him to intercede with Sheridan for the payment of his salary at the Theatre; *• Sare if he no pay me soon, I shall be put into your Papa’3 Bench”—meaning the King’s Bench Prison. It was Delphini, by the way, who during ihe Gordon riots, when people to protect themselves against the mob, chalked No Popery on their doors, by way of greater security chalked No Religion upon his. Striking Proof.— “ Do you know the man at the bar ?” said the Magistrate to a witness at the Police Office, on Tuesday, who appeared to prosecute for an impudent attempt at robbery. “Yes, your worship, ” was the confident reply. “ How do you know him 1” emphatically interrogated the Magistrate. “ Because,” lejoined the witness with some stress, “last night he knocked me down l His worship then admitted that he had had striking proof of the prisoner’s identity, and proceded with the examination.— Sydney Police Report. A Tavern Incident. —A traveller domiciling at an American hotel, exclaimed one morning to the waiter, “ Waiter what are you about you black rascal, you have roused me twice from my sleep by telling me breakfast is ready, and now you are attempting to strip off the bed clotbes 1 what do you mean?” “Why replied Pompey, “if you isn’t going to get up, I must hab de sheet any how, ’ cause de’r waiting for de table clof.” Reeve was onceaccosted in the Kensington-road by an elderly female, with a small bottle of gin in her hand. “Pray, sir, I beg your pardon—is this the way to the workhouse?” John gave her a look of clerical dignity, and pointing to theiS bottle gravely said “No, ma’am; butthat is.” The Siddons Monument. —An act of justice, too long deHu layed, is at length about to be performed by the erection of monument to that great actress Mrs Siddons. A embracing sevet al gentlemen eminent in literature and science, has been appointed, and all subscriptions limited to one guinea. A man tired of his better half, put a halter round her neck, and carried her to a provincial market for sale. “ W ho’ll buy a wife?” said he. “ Say a good one.” whispered the lady. “No, rejoined bumpkin, I be hanged if I cheat any man.” Limerick was not, in the memory of man, as it is at present, without the head-quarters of a reginent, or a full militaiy band!