ENGLISH NEWS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 239, 13 November 1847, Page 3

ENGLISH NEWS.

[From the Sydney Morning Herald, Oct. 25.] By the Baboo we received English news to June 26th, two days later than had been previously received via India, and a week later thai* had arrived direct. It ' had been determined that Parliament should be prorogued on the 15th July. The Government had withdrawn the Railway Bill, and would not it was expected persist in passing the Health of Towns Bill, having already consented to omit London from its provisions. On an important clause in the Poor Law Bill, that for separating man and wife in the poorhouse, the Ministry were defeated. Great anxiety prevailed as to the harvest. The funds rose and fell as the weather cleared or became gloomy, there was every reason however to hope for abundant crops. Tallow was in demand at 50s. We have not seen any further accounts of sales of wool, but a weekly paper speaks of the sales proceeding heavily, and the inability to obtain former prices. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council commenced sitting on the 21st of June, and was to sit every day until the 2nd of July. There were eighteen cases on the list. The fifteenth was the " Bank of Australasia v. Briellat."

Military. — Mr. Lynd, the barrack-mas-ter who has been stationed in Sydney for the last four years, is under orders to proceed to New Zealand, to take charge of his department in that colony.

New Poor Law. — Mr. Borthwick last night, June 24, put Lord John Russell into a minority. Everybody will ask what the subject can be on which a gentleman so little accustomed to carry with him the sense and the votes of the Legislature has shown himself more of a stateman and philosopher than the \ Premier. It is a questiou of nature, and hu- ; inanity, and religion. Mr. Borthwick has rescued old married couples, when both are above 60, from the shameful separation prescribed by the existing Poor Law. Lord John Russell has earned a deieat by obstinately holding to the system, and proposing to modify Mr. Bothwick's clause into a mere dispensing power in the iiands of the guardians. A sure, > though tardy, retribution certainly is overtaking the authors of this law. Who would have thought, thirteen y e ears since, that Mr. Borthwick would ever dictate terms to Lord John Russell, and that a provision of the bill then so much insisted on would one day crumble to dust at a word 1 Yet, this has come to pass. Nature has triumphed, »nd Lord John Russell has been thoroughly beaten by a member whom he despised. — Times, June 25.

[From the Australian Journal, October 29.] Her Majesty intended to pay a visit to Scotland before the end of the season. On the 29th June, the four following colonial Bishops were consecrated in Westminster Abbey — Rev. R. Gray, late Vicar of Stock-ton-on-Tees, Cape Town ; the Rev. Augustus Short, late Vicar of Ravensthorpe, Northamptonshire, and a relative of the Bishop of St. Asaph, Adelaide ; the Rev. C. Perry, of St. Paul, Cambridge, a distinguished member of that University, Melbourne ; the Rev. William Tyrrel, incumbeptof Beaulieu, Hampsh ire., Newcastle/ , Bishop Wilson had an interview with Earl Grey on the 24th June, at the Colonial Office. The Dublin Freemasons' Journal states it has been settled that Sir William Somerville will succeed to the Irish Secretaryship, which Mr. Labouchere vacates for the Board of Control, immediately after the dissolution of Parliament. Mr. Cowell is appointed Queen's Commissioner for New Zealand. Mr. William Cubitt, citizen and fishmonger, and Mr. Charles Hill, citizen and spectacle maker, were elected Sheriffs of London for the ensuing year, without opposition. The Queen had settled on Mrs. Dr. Chalmers and her family a pension on the Civil List of £200 a-year. The official letter of intimation, written by Lord John's own hand, is as follows :—": — " Chesham Place, June 22, 1847. Madam, I have the satisfaction of informing you that the Queen, taking into consideration the piety, eloquence, and learning of the late Dr. Chalmers, has been pleased to command that a pension of £200 a-year should be settled upon you and your daughters, out of her Majesty's Civil List. Allow me to add, that I trust that this act of the Queen may

I render the remainder of your life as tolerable as the loss of so eminent and excellent a partner will permit. I have the honor to be, Madam, your Obedient faithful servant, I ' ' J. Russell. The Britannia says, " We may now venture to state it as an ascertained fact, that it will be necessary to defer the prorogation of Parliament to a date somewhat later than that which a short time since was contemplated. Friday, the 23r<l of July is the date which will, in all probability, witness the termination of the session. - ' It is now calculated by active members of Relief Committees, and the estimate is said to be admitted by Cabinet Ministers, that the Irish famine will probably kill two million people this year. The sum of misery is so great, that one can hardly understand it without going' into particulars. Two million iv the twelvemonth — men, women, and children — that is, 3,479 a day, 228 an hour, and 4in little more than a minute. We state a fact known in' political circles, that two million, "deaths in Ireland, this year, from hunger and disease arising from hunger, is the present reckoning of persons connected with her Majesty's Government. Sia George Pollock, G.C. B. — This gallant and distinguished officer has returned to England from Calcutta. We regret to state that he is still in so delicate a state of health that he is unable to appear in public. At present, indeed, he is a close prisoner to the house, and compelled to decline all invitations, public or private. It is said, however, that there is every prospect of his soon recovering, under the invigorating influence of his native climate.