LATE ENGLISH NEWS. [From the Australian, Jan. 21.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 265, 12 February 1848, Page 3

LATE ENGLISH NEWS. [From the Australian, Jan. 21.]

It is with profound regret that we have to record, as the chief topic for anxious discussion, the failure of some of the most eminent firms in London. The failure of the Governor of the Bank of England was a significant token of the approaching evil, and was soon succeeded by the stoppage of the Messrs. Sanderson & Co. for £1,700,000, Messrs. Reid, Irving, & Co. for £1,500,000, Messrs. Gov.er, Nephews, & Co. for £1,000,000, and many other houses for sums varying from £30,000 to £150,000. We gather the following from the Times: — The excitement consequent on the failure of Gower & Co. was very great. The liabilities on bills alone are alleged to amount to £600,000, and it is considered probable that the total commitments of the firm will be found to reach £1,000,000. For two years past the position of the house had been from time to tune a subject of inquiry, and this in so many quarters as to lead irresistibly to the conclusion that nothing but the circumstance of one of the partners being a Bank Director could have kept it in a degree of credit up to this period sufficient to render possible the wide and crushing consequences which must now be sustained. The standing of Mr. A. L. Gower in the Bank direction was such as to bring him very nearly in rotation for the oft'ce of Deputy-Governor, and he was one of those passed over, or by whom the office was declined, on the recent occasion of the vacancy caused by the failure of Mr. Robinson. In addition to the post of -Bank Director, we believe he also held that of Governor of the Mines Royal Copper Company. The immediate causes of the present suspension are said to have consisted in the failure of Gemmell & Co., of Glasgow, and of some of the other houses which have recently been reported ; but it is apprehended that the real difficulties of the firm will be found of much mote distant date, and its liquidation will expose a long existing state of unsonndness. Railway speculations — the source whence the public are destined to find the solution to a deplorable succession of misfortunes yet to come — have operated, it is expected, in this instance to no small extent; and although in some transactions, such as those connected with the Dutch, Rhenish, and Canadian Companies, which do not occupy a very favourable place in ihe recollection of the community, the partners in the firm are understood to have made large profits by the peculiar mode which was adopted of introducing the shares upon the market, there is every reason to believe that, on the whole, the losses sustained by them have been extensive. Consequent upon the failure of Gower, Nephews, we have that of Alison, Camberlege, & Co., a smaller firm, in the South American trade, with which they were connected. About a month back Mr. Alison sailed for Valparaiso, and as Mr. Camberlege is already resident there, the junior partner a Mr. Gower, is the only representative of the house now in London. The liabilities in this case have not been stated. The failure of D. and A. Denny, cornmerchants, of Glasgow, whose position had for two or three weeks been a subject of anxiety, was also announced. The liabilities amount to about £400,000, and the assets it is feared, will not realize more than 6s Bd. in the pound. A very heavy portion of the loss will probably fall on the Scotch banks and on the London discount houses. The next intelligence from America was looked for with considerable interest, as the effect of the late English disasters upon the stability of American houses will then be pretty well ascertained. Nobody expects to hear that our reverses have been accompanied with injurious and even ruinous results to many American mei chants ; but an expectation prevails that the large profits which the American dealers have been enabled to realize, from the 1 unusual demand for grain from all parts of Europe, will have strengthened the great body oi them against the losses they may be forced to sustain. In home securities, we need scarcely observe, these' untoward occurrences had caused the most serious depression, and the aspect of political matters tended to increase the pervading gloom. The latest qnotations of Consols for money (Sept. 22) was 86. Amidst this gloomy prospect of affairs we are however glad to be enabled to report .favorably in respect to the markets of raw produce. Notwithstanding the partial suspension of the works at several large manufactories prices were fully sustained. In wool we are authoiised to quote former prices with an upward tendency. We may here observe, that to the two houses of Reid, Irving, & Co., and Gower, Nephews, & Co., were consigned, large quantities of Australian wools'. The two houses received last year about 6,000 bales from Sydney alone.

In reference to the failures of several large Scotch firms, we with much pain, give the following memorandum from the Glasgow Courier : — We regret to state that the public were taken by surprise on Saturday afternoon by the rumoured suspension, of a large house in the China trade. 'We understand the parties alluded to are those of the highly respected firms of Gemmell, Brothers, & Co., of this city, and of William and Thomas Gemmell, & Co,, of Canton and Hong Kong. One of the proximate causes of the failure, it is understood, is the non-arrival of the China mail ; and although the ramifications of the houses are very extensive, and may cause considerable temporary inconvenience, it is hoped that ultimately there may not be much loss to any party. The house of Gemmell and Co., of Valparaiso and Lima, wLo a;e a branch of the same house, with separate partneis, are not affected by the failure of the home house, and will, we understand, continue their business as formerly. In addition to the above, we regret to state that a rumour obtained yesterday (Monday) to the effect that an eminent house in town, connected with the corn trade, had also been declared unable to meet its engagements. The liabilities are said to be pretty equal in the two cases, and it is understood that the amount altogether is not less than between £400,000 and £500,000. The stoppage of Messrs. Denny and Co., to which we alluded in our last, has been confiimed. This house, which h-is loog held a highly respectable position in the grain trade, is said to hold largely the acceptances of Lesley Ale> ander and Co., of London. The responsibilities are estimated at £212,000, and the assets at £73,000. Another respectable firm — the Bothwell Street Spinning Company, of which Mr. Matthew l'ernon is sole partner — has also come down to the amount, it is said, of upwards of £50,000. These coming immediately aftet the stoppage of Gemmell, Brothers, and Co., and Gray and Roxburghs in Greenock, have caused considerable depression aud gloom in business. The free church association for colonising Otakou, in New Zealand, had held a public meeting in reference to this matter, at which Mr. Fox Maule presided, and arrangements had subsequently been made for prosecuting the scheme with vigour. The officers composing the Brigade of Foot, Guards, have just erected a monument in the militaiy chapel, Birdcage Walk, to the memory of their gallant companion in arms, the late Major Fitzroy Somerset, who it will be remembered, fell at the battle of Ferozepore on the 21st of December, 1845, while acting as military secretary to the Governor-General of India. Her Majesty, after a pleasant sojourn in the Highlands, had left the " Land o' Cakes" and returned to England. We have no space to record the full programme of the Royal progress, but cannot resis r giving the following " scene" from the Inverness Courier in its details of the festivities at Ardverikie Lodge, before the Queen, in honor of her illustrious husband's birthday : — " A foot race closed the succession of games, her Majesty and the ladies in waiting standing at the winning post. Prince Albert and Prince Leiningeu stationed themselves on an eminence, about half-way up the craggy rocks. Nine men stripped to shirt and kilt, some with boots, othets with brogues, and one or two haiefooted, bounded off in an excellent style. The first quarter was made a; a tre 7 mendous pace, but few of the competitors had bottom enough for the whole. One by one they dropped behind, until they were seen trotting along with shirt and kilt fluttering in single line like a string of wild fowl in flight. Colin Macdonald, a Lochaber man, was a long way a-head, clearing bog and rock with the agility of a roe, until a malicious stone tripped him, and by his fall enabled the second to gain a few yards upon him. He, however, came down and overturned into a hole. Macdonald recovered his lost ground, and finally ran in a winner by thirty or forty yards. To show how little his long run had exhausted him, he leaped over the long line of rope placed to keep off the crowd, and reached the spot in high triumph, where her Majesty stood smiling applause. The second hero, Wm. Kennedy, from Banchor-Kingussil, came in and dashed past the , Royal party in an awkward plight — his hair flying, his stockings about his feet, and that garment usually next the skin hauging outride his philabeg like a white banner waving behind. Her Majesty turned aside, and Lord Grey relaxed into a smile." — Another paper addt, *' that the ladies in waiting on her Majesty covered their faces with their handkerchiefs, and made a hasty retreat towards, the lodge." The indisposition of the Prince^ de Joinville is said to be of a serious character. The Baron Pasquier, first physician of the King, had been sent to attend on him.

Rise of a Manufacturing Town. — Sixty years ago Huddsrsfield, now, the centre

of the fancy manufactures of England, was a miserable village.' The houses were poor and scattered, the streets, narrow, crooked, and dirty — the people ignorant, an.i wild in their manners, almost to savagery. Around them stretched the black moorland, unreclaimed by the plough or the spade ; and the sides of the noble hills were covered with shaggy moss, brambles, and wiry creepers, or coloured in the appointed season with the golden gorse and the purple heather. And how short was to be the intervening period ! Already in this wild people were deposited the seeds of a glorious manufacturing and historical unfolding. Sixty years have changed the face of this vast district ; for during that lime heads and hands have been at work, conquering the wild dominion of nature, and making all her elements serve them. Thus the river has been converted into artificial beds, and the wateis anested in their course by weirs, aud compelled to turn the wheels of the hundreds of factories which are built upon the river's banks. The savage moorland has been cultivated and parcelled into corn fields and pastures. The hills, in many cases, wave e\eu to their stony summits, with rich herbage ; and from the wildest glens aud ravines rise the chimneys of noble factories, sending their black smoke through the green foliage of the trees ; every one of them the centre of a little working community. Thus Huddeisfield has grown into an important town ; and what is more, she has fostered other towns and villages in her immediate neighbourhood, and made them also important ; so that, within six miles of her, there are some hundred and thirty thousand souls engaged in manufactures, and in the commerce to which those manufactures give birth. — Bradford Observer,

Removal of the Remains of John Tawell. — We understand that on Friday the remains of Thomas Bates, who was executed on the 31st of March, 1837, for the murder of James Gihrow, game-keeper, and John Tawell, who was executed on the 28th ot March, 1845, for the murder of Sarah Hart, at Salt Hill (the bodies of whom were interred within the walls of the old gaol at Aylesbury) were disinterred and lemoved to the new gaol, and buried within the walls of that prison. The coffin containing Tawell appeared to be in a very good state of preservation. — Bucks Herald.

Earthquake. — On the 7th of August last, a dreadful earthquake occurred in Egypt, and Alexandria was a heap of ruins ; Cairo had suffered dreadfully. A wind express has been established on the Mexican prairies, by which freight is cairied to Santa Fe, for s>ix dollars the hundred pounds. The vehicle is a wind waggon, rigged with sails like a ship. — The inventor is a Mr. Thomas, who aUer various experiments, has convinced the most credulous of the practicability of thus sailing on dry land, and he has established depots, and advertises for freights and passengers. The wheels of his wind waggon are twelve feet in diameter and one foot broad, and there are four on a side. It is steered by a pilot, whose wheel pulls upon the end of a tongue fastened to a forward axle. In his experiments Mr. Thomas made eight miles an hour, with only one sail and a light breeze ; ha found he could go up a moderate ascent without difficulty, and on an open praiiie, with room to beat and tack, he calculates on averaging twenty miles an hour.