ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 619, 9 July 1851, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Sheffield is active in contributing articles of its industry for the Crystal Palace. Messrs. Spears and Jackson are having a circular saw made with segment joinings of five feet diameter, to be the centre of well finished smaller satellites of starry-edged teeth. This will, it is supposed, be the largest circular saw ever manufactured. West Wemyss has long been famed as the principal coal-field of the east coast of Fife, 1 he parrot coal of this district can be converted into articles of household furniture, such as looking-glass frames, writing-desks, chairs, and tables. Accordingly, Mr, Thomas " illiamson is at present making a sofa wholly composed of coal, for the great Exhibition. It is nine feet long, with three compartments or divisions, and is sufficient to contain seven people sitting on it. The front standards are beautifully carved, displaying three curious mongrel animals. Mr. G. H. Ramsay, of Derwent Villa, also proposes to exhibit various articles made from his celebrated cannal coal in the north of England. Accounts from Constantinople, dated January sth, record the perversion to Islamism, by the name of Mehemet Saadik, of the celebrated M. Chaika, who for many years took an active part as the agent first of the Polish and then of the Hungarian revolutionary party. The Russian Minister has protested strongly against this act being accepted by the Porte. The first trial by jury in Austria took place at Vienna on the 15th inst. The Minister of Justice, M. de Schmerling, and a crowded audience, attended the ceremony. The culprit—a girl, accused of incendiarism and other offences—was found guiltv, and condemned to three years’ hard labour, The blue gum of Australia is about to be employed in the Royal Navy for the construction of ships. Mr, Marshall Claxton has, we understand, received a commission from Miss Burdett Coutts to paint three large pictures for her

church and school-room in Rochester-row, Westminster. The subjects are, “Christ blessing Little Children,” —“ The Sacrifice of Noah,” —and “ The Flight into Egypt.” A New York paper states, that the “ New York Light Guards,” one of the “ crack” military companies of that city, are making extensive arrangements to visit Liverpool, London, and Paris in June next. They contemplate mustering 900 strong, “ rank and file.” One of Collins’s magnificent steamers is to convey them to England and back. One of the honorary members of the corps has signified his willingness to subscribe five thousand dollars towards defraying the expenses of the trip. A letter from St. Petersburgh, dated January 18th, states that above 10,000 Russians, belonging to the richest families in Russia, have already applied to the Emperor for his authority to pass a few weeks in London durThe number of the publications that have issued during the past year from the London press alone may be estimated at 4400. The Papal question contributed 180 publications •on that subject during the past month! The works of fiction numbered nearly 500 throughout the year. 250 books have been written last year on law subjects! 200 books of travels, and so on through the wide range of intellectual research and utilitarian pursuits, in every walk of human progress. St. Peter’s Chair.—A correspondent of the Times, writing from Rome, declares positively that the chair preserved there, about which Lady Morgan has told such an amusing story, is one of the curule chairs used by the Senators of Rome, and may have belonged to Pudens, a Roman senator, the father of St. Pudentiana. The correspondent further states, that at Venice is another chair said to have belonged to St. Peter, and actually brought, in the time of the Crusades, from Antioch, where, he had established a church. The chair has on it the Mahomedan inscription, in Cufic characters, quoted by Lady Morgan, whence it is inferred that this is the origin of her amusing story. At the Queen’s Printing-office, in New-street-square, is a middle-aged woman with a ■wonderful head. She recollects the year and the chapter of every act of Parliament upon any subject. Though she is only the forewoman of the bookfolders, many attorneys are very much indebted to her for information.— Sun.

Private letters, direct from Shumla and Constantinople, state that all the refugees, excepting twenty-five or thirty Hungarian ocivants, most of whom intend returning to Austria, have left Shumla for Constantinople. In this last city it was arranged that all of them should sail for Liverpool, an 1 each person receive 500 piastres as a present from the Turkish Government. When the ship sailed all the Poles left with her, but the Hungarians could not be induced to go on board, a certain Dobakai having informed them that disturbances were about to take place in France, and that they would probably again find work in their own country. As the Magyars have spent their 500 piastres, they are in a sad state of destitution.

The centre of Leicester-square is the spot fixed upon for the erection of a building to receive Mr. Wyld’s intended great globe. After much difficulty, and the payment of no less than £3,000, the arrangement for the ground is now completed. The building is to be of a circular form, ninety feet across, enclosing the globe, of sixty feet in diameter Corridors for promenade will surround it, and it is to have four covered approaches from the sides of the square. The external elevation at the sides is proposed to be twenty feet high, surmounted by a large bell-shaped roof of ziuc. The building itself will be mainly of timber, the inner surface of the globe of plaster of Paris. In the centre of the globe will be a series of galleries, four in number, constructed so as to enable visitors to see every portion of the model, These galleries, it is said, will afford accommodation for 1,000 or 1,500 persons at one time, and are to be approached by spiral staircases in the centre. The entrance is to be at the south of the globe.

Mr. Alderman Gibbs has resigned his aldermanic gown ; litigation with the parochial authorities of St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, and private affairs, are saiu to be the causes which led to the step he has taken. Mr. Sydney S. Bell, of the Chancery bar, is appointed to the vacancy on the bench o> the Supreme Court of the Cape of Good Hope. Mr. Bell will be the second judge; Mr. Musgrove, the present second judge, succeeding to Mr. Menzies as First Puisne Judge of the Court. The Messrs. Birch, of Roscrea, the eminent distillers, have converted their distillery into flax mills, and set a subscription on foot to establish a flax society in their locality, lhe Poor-Law Guardians in some of the southern and western districts are actively co-operating with the gentry and farmers in

measures for the extended cultivation of the same plant, and the establishment of suitable buildings tor its preparation. A new omnibus has just been patented, the interior arrangement of which provides each passenger with a private enclosed seat. To this seat is attached a looking glass, and a bell to call the attention of the conductor, who is addressed through a speaking tube. The exterior of the omnibus is furnished with a gallery along the sides, by which each passenger can pass to bis private door. A great and beneficial change (we quote from a leading article in the Illustrated News) is taking place in Ireland. Rents, in many instances, have gone down to the equitable standard which allows the tenant to live after payment of his rent. Emigration, which even the winter months has not stopped, has rendered the late unnatural competition for land quite impossible, and has even threatened a new danger, that of under-population, quite as subversive of real prosperity as over-popu-lation. In some districts, landlords have been compelled to eater into negociations with their tenantry and labourers, lest they should be left alone in the wilderness. But that which, after all, must be considered as the most fortunate circumstance for Ireland, is the new flax movement. Foreign oil-cake to the amount of £600,000 per annum, is now imported into the United Kingdom. Flaxseed, for sowing and crushing, is also annually imported to the amount of nearly a million sterling, and flax and hemp, in a fibrous state, of the annual value of nearly three millions of pounds, making little short of £5,000,000 worth of produce which might be grown in Ireland, if both landlord and people set cordially to work, to meet even the present demand. The late meetings at Belfast have, it is confidently hoped, given the necessary impulse, and directed the energies of the Irish people into this useful track. Books for the Colonies, —The Lords of the Treasury have sanctioned the transmission of printed books by post to the colonies in the West Indies, Newfoundland, Gibraltar, Malta, and Hong Kong, at very low rates; and as soon as the concurrence of the several colonial governments can be obtained, it is intended to extend the benefits of the measure to all our colonies. The regulations under which the transmission may be effected are as follows:—On and after the first March next, any book may be sent from the United Kingdom to the above-named colonies, and vice versd, at the following rates, viz.—Not exceeding half a pound in weight, 6d.; not exceeding 11b., is.; not exceeding 21b., 25.; anc so on in proportion. Each parcel must consist of a single volume only; it must be sent open at the ends like a newspaper, and must not contain any writing either within or without the wrapper with the exception of the address. They must be prepaid, if sent from the United Kingdom, by affixing a sufficient number of stamps; and from a colony, the payment to be made in money. Death in the Bread-basket.—Every-one knows how different home-made bread is in flavour and sweetness to that procured at the bake-house. In making bread at home, we use nothing but flour, water, yeast, and salt. The bakers sometimes add potatoes, alum, magnesia, and other substances, to give it a white appearance, and impart lightness. Alum is largely used, not as an adulteration of itself, but for .the purpose of enabling them to work up and whiten an inferior flour to mix with that of a better quality. Ask a Baker why he puts alum ? he tells you “ it keeps water and raises well,” meaning, we suppose, that it improves the look of the bread, rendering it firmer and whiter. This alumed bread might not, perhaps, hurt a stout labourer, whose healthy digestive organs would be strong enough almost to convert leather into nutriment, but for persons of sedentary habits or infirm constitutions, it is a very serious matter to have their digestive process daily vitiated by damaged flour, whitened with alum. The quantity of alum is always proportionate.’ to the badness of the flour, and hence, when the best flour is used, no alum need be introduced. “ That alum is not necessary,” says Dr. Ure, “ for giving bread its utmost beauty, sponginess, and agreeable taste, is undoubted, since the'bread baked at a very extensive establishment in Glasgow, in which about twenty tons of flour are regularly converted into loaves in the course of a week, unite every quality of appearance with absolute freedom from acido-astringent drug.” Some of the adulterations of flour are made by the baker; others by the wholesale flour dealers, who, in large towns, supply the bakers with the corn ready ground. We observed a little time ago, in the public papers, an account of a gentleman who, whenever he visited Newcastle-under-Lyne, Staffordshire, was invariably seized with severe pains in the stomach ; he suspected it was caused by the bread he had eaten. This led to an inquiry, and the bread, upon analysis, was found to contain plaster of Paris. The baker declared his innocence; •w— • - ri pn mi mm,--

but on searching the miller’s premises from whence the flour was procured, a large quantity of this substance was found, which led to his being mulct of a considerable sum in the shape of a fine. Not a very pleasant thing to have one’s stomach walled up with plaster of Paris ! it may be very good to keep the damp from our houses, but not so agreeable to line the inner man with. — Dickens' Household Words.

ane fourth objection to my recommendations is, the amount of civil list which I have advised should be reserved from rhe revenues