LATEST ENGLISH NEWS. [From the Melbourne Argus.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 779, 19 January 1853, Page 3

LATEST ENGLISH NEWS. [From the Melbourne Argus.]

Another statistician, Mr. Joseph Fletcher, Government Inspector of Schools and Honorary Secretary of the Statistical Society, has recently died at the early age of 41.The Liverpool Chamber of Commerce has publicly advocated the Mercantile Law Reform suggested by Mr. Leone Levy, a fact which is highly valuable as an indication of Mercantile Keforni. x " Upon the -whole, the news respecting* the state of the potato crop is more cheerful. ; The blight is reported as passing aWay, both from Northern aud Southern districts ; and the panic

of the la^t three weeks seems gradually 1 dying out. It seems prohable that " crystal palaces " on a small scale will become a common feature in the provinces. A scheme is afloat to raise one in Sydney Gardens at Bath. The cost is estimated at £6000 ; Fox and Henderson would undertake to build it in twelve weeks : and it is proposed to raise the money by the issue of £5 shares. •• Uncle Tom's Cabin," an anti-slavery publication, by a Lady of New York, has had a prodigious sale here. One publisher has sold 5,000 copies a day for several days, and every shop window is full of the work. The Colonial and International Postage Association proceeds steadily with its work ; it has addressed all the Foreign ambassadors, resident in London, and several are said to have testified their great sympathy with the objects of the Association. As soon as the time for operation arrives, branch Associations will be formed ; indeed, the preliminaries are being arranged now in some of the provinces. A recent modification of the charge on .printed matter in the United States will help the object along. The Post-office has again gone out of its usual path in entering into a special contract with the Cleopatra^ the second in the line of the Great Britain. The last new steam proposition is the building of huge flat-bottomed boats to run, not in, but on the water, and to perform' the trip to New York in 48 hours ! and to India and back in a fortnight. A new steam line of battle ship, tKe Napoleon, has just been built for the French Government. She will carry 92 guns, and is of 1300 horse power ; she is reported to be capable of performing 14 knots an hour. If all that issaidbe true, she will be the finest, and most formidable ship of war in existence. This is somewhat better than gagging the press ; but better things still are talked of. We are informed that a treaty is pending with England, by which the postage between the two countries will be reduced from 16 to 7 sous, and the duty upon all productions of both countries to something under 15 percent. If Louis Napoleon will do that, he will almost wipe out the remembrance of his atrocities, and will run a chance of being classed with Sir It. Peel, instead of Nero. It is said, that overtures have been made and received favourably, for an international copyright convention between this country and the United States of America ; and also, that the latter government is about to conclude a convention for free navigation between that country and the Netherlands. Alexander Somerville, the author of the " Autobiography of a Working man," and of the Letters of " One who has whistled at the Plough," is about to emigrate to Australia. Mr. Bailey's bronze statute to' the memory of the late Sir Robert Peel, erected in the Market place, at Bury, was publicly inaugurated on Wednesday, in the presence of somewhere near 20,000 persons. Emigration from Scotland. — The tide of emigration flows on with unabated vigcur, and in :J1 likelihood will continue to do so. America and Australia are of course the favourites — the latter more so, in consequence of its gold-fields, and the superior advantages it offers to farmers, mechanics, and servants. At present there are several large vessels lying at the Broomielaw, announced to sail for both places, among which we observe the Corra Linn, Bannockburn, and Sarah for America, and Typhoon and Birman, to be succeeded by several others, for the gold regions. Besides these, there are several ships for the East Indies, South America, and the West India Colonies. The Queen has been pleased to appoint Arthur Edward Kenuedy, Esq., now Governor of her Majesty's Settlements in the River Gambia, to be Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief in and^over the Colony of Sierra Leone and its dependencies. Her Majesty has also appointed Major Luke Smith O'Connor to be Governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over her Majesty's Settlements in -the River Jaambia and their dependencies. II The Admiralty have suspended the works of ships building as mere sailing vessels. The Hannibal, 90, and Emerald, 50, building at Deptford, have had the hands employed on them taken off, and it is reported that they are to be converted into screw ships. William Alexander Williams, alias William Biggs, a gunner in the Royal Marine Artillery detachment, serving on board her Majesty's ship Dauntless, 24, Captain Halsted, has been sentenced to death by a court- martial, "For having, on the morning of the 31st of July, the Dauntless then being at sea, assaulted and struck Mr. Joseph Oliver, the gunner of the sai|jfship, who was on board at the time." ~- Sir Harry Smith, in reviewing the militia at Guernsey last wetfe mt.de £§g#ii some^remark - able expressions ''respecting the value of citizen |»oldiers as a national defence. Having praised the splendid contingent before him, he thus eulogised the militia in general :— " Now a word to you comrades ! Never has an enemy so much cause of dread as when opposed to armed citizens. History is full of examples. Look to the plains of La Vendee, where the armed citizens so successfully foiled Napoleon's veteran armies. Look to Algeria, where France's 450,000 men have found full employment, during many years of territorial occupation, without bringing the people to subjection. Look to Circassia which still withstands Russia's host of 800,000. I myself have never been so nearly foiled as when opposed to the armed peasantry. I have just returned from a long and fatiguing war, in a country where, when I have beaten them in one' place, they have started up in another, with renewed vigour, to resist me. You loyal Guernseymen would have to do, and would do likewise, did' the foe dare to plant his foot on your shores. Heaven .grant that England may never have to repel any invader ; but, if she should, and I had to take part in her defence, I would";.'not ask to lead better soldiers than you — I call you spldiers — I would not ask to lead better troops than the Loyal Militia of Guernsey. It is quite needless to say that these words produced great effect on the nerves of the " so)diers,"whq threw offjheij usual excitement in rounds, of applause. Dreadful Occurrence at Quebec—Quebec has duriug the past week been the scene of a disaster which, though less appalling in Us

character, is perhaps in reality to be still more deplored. On Tuesday last a heavy thunderstorm act in, and the rail) poared in incessant torrents, one of which, rushing irorn the heights on Abraham's Plains towarth the Cone, loosened several fragments of the rock ou tne cliff, and a( four a.m. oa Wednesday an avalanche or land slide took place, which buried a large brick-house beneaih its weight. It was occupied by two families; of on.c, the father, mother, two daughters, and a servant girl was killed ; the other has only the loss of two children to deplore. The escape of the survivors was miraculous. A fewhours afterwards a second avalanche took place, but no lives wpre lost, though, a couple of houses were overwhelmed. The constant , undermining of the rock at its base, added to the very fragile character of the strata^ renders such calamities almost inevitable during seasous of great rains. — People's Paper.

Extraordinary Murder in Paris. — At the beginning of last month, a young Spanish woman of great heau<y, Dolores Perez, a»ed 20, arrived at Paris with her little daughter. She tepresented herself to be an equestrian performer by profession, and the day after applied for an engagement in the Cirque, in the Champs Elys&s. She was promised one. On Sunday morning week, whilst she was absent from home, a cab drove up with a young man having the appearance of a Spaniard The coachman, by his .direction, asked if she were at home, and on being answered in the negative, the young man presented a card, on which was engraved the name Perez Novarro. About an hour after Mdlle. Dolores returned, and, on the card being presented to her, she cried, "Ah, my God, 1 am lost! He has come to murder me !" After leaving the Rue St. Nicolas, the young man took an apartment in the Rue Vivienoe. On Thursday week, Novarro announced at the hotel in the Rue Vivienne that he was to leave the same evening for Spain, and he paid his bill and sent off his trunks. He, however, said he should requre the apartment for a lew hours more, as some persons were about to visit him. At five o'clock he-returned, and shortly after three females celled on him. One was Doloies ; the other two her friends, both Spanish. The conversation turned on Novarro' s departure, and he earnestly begged of Dolores to return to Madrid with him. She positively refused, and told him that the relations which had existed between them could not be renewed. He asked the three females to dine with him, but they declined, and the two friend of Dolores went away, leaving her with him Shortly after, Novarro, deadly pale, hastened * down stairs. Meanwhile the persons stopping in the hotel heard moans from the young man's apartment. On entering it, they found Dolores lying on' the floor, stabbed in five places, and run through with a sword cane. — [The assassin is in custody. He had not money enough to take him out of Paris. It appears that the deceased resisted, as knife wounds were found on the prisoner.] — Liverpool-Journal, Aug 14.