Miscellaneous.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume XII, Issue 1229, 13 May 1857, Page 3

Miscellaneous.

Life and Liberty in Naples.—Thecellsin which these unfortunate detenuti are confined are so loathsome that the surgeons will not enter them, and the sick and half-dead patient is made to toil upstairs to receive medical advice. The food allowed is also nauseous, and common felons are crammed with political offenders at night to sleep as they can in a low, dark, unventilated room. Judge Peronte was treated even worse, for he and two other men were kept for two months in an underground cell, eight feet square, and with one small grating. through which it was impossible to look out ; nor were they allowed to leave the cell for any purpose whatever. Similarly the Baron Porcari was immured till his trial in a dungeon twenty-four feet below the level of the sea. And but a few weeks ago I heard Captain Acuti declare that he had flogged uncondemned prisoners by order of the Government; yet such treatment is expressly forbidden by law. Now, it must be distinctly remembered that the victims selected for this terrible persecution are not a number of violent, low-born Republicans, but the middle class, the strength of the State ; and as few of them have independent property, and confiscations sometimes take place on arrest, each prisoner or refugee becomes to his friends the centre of a circle of misery. Out of 140 deputies who came to the Parliament at Naples, 7G were in confinement or exile in 1851 ; and the rest only purchase liberty by absolute submission to the royal will. On*the other hand, the lazzaroni, the lowest class in the State, and probably in the world, are flattered and caressed, and were slipped like bloodhounds, in 1848, on their unfortunate countrymen. An occasional largess, and in great crises the promise of plunder, suffices to repress their strength, or to arouse it when required on the side of the King ; while those orders whose intelligence and moral force the Government most unnaturally dreads are specially thinned oat and intimidated. A system like this is evidently suicidal, but it is, nevertheless, one which calls for the serious attention of all who have the power to abolish or restrain its excesses.—Dickens’s Household Words. A Chaplain Foraging,-—At Kadikoi I saw the British officer reduced to a lorager for himself. There were many of them in this capacity, mounted usually on rough-and-ready ponies. One had a couple of geese at his saddle bow, another a sack of potatoes, another pots of preserved meats, and such like. Everything was very dear, but much prized for all that. What an uninteresting troublesome length of toad it is!

so much noise and dust, and such s'range scenes. We come to hundreds of Land Transport mules and ponies. They are picqueted in •he open air, and every now and then one breaks loose from his fastening and scampers over a plain. I ask a Land Transport sergeant if he can secure me a pony ? He answers in the negative, but advises me to slip a baiter over the neck of the first one I meet. It is not an uncommon occurrence, so he says, “You see, Sir,” he continues, “ these here animals will die a great many of them this winter for want of stabling, and if you relieved us of one it might be giving the poor beast a chance, for you would take care cf him.” The argument is forcible, but J. explain to him that I am a clergyman, and it would be rather derogatory to the dignity of my profession to “relieve” him of one of his animals in the way he describes. He says that “alters the case,” and looks as if he comtnisserated me for my inability to turn horsestealer— Colburn’s United Service Magazine for December,

The Gift of Tongues.—lt is well carefully to note the difference between Russia and England in regard to the collivotion of language for State purposes. There is not a country possessing a grammar in any diplomatic relation with St. Petersburg which has not the acquisition of its native tongue provided for in or near the Russian capital. At the imperial gymnasium, Novo-Tcherskask, in the country of the Dor. Cossacks, military interpreters and translators for the Caucasian invasions are taught Arabic, Tartaric, Avarian, and Tscherkessian ; at Storc» pol, Tartaric and Tscberkessian form part of the educational system; and throughout the land young and able students are diligently trained to carry on free intercourse with foreign nations English statesmen might do idler things than take this shrewd example into their consideration, and establish competent schools for instruction in the languages that bear upon our immense Asiatic and Indian interests. From the Sanscrit, through the Affghan, Bokharan, Kurdian, Armenian, Albanian, to the Persian, Turkish, and Chinese, it ought to be our first care to see that native Englishmen could be found to conduct the important affairs of the British empire in these languages; and even their Bengali, Mahratli, Guzerati, Assamese, Kashmerian, Khasiyan, and other varieties. It is imperative to encourage the study of the Oriental languages in England, that we may have scholars capable of conversing with natives, and thus procuring supplies, gathering information, translating documents, writing circulars or proclamations, carrying on parleys, assisting at conferences, and wording treaties. That we should usually need the intervention of strangers in such business is no sign of our wisdom. In all other countries which have any political, commercial, or religious connexions with the East provision has been made to effect this ; and ever since the days of the Empress Catherine, Russia has won many a success through the qualifications of her diplomatic linguists. At St. Petersburg there is a chair for every branch of Oriental literature ; and at Kasan and elsewhere the chief languages of the East are regularly taught. The French Academy has always counted among its members the leading representatives of every department ol Eastern philology, besides the Government school for the living tongues, which are taught by the most eminent p'ofessors. At Vienna the Oriental seminary of the Imperial press disseminates the choicest Oriental works, while even Denmark and Prussia raise Oriental scholars, cud employ them on missions, and as consuls and interpreters.— Dickens’s Household Words. Sir R. Peel at Home.—l there (at Drayton Manor) saw Sir Robert Peel in the bosom of his family-, and in the midst of the population of his estates ; Lady Peel, still beautiful, passionately and modestly devoted to her husband ; a charming daughter, since married to a son of Lord Camoys ; three sons, one a captain in the navy, already renowned for the most brilliant courage; the second, who has just made a successful debut in the House of Commons ; the third still engaged in his studies ; on the estate numerous and prosperous farmers, among whom was one of Sir Robert’s brothers, who had preferred an agricultural life to any other career ; great works of rural improvement, and more particularly of drainage, in progress, which Sir Robert Peel watched closely, and explained to us with an accurate knowledge of details. Altogether a most beautiful domestic existence, grand and simple, and broadly active; in the interior of the house an affectionate gravity, less animated, less expansive, and less easy than our manners desire or permit ; political recollections perpetuated in a gallery of portaits, most of them of contemporaries, some of Sir Robert Peel's colleagues in Government, others distinguished men with whom he had been brought in contact. Out of doors, between the landlord and the surrounding population a great distance, strongly marked in manners, but filled up by frequent relations, full of equity and benevolence on the part of the superior, without any appearance of envy or servility on the part of the inferiors. I there beheld one of the happiest examples of the legitimate hierarchy of positions and persons, without any aristocratic recollections or pretensions, and amid a general and mutual feeling of right and respect.— Guizot’s Memoirs of Sir It. Peel. A Polite Judge.—Governor Ford, of Illinois, tells an anecdote of one of the early judges of that State, but the governor doea not put upon record the name of the considerate magistrate. At the court over which this judge presided a man named Green was convicted of murder, and the judge was obliged to pass sentence of death upon the culprit. Calling on the prisoner to rise, the judge aaid to him : —“ Mr. Green, the jury say you are guilty of murder, and the law says you are to be hung. I want you and all your friends down on Indian Cre.k to know that it is not I that condemns you ; it is the jury and the law, Mr. Green, at what time, Sir, would you like to be hung? The law allows you lime for preparation," The prisoner replied, "May it pieuse your honour, I am realy al any time ; those who kill the bo.ly have no power to kill the soul. My preparation is made, and you can fix the time to anil yourself; it is all the same to me, Sir.*’ “'Mt, Green, 1 * returned the judge, “ it is a very serious matter to be hung. It can’t happen to a man hut once in his life, unless the rope should break before Ids neck is broke, and you had better take al) the time you can get. Mr. Clerk, since it makes no differ ence to Mr. Green when he is bung, just look into the almanack and see whether tins day fotn weeks comes on Sunday." The eletk looked ahe was directed, and reported that that day fom

yei k" ram- nn Thursday. “Then,” said the judge, ’’ Mr. Gre n, if you please, you will be hung this day four weck<, at 12 o’clock." The Ano ney-General, Mr. James Turner, here interposed, and said, “May it please the Court, on occasions of this sort it is usual for Courts to pronounce a formal sentence, to remind the prisoner of his perilous condition, to reprove him for his guilt, and to warn him against the judgment in the world to come.” "Oh, Mr. Turner," said the judge, “ Mr. Green understandsit. Mr. Green, don’t you ?’’ “ Certainly,” said the prisoner. “ Mr. Sheriff, adjourn the Court." Four weeks from that day Mr, Green was bung, but not so much to Ids own satistaction as his appearance nromised on the day of his conviction.— American paper.

Calcutta as it is.—Every English traveller who visits Paris sighs over its improvements. The contrast with Loudon is too strong, the difference between the acts of M. Hausmann and those of the Board of Works too great to leave room for any feeling but regret. Travellers have even been heard to aver that we might putchase independence too dear at the price ol stagnation, that a few weeks of a wise despotism might do more for our cities than ages of municipal self-government. Yet it is doubtful if suci. a despotism, if worked by Englishmen, would suffice to the end required. In Boston, Americans, as jealous of interference as the citizens of London, still enforce sanitary laws with a rigour Louis Napoleon dare not attempt. In India an absolute Government declines even the effort to improve its capital. Calcutta, the metropolis of Asia, the seat of a trade which has risen to £20,000,000 sterling, is cared for less than a tenth rate town in the Mediterranean. The City of Palaces, as some traveller contrived to designate it, wants all the three attributes of a capital. —convenience, beauty, and original character. It is not convenient for health, for the science of which we boast has done nothing to redeem the original mistakes of the founder. He placed the city on a spot where there is no natural drainage, and we have only reported on an artificial remedy. A single shower of rain fills the streets knee-deep. The compounds of the European houses retain the water till the sun sucks it up, scattering malatia in the transit. The bazaars cf the city and the native town are alike crossed by open drains full of corruption, such as the costermongers of St. Giles would be unable to endure. Great native merchants leave black ditches uncovered under their walls, and a journey through Chitpor-road is full of torture for all but snuff-takers. The river, perhaps the swiftest, and certainly the most beautiful of Asiatic streams, besides the uncleanliness natural to a port, is filled with dead bodies and fetid with the excrement of c nation. That river, and a few half-stagnant tanks, furnish the drinking water of a population which has learnt from habit to fear the cholera aa little as the lightning. The stroke of both may be deadly, but they are considered equally unavoidable. Charnock and his successors let the native town grow as it would, and it has grown, as a jungle grows, the faster for the absence of ventilation. That the plague has never appeared in the Burra bazaar is a blessing we owe to the mercy of God, not to any carefulness of our own. With cholera endemic we still inforce uo ventilation, open no new streets, clear no path for the wind, and regard building acts and acts for lodging-houses as a dream some future generation tray begin uselessly to discuss. Our population congregates as it will, builds as it can, and lives as it may, without that guidance which is our moral claim to govern. It is “ Oriental,” and that is sufficient apology, as if Orientals had not built Antioch, or Munco had never enforced the religious duty of the bath. The shore, which from its gradual slope renders quays and jetties easy of construction, is left to be covered with mud, filth, and dangerous bits of granite. With a trade of £20,000,000, there is not one quay, one jetty, or one landing wharf, and hut one large crane. Imports from half the world are still unloaded in country boats, and insurance is still rendered two per cent, more costly by the dangers cf the river. Calcutta has no idle class, and we may pass with resigned regret over the absence cf all European amusements. But even the busy could appreciate cabs, or some other mode of progression swifter thau the pslanquin, and less costly than a private carriage. We have nothing of the kind ; a strange nondescript box on wheels, drawn by ponies whose traces are usually of rope, plying only from the railway ghaut. There are some places on earth as little favoured by nature and as little cared for by man which have one not unimportant recommendation. They are cheap. Calcutta is dear. Rent, which in London consumes one-sixth of the householder’s expenditure, in Calcutta absorbs one-third. Provisions are at least twice as dear as they are outside the ditch, although there is no octroi. Meat, threefourths of which perishes before it can be eaten, is rising to English prices for joints which in England can be wholly consumed. Vegetables, we believe, are still cheap, but the confectioner’s bill our English habits impose on us fully remedies that insignificant opprobrium on the genius of our Kansamahs. Undrained, unventilated, and unsupplied with water, without amusements, or the means of locomotion, yet costly in the extreme, Calcutta is not the place sane men would select for convenience. As little is it distinguished for beauty. A flat country may sometimes contain the elements of the picturesque, and the union of flowing water and perpetual verdure may compensate for the absence of grander natural features. But Calcutta is wanting in all these.— lndian Paper. An Opium-Eater among Burkers.—l noticed that, instead of talking as before, Bill and the woman now intently watched me (Squabby was by this time very nearly blind drunk), and my intellect gradually regaining its usual vigorous clearness, I at once perceived that Bill, with what design I knew not, intended to “ hocuss " me. The absurdity of an attempt to render me insensible with laudanum presented itself so vividly to my mind that I had much difficulty in preventing myself from exploding in laughter. However, 1 managed to preserve my gravity, and, entering into the humour of the thing, at once resolved to driuk against my entertainer—laudanum versus port —and thus astonish bis debile faculties, as Jack did the Giant’s in the matter of the hasty-pudding, only that instead of merely pretending by a mean subterfuge to consume my share, as Jack did, I would drink glass lor glass. What a triumph of opium-eaiing ! How would the great Coleridge scowl, in envious bitterness of spirit, when be learnt that 1 bud achieved ale.it which he well ki cw he never could hope to surpass ! Now then for it ! Bill diiitks, and ofi'eisto fill my glass ; 1 fill it my-

self, quaff it off, and coni'nue to converse cheerfully. Bill drinks again—l Imitate him—Bill stares and looks astounded, hut nevertheless continues to drink. So do I. We each stick to our own bottles, the liquor in which grows rapidly lower. Bill gets confused, and is no longer master of his utterance. J become calmer and calmer, and flow on in a rapt strain of eloquence which itntr.easurably delights myself. Presently, however, my attention is raised by a change in Bill’s aspect. He has fixed on me a gaze of unutterable malignity. He mutters to the woman in a thick husky whisper, that “he ain't agoin’ to stand this much longer.” In a moment I became alive to the situation I was in. I was in the presence of an exasperated ruffian, who saw in me one who had put him to a considerable expense in wine, to say nothing of the laudanum, and who not only obstinately refused to part with his faculties, but was rapidly reducing his liost to a state of intoxication. Affairs became presently more serious, when Squabby, utterly unable to sit upright any longer, suddenly disappeared under the table, when Bill impitiently started up, glaring fiercely on me. I instantly summoned my energies to meet the difficulty, and, falling forward with my head on the table, affected to snore heavily. I heard Bill remark that “ ’twas all right at last, but be believed that ’ere cove was the devil,” when the woman taking up the candle, opened the door of an inner apartment, and entered, followed by Bill with uncertain steps. It may easily be imagined that I now lifted up my head and watched them with intense interest. The room they entered was small, and its only furniture was a bed and a sack. The bed was peculiar, consisting of two thick mattresses, without bed clothes, and a complication of ropes, pulleys, and weights. Presendy, Bill and the woman, each seizing a rope, bean pulling, and the upper mattress slowly rose. Heaven and earth 1 what a thought flashed across my mind ; I had heard of such things before—■ the unhappy being, stupified by opium, was pnt between two mattresses and smothered, so as to produce the appearance of na'ural death, and his body solo’ to the surgeons! The sack was irresistible evidence—it must be so I I was in the company of body-snatchers, and was about to be burked! • • • • All this time, I havs left Bill and the woman standing by the fatal bed, where death so often took bis repose, with the ropes in her hands. Fastening them so as to allow the upper mattress to remain uplifted, they turned towards me ; but before they did so, and while I was still left in almost complete obscurity, I filled from my bottle of laudanum both their glasses. The perplexity of the woman and the drunken astonishment of Bill, when, on returning for their supposed insensible victim, they found me seated upright and cheerfully surveying them, have probably never been equalled except in that remarkable passage of the literature of my childhood, when Mother Hubbard having gone to the undertaker’s to buy a coffin for her dog (whom she had every reason to suppose dead) returns and finds the presumed corpse in a state of cachinnation or laughter. They were so astonished that when I desired them to be seated, they mechanically complied ; and addressing them in a little speech, ( proposed the health of the lady as a convivial toast, and tossing off my glass, invited them to pledge me. Totally bewildered, they did so, and sat for a time staring at me, while I watched them with calm certainty. Well did I know the train of symptoms by which they who dare trespass, without due initiation and neophytism on the imperial domains of opium, approach insensibility: gradually their muscles relaxed—their heads sank —their respirations lengthened and deepened—till they sank side by side on the floor, not in the divine dream of the qualified practitioner, but in the dull stagnation of the presumptuous quack.— Blackwood's Magazine for December.