EDINBURGH.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 263, 23 October 1862, Page 6

EDINBURGH.

(fbomodr own corresponpent.)

Edinburgh, August 25th, 1862. It has occurred to me that it would be better for me in these monthly letters to become a gleaner, instead of, as I first intended, a reaper of news. A Home correspondent is not needed to put a colonial paper in possession of the leading items of news during the month on this side of the lineprinted summaries which may be purchased for a few pence do that. There are many facts, however, net devoid of interest,-' which are not to be found in such summaries. These it will be my business to gather and ar aige. This month I shall be-in with Scoiiand, and every now and then I shall dp the same, f<>r although the readers of the Otago Daily Times axe not so exclusively Scotch as they were a short time ago, there is, I presume, a sufficient predominance of the Scotch element in Otago society to justify an occasional commencement of this kind.

Whilst walking along the Grange Loan the other day, I heard the following conversation inf«ontof an ivied cottage. Lassie: "And how's the gude man?" Good-wife: " Ow, he's just wearyin'for home." Lassie: "Where is he then ?" Good-wife : "In Lunnon." Another Lassie : " Ay, at the Expedeetion." Almost all Edinburgh seems to have made an " expedition" to the Kensington Show this summer. En revanche, hosts of tourists from all parts, appear to have flocked to Edinburgh. Amongst the most distinguished of our foreign visitors, has been the Comte de Montalembert. His* visit to Scotland has a literary purpose. He has come to see " fair MeJro?e " and other Scottish ecclesiastical remains, for the benefit of his magnum opus on the Monks of the West. Some of our visitors stare at the sight of little tables planted at the corners of sundry of our thoroughfares, on which are placed petitions for the opening of the Botanic ! Gardens on Sunday—petitions which the working classes and their true friends, who do not read " Remember the Sabbath day, to I keep it drunken," are pretty numerously signing. This sight, in the metropolis of starchedly Sabbatarian Scotland, the continental tourists consider a great marvel. They illogically wonder even more at a far j more v characteristic" sight — the Biblebarrow, which, with its ticketed wares, is wheeled about our streets. Touching this barrow, by-the-bye, I heard a languidTirreverent cockney remark, " It reminds me somehow of pious pine-apple-penny-a-slice." A sporting celebrity has visited us—the socalled " Seneca Indian," Deerfoot. Like Ali Ben Sou Ali, whose performances many of my readers no -doubt have witnessed, and who was really a Dublin man of the name of Ben Sullivan—Deerfoot has, 1 suspect, a considerable infusion of Irish blood in his veins. Another thing I suspect, and that is that those who run against him are bribed to let him beat them,, in order to keep up his value as a " show" property. Lady Emily Pigot, a noted cattle-breeder, whom the provincial papers make a kind of she-satyr, saying that she is "celebrated for her short-horns" (the compliment, thus stenographically expressed, would be still more awkward if applied to a gentleman), and who boasts, in the Mark Lane Express, that few men can beat her on the heather, brags also in the same journal of her debut as a salmon fisher on the Ness. As for trout, she states that she has been for years in the habit of making heavy baskets of them. Her ladyship's first foray on the nobler fish was certainly remarkable. She hooked, after twenty minutes casting, and landed, a salmon of fifteen pounds; next, one of eight; and then two of seven and a half and six pounds respectively, besides a few sea trout. An Knglish angler of the other sex, fishing in the same river, was not so successful as his countrywoman. Wishing to catch—a brother of" Sir William Denison's got caught. All night long, a monster of fifty pounds kept him a prisoner on the bank, and when the morning broke, his line broke also; the mighty fish was free, after a ten hours trial of sulky strength, versus patient skill. The Duke of Cambridge is going to visit Lord Dalhousie, in the Highlands, and Lord Palmerston is expected to visit Mr Bass, the brewer, whose red pyramid enjoys almost as world wide a fame as' those of Egypt,—many a creaming draught of his pale a c"has. doubtless, been drunk in the shade of New Zealand fern. His LoHship is as active as ever, running about the country in the recess, speechifying, etc., etc, with the vigour of a man who has only numbered a third of bi3 years. He still patronises the turf. A horse of his, which was a winner a short time ago,' is said - to have had a good draught of whisky given to him before he started. The teetotallers are in agonies of holy horror. They think, I believe, of purchasing the steed, if possible; reducing him by low diet to skin and bone, and then carting him about the country as a "frightful example." Ln the way of horse-flesh, an interesting specimen might have been seen the other day at Montrose. At a Volunteer gathering there, one of the officers present rode the charger on which that beau ideal of a dragoon, the gallant Captain Nolan was shot at Balaclava. The marksmen of Scotland are not inclined to put up patiently with their defeat by their Southern rivals. That veteran deer-stalker Captain Horatio Ross, not liking his countrymen to be made butts of, instead of blazing away at them triumphantly, has taken measures which he hopes will prevent at any rate so disgraceful a rifle-defeat of Scotland by England as the last. A veteran in another line, Professor Trail, of Edinburgh is dead, .'.v unsuccessful candidate for the consequently vacant chair of medical jurisprudence was the Edinburgh Surgeon of Police, who, it appears, received the beggarly stipend of something considerably under £250 per I annum for his heavily time^and-trouble— taking duties. Burns's " wee curlie John," Mr John Hamilton, son of Rab's Gavin, died a week or two ago, in the 84th year of his age. :. The comfortable little property the old gentleman had accumulated, he lost recently, through listening to the . commercial counsels of the Major Adair, whose name has become familiar to all newspaper readers, as that of a dupe who has ruined himself, and unwittingly led others to follow his example. A military speculator of a very different stamp —Colonel Sleigh—is just now "wanted." The Colonel seems to swindle with sublime impudence. When he was the proprietor of a now-flourishing London daily paper, be would pay no salaries or wages without being county-courted for the amounts His last scheme was to get up the British Columbia Overland Transit Company ; the journey from Britain to be accomplished in five weeks! The Scotsman first pointed out the absurdity of such a promise;° correspondents of the Times followed suit; and the writer of the Times'' city article hinted his suspicions. The matter was even mooted in Parliament; but, carried away by Colonel Sleigh's imposing forged list of directorsr-he prudently did not suffer bis own name to appear in,the business—sundry persons were found to pay the Colonel L 42 a.piece as pas-sage-money. With this money he has walked' oft, and his dupes awoke and found themselves "dupes at St. Paul's, where they were left, without food, or any means either of going forward or returning, en masse. A few of the

party, however, managed to get back to England, and one of these was deputed to demand redress in the name of all. At present only the clerk of the "company" has been caught, but it is to be hoped that the company himself will soon be brought to justice, Although the steamer which shipped the M old soldier's" victims to Canada sailed from Glasgow, there were (owing to the fearless manner in which the Scotsman, heedless of the probabilities of a libel prosecution—had punctured the widelypuffed windbag of a schenie)|very few, if any, Scotch amongst her prssengers. The Empress of the French has presented to the Lochlomond Steamboat Company, in acknowledgement of the courtesy which led them to place one of their vessels at her disposal when visiting the Loch, two beautiful va-=es of gilt, flower-and-foliage-enamelled mauve Sevres china. And thus am I led by the law of contradictory association—if any such law be catalogued by psychologists—to'speak of other jars not so pretty, with which the lovely, kind-hearted, tut wrong-headed little creature is concerned. She was recently confined to her chamber, by "inflammation," said the bulletin. "Of temper," added a malicious gloss. To use a vulgar phrase, she wishes to '■ back-out" of her promise to stand godmother to the Pnncess Clothilde's little one. She— true daughter, pet daughter, as she is proud to consider herself, of the Pope—to meet at the font his open despoiler and tho private plotter against his peace, Victor Emmanuel and Prince Napoleon—te become sponsor for a child which, with such a j pedigree, she believes must necessarily, in spite even of bucketsful of regenerating baptismal water, turn out an imp of sin—the seven cardinal s.ns incarnate. The Empress shudders at the thought, and being held to her word, takes retugo in that for a woman, safest asylum against unpkasant argument, weeping rage. With M. Fould she had a downright row in a Cabinet Council. Her Majesty wished to get up a magnificent spectacle—a grand military mass—in honor of the Pope. The Minister of Finance objected, on the score of expense. Of course, M. Fould was well aware that his master would object for political reasons also. A scene occurred. The Council broke up in confusion, and off as fast as horses and steam AvouSd carry him,. M. Fouid at once started for Vichy. He had to use very few words, on dit — there, in selfjustification. Whatever disunion there may be amongst the Bouapartes, there appears to be a well-founded prospect of the fusion of the Bourbons. The " Flower of the Bourbons," the young Princess of Parma, it is said, is to be married to that " County Paris," who has recently won such ,«purs as could be got in fighting under M'Clellan — a mode of fighting which frequently makes spurs a part of military accoutrements exceedingly necessary for safety. Another rumor of a royal marriage had created considerable excitement. The Princess Mary of Leuchtenberg, niece of the Czar, has been selected, by not " common fame," but that which stirs the stagnant air of the antiquated aristocratic Faubourg St. Germain, as the bride of Prince Humbert of Savoy, who, according to the same exclusive gossip, is to receive the throne of Greece as dowry—a throne on \t hich, when the Princess Mary is seated as Queen, she is to do all in her power to enable her uncle to seize Constantinople. It is a great mistake to suppose that the Crimean war has crushed Russia. She is merely quietly recovering her strength after that severe contest, and meanwhile plotting and accomplishing an extension of her influence in the East. When the Japanese ambassadors reached St. Petersburg, they received, not downright assurances to that effect, but very significant hints that they had reached at length the capital of ike Great Power of Europe. The politics of the Northern Courts have an additional interest for Great Britain now that it is almost certain that the Prince of Wales will wed the Princess Alexandra of Denmark.

As a conclusion to my present batch of gossip, I translate the following from Dagbladet, of the 19th instant, just received,—the Danish paper possessing the widest foreign circulation. By-the-bye, translations from Dickens and Buhver Lytton frequently appear in its feuillcton portion. The latter* s "Strange Story" looked doubly strange in Danish characters. For those who, like myself, cannot read Danish, the paper is good enough to give a weekly summa'y of news in French. Here is what it says of the Prince of Wale's probable partner and her family:

" In this country as in England, it is regarded, as an almost certain fact that an alliance between the Prince of Wales and the Princess yf Alexandra of Denmark is imminent. However, since the English paper, the Cowt Journal, from which the news has been copied by a large portion of the European press makvis some mistakes in its mention of the family relations of Prince Christian, we shall hasten to give an account of them. The house of Glucksborg, from which the Prince is sprung, is one of the cadet and collateral lines of the ducal families which have shared the sovereigntyof Slesvig with theKingof Denmark: its full title is Siesvig HoLstein-Soendcrborg Glucksborg, and its chief is the Dv c Charles, who is married to a daughter of the late King Frederick VI., and resides at the chateau of Louisenland. Prince Ch istian, who was born in 1818, espoused in 1842 the Princess Louisa of Hesse, daughter of the Landgrave William of H.-sse, whose sister is the Dowager-Duchess of Cambridge, and of the Princess Charlotte of Denma k. Since there seemed every probability that the male line of the Oldenburg dynasty, which for more than 400 years has occupied the Danish throne, would become, extinct on the death of the present king, His Majesty King Frederick VII, search was made for a suitable heir, and Prince Christian was fixed upon. According to the order of succession regulated two centuries ago by the Lex Regia, the august mother of his spouse, the Landgravine Charlotte and her descendants were the nearest heirs of the kingdom proper of S esvig, and of a part of Holstein. The Landgravine and two of her children— Prince Frederick, who is heir-presumptive to the Electorate of Hesse Cassel, and Princess Mary, reigning Duchess of Anhalt Dessau— both, , however, resigned in favour of the Priucess Louisa, and the imperial dynasty of Russia, which; as is well-known, descends from Holstein* Gottorp, reriouuced its right of succession to certain parts of Holstein in favour of Prince Christian. These renunciations having been settled, tnat of Russia by the special protocol of ; Warsaw, dated June 5,1851, the Treaty of London was concluded May 8, 1852; according to which: the five! great powers', and Sweden with Norway, whilst completely preserving the integrity of the Danish monarch}', recognised Prince Christian and his male heirs by marriage with the Princess Louisa, as the heirs presumptive of the throne of that monarchy.. Following this treaty, the lav/ of the succession to the throne which bars date July 31, 1853, was adopted, and Prince Christian received the title of, Pricna of Denmai k. Six children are the issue of the marriage of Prince Christian and Princtßs Louita, of whom three are sons. The Princess Alexandra, whose name has been frequently mentioned of late, was born on the Ist of December 1844, so that she has not yet completed her 18th year. : She is beautiful and graceful, and has received a most careful1 education in-the bosom of her family, whi^h '■ is generally esteemed as a model ot all the 1 domeiiticyirtuest" , ... \. \ . I