EDINBURGH.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 383, 13 March 1863, Page 5

EDINBURGH.

The following letter from our Edinburgh correspondent was, by some error, sent round by way of Auckland, and only reached us yesterday : —

FKOM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT

Edinburgh, Dec. 27th, 1862,

Owing to the loss of the Colombo, the despatch of the Marseilles portion of the Oriental and Australian Mail has been put off for a few daj's this month. The Times has received its letters and papers from Calcutta, Hong Kong, and Sydney, but its Melbourne files have jiot yet arrived. Two boxes of New Zealand, letters have reached the London General Post Office, sodden with salt water^ With them came a box of letters from Ceylon, and a box of papers from Victoria. A box of letters from Mauritius, eighty boxes of newspapers and letters from Australia, slightly damaged, 275 boxes from India and Australia, much damaged, are expected to arrive at Southampton in the beginning of next week. 159 boxes, last rescued and conveyed to Point de Galle, will, all being •well, reach England in companj r with the January mail.

And now for a little intelligence concerning letters in another sense. Sydney papers being read in Otago, my readers may remember that a few years ago one Mr Frank Fowler, a dashing brilliant young fellow, created considerable sensation in Sydney as a writer, a lecturer, and eventually as a candidate for the representation of the city in Parliament. Since his return to England he has written several little books, which have obtained very wide if not always favorable notice. The Saturday Review considers the " charlatan," as certain parochial penny-a-liners call him in Australia, worthy of its satire and also of its praise—the latter given with a-liberality quite astonishing from such a quarter. Mr Frank's biography figures in the last edition of the " Men of the Time." He edited that very clever paper, the " Literaryßudget," which other publishers, jealous of the proprietors, Messrs Saunders and Otley, managed, by a joint determination not to advertise in it, to starve to death. He is now Secretary of the London Library Company, a " limited liability" association started to overthrow the autocracy which Mudie had assumed in the London literary world. The company, I believe, is rapidly going-a-head. At any rate, it has been able to declare a dividend of 5 per cent, after six months' business. Fowler, I understand, has a new work in' the press, of which critics who have read the proofs, speak very favorably. His "Southern Lights and Southern Shadows" for a time excited unaccountable rage in Sydney. The Sydneyites will have good reason to be angry -when they read the insolent, mendacious abuse, heaped upon them by a " Reverend" Mr Jessop, in his flippant work entitled "Flinders-land and Sturt-land. A very different book of travel is George Sorrow's, just published, "Wild Wales,"—full of photographs, lovely scenery and piquant pictures of peculiar life, of hearty hatred of humbug and honestly expressed love of beer. An estimable English philologher of a different stamp, Mr Thomas Budd Shaw, M.A. of Cambridge, and Professor of English Literature in St. Petersburgh, is dead. Some of his translations from .Russian poets appeared, as the readers of that magazine will remember, in Blachvdod. Mr Shaw appears to have been greatly respected hy those amongst whom he had made his home; a crowd of Russians, including two Imperial Grand Dukes and the Princes of Leuchtenberg, assembled in the English Church in St. Petersburg, into which his corpse was carried for the performance of the preliminary funeral rite3. Some of his students and private friends bore his coffin- to the grave. The Museum, an Edinburgh quarterly devoted to the interests of what is affectedly called in Scotland " the higher education," a periodical which, though young, is vigorous, in its last number advocated the idea of elevating Scotch degrees in arts, from their present contemptible position into something like an equality with their English alphabetical, and only alphabetical, equivalents; by the appointment of one set of examiners for all four Universities, bound without fear or favor to insist on a far greater amount of scholarship than the superficial slip-slop which as yet is all that a Scotch B.A. or M.A. guarantees. St. Andrew's, which has this year baked an unprecedented hatch of M.D.'s, the present year being the last in which that degree can be procured from the old University on the old terms, is about to give birth, a la Dublin, to a University Magazine. The Editor of London Society has brought out another serial, The Churchman's Family Magazine, which evidently wants to become a kind of clerical Cornhill. The color of the cover, the character ot the illustrations, paper, and print of the latter magazine are pretty closely imitated by the former. Mr Sala used to imitate Mr Dickens's style very cleverly in Household Words— anything better than those early articles of his, Mr Sala has never done, notwithstanding, perchance because of, the vast prairie of paper he has sprawled over since. He was not likely to improve his style by being made editor, by obtaining liberty to print any nonsense of his own he liked. He has taken it into his head ■ lately to* try to imitate Mr Thackeray's ex- j quisitely easy English—producing in the Temple Bar, under the Title of " Breakfast in Bed," a series of " Roundabout Papers" about as much like their models as ia a grinning monkey to a smiling man. In one of these Mr Sala, the smart, but most superficially informed—much puffing by his personal friends belonging to the press must surely have made him mad—assumes a de haul en has' tone towards that honest, earnest, able, learned man, Bishop Colenso, and attempts to " shut him up," in re the Pentateuch, in a page of the rankest rubbish ever written. Russell's American " Diary "is out. Both. North and South receive smart raps over the knuckles. Kinglake's "Crimean War" cannot find a publisher bold enough to put His name upon the title page. Two houses have advertised the book in their lists and then suddenly dropped it through fear of burning their fingers.

The hundredth volume of the Almanack de Oolha has just been published, it has got into trouble in the course of its long life through its legitimist proclivities. Thefirst Napoleon " had a down upon" it because it would persist in recognising royal families which he liad ruined. The third Napoleon is said to dislike it for a somewhat similar reason, but still it persists in preferrin;: divine right, to historical fact. Francis 11. still figures in its pages as King of the Two Sicilies. By the bye, whatever respect the editor of the Almanack de*. Gutha may manifest towards that feeble fnnatical fool, his wife shows him little, fcjhe has fallen madly in love with Prince Nicholas of Nassau, and wants to be divorced, and change her religion, in order that she may be married to her present Protestant pet. The throne of Greece is still unfilled, and perchance in consequence will be overthrown. Not being able to obtain the sample of royalty they 1 wanted, it is very probable that the Greeks will insist on turning their country into a republic. Ferdinand of Portugal, and the Princess Alice's husband, Prince Louis of Hesse, have refused the crown of Greece before, strictly speaking, it was offered to them. There is some talk of making Prince Victor of Hohenlohe Langenbourg, at present a captain in the British navy, a candidate for the suffrages of the Greeks. It is very improbable, however, that they would record their votes in favour of such a comparative nobody. The Emperor of the French is hard up, and like less distinguished personages in similar circumstances, has had to resort to the Jews. The French Rothschild has advanced him nearly half a million, and has given him, so to speak, a " discount dinner," on a far more splendid scale.than Ralph Nickleby's. Owing to his impecunioiity, the Emperor has not been able to subscribe nearly so liberally as his heart prompted him, towards the relief of the distressed amongst the laboring classes of France. Towards the relief of-the Lancashire operatives, the Lancashire mill-owners who, at one time, were most unjustly accused of having closed their eyes or hearts, at any rate buttoned up their pockets, against the misery of those whose toil had made them inillionnaires, have been proved to have contributed on a scale of unprecedentedly princely munificence. Lord Derby and the other Lancashire land-ownera on their side swell the Relief-Fund nobly. I don't know whether the wealthy Duke of Buccleuch has any property in Lancashire. Under any circumstances, his contribution to the Relief Fund does not appear to have been very liberal, according to the following epigram, which was sent by a workman, with 4£d, to the Dundee Courier: —

The widow's mite I've long admired, So this I send to you, The tenth part of my daily wage, To be upsides with Buccleuch.

A somewhat singular story is told of a bishop who was " spilt" on his way to one of the London churches, in which he was going to preach, on behalf of the Lancashire operatives. His great toe-nail being cracked, his lordship relinquished the idea of preaching and went to bed; and the consequence of this disappointment to the congregation was, that after the sermon, preached by their rector, the collection nearly amouuted to a beggarly three pounds. Charles Dickens (who, by the bye, in the new Christmas number of All (he Year Round, " Somebody's Luggage," has given us a very stupid set of stories, prefaced with an amusing essay on waiters, from his own pen) is giving his delicious "readings" in Paris, on behalf of the thousands of readers he numbers amongst the Lancashire sufferers. Mr Edmund Yates, wholovesDickens loyally and hates Thackeray snobbishly, and who, until lately, was, perhaps still is the sub-editor of the Temple Bar Magazine, has commenced, in conjunction with a son of poor Tyrone Power, an entertainment at the Egyptian Hall. Although assiduously puffed after the manner of the London press —a manner which makes its praise of such matters most misleading or else utterly worthless—the new entertainment is scarcely likely to rival the fame of those of Albert Smith. A pet topic of Albert's, " hotels," has recently been taken up in a very practical manner.

Both in London and at Hastings some huge public palaces, replete with convenience to be enjoyed at a moderate cost, have been completed. The foundation stone of such an inn was recently laid at Brighton. A prayer for the success of the building—a very unusual display of piety in connection with a "public" —was offered up when the stone was deposited. Another monster building, and monstrous is the verdict of most, the soap-bubble-domed railway-shed at Brompton, has been purchased by the Society ot Arts, who have not shown much artistic feeling methinks, in perpetuating the existence of such, externally viewed, a heavy hideousness. It is to be hoped that the outburst of murderous crime, which apparently was proximately caused, by the Exhibition in London, has now been got pretty well under control. It is scandalous that in the second half of the nineteenth century, the non-criminal portions of the inhabitants of the " centre of civilisation," should be obliged to go about spurred like game cocks, spiked-collared ' like dogs, carrying daggers, revolvers, lifepreservers, spears, sword-sticks—in some instances actually wearing, like Romola's treacherous Tito, shirts of mail, through fear of garotters and other avaricious and more ruthJess assassins. According to some newspaper paragraphs, the garotters, finding their game spoilt in London, had commenced operations in Edinburgh ; but the persons here said to have been operated upon, a police inquiry proves to be impalpable. A female London celebrity of iU-farne has visited us—Mrs Wyndham of Pelbrigg Hall, —who came down with Giuglini the opera-singer. She certainly is an unblushing hussy, leering at, and loudly applauding her fancy-man in theatre and concert-room; but nothing can justify the sickeningly ineffably brutal and blackguardly way in which our pious paper, the saint-supported Daily Review wrote about her, of course, in the cause of morality. Two Canongate street-walkers quarrelling could scarcely have selected more abominably indecent language than that model family paper, the religious Review, employed. Apropos of a brazen woman mad after the Italian musician, I may mention here that, whilst listening to a German brass band at Brighton a few days ago, a lady suddenly became insane. Poor Mr Babbage has often been so affected. Some more people have gone mad about the MSLachlan Murder case, $nd probably some wij| go mad about Mrs Yelyertori,' judging from appearances, in this Scotland,' which plumes itself upon its cool common sense—the Lord Ordinary's decision in her case haying been reversed by the First Division of the CouriTof Session.

P;S.-^-Some time ago I expressed an opinion that Deerfoot, the so-called " Indian" runner, wa3 allowed to win. A subsequent law trial, brought out the terms of the arrangements made to make him appear invincible,' and the affair having been " blown on," a race ":on the square ".came off between the "Seneca Indian" and the English pedestrian, Mills, yesterday at Hackney Wick, and the Englishman won with ease.

THE WEST COAST,

(JLytlelton Times, 4th. March.)

As considerable interest is very naturally felt about the gold-bearing district lately discovered near the Teramakau, .we are glad to be in a position to satisfy public curiosity as to the proceedings of the Government in opening up the country. About six weeks ago the Government despatched Mr Drake, an experienced surveyor, with a small party of men, overland to make a preliminary survey of the Termakau from its source to the coast, with instructions to go as far south along the coast as he was able, and then to return north to tHe Grey, and after examining the coal deposits on that river, to return to Christchurch, preparatory to commencing another journey, for the purpose of laying out the necessary roads. Mr Drake has accomplished the greater part of his work, as will be seen by the following extract from a letter addressed by him to the Chief Surveyor : — " West Coast, Feb 9.

" I commenced surveying from Lake Sum ■ mer, on Monday, January 12th, and left it on the next day, reaching the West Coast, on Sunday, Ist February. " I measured nearly the whole of the waj' down the Teremakau, the distance being 65 miles from the head of Lake Summer to its mouth.

" I intended to have surveyed up the Hohohonu Creek, where the diggers are, but could not get a canoe. I then proceeded south to obtain a sight of the Otomo Mountain and Hohonu Plains, also to survey the coast, and a large river called "Hokitaki," which I have done. There is a good harbor there with from one to'three and a half fathoms at low water, high spring tMes, with a rise and fall of more than eight feet. I went up the river in a small canoe some four or five miles, the flat land seeming to extend to the foot of the mountain range, some fitty or sixty miles back. The natives also report a grass country. The extent of available land must be great, as it strikes back to the Hohinui, Lake Brunner, and the Grey. " My next operation will be to connect the mouth of the Grey River, surveying its mouth and returning back b}' Lake Brunner, connecting my work with the Teramakau River, also following down the Hokotoim River, or any other natural features between the Grey and the Teramakau.

" I could not go further south for want of provisions, and the time allowed being quite inadequate. An expedition on a proper scale would have to land at the Grey with provisions and the necessary plant."