HOME NEWS TO THE 16th OF OCTOBER.

Otago Witness, Issue 41, 28 February 1852, Page 3

HOME NEWS TO THE 16th OF OCTOBER.

We have been kindly favoured with the perusal of files of the " Sydney Herald" and " Empire," from which we have extracted the following principal items of English intelligence to the above date : —

Her Majesty, Prince Albert, and the Royal Children, had returned from Balmoral, and were sojourning at Windsor, after having visited Edinburgh, Lancaster, Liverpool, &c, &c. They were received at the different towns through which they passed with the most unmistakeable demonstrations of affection and loyalty.

Ministers were gradually assembling in London from the various localities to which the search for health and relaxation had driven them. The majority of the members of the Cabinet had reached the metropolis.

A great number of vessels had been laid on for Sydney from England with emigrants. The passage money had been increased by about £o. Some of the New South Wales gold was sold in England at mint prices.

Kossuth was daily expected at Southampton. The Corporation of London had determined to invite him to a grand banquet. Louis Napoleon's refusal to allow the patriot to pass through France had rendered him very unpopular.

As the time for the election of a President of the French Republic approaches, Prince Louis Napoleon has determined upon adopting more liberal views, and. in spite of the law restricting the Franchise, intends to return to the Universal Suffrage to which he already owes his elevation to the Presidentship. When his intentions were made known, his ministry resigned ' en masse" on the 14th, and were only holding office until their successors were appointed. As may be imagined this line of conduct had created some considerable panic in France.

The next sales of Australian wool were to commence on 23rd October, and were looked to with considerable interest. The total quantity of wool in London was not more than 34,000 bales. Speaking of the Wool Trade, the " Times" (14th October) remarks, —

In tin* woollen trade there is scarcely any alteration, but the possible disturbance of production in Australia lessens the disposition on the part of manufacturers to submit to existing prices.

| Sir Johx Frasklin.—- Gloucester, Friday, j October 10. — An extraordinary circumstance has just happened here, which I hasten to communicate. It is almost incredible but for the fact that the authority is undoubted, and the j Admiralty has been induced to order an official inquiry, which is now being proceeded with. These are the facts : — Last Sunday afternoon Mrs. Russell, a lady living at Wooton, near this city, observed something fall in the garden while at dinner. On sending out the gardener, he found it to be a small bnloon, in the car of which was a card, bearing the following inscription : Erebus, 112 W. Long. 71 deg. IN. Lat. I September 3, 1851. • • - • j Blocked in... . . ... . I This matter was looked tipo.n as a. hoax, bat subsequent events led to a communication being made with the Admiralty, who sent for the baloon and card, and immediately on their receipt sent down Captain Beechy, R.N., to Gloucester, with another officer, to make enquiries. These enquiries are now being prosecuted ; Captain Beechy having been twice at Wooton, examining all parties resident there. It turnsout that it is a real Government baloon, of esuactly similar kind to those sent out with the " Erebus" when she left England.— Plymouth and Devoxport Weekly Journal, Oct. 16:

Her Majesty paid a farewell visit to the Great ', i Exhibition on the 14th. j i At the National Exhibition, September 22nd, there were 60,000 visitors ; on the 23d, 60,310 ; on the 24th, 54,442; on the 25th, 17,366. Closing of the Great Exhibition.— The Great Exhibition was brought to a close upon the loth of October, a most elaborate "and detailed account of the proceedings appearing in the " Times" of the following day. The event treated considerable interest, but the wetness of the -weather, and the absence of the Queen, detracted considerably from the 'eclat' of the occasion. Twenty-five thousand persons were in attendance. The business of the day commenced by Viscount Canning, on behalf of the juries, submitting their report. His R. H. Prince Albert receiving the report, read a reply, after which the Bishop of London offered up a prayer. Then, says the "Times," the Hallelujah Chorus formed an effective and appropriate termination to the proceedings of the day, and the Prince and Royal Commissioners took their departure amid the hearty cheers of the assemblage. As soon as they were gone the barriers were removed, the seats and other temporary arrangements were swept away, and the stroke of hammers in every direction told that the work of removal and demolition had commenced. The Great Exhibition is now at an end. Its fleeting glories are past, and all that remains of a pageant, which has concentrated in this metropolis the curiosity of the whole world, lies in the results which it leaves behind it, and in the gigantic building in which it found its temporary home. Nothing has been known as to the ultimate fate of the building. The " Times" predicts that the Commissioners of Woods and Forests "•will not be permitted to lay violent hands upon such a structure." Mr. Paxton, Mr. Fox, and Mr. Cubitt, the designer, architect, and engineer of the Crystal Palace, were to be knighted. Prince Albert was awarded the first prize for the original conception of the grand undertaking. The number of exhibitors amounted to seventeen thousand. Death of Mr. Richardson, the African Traveller. — News has arrived from Malta, communicating the intelligence that the travel- j ler, Mr. James Richardson, died at Unguratua, a small village six miles distant from Kouka, the capital of Bornou, on the 4th March last ; his death was occasioned by fatigue and overexertion. A very interesting farewell meeting was held on the 22nd of Sept., on board the •'Athenian," one of the Family Colonisation Loan Society's emigrant ships, bound for Melbourne and Sydney, then lying in the East India Dock. Every part of the ship, including the rigging, was densely crowded. The Earl of Shaftesbury, who presided on the occasion, in addressing the emigrants, " said that he had been requested to address the emigrants assembled, and he did so with extreme pleasure, because he was most anxious to testify his approbation of those who, by their own exertions, were reaching the home of their adoption, which exertions were highly creditable to the class to which they belonged. He certainly felt some regret at taking leave of them, but that regret was greatly mitigated when he remembered that they were about to quit this country to aid and assist by their knowledge and enterprise other parts of the earth. They had no doubt all heard of the discovery of gold fields in the Bathurst district, where gold was said to be of unlimited extent, and the great excitement it was likely to create among other parties emigrating to that colony. Now, it was not for him to say whether or not such a discovery might be for the benefit of parties such as he saw before him ; but what he would warn them against would be, not to devote the whole of their energies to gold seeking, and well to consider the dangers to which they would be exposed. He did not say but that great benefit might arise from this discovery. It might be the means of drawing multitudes to that colony, and peopling its immense wastes ; but while they might partake of the general good, they would not, he trusted, go out with their minds entirely bent upon that object. Howevei*, having been warned of the consequences, they would go there with their eyes open, so that by God's blessing, nothing should be wanting with honest, steady, and industrious exertion. For they might rely upon it, all the gold that could be obtained would never equal the claims of an honest, industrious, patient, and religious population. Let them go to the land of their adoption with the word of God in their hearts, and to bear in mind that there might be gold in the bowels of the earth, that it should only be worked out for , God's honour and man's benefit. Having recapitulated his observations on the great dan- . ger of following too closely the pursuit of the precious ores, the noble Earl earnestly hoped that their change to the shores of Australia plight be made instrumental to the advance- 1

ment of God's honour and glory ; and, with a sincere prayer that they might live long in this world, and enjoy everlasting happiness in the world to come, he affectionately bid them farewell." Mrs. Chisholm, Mr. Robert Lowe, and Mr. Forster (late member for Port Phillip), were present. Both Mr. Lowe and Mr. Forster addressed the emigrants.

Irish Remittances from America. — We (" Ballingsloe Star") have seen statements in our contemporaries to the effect that the inmates are leaving some of the workhouses by the thousand, and this move is attributed to the expectation of rinding employment at the harvest — and no doubt such is, to a considerable extent, the fact ; but we are in a position to state that very many of the parties alluded to are leaving the workhouses never to return to them again, and for this very gratifying and cogent reason, that they are in receipt of remittances from their relations in America, to enable them to emigrate to that " home of Irishmen" — the name now generally given to the United States by the peasantry. We have heard, and from a sure source, that, within the past six weeks, upwards of £20,000 have been received, in sums varying from five to thirty pounds, by persons in this country, the great majority of whom had been receiving relief in the workhouses up to the time of the money reaching them. In many cases the poor people have kept the matter secret, through a mistaken fear, that if it were known to the Poor-Law officials, a portion of the money would be impounded to pay for their keep whilst in the workhouse ; to guard against which the money is consigned to some third party who can be depended upon, to have it conveyed to its destination without the knowledge of the workhouse officers. In connexion with this subject we should mention an admirable proof of the kind-heartedness of many of the Irish peasantry who emigrated last year and the )*ear previously — it is this, that in many instances money has been sent over to persons no way related to the senders, the only tie between the parties being the recollection that they belonged to the same country, and. were heretofore sufferers in common.