ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 48, 17 April 1852, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

The Great Exhibition. — The following grants of remuneration have been made to the various officers connected with the Exhibition. Mr. (now Sir Joseph) Paxton gets £5000 or about 2| per cent, on the cost of the building ; Messrs. Fox and Henderson's claims to extra remuneration in consequence of the novelty of the undertaking, and the impossibility of making strictly accurate estimates have not been decided upon ; there can be little doubt, however, but they will be honourably dealt with. The remuneration voted to Colonel Heid, Mr. Dilke, and Mr. Cole, the active members of the Committee, has been declined by the two former, — by Colonel Reid on the ground that being in the pay of the Government as an engineer officer he was bound to render all the assistance in his power to the undertaking, and by Mr. Dilke from having those independent means which enable him to give his gratuitous services. His Royal Highness Prince Albert, in an admirable letter to the Society of Arts, has urged upon them the propriety of establishing, during the winter months, a series of lectures on the different departments of the Exhibition by professional men best acquainted with the various subjects. The Council of the Society have resolved to act upon his Ptoyal Highness's suggestion. The Hon. East India Company has presented Her Majesty with a magnificent and choice selection from the objects exhibited by the Company, embracing muslins, jewellery, fillagree-work, jewelled agate cups, furniture, brocades, shawls, and carpets. The remainder of their collection the Company intends to distribute as follows: — Having provided for an accurate and complete illustration of all raw materials, tools, or mechanical contrivances exhibited from India, the distribution of the remainder to scientific institutions or individuals is duly authorised, and .the manufac-

tured goods purchased by the Company for exhibition will be sold, probably by auction at some place appointed for that purpose.

Nearly three-quarters ot a million sterling appears, according to the advertisements in the " Times," about to be raised for California and Australian Quartz Rock-Crushing Companies.

Religious Liberty in Prussia. — The Berlin correspondent of the " Times," in writing on the state of religious opinion in Prussia says — • " The days of all the Free Congregations and congregations of German Catholics are numbered. By a ministerial order they are henceforth to be deprived of all support from the communal authorities, direct or indirect, and where such support has been granted for a fixed period, it is no longer to be paid. The preacher or head of the " Free" congregation of Berlin was, some time since, expelled the city. The official order grounds the refusal of the support already granted, on the principle that all these congregations are not regularly incorporated bodies, and, therefore, could not legally accept such promises or engagements. It also asserts that they have gradually ceased to be religious societies at all, and have of late years degenerated into mere political societies, inculcating doctrines inconsistent with the principles of civil and social order. As such they are to be everywhere suppressed and extinguished, and the officials are warned that it is their duty to carry out the ministerial instructions diligently. In several provincial towns the order had been anticipated by the police, as numerous reports of closed meeting-houses and dissolved congregations have reached Berlin. There is no hope, however, that the measure will increase the number of adherents to any of the established churches. Most of the " congregations" were widely separated from them, and from any known form of dissent retaining any of the general articles of the Christian creed. Altogether the religious parties in Germany are in a singular state of confusion. The mysticism of Swedenborg has allied itself to the spiritual hierarchy of the lrvingites, with its realization on earth of the gradations of Archangels, Angels, and Apostles, the bearers of those sacred titles being also frequently at variance with the very earthly power of the police, they cannot find any such ranks recognized by the State. Beside the intensest fanaticism may be found the pantheism of Spinoza and the cold negation of Proudhon, in itself but the system of Hegel pushed to its utmost logical consequence. The conflict between the old Lutherans and the Evangelic Church has never ceased, though the late King compelled both to an external uniformity. There is a still larger mass of complete indifference to all forms of creed, without even zeal enough to unite into a propaganda, which was the case with the " free" congregations. Some } ears ago the interdict on these bodies would have caused the utmost agitation ; now it scarcely excites a remark. In Bavaria, too, the general law on " associations" is applied to the German Catholics, and they have therefore ceased to be considered religious societies. They are dealt with as political clubs and unions, and they lack the zeal and faith which can alone raise them from that level."

Austria.— The correspondent of the " Daily News," writing from Vienna, says :—": — " If the newspaper accounts can be credited, the population of that part of Hungary through which Archduke Albrecht, the new Governor-General, has passed in his tour of inspection, has entirely forgotten or thrown aside all its former sympathies for the constitutional independence of Hungary, and has received with endless rejoicings and enthusiasm the representative of their Sovereign who, two short years ago, was universally denounced as an illegal monarch and a traitorous tyrant. It is notorious, however, that the people are imbued with hostility to their present rule. The majestic eloquence of Kossuth, now unheard, still dwells on the ear of his people, that a day of redemption is anxiously but confidently expected. All the care bestowed by political and police authorities on the exclusion from Hungary of every newspaper or letter containing information of the progress of Kossuth, and his mighty speeches in England ; all their soldiers and gendarmes cannot prevent portions of the latter from reaching the sight of the Hungarian nation. Let a newspaper with one of the speeches but find its way across, the frontiers, and the example displayed by Kossuth in his struggle with the Government respecting the publication of the debates of the Diet will show a host of eager imitators. Small slips of paper in the original English, or perhaps French, perhaps translated into German and Magyar, are passed from hand to hand among the tried and united brethren. Those who can read English are envied. While the enthusiasm for the great champion of the national cause continues to ferment, though in hidden channels, the national feeling even manifests itself openly, the Government looking on hopeless and impotent."

Emigration of the Gipsies from Hungary. — A people of mysterious origin, inaccessible to all civilisation, and insensible to all religion, after a repose of four hundred years, has once more grasped the pilgrim's staff to fly beyond the reach of modern legislation, and seek out for itself a new country. Alarmed at the re-organization of the kingdom of Hungary by the usurpations of the Austrian Government in that country, where they have so long enjoyed the immunities of an uninterrupted freedom, they have been for some time wandering in swarms, and in all directions, throughout the Austrian monarchy, seeking an outlet into another more friendly land. Accustomed for centuries in Hungary to live apart from the rest of its population as unmolested dwellers in holes and caves, earning the scanty necessaries of life without much exertion, they have found themselves narrowly watched. Averse to, and incensed at, this state of surveillance, it has wrought them into an unheard-of state of excitement, and to the desperate resolve to leave for ever their wonted hearths, to seek out once more the ancient country from which, so many centuries ago, they were driven by some unknown power. To see this people in their present impulsive act of emigration is said to be truly wonderful. Like the wild denizens of the forest, enclosed on all sides, they seek an issue of the frontier pale of Europe ; numbers have penetrated on their pilgrimage as far as the Tyrol, and even Switzerland j Bohemia and Austria Proper swarm with their hordes, and numbers have penetrated across the Turkish frontiers. Thoy speak of nothing but of their new country, where are no frontiers, no passports, and no 'gendarmes.' They say they carae from Egypt, and must now return thither.

The " Liberte" of Lille states that in a neighbouring commune there are a number of violent men who only talk of doing justice to the Whites and hanging them in 1852. The person more prominently pointed out to the vengeance of the people is naturally a worthy landowner, who every year expends in the commune from 5000f. to 6000f. in charities of all kinds. This gentleman, who had been informed of the threats which had been made against him, went to one of the most violent of these " hangers," who was at the time out of employ. " Well," said he to the man, " why are you not at work ?" " Oh, Sir," replied he, " I could have plenty of employment, but I have no shovel to work with — I cannot work without tools." " What will a shovel cost you ?" " Three francs ten sons." " Well, then, here are five francs, with which you can buy the shovel, aiid the remaining thirty sous will serve to buy the rope with which you talk of hanging me in 1852."