ENGLAND. (Per Reuter, through Grcville and Bird.)

Otago Witness, Issue 556, 26 July 1862, Page 3

ENGLAND. (Per Reuter, through Grcville and Bird.)

London, Juno 1

The Vithhrawal of gnl<\, on account of the fOlOl4llf 0101411 loans, has caused some apprehensions in the niuiiey market. A furtliuv advance in the rate of discount has taken place. Produce market' are rather less active. Sugar and cofl'eeea&ier — Plantation coffee, Is ; native, (xl. cheaper. Rice lower, owing to considerable sales of inferior quality having taken place. Brandy, dull. Vin< ige of 1860, Id. to 2d. lower. Hides dull : leathei somewhat improved. Liusecl oil 3H, rape 46i, orJiu'.u-y fair 46§ to 48, gpevtu 01. Tallow, white 6s. 9d. io.sxr. Metal dull : spelter 18}, copper, English, (word illegible) lower, lead quiet at 20^ to 20:|, iron 93|. Consols, 93{j.

The 80-ird of Trade returns, for April, show a decrease in the value of British goods exported of upwards of a million sterling. The motion in the House of Commons in favor of the abolition of the purchase system in the army, was negatived by a Lirce majority.

The National Defence Commission have confirmed their fiust report, recommending a combined system of forts and floating Latteries "for the defence of Spithead. There lias been a ,areat debate in the House of Lords on National Expenditure.

A Polish Lbwend. — The Poles, or at least the Polish peasantry, believe that every river and streamlet is presided over by some particular star, all stars being radiant sph its, del' s»h ting in rural festivities, and, therefore, causing the waters to yield unmistakable replies to the youthful inquirers. The moon, ''xienzye, 1 ' they represent as being of the masculine gender, while tiie stars, " gwiazdy," feminine ; and, together, up in their mire halls, holding brilliant assemblies which, however, sometimes close in haste and in displeasure, when the sun, " slonce," who is of the neuter gender, obliges the dawn, the fair " iutrzenka," to usher him into their presence at too early an hour. As slonce is all-powerful, the stars, with blahched lustre, retire behind the clouds, while xienzye is the last to withdraw, leaving the intruder to pour down the fulness of celestial radiance on the exultant earth. — "Romance and Superstition in Poland" in the Dublin University Magazine. 'Dying for Love. — The lovers who die for love in our tragedies die in such a vast hurry, that there is generally some mistake or some misapprehension about the business, and the tragedy might have been a comedy if the hero or heroine bad only waited for a quarter of an hour. If Othello had but lingered a little before smothering his wife, Mistress "Emilia might have come in and sworn and protested ; and Cassio, with, the handkerchief about his leg, might have been in time to set the mind of the valiant Moor at rest aud put the Venetian dog to confusion. How happily Mr. and Mrs. Romeo Montague might have lived and died, thanks to the dear good friar, if the foolish bridegroom had not been in such a hurry to swallow the vile stuff from the apothecary's ; and as people are, I hope and believe, a little wiser in real life than they appear to be on the stage, the worms very rarely get an honest meal off men and women who have died for lore. — "Aurora Fioyd," in Temjilc Bar. A Swedish Girl's Revenge. — Most waterfalls have some melancholy stories connected with them ; I will try to tell one out of several which I heard relating to Trolhattan. Years ago, a young girl who lived on tiie hill-side, not for from the falls, had arranged to meet a peasant to whom she was engaged , at a fete which was to take place one afternoon iv the villace. Not finding him at the appointed spot she wandered around it until she was told that he had been seen walking along the bank of the river with one whom she had begun to suspect might prove her rival. Stung by jealousy, and anxious to learn the truth of this report, she followed the direction which they were said to have taken, until she came on a boat moored to the bank, in which lay the faithless lover and she who new possessed his affections, fast asleep and locked in each other's arms. Distracted at the sight, she conceived and carried out a terrible revenge : she loosed the chain which held the floating couch, and away went the sleeping pair down the stream to the brink of the watery precipice, where one awtul leap launched them into the roaring gulf below. — The Northern- Circuit.

In the taie by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, published from week to week in All the Year Round, is given the subjoined dialogue and dreamy conclusion : — " Near this very spot is there not gold — in mines yet undiscovered I— and gold of the purest metal !" " There is. What then ? Do you, with the alchemists, blend in one discovery— gold and life V " No. But it is only where the chemistry of earth or of man produces gold, that the substauce from which the great pabulum of life can be extracted by ferment, is found. Possibly in the attempts at that transmutation of metals, which I think your own great chemist— Siv Humphry Davy— allowed might be possible, but held to be not worth the cost of the process, possibly ia those attempts some scanty grains of this substauce were fruud by the alchemists in_,tho crucible, with grains of the metal as niggardly yielded by pitiful mimicry of Nature's .•fvpenuous laboratory ; and from such grains enough of the essence might, perhaps, have been drawn forth to add a few years of existence to some feeble greybeard,— granting, what rests on no proofs, that some of the alohemSts reached an age rarely given to man. But it is not in the miserly crucible, it is in the matrix of Nature herself that we must seek in prolific abundance Nature's grand principle—life. As the loadstone is rife with, the magnetic virtue, as amber contains the electric, so in this substance, to which we yet want a name, is found the bright life-giving fluid. In the old gold mines of Asia and Europe the substance exists ; but can rarely be met with. The soil for its nutriment may there be well nigh exhausted. It is here, whore Nature herself is all vital with, youth, that the nutrimeut of youth must be sought. Near this spot is gold— guide me to it."

Salmon.— A parliamentary return shows that the value of British salmon exported from the United Kingdom has been, during the last three years, as follows :— ln 1850, £18,62,0 ; in 1860, £22,397 ;in 1861, £23,536. 'The foregoing statement snows the value of all salmon exported from the United Kingdom under that specidc designation. Of the export of salmon preserved in tins or otherwise, to which the general description of "provisions" may have been, attached in the entries at the Custom-house, no return can be furnished. .-' -- < In the House of Representatives q bill abolishing ?, slavery in the territory of the United States hacl JJeeii n-passedbyeiguty-fiYeYQteg.tQfifty,',,' . . ? w <igx£f