POLICY OF THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT.

Colonist, Issue 4, 3 November 1857, Page 1

POLICY OF THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT.

(From the Times of August 17.) ' According to the last despatches from Vienna, the Austrian Government is disposed to consent that new elections shall take place in Moldavia, but it proposes that the electoral lists should he prepared on a different system from that suggested by the other Powers. The consent, however, of the Austrian Government to have new elections U an important fact. As it liar, been sett'ed that the elections in Moldavia arc to he repeated, the Ost. Deutsche Post considers it advisable to let the public know that some of the diplomatists in Constantinople went beyond .their instructions. "It is .not improbable," says the nonofficial organ of the Austrian Foreign Office, " that Lord Rcdcliflto and Baron Prokcsch forwarded the note of the 18th to the Porte on their own responsibility." The Preisc has received a letter from the Polish frontiers, in which it is said that the Greek houses abroad are, as a rule, the agents of the Russian Government. Frequently, says the Polish writer, one and the same Greek family has establishments in Odessa, Constantinople, Marseilles. Paris,' and London; and, naturally, firms so intimately connected keep each other well informed of everything that is;going on. The Greeks and Armenians adopt the same system in the Ea-t. arcl merchants connected by the ties of blood, and acting Recording to ono and the name plin, are to be found in mo'<t of the great cities. That the Russian Government takes advantrgc of the influence acquired by the.se houses in order to further its commercial plans is a fact which his long been notorious in Russia. A Polish, correspondent of the Frank- < fort Journal says it is strongly suspected in the kingdom of Poland tlist &ome of the officers and soldiers who have recently been dismissed from the Russian, army with a year's pay have gone to join the mutineers in India. "Certain it is that the' Russian Government has for the last three years been systematically exciting the Chinese, Persians, and the" heirs of the Great Mogul against England." Naturally no guarantee can be given for the correctness of the foregoing assertion, but certain it is that a very strong impression prevails in this country that Russian agents are even now busy in the provinces to the north and north-east of Delhi. ' - ■

Garbatt, the great gold-robber, was for pome years tho leader of conviction in Bermuda. His associates regarded him-with admiration; he was the masterspirit of their yellow coated confederacy., -Ultimately ; Mr. Kirw'an, condemned {justly ornot)for-the'murder of, his wife in Ireland's Eye; arrived in the colony. Garratt at once-resigned the lead, find said,** courteously, he* could not think of refusing;precedence td "Mr,-Kifwaii.. Upon the same "principle; tho/braiks of =-WeJSw<'Ui,..jn "VVesiteni Australia,. nuyj>e expsefcd to' become the scene of a social flutter; for an aristocracy is to bo planted in the soil. Ort the 25th of August a good ship will sail from England bearing to the Swari Sir John Doan Paul, Mrj Strahan, Mr. Bates; Mr; Leopold Redpath, Mr. Robsbn, Mr: Saward; and Mr; Agar—three celebrated embezzlers, three celebrated. forgers, and the ininu£U>lej vengeful; Agar, With the exception of Agar and SAward; between whom an antipathy may naturally be supposed t6 rankle; many mutual feelings will harmoui&e this aristocracy of detested crime. Common reminiscences arid a coram: n fate unite them. What strange cdritrasts in tlieir, l.yes! Paul looking back through the gratings of Milbank to that happier time when he sat with Barori Alderson ou the b'jnch of justice; S,rahan to . his, ' elegantly planted park and residence in perfect taste';' Bates to the hour of gratified ambition in which, ho became partner in a firm with a baronet at its head; Through lledpath's dreams may flit the auction at which he bid biiecessfully against the FrciicK Emperor for a wondrous work in bulil; through liobson's. the triumph of his dnmatie productions-^ ' ■ " Whither is fled the visionary gleam 1 Where is it now, the glory aild the dream!" Neither Agar nor Sawarl ,can have sympathies with men or with regrets like these. The* latter was for twenty years a, miserable Jonathan Wild, a masterforger, a burglai's rg.-nt, whose nightmare was Newgate ; to the former penal discipline has been the routine of years: he knows what it is to labor in the hulks: ho must have calculated half a life ago, upon no onthusia better than'a ticket of-leave. -But, in some respect*, ltudpath ai:d Robson ttand upon a' \,: with him; tliey gambled every day, and haz-r<tV<: liberty for luxury; they could scarcely have! •■!,•!. for perpetual.winnings. 'Depend upon it* many c ! ■•■:;; and oft did a prophetic shadow of penitentiarie \-.0, the Australian settlements obscure tlie glitto ■ .'" Chpster -terrace, and the gaicry of Kilburn P> • ~-. We do not bel ieve that the three bankers ever imat ; ' j such a possibility; breaking the old bank in ifu% Sfciand, and losing their commercial reputation--! ha:. was, uo doubt, the climax of fear in tho minds of 1 .mi, Scrahan, and Bates. With 400 inferior criminals they go—these"s ■ if.; bankmpfcs—to Western Australia. Well, ther- h, something upon which to congratulate even <.:iU criminal crew. It ia a change—from the mono :x of that hideous desert of brick and whitewash at 'ifbank, from tne wards of Newgate, from the motio^.-; hulk in the Thames. They cross the ocean; r".— have a new life befere tliem: there will be fresh- rin the sight of the Australian shores : there is t<><prospect of tii kjts-of-lcave.- But how thepopuUh',;:will crowd to gape at the convict baronet, and re - •■ the story of liedpath's ' glevy,' upon which ballacP" singers have so unctuously e^fofttiatud J How will tho' old ' loading men' of theifewan Uiver Settlement resign their precedence in 'Avor of five gentlemen so" accomplished, and, up to a Certain point, so flattered,by society ? Agar and SawArd will not be similarly respected, having only thoit-distorted' talents to recommend them,: they hive never been gentlemen, or sai on tho bench, or inherit ;R estates,' or outbid Louis Napoleon, or achieved a dramatic success. But let the captain of the vessel chartered at Lloyd's loolc well to his navigation. Tliere is a story that the Flying Dutchman has for a^os been wandering about in search of a crew. And *vould not the seven great convicts prefer the perfidious* bark; built in the eclipse.and rigged with curses dark, to the grey soup, canary colored jackets, and dull severities, of a penal colony?" Never, perhaps, was a morel remarkable band of criminals embarked tog t ler, or one in wlri:h mutual recognitions were more likely % take place.- The five 'respectable' individuals) i*tove pretty much in the same 'sphere,' except, that their sympathies were' different. Robson, altlioujfh a poet, had not the delicate tastes ot Redpath, mcV.es for Sir John Dean Paul, his 'seriousnes9\kcpfhWi apart from turfman and: philosophical virtuori.— Ltader. ' Royal Differlnck—lt is very wellknown that the House of Orange has r fiver thoroughly forgiven tha revolution which/alienated more than half its kingdom, and that it acknowledged the ne'.v Belgian dynasty only because acquiescence in the new order of things - would have -been enforced. The visit of the reigning Queen of the Netherlands" to London,] at a time wliea the King was an inmate of Buckingham Palace, seemed-to render a meeting of the two Sovereignties inevitable; but,' two hours before the Queen.of the" Netherlands is received at the Palace, the King, with his family and suit, leave"for fie' Manchester' Exhibition, and on his return his Majesty only passes through1 London en route for Belgium. - • ■ v - Floating Population .op China.—The enormous population who are born and: educated, who marry, roar theirf amilies, and die—who, in a word, begin and - o d their existence on the water, and never f&ve or dream of any shelter other ,than the roof, and who seldom tread except on the deck-or boards of thteir sampans—show to what an extent the land is crowded, and how inadequate it is to maintain the cuniborers of the soil. In the city of Canton alone it is estimated that 300,000 persons dwell upon the surface' of the river; the boats, sometimes twenty or thirty deep, cover some miles, and have their wants supplied by ambulatory salesmen, who wend their way through every accessible pas ,age. Of this vast population some dwell in decorated rivei boats used for every purpose of license and festivity; some craft are employed in conveying goods and passengers, and are in a state of con-itant acti-.i y; others arc moored, and their owners are engaged as servants or laborers on shore. Indeed, their pursuits are.probably nearly as various' as those of the knd population. The immense varietj of boats which are found in Chinese waters has never been adequately described. Some arc of enormous size, and are used as magazines lor salt or rice—others We all domestic accommodations, and are employed for the transport cf whole families,, with all their domestic attendants and accommodations, from one place to anotlur—some, called centipedes, from their being supposed to have 100 rowers, convey with extraordinary rapidity the more valuable cargoes from tho inner warehouses to ,tb.e foreign shipping in the ports ■ —all thef c, from the huge and cumbrous junks, which remind one of Noak's ark, and which represent tha ruda and coa so c instructions of the remotest ages, to the fragile planks upoa which a solitary leper hangs upon the-outskirts of society—boats of every form, and applied to . every purpose—exhibit an incalculable amount of population, which may be called amphibious, if not-aquatic. Not only are land and water crowded with Chinese, but many dwell on artificial islands .which, float upon the lakes—;sl.<nds with gardens and houses raised upon the rafts which the occupiers have bound together, and on which they cultivate what is needful for the supply of -life's daily wants. They have their poultry and their vegetables for use, their flowers and their scrolls for ornament, their household gods for protection and worship.—&V J. Bowriwj. Gigantic Project.—Bridge from New York to Brooklyn.—Mr.. J. J. Rink, a German architect oi this city, has shown us a plan for a bridge across the East liiver, connecting Broad-street with Atlanticstreet, Brooklyn. The length is to be 5272 feet, width; 300. There are to be six arches, and tho height of the bridge, above high,water mark, is to bo 140 feet. Tiie arches are to be constructed so that, the intervening spaces can be used for storing military ptorcs, while the south front of the bridge will serve for a river fortification. The two abutmentts are to bo pierced for, a numte: of large cannon. On the north front the piers are <o be turned into storehouses or hotels. The vaults of the interior as swimming-baths, slaughter-houses, nwkets, &c. The foundations of the piers are to be constructed upon a new and simple plsn, involving but little expense. The termini of the biHge are designed for a custoni-hov.so, armoury, anl a d pit of military store, tobs connected with Governor's Island, by a 'submarine passage.— New York Tribune. "Is it npt lamentable to see a poor father wringing his hands and weeping over a stubborn childc, wishing he had never been borne ? saying, ' I have tryed him so many weeks, and months, and yeere, and yet he is worse and worse ;' would you not pity the poor man? — An Epistle to the Parish of Purhigh, in Essex, hy J. Rogers, Minister, 1G53. When M. Dumas' pere was.a witness at Rouen on tho famous trial for murder by duel, where Lola Montea also figured, he was asked his profession. "Ah!" said he, "if.l were not iri the native city of Corneille, I should call myself a dramatist.' He was looking for a compliment—and did not find what he sought—-The judge- respected the supremacy of Corneille, and remarked, with sly irony, " Sir,'there are degrees and extremes in every pro/'eision I" , Motions op the Earth.—The earth travels, roun the sun at the rats of upwards of 68,000 -niiles in an hour, and in the name time turns more-than a thousand miles on its own axis/ And in one year the whole solar system moves over a distance of 33,550,900.