MISCELLANEOUS.

Wellington Independent, Volume I, Issue 36, 2 August 1845, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

Fifty-two thousand hundred weights of chicory paid a duty of £54,000 last year, which shows the tremendous extent to which coffee is adulterated. Mr. De la Rue, a professor of music, was

murdered and robbed near the Finchley road, Hampstead. A young man named Hocker, aa acquaintance of the deceased, was arrested on suspicion of being the murderer, and the inquest returned a verdict against him. • A destructive fire took place at Bridgtown, in Barbadoes, early in January, which destroyed the principal portion of the town. The loss of property is estimated at more than half a million. Her Majesty, with her accustomed generosity, has given, we are informed, out, of her privy purse, the sura of £1,000 a year to Sir Augustus D'Este, which is equal to the sum Sir Augustus lost by the death of the Duke of Sussex. —Morning Chronicle. Joseph Barry, living in Shoraditch, cut his wife's throat on the morning of the Ist February, and then went into bed and cut his own throat; they were both found dead. A cabinet-makir in Hull was taken into custody on the sth of February, for murdering his wife, and then throwing her into the kitchen fire. When found by a policeman, she was almost burned to a cinder. Importance of Agricultural Experiments. —Agriculture furnishes a healthy and profitable employment to three-fourths of our population. No employment conduces in so high a degree to preserve the moral health of the community. Where can rational liberty find a safer asylum than in a country where the great body of the people are actively engaged ia agricultural industry and in agricultural improvements? Every branch of industry, except agriculture, is liable to be over done, and when this happens, distress, more or less severe, is sure to follow. This country is now groaning under the effects of excessive foreign trade. Who ever heard of a national distress occasioned by a spirited agriculture ? If the merchants who imported silks and other gewgaws from.Europe, and by so doing involved our people in debt, had been skilful, industrious farmers,'"who will pretend that the country would have suffered as it now does ? Science is indispensible in order to the success of agriculture; but experiment is the great lever of improvement. The business of science or theory is to reason on facts: who can be a good farmer without reasoning? The business of experiment is to test the truth of theory, and thereby come at certain knowledge. Every farmer who tries experiments in agriculture for the public good, deserves tha gratitude of the whole country. But individual efforts are insufficient, there must be union of efforts in order to meet with great success. Suppose ttat one hundred farmers in different parts of this state can be found, who would be willing to appropriate each one-half acre of land for the purpose of trying some experiment in the culture of wheat. Suppose these one hundred farmers can act in concert, and each agree to try some different experiment, and continue their efforts we will say for five years, varying the mode of experiment each year. Only think ! five hundred different experiments skilfully conducted ; who can tell what such a course of management may accomplish ?— John E. Rolfe fan American farmer. J Colonization of Western Africa.— Berlin, Nov. 25. —To the four or five plans of colonisation hitherto proposed, (Texas, the Mississippi, at Thomas Brezil, and the Mosquito Shore,) another is now added, situated in the West coast of Africa, which causes much attention, because the great Elector of Bradenburg has acquired possession of a spot on that coast. This is Cape Mount, half way between Sierra Leone and the North American negro colony, Liberia, bounded on the south and east by little Cape Mount, and the north-west by the river Sugari. This spot was formerly ceded, on the 23rd of February, 1841, to the' present proprietors, George Clavering, Redman, and Theodore Canot, under the protection and asssistance of the British naval forced in order to abolish the slave trade by means of a lawful commerce. The owners have already erected dwelling houses, and built two ships. Mr. Redman is now in Berlin, and is endeavouring to gain friends for the establishment of a colony. He particularly invites attention to the ample produce of the rich soil and of commerce, and likewise to the gold miner, which might be worked to advantage, no mining operations ever having been carried on in that country. — London Morning Herald, Dec. 3. Irish Denial—An Irish boy who was trying to get a place, denied that he was an Irish boy. I don't know what you mean by being an Irishman, said the gentleman who was about hireing him, but this I know, you was born in Ireland. " Och, your honour, if that's all," said the boy, " small blame to that, suppose I had been born in a stable would I have been a horse." " Sara," said one little urchin to another, the other day, " Sam, does your schoolmaster ever give you any reward of merit"?" "I s'pose he does," was the rejoinder; "he gives mealickin , everyday, and says I merits two !";