HOME NEWS

Wellington Independent, Volume II, Issue 102, 3 October 1846, Page 3

HOME NEWS

Eruptions of Mount Hecla!.—A letter from Copenhagen, of the 17th April, says:—" The packet which arrived yesterday from Reikavik, in Iceland" has brought us letters from that town of the Bth of March (four days later,) which give curious detail 8 respecting the malady under which the cattle were suffering, from having eaten grass, &c.,' covered with the ashes vomited by Mount Hecla. These ashes act more particularly on the bones of animals which have swallowed them. Thus, on the bones of the feet there areformed, in less than 24 hours, osseous v excrescences, of an oblong form, which gradually assume so formidable a development that they prevent the beasts from walking ; the same phenomenon is then manifested in the lower jaw» which is at the same time enlarged, and extends in all directions so considerably that it eveatually splits in several places; whilst on the teeth of the upper jaw, and even traverse it,—a phase of tha malady which always determines a fatal issue. As high winds had prevailed for some tim? the volcanic ashes were scattered throughout the island, and a great number of cattle, especially oxen, cows, and sheep, had perished. Tf the eruption of Hecla (say the letters from Reikavik) are prolonged for two months more, all the ruial proprietors who have not enough hay to feed their herds,—and the majority are in this situation,—will be obliged either to slaughter their cattle, or to abandon them to certain death on the pastures thus poisoned by the volcanic ashes Tue eruption of Mount Hecla was extremely violent. The flames which issued from the three great cratr-rs attaiued a height of 14,400 feet, and their hreadtb exceeded the greatest breadth of the liver PicerseH, the most considerable river in Iceland. The lav* had already formed lofty mountains and amongst the masses of pumicestone vomited by the volcano, and which have been found at a distaoce of three fourths of a mile (a French league JL"A a there were some which"' weighed half a ton (4So kilogrammes ' By tfie eruption of Hecla, the enormous quantities of snow arid ice which had accumulated for several years on the sides of that mountain have been melted, and partly fallen into the river Ragen, which has overflowed its banks several times. The waters of that river, which runs almost at the foot of Mount Hecla, and which receives a large portion of the burning lava, were so hot that every day they cast upon the banks numbers of dead trout, almost half-baked ! Every night vivid streaks of the aurora borealis illumed the sky.'' The Immensity of the Ukiversb.—The space in which the systems composing the universe move is illimitable. Were we to attempt to assign its limits, what could we imagine to be beyond ? The number of worlds is infinitely great; it is inexpressible, indeed, by numbers. A ray of light traverses 180,000 miles in a "second of time. A year comprises millions of seconds, yet there are fixed stars so immeasurably distant that their light would require billions of years to reach our eyes. We are acquainted with animals possessing teeth, and organs of motion and digestion, which are wholly invisible to the naked eye. ' Other animals exist, which if measurable, would be found many thousand times smaller, which nevertheless, possess the same apparatus. These creatures, in the same manner as the larger animals, take nourishment, and are propagated by means of ova, which must consequently be again many hundreds of times smiller than their own bodies. It is on ! y because our organs of vision are imperfect that we do not perceive creatures a million times smaller than these. What variety, and what infinite gradations do the constituents of our globe present to us in their properties and their conditions! There are bodies which are twenty times heavier than an equal body of water; there are others which are ten thousand times lighter, the ultimate particles of which cannot be seen in the most powerful microscopes. Finally, we have in light—that wonderful messenger which brings us daily intelligence of the continued existence of numberless worlds, the expression of an immaterial essence which no longer obeys the laws of gravation, and yet manifests itself to our senses by innumerable efftcts. Even the light of the sun—with the arrival of which, upon the earth, inanimate nature receives life and motion—we cleave aside into r»ys, which, without any power of illumination, produce the most important alteration and decompositions in organic nature. We separate from light certain rays, which exhibit among themselves a diversity as great as exists among colors. But no where do we observe eiiher a beginning ot an end.—Liebig's Letters on Chemistry, The insurrection in Poland has been quenched, partly by irregular troops, but also in pari by the most horrible of all national calamities, the insurrection of poverty against' porperty, the peasantry having risen against the lords of the soil, revenging ages of oppression in the blood of the best, as well as the worst, of their superiors. It was believed that as soon as the Corn Bill is passed and in operation, Lord Stanley will return 10 the Adminstration and

succeed Lord Ellenborough at the Admiralty, who will go out, at his own request, to St. Petersburg!); he is said to have only iaken the Admiraliy as a warming pan to Lord Stanley. Sir George Murray, Masier-Gen'eral o ihe Ordnance, is about to retire fr..m. office, and is to be succeeded by the M,rquis of Angl?sea. The fortificaiions of Paris are said to be entirely finished. They have cost more than £5,000,000 sterling. Parliament i* not expected to sit over the month of June, and then t<> be dissolved, so that all may be over oefore harvest. p The <« Nenagh Guardian " states there is an extraordinary compilation of the crimes perpetrated in the North Riding of Tipperary during ihe year ending Feb! 28, 1846. The list shows above 300 offences, ten of which are murdererc, about twenty homicides, and the rest made up off attempts to murder, firing into dwellings, robbery of arms, violent astaults, and threatening notices. LxTHAORDi.vARr Case.—At the present Roscommon assizes will be tried one of the most extraordinary cases which has been brought before the legal tribunal in this country for a number of years. Mr. E. C. Kelly, as heir-at-law, will try an* ejectment case, in which Mrs. Kelly, the widow of the wealthy gentleman who bore that name, will be defendant. The property in dispute may amount to the sum %n!?at d and '^ nded P r °P er( y. -of AbOO,UOO, every sixpence of which is claimed, in virtue of a will and deed by Mrs. Kelly. The circumstances connected with this case are of an extraordinary nature. The lady who insists upon her right to this vast property, and who actually sent the heir-at-law to Roscommon gaol for three weeks, upon a charge of cattle stealing, will be remembered a* the plaintiff in a seduction case in 1819, when she recovered damages, £2,000. Northern Herald, March 13. A Prize and a Blank.—Some years agi, when all the world were mad upon lotteries, the cook of a middle-aged gentleman drew from his hands the savings of some years. Her master, curious to know the cause, learned that she had repeatedly dreamed that a certain number was a great prize, and she had bought it. Hecalledjier a fool for her pains, and never omitt?d an occasion to' tease her upon tbesubject. One day, however, the mailer saw in the newspapers, or at his bookseller's in the country town, that the number was actually the -.£20,000 prize. The cook was called up ; a palaver ensued — had known each other for many years : both to part, &c. In short, he proposed, and was accepted j but insisted on the marriage being celebrated next morning. Married they were; and, as the carriage took them from church, they enjoyed the following dialogue :—" We'll, Molly, two happy events in one day, You have married, I trust, a good husband. You have something else; but, first, let me ask you where you have locked up your lottery ticket?" Molly, who thought her master was only bantering her again on the old point, cried, "Don't say no more about it. I thought how it would be, and that 1 should never hear the end on't, so I sold it to the baker of our village for a guinea profit. So ye need never be ano-ry with roe again about that." First Sight op a House.— The sensation produced by the presence of the strangers had not in the least subsided at the period of our arrival at the islands. The natives still flocked in numbers about the encampment, and watched with* tho liveliest curiosity every thing that was going forward. A blacksmith's forge, which had been set up in the shelter of a grove near the beach, attracted so great a crowd that it required the utmost efforts of the sentries around, to keep the inquisitive multitude at a sufficient distance to allow the workmen to piy their vocation. But nothing gained so large a sbara of admiration as a horse, which had been brought from Valparaiso by the Achille, one of the vessels of the squadron. The animal, a remarkably fine one, had been taken ashore, and stabled in a hut of cocounut boughs within the fortified enclosure. Occasionally it was brought out, and, being gaily caparisoned, was ridden by one of the officers at full speed over the hard sand beach. The performance was' sure to be hailed with loud plaudits, and the " parakee nuee". (big hog) was unanimously pronounced by the islanders to be the most extraordinary specimen of zoology that had ever come under their observation.—Four Months' Residence iv tho Marquesas Islands.

The consumption of guano in England, becween the Ist July, 1844, and the same day in 1845, was 137,3000 tons. Age of the Morning Papers.—The Morning Chronicle has existed for seventy-seven, the Vost seventy-five, the Herald sixty.three, the Times sixty-one, and the Advertiser fifty-one years. A great number of privates in the Foot Guards and the Scotch Fusileers have recently demanded and obtained their discharge on the ground of illegal enlistment, their attestation having been taken before a magistrate in a different country from their enlistment. It is said that five hundred have thus obtained their liberty.—Liverpool Albion. . St. Helena.—We learn from our vessels of war, stationed on the western coast of Africa, that from the Ist of April 1844 to the 6th July, 1845, no fewer than 75 slavers have been captured by them, the Americans having during the same period, captured 1 slaver, making a total of 76 captured vessals during a period of fifteen months and six days. Two captains, four lieutenants, and a corps of men belonging to the Royal Marines, making a total of 252 arrived at Sheerness from Chatham, and proceeded en route to Portsmouth on Saturday, for immediate embarkation. It is said they are intended to serve in vessels proceeding to the American coast.—Leeds Mercury, March 14. On Friday a bill was introduced by Sir James Graham for the prevention and abatement of fever in Ireland. This measure was rendered necessary by the alarming extension of fever, consequent upon the failure of the potato crop. A board of health is to be established in Dublin, medical officers appointed by the poor-law unions, and temporary hospitals formed.—Bell's Messenger. Change of Funeral Custom. —For some time past arrangements have been going on with the various Ministers in Paisley, to with the giving refreshments at funerals. They have at last come to a decision on the subject, and have issued a declaration, signed by all the ministers, which was read from all the pulpits, on Sabbath last, to the effect that "The present custom of giving wine or spirits at funerals might be relinquishedwith great advantage; and that the substitution of a simple devotional service would be attended with less trouble to the frieads—not encroach on the time of the company, and would be in harmony with the saddening and melancholy duties to be discharged in the chamber of death." The Jews,—The Hebrews of Goldberg, in Prussian Silesia, have been permitted to erect a new synagogue, with a tower containing two large bells and a clock, things hitherto forbidden to that persuasion in Germany. At Hanover the Jews have elected M. Meyer, Doctor of Laws and Philosophy, as their Grand Rabbi, in the room of Dr. Alder. M. Meyer is only twenty.six years of age, but very talented. An Incident at MooDKEE.—We have been honoured with the following account of the death of Father Francis, a Catholic priest, at the battle of Moodkee:—" We have received the sad intelligence of the death of the Rev. Father Francis, of St. Etienne, which most melancholly event took place on the 16th December last at Moodkee, during the first engagement of the British with the Sikh army. He was seen just before the action commenced, endeavouring to animate the soldiers> and endeavouring to animate the soldiers, and exhorting them to place their confidence in the Lord of Hosts. When the tremendous artillery of the enemy began to fire, he went to attend her Majesty's 50th Regiment into battle. Catholics as well as Protestants were anxious that he should not expose his valuable life to risk, but the love of his fellow creatures was paramount over every othe r feeling, and, in the fond hope that he might assist the wounded and soothe the last moments of some expiring sinner, he lost sight of his own safety, and fell a victim to his noble sense of philanthropy. Two days after the action his lifeless corpse was found amongst the heaps of the killed, dreadfully mutilated by several wounds on his head and neck with a sword. The Irish Catholics and many Protestant friends will lament the loss of such a eealous missionary, and will always recollect his wonderful exertions during the cholera in tfie hospitals at Kurnaul, Aga, and Mesrut."—-Agra Ukhbar. THE FRENCH NAVY. vessels in commission. Line-of-battle ships, 8; frigates, 13; viz.—3 of 60, l.of 58, 6 of 52, 1 of 46. and 2 of 40 guns.' Corvettes or sloops, 15; viz 7 of 30, 6 of 24, and 2 of 20guns. Brigs, 27; viz.—l 3 of 20, 1 of 16, 8 of 10, and 5 of 8 guns. Steam frigates, 3, viz.—l of 540 horse-power, and 2 of 450 horsepower. Steam corvettes, 8 ; viz.—l of 320 horsepower, and 7 of 220 horse-power. Other steamers, 42 ; vi Z .-24 of 160 horse-power, and 15 of 80 and7o horse.power. Besides these vessels there are 33 armed transports, carrying from 20 to 10' guns each, and 38 gun.boats and cutters in.commissionrand belonging to the French Royal Navy. .'■"•" t VESSELS EN COMMISSION DB RADE. " Line-of-battle ships. 5; v,z.—2 of 120, 1 of 100, and 2 o*f 90 guns. ' Frjgates, 3 ; viz.—2 of

52, and 1 of 46 guns. Corvettes, 1 of 24 gunsBrigs, 3 of 20 guns. Steamers, 1 of 450 horsepower. Armed transports, 1 of 380 tons. Total —14 vessels en commission de rade. VESSELS EN COMMISSION DE PORT. Line-of-battle ships, 3; viz.—l of 90, and 2 of 82 guns. Frigates, 4 ; viz.—2 of 60, 1 of 50, and 1 of 46 guns. Steamers, 17; viz.—-13 of 450 horse-power, and 4 of 220 horse-power. Armed transports, 2. Total—26 vessels' en commission de port, vessels dismantled. Line-of-battle ships, 7; viz.—l of 120. I of 90, 3 of 86, and 2 of 82 guns. Frigates, 10; viz 4 of 60, 3 of 52, 1 of 46, and 2 of 40 guns. Corvettes, 5; viz.—2 of 28, 1 of 20, and 2 of 16 guns, Brigs, viz.—7 of 20, 1 of 18, 1 of 16, 13 of 10, and 4 of 9 guns. Armed transports, 12. Gunuoats, 9. Total—69 vessels dismantled. In 1814 the balance of trade between Great Britainandthe United States,was about 17,000,000 dollars in favour of the United States, and yet the immense importance of this trade—the largest the world has ever yet seen between two nations, has hardly been referred to by the Oregon speakers, especially by those who have inflamed popular passions, fomented ill-feeling, and promoted measures tending to war in the House of Representatives 1 Should war occur, the whole of this traffic would wholly cease, together with much of the commerce with other countries. The state debts would be lost sight of, and the railroad to Oregon would no longer be contemplated. The present condition of peace and prosperity in this country would be changed into misery, mourning, and all the horrid crimes that follow in the track of war. May God in his mercy avert so dire a calamity.— Morning Chronicle. Excise Duties.—The Taxes levied on articles of consumption produced within the kingdom, The word is derived from excido, to cut out; and means that a good slice is taken out of everything affected by the excise duties. They commenced in the reign of Charles the First, by a tax on beer; but Oliver Cromwell, being a brewer, was excited to rebellion by this attack on his double X. If he had been a milkman, and there had been a duty on chalk, he would probably have been equally re. fractory. Among exciseable articles we find soap, which was felt to be sucA a grievance that " How are you off for soap?" has become a common mode of salutation among the poorer classes of society. There is a heavy excise duty on hackney coaches, but the heaviest duty of all falls on the animals employed in drawing the vehicles. In these cases, however, there is a tremendous drawback, of which nobody gets the benefit.—Punch's Dictionary. Factor.—A mercantile agent who buys and sells. Some derive the word factor from facig, to do, because some factors are in the habit of doing their customers. The chief duty of a factor is to receive consignments and to remit money or goods; but he occasionally performs only the first part of his duty, and wholly neglects the second.—Punch's I Political Dictionary. Altered Times—ln the year 1671, on the second reading of a bill in the House of Commons, for buildiDga bridge over the Thames, at Putney, after a number of members had delivered speeches in ridicule of the idea, Sir Henry Herbert, just before the House divided, rose and said :_I honestly confess myself an enemy to monopolies. I am equally opposed to mad visionary projects; and I may be permitted to say, that in the late king's reign several of these thoughtless inventions were thrust upon the House, but were most properly rejected. If a man, sir, were to come to the bar of the House and tell us that he proposed to convey us regularly to Edin . burgh in coaches, in seven days, and bring us back in seven more, should we not vote him to bedlam? Surely we should if we did him justice: or, if an other that he would sail to the East Indies in six months, should we not punish him for practising upon our credulity? Assuredly, if we served him rightly. The journey from London to Edinburgh is now. accomplished in something like twenty-four hours, or about seven times the speed that was thought preposterous in 1671; and, no doubt, when a railway communication is opened throughout, it will be performed in fifteen hours.—North British Railway Journal. Old English Delicacies.—" Good old Eng. lish faie," is a phrase very much in people's mouths • much oftener than the thing they praise. Let us see what a dinner consisted of in the reign of Charles the First. Imprimis :-<• A soups of snayles, a powdered goose (not a footman,) a joll of salmon, a dish of green fish buttered with eggs." This was a first course. Then came "a Lombard pye, a cow's j udder roasted, a grand.,boiled meat, a hedgehog I pudding, a rabbit stuffed with oysters, Polonian sausages, a mallard with cabbage, and a pair of boyled cocks." To these succeeded, a hore d' *uv. res mi entremets, " A spinnage tart, a carbonadoed ben, a pye of aloes, egges in moonshine, christial jelly, jumballs, quidany, bragget, and walnut suckeis. [ Cock ale, surfeit water, canary, sack, and Gascony [ wines, served to moisten this heterogeneous repast. After this specimen of old English fare, go to the Reform Club, and throw yourself on the mercy of ?%rl' °l' lf^ n want of an "PPetoe, read the Manual of Ude, for French science can alone furnish a remedy for razing out the memory of those British enormities.—Ainswprth's Magazine. Discoveries at Pompeii.—The latest excavations made at Pompeii, by the Belgian charge d affairs, have been exceedingly interesting. A house was laid open in the quarter of the people. Twenty workmen were employed at the task, and the entrance-room furnished about twenty-five articles, vases, cups, altars, and bronze patera. Another room, from which a narrow passage led to the.lutchen, contained some large earthen jars. In the kitchen, the tinning of the saucepans was still bright. A large boiler, two jars, with handles light and transparent, objects exceedingly rare in collections, were also;fouml ghere. The next excavations were to be made in the workshops of the sculpture of the town. A Distinction.—Adry.goods dealer in Bangor, had, by his conduct, obtained the title of "the little rascal. Being asked why this appellation had been given bim, he replied, ",Ta distinguish mefrom the re ß t,of my .neighbours, who are alLgreafrascals."

Freaks of Monkeys.—Captain Rogers had once accepted an invitation of a brother officer, in a totally different part of the island, to try a few days' hostilities agaiiift the elephants of that neighbourhood, and had arrived after a few days sport to within a mile or two of the bungalow, where his host and hostess were waiting his arrival, when, passiug by a delightfully cool-looking river, he thought a plunge would be the most renovating luxury in existence; so a plunge he determined to take sending on his servants with his guns, and an intimation that in ten minutes he would be home to dinner. So, stripping and placing his things carefully on a stone, he began to luxuriate in the water. He was a capital swimmer, and had swam to some distance, when, to his horor and dismay, on looking to the place where he had left his habilments, he perceived a dozen monkeys ■" overhauling" his entire wardrobe !—one was putting its leg through the sleeve of his shirt; another cramming its head into his trowsers; a third trying to find if any treasure was concealed in his boot; whilst the hat formed a source of wonderment and amusement to some two or three others who were endeavouring to unravel its mystery by unripping the lining, and taking half-a-dozen bites out of the brim. As soon as he regained his mental equilibrium (for the thing was so ridiculous as to make him laugh heanily, notwithstanding his disgust at seeing his garments turned to such " vile purposes,") he made with all haste for the shore ; but judge of his horror when he saw these •« precarious rascals' each carrying up what he could law bold of, and rattle off full speed into the juno-le! not leaving poor Rogers even the vestige of an article of raiment to cover himself. All he heard was a glorious chattering as they one by one disappeared, the last one lugging off his shirt, which being rather awkward to carry, was continually tripping it up by getting between its legs. Here was a pretty pickle for a Christian, under a broiling sun ; and here he stayed till the inmates of the bungalow, beginning to suspect some accident, came out in search, and found poor Rogers sitting up to his neck in water, in a frame of body and mind which we may conclude to be " more easily imagined than described.— Reminiseenses of the late Major Rogers. The only happy colony extant. — An English paper, under the appropriate head of " The blessing to colonist* of being; unknown to the Colonial Office," publishes the following— " Between the islands of Porto Rico, Santa Cruz, and St. Thomas, in the West Indies, there is an island-commonly known to the sailors as Crabb's Island. The area of Crabb's Island is not much less than that of the Isle of Wight- It contains nearly 100,000 acres of land, a considerable portion of which is fertile, and adapted to sugar cultivation. Yet, notwithstanding a?l these advantages, Crabb's Island has long been uninhabited, and has never, we believe, been claimed by any European state. Two years ago, a few adventurers took possession, and imported some labourers, and have since expended a considerable capital in bringing portions of it under cultivation for sugar estates. All this is very singular, but what strikes us as astonishing is this—the settlers in Crabb's Island are doing well, are actually in a high state of prosperity, though they have no Lord Stanley to rule them from Dow-ning-street, aud no Governor, Lieutenant Governor, or Executive Council in the Island to reflate their affairs!— And in such outer darkness do they sit in Crabb's Island, that they really believe they can manage their own affairs better than the Colonial Secretary or any of his myrmidons. m London Fire 3in 1845—The following is the official returns made by the London Fire Engine Establishment of the number of fires in the metropolis during the past year, viz.:—Totally destroyed and seriously damaged, 276; partially damaged, 431; total number of fires, 707. Injaddition. to which there have been 87 chimney alarms and 81 false alarms, making a grand total of 875; fires and alarms during the year. This number is considerable less*than that of the year 1844; but the loss of life has been far greater than has,occurred for several years past, the number of lives that have been sacrificed by fire in 1845 being 19. On 21st of Novomber last, a general postmaster delivered, in the course of the I mominrr, 5000 newspaper?, and upwards ;0f3,000 letters. It would, perhaps, be too curious to enquire in what-proportion his pay was to his labour and responsibil-' ity..-Sunday Times.