The Express. — London, England, 1848-01-27 00:00:00

Governor-General of Netherlands-India violated the spirit of its most important article, which was, how ever, found to be so vaguely framed that all applica tions for redress on the part of the English govera ment were easily evaded. Lord PALMERSTON has good reason to know this ; for his inability to serve the British merchants connected with Singapore, or t ra ding with Java, bad, at one time, very nearly driven a hood of long-headed Scotchmen into an alliance with Mr. URQUHART. It is not therefore without a certain degree of secret misgiving that we hear this treaty appealed to by cur countrymen. Yet if there be meaning in words, and faith in statesmen, its terms ought to bear them out on the present occasion. The petitioners complain that several British sub jectm have been prevented by the Dutch authorities at MMacassar from trading to ports in Celebes, which either are or were lately held by independent rajahs. They invoke against this encroachment the third article of the treaty of 1824. That article is as follows The high contracting parties engage that no treaty here after made by either with any native power in the Eastern seas shall contain any article tending either expressly or by the impositi , m of unequal duties to exclude the trade of the ether party from the ports aimed native power, and that if in any treaty now existing on either part any article to that effect has been admitted, such article shall be abrogati d upon the conclusion of the present treaty. This is explicit enough ; but let us turn to the seventh article : The Mal icca islands, and especially Amboyna, Banda, omati, find their immediate dependencies, are excepted front the operation of 1., 11., II 1., IV. articles, until the Netherlands government shall think lit to abandon the monopoly of spices; but if the said government shall at any time previous to such abandonment of the monopoly, allow the subjects .f any power, other than a native Asiatic power, to carry on any commercial intercourse with the said islands, the subjects of his Britannic Majesty shall be admitted to such intercourse upon a footing precisely similar. The Spice Islands and " their immediate dependen cies" are expressly excepted from the operation of the third article. It was an idea curious enough, to except Dutch settlements and dependencies from the opera tion of an article which relates exclusively to independent native states. The unnecessary naming of that article was suspicious, and ought to have been prevented by the Bri tish plenipotentiaries. But let ne see whether by any straining the ports of Celebes can be repre sented as amon ; _r the " immediate dependencies" spoken of. Luckily, we have it under the bands of Messrs. FAGEL and FALCK, the Dutch ministers, who concluded the treaty, that they are not. On March 17, 1824—the day on which the treaty was signed at London—explanatory and supplementary notes were exchanged between the plenipotentiaries of the two nations. That of the Dutch ministers describeethe Spice Islands and their dependencies as " Tout cet Archi pel, qui a ete fort justement decrit oornme com pris entre Celebes, Timor, et la Nouvelle Guirik.' Celebes therefore does not belong to the spice archi pelago : its native ports fall under the provisions of the third article of the treaty of 1824 ; and the', Dutch authorities, in attempting to centralise the trade to Celebes in Macassar, are playing a double game. They are making the opening of that one port, which the, had-a right to keep shut if they pleased, a pretext for shutting up all the other ports in the island which they have no right to close. They are attempting to narrow the range of our commerce under the pretext of extending it. Lord Palmerston has now an opportunity of prov ing to the malcontents who were so irritated by his seeming apathy in the Java controversies, that he only did nothing because he could do nothing. The words though not the spirit of the article in the treaty of 1824, which was then under discussion, tied his hands. In the present case the treaty is distinctly and unequivocally in his favour, and he ought to make the most or it. _ . So much for the main topic of the Singapore petition. Other points,„are pressed in it. The petitioners pray for less circuitous channels of communication with the home government; for the investing the governor of the Straits settlement with authority to exercise such general superintendence over British trade in the Eastern Archipelago, as the governor of Hong-Kong exercises over British trade in the China seas ; and for the placing of a British man-of-war at hie disposal. The first of these three wishes is extremely natural. To each of the parties who have com plained of the Dutch encroachments in Celebes the governor of the Straits settlements has replied succession, that he must consult the British Indian government. The British-Indian govern- ment must in turn consult the authorities in Leadeuhall-street; and they again must consult the Board of Control. It would not be easy to calculate the time within which the answer of the Board of Control will find its way back through the great house in Leadenhall-street, the government offices at Calcutta, and the bureau of the governor of the Straits settlements to the complainants. As the Singapore Chamber of Commerce merely eschews the Colonial office, and only begs to be transferred from the care of the Indian government to that of the Foreign-office, its pm) er is not unreasonable. With regard to a superintendent of trade at Singapore, on the model of the one at Hong-Kong, the plan of com bining the office of head of the Chinese and Manilla consuls with that of colonial governor has scarcely been such as to lead us to desire an extension of the experiment. As to a cruiser being placed permanently on the Singapore station, provided due care is taken to prevent the officer iu command from taking diplo matic functions upon him, it might be of use. But, waiving for the present these subsidiary ques tions, not a moment ought to.be lost in vindicating for British merchants all the trading immunities to which the treaty relative to the Indian Archipelago concluded with the Netherlands government in 1824 entitles them. r twenty-one businesses to dispose of in different parts of London and the suburbs and in the provinces. For various reasons—the tax among others—he wishes to try his chance of procuring private appli cations for some of them, before advertising them in detail. He, therefore, sends to the Daily News a brief advertisement that he has businesses to dispose of. It runs thus: TO I,DiF.NDRAPERS, W— r—, Ac countant, has received instructions to DISPOSE of BUBINEBBEB at the following places ; Aidgate. Pideld-street. Caradendown. Notting-hill. Weaterham. Penwaville. Walworth.road. Hampstead. Windsor. Plymouth. Blacktriarwroad. Uppiogham. Old Meat-raid. Piccadilly. Plymouth. Crantoome.treet. Hartley-row. Al Lle-enet- rod. Bermondcry. Kingwtreet, Holborn. Kensingtoo. For particulars apply toMr. W— E—, accountant, 3, 0--- B—, late 35, C—. A duty is charged for each place mentioned in this advertisement. Our office charge for insertion is 6s. 6d., while the aggregate duties amount to no less than 11. lie. 6d. The advertisement costs the adver tiser 11. 18s., of which sum we receive Os. 6d., and 11. lls. 6d. goes to the Stamp-office. We could enumerate hundreds of surcharges, similar in kind, though few so enormous in amount as this last. For example, an ill-advised auctioneer adver tised a few days ago in another journal that on such a day he would sell a bay carriage horse, also a brown cob, also, &c., to the number of five animals. Had he simply enumerated them only one duty would have been charged, but each also was construed as introducing a new advertisement, and he had live duties to pay, 7s. 6d., instead of Is. 6d. of tax, in ad dition to the business price of his advertisement. We are not complaining of the Stamp-office. The officials there do their duty courteously and fairly. It is of the law that we complain—of the law which imposes a tax necessarily so capricious in its opera tion, so extortionate, and so obstructive to the natural couree of business operations. Our complaint, we admit, is in part, but in part only, an affair of the shop. This duty, as wayward in its visitations as any mischievous hobgoblin, imposes a check on ad vertising, and curtails our business. But the annoy ance and loss it entails on the community at large are still greater than what we suffer. DEATH OF THE KING OF DENMARK. Christian the Vlllth, King of Denmark, and Duke of Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenbarg, died on the 19th instant, at Copenhagen. King Christian VIII. was born on the 18th Sept., 1786, and succeeded to the throne on Dec. 3,18.19. He was first married, in 1806, to the Princess Charlotte Frederika of Mecklen burg-Schwerin, from whom he was divorced in 1812; and afterwards to the Princess Caroline of Schleswig- Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg. The Crown Prince, Fred. Chas. Christian, was born on the 6th of Oct., 1808. Hie first wife was the Princess Wilhel mina Mary of Denmark, from whom he was divorced in 1837, and his second the Princess Caroline of Mecklenburg,-Strelitz, from whom he was also di vorced in 1846. The Crown Prince had no issue by either wife. ROME, Ise. 12. ; The cigar revolution at Milan has created the deepest sensation here. At the various guardhouses it was resolved at once to exercise the "right to I petition parliament," and accordingly to-day that I deliberative assembly has been bombarded with con- I stitutional addresses demanding a further supply of , , arms, stores of ammunition, and " that officers of old , standing from the service of Piedmont should be i forthwith invited down here to urge forward the drill I and manrouvre." Also, that an additional park of ; artillery should be ordered from the foundry of Turin. ; They have all sworn that the Austrians shall not , reach Naples by this route, whether government allow them or otherwise. Accounts from Florence repre sent the excits meat there as quite equal to our own. ; It was an ill-advised step for the expelled Swiss , Jesuits to have fled straight to Vienna and placed , themselves under the mantle of old Metternich. Nothing will ever get it out of the head of the Ho- I mans and Italians generally that they are become the mere tools of that soul-and-body-rotting despot- ; ism. They have got themselves too deeply entangled , with the exploded system of misrule to hope for ex trication, and the Tablet correspondent (Lord Clifford) I is only wasting paper here by seeking to disparage the onward movement of this peninsula and of Rome. His letter published on New Year's Day, in which he stands up for the " Obscurantist party," was read here with sad merriment; an old wig c, n never plug up the arches of Ponte Melte, or stay the down-rush ing Tiber. Two monks of the Irish La Trappe (C. Waterford) have been here for some days on a mission of mystery. It has oozed oat that they are come to effect the depo- 4 sition of their mitred abbot, Father Ryan, whom they I elected to role over them last year by a vast majority , of the cloistered eremites. It seems that a French man, abbot of La Grande Trappe, has lately popped into the establishment to operate a " visitation," and that the foreign gentleman found the Irish abbot far too " liberal" in his administration. It has never been difficult to get in Ireland one set of natives to roast their brethren, and since the days of Dermot M•Marro the discontented aborigines willingly adopt alien assistance. Backed by the Gallo can invader, these two Sonderbandists have ' come to Propaganda, the grand Dionysian auricle of all Irish squabbles, and have distilled into the ear of that tribunal, matters which are no novelties there, as the staple occupation of the board has been, in my twenty-five years experience of its business, to hear one Irishman malign another. With your recent exhibitions at " Conciliation" Hall, between Grattan and Reynolds, " Dunn" and Dillon Brown, this will not be news for you. Bat really, gentle men, you might confine the fun (if such it be) to your own green isle, and not hawk your inextin guishable fire (arraewew rep) of dissension in the capital of Christendom so offensively. The beauty of the thing is, that the Irish imagine Propaganda and the Pope to be identical, which is about as true as if the acts of the Somerset House poor-law commissioners were counted those of Queen Victoria. Dyce Sombre bad an audience with his Holiness. The monarch is perfectly aware that the gentleman stands in the eye of English law a lunatic [nolionus lepes Anglia nautare] ; he was therefore particularly kind towards his visitor, and brought him to the apartment in the Quirinal, where the Begnm's picture is hung up, with a drawing of the Roman catholic cathedral founded by her [she built a mosque the same year to make sure of her chance]. He also con fronted Dyce with his own portrait, executed twenty years ago, and found some falling off, naturally. Last week, Sombre left his card (in envelope) at the Doris palace; and when the prince called on him in return, he learnt to hie astonishment that it was meant as a hostile m ssage, inasmuch as when, in London several years ago, Dyce was airing in Hyde Park, flanked by two keepers, Doria bad stared at him, and shook his whip at the carriage ! Doria sent Abbate Ilamilton, a young Scotchman, of gentle address, to urge that at the time he was not in England at all. "He is liar as well as coward," was the reply ; and the abbate went forthwith to the Se cretin), of State, who warned the eccentric stranger against any further indulgence in Rome of such Oriental hallucinations. A rival of I)yee has come out in northern Italy, in the person of a noble lord, bearing a name of some celebrity in the politics, of last century, as well as among noble and illustrious authors;" not that his doings are of the exact sort which distinguish our Sombre friend, but there are points of similarity. Like him, ho was honoured by an alliance with the fair off-shoot of a British naval hero. Bat all Italy has been witness to the neglect and unmerited es trangement which ensued. For some years the matter has been subject of painful comment in Naples, Rome, and Florence; but now a crisis has come. The drama of a Milan " baga de secretly" is about to be enacted. There have been overt acts in which the British character is seriously compromised. Servants have been inveigled into the pothouses of Genoa, gold profu.ely offered, and wise, to elicit or concoct disclosures. These menials have shamed the tempter, and their formal depositions are in the hands of the authorities there. An attempt has just made in Rome to bribe the coachman of list season. The indignant Roman, tnougn poor, scorner!, to be made the tool of falsehood. He has gone before a notary public, and his declaration, registered in the Roman law courts, and attested by the seal of the British consul, has bees sent this week to the perse tinted lady. The sympathy of every right-minded man is with her, not only for her mental and personal ac complishments and unaffected goodness, but from lib , borrow° of foul play. (From the Daily Newt.) A FRIEND of ours received, about a week ago, a simple enough commission from a country cousin—to get him a daily morning paper forwarded to his ad dress on the evening of publication, at a reduced price. Our friend inquired in various quarters after a second hand copy, but not meeting with one immediately, he grew rather tired of his commission. We advised him to advertise, and atter some demur on the score of expense, he followed our counsel. Before one o'clock of the day on which he advertised, he had an offer, and before dinner-time he had half a dozen • The offers came from widely distant parts of London—from the Strand, Huston, Kensington, and so forth. Now here were six people anxious to strike with somebody or other such a bargain as he wished to enter into, yet but for the columns of the Daily Ness, it is highly improbable that ho would ever have heard of auy of them, or they of him. The affair was a trifling one; we question whether a per son less lazy or more careful of his money than our friend would have gone to the expense of an adver tisement about it. But had the advertisement cost only our office charges—had its price not been swelled by the advertisement duty, he or any one would have had recourse to it at the flr-t. This trifling incident shows how much the convenience of newspaix r advertisements so dwellers in our wide and crowded metropolis is circumscribed by the increased expense of advertising occasioned by the duty. A hundred little arrangements greatly conducive to individual comfort might be made by advertisement but for the duty. That tax robe the newspaper of half its domestic utility. The enormous and unequal pre-sure of this adver tisement duty can only be conceived by those who are subjected to it. A case of some years standing recurs to our memory. Our crack auctioneers of books, pictures, articles of rertii, &c., generally make arrangements during the dead season for the Winter campaign. When a sale is to come off they advertise it ; but it is also of advantage to their clients on the one hand, and to amateurs, literary men, and so forth, for them to have an intimation about the beginning of the season of the more important collec tions to be disposed of in the course of it. A short advertisement, announcing that Messrs. So and So will, during the ensuing season, dispose of the library of this brhliomaniac, the pictures of that connoisseur, and the a ines of t'uther brm-r.`'•nnt, is charged a duty for every intended sale mentioned. Not only is the advertisement of each sale taxed separately when it comes to be advertised separately, but every oneof them mentioned in the preliminary notice must pay its separate tax. We have known a journal lose a very good advertising connexion through this reduplica tion of duty. The admirers of sumptuary laws may think this sloperfcmation of duty in the ca-c of such commodi ties as we have adverted to, right and proper. Per kilo, however, the following case may speak more to their sympathies. A respectable accountant, in a good line of business, has M one and the same time THE EXPRESS, THURSDAY EYENING, JANUARY 27, 1848. It is my duty to add, for the information of her Majesty's government, that the " honourable and gallant" relative of the noble lord who came here ostensibly in the character of a Queen's messenger, with despatches to Lord Minto, on the sth of Dee.. travelled in reality on a less creditable mission, and warn accompanied by an attorney. John Bull pays for all! ROME, JAN. 14.—Concerning Cardinal Massimo, who was found dead in his carnage on returning from the Quirinal Palace, all sorts of reports are afloat, such u that he went to the Pope to ask leave for the Austrians to make a thorenghfue through hie domi nions, and that the pontiff gave him such a vigorous rebuke that he sank under the reproaches of his sore reign. Another story is, that his accounts, as fund of the " road and street department," were in such disorder as to have attracted the monarch's animad version. But the facts of the case are simply an fol low :—He had received no unkind words from Pius whatever; he attended the cabinet council at the palace on the evening in question, and handed in two reports concerning his department.. The subject of railroads was on the card for discussion, and Massimo took a warm part in the question, standing out for the old government, and its method of managing his depart ment, defending the abuses of all sorts. It was urged in reply that he had no right to interfere at all, as railroad matters had been referred to a special and separate commission, of which two members were then seated at the council board, Amici, Minister of the Home Department, and Itusconi , Minister of War. He then called for an ice, and soon after for coffee, or as the PolGule of this morning says, confor tarsi con una bibita Arabica, then rose from his seat and walked down to his carriage and never spoke afterwards. A distinguished layman, Vincenzo Colonna, suc ceeds to-day to his poet, and will have much to re form in its various ramifications. 1 have repeatedly dwelt on the inefficiency of the deceased, aid truit I shall have a more pleasing task under the new regime. Massimo was only 42 years of age, and was active enough in every business but his own. He was a constant manager at the board of Propaganda with Lambruschini, Bernetti, Castracanc, Barberini, and others of the old way of thinking, who formed a mekwity there. Owing to his death we shall soon have the city lit with gas, to which in a variety of ways he raised obstacles. GOVERNMENT EMIGRATION TO AUS TRALIA. Sir,—l beg leave tosOlicrtiOur powerful influence, as a public journalist, on behalf of the colony of New South Wales (including, of course, the extensive district of Port Phillip), in a matter in which that colony is deeply inte rested, and has unquestionably been seriously wronged. In the year 1831 the old system of making free grants of kind to respectable emigrants who chose to settle in New South Wales was discontinued, and the present practice of selling the waste lands by public auction, at not less than a certain minimum price per acre, and devoting the proceeds of such sales to the promotion of enliaraton from the mother country, was introduced and es:ablished. During the first ten years of this new system upwards of a million sterling was realised from the sale of waste land in New South Wales, and upwards of 60,000 emigrants were con veyed to that colony from Great Britain and Ireland at the public expense—l mean at the expense of the colony. There was doubtless much, and indeed enormous, specula tion in land towards the close of the period I have men tioned, the result of which was a subsequent period of general d, pression and of extensive ruin, during which the land fund ceased to be productive for a series of years; but the case which I am now to submit for your consideration and interference respects the manner in which the fund was expended while it was actually in existence, and in which, I am sorry to add, that fund is still expended now that it has again become productive and government emigration to Australia been partially resumed. For the colony having latterly recovered from the deep depression in which it was overwhelmed for three or four years in succession, com mencing /with the year 1842, and waste land having again become an article of value in the colonial market, the local governor has recently authorized the constituted authori ties at home to resume government emigration to New South Wales to the extent of 5,000 statute adults—i. a., of • number of men, women, and children whose united pas sage money will not exceed that of 5,000 adults. When this government emigration system commenced, in the year 1833, the indulgence of a free passage out was at first restricted to unmarried females; but the enormous abuses to which this peculiar species of emigration was very soon subjected, in the hands of certain notoriously unprin cipled speculators in London, speedily led to its discon tinuance. The classes to which the indulgence of a free passage out to Australia was next extended were those of mechanics, agricultural labourers, and shepherds; and naval officers of standing and experience, principally surgeons in the royal navy, were employed by the government in selecting suitable emigrants of all these classes in various parts of the United Kingdom. Un der this change of system a large number of really useful families and individuals were introduced into the colony, end as the naval officers employed in selecting these emi grants visited successively the different localities of all the three kingdoms in which suitable emigrants were likely to be found in considerable numbers, the boon to the humbler classes of the mother country which the system implied was pretty equally distributed over the three kingdoms. But this fair and equitable procedure did not suit the views of certain reckless speculators, who had determined, if possible, to get the trade entirely into their own hands, and who, unfortunately for the colony, were but too suc cessful. A hue and cry was accordingly raised in the colony against the home government management of emigration, and a system was devised and carried into effect for its future management, the meet reckless in its character, the most diecreditable to the home government, and the must calamitous in its results to the whole colony. Under this notorious system bounty orders, as they were called, were issued by the local government to all who applied for them, and these orders entitled the holder to a certain amount of bounty or passage money for any number of emigrants he might import, not exceeding the number specified in the order. These orders were issued under the specious pretext of affording to the landholders and other proprietors of the colony the means of selecting suitable persons, of the requisite classes in the mother country, to be employed in their service respectively on their arrival in the colony. But as not one in • thousand of these proprietors had any connexions at home, or any means of selecting suitable persons for their employment in the mother country, the orders became, from the very first (as any person of the smallest modicum of common sense might have foreseen), a mere article of merchandise in the colonial market. One Sydney house, for example, obtained an order for the government bounty for 700 emigrants, and sold it immediately to another house that had more exten sive connexions with the emigration jobbers at home, for one pound per bead of the wbble number of emigrants to be im ported, or 7001. altogether. In short, one can scarcely con ceive a case in which the best and dearest interests of an en tire community could be more shamefully compromised and sacrificed than those of the reputable inhabitants of New South Wales undoubtedly were in the instance in question. oy an incapable and reckless government. And aithouah ono cannot help feeling indignant at the manner in. which certain unprincipled speculators in this country availed themselves of the facilities that were thus afforded them (or ruining the colony by wholesale, the principal share of the blame ought undoubtedly to rest on the local executive of the period. The emigration trade (which had in the meantime become sufficiently extensive to imply a bounty emigration to Aus tralia of from 10,000 to 20,000 souls per annum ' and a govern ment expenditure on emigration of upwards of 200,0001 a year), was now gradually concentrated in the hands of a few extensive jobbers in London. There were others in the line in Liverpool and Scotland. for example, and among these there were occasionally . upright and honourable persons, who made • proper sod Judicious selection of emigrants, and who, consequently, deserved well of the colony. But the principal jobbers in the line were in London. Them parties soon discovered that it would not suit their peculiar views and interests to send their ship. for bounty emigrants to the northern ports of England, to the east or west of Scotland, or to the north of Ireland, as had been the practice under the management of the home government. They could get a cheaper article for the inferior market of New South Wales much more conveniently, at far less ex pense to themsekes, in the south of Ireland. And accord ingly they had their whippers. in employed for years toge ther on the most extensive scale in the counties et Cork, Dublin, Limerick, and Tipperary, to offer • free pump to New South Wales to all who chose to accept of it. Characters, which were required in the colony, pro forma, were mum factored in Ireland by the hundred, for people who notori ously had never had any characters before, and who, in net • few instances, as was fully ascertained at the time, ob tained such characters for the very purpose of enabling their respective parishes to get rid of them on any terms. And whenever a sufficient number of these worthies was collected at the various depots in Ireland, they were shipped off like a kofila of neggo Planes from the barracoon in Aides, by the next Cork or Dublin steamboat, for Plymouth Sound; where a bounty emigration ship from London would he ready to receive them, and be off immediately thereafter for New South Wales. Persons unacquainted with there matters would naturally suppose that a bounty emigrant ship, sailing successively from two English ports—vix , London and Plymouth, would have her emigrants chiefly from England; fur, in ordi nary times, there can be no difficulty in inducing any num ber of reputable persons of the humbler classes in any of the three kingdoms to accept of a free passage to Australia. But so much the contrary was the fact, that in some of these bounty ships from London and Plymouth, the bounty emigrants were exclusively Irish, while in all of them the Irish constituted the great majority. In short, the London emigration jobbers, who had got a virtual monopoly of the trade in their own hands, for a series of years during the period when bounty emigration flourished, found it their interest to lay in their provisions and water, with whatever amount of cargo and whatever cabin passengers they could procure in the port of London; and, as Plymouth Sound was quite in the track of vessels bound to New South Wales from London, these vessels could touch there on their way down the Channel, without loss of tim e , and be filled up with their live lumber from the Cork and Dublin steamboats (that were usually ordered to lie alongside the emigrant ] ships for the pamose), in a few minutes. I happened to go to New South Wales myself, in one of these London and ships, and, consequently, had an opportunity of mein the whole process, by which the best and dearest in tends of a noble colony were sacrificed and ruined by whole- ale, in full operation. The great majority of these Irish bounty emigrants were Roman catholics of the lowest order. In some instances, in the case of the fiondon and Plymouth ships, that were made the subject of note and comment in the colony (as in that of the Glenswilly), the proportion of catholic' to protestants was ea high as seventeen to one. And this was by ao means a solitary case of the kind. The following is an analysis of the emigrants in the cage of another ship, the Portland, which arrived in the colony from Leaden and Plymouth about the same time as the Glenswilly, early In 1841, and of which some notice was taken at the time in the Colonial press: From England. From Leland. Total. Married families Unmarried men......... 7 Unmarried females I The gross number of Roman catholic bounty emigrants by this vessel was 169, while that of the protestants (who consisted slmoet entirely of persons who had been engaged at home either by or for particular colonial proprietors) was only 68. Besides, a wry large proportion of these Irish bounty emigrants were totally unacquainted with the peculiar pur suit of the colony, that of tending sheep and cattle, and were generally very unwilling to go to the interior at all to be employed in that sway, so long as they could manage te pick up a living in any way about the towns of Sydney and Melbourne. In this way, while the settlers and squatters in the interior, for whom this extraordinary supply of labour was principally intended, were often left destitute of avail able hands, these colonial towns were suddenly swelled out into the most extravagant proportions. For, it is a remark- ' able fact, (and I have just assigned the principal canoe of it) that these towns contain, respectively, not lees than a third of the entire population of the extensive provinces of which they are the capitols • Sydney having a population of 60,000, while that of New ileouth Wales Proper, of which it is the capital, isabout 150.000 • and Melbourne having a popula tion of upw -ids of 11,0130. while that of the whole province of Port Phillip, of which it is the capital, is not above 33,000. • Now, considering that the respectable colonists of New South Wales and Port Phillip, the teen who in ten years bad contributed upwards of a million sterling to the Colonial Land Fund, from which alone this emigration was paid for — considering, I say, that these coloaists consisted, in the pro portion of at least 19 out of every 20, of English and Scotch protestant', it was an enormous and intolerable grievance to have their adopted country swamped and ruined in this way with a horde of Irish Roman catholice, generally of the most inferior description, both in point of moral character and of general ability. At the time when this disproportionate Irish emigration was going on, the Richlands of Scotland were teeming with a superabundant population, of whom thousands and tens of thousands would gladly have availed themselves of a free passage out to Australia, if they had had a chance offorded them. And as the Highlanders are I almost exclusively a semi-pastoral people, accustomed from their infancy to the management of cheep and cattle, and consequently preferring such an employment to any other, they would just have been the very people for the pastoral colony of New South Wales, and would gladly have gone forth on their arrival in the colony to resume their old pur suits in the distant interior, instead of lying, like multitudes of the Irish bounty immigrants, as a dead weight upon the towns of Sydney and Melbourne. But the colonists had un fortunately no voice in the managem- nt of their own affairs at the period I refer to, and they had consequently to take such measures as were meted out to them in the matter of immigration, as well as in every other, from the wretched government of the late Sir George Gipps, who, I have no hesitation in adding, did infinitely more harm to the colony of New South Wales in its best and dearest interests in this one particular than all his predecessors put together. No wonder, therefore, that there should have been loud and frequent complaints in the colony, both in the legisla tive council and out of it, on the subject of this immense pre ponderance of Irish Roman-catholic immigration. The fol lowing is an extract (from ono of the colonial papers of the day) of a report of a debate on the subject in the old legisla tive council of New South Wales, on the 22nd Oct., 1840 The Governor drew the Minikes of the council to the fact, that for 1000 tweets in 1809, there were botween Mend MO easigranta main tained by government until they could obtain employmeet. Mr. ,Maxland mid they only remained is the immigrant barracks Omens. they loitering about there; many of them, to his knowledge, very rod offers. The Colonial Secretary said this was founded on the evidence of Mr. Plnnock [the Immigration agent). The Attorney-General [Mr. Plunket, an Irish Boman catholic] mid that another rector for their remaining on band. was to he found in Mr. Knuckle evidence, and that wive that they were Irish Mni granta, and they remaincel on hind because they were Irieb, and for tisat reason alone. Mr. Pinnock stated shot they were unserviceable, ha be did not state how or why, and there could be no doubt that it wee the sett-With feeling which presented them from being engaged while thin wee any inarnigrthts from England or Scotland, although idiom were found to be as !rood servants, us good shepherds, and gerMil to every respect. Jemairerved, that the learned Ationtey-Otneral had mid iblettheth easauMlri.h feeling in the colony. lie (qr. Jones) was ea awn aloe& a feeling, but at present none but Irish emigrants wee ant out, and he did think it a greet disadvantage to the colony es del esthete but Irish ; and if our time position were known in Mdbe felt confident that we should get them as fast from Eng iee now did from Ireland. lls liked nationality, and if the Attorney-General liked to see Irish people arriving, he (Mr. Junes) would like to see the balance restored by the introduction of a number at Englah people. It is evident from this passage, notwithstanding the dis claimer of the learned Attorney-General of New South Wales, that so early as the year 1839 a large number of the Irish bounty immigrants were found quite unserviceable by the colonists; that as a general rule Irish immigrants were lever hired while coy English or Scotch emigrants could be got; and that, whether from their owa unwillingness to premed to the interior, or their not being readily hired by the settlers for the reason I have mentioned, they remained in large numbers as a burden upon the gorernment and the public in the principal towns of the colony. That I am not drawing au unwarrantable inference from the tech above stated, will appear from the following extract of the evidence of Alexander Thomson, E.q., one of the original members of the present legislative council for the district of Port Phillip, given before a select committee of that council, on immigra tion, in the year 1843: Generally speaking, do you find men who come from towns willing to engage as labour,rs or eliephera, in the oountryt—There is • di. inelinataon on the part of seals persons to go Into the interior. We have had a great many immigrants brought to Port Phillip who are Nearly orient in point of intellect they are inferior to oar own do elbeefabh• Whet they repreeent themselves se lieteglabourers. Where do they come hotel—The south of In October, 1840, Mr. Jones wished " to see the balance restored by the introduction of a number of English people," as " none but Irish emigrants had been sent out" for some time before. The reader will see whether this reasonable wish of that respectable English colonist was reedited, from the following extract of the report of the select committe of the legislative council on immigration fur the year 1842, of which Bishop Broughton was chairman: Tour committee have, in conclusion, to draw the attention of the council once more to the extreme disparityexisting in the proportionate numbered immigrants from the different quarteraof the United King dom. The returns an.iexed will show that, between the lit of Jun., 1641, and the3oth of June, 1842, the numbered immigrants, from Ire land alone has amounted to 16.892, while three from all other pores of the United Kingdom have been no more than 0,438. It is the de cided opinion of your committee that such a distribution is practically inequitable towards the most considerable division of the empire at large. • • • Under the present arrangement, the greater portion both of England and eon land is almost precluded the opportunity of profiting by the offer of a free passage, and therefore contributes, in a very inconsiderable degree, comparatively, to increase the population of the colony. W. G. Austae-ue. Council Chamber, Aug. 26, 1642. That such feelings are still largely participated in by the protestant colonists generally, will appear from the follow. ing quotations from the language of live or six petitions, which were forwerded to L ,rd Stanley from ewe rue localities in the Port Phillip district of New South Wales, in the per 1846, but which did not arrive in England until some time atter the installation eat Earl. Grey into the principal secre taryship of the Colonial Department: To the Right lion. Lord Stanley, her Mae sty's Principal Secretary of date for the Colonim, &a. arc. he., the petition of the fladersithed landholders, stockholder., merchants, and other protestant Inha bitants of [the Follicular locality mentioned in the petition) in the district of Port Phillip humbly ehoweth, That the population of Port Phillip, which at present amounts to nearly 30,000 mule, has hitherto competed of the two following claw sr, see. :—First, of mg ruble free imrahrrthet, arriving either direct from the mother country, or from the old eculemente of New South Wales and Van Dierneres Land, and pokeweed resectively of a comparatieele large amount of capital of canons descri Alone; the stock brlenging to this clam of the com ment y of Port Phillip, at the prevent moment, amounting to two militons four hundred thoumnd sheep, two hundrel thousand horned cattle, and nine thciesed borve,, or thereby; while they have paid into the colonial trimury the ing the het nine years, the sum of four hundred and thirteen thoueand three hundred end bite-three pounds eleven shilling% and eighipence •terling, for lands and town al otments , purchased in the distitct : second, of free immetianta of the claw of farm sin mate shepherds. mechanics, and labourers, with their wives snd children, who hove been imported during the same period at the gable expense, with the tends arising from the sale of ouch land and town allotments; the entire number of cooricts and emancipated omelets in the district who hese bees introduced respectively from New south Wee., and Van Likewise Land, in the service of stuck holders thrleing from thew eettlemenbe having hitherto been very small in propertion to the rest of the population ; that of the former of the two claws above mentioned, the masters or em ployers of Libor, 85 per Cent., or thereby, are natives of England and Scotland, and the remaining 15 per cent of Ire lend, simian the whole of this chute being British proteetante while of the latter claw -We Ferrante or labourers—the proportions may be ieferrid trom the following fact, exhitetcd in the " Report of the Immigration Cientuittee of the Le,ddative Council of New South ti ales" for the yeor tete vie. : that the told amount of immigration into the entire celony :rom the Ist January ISI I till the 30th of June, Is 4 (at woich peri et immigration received a temporary- chi eke, was 16,092 from Ireland, ebiefly Korn.n whetes from the southern por tions of that teland, mot only 8,434 teen Engle-rebind Scotland together; that without desiring to impute blame in any 'eerier particulate,. fur the utiemanagentent which such • date of [tongs would appear to imply in the immigration department of the public service of this colony, your petitioners would beg most reepeettully to submit to your lordship, whether it is not a manifest injuthee to the bumbler clam. of Great Britain as well as to your lordship'. petitamiese, anal the other peeve:cc Inhabitant, of Port Phillip, who hare hitherto been the principal if not the exclusiee contrabaton of the tmmication fund, that Ireland should miss derive (onetime the amount °tamest to *hick i is fairly entitled from the empewdhare of that took es compared with England and Scotland tossiaer • that inemirstle . at the public expense, which Lae for several Pet heel aletentlasell in consequence of the temporary estlestloa of the teal hod awl Ike general oppression et the colony, is war eageettel to de remesd the retaining pee; enty of the soaddy. In Wee •aeneukthe petitioners request tat ins keithip yenta simply afford " soda dua lities as may be foetid ri cowry or degrade for ensuring a ecaders ono dream of yeoman tinuaerratku from Great Britain aid due ger& of Ireland into thin territory, and thereby to re,tore eat le the equilibrium of ...Arty in this magnihwot province of Crl empine.—aelinstrne, Peke, 1846. In sli.,rt the process that has been par-ued for a long period, through the gross and culpable mismanagement of the local government under the late Sir George Gipps, and the systematic indifference and neglect of the imperial authorities, in taking the money contribliteo for the purchase of wane land by the respectable protestant colonists of New South Wales and Port Phillip, and expending it in inunda ting these noble col hies with an Irish Roman catholic host from the counties of Cork, Limerick, Roicormnon, and Tipperary, is unjust and cruel in the extreme to the colonists, ruinous in the higliestdegree to the best and dearest interests of their adopted ooantry, end thoroughly discreditable to all ooneerned. —.— There is an idea frequently put forth with something like an air of authority, by certain portions of the metropolitan press, and in particular by your Meekly contemporary, the Spectator (whose dogmatism on colonial subjects is generally in the inverse ratio of his means of information), viz.: that the Southern Irish are • totally different people abroad from what they are at home, and that we have only to ship them off for the colonies to effect this general and most desirable transformation. Sir, if this idea were well founded it would contradict the uniform experience of mankind in every ' other ease of the kind, as embodied in the well-known maxim— " Cmlam, non animism, mutant qui trans mare currant.. Men change their clime, bat not their minds, who par tested the But the idea in question is totally unfounded. The southern Irish, I sin sorry to say, are precisely the same people abroad that they are at home—the same impracticable, ungovern able, turbulent race; never satisfied with the same measure of liberty and equality that uniformly satisfies the Anglo- Saxon race, but always ready, wherever they . find them selves in considerable numbers, to appeal to physical for.ai in the most brutal forms, to overpower the free expression of public opinion, and te put everybody else down; abject slaves to their own ambitious and intriguing priesthood, and fiercely intolerant towards all other nations and denomina tions ; vindictive in the extreme, wherever they find them selves or their leaders thwarted In any way, and bloodthirsty in precisely the same form and style as that national quality now exhibits in the proclaimed counties of Ireland. This, I maintain, notwithstanding the Spectator , is the uniform cha racter and disposition of these people, w'hether in Montreal and Philadelphia, in Sydney and Melbourne, or in Limerick and Tipperary. Sir, lam not one of those illiberal protest ants who would willingly monopolise all the honours and emoluments of the state, and refuse to share them with our Irish Roman catholic fellow-subjects, under the notorious pretext of strengthening the interests of our common pro testentimm. On the contrary, I am one of that numerous and rapidly increasing body of liberal protestants, of all com munions, in the United Kingdom, who conceive that no government measure of pacification for Ireland will ever be found effectual till the grand eye sore, the monster grievance of the Romish community in that country, I mean the pro tenant church as a national establishment, is entirely re moved. But while lam decidedly of opinion that this sacri fice to political justice is absolutely necessary for the peace of that unhappy country, I do not conceive that protestantisoi, in connexion even with the national church, would suffer in the slightest degree from the change. On the contrary, I believe it would rise from the supposed wreck and ruin of such a catastrophe far wealthier in reality, far stronger, and far more efficient than ever. Entertaining such opi nions, I trust I shall not be misunderstood when I maintain that the actual character and dispositions of the southern Irish—in whatever manner that character and these dispositions may have been acquired—rend. r them a peculiarly undesirable and dangerous element in any CUM munity, whether at home or abroad, and justify to the fullest extent the often•repeated c .mpinints and remon strances of the Protestant colonists of New South Welts and Port Phillip, of which I have just given a few spici mens above on the subject of Irish Roman catholic immi gration. Permit me to close this long epistle with • few practical illustrations of the truth of my position—via., that the southern Irish are precisely the same people wherever they go. In themonth of May or June last a hurling match (a bois terous Irish nationsl game).was duly announced in the colo nial papers to take place in the neighbourhood of Sydney between the counties of Limerick and Tipperary ; the num ber of bounty imruicrants from these counties (who, instead of proceeding to the interior, where &sone their services were required, as farm labourers and shepherds, fix themselves as a dead weight upon the town of Sydney, to be ready for any scene of turbulenoe that might offer) being so considerable that they can fight already by counties in the colonial capital. But the police, having understood that the whole affair was intended as • mere demonstration of physical force, to overawe the peace : ably disposed portion of the community, intcrferedto prevent it, and the hurling match was consequently prohibited. About the same time a regular denuntiatory letter, written in the genuine Roscommon and Tipperary style, which had jest been received by a respectable and inoffensive publican in the neighbourhood of Sydney, was laid before the mayor and city council at one of their meetings. It threatened the life of the publican, which, it informed him, would certainly be taken shortly—hecausa he was an Orangeman. There have been several Orange societies formed for mutual pro- tection within the last two or three years, both in Sydney and Melbourne; but they were uniformly called into exist ence by the peculiarly offensive displays of the usual insignia of Irish popery that had previously been made fir years before by the St. Patrick's societies, the Guild of St. Joseph's societies, and the ribbon and repeal societies of these colo nial towns. The Orangemen of Melbourne in particular had never walked in procession, and had no intention of doing so; but they kad arranged to dine together on the 'naive' sary of their hero in July 1846; and they had accordingly displayed one of their flags from the window of an inn in Melbourne on the day in question. This, however, was sufficient to inflame the wrath of the Irish bounty immi grants of Melbourne and its vicinity, who, although they had themselves been permitted for years before to march in procession with the most offensive Popish ensigns displayed publicly whenever they thought proper, without the slight est molestation, assembled immediately in great force with firs-arms and bludgeons to interrupt the Orange dinner, and they actually set both the civil and military authorities of the place at open defiance, and kept the town in a complete state of anarchy and alarm for two whole days together. Now the general election at Port Phillip in the year 1843 was made to turn in great measure, through the mismanage meat of the would-be O'Connell of the province, on the question of Romish ascendancy in the district. It had been understood for months beforehand that the only candidate for the town of Melbourne (Me. Edward Cure, • Roman catholic, who was rather popular in the district) would be returned without opposition ; but this gentleman, not satis fied with the certainty of being returned himself for the principal locality in the province, which he would have been if he had only kept quiet, insisted on being permitted to no minate the other fivo representatives of Port Phillip, and especially to exclude a particular individual, who, it seems, had written a pamphlet on the social and political dangers to be apprehended from a continuance of Irish Roman catholic I immigration. In short, the contest was thus made to turn entirely on the question of Romiah ascendancy, and as soon as the protestant electors became aware of the fact, they gave Mr. Cure his mittimus forthwith, and elected as their repre sentative their own mayor, H. Condell, Esq. This, of course, led to a frightful riot on the part of the Irish bounty immi grants, with the usual accompaniments of outrage both on life and property ; and so great was the danger to the com munity at large on the occasion, that Mr. Cure actually boasted publicly, that it was entirely owing to him (through his influence with the Irish Roman catholic mob) that the inhabitants of Melbourne had not had the town burnt about their ears I . . There was a popular preacher at Melbourne about this period, on a visit from a distant part of the colony, whose zeal for protestanti-m, although entirely unaccompanied with anything in the style of orangeism, had, it seems, given offence to this peculiarly " excitable" people (to use the phraseology which has recently been sanctioned by episcopal authority in Ireland). That preacher was engaged to offi ciate in a protestant church in Melbourne one Sunday evening, and a large congregation was assembled on the occasion. Among those present, however, there were ob. served several notorious ruffians of the class of Irish bounty immigrants, penons who had never been known to enter a protestant church before, having fire-arms and other lethal weapons concealed about their persons. These persons were actually in the gallery, doubtless watching their opportu• nity for a quiet shot, or for the means of raising a riot, when one of the aldsrmen of the town waited upon the clergyman and told him undid!) , that he could not be answerable for the peace of the town if he appeared in the church that evening. The congregation had, consequently, to be dis missed immediately, as divine service could not be solem nised under the circumstances. It is surely quite preposterous, therefore, for Mrs. Chis holm, a ...lout Roman catholic lady, recently from the Aus tralian colonies, and a strenuous mivocate for Irish emigra tion to Australia, to tell Earl Grey, in a printed letter she has lately addressed to him, that there is nothing like reli gious, dissension in New South Wales. Perhaps Mrs. Chis holm did not intend to include Port Phillip in her deurip Lion, although that province is still a part of New South Wales. At all events it would be difficult to find a parallel for this enormous outrage, even in Ireland. The Rev. Mr. Lloyd, who was recently murdered in that country, was not shot at in church. I could easily multiply instances of the same kind, as illus trative on the one hand of the peculiar character and tenden cies of Iritth Roman catholic emigration, as well as of the irreparable injury that would be done, on the other, to any young country by giving a decided preponderance (as has hitherto been done under tt e government bounty system of emigration to New South Wales) to this impracticable ele ment in the constitution of its society. We all know what British colonies are, constituted as these communities have hitherto bees of a decided majority of British protestants— we know it from the splendid results of British colonisation during the last two centuries and more. But we have, for tunately, no experience as yet—except, perhaps, in the case of Newfoundland—of what an Iri-h Roman catholic colony would be, with an abject and degradad people for its inba- Mtanta, under the absolute domination ut an intolerant and usurping priesthood. But the ascertained results of Irish Roman cathoiic bounty emigration to Australia sufficiently prove that, if the system I have been reprobating is in any way to be renamed and persevered in, the Autralian colo nies will very soon be quite intolerable as a place of perma nent abode fur well-disposed protestants of say communion. —AN AVVIVALIAN COLOMIOT. WRECE OF THE SHIP IDALIA.—ELETEN LITRE Leer.—Lettarimeived yesterday from Royan,dated the 18th instant, communicate the loss of the British ship Idalia, Captain Keith, of London, with the greater portion of her unfortunate crew, fourteen in number. The vessel was bound to Bordeaux, from Hartlepool, which port she left on the 12th. She encountered the gale on the 17th, and it is pre sumed that in attempting to run into the Gironde she was driven on the rocks at the point within a short distance of Coubre lighthouse. Her boats being washed away the Brew lock to the rigging, in the hopes of obtaining assistance from the shore, hut in a few boars the vessel was totally de- I =Wished, and the crew (with the exception of three seamen) were drowned. Tooke who escaped were washed ashore on tome of the fragments of the wreck ; they were discovered by the men attached to the lighthouse in a most exhausted condi tion, and nearly frozen to death. None of the bodies of the sufferers have been found. The marine authorities have taken charge of the remains of the wreck and cargo that have been washed up. It is not known if the vessel is insured. Mx Com. WINDSOR, WEDNESDAY. —Lord 0. Lennox left the Castle to-day. Lord and L.dy J. Russell arrived at the Castle this afternoon on a ' ' to the Queen. Earl Spencer and the Viscountese Palmerston are also expected to *Merl . this evening on a visit to her Majesty. The King and Queen of the Belgians left the Castle shortly before four o'clock this afternoon for Frogniore-hou-e, and paid a visit to the Duchene of Kent. The Countess of Desert has left the Castle. The Viscountess Jocelyn has arrived (rota her residence at Rich mond, and hits succeeded the countess as the Lady in Waiting to the Queen. The Earl of Morton and Sir E. Bowater ►ava taken their departure front the Csstle, and have been sus seeded by Lord Byron and Mr. R. Orimby Gore as the Lord and• Groom in Waiting to her Majesty. The royal dinner party at the Castle this evennar will include their Majesties the King and Queen of the Bei ggitans, her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent, his Excel lency M. Vett de Weyer, La Marquise de Tr&seyuies, this Lady in Waiting of the Dachas& of Kent, the Baronet.' De Speth, Earl Spencer, Vissnunt and Viscountess Palmerston. Lord and Lady John Russell, Mr. G. E. and the lion. Mr,. Anson, and Major De Moerkerke. The Bishop of Manchester had an interview with Sir o,orge Grey yesterday. The Earl of liarrowhy bad al..° an interview with the right hon. baronet, at the Homer office. . . Mr. Brooke had an interview with Earl Grey yea terday at the Colonial-office. Lord and Lady John Russell left their residence, in Richmond-part, yesterday afsernoon, for Windsor CYLW.. I)esp,tches were received yesterday at the Colo nial-office front the Governor of the Mauritius. GRAY'S-INN, JAN. 26.—Thomas Norton, Eat. wig this day called to the degree of barrister-at-law, by the'Hon. Society of Gray's.inn. SANITARY REFORM AND THE REPEAL OP THI WiNDow TAx.—Yesterday a meeting of the vestry of St. Pancras took place, for the purpose of considering a resole. tien, of which nudes had been given ' with reference to the repeal of the window tax ; Mr Churchwarden Howarth itt the chair.—Mr. N Crouch proposed a resolution to the effect that the duty on windows, by depriving the dwellings of the people of light and air, is a great cause of disease and misery, and ought to be abolished ; that this vestry now pledges itself to adopt every means in its power to obtain the immediate repeal of this obnoxious tax. Mr. Crouch said the obnoxious tendency of the window tax and its operation to the prejudice of the poor in • sanitary point of view were well known. The sanitary com missioners bad themselves admitted that no measure of sanitary reform toull be perfect which did not de away with all restrictions upon light and air ; and with regard to health, they had the evidence of the must eminent mealiest men in this csuntry that the operation of the windo.e tax acted most prejudicially , with regard to the health of the poor, on account of numerous windows having to be blocked up to enable them to evade the tax. At the present time, when the government were taking such active measures with regard to sanitary improvements, proper representa tions would, he hoped, induce them to grant • repeal of the ti window dues.—Mr. Baker seconded the resolution.—After some discos-ion the resolution was put, and carried almost unanimously.—Mr. Crouch then moved that a petition to the House of Common's, signed by the vestrymen, be pm seated, and that Lord Dudley Stuart be requested to pre seta the same, and Sir B. Hall be also requested to support the prayer of the petition.—Mr. Douglas seconded this re. solution, which was carried unanimously--Mr. Mann moved the appoiutment of • committee to carry out the foregoing , resolutions, which having been adopted, the vestry, atter some unimportant business, separated. UNITED MEXICAN MINING ASSOCIATION.—The half-yearly meeting of the directors and shareholders in thin association was held yesterday, at the offices in Finsbury circus • Sir John Easthom in the chair. The report com menced with an expression of regret on the part of the directors at their Mutability to present a more favourable 'coo int of the operations of the association, which inability resulted from the unsettled state of Mexico, which had caused not only • rise in the price of quicksilver, but all times had been the cause of that article being unobtainable at any price; consequently the operations of the Haciendas had been greatly impeded; and in addition to this difficulty, the rising of the water in the great shaft had occasioned serious lose. The report went on to state that the directors felt pleasure in being able to inform the shareholders that the former of these difficulties was now in a great measure removed, quicksilver being obtainable in Mexico in large quantities, at • reduced price. Consequently the 1111C1C11. des were again fully, and it was hoped profitably, employed. At Reyes the works of investigation and the outer proceed ings of the mine had been prosecuted with due regard to the equalisation of the expenditure with the produce • and while the price of all mixing stores had risen, the result showed that the profit (though small since the last meeting) had at the new works lately commenced, in great promise, testified itself In the charace r of the lode and the quantity of the ore Arcady extracted, which was of a very rich kind. The sum of 1,8821. Is. 5,1. had been received towards the mine debt, which was now reduced to 675,1761. Is. 6d. The dressed ores remitted to Hacienda had been 21,108 cargoes, amount ing to the sum of 200,6811, Os. 24. Owing to the unsettled state of Mexico, It had been found impossible to take any legal steps to enforce the claim on the Zacatecas. The Haciendas, umsbniug of Dolores, Deniers, and Duran, were in operation, consequent on the reduction of the ores of Ragas and those in the contract account. An advanta geous contract had been entered into with Sr. Pablo Villa for the reduction of his ores at the Hacienda of Dolores. The available asset by the last letters from Mexico wee 72,4091. 6s. 4d., exclusive of bonds for claims on the Mexican government, amounting to 6,9151. 3s. The financial state merit showed, on the debtor side, assets to the amount of 4,0001. in Exchequer Bills ; lent at interest, 3,8001. ; cash at bankers', 1,3561. 10a.; nuking, with minor items, 9,3251. 6s. &I. The remittances from Mexico, and interest on Exchequer Bills, amounted to 10,1421. 19s. Bd., which, together with smaller sums, showed the total receipts to be 19,6981. 17s. 6d. ; on the credit side there ap pearad an amount charged to the manager in Mexico of 2,6841. 7s. 7d. The London expenses had been 1,701/. 18.3 d., which sums, together with ech,r items, showed the en tire of the meets in London to be 14,1741. 16s. ed.. liable to the following items :—Auxiliary capital unclaimed, 1,1021.; red 'trip unclaimed, 1,6321. 15e. ; Scot dividend unclaimed, 1,4881.: second dividend unclaimed, 1,2701. 15*.; total, 5,3931. 10s., leaving a balance of 8,7811. 6e. 4d. ; of this balance the chairman stated only about 6,0001. would be available, which sum, in the present unsettled state of Mexico, was not considered sufficient to justify the di clam tion of a dividend. The report was adopted, and thanks having been voted to the chairman, the meeting separated. PROVIDENT CLERKS' AND GENERAL BUILDING AND INVESTMENT SOCIETT.—The first public meeting of this society was held last evening at the London Tavern ; Mr. Jenkin Jones, the actuary to the National Mercantile Life Assurance Office, presided—The Chairman said this society . differed from the generality of building societies in some important particulars. Its leading pnsciples were perfect equality of benefit between all the members, whether borrowers or not; and certainty in the amount of advance to which each member in rotation would be entitled upon his shares, at any given period of the society's existence. There would be no bidding for shares; but the advastees would be merle to vary in amount, with the period at which they were made, according to fixed tables. Thus ' if the value of the share was paid immediately, the suhseriber would receive 501. 12s. sd. which was the then present value of his monthly s ub s cription (for ten years) of lie. a mouth, interest being calculat.d at the r-te of 7 per cent. — The secretary then read the rules ; a ponvereation ensued, in which some amendments were suggested ; and several shares were afterwards subscribed for. INQUEST, YESTEEDAT.—SINGCLAR SUICIDE FROM DISTILESEI.—By Mr. W. Carter, at the Fleece, Duke-street, Lambeth, relative to the death of Wm Sawyer, aged 47 years, lately residing at No. 10, Commercial-road, who com mitted suicide. The deceased was a hairdresser, and a man of very steady habits, but for the last three months he had been in the deepest distress in consequence of a great falling off in his Hale. He had not earned sixpence a day et his business fur a considerable period, and his pecuniary ditficul ties seemed to prey heavily on his mind. On Monday morn ing lan, about eight o'clock, the deceased was mL sing from his bedroom, and on searching the premises the son disco vered the deceased head downwards in the water-butt quite dead. He had placed a ladder by the side to effect his purpose. Mr. Pape, a Burgeon, was called in, but all efforts to restore life were of no avail. A female who had been cohabiting with the deceased as his wife stated that the deceased had been some years in • Birming ham Benefit Society, held at the Britannia, Wandsworth road, and that he was entitled to 101., but the officers con nected with the club refused to allow the demand, in consequence of some error which bad been made by the deceased when he was enrolled as a member.—Tbe Coroner obeerved that the case was one of a distressing nature, but no doubt, if the particulars were properly placed before the stewards or a magistrate, the claim would be handed over to the son.—A gentleman c.cinected with the society here stepped forward, and said that the deceased had made a false representation when he joined, and therefore he was not entitled to any benefit. However, he would lay tho case before the committee, and every justice should he shown to the parties claiming the money. A verdict of "Tempo rary insanity" was returned by the jury, who kindly raised a subscription for the relief of the distressed family. SCOTLAND. EDIWWCIOII, JAL 26. The " defences" of Edinburgh are in a state truly lamentable. " The whole force," says the superin tendent of police, "consists of about 60 men, several of whom are every day required as witnesses in the police at d criminal courts, and at precognitions taken by the procurators-fiscal, and must, for that purpose, be absent from their beats for hours together; and, when allowance is also made for hours of relief and for the number of men required to take char ge of pri soners in the criminal courts and to preserve order there, and at public meetings, all of whom must bs taken from the above force, very few men are avail able for regular street duty. St bile the exertions of an adequate night force have produced a progressivs decrease in crime committed by night, there has beers an increase in the number of offences d There is the unusual number of 66 ' TI d' ..1 about the town, and the number .. , e. 136 . - l• .2.,,:: .., • . Ete,i.