The Press. — London, England, 1853-05-21 00:00:00

54 FRANCE. Preparations are making at the Palace of St. Cloud for the reception of their Imperial Majesties, who will take up their residence there as soon as the weather becomes fine. It is also probable that the Emperor and Empress will pay a visit to the Pyre nies in the course of the autumn. It is believed that they will visit Cauterets, Saint-Sauveur, Bag- Ons de Bignrre, and the rest of the picturesque sites that abound in that part of that country. Apartments are being hastily fitted up at the Tui leries to receive the Duke of Genoa, who is expected to arrive in l'aris shortly. The Emperor has given to the town of Miry a sum of 300,000 francs, to indemnify it for its disasters in Isl 4, and principally for the rebuilding of the church and the Hotel de Ville, which were burnt by the allies at that time. On the night between the 14th and 15th, twenty eight persons were arrested in different parts of Paris. They belong entirely to the Legitimist party. Among them is the celebrated M. Jeanne, printseller of the Passage Choisseul, so frequently the object of prosecution during the time of Louis Philippe, and whose shop-window never ceased, during the Re public, to be filled with emblems of Henry V. While sending the ribbon of a commander in the Legion of Honour to Rossini, the Emperor accom paMed the decoration with a highly complimentary letter, in which he expressed a hope that the great composer would gratify him and the world by writ ing a new opera. Rossini, who, since he has reposed upon his laurels, passes for one of the most idle as well as the most independent men iu E nrope, assured his Majesty in reply that he was only a musician " by accident ;" that ho had never composed from the love of composition, but for the sake of a livelihood, and that now that he was above the world he desired rest. At the end of his letter, however, Rossini offered to compose a mass for the coronation. The number of functionaries paid by the State in Trance, which in MI was 134,830, increased to 174,1111 in 1544, and now has swelled to 2:10,000. if to this army of officials there be added the 111,717 existing civil pensions on the treasury list, and the military pensioners, it will be Mund that, besides the standing army, about :100,090 persons, or 1 in 25 of the whole male population from 11 to 11( years of age, are quartered upon the budget. lIELGIVAI. Among the conjectures excited by King Leopold's visit to Berlin and Vienna somo curious guesses are hazarded by the Independonee Beige, according to which the royal progress will result in a triple mar riage. In its Vienna correspondence our eo'►te:upo rary states : - - " PPOillit talk efinfl,lently of nil niiproiteliing union, the partii`.4 to which lart. to be the !hike of litubtint and the Areislueliess Marie, daughter of the late of lititurary. This supposi. lion Seellll4 almost justified by the inuienriiiiee of the duke at lOW' 14010 recent entertnitinointA hi the imperial box by the bide of the young nrehiluelie.4. A brillhint future hi also spoken of for the Prineess Charlotte. daughter of King Leopubt, mill it is not simply on the steps of the throne that her swam. is found. And as if theme two were not enough to unite the imperial and royal 61111in...1, a third union ix sloleu of, in Wili , ll the beau. NW widow, the .krelidueliess I:lizabeth d'f'.o.l., mould be one of the contracting parties." dndeturnt catty givou at. Brussels on Satur.lay in the action at law brought by 11. de. Laroehejacquelin against the Nation journal. Thu incriminated tali eles wore declared calumnious, and the joitrnal has been comienntod to pay 5,OAf. damages, and to insert the jukk.ment the journals of Paris and Brussels. The Belgian Chamber of Deunties on 'l'nesday n 1.• without discussion the bill for a treaty of v..u.igation with the Papal tlovernment. UEItMA\T. The King of Prussia left Berlin for Nienna on the morning of the Nth inst. On the same day the Queen of Prussia set out for Ettlingen. It is said that King Leopold will prolong his stay at Vienna to t'w The Pa-i-4 Union st.ites, on the authority of its loiter for , Vienna. that the Count and eountes.s of Chaia'‘ are expected for the files to be given in that cApital during the stay of the foreign So\ eroig,us. RUSSIA. The Emperor of Russia, by ukase of the 2nd inst., has ordered the construction of an electric telegraph, intended to unite Sebastopol, Odessa, and the other Russian establishments on the Black Sea, with Petersburg. SPAIN. The Council of Ministers held at Aranjucz on the llth inst. *as occupied with the reforms p °posed by the Minister of Finance. Some of these reforms are of an administrative character, others consist in the suppression of unnecessary places, others in the im provement of the administration of tobacco and salt, and others in mo;lifying the tariff so as to allow the importation of certain prohibited art i c l es . Th e mi nister calculatos that some of these reforms will cause a loss Of 800000 mils a year, but that it will soon be compensated by an increase in the eustoms. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and that of Public Works have not yet been filled up. THE PRESS. The Marquis de Vilma is appointed Ambassador of herCatholie Majesty to the M:►uperor of the French. 1)011TVG.11.. The Lisbon and Aranitiez Railway Wai inaugurated on the 7th. The ceremony was performed by the queen in person, in the presence of a vast multitude. GREECE. The French fleet was still in the Gulf of Athens on the 13th inst. . . The Greek Government has appointed a commis sion to make inquiries into the dispute with Turkey respecting the frontiers. The disease which had attacked the vines was on the increase. TURKEY. The Sultan's mother (Valide Sultana) died on the 80th ult. This princess enjoyed the reputation of great wisdom, and always received the most marked attention wherever she appeared in her gilded araha. She interfered in the affairs of the state, and her son, in questions of great weight and importance, invaria bly followed her advice. Her acts of benevolence are innumerable : she has built and endowed schools, hospitals, khans for indigent travellers, and the poor and needy looked up to her as their guardian. Her age must have been fifty-two. Her remains were conveyed at midnight to their last resting-place with great pomp, all the ministers and chief employh swelling the funeral train. Nam) STATES. The following diplomatic appointments are said to have been made at Washington by the President : Governor Seymour, of Connecticut, as Minister to Russia; General Gadsden, of South Carolina, as Minister to Mexico; and General Dix, of New York, as Minister to France. All are able men and leading democrats. Fearful disasters follow each other in rapid succession. A melancholy casualty has occurred on Lake Ontario, about thirty miles from Kingston. Canada. The steamer Ocean Ware was destroyed by fire on the 30th ult., when. horrible to relate, at least twenty-eight persons perished in the flames or by drowning. The upper cabin was consumed in fifteen minutes, and in two hours the hull went down, within a mile and a half of the shore. The schooner Georyiana and some boats saved twenty two individuals. A frightful railway accident hail occurred on the New York and Newhaven Railroad, caused by the carelessness of the engineer. A train from Boston, comprising four passenger and two baggage cars, ran otr a drawbridge into the Norwalk River. The whole train was engulfed, and the passengers either crushed to death or drowned. Forty-five persona were killed on the spot, and many seriously wounded. This horrible catastrophe had created an indescribable sensation. The drawbridge of the River Norwalk was raised to admit the passage of a steamer, and the driver of the train. instead of stopping, continued his course at. a rate of twenty miles an hour, and the whole train descended bodily a distance of sixty feet into the water below. The Government expedition for the survey of the Chinese Seas and the Northern and Southern Pacific Oceans was equipped and nearly ready to start from New York, under the command of Captain Rin7guld. The field of its operations will embrace the North Pacific coasts of Asia and America, surveying all the reefs, banks, shoals, &v., Japan islands and seas, the Gulfs of Tartary, China, the neighbourhood of Kamsehatka and Okhotsk, the Aleutian Islands, Sandwich, .te. There will be on board an abundance of professors of science with suitable apparatus, and it. is hoped that the destined voyage of three years will result in benefit to mankind. The squadron comprises a sloop of twenty guns, a brig of twelve, a schooner of one, a steamer of three, and a store-ship, carrying in all eight hundred and forty five men. This expedition is not at all connected with that which has sailed for Japan, though it. is pro bable that the two will meet at ditferent points. The printers in nutny of the large cities any on a strike for wages. In Boston Imadreds of women are employed in setting type. and the example is likely to be. come mom general. In ninny instanees the employers have 1NT4.041 to the terms demanded. The Ist of May has passed In. and yet the Crystal Palace, New York. is tar front being complete. Front ap peonmees, it will hardly be nerdy until the end of June or beginning of lint packages and specimens ar rapidly arriving from all quartets. Tine calorie ship Ericsson is now lying at her dock in Williamsburgh. Important alterations are going on in her machinery, which the owners are confident will con. siderably increase her speed. She is soon to be ready to sail for London. As the Arabia, whit!), reached Liverpool on Monday from New York, was approaching Englad, on Friday last. Mr. Henry Schlott. a cabin passenger. leaped overboard, and was drowned. A lifedntoy was thrown over, the ship stopped. and a boat lowered, which returned with the hotly of the unfortunate man. life being extinct. Ile was an Englishman, hat for several years a resident in the United States, and bad lately become a partner in a respectable firm at New York, and was possessed of letters of vtvtlit upon England for 40,000 dollars. SATURDAY, It is stated from Mexico that General Boulbon was about to attempt another invasion of Sonora. His force con sisted of LW) Frenchmen. Santa Anna had determined to drive General Lane out of the Mereilla Valley, for which purlse.e he had despatched a number of troops. The American papers mention that hostilities had ceased at Buenos Ayres, and that peace was re-established. This intelligence is given without a date and without authority, and cannot safely he relied upon. Letters brought by whaling-ships state that the King of the Sandwich Islands has made another strong appeal to the Government of the United States for protection against the designs of France, which, it is said, menace an absorption of the islands. COLONIAL. WEST IN DIES. From Jamaica political news possesses some inte rest. On the 15th April the Council had rejected the Import Duty Bill (the principal revenue act of the colony). Upon this the Governor prorogued the Legislature for a few days in a speech strongly con demnatory of the course pursued by the House of Assembly. On the •95th the house again met; and the members voted an address, which was to have been presented to Sir Charles Grey on the day the packet sailed. The language in which this address was couched was so very offensive that a dissolution of the house was supposed to be inevitable. As the existing Import Duty and Rum Duty Bills would expire on the :10th April, the island would be lett without the means of raising its principal revenues. The sugar crop was fast drawing to a close on the north side, where the yield had fallen short of the estimate ; but in the east the crop will be an average one ; and in St. Anne's the prospect of the pimento growers was encouraging. The weather was favoura ble, refreshing showers having fallen. CANADA. A bill to reform the seiguorial tenure in Lower Canada has been passed through committee, after being discussed for about three weeks. The object of this bill is to pave the way for the conversion of this tenure into that of free and common soccage. A bill has also been passed through committee to introduce a decimal currency into Canada. It is in contemplation to erect a bridge across the St. Lawrence at Montreal, which it is estimated will cost 6,000,000 dols. The business on the road is steadily increasing. INDIA. The first railway in Indian-the Indian Peninsular-- was announced, according to the last advices by the overland mail, to open on the lath of April, for the seg ment between Bombay and Tanna,a distance of about twenty-four miles. Tickets had been issued to a very large number of the most respectable inhabitants of Bombay, both European and native, to go in an ex cursion train at half-past three on the afternoon of the above date, to partake of an early dinner at Tanna, and to return to Bombay by dusk. This was considered quite an event in the history of the East; it was remarked that neither the Governor nor the Commander-in-Chief had thought it worth while to remain a couple of weeks longer at the presidency, in order to be present on the occasion. Both noble lords were absent from the presidency, enjoying the cool climate of Ilahableshwar. e:ourt atO fasi!ion. 1•r is announced that the christening of the infant Prince will take place on Tuesday, the 28th of June, instead of Monday, the 27th. Also that the second state hall will take place on Friday, the Ist of July, and the last concert on Wednesday. the Bth of July— having been postponed respectively from the 29th of June and the 4th of July. THE return of the Court to the metropolis is fi::ed for the 27th inst., to be in time to receive their Royal Highnesses the Prince and I'rincess of Prussia, who are expected to arrive shortly after that, and will take up their abode in Buckingham Palace as her Majesty's guests. His Majesty the King of the Belgians is also ex pected to visit this country about the middle of next month, to be present at the christening of his infant grand-nephew. HElt Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent and the Princess Adelaide of Hohenlohe, attended by Lady Anna Maria Dawson and Lieut.-Col. F. Seymour, arrived at Osborne, on Thursday afternoon, on a visit to her Majesty. HER Royal Highness the Hereditary Grand Duchess of Strelitz is now on her way to England, to pass a few weeks with her Royal mother, the Duchess of Cambridge. ON Monday afternoon the park and grounds of Wilton Abbey were thrown open, as is usual every Whitsuntide, to thousands of persons who thronged the picturesque borough of Wilton, in celebration of the several nuniverstuies of the local provident insti tutions. The dinner of the Wilton branch of the Wiltshire Friendly Society took place at the Wood Hall, in the Mtuket-place l the Right U. Sidney Herbert, M,P., presiding. ■