The Press.
London, England, 1854-09-16 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

Southampton, by the beautiful new steam-packet
Candia, which now returns upon its, so far, very
satisfactory trial voyage.
The prevalent topic of conversation, in the ab-
sence of political events, is the attempted abduction
of the young daughter of Senhor Ferraosinha, in
order to bring about a compulsory marriage with
young Saldanha. All the friends of the marshal
stoutly deny that he had any knowledge of the plot,
but most unquestionably the members of his
family sand public authorities were act and part in
the disgraceful affair.
General dissatisfaction is given by the proceed-
ings of the Health Board. All the world is under
their ban, and subjected to quarantine. Still no
proper arrangements are made to lodge the nume-
rous passengers arriving from every quarter, nor for
landing the merchandise.
Reports of the vintage are still very alarming.
There will not, probably, be one-fourth of the
average quantity of wine. In many quintal there
is not so much as a single pipe of wine. Enormous
prices are given for the new wines. Twenty-four
moidores have been paid for a barrel of wine which
formerly cost five or six. It is lamentable to see
the chief produce of the country so dreadfully
affected.

ITALY.
The court-martial sitting at Parma, on the 7th,
condemned six persons to be shot, and twelve to
hard labour in irons for various periods, for the part
they took in the late insurrection.
The Corriere Mercantil of Genoa, of the 9th,
states that that city has now resumed its usual ap-
pearance, the cholera having entirely disappeared.
The Calabrese, a Neapolitan paper, gives shocking
accounts from Messina. Owing to the panic which
had seized upon the country people that city was
kept forty-eight hours without provisions. Physicians
had been sent from Naples. Bodies had remained
without burial for days, for want of hands to do the
office. The most singular fact stated is, that, in the
midst of all this pestilence, the citadel, which lies on
an elevated rock, has completely escaped.

SWEDEN.
Between the war and the cholera this country is
under a double excitement. Of the last the Swedes are
in deadly fear, and are inflicting quarantines on
arrivals from everywhere. The latest arrangement
of this sort is that the districts of Hamburg, Altona,
and Lubeck-Travemunde are declared infected with
cholera and subject to quarantine. Meanwhile
Sweden cannot be induced by the most liberal offers
and guarantees to abandon its neutral position, and
openly join the Western powers. She seems to be
in dread of exciting the anger of her powerful neigh-
bour, and doubts the possibility of France and Eng-
land being able to protect her against a hostile inva-
sion.

GREECE.
Accounts from Athens of the 2nd, in the Piedman-
tese Gazette, state that the Greek Government has pro-
posed to the French general to translocate his troops
from the Pirteus to Stamatos, instead of to Athens ;
but that the French general refuses this arrange-
ment, and has already caused several points near the
capital to be occupied by his troops. M. Barotzi has
been sent on a mission to the Porte, in crier to renew
the former relations between the two countries.

AMERICA.
The Washington correspondent of a New York paper
makes a statement of great importance, if correct in
its details. The writer states that an important cor-
respondence has taken place between Mr. Buchanan
and Lord Clarendon, relative to the port of San Juan
and the Mosquito protectorate. Mr. Buchanan took
early occasion, after entering on his mission, to inform
the Secretary for Foreign Affairs that his Government
desired to resume and bring to a conclusion all ques-
tions respecting Central America which were pending
when Mr. Everett retired from the State department
on the 4th of March, 1853. He stated the views and
expectations of his Government at some length.
Lord Clarendon replied in a statement embodying
the claims of Great Britain, and advancing on her
part pretensions which were supposed to have been
yielded by the Clayton and Bulwer convention of
1850. Mr. Buchanan rejo ned with a counter state-
ment, in which he reviewed the controversy from its
commencement, and stated with convincing strength
and argument the position and rights of the United
States. He declared in explicit terms that the
American Goverment cou'A not recognise any Indian
claim to territorial jurisdiction over any part of this
continent, and therefore could not admit the validity
of any protectorate or guarantee of such claims. This
communication is understood to comprise the
ultimatum of the Government on the Central Ameri-
can question, and is believed to require not only the
abandonment of the protectorate over the Mosquito
coasts, but the relinquishment of the settlement at
the Belize, and the discontinuance of the colony of
the Bay of Islands, on the coast of Honduras, as
formed in 1852. The rejoinder to this significant
state paper bas not been received, and probably none
will be given.

SATURDAY,

In the meantime the Greytown business is
assuming a form in which public and private interests
are strangely mixed. Captain G. N. Hollins, of the
United States sloop of-war Cyane, has been arrested
at the suit of Calvin Durant,, on a charge of destroy-
ing property to the amount of 14,000 dollars, at the
bombardment of Greytown, and bail entered before
the sheriff in the amount of 10,000 dollars, his sureties
being Hemen J. Redfield, the collector of the port ;
John J. Sisco, sub-treasurer; and J. R. Bradhead,
naval officer.
It is stated that, pending the action of the British
and colonial Legislatures on the reciprocity treaty,
the River St. Lawrence will be free to American vessels
to navigate.
A correspondence of some importance has been pub.
fished between Mr. Marcy and Mr. Buchanan, on the
subject of the recent declaration of France and Eng-
land, respecting the rights of neutrals. Mr. Secretary
Marcy, in acknowledging the satisfaction with which
the United States have received the declaration of
France and England that, in the war with Russia,
those powers will recognise the doctrine that free
ships make free goods, reserving only the right of
searching neutral vessels for articles contraband of
war, and of preventing neutrals from bearing the
enemy's despatches, and from breaking an effective
blockade of the enemy's ports, regrets that the con-
currence of those great maritime powers in a principle
for which the United States have so long and so strenu-
ously contended as a neutral right should be limited
to its practical observance only during the present
war, inasmuch as an unconditional sanction of it,
combined with such practical observance, would have
caused it to be henceforth recognised throughout
the civilised world as a general principle of inter-
national law. The exemption of the property of
neutrals, not contraband, from seizure and confisca-
tion when laden on board an enemy's vessel is a
right now generally recognised by the law of nations,
and it would seem that exemption of enemies' pro-
perty on board a neutral vessel, which is granted for
the present war, was only a just concession to the
great interest of commerce, demanded by the en-
alightened spirit of the age. The right of search is
t best an odious right, the exercise of which is
liable to involve the neutral in serious difficulty with
the belligerent, rendering it, therefore, the interest of
both parties that it should be restricted within the
narrowest limits, and should result in seizure only
when that act of high-handed power may tend di-
rectly to cripple the enemy and diminish his means
and faculty of resistance. Though the right, which
the law of nations, as interpreted by elementary
writers and by decisions of Courts of Admiralty, allows
of searching neutral vessels for articles contraband
of war, and for enemies' goods, is so far modified
during the present war, by the consent of England
and France, as to exempt from seizure and confisca-
tion enemies' property under a neutral flag, never-
theless the right to search for and seize articles con-
traband of war on board of neutral vessels still exists,
and this implies also the right on the part of the belli-
gerent exercising the search to ascertain the character
of the neutral's cargo. It is considered a settled
point by the British Admiralty Courts that persistent
resistance to lawful search subjects the neutral vessel
so offending to confiscation.

ABOUT one-fourth of the clocks made in the United
States find a market in England for home consumption
and shipping, The following statistics will show the
amount of capital employed, the number of hands, and
the quantity of clocks made in each year. Bristol, Conn.,
has 14 factories, employs 440 hands, using 334,000 dole. in
capital, producing 201,000 finished clocks. Plymouth,
Conn. has three factories, employs 175 hands, using
150,000 do's. in capital, producing 70,000 clocks. Lich-
field, Conn., employs 30 hands ; capital, 50,000 dols.; pro.
duce, 3,000 clocks. Ansonia has two factories, employs
140 bands, using 132,000 dols. capital, producing 102,000
clocks. Southington has two factories, employs 45 hands,
using 42,000 dols. capital, producing 14,0 .0 clocks; Win.
stead has one factory, employs 40 hands, using 36,00() dols.,
producing 30,000 clocks; New Haven has three factories,
employs 405 hands, using 258,00) dols., producing
374,000 clocks ; total number of hands employed in clock-
making in Connecticut, 1,279; total capital, 1,002,0 M
dols. ; total number of clocks, 794,000 per year. New York
city finishes about one-fourth as many clocks as the whole
of Connecticut, and the clocks made each year may be
safely set down as one million and a half worth of dollar's.
A DISCOVERY, which is likely to be of great advantage
to agriculture, has just been reported to the Agricultural
Society at Clermont (Oise). A gardener, whose frames
and hothouse required painting, decided on making them
black, as likely to attract the heat better, and, from a p
ciple of economy, he made use of gas tar instead of black
paint. The work was performed during the winter, and
on the approach of spring the gardener was surprised to
find that all the spiders and insects which usually infested
his hothouse had disappeared, and also that a vine, which
for the last two years had so fallen off that he had inteudeil
to replace it by another, had acquired fresh force and
vigour, and gave every sign of producing a large crop of
grapes. He afterwards used the same substance on the
posts and trelliswork which supported the trees m the
open air, and met with the same result, all the caterpillars
and other insects disappearing. it is said that similar
experiments have been made in some of the vineyards On
the Gironde with like results.