The Press.
London, England, 1854-07-15 00:00:00

Izrtign art, Siteraturt, k.

CONSIDERABLE attention has been paid for four
years past at the Museum of Natural History in
Paris to the cultivation of a plant coming from
China, and known under the name of Dioscorea
Japonica. This plant, says the writer of a paper
sent to the Central Agricultural [Society of France,
may, by its size, weight, and hardy character, become
exceedingly valuable as a substitute for the potato.
Its tubercles, like those of the Jerusalem artichoke,
resist in the open air the severest winter without
sustaining any injury. Several specimens of these
roots of very large size were presented in 1852 to
the society, one of which, of a cylindrical form, was
three feet in length ; another tubercle, presented in
1859, weighed three pounds, the former having
been in the earth twenty months and the latter six-
teen. The flavour of this vegetable is more delicate
than that of the potato.
M. HORACE VERNET Las arrived in Constantinople
in order to accompany the French army and illustrate
its prowess with the same genius which has clothed
the walls of Versailles with many a square yard of
canvas, and given notoriety to the combats of the
Algerian occupation. In the Turkish empire the
genius of M. Vernet will have full play; and the
importance which the impending combats will have
in the eyes of the world are sufficient to animate an
artist of less martial taste than the gifted French-
man. Horace Vernet is attached to the staff of
Mar-hal St. Arnaud, and will follow the army in all
its principal movements. M. de Tannyon, an eminent
photographer, is attached in a like capacity.
THE leading people in the spirit-rapping movement
in the United States have been holding a convention
at New York, and have formed themselves into a
Society for the Diffusion of Spiritual Knowledge.
Governor Tallmadge (Wisconsin) is president of the
association. _

THE telegraph line from Stockholm to Helsing-
borg is now ready, and is immediately to be in-
spected by the Government officials. There now
only remains the laying down the wire over the
Sound, to connect it with the Danish line at Elsi-
nore. No time will be lost in doing this, and the
whole will probably be opened before the close of
the present month. This will be of great consequence
in military operations.
DEATH OF MADAME SONTAG.—The New York
papers announce the death of the Countess Rossi
(Madame Sontag). which took place at Mexico on
the 18th of June, while engaged on a professional
tour. Madame Sontag was first taken sick on the
11th, on which evening she was announced to appear
in Lucrezia Borgia. She was somewhat better on
the 16th, but a relapse occurred, and she died on
the 18th. Universal grief was manifested for her
by the citizens of Mexico, and an immense number
attended her funeral. The loss of the accomplished

SATURDAY,

vocalist will leave a melancholy void in the world of
musical art. Her career has been memorable, and
its earliest beginnings are well remembered by those
conversant with the progress of the lyric drama. It
is nearly thirty years since she first sang at Devon-
shire-house, in the presence of a large party of con-
noisseurs, specially invited by the noble owner to
listen to a singer of whose extraordinary attributes
the world had heard so much, and whose praises
were sung in Germany with an enthusiasm to which
there had been no previous parallel. Henrietta
Sontag conquered the dilettante of Great Britain as
completely as she had done those of her own coun-
try, and the sway she held here, until the period of
her marriage with the Count Rossi, was akin to that
exercised in later days by Jenny Lind. Her return
to the operatic stage, after years of retirement, was
another epoch in the history of her life. Time had
added to her excellences instead of deteriorating
them, and her singing at her Majesty's Theatre
during the latter rule of Mr. Lumley was marked by
a brilliancy and finish which none ever surpassed,
and few have been permitted to equal. Her career
in the New World, announced from time to time by
the transatlantic papers, has been but a continuation
of the successes which attended her in Europe, and
she was cut off in the full possession of those gra-
cious gifts the exercise of which had been the source
of delight and enjoyment to thousands. So long and
undamaged an experience in the wear and tear of an
artistic vocation is wholly without precedent. The
news of the decease of this admirable singer will be
received with but one feeling of grief throughout
Europe. To talent the most striking she united the
utmost blamelessness of conduct. Her example in
all the relations of life sheds lustre upon a profession
which, unfortunately, possesses but too few instances
of personal purity to recommend it.
M. Eitssuzi, LAS CASES, the son of the celebrated
companion of Napoleon during his captivity at St.
Helena, died in Paris of cholera yesterday week. M,
Las Cases was a member of the Senate.
IN order that nothing of an unseemly nature shall
occur during the exhibition of German industry,
about to open at Munich, all Bavarian agents are
ordered to refuse passports or vise to beggars,
mountebanks, and comedians.
The Moniteur announces that the imperial sub.
commission for the French Exposition of 1855 has
decided that the period originally fixed for the 15th
of July current for the enregistering by the commit-
tees of the persons who desire to take part in the
Exposition is prorogued to the 15th of August next.

RARE COINS.
THE sale of the rare and curious cabinet of coins col.
lected by the late Mr. Cuff has recently taken place Quiet
the superintendence of Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson.
The lots ranged from the earliest period of the coinage in.
Britain and its dependencies, and maintained high prices
to the last. Among the most unique specimens, or those
which excited the most eager competition, were a quarter.
sovereign of Charles 1., pattern in gold, 271. 10s. ; half-
crown of the Commonwealth, pattern in silver, 241.;
pattern shilling of the same, by Ramage, 201. 10s.; crown
of Oliver Cromwell, 281.; a sixpence of the same, 951.; the
famous petition crown of Charles 11., by Simon, 501. 10s.;
the Reddite crown, 741.; proof of a shilling of Anne, in
silver, fine and very rare, 141. Os. ; a pattern for a guinea
of Anne, extremely rare, OIL ; pattern for a 51.-pound piece
of George 111., by Pistrucoi, 201. Os. Among the Irish
coins were—the Cork groat of Edward IV., lot. ; Mary,
groat bust, crowned, reverse—harp and M. R. crowned,
inscription, " Veritas Temporis Ma," 291. 10s. ; siege
I money, Inchinquin sixpence, 101. 10s. ; ninepence, nine
annulets within a circle, 271. The most valuable of all the
specimens was, however, a gold piece of Charles 1., of which
the Illustrated News relates the following curious
commercial history :—" The largest sum ever given
for a single coin was given at Mr. Cuffs sale, at
Sotheby and Wilkinson's : 2001. were given—not for a
Greek or a Roman coin, not for an Alexander or a
Caesar, an Otho or an Oliver, but for a pattern piece in
gold of King Charles I. of England. This highly-interest-
ing coin was intended, it is thought, for a 51. piece. hires
never published. It bears the King's bust, to the left, bare.
headed. Over his armour is a lace collar. Its history is
curious. It was purchased by Lieutenant-Colonel Drum-
mond of the Rev. Mr. Commeline, of St. John's College,
Cambridge, a collateral descendant of Bishop Juxon, to
whom it was presented by Charles I. a little before his
death. The bishop devised it by will to Mrs. Mary Gay-
ters, from whom it. descended to her granddaughter of the
same name, who married the Rev. James Commeline,
the grandfather of the Mr. Commeline from whom it
was bought by Colonel Drummond. There is a still
stranger story connected with it. Mr. Till, the late coin-
dealer in Russell-street, Covent-garden, bought it from
Colonel Drummond for 501. He then offered it to the
British Museum for SOL, but the trustees refused to pur-
chase, and it was immediately sold by Mr. Till to the late Mr
Cuff for 801. That the present trustees lamented the short.
sightedness of their predecessors is evident from the fact
that the recognised agent of the Museum contended for it at
thrice the sum the trustees might have had it for some twenty
years ago. The public will naturally inquire for the name
and rank of the romantic gentleman who gave 250/. for a
single coin. We can answer the inquiry. The coin was
bought by a dealer for Mr. Brown, of the eminent publish-
ing firm of Messrs. Longman, Brown, Green, and Long-
mane."

JULY 15, 1854•

BRITISH COMMERCE WITH RUSSIA.
AN interesting paper upon " Our Commerce with Russia
in Peace and War was read at the last ordinary meeting
of the Statistical Society by Mr. J. T. Dawson. The ob-
ject of the author was to indicate, from statistical data, the :
probable effect of the present war upon our commerce with
Russia. The statement showed that the Russian people
were not only very small consumers of British produce, but
had, for some years, been reducing their demand for it.
We took from them by far the larger share of all they ex-
ported, and they took from us cotton, raw and in yarn,
wool, dyestuffs, machinery, and coal, with salt, sugar, and
drugs, and some woven fabrics, and furs ; the whole being
d little more than half the value of the Russian produce
they sent to this country. The balance was settled by
Russian imports from France and elsewhere, paid for in
drafts upon London. About two-thirds in value of the im-
ports
of Russia from this country consisted, in fact, of the
.
materials for manufacturing, in Russia, goods that we can
supply to the Russian consumers at a much less cost. The
nobles, however, very generally disclaimed the produce of
the native looms. Six of the articles imported from Rus-
sia we had hitherto received thence in quantities forming
a very considerable proportion of our total supply for the
year. These were grain, hemp, flax, tallow, bristles, and
linseed. Taking the trade of the fourteen years 1K40.153
as a test, the author showed that we were indebted to Rus-
sia for about 14 per cent. of our total imports of grain ; that
in the first seven years of this period we were so indebted
for about 72 per cent. and in the latter seven for about 6:1
per cent. of our supply of hemp ; and that about two-thirds
of our supply of imported flax had come thence ; but that
our supplies of grain, hemp, and tallow had been steadily
increasing from other quarters more readily than from
Russia, that we had a home supply of flax and linseed,
and that a total deprivation of the supplies of Russia would
most seriously affect us in the comparatively trifling article
of bristles. A careful review of the sources and channels
of the interior commerce of Russia led directly to the con-
clusion that, excepting grain and seeds (for neither of
which we were largely dependent upon Russia), the most
mum' exit for the greater part of the trade was through
East Prussia, by the ports of Dantzic, Elbing, Konigsberg,
and Memel ; and that these ports were equally convenient
for the imports, excepting only such part of them as went
to supply the artificial city at the head of the Gulf of Fin-
land. Hence that, so long as Prussia remained neutral,
the only effect would probably be a diversion of the trade
from the forced routes through St. Petersburg and Riga to
its more natural ways further south, damaging, by reversal,
the despotic system of the Government, and somewhat
harassing by the change all who were immediately depen-
dent upon the interior trade, but not materially injuring
the bulk of the population, and much increasing the proba-
bility of their being soon brought into freer communica-
tion with the more civilised nations of Europe.

THE following anecdote of Santa Anna is given in a
private letter from Mexico, dated May i0:—" I will tell
you a story. A certain great man in this country went to
wage war against another man who opposed him, and got
most unmercifully beaten. But so happy were the people
that the great man's courage and skill had enabled him to
save his own life and liberty for them, though at the ex-
pense of all else, that on his return they received him with
shouts of joy, bonfires, and triumphal arches. A man said
in a paper of which he is the editor that the triumphal
arches were not nearly high enough for the laurels which
the immortal chief had gained in the war. For this asser-
tion the poor man was duly condemned to pay a fineof 400
dollars, or in default of them to six months' imprisonment.
Now, it appears that the phrase objected to, far from being
a sneer, was perfectly sincere, at least the supposed offender
succeeded so well in persuading the great man of this, when
an interview was granted him, that the fine was remitted,
the sentence annulled, and he dismissed with an embrace,
after receiving an invitation to dinner, and an admission
to the great man's box at the Lucretia Borgia. 'Tie a fact?'
A CORRESPONDENT of the Ohio Slate Journal has sent to
that paper an account of a tour through Kansas, at present
in possession of the Indians, but, under the Nebraska
Kansas Bill, to form a new territory of the United States.
In his letter he says,—" Before we passed the Kansas
(river) we came upon an encampment that attracted atten-
tion. It turned out to be a grand hunting company for the
plains. Sir St. George Gore, an English Baronet, has
taken it into his head that it will be fine sport to hunt
buffalo, &c., on our great western plains; so he packed up
his trunks, and started for a regular summer campaign.
He brought the most magnificent pack of dogs that were
ever seen in this country. Between 40 and 60 dogs, mostly
greyhounds and staghounds, of the most beautiful breeds,
compose this part of the expedition. He had a large car-
riage, and probably a dozen large waggons, to transport
provisions, &c. These require five yoke of oxen to each
waggon. These, with the horses, men, &c., made up
quite an. imposing company. Sir St. George is a fine-built,
stout, light-haired, and resolute-looking man. But there
are other things besides fun in such a trip, and it will try
the manner of stuff of which he is made before he returns."

THE CHOLERA has committed frightful ravages in va-
rious parts of Mexico, and in one day in the city of Mexico
the deaths from it are stated to have reached 200. At
latest dates, however, it had somewhat abated. Amongst
the victims were Mr. Berkeley, the Secretary of the British
Legation, and Senor Bustamente, Secretary of the Spanish
Lerion.
itE Mobile Daily Tribune says that Messrs. Alger and
Co., of South Boston, are engaged in manufacturing, for
Government twenty ten and eight inch " columbiads "
(cannon), to be taken to California. The ten-inch guns
welsh about 16,0001b5., and are the heaviest in use in
any service. About twelve tons of iron are melted for
the pouring of each, the guns being cast solid, aid then
bared out. The process of boring and finishing occupies
about three weeks for each gun.

THE PRESS.

guksiastital.

PREFERMENTS AND APPOINTMENTS.

The Rev. Henry iLii.;(;lfieVicarage of
Preston, near Wingham, Kent.
The Rev. John Exley Adams, LL.B., to the Rectory of Ash-
more, near Shaftesbury.
The Rev. T. Nolan, M.A., to the Vicarage of Acton, Cheshire.
The Rev. Edmund Edward Allen, M.A., to the Vicarage of
Millom, Cumberland.
The Rev. Wm. Jas. Mulloy,B.A., to the Curacy of Monkstowu.
1 he Rev. Edward Hallam, M.A., to the Rectory of Kilmanagh,
Wexford. _ .

The Rev. Edward Russell Horwood, 8.A., to be a Surrogate
for the arohdeaconry of Rochester.
The Rev. Charles Henry Lowry, M.A., to the Rectory of South
Weston, near Tetsworth, Oxfordshire.
The Rev. Win. Blake, BA., to the Curacy of St. George's,
Liverpool.
The Rev. James Adair M'Allister, BA., to the Curacy of St
Simon's, Liverpool.
The Rev. R. Pinck, MA., to the Incumbency of Hardrow,
near Hawes. _ _ _ .

The Rev. Isaac Dunne, 8.A., to the Curacy of Hunslet.
The Rev. R. W. Browne, M.A., to be Examining Chaplain to
the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells.
Mr. Charles Maclean, to be Preacher of the Gospel to the Par-
liamentary Church of Keanloch-Wichart.
The Rev. R. Bradley, 8.A., to the Curacy of St. Hilda's,
Middlesborough.
The Rev. Henry Jones, to the Curacy of Holy Trinity Church,
Hartlepool.
The Rev. Richard Jackson Steele, to the Incumbency of Arne-
cliffe, near Stokesley, Yorkshire.
The Rev. James Cheel, to the Curacy of St. Mary's, Hull.
The Rev. Henry James Petry, BA., to the Curacy of Birdsall,
near New Mahon.
The Rev. Stephen Donne, M.A., to be a Surrogate for the
diocese of St Asaph.
The Rev. Fred. Martin Harke, M.A., to the Incumbency of St.
Mary's, Edge-well, Liverpool.
The Rev. Francis Alexander Saunders, M.A., to the Rectory of
Castlemacadam, Wicklow.
The Rev. Adrian Henry Lulman, BA., to the Curacy of St.
Andrew's, Dublin.