The Express.
London, England, 1846-10-20 00:00:00

for the hail- ear ending December 30; a dividend of 3 per
cent. was declared. The instal half-yearly meeting of share-
holders in the Planters' Bank was held on the 11th of Dee.,
when a dividend of 6 per cent. wee declared. The Diocesan
Church Society met at Kingston on the 17th September;
the archdeacon stated that the bishop had instructed h'm to
defer the appropriation of grants till kis lordship's return;
that return, however, had been so long delayed it would be
best to proceed to appropriate them. 2,2401. wens accord-
ingly appropriated to twelve chapels.
FROPOSED LINE or PACRETS PROW New YORK TO
CRAORIEL—The Spiteful, U. S. war steamer, arrived at
Port Royal on the 19th of September, en route to Cbagres.
It is said that the United States government contemplate
the establishment of a line of packets between that place
and New York. The Jamaica papers seem anxious that the
linen should touch at Kingston. They state that they are
in the direct line, and that their intercourse with the Re-
public is now very considerable.
GUIANA. AGRICULTU RA L IMPROVEMENTS.
The Royal Gazette speaks of the experimental tile.draining
on La Penitence estate in the following terms :
So far as the experiment on La Penitence has gone, it has been
highly proodidng so
to the complete success of subsoil draining in
tide colony. Dr. Shier and the committee of the Agricultural Society,
under whose ;judicious superintendence the operations have been
carried on, have proved that our clayey land, stiff and tenacious as it
Is, admits of the percolation of water through it with as much free-
dom as the soil of any district of Great Britain, drained by tiles. The
establishment of that fact, so long doubted, is one great Pint pined.
Other questions, however, remain behind which must be cleared up
Ina manner equally mitisfactory, before we can hope to see the open
trenches in our fields replaced by covered drainage. One question is,
—and we have adverted to it before,—what is likely to be the ex-
pense? It mast be admitted that the same rate of cost which may be
overlooked ss of little importance in a public trial of limited extent,
intended to erne as a mere test of the abstract practicability of
subsoil draining in Guiana, might nevertheless render the system
generally nugatory by placing it beyond the MAIM of private Indi-
viduals, whose object in pursuing cane or coffee cultivation is, not
to find In it an amusement, but a business, and who, when they do
make inoomilona on their accustomed ways of going to work, are
wont to make them, not for the purpose of elucidating a theory for
others, but getting a better livelihood for themselves. Closely con-
nected, then, with the La Penitence experiment, which reflects so
much credit on all the parties, is the vulgar question of outlay.
Hence it is that we would remind the agricultural chemist and the
committee, not, among the other details to which their attention will
have to be directed for some time longer, to lose sight of those regard-
ing the costs they will have incurred from the commencement to the
end, or rather which they would have incurred had they had to pay
for the labour expended on the experimental field. A table Uustra-
tive of this subject will not be the least useful part of the information
which they will have it in their power to lay be:ore the public."

WAOEB OP AORICULTrILAL LABOUR.—The same paper
placts in striking juataocnitimt the rates of remuncratiuu to
the Wait Indian and English labourer:
OVIANA. WZOTERN COVNTES or ENGLAND.
8. d. B.d. s.
Able-bodiedAkio-bodied man, martd,

=Ear a dap gar week, at twelve
from five to kw? work each day ... 8 to 7
eight boon 410 to • Alinkodied man, onmar-
Women 4 4 _ did, for ditto ditto ... 5 "

Children

" 0 a Pats auowanoe for the

Employ meat constant. I whole harvest time ^0
Cottages, Medical At- ; Deduct Is. to 2s. per week
Marna, go., as for house rent, and W.
with the Coolies. to 7/. per acre for rent of
1 potato land. In sickness
I or when or of employ,
I the Union. ,dvantres
I --cider and grist.
. Cottages inspected by no
one, and approved of by
nobody.
' Employment uncertain.

WINDWARD ISLANDS.—POLITICAL NEw3.—
The Barbadoes House of Asse.nbly was adjourned on the
24th of September, to meet on the 30th. The Al. Vincent's
Gazette intimates that five hundred stand of arms have been
sent out for the militia of that island. The arms are muskets
and accompanied with rifle accoutrements !
OBNERAL News.—The Barbados, Globe mentions that
the appearance of the crops continued to he most promising.
At St. Vincent's also alternate showers and sunshine pro-
mised the best results. Barbadoes was visited on the 12th
of September by a severe gale :
During the entare of Friday night, the atmosphere appeared sur-
charged with electricity, the lightning flashes being almod incessant
from every point of the compass, and the thunder, at intervals, loud
and tong.csntinued. Saturday morning dawned cloudy and gloomily,
and with all the threatening appearances of approaching bad ellbither,
which were speedily verified, for, by half-past six o'clock ft blew
fearfully strong from the area-south-west, and almost every
householder made preparations for the worst, by shutting
4. riatillsir scarce opened doors, and doubly securing their ske . tera, he
to
rate extent—yet still •02110 injury has been done to the trees and
growing earn, and same of the needs in the bay have been uriven on
shore, and become to all intents anal purposes total wrecks. The bark
Caleb Angus, of London, drifted on the Pelican Reef, near Rkkett's
flattery, at an early hour, and speedily went to fragments. Very
little bus'aiiis was trimsacted—the stores and counting-houses being
almost all closed; but in the bird killing line, the snort was " A 1 at
Lloyd's," such a "flight " of Plovers, Curlews, he. six. sic., being
scarcely remembered. The following vowels rode out the "blow,'
and are now safe in Carlide Bay Barque Dunlop. brig Bermuda,
brigantine Catherine, brigantine Talent, brigt. Cumberland, brig,.
Pursuit.

The earthquake of Sunday, the 7th Sept. (noticed in our
yesterday's publication) had been felt at St. Vincent's, as
well as in Grenada and Trinidad. The phenomena in St.
Vincent's appear to have been peculiar, from the following
paragraph in the Gazette of Sept. 10:

- - -
An earthquake of extraordinary duration was felt here about 13
minutes past 12 o'clock on Sunday last. The several placesof worship
in this were at the time filled with their congregations, and
among most of them the greatest consternation prevailed. In the
Kingstown Church (where, from all we can learn, the shock wee most
severely felt), several persons fainted from fright, and the utmost
alarm wee crested ; but, strange to say, in the Wesleyan Chapel, just
opposite the church, the shack was scarcely perceptible by the congre-
gation, who were in the act of moving out. The oscillation was dif-
ferent from that of most other shocks, the motion brine remarkably
quick and short, and this probably is the nose why the houses in
town received no damage. The shock was attended by a load rum-
bling noise.