25 MAY 1861, Page 8

the unrestricted free intercourse between the two sections, the Northern

States M. DE MONTALEMBERT has addressed the following letter to the And consulted their own interest by selling their slaves to the South, and prohibiting "Sir—Mr. Gladstone has done me the honour to write, remonstrating against

the expression which I attributed to him in my late letter to M. de Cavonr, hibited, not only by want of constitutional authority, but by good faith as which referred to a speech of his on the 4th of August, 1849, in which he was reported as applying the words ' sanguinary mendicant' (mendicant sanguinary) " The Chancellor of the Exchequer states that there is no oficial report of Parliamentary debates in England, and that the speech from which I took the

measures ag and gradualainst the rigly extended. A continuous series of measures were hts of the owners of slaves in the Southern States was quotation is not quite correct. The word ' sanguinary' never passed his lips, and inaugurated

in using the word ' mendicant' he only meant to describe the solicitations of the Pope to procure foreign soldiers in order to reduce his people to submission. He adds, that in the same speech he spoke of the Pope as a personage worthy of all party in slaves, fanatical organizations supplied with money by voluntary sob respect, both on account of his personal qualities and as the head of a great body scnptions were assiduously engaged in exciting among the slaves a spirit of dis- of Christians. Finally, he affirms that he never meant to wound the filial piety of " I did not recognize the illustrious statesman, whose friendship was dear to

for their relation to their owners was first evaded, then openly announced as a me, iu the words which revoked me. I again find him, with satisfaction, in the conscientious violation of obligation and religious duty; men were taught that it

"As you have published the portion of my letter containing the passage in question, you will be so good as to insert this rectification. It will, 1 hope, be co —Receive, sir, &c.

he died of the anxiety caused by his captivity." The Floral Hall, adjacent to Covent-garden Theatre, was opened for the use of the public, with a splendid collection of flowers of every kind, all of which are marked for sale in plain figures, a great advantage in all cases to intending purchasers. Entering from Bow-street, tables are laid out as at a large dinner, open space being made at regular distances, so that the visitors may walk about without interruption. In the centre is a large cirular raised slab, filled with flowers of every imaginable description. The royal gold medal of the Institute of British Architects has been awarded this year, with the approval of the Queen, to M. Lesneur, of Paris, architect of the Hotel de Ville of that city. That gentleman attended the meeting of the institute and received in person the medal from the hands of the president, Mr. C. R. Cockerell, ILA. It has been the practice of the institute, since the foun- dation of this honourable distinction by her Majesty, to award it every third year to some distinguished foreigner who had rendered essential service to architecture by his works. The Belgian government has presented a bill to the Chamber of Representatives for according a sum of 225,000f. to the Ministry of the Interior for the expenses it will have to incur in sending Belgian productions to the Universal Exhibition in London, and bringing them back. The London Exhibition of 1851 cost Bel- gium 166,447f., and that of Paris, in 1855, 89,5871'. As next year the number of Belgian exhibitors will be greater than on those occasions, the government calculates that the larger sum of 225,000f. will be necessary.

A large meeting of Americans, summoned at a short notice, was held in Paris On Saturday, at the rooms of the Hon. Mr. Sandford, United States minister to Belgium, for the purpose of sustaining the federal government. Addresses were delivered by the Rev. Dr. McClintock, of the American chapel, Paris; Dr. Mac- Gowan, from China; and Mr. Strong, of New York, chairman of the meeting, and a large amount of money was subscribed, which, with what has been collected in Manchester and Liverpool from the Americans, will secure all the Whitworth guns that can be supplied for a long time. We have lately on several occasions referred to the preparations which Spain is about to make with a view of resuscitating her navy ; and by very recent dates from Madrid we are enabled to state that the Ministers of Her Most Catholic Majesty have for the present resolved to build five vessels of 800 horse-power, two of 600, one of 1000, one of 450, one of 1250 (iron-plated), one of 1000 (iron- plated), one of 350, and three iron-plated shot-proof gunboats of 250. Of these two are to be built in the Thames, both wooden ships. One is to be built in France, and the others are to be constructed in Spain. These are the arrange- ments which have been made for the present, but it is not improbable that English shipbuilders may be called upon to make further tenders.—drmy and Navy Gazette.

The Duke of Newcastle has transmitted to the Governor-General of Canada fo r publication the information that, in accordance with her Majesty's desire, colonial volunteers will be entitled to compete for the Queen's prize and gold medal upon the same terms as the volunteers of Great Britain, and that the asso- ciation will give one silver medal to rifle associations.—Canadian A ems.

Mr. John Wash, holding a small farm in the parish of Sonthminster, had hitherto been able to cultivate it by the industry of his own arm, and the steadily applied energies of his family; but this year affliction overtaking him, he was unable to go forth to his wonted toil. In consequence of the pressing necessities of a large family of young children he had to provide for, and the paucity of the proceeds from the last year's harvest, he could not go into the labour market and hire for the necessary work of the season. A suggestion was made that a party of volunteers should hoe a field of corn of twelve acres, which had been over-run with weeds, and on Thursday and Friday they assembled, fifty in number, and by working two hours each evening, after the ordinary period of labour, they re- duced the weeds and saved the plant of corn.—Essex Telegraph. A number of volunteer artillerymen from Liverpool, making holiday at Wrexham, got into a dispute with the disbanded men of the Derbyshire militia, and a free fight ensued. Several men on both sides were hurt by sticks and stones.

At Great Yarmouth the Royal Artillery there stationed, and the East Norfolk Militiamen, have also quarrelled and fought, the Militia apparently being the aggressors. On Monday the Artillery beard that their comrades were being murdered by the redcoats, and they rushed out armed with sabres. No officer was near, and the sergeants could not control them, but a courageous magistrate kept them at bay until an officer arrived who induced the men to return to quarters.

A story is current in New York respecting a volunteer colonel whose expe- riences of prison life have not been limited, and who is consequently well known to the police. He started a recruiting. office, and advertised for men. Knowing the colonel's antecedents, all the thieves, burglars, and rowdies of New York flocked to his standard, and he soon got a fine regiment together. They were marched away from the city, and wherever they encamped oc on the march they committed depredations. It is said that the following was not an uncommon scene at the colonel's recruiting-office:-"Applicant: I want to 'list. Colonel: Age 2—Applicant: Twenty. Any father 2—None. Mother?—None. Sound ?— Yes. Been on the island (the island is where convicts are sent)?—Yes. For what time 2—Four months. Colonel: You won't do, be off. Quartermaster (aside): Stay, colonel, ask him whether he has served a previous term. Colonel: Come here. Were you there before 2—Yes. How long 2—Four years. Colonel: Oh! then you'll do." And so the thief became a soldier.—LiverpoolAlbion.

"It isnot generally known," " says a morning paper, that the Prince Imperial has been promoted to the rank of corporal of the 8th squad of the 1st battalion of the let Regiment of Grenadiers; he is inscribed in the regimental list as Eugene Louis Jean Joseph Napoleon. The little prince, it seems, is allowed to perform his regimental duties by deputy. This deputy, one Corporal Mugaritz, deserted a few days ago, with some of the regimental money in his possession, and has since been apprehended and sentenced to five years' imprisonment with hard labour.

The vine, originally struck a few months before his death by the Emperor Napoleon I. at St. Helena, was subsequently transplanted to the grounds of Lieutenant-Colonel Palmer, at Hazing, in Essex, where it throve perfectly. Last year that gentleman forwarded the vine to Mardchal the Comte d'Ornano, Go- vernor of the Invalides, at Paris, in order to its being placed in the garden of the establishment ; and a recent communication from the count to Lieutenant-Colonel Palmer conveys the gratifying intelligence that the tree is in a meet flourishing condition.

The extension of the electric telegraph across Siberia to the Pacific Ocean has Progressed so far during the past four years that st the commencement of 1861 the Russian Government had ordered the construction of lines extending six thousand kilometres, two thousand of them being in the country lately ceded to Russia by China---that is, along the shores of the Amour and Ussuri, from the town of Nicolaewsk, through Chabarowska to the port of Nowgerod, the most southern point of the new Russian territories on the sea of Japan. The Minister of Marine is ordered to provide the funds necessary for the construction of these two thousand kilometres. At the same time a line of telegraph has been com- menced from Kasau in Europe to Siberia. During the present year there will be opened to the public a line of two thousand kilometres, from Kasen to Omsk in Siberia, and shortly afterwards this line will be extended two thousand five hundred kilometres further to Irkoutsk. Thus, within two or three years, a network of telegraph lines will be extended from Europe on the one aide to Irkoutsk in Asia, and on the other the Russian possessions on the Amour and Ussuri will be put in communication with the principal Russian ports on the sea of Japan. Of the whole distance, estimated at ten thousand kilometres, there re- mains only that portion between Irkontsk by Kiabta as far as the town of Cabraouka to be undertaken. But when the works now in hand have been con- cluded this last line will be proceeded with immediately. Thus, within four years we shall see realized the gigantic project of putting the whole of Europe in direct communication with the furthest shores of the Pacific Ocean. Besides the incalculable advantages which this Siberian line of telegraph will confer upon Russia, upon its commerce with China, and upon the whole of Europe, by the easy and speedy communication with China, Japan, and other countries ',Order- ing on the Pacific Ocean, it will be a great step towards the completion of a Russian-American line of telegraph by Siberia and the islands of the Pacific Gomm—Mechanics' Afayazine.

There is one parish in England which has increased its population daring the last decennial period by no less than 100 per cent. The parish of Aldriugton, near Brighton, was the only parish that returned in the census of 1851 a single unit of population. The parish is entirely agricultural. It was for centunea without a house. There are, however, the ruins of a church, which are noticed by the travellers on the South Coast Railway. When the road from Brighton to Shoreham was made a turnpike, it pleased the trustees of the road to erect a tollhar in the parish, and the tollhouse of course had an occupant. Thus the parish became inhabited, and the census of 1851 gave the population as" 1." The census of 1861 shows a population of the same parish of 2, an increase, as we have said, of 100 per cent. The pikeman has taken to himself a wife.

Extensive deposits of guano have been found in the innumerable islands and islets near Tasmania. it deposits are rich in the phosphates. A company has been formed for supplying Australia and Mauritius with the guano. It is ex- pected that the discovery will supersede the guano of South America, in Aus- tralia.

A hundred and twenty thousand Tartar immigrants will, it is said, arrive in the Dobradtcha during the coming summer. Those who settled there last year are reported to be prospering beyond their most sanguine expectations, and to have most abundant crops in nearly the whole of the ground allotted to them by the Government.

The total number of visitors to the Gardens of the Zoological Society in the Regent's Park, on Whit Monday was 25,979. This was the largest number of persons that has ever been admitted to the gardens in one day since their open- ing to the public in 1828; the nearest approach to this number having taken place on Whit Monday, 1857, when there were 23,014 visitors. It is gratifying to learn that under such extraordinary circumstances no accident of any kind took place, the animals were in no way disconcerted by this great addition to the usual number of spctators, nor did the gardens sustain any damage. It may be added, as an interesting incident of the day, that a fine female giraffe was born during the forenoon, and seems likely to do well in spite of its first appearance at so inconvenient a moment.

The weekly return issued by authority of the Registrar-General, states that the deaths in London in the week that ended last Saturday were 1219, the number in the preceding week having been 1240. The average number of deaths as obtained from the returns of corresponding weeks in ten previous years 1851-60, and corrected for increase of population, is 1171. Consequently the deaths registered last week exceeded the estimated number by 48. From a return presented to the House of Commons, on the motion of Lord Alfred Churchill, it appears that the slave squadron had captured the following number of vessels during the years mentioned :-1855, 3 vessels ; 1856, 4 vessels; 1857, 25 vessels ; 1858, 23 vessels ; 1859, 25 vessels—total, 80 vessels. The number of slaves liberated by these captures were :-1855, 90; 1857, 1912; 1858, 148; 1859, 1974—total, 4124. The amount paid to captors for vessels captured during the same period amounted to 95,1451. 198. 8d. Sir F. Palgrave, the Deputy-keeper of the Public Records, states in his report for 1860 that in the course of the year upwards of thirteen thousand documents in his custody were inspected by literary inquirers, in addition to the papers con- sulted by business applicants. A body of historical matter of the highest im- portance, which formerly was virtually inaccessible to the public at large, is now freely opened to every individual interested in the religious, political or social, biographical, or resthetical history of the realm or its dependencies. The Southampton Cemetery Committee have refused permission for the fol- lowing epitaph to be placed on a tombstone:—" She was a beloved wife, who looked well to the wants of her husband, and never ate the bread of idleness."

A waterspout burst over the small town of Schkolen, between Nanmburg and Zeitz, in Prussia, during the night of the 13th inst., and caused a great amount of damage and some considerable loss of life. More than twenty buildings were destroyed, and many others are much damaged ; and, in addition, horses, cattle, sheep, and other domestic animals were killed by the falling ruins, or were swept away by the immense body of water that fell. Yet worse than this, nine human beings were killed by the catastrophe.

Captain Chevalier, harbour-master of St. Helier, Jersey,-and three other persons have been drowned in consequence of a boat accident. He had gone with harbour labourers to erect a beacon in St. Brelade's Bay, had completed the work, and was returning when a squall capsized the boat, and all were drowned except a Mr. Le Quesne, who managed to hold on to a cask until rescued.