On learning, in July last, the actual commencement of hostilities,
the people of South Australia, animated by true national sentiments, held a meeting and adopted an address to the Queen ; resolved on a day of so- lemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer; and put in operation a machinery for receiving subscriptions to assist the wives and children of the sol- diers and sailors engaged in the war. At Melbourne, a committee had been formed to raise 20,0001. for the same beneficent purpose.
The Chinese rebel chief, Ta-ping-wang, has forwarded to the foreign 'residents at Hongkong, through " Yang Seri Tsing, Elder Brother of the Left Wing, King by the grace of Heaven, Minister of War at Home and Abroad, King of State and Peace, &c.," a marvellous and warlike document, describing the said residents as " foreign slaves, fowls, apes, or dogs by kind," as tolerated in past years by the faithless governors, as victorious in 1838 by the treachery of Keying and others; and they are informed that the said King has "thousands of guns of divine power, weighing millions of pounds, and myriads of vessels" ; that on a "lucky day " he will descend upon and destroy them, unless to save their lives they give theta up, and unless they release Chinese prisoners, and "treat "Chinese gentlemen with respect." The St. Louis arrived yesterday at Southampton, with dates from New York to the 23d September. It is stated "that the Canadian Parlia- ment had voted the paragraph relating to the Clergy Reserves by 80 against 38 ; and that his Excellency Lord Elgin would give the Royal assent to the bill before his departure from that colony."
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