Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane, Qld. : 1846 - 1861), Saturday 9 October 1847, page 4


BRITISH AND FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

NEWS from England to the 4th June via Hobart: Town has reached this colony. The following

are the only interesting items :—

The Queen, Prince Albert, and the Royal Family were lately sojourning at Claremont, and in the enjoyment of their usual health. Her Majesty completed her twenty-eighth year on the

24th May. The Queen's accouchment was ex-

pected in August.

The state of Ireland was undergoing some marked improvements. Still, with the exception of Dublin, which-keeps free from very extensive disease, the provinces continue to suffer from the unmitigated ravages of fever. Many of the upper class fall victims. The distress, however, was at length deemed capable of mitigation ; the famine

pestilence was in some parts somewhat stayed ;

and it was hoped that manifestations of sympathy

which were successively reaching the Irish from all parts of the glove, would help, to revive their moral energies, as well as assist in the restoration. of their bodily powers.

The privations of Scotland were also diminish-

ing, but there was still an alarming amount of fever in Edinburgh and the populous towns. Fever and other diseases had begun to appear also in the densely-crowded by-lanes and alleys of Berwick. The better classes of workmen employed on railway works were receiving wages which enabled them to bear up against such high prices as 11d. for the 4lb loaf, and 8d. or 9d. per lb. for butcher, meat ; but large, numbers of the popula-tion could not obtain anything like a sufficiency of the necessaries of life, and hence the origin of dire disease. Opportunely enough the good citi-zens of Boston had sent a charitable cargo of grain to Glasgow for the use of the destitute Highlanders and islanders of Scotland, valued at 30,000 dollars.

Upon the continent of Europe, the exigencies of

the times had caused governments and municipal bodies to adopt measures wholly unprecedented. In an Assembly General of the Members of the Council of the city of Amsterdam it has been de-clared that the price of rye bread should be fixed at a moderate figure, and that, for the future, any advance in the charge for this description of

bread will not be authorised. The price fixed is

fourteen cents per five ounces. The bakers have received from the municipal board an indemnity

against loss from the arrangement.

Half the secret of Captain Warner's long range is out at last ; it is now known that the vehicle of the captain's destructive explosives is a balloon of the ordinary construction, and that the only re-maining secret is the arrangement by which the explosives are made to descend at the particular time and distance required.

From the 27th December, 1846, to 24th April,

1847—not four months—not less than 2103 per-sons died in the Cork Union Workhouse.

Dr. Chalmers, the celebrated leader of the Scottish Free Church, is dead.

A general election was anxiously looked forward to, and already the candidates were in the field.

The Earl of Eglinton has been unanimously elected Dean of Faculties in the University of Glasgow for the ensuing year, in lieu of Lord Meadowbank, whose tenure of office had expired. A singular case has bean decided in the Ad-miralty Court. It appears that £20 is paid for a dead pirate, and only £5 for a live one. Captain Sir E. Becher, in the Samarang, was attacked by Malay pirates, and killed 330 of them, and took 980 prisoners ; for the one lot he gets £7,600 ; for the other £4,900.

Besides the sum of £2,000,000 sterling, in-vested by the Emperor of Russia in the French funds, he has expressed a determination to invest £4,500,000, principally in English securities. This measure he has been enabled to take in con-

sequence of issuing bank notes secured by go-vernment, and the increased produce of the Ural and Siberian, gold mines. The funds rose 1 per

cent, when this announcement was made on

Change. The object of the Emperor is to loose a quantity of British capital for the purchase of grain from the south of Russia.

Mr. Cobden was feted at Florence by the wealthy merchants of that city. His progress has been quite a triumph through the mercantile cities of continental Europe.

The Queen of Spain and her husband are still at variance. She had repelled with scorn some demands he had the insolence to address to her under the influence of a faction, inclined to France. A temporary reconciliation had taken place, but had again been broken through. He threatened, her with the army. She said, with the spirit of her mother, that one word more, and she would mount her horse, appeal to the troops as Spaniards and gentlemen, and then her enemies might have to dread the results. Her Majesty is imbued with a strong anti-Gallican spirit. While driving

through the streets a double-barrelled pistol was discharged at her, but missed. She continued her drive undaunted. The man was apprehended. She refused to allow the government influence to he used in any manner, but left him to be dealt with in the ordinary course of law.

We subjoin the principal events at Epsom—the Derby, worth £5,250, the Oaks, £4,125 :—The race for the Derby was won in two minutes and fifty-two seconds.

EPSOM RACES.

The Derby Stakes of 50 sovs. each, h. ft., for three-year olds ; colts, 8st. 7lb.; fillies 2lb.;

the second to receive 100 sovs. out of the stakes ; the winner to pay £100 towards the police re-gulations of the course. 188 subscribers.

Mr. Pedley's Cossack, by Herman Platoff

(Templeman) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Mr. Bouverie's War Eagle (W. Boyce) . . . . . . 2 Lord Eglinton's Van Tromp (J. Marson) . . . . 3 The Oak Stakes of 50 sovs. each, h. ft., for three-year, old fillies; 7st. 7lb. each; the owner of

the second filly to receive 100 sovs out of the stakes, and the winner to pay 100 sovs. towards the police regulations of the course. Last mile

and a half. 152 subs.

Sir J. Hawley's Miama (Templeman) . . . . . . . . 1

Mr. Payne's Clementina (Nat) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Mr. Bowe's Ellerdale (J. Marson) . . . . . . . . . . 3

At Ascot, where Her Majesty attended in person, Miama was twice beaten. First for the Coronation, when she carried 7lbs. extra as winner of the Oaks, by Lord Exeter's Cosachia, a mare no where in the former.races, and by Red Hart and Swallow, for the Welcome Stakes. Cossack cantered over for the Swinley.

The Scotsmen of New Orleans have contributed £1013 3s. 8d. towards the relief of the Highlands and Islands of their native country.

The Government have undertaken in right-earnest to colonise the middle island of New Zea-land on an extensive scale, and a loan is to be advanced to the New Zealand Company for that purpose.

In the House of Commons, on the 3rd of June, a long discussion took place on the ministerial measures for the punishment and reformation

criminals. In the course of the debate Sir George Grey gave the following exposition of the course intended to be pursued with criminals sentenced to be transported :—" The decision to which the Government had come, was that the first period of punishment of the convicts hitherto sentenced to transportation—that is the strictly penal period— should not be passed in a distant colony, but in England, or so near to it, as to obviate the evils arising from theaggregation of masses of con-victs. Government did not intend materially to affect the latter period of their sentence. During the first period the reformatory system of disci-pline now enforced in Pentonville prison would be applied to all such convicts as were sufficiently young and healthy to undergo it. The power of granting conditional pardons at the close of that period, would still be retained by the Government but it was intended to remove the hulk of the convicts, first to Bermuda and Gibraltar, where they would remain employed on the public works for a certain time, and then to the Australian colonies, where they would become holders or tickets-of-leave, or of conditional pardons, as might be thought fit, and would be placed in every respect in the same condition as the convicts now there, with this exception, that they would have gone through a reformatory instead of a demoralising system of discipline. Whilst dis-cussing this part of the subject, he informed Mr. Ewart, who had put the question to him in an early part of the evening, that in the sense in which it had hitherto been taken, it was not the intention of the Govemment to resume the practice of transportation to Van Diemen's Land, and that any arrangements for the readmission of convicts into that colony would be matter for future serious

consideration."

UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.—The Banff-shire Journal, of May 25th, says—" The com-mittee appointed yesterday to converse with Dr. Lang reported that they had a long and pleasant conversation with him that forenoon ; had received much valuable information from him respecting Australia ; were highly gratified with his candour and openness ; and were of opinion that Australia presented an extensive and interesting field for missionary labour, which it was desirous the Synod should occupy, provided that other arrangements would admit. It was agreed to remit the whole matter to the Mission Board to report in October."

GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOT-LAND.—The report on Colonial Churches having been read by the Rev. Dr. Clarke, on the 21st May last, and several members having spoken, it was moved by the Rev. Professor Hill, and unani-mously agreed to, " that the General Assembly highly approve of the report, and of the proceed-ings of the Committee, and request the Moderator to convey to the venerable the Convener, and through him to the Committee, the grateful sense which they entertain of his long and valuable ser-vices, and of the continued, and through the bless-ing of Almighty God, the successful exertions of the Committee, re-appoint the Committee with full powers, and in particular empower them to make arrangements for a deputation to proceed forth-with to British America. That the Assembly are so much gratified to learn that the Synod of Aus-tralia, by a very large majority, have resolved to

maintain their connexion with the Established

Church of Scotland, and cordially renew their re-lation with the said Synod-instructing the Colo-nial Committee to enter into friendly correspond-ence with the Synod of Australia, and to offer them such friendly advice and aid as it may be in their power to give. The Assembly further recommend to the probationers of the Church, to direct their views to the field of labour that opens up to them in Australia and Canada, as one of great import-ance, and holding out the fairest prospect of ex-tensive usefulness."—North British Mail, May

22.