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Leader (1850-1860), 21st May 1859, Edition 1 of 2, Page 648

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    • LrTERATURE, SCIENCE, AET, Etc.
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      Untitled Article

      question of linen or letters , of emigrants or provi ^ isions . As it is , England has exported Irish products , and credited her own trade returns with the amount thus absorbed or re-exported . Sir James Graham appears as the champion of a .-monopoly . Sir Samuel Cunard , who has done far more for New York city than for all British America , has , according to this ancient follower of Peel , a vested interest in or on the ocean .

      The pretended free-trade enemies of all subsidies never opposed the renewal of Cunard's contract . The Times 3 Gity article was silent enough' then . But Sir James Graham has actually the audacity to complain that the Cunard grant is likely to be injured by the grant of 7 p , OOOZ . a year to Ireland . We have said that ministers have not gained any votes by this contract . We cannot , point to one that they have

      secured . The Government exercised not the slightest influence on the Gal way election . Mr . Lever was returned on the shoulders of the people of Galway—electors and non-electors—before the contract was signed . Is not Xord DunkelHn , a liberal of a somewhat malignant stock , returned with him ? tVe are no Tory advocates , as is well known ; but truth and honour , as well as the public interests , demand this defence of the Galway grant at pur hands .

      The grant of the Galway subsidy has done more to reconcile Ireland with England , to create a good feeling , and to do good to the Irish people , than Royal visits , Crystal Palaces , Vice-Royal patronage and entertainments , and all the forced religious concessions with which Waggery would outbid Toryism , and which it fondly claims as its own , and for itself alone . This , indeed , is better than the diplomatic appointment to a foreign court of a shrieking opponent of Saxon legislation , or the bestowal of the highest legal appointment upon the . lowest betrayer of his

      country ' s cause . What , then , shall we say , of the money that will be eventually saved to this country by this fair purchase of Ireland ' s heart and sympathy ? What has the nation paid for the Irish constabulary ? What . have State trials and prosecutions cost ? At what figure has oppression as well as repression been exercised . Turn to one little item—Iiord Clarendon ' s secret service money flung away upon the worthless advocacy of hireling scribes . Thousands upon thousands have been lavished in bribery and blood-money upon Ireland ; thousands bestowed in charity upon victims who have had the sense to feel the full force of

      honest ingratitude for the alms which they never should have needed . The cost of a misgoverned country is incalculable . It is direct and indirect , and bears a compound interest . "I have agitated , " said in effect lately , a distinguished Irish Roman Catholic clergyman , " for forty years unavailingly in the wrong direction /' ' That which was in him the blind indignation of patriotism is now the enthusiastic acceptance of a new era for Ireland . The Galway grant , with all that it comprehends and promises , is the initiation of the dawn of mercantile prosperity and social improvement in a country which has too long suffered from

      neglect and cruelty . It may be fortunate for the members of the present Government , that circumetances have forced upon thorn tliis recognition of Irish claims . They have perhaps done no more than they could help , or than has been forced upon them , by the necessities and the intelligence of the nation . They have at least escaped . the disgrace of opposing such a grant ; nor can they be taxed with the dishonour of misrepresenting , with the falsehood of selfish faction , and an abandoned unsorupulousness which nothing can exceed , the most creditable deed of their opponents , one which evokes the true gratitude of a nation and commands the patriotic approval of every honest man ,

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      fpHE funeral oration upon the late Alexander Von X Humboldt was pronounced in the cathedral of Berlin , on the 10 th , by the Very Rev . Dr . Hoffmann , Bishop of the Protestant Established Church of Prussia ; On thejbllowing day his will was opened in the presence qi his nephews . All his property was found to be bequeathed to his old valet , Konrad Seiffert , who had served him for so many years , and accompanied him in the later period of his wanderings . Humboldt was born a comparatively wealthy his father ^

      man , the portion left to him by amounting to about 10 , 00 ( M . Before he reached his fortieth year all , however , had been expended on his travels and other scientific pursuits . From that time down to the present , Humboldt lived on a smalL pension granted to him by the Government and the profits derived from his literary labours . Four hundred thalers ( £ 60 ) and a most extensile * , library is all that he left . A great quantity of plate , presented to him on different occasions , forms the most valuable portion of Seiffert ' s inheritance .

      On the subject of the import of English books into Canada , the Publisher ' s Circular says : — " The recent proceeding of the Canadian Legislature , in taxing the import of English books , is taken with unaccountable apathy by our press . It affects the best interests of literature , and involves a great question of right of a colony to thus injure home trade . It is no light matter that , as publishers ^ we find ourselves deprived , without any warning * of a market for our books to an

      extent of at least 4000 Z . a year , a market that was yearly improving , and one that we naturally regarded as to be depended . upon . The impost amounts to a prohibition , causing to be substituted for the regular demand a supply of cheap reprints from the adjoining States . The . measure greatly aggravates the injustice hitherto suffered by English authors from the admission of reprints into Canada ; for whilst books under this objectionable tariff will have to pay lO . per cent ., United States pamphlets and magazines are admitted free . that

      The Paris Moniteur of yesterday announces the council has instituted the Counsellor of State , M . de la Gueronniere , in the post of director pro iempore of printing , of the library , of the press , and of the street sale of publications . The copyright , of Household Words , with the stereotype plates and stock , were sold this week by Mr . Hodgson . The property was finally knocked down to Mr . Arthur Smith ( who was understood to be acting for Mr . Dickens ) for the sum of 3 , 5501 . Messrs . Bradbury and Evans announce that , on the 2 nd of July , they will publish the first number of a new illustrated periodical ,, entitled Once a Week The last numberof Household Words will be published on the 28 th , after which date that publication will merge into All the Year Hound .

      Nothing daunted by ths disrespectful laughter which greeted the lyric in question , we hear that Mr . M . W . Balfe has composed music to the lines " Riflemen Form , " which appeared in the Times last week . Messrs . S ' aunders and Otley announce the commencement of a now novel by the author of " The Heir of Radcly ffe . " It is called " Hopes and Fears ; or , Scenes-from the Life of a Spinster . " M . Edmund About's last clever book has been seized at the booksellers' shops in Paris , but not until many thousand copies had been sold . The Constitutionncl . announces that the introduction of " La Question Romaine" was not authorised , and that the work is to be prosecuted . , As it was published in Brussels it is not easy to see' how this is to be done . Perhaps the booksellers who sold it are to be tried .

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      p bjects ^ bemg attained , the squadron was to cruk * in . the Chinese seas , in order to watch over Ameri can interests , during the misunderstanding then in progress between the English and Celestials Accompanying the squadron in its two ' years ' cruise in the capacity of surgeon to the fleet Dr Wood , who is as close an observer as heis ' a ' m-a phic writer , obtained the materials for this very fresh , p leasing , and instructive book . Passing over a considerable amount of spleen , at the false and

      humiliating position ot medical officers in the United States Navy , which , if we are to believe our author is not unlike that of English naval surgeons in the days of Smollett ; we have a panoramic series of viewa which leave an agreeable impression upon the mind . The voyage is given with the detail of an old itinerary , no place worthy of note bein <* omitted . Madeira , with its genial climate , del £ cious scenery , fine , wines , invalids , and numerous beggars ; Ascension , with its turtles , with an introduction to a state prisoner , the King of Bonny who it appears was deprived of his Eberty for the

      sole reason that . " British merchants wanted to buy all the palm oil at lower rates than he would dispose of it or allow it to be . sold by his subjects ; therefore he was imprisoned for interfering with trade . At first he was kept upon the coast , but managing to send an order to his dominions , still prohibiting ; the sale on any but his own terms , it was thought expedient to send him more remote from his dominions . He himself said the English were great rascals , they shut the Emperor Napoleon up in St . Helena , and him in Ascension : " ¦ .

      Thence to our colony in South Africa , whose wildernesses are now covered with grain fields , orchards , and vineyards , producing the most luscious wines ; farms yielding that which is literally the " Golden fleece" of the colony--wool , whose increase of export has gone on from a few thousand pounds to increasing millions , and whose progressive increase is beyond estimate , and which , must , if its various races of negroes and Europeans ever become permanently peaceful , prove the finest colony in the world . Thence into the Indian seas , to the Mauritius , where we are a little surprised at being told of the existence of slave dealing beneath he British flag . *

      " These people were originally brought into the island by the British government as a substitute for the negro population , rendered worthless by the emancipation of 1835 . They arc compelled . to serve five years of what is called " industrial residence , " and the best of these men get three dollars a month wages . At the end of the five years , if they desire it , they are returned to their own country , but most prefer to remain where they are , and enter into various pursuits upon their own account . During their term of servitude they are liable to coercion ,

      but can complain against undue severity . A regular slave-trade transaction has just taken place . A ship came in from the coast of Africa with a cargo of negroes , and they were sold at eighty dollarsi each , nominally for the passage money . They had been kidnapped and stolen from Africa . 1 ms is an English possession . " . n „ After which we find ourselves at Point de Gallo ( Ceylon ) , the first touching-place of cacletsund me last stopping place in India of old Indians , which appears to be the veritable island of jewels , and crowded with " real material , Ahnnv nlmiva snf ' ns . bureaus , boxes , canes nouiy ¦

      carved , and glittering masses of topaz , in me shops and in the streets , with sapphires , rubies , and amethysts . " As might be expected in such a town , it abounds with peripatetic vendors pi sham jewellery , whose faith is great in the gullibility ot the visitors . From one of these the Doctor purchased a ring for . one dollar and fifty cents , me price asked having been twelve pounds . Arriving at the " Gem of the Indies , " Pulo l ' cnang , the author is in ecstney with its perpetual spring , ooooa-nut and palm groves , nutmeg ° ^ olllu ^/ ' / ° its picturesque population of Chinese , Malays , Hindoos , ' AJahomedans , and Europeans . XW gem , however , is a little dimmed by tho businw " portion of the town with its narrow etroetd , ow o . ^ lU ,, ^ A \ + n \ i . na nml i *« millfcinllCltV Ot tOUUY

      JJ \ ANK"VVM *« OB , THJfl CKUISIfl OF THIS ! SAN JTA-0 INTO IN THE SlflAS OF INPIA , CHINA , AND JAPAN . By W . M . Wood , M . D .. U . 8 . N . Sampson Low nnd Co . Leaving no efforts unmade to establish thoir commerce upon a firmer basis in the Eastern Seas , the Americans rested not till they had anticipated the English , by effecting with Japan the Ferry treaty of 1862 , by which it was stipulated that in 1856 } a consul should take up his residence at Simoda . Accordingly , in that year , an armed squadron was equipped for tho purpose of convoying to that port with all due pomp and ciroumetancO j the Hon . Townsond Harris , who was also commissioned to obtain , e » route , a now treaty with Siara . These

      bang and bpimn shops , all of ' which with their miserably attenuated habituh aro grap hically pictured . Then Singapore—when having pnajoa through the Gulf Sf Siam , " wtars ™ , ™ ° stripes" are hoisted , tho band plays " * ' * £ Doodle , " and the Americans ore " at home m Bangkok , the capital of the amphibious , seminude , double-ldngV Siamese , to the pnintiug 01 whom Dr . Wood dovotos several of his most q"A »»

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      648 THE LEADER . fLiTERiTmn ,

      Lrterature, Science, Aet, Etc.

      LrTERATURE , SCIENCE , AET , Etc .

      Untitled Article

      LITERARY NOTES , ETC . ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ - — ¦ ¦ '

      Untitled Article

      An accident has taken place on the railway from Vienna to Marbourg , by whloh five carriages were knocked to pieces .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 21, 1859, page 648, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2295/page/16/