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    No. 458, January 3, 1859.] T H E X E AD ...

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    MISCELLANEOUS. The Court.—Hor Majesty an...

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    Germany. ' (From Our Own Correspondent.'...

    Emperor of the French evinces , in truth , a most praiseworthy forbearance , which can only be accounted for bv his desire to maintain the alliance with England . Reports are rife enough about the transactions of the German Bund in the question Of the Duchies , but there is slight foundation for them , they are propagated apparently for the purpose of mystifying the German press and people as to the real state of the question . We were told the other day that Hanover , who is desirous of appearing extremely German in this question had proposed to the Bund to break off the deliberations because the Danes are fortifying the town of Rendsburg , and that the Commissioners appointed by the Diet were to transfer their sittings from Frankfort to Itzehoe . We shall probably get a clearer insight into the state of the question after the 12 th of January , on which day the Prussian Parliament will be opened .

    The Danes , meanwhile , take things very easily , well aware that , bluster and threaten as the Germans may , they cannot venture upon an armed intervention without the acquiescence of France and Russia . A merchant , who has just returned from an extensive tour in the Duchies , tells me that the Prussians are as much detested there as the Danes , which is attributable to the conduct of the Prussian Government during the war of the Duchies against Denmark . During the Christmas week , while the papas and mammas of Hessia , as well as all Germany , were busy amongst the heaps of firtree-tops and toys— -just in that pleasant week when the best feelings of human nature are called into play and most men . are intent only upon the ways and means of pleasing their children and friends with little presentsthe Elector of Hessia made his children , the Hessians ,

    a couple of presents , or gentle love-tokens , in the shape of two edicts , or , as his abettors or Ministers would call them , proposals to be laid before the National Council . The one edict professes to specify more clearly the laws relative to the protection of game , and this edict contains a clause which , stripped of the usual stupid and unmeaning verbiage , is to this effect : — " The gamekeepers and patrols are empowered to make use of their arms against any trespassers or suspected poachers carrying fire-arms , if on the first demand to throw down or deliver up their weapons , the persons suspected neglect to obey . In case any doubt should arise afterwards whether the demand was made distinctly or hot , or whether the official was justified in making use of his weapons , the assertion of

    the official shall suffice , " What is this but giving gamekeepers and policemen the power of life and death 2 Your readers , who may think that the game-laws of England are anti-Christian , anti-social , false in principle , and a disgrace to the age , will hardly credit that I have translated the above clause correctl y * The original , however , Bounds to the reflecting man ten thousand times worse , because it is evident that the real object is hypocritically sought to be cloaked by an additional clause , to the effect that if the officials shall use their weapons against any suspected person without first requiring him to surrender his arms , they will be punished by an imprisonment of four weeks at least , even if they have not injured him . Notwithstanding the self-evident nonsense

    of this , I have not seen a single remark made upon it in any German newspaper . They seem to regard the absurdity as a matter of course . It is rather rich to expect that an official who could be malicious enough to nim at the life of a fellow creature without cause , would be honest enough to confess it of his own accord . The other edict is still more audaciously regardless of human rights and free agency . It prohibits the issue of passports during the summer months , unless the applicant can prove that ho can obtain no employment in his native , place . The object of this ia to stem the emigration which takes place every summer . It is equivalent

    to a total prohibition , because during winter no arrangements are made by shipowners for carrying emigrants , at least from tho German ports , and during the summer months , of course work is generally to be had * The fact is , that the country of Hcasia is being fast depopulated . It is not uncommon to see entire villages , with the clergyman and school master at their head , wending their way to the seaports of Hamburg and Bremen . Tho facilities for emigrating to a bettor land have hitherto maintained peace in Germany , tho discontent , finds in emigration a comfortnblo vent , and to check it or pen it up shows no groat statecraft , unless the Prince has resolved to rondor his people happy , or , at least , ceaao to make lifo a burden to them .

    No. 458, January 3, 1859.] T H E X E Ad ...

    No . 458 , January 3 , 1859 . ] T H E X E AD E B . 9

    Miscellaneous. The Court.—Hor Majesty An...

    MISCELLANEOUS . The Court . —Hor Majesty and thd Royal family continue in good health ut Windsor . The Quoon and Princesses ride and walk out daily . Ou Christinas-day the Queen had a . dinner and an ovoning party . Tho Prince of Wales and tho Prince Consort have hunted , and have boon shooting thia week . Among tho visitors At tho Castle have boon tho Due do Nemoum with his two sons , General and Lndy Feel , and tho Right Hon . Spencer Wnlpolo . Thb Prince Ai . frkd . —All idea of this royal youth SWDff regularly through tho duties of his profession wwns to bo completely abandoned . Tho J'Juryaltta appears to have been placed at tho disposition of his Royal Highness for the purpose of making a stato progress at

    proposed are—the holding of periodical meetings for reading and discussing papers , and the exhibition of specimens ; arrangements for facilitating the exchange of specimens between distant members ; the formation of a typical collection of fossils suited to the wants of students ; a library of reference ; and-the delivery of short courses of lectures . It was announced in the course of the proceedings , that one hundred and twenty applications for membership had already been received . The first meeting for actual work will take place early in the new year , when more detailed plans will be stated ,

    and an inaugural address delivered by the president . The French " Free-Labour" System . —The Courier du Dimdnche publishes the terms , of the contract made by the firm of Regis and Co ., of Marseilles , with the African labourers imported by them . The contract is binding for six years , and the blacks engage to work in the French colonies twenty-six days in each month in the plantations . In order that they may possess the means of returning to their native country at the expiration of the engagement , a clause is inserted . compelling them to invest a tenth of their wages in a bank for that purpose .

    Education . — -The fifth annual meeting of the United Association of British Schoolmasters was held on Monday in the rooms of the Society of Arts . This association was formed to promote . elementary education and the professional interests of schoolmasters generally . It aims at a unity action among the scholastic body . The Institute of France . —We have great pleaspre in announcing that Professor Max Muller ,. Fellow of All Souls' College , Oxford , has been elected a Corresponding Member of the Institute of France .- —Times . BrrTER Beer . ^—Messrs . Allsopp are building at Burr tou-on-Trent a brewery , which , when completed , will cover nearly four acres of land , and present one . / af < kZe

    of more than a quarter of a mile in length . This is intended for the exclusive production of East India pale ale , for which beverage the demand both home and foreign has of late so largely increased that all existing means of supply have altogether failed . Recently , when the Council for India invited tenders for 36 , OOO hogsheads of pale ale for the troops in India , only about half the quantity was competed for , and that chiefly by London brewers . The new brewery adjoins the railway station at Burton . There are five hundred artisans employed upon the works , which are to be completed in February . The contract for the shell of the building amounted to 83 , 400 / .

    Christmas in Prussia . —The Berlin correspondent of a contemporary says : — " Christmas is really Christmas in Germany . For " the last week or ten days the whole mind and energy of Berlin have been absorbed in preparations for the " Tree , " which was feted on the 24 tb . Our half-dozen slips of holly over the fireplace are a shabby apology for Christmas green by the side of the whole forests of young firs and pines which have covered every square and open place , and these are not a few , in Berlin;—not sprigs , or even branches , but the entire tree ; young spruce firs of six or eight years' growth . The young plantations of half a dozen English counties , exterminated to the last bush , could not have furnished the supply . For the Christmas-tree is not a mere luxury of the wealthv , or fancy of the romantic Every

    family has its own . Besides the living firs , thousands of artificial trees are manufactured of wood and paper . 4 You make your Christmas-trees in England of iron , I believe , ' said a lady to me . The richer classes buy the presents in the shops ; . for the poorer there is the Christmas market , t . e ., the booths all along the principal streets—not at the West-end , but in the city , where every kind of toy may be bought for a few groschen . There is a trade driven in Christmas gifts—articles neither of luxury nor necessity ; of no use except to be given . For some days past it has hardly been possible to get up to the counter in any of the principal shops . The ordinary articles of commerce are stored away , and an ' Austellung' of knick-knackeries arranged , sometimes so tastefully as to make a show of themselves . Even

    tho booksellers have to give way to the torrent , and . the new publications disappear under cases of Christmas gift-books , albums , and other gilded trash , forming a literature by itself , which blazes for its fortnight , and then vanishes till next Christmas . As for tho balls , concerts , music in every form , private , public , And at every price , gaiety of every description , only not drunkenness , it is impossible to enumerate them . No wonder that England appears dreary to a foreign visitor , who misses tho sociable holiday-making of his own country , and does not partake in the rotired domestic satisfaction with which wo surround our Christmas hearth . "

    sea . At Malta he has been reviewing troops , and attending the opera and public places , amidst almost as much pomp and deference as if the Queen herself were the august visitor . How is it possible ; ( observes the Times , commenting upon Prince Alfred ' s reception at Malta ) , if Prince Alfred be thus received whenever he puts foot ashore , that he can be trained in habits of subordination by the officers . whom he should be-taught to obey ? How can his young companions ever be brought to mix with him upon equal terms , if the crown royal of England is suffered so constantly to peep forth from beneath the midshipman ' s uniform ? We doubt not that a parcel of tutors and instructors will readily enough teach the young Prince all that books and instructors

    can teach him of the ' < learning" of his profession , but that is the smallest part of a sailor's training . How is the young middy to acquire habits of discipline and the inestimable advantage of self-reliance when he sees nothing around him but courtiers ? If Prince Alfred be sent to sea as a royal prince , all this is well enough . Let him have observance and adulation in good store ; let his eye rest upon marine courtiers wherever he turns it ; but in such a way he will never become either a sailor or a man . How excellent a thing for him it would be if a stern veto were interposed between the young

    midshipman and all these idle demonstrations for the future The Rev . Mb . Puoh . — On Tuesday a meeting of the directors and guardians of the poor of St . Pancras was held at the Court-house , Gamden Town , to receive the report of a committee appointed to inquire into the facts connected with the dismissal of the Rev . Thomas Pugh from the office of chaplain to the workhouse . The report , which was of some length , having been read , it was moved that a copy be sent to the vicar , with a request to lay it before the Archdeacon of Middlesex and the Bishop of London . This motion was carried .

    The Public Health . —The return of the Registrar-General shows an improved state of the health of the metropolis . The deaths , which in the three previous weeks were 1738 , 1531 , and 1442 , declined last week to 1246 . The mortality from scarlatina slowly decreases . Measles is still prevalent . There were 1412 births registered last week . . ¦ . ' . . Statutes in Evidence , —Mr . James Bigg , the author of the " Student ' s Book for England , " has had a correspondence which has elicited the opinion of the highest

    legal authorities , the Lord Chancellor and Lord Campbell , that the jriadmissibility of statutes in evidence , unless printed by the Queen's printer , only applies to private Acts of Parliament , and that , as regards public Acts of Parliament ' , any trustworthy edition of them may be referred . to . The opinion Yhat the editions of Public Statutes printed by the Queen ' s printer are alone admissible as evidence , has up to the present time so almost universally prevailed that this correspondence may be regarded as of great importance . It is possible that the accuracy of these opinions will be questioned .

    Bekanger . — A letter from Parissayss— "M . Perrotin , the executor of Beranger , as well as the publisher of his Life and Songs , has projected a new work respecting the poet ; it is to contain BeYanger's correspondence * The Autobiography had an uncommon fault , that of undue brevity , and you felt after reading it that it was incomplete , that something remained more interesting than that which had already been told . Tho letters of the poet will supply this deficiency . BeYanger was in communication with the leading Frenchmen of the time

    in which he lived . His correspondence with them , as far as it has been published , is distinguished by clearness , force , and practical sagacity . It will paint , in all probability , the man better than he has painted himself . M . Pcrrotin , doubtless , has already a large stock ~ of letters in hand to start with , for no ono has been better placed than himself for obtaining information of all kinds respecting UeYanger'a connexions . Tho correspondence will be a welcome addition to the Autobiography and the Songa .

    An Editor's ArwrrrrB . — -Did you ever see a Washington editor eat ? It is a splendid thing . They say that no ono can tell how they ever got the great blocks up to" tho apex of tho Pyramids . I can tell you that tho amount of solids consumed by a lover of public opinion hero would astonish Clinm poll ion himself . Imagine a fat man with a suspicious shirt , greasy black coat , spectacles , and shiny troueers , rolling into tho diningroom and absorbing , in tho space of five minutes , n sufficient quantity of food to maintain a file of soldiers for a whole day . Then ho rolls out again , smiling blandly

    upon tho proprietor , who is only too happy to bo rid of his cormorant . Tho next day the editor calls tho house a " palatial hotel . " I will ask you , as a fair man , is that enough ? Really now , does it pay for tho pyramid of roast beef , tho cartload of vegetables , tho avalanche of pudding ? Can ' t you do something for us , to roprosa tho awful appetite of the Capitolino scribes ? Tho person I rofur to will inako a ftimino hero , if some ono don ' t stop him . Ho oata as if ho woro tho king of tho spoilsmen , and was afraid that tho Government would go out of oflloo to-morrow . —New York Journal .

    Colonel W . P . Wauoh . —A meeting of creditors of this celebrated swindler was hold on Wednesday , to consider tho propriety of instituting criminal proceedings against him . As it appeared , however , that tho creditors could prosecute him only under tho 251 st section of tho Bankruptcy Layr Consolidation Act , for nonaurrondor to his bankruptcy , and that tho expense would soriously diminish tho assets in theic "hands , it waa resolved that criminal proceedings are , under present circumstances , inexpedient . The question of a prosecution for fraud was not considered , as that course rests more with tho shareholders of tho Eastern Banking Corporation .

    Ojcolooihth' Association- —A mooting was hold at Messrs . Barton's raoma , in Upper Wellington-street , Strand , on" Friday evening , tho 17 th December , for the purpono of organising a now society , to promote the study of geology and its allied sciences . Tho moans

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 1, 1859, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_01011859/page/9/