furtigu sub Cranial.
Frtexca.—In the Legislative Corps, on Saturday, M. Billault pre- sented, from the Minister of State, projects of law for raising the fees on the registry of land, for raising the spint-duty, for levying a tax on paper and card-board, and for levying a sumptuary tax on carriages, carriage- horses, and dogs. He proposed to send the bills direct to the Budget Committee. But this step was strenuously opposed by M. Dandelarre, and several other Members, on the ground that the measures were original ones, fully important enough to have separate Committees. M. Billault insisted on his proposition, with pertinacity. But the sense of the Legis- lative Corps was almost unanimously against the Government ; and on the proposition of M. Dumirail the bills were referred to a special Com- mittee chosen from all the Bureaux.
In a long sitting of the Council of State on Tuesday, over which Louis Napoleon presided in person, M. Boinvilliers, formerly a Representative and advocate, is said to have opposed some Government proposition with the hardy criticism that it would favour an impression of the Govern- ment being weak and " sans avenir." Louis Napoleon is said to have remarked instantly-" I beg you, Sir, to believe that my government is not a Weak one ; and I have every reason to believe that it is not sans avenir " The conflict on the Orleans confiscation decrees was opened before the Council of State on Tuesday. The public announcement of the decision was not expected till this day ; but the Paris correspondent of the Times stated on Thursday, that the sentence had already been framed as follows- " The Council of State has adopted the 'conclusions' of M. Maigne,.the Government Commissioner; confirmed the 'conflict' in so far as it deprived the judicial tribunals of the power of entertaining demands for discussing the legality of the said decree, or for determining the sense or regulating the execution thereof, with respect to the Princes of the Orleans family, and an- nulled the part of the conflict' which would remove from the civil jurisdic- tion the examination of questions that might arise relative to the private property which they hold in virtue of hereditary right. The President of the Republic having given his approbation to the judgment by attaching to it the formula Bien jug,' and his signature, and the decision of the Coun- cil of State being sovereign, the matter may now be considered as completely set at rest.".
INDIA.—The fuller news by the letters and papers of the overland mail add little of interest concerning the Burman expedition. Neither are the despatches published by the Government more informing. In a despatch of Geneial Godwin to the Secretary of the Governor-General of India, dated 22d April, the affair at Martaban is not referred to as of the im- portance at first ascribed to it. The newspaper accounts were both meagre and confused, and General Godwin dismisses it with this paragraph- " It his been repoited to me that a detachment of the 26th Madras Native Infantry; in garrison at Martaban, had marched against a post occu- pied bathe enemy, which it most spiritedly routed, on the 11th instant, without loss ; and that on the 14th, the .pickets at Martaban were attacked, and the enemy beaten off with great spirit by the same corps, commanded by Captain Welch, at a very trifling loss. All this will, I have no doubt, sub- side on the fall of Rangoon becoming known." Nothing Seems to be certain about the next step intended : it is thought very unlikely that we shall go up to Promo i - on the other hand, it is thought absurd that we should think of withdrawing any force from Ran- goon till next season.
General Godwin reports—" I rejoice to say, the wounded are doing very well" ; but he says nothing of the health of the general force. The common news states that disease is rife and fatal.
On the attitude of the Burmese military and unmilitary the only in- formation is the following passage in General Godwin's despatch- " There are various accounts of the defeated Burmese army under the late Governor of Rangoon, and they tend to the conclusion that he may be retreating up the country with a very small force.
"The inhabitants of the villages around visit Rangoon, and bring in vari- ous articles for sale. The old inhabitants are partially settling themselves in the vicinity of the Old Town, and great numbers of Burmese are in our employ as coolies." AUSTRALIAN GOLD-FIELDS.—The Vimiera, Blackwell, and General Hewitt, both merchant-ships, have arrived at London from Sydney, with dates to the 6th of March, and with a gross amount of gold from the dig- gings worth nearly 290,0001.
The leading topic of the Australian papers is of course gold : the ad- vertisement-pages of the journals look like little else than a repetition of
the word "gold" in all the varieties of the most prominent type. Out of the mass, we present two extracts ; one giving details, and the other a summary, and both appearing a fair sample of the whole. From Lloyd's Gold Circular of the 6th March- " On the whole, we have reason to congratulate ourselves this week with respect to the news from the mines. The bed-claims on the Turon can now be worked, and many of the owners have returned from the Meroo and other creeks to recommence operations. An excavation below Harbottle's store has been made, and is said to be of sufficient capacity to carry off any ordi- nary flood without interfering with the miners. Its cost is variously esti- mated at from 3501. to 5001. Parties in this locality, almost without excep- tion, are doing well. One individiml obtained last week 20 ounces one day before dinner, and in several instances these earnings have been exceeded. A person well known by the cognomen of Long Tom has latterly been reaping a golden harvest, frequently, as we are informed, taking from 20 to 30 ounces H per day out of his claim. e is now employing his men in amassing the auriferous earth, so that when the winter sets in they may be engaged in washing it : a cart-load of this earth is valued at 1501. by the owner. Many of the Sofala tradespeople, during the late panic, purchased claims at a nominal value, and have now engaged men to work them their contiguity to rich diggings giving them the advantage of turning their attention to mining when business happens to be dull. The bed-claims at Sheepstation Point are turning out very rich. A Dr. Cutting has lately been reworking his tailings, from which he sometimes gets two ounces per day ; and the dig- gers are doing generally well. Little Oakey has again been yielding its treasures to the industrious miner but as the waters are fast falling it is soon expected to fail ; the general opinion is, that with a good supply of water it will still produce an immense quantity of gold. On Friday last, two young men took five ounces out of a pocket ; and a little boy, with a tin dish, has been making 15a. per day since the flood, whilst others have been picking up with their knives small nuggets on the ridges which divide the two Oakeys. The intelligence from New Zealand Point and the Upper Wallaby Rocks is of an encouraging nature ; many of the bed-claimants are now real- izing their long-cherished anticipations. The diggers on the Crudine are doing well, although few have dug to a greater depth than three feet. At the Dirt Hole and Stockyards it is supposed there are about fifteen hundred people; but the success here does not appear to be very remarkable. At Mundy, Golden, Erskine, and Patterson Points, a considerable number of men are reaping a rich reward. The news from the Abercrombie is also of a. cheering character; a party from California had obtained 80 ounces in twelve. days from the Tuena Creek, of coarse nuggetty gold, very similar to that produced at Ophir. Another party of two had procured 24 ounces in a fort- night, on a newly-discovered point, about a mile and a half from Mr. Smith's head-station, underneath a bald hill, which by good judges is sup- posed to be very rich. Wherever the ground in this vicinity has been tried, gold has been found in such quantities as to afford abundant assurance of success to the miner."
The Sydney Morning Herald of the same date sketches the general posi- tion of the metropolitan colony- " It is not quite ten months since our auriferous treasures were first brought to light ; yet within that brief period the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria have each shipped about one million's worth of gold, or two millions' worth in all." "We rejoice to add, that this million of gold produced in New South Wales has been gathered without any serious detri- ment to our other interests, and with the least possible disturbance of public order and tranquillity. Our corn-fields have still been cultivated, our sheep have still been shorn. Our metropolitan city remains a busy scene of commerce, and stately buifclings are 'rising up in her streets. Our mining _operations, have assumed the character of settled industry ; our gold-is collected with- out bustle or confusion, and securely carried to market by the regularly established Government escorts, at moderate expense to proprietors ; while the quantities brought to town and shipped for exportation are reported in the newspapers as well as those of any other of our raw productions. The admirable order which has all along been maintained at our diggings, not by military restraint, but by the good sense and moral rectitude of the great mass of the diggers themselves, is indeed a just cause of pride to the colo- nists, and ought to encourage thousands of our fellow subjects at home to come over and help us."
By these arrivals there is also the important news from Hobart Town, that a gold-field had been discovered in the convict colony of Van Die- men's Land. The spot was at Stanfield's Nook, about six miles from Fingal; and on the 26th of February four hundred persons had already flocked to the place, and begun to gain gold at the rate of above an ounce each man per day.
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