Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. VII, December 1850, Vol. II

M. Freiberg, the director of the opera at Berlin, has brought an action against Madame Fiorentina, for a breach of engagement, and against Lumley, of London, for engaging her; he has laid his damages at eighty thousand francs.

The Pope has performed a popular act of clemency, by pardoning, only an hour before the execution was to have taken place, the three individuals convicted of complicity in the attempt to assassinate Col. Nardonic, Chief of the Roman Police, on the 19th of June last. The attempt having failed, Pius IX. commuted the pain of death to that of the hulks for life, without hope of further remission. It was a political crime, the death of the odious re-actionist having been decreed in a secret democratic society.

The commission appointed in Rome to ascertain and estimate the damage done to the monuments of Rome, buildings, and ruins, during the siege of the last year, have concluded their report, and fixed upon the sums of 508,800 francs, as the total, estimated in money, of the damage done by the besieging French forces, and 1,565,275 francs, of that inflicted by the Romans themselves.

The rise of the Nile this year has been unsatisfactory. The river has already begun to fall, and it is feared that a vast extent of land will not have been sufficiently watered, and that next year's crops will be short.

A project has been started to erect a monument to Columbus, at Palos de Maguer, opposite the Convent of St. Ann, whence the great discoverer set sail on his first voyage. The design proposed is a colossal statue, twenty feet high, surrounded by groups of figures, forming a base of forty feet in circumference. The lowest estimate of the expense is $100,000.

ITEMS OF GENERAL NEWS

A rather extraordinary contest has arisen between the manufacturers of embroidered articles at Nancy and the wholesale merchants in Paris. The former demand a complete prohibition of the imports of the articles which they manufacture. The merchants, on the other hand, defend the principle of the freedom of commerce, and demand that the embroidered muslins of Switzerland be admitted into France. M. Dumas, the Minister of Commerce, has pronounced in favor of the manufacturers of Nancy.

During the last two years and a half, the houses of 1951 families have been leveled in Kilrush, Ireland, and 408 other families have been unhoused.

The tide of emigration is continued as vigorously as ever. From Kerry considerable numbers were proceeding to Cork and Limerick, to embark for the United States.

Preparations, it is said, are in active progress for the reorganization of the Dublin Trades Union – a body which, some years since, possessed considerable influence in the conduct of political affairs in the metropolis.

A society has been formed in London for the reform of abuses in the Court of Chancery.

It is proposed to erect a monument in Edinburgh to Wallace, the Scottish hero.

More than 2000 members of the Methodist Society have been expelled at Bristol, because they are in favor of a reform in the polity of their Society.

A sailors' home on a large scale is about to be established at Plymouth.

A great chess match, to be played by amateurs of all nations during the Exhibition of 1851, is being arranged for.

Five new whalers are to be added to the whaling fleet of Peterhead next season.

Large purchases of wine continue to be made in the Douro, at high prices.

Upwards of five hundred members have already joined the Liverpool Freehold Land Society.

A mummy brought from Thebes by Sir J.E. Tennent was unrolled in the Museum at Belfast.

Numerous bales of moss have lately been imported into London from Cork.

Meyerbeer is at present at Paris, and has attended several public as well as private concerts.

The library left by Dr. Neander is to be sold by auction. There are about 4000 volumes; among them some of the best editions of the old church Fathers, presented by the theological students to Neander on his birth-day. An attempt is making to purchase the library for the use of the theological students at the University. The total sum demanded is not more than $4000.

An immense layer of sulphur has been discovered near Alexandria. It can be obtained in large quantities so cheaply, that it is expected the price of the article will be reduced in Europe.

The English population of Madrid increases in a remarkable degree. The Aranjuez railroad, the gas works, the mines of Guadalajara, and various other industrial enterprises, afford employment to many of them.

A verdict of manslaughter has been returned by the coroner's jury against Captain Rowles, of the bark New Liverpool, lately arrived at Southampton, in which some Lascar seamen had died from neglect.

The Madrid aeronaut, when preparing last week for his aerial voyage over Europe, to convince the world that a balloon can be guided in any direction, found a large rent in the silk. The voyage has, therefore, been delayed for some weeks.

A steam company is on the eve of being formed at Constantinople for towing vessels through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. The capital is to be £150,000, in fifteen hundred shares of £100 each. The Sultan and most of the ministers are on the list.

A Transylvanian nobleman, writing to a friend in England, speaks of the pleasure with which he read of the reception of Haynau in England. He states that General Count Leiningen, an hour before his execution, said, "You will see our infamous murder will excite the greatest sensation in England, and I recommend Haynau not to venture on a visit to England, for the people will stone him."

The landed interest of the late Sir Robert Peel was not much under £35,000 a year.

A private in the 56th regiment of the line was sentenced to death by court-martial in Paris for having struck a corporal.

The circulation of all the Paris newspapers has greatly diminished, under the operation of recent laws.

About one hundred Mormons passed through Liverpool lately, on their way to the Salt Lake Valley, North America.

It is stated that about £70,000 was paid by the Government of Spain for the steamships Hibernia and Caledonia.

Louis Napoleon has purchased fifty head of fallow deer, of Mr. Fuller, of England, with which to stock the park of St. Cloud.

Leipsig fair, which has just terminated, proved very satisfactory. Worsted and cotton goods of English manufacture were in good demand.

A revolt has broken out in Morocco, in consequence of a decree by the emperor, ordering the skins of all slaughtered animals to be considered as his exclusive property.

An iron lighthouse of vast dimensions is about to be erected on the Fastnett, a solitary rock several miles out in the Atlantic, off the coast of Cork and Kerry.

In London, under the patronage of the Lady Mayoress, a large carpet is in progress of preparation for the Exhibition. It is to be thirty feet in length, twenty in width, and to consist of one hundred and fifty squares.

It is stated upon good authority, that in the articles of rice and tobacco alone, a mercantile firm in Liverpool will this year realize £300,000, supposed to be the largest sum ever made by any mercantile house in Europe in one year.

The foreign merchants and shippers of London have agreed to establish a "club for all nations," to meet the requirements of the strangers, merchants and others, who will be in town during the Exhibition of 1851. The club will be provided, in addition to the usual accommodations, with interpreters acquainted with all the languages of the East and of Europe, guides and commissioners, and departments for information. A committee of gentlemen, merchants of London, has been elected to carry out the undertaking.

About two years ago, the scientific world was surprised by the announcement that Drs. Krapf and Rebman, who had been zealously employed in connection with the Missionary Society in Eastern and Central Africa, had discovered a mountain or mountains within one degree of the Equator, and about two hundred miles distant from the sea, which were covered with perpetual snow, and which there was every reason to suppose were no other than Ptolemy's "Mountains of the Moon." It now appears that there is no doubt of the fact.

A curious exhibition is in course of preparation for the World's Fair, by Mr. Wyld, M.P., the eminent map-engraver. He is constructing a huge globe, of fifty-six feet in diameter, which will be provided with a convenient mode of ingress and egress; the different countries of the world will be represented upon the inner, and not upon the outer surface, and the interior will be fitted up with galleries and staircases, so as to enable the visitor to make a tour of the world, and visit each of the countries whose industry or productions will be displayed in the Great Exhibition.

The wife of Mr. Maclean, late M.P. for Oxford, has been killed, by being thrown from her carriage at Castellamare, near Naples.

In many of the provincial towns a strong feeling prevails in favor of making the Peel monument assume the shape of useful institutions, such as libraries.

A new monthly magazine, adapted to meet the wants of the advanced section of the Nonconformists, has been announced.

The inmates of St. Luke's Hospital were treated to the entertainments of music and dancing at a lunatics' ball. The success of the experiment will lead to its repetition.

A new dock, called the Victoria Tidal Harbor, has been opened at Greenock.

Highway robbery is becoming very prevalent in the neighborhood of Liverpool.

A movement is in progress for the erection of a monument at Newcastle to the late George Stephenson, "the father of railways."

The great water-works for the supply of Manchester are rapidly approaching completion.