THE extraordinary abilities of Kossuth as an orator, his attractive personal qualities, and the grandeur of his propositions, continue to occupy the generous regard of the people of the United States, but the impression which obtained at one time that the national government would in any manner or degree enter into his plans for confining a future contest for the liberty of Hungary exclusively to the two parties most immediately interested, appears to have been very generally given up. This country will continue to encourage and aid oppressed peoples by showing how wisely and efficiently its servants can attend to her own affairs. At the same time it is not to be doubted that citizens in their private capacity may and will do much for the illustrious exile who pleads among us for the means of opposing the oppressors of his nation. Kossuth has been entertained at public banquets since he left New-York by the authorities of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Annapolis, and Harrisburg; he has been received by the President of the United States, the two houses of Congress, and the legislatures of Maryland and Pennsylvania; and on the 7th of January he dined with the representatives, senators, and other persons connected with the goverument, at Washington, and Daniel Webster, Lewis Cass, William H. Seward, and Stephen A. Douglass made speeches on the occasion expres sive of their personal respect and sympathy, and their anxiety as individuals to see Hungary independent. Mr. Cass indeed went so far as entirely to endorse the doctrine of Kossuth respecting intervention to insure non-intervention. Kossuth is now in the state of Ohio, and he probably will remain in this country long enough—since the French revolution has at least deferred any great and united movement of the European democracy-to visit all the principal cities of the valley of the Mississippi.

But little important business has yet been accomplished in Congress, though numerous bills have been introduced, as is usual in the early weeks of the session. On the morning of the 24th of December, a portion of the capitol, occupied by the national library, was destroyed by fire, with nearly sixty thousand printed volumes, and many MSS., maps, medals, portraits, sculptures, and other works of art.

The legislatures of several of the states are now in session. Those of Ohio, Michigan, Mississippi, Wisconsin and California, met on the 5th of January; those of New-York, Pennsylvania and Delaware, on the 6th; those of Maryland and Massachusetts, on the 7th; that of Indiana, on the 8th; those of Virginia and Illinois, on the 12th; that of New Jersey, on the 13th; that of Maine, on the 14th, and that of Louisiana, on the 19th. No great national questions have been prominently before the state legislatures, except that of our foreign relations, with special reference to Hungary, upon which the assemblies in the several states appear to be less conservative than Congress. The most important subject of local administration, is that of the suppression of the sales of intoxicating liquors. The law of Maine, enacted last year, will probably be sustained in

that state; in Massachusetts a petition with more than one hundred thousand signatures, has been offered in the legislature for such a law, and similar efforts are being made in New-York and other States.

In Mexico there is a continuance of the imbecility of the government and the agitations of factions. Rumors, constantly varying, in regard to the conduct and prospects of Caravajal, leave us in doubt whether any thing of real importance will grow out of his attempts at revolution in the northern provinces. The administration appears to have acted with decision, but probably with impotence so far as the final result is concerned, in regard to the Tehuantepec railroad contract.

South America presents the usual series of disturbances, with some facts which indicate a prospect of repose; but all such prospects in the Spanish states of this continent are apt to be de ceptive. The birthday of Bolivar was celebrated at Caracas on the 28th of October with great public festivities. Treaties between Brazil and Uruguay were formed for alliance, military aid, commerce and navigation, and the mutual surrender of criminals, on the 12th of October. We learn from Buenos Ayres that, through November, Rosas was making great preparations to meet Urquiza. He had established a corps of observation in the direction of Entre Rios to look out for an invasion. A considerable emigration was taking place from Buenos Ayres to Montevideo, mostly of previous residents of the latter city.

In Great Britain the most important recent event is the retirement of Lord Palmerston from the cabinet, in which he held the place of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. This occurred on the 22d of December. The causes of Lord Palmerston's retirement are a subject of much unsatisfactory speculation, and the fact is gener ally regretted by the friends of political liberty in Europe. His successor is Lord Granville, a nobleman of manly and liberal character, heretofore connected with the government. It is appre hended that the popular feeling may induce the recall of Lord Palmerston to be the head of a new ministry. Great Britain has now no envoy resident in the United States, but it is not improbable that Sir Henry Bulwer will return to this country for the final settlement of affairs connected with Central America. It is understood officially that the attack of a British man-of-war on the United States steamer Prometheus, at Greytown, was entirely unauthorized.

The Admiralty have determined not to send another expedition in search of Sir John Franklin, by way of Behring's Straits. The Plover is to be communicated with each year by a man-of-warthe Amphitrite is the next. The proposed overland expedition of Lieut. Pym has been abandoned.

The English war at the Cape of Good Hope continues with little change, though a few important successes by the English are reported. The war appears to be condemned by a large and respectable portion of the journals and the people at home. In its character and details it continues to resemble our own contest with the Indians in Florida.

respective districts for the 14th of the month to accept or reject the following plébiscite: "The French people wills the maintenance of the authority of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, and delegates to him the powers necessary to frame a Constitution on the bases proposed in his proclamation of the 2d December." On that day the voting consequently commenced by universal suffrage; and the President has been re-elected for ten years by a majority greatly exceeding that of his contest with Cavaignac. In Paris, of 394,049 registered voters 197,091 have voted in the affirmative; 95.511, in the negative; and 96,819 abstained from voting. The majority for Louis Napoleon being 191,500. In the provinces he has had a majority of eight to one. The inauguration of the usurper took place in the church of Notre Dame on the 3d of January, and the new order of things has been recognized by all the courts of Europe.

On the 25th of November a French squadron appeared before Salee, to claim satisfaction for an act of piracy committed by the inhabitants of that town. The Caid asked for six days to take the orders of the Emperor of Morocco; and the Caid of Rabat sent a similar evasive reply. The next day the French bombarded the place for seven hours, the fire being returned by both forts of Rabat and Salee. The Admiral, however, confined his chastisement to the latter, which he thoroughly performed, and fired the town in several places. The French fleet arrived at Tangier on the morning of the 29th, when the Consul-General for Morocco and several officers of the squadron landed, and had an interview with the Bashaw of the province, which ended in a satisfactory arrangement, to the great relief of the people of Tangier, who were in consternation at the prospect of sharing the fate of their neighbors.

From Austria we learn the partial amelioration in private business of the financial difficulties. The Emperor published, on the 1st of January, decrees, that whereas the provisions of the constitution were cancelled by the imperial edict of August 20, 1851, the last principles of political right conceded by the constitution are now disavowed. There now exists no political right in the empire. The Austrian government continues to watch with the keenest anxiety the proceedings of the exiled Italians and Hungarians, and by very stringent arrangements in regard to the press, and the interdiction of most foreign journals, keeps the "dangerous classes" in ignorance of the sympathy with which they are regarded from abroad. The Queen of Spain, by a spontaneous act of her royal clemency, granted a pardon to all such

prisoners, made in the last expedition against the Isle of Cuba, as are citizens of the United States, whether they be already in Spain, undergoing the punishments they have incurred, or whether they be still in Cuba. The queen on the 20th of December gave birth to a princess, who is heir to the throne. From China there are reports that the Emperor has been compelled to resign in favor of the revolutionary general, whose triumphant march through many revolted provinces has, from time to time, been noticed in the last half year. The statement, however, does not appear to be credited by some of the best informed London journals.

The Queen of Madagascar is bent on exterminating Christianity in her dominions, and has long mercilessly persecuted those who prefer the "new religion." In the last outburst of this protracted persecution, four persons were burnt alive; fourteen precipitated from a high rock and crushed to death; a hundred and seventeen persons condemned to work in chains as long as they live; twenty persons cruelly flogged with rods, besides 1,748 other persons mulcted in heavy penalties, reduced into slavery, and compelled to buy themselves back, or deprived of their wives and families. Persons of rank have been degraded, and sent as forced laborers to carry stone for twelve months together to build houses; and, in an endless variety of other ways have the maddened passions of one wicked woman been permitted now for years past to plunge a great country in ruin.

There has been a serious Mussulman riot at Bombay, occasioned by the Parsee editor of an illustrated newspaper, in each number of which is given a life and portrait of some remarkable historical character, having published-in the series (next to one of Benjamin Franklin)—a life and portrait of Mahomet. Both are said to have been unexceptionable, according to European ideas, but the whole Mussulllan population (145,000 in num ber), considered their faith insulted and outraged by the publication, holding it sacrilege and idolatry to imagine and print any likeness whatever of so sacred a personage.

The Wahabees, who inhabit the interior and highland portion of Arabia, have pillaged the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, destroying the mosques, sacking the cities, and carrying off numbers of women and children into the desert. It is supposed to be in revenge for the punishment inflicted on them thirty years ago, when they had conquered the same cities.

The Turkish government has introduced the culture of cotton in the vicinity of Damascus, with seed procured from the United States. It is successful.

made much finer in appearance; and if the finest calico made in England-known as one hundred and eighty picks to the web-be thus acted on, it immediately appears as fine as two hundred and sixty picks. Stockings of open weaving assume a much finer texture by the condensation process; but the effect of the alteration is most strikingly

shown by colors: the tint of pink cotton velvet becomes deepened to an intense degree; and printed calicoes, especially with colors hitherto applied with little satisfaction-such as lilac-come out with strength and brilliancy, besides producing fabrics finer than could be possibly woven by hand. The strength, too, is increased by this process; for a string of calico which breaks with a weight of thirteen ounces when not soaked, will bear twenty ounces when half condensed by the caustic soda.

Ar a recent meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences, M. YVART read an important practical Memoir on the production of Wool, in the Merino race. He teaches that the only means of obtaining fine wool-taking into account the weight of the sheep's body,-is the employment of races of small size. When the skin is very delicate, it secretes less of wool than when it is otherwise ;the fineness of the wool is proportioned to that of the skin. Those countries in which the winter is long or cold, or where the sheep remains in the fold the greater part of the year, and does not lie on ploughed lands, are especially suited to the production of the finest and most elastic wools, those chiefly sought after for manufacture of cloth.

EXPERIMENTS on the application of electro-magnetism as a motive power, have been made with some striking results in Paris, as well as in this country. M. Dumont, in a paper on the subject submitted to the Female Academy, states, "that if in the production of great power the electro-magnetic force is inferior to that of steam, it becomes equal to it, and perhaps superior in the production of small power, which may be subdivided, varied, and introduced into employments or trades requiring but little capital, and where the absolute value of the mechanical power is less essential than the facility of producing instantaneously and at pleasure the power itself." In this point of view electro-magnetic power comes to complete, not to supersede, that of steam.

In the papers of the celebrated Lalande, recently presented to the Paris Academy of Sciences, by M. Arago, there is a note to the effect that so far back as the 25th of October, 1800, he and Burckhardt were of opinion, from calculations, that there must be a planet beyond Uranus, and they occupied themselves for some time in trying to discover its precise position. This is a very curious fact for astronomers.

JOEL R. POINSETT, LL.D., long distinguished in, society and in affairs, died at his residence in Statesburg, South Carolina, on the 12th of December. The first American ancestor of Mr. Poinsett came to this country from Soubisi, near Rochelle, in France, soon after the revocation of the edict of Nantz. His father was a physician, and served in the Revolution under Count Pulaski. He himself was born at Charleston on the second of March, 1779, and, after having passed some time at the school of the Rev. Timothy Dwight (afterward President of Yale College), at Greenfield, Connecticut, he was sent, at the close of the Revolution, to England, to complete his studies, and for the advantages of foreign travel. Returning in 1800, when he was twenty-one years of age, he commenced the study of law in the office of Mr. Desaussure, afterwards Chancellor of South Carolina. Before his admission to the bar, he again embarked for Europe, extending his travels to Switzerland, Bavaria, Austria, and the northern countries of the continent. At St. Petersburg he became acquainted with the Emperor Alexander, soon after his accession, and was received by him with marked partiality, and often questioned respecting the peculiar institutions of this country. On one occasion, after he had been expatiating at large on the advantages of America, the Czar exclaimed, "Were I not an emperor, I would be a republican." Declining the offer of a place in the service of the Emperor, he commenced a tour into the East, travelling through Persia and Armenia, and, returning to Europe, resided for some time in its principal capitals. On the breaking out of difficulties between the United States and Great Britain, in 1808, he returned to his own country, and applied to Mr. Madison for a commission in the army. Owing to some objections by the Secretary of War, he did not obtain the commission, but was sent by the President to South

America, to ascertain the result of the revolutions which had recently occurred in that quarter. While in Chili, he heard of the declaration of war between England and America. Embarking in the frigate Essex, to return to this country, with a view to enter the army, he was made a prisoner on the surrender of that vessel to the British by Commodore Porter. The British Commander refused to allow his return home with the rest of the prisoners, regarding him as a dangerous enemy of England, and he therefore determined to cross the continent to the Atlantic. He passed the Andes in the month of April, when they were covered with snow, and, after great difficulties, reached Buenos Ayres. He succeeded, in a Portuguese vessel, in reaching Madeira, where, on his arrival, he learned that a treaty of peace had been concluded. Soon after he reached South Carolina, he was elected to the Legislature of that State, in which he devoted himself chiefly to the establishment of a system of internal improvements. In 1821 he was elected to Congress, from the Charleston District, and was twice re-elected to that body. In 1822, he was sent to Mexico, by President Monroe, to obtain information with regard to the government under Iturbide. He performed this mission with signal success. Foreseeing the speedy downfall of the imperial administration, he gave his advice against all connection with it, on the part of this country. He had scarcely returned home, when Iturbide abdicated the throne. Soon after the election of Mr. Adams, which he had strongly opposed, Mr. Poinsett was again appointed Minister to Mexico, where he remained until the summer of 1829. His important services in this period are amply detailed in a memoir of his political life, in the first volume of the Democratic Review, and were warmly approved in the first annual message of President Jackson. On returning to the United States, he devoted himself to the pursuits of pri