IMPERIAL GAZETTE OF THE 5TH OF OCTOBER, 1841: CHANCERY DECREES AND THE PULSE OF THE DANUBE

VIENNA, the 5th of October, 1841. — The Imperial Court and Danube Commercial Gazettes have this day issued their accustomed columns, and we, from the Crypt Scriptorium of the Transylvania Gazette, do transcribe for our readers the weightier matters therein contained. From the Imperial Chancery, a decree touching the registry of hereditary estates in the Crownlands, commanding all notaries to render their folios in the German tongue by the Feast of St. Martin, lest the same be held as null. A second ordinance regulates the tolls upon the Danube packet-boats, fixing the impost at two kreutzers per hundredweight of salt, and one kreutzer for every measure of grain, from Passau unto the Iron Gates.

The river movements, as recorded by the Commercial Gazette, tell of the packet Austria, Captain Müller commanding, which quitted Vienna on the third instant with forty-two passengers and a cargo of Moravian cloth, and was sighted off Pressburg at vespers. The steamer Zrinyi, laden with copper from the Upper Hungarian mines, did report contrary winds at Komorn, but no damage. Likewise, the barge fleet of the Greek merchants, bearing dried fruits and hides from the Ottoman ports, hath passed Semlin without molestation, though the quarantine officers at Orsova detained three hands for inspection.

Commercial tariffs from the Crownlands are these: woollen stuffs of Brünn and Iglau, a duty of five per cent ad valorem; Bohemian glass and ironware, three per cent; and the wines of the Banat, one florin per cask of ten measures. The Chancery further commands that all bills of lading be sworn before the harbour-masters, a measure long urged by the Danubian Steamship Company and now ratified by imperial hand.

Let our readers in the borderlands take note, for these decrees shall govern the autumn fairs and the winter contracts. The original parchments lie in the Chancery archives, and we shall continue to extract their essence, that no merchant be ensnared by ignorance of the law. — IGNATIUS VANCE, Chief Archivist.