Zt Vrniuutts.

The election for the vacant seat in the Southern division of Warwick- shire took place on Saturday ; when Mr. Evelyn P. Shirley, the sole can- didate, was returned.

At a large meeting of the leading Liberals of South Staffordshire, at Wolverhampton, on Monday, it was unanimously resolved that Lord Paget, son of the Earl of Uxbridge, is a fit and proper person to represent the division. It is understood that Lord Paget has accepted the invitation to contest the county ; and that this movement is to be taken as the deliber- ate resolve of the Liberal party in the county. Their object is to break up th. old system of dividing the representation between the Liberal and Conservative electors.

The electors and non-electors of Peterborough have presented testimo- nials to Mr. Whalley, the Into Member. The testimonial of the electors consists of a centre-piece and candelabrum worth 200 guineas ; that of the non-electors of a salver worth 50 guineas. They were publicly presented on Tuesday.

Mr. Newdegate and Mr. Spooner addressed the Rugby and Dunchurch Association at its annual meeting last week. The topics selected by Mr. Newdegate were, Mr. Gladstone's " failure " in converting stock, his gift of 30,0001. a year to the Times, by the altered supplement-tax, and his concession of the tax on successions to gratify the Radical party. Mr. Newdegate also dwelt on the war question, and inculcated the duty of de- -fending the ally who has for years faithfully maintained our overland communication with India, and "the freedom of our commerce to the East." Another topic was free trade, which had been followed by dear provisions and strikes, and would lead to a new diversion—the Reform Bill; upon which Mr. Newdegate put in claims for an adjustment of the representation in favour of the counties, but on the whole he was not anxious for a Reform Bill. Mr. Spooner said his colleague had taken the wind out of his sails as far as related to a speech ; nevertheless, he went on, the report says, "with much fervour and eloquence," expressing at great length his concurrence in the views of his colleague.

Lord Palmerston has complied with a memorial of the inhabitants of Newcastle, praying for an "inquiry into the cause of the late mortality in that town" : "a commission will be appointed to make the inquiry prayed for."

The Report of the Committee of Heads of Houses and Proctors of Ox- ford, appointed to consider the recommendations of the 'loyal Commis- sioners on the subject of University Reform, was issued on Monday, but delivered to the Heads of Houses only. It has since been placed at the disposal of the public at a moderate charge. The publication is volumi- nous, and includes, in addition to the report, some additional evidence -contributed by Dr. Pusey, Reverend 0. Gordon, senior Censor of Christ Church, and other influential members of the University.

A meeting was held in the lodge of the Provost of Eton last week,—the Bishop of Oxford in the chair,—for the purpose of providing means for the enlargement and completion of the Clewer House of Mercy. This is a religious sisterhood established for the purpose of receiving fallen women. The speakers advocated the institution of religious sisterhoods, on princi- ples in strict accordance with those of the Church of England. Nearly 1000/. was subscribed at the meeting : the sum required is 90001.

The vicarage of Crediton in Devon having become vacant by the death of the late Vicar, no fewer than 260 clergymen have sent in applications. The appointment is in the gift of twelve governors, who have reduced the long list to seven names.

A working man's library has been established at Prescot, near Liver- pool, chiefly set on foot by the Derby family ; the Earl of Derby and Lord Stanley giving each 1001. Sir Thomas Birch gave 501. Other sub-

scriptions being obtained, 2000 volumes have been purchased, to be lentat 5s. per annum. Lord Stanley, the Reverend B.. L. Samson, Vicar of Prescot, and others, were present at the official opening of the institution, on Thursday.

The foundation-stone of the Public Rooms and new Corn Exchange at Kidderminster was laid by Lord Ward on Wednesday. Mr. Lowe Member for the borough, Sir Thomas Winnington, and Mr. Westheaa: addressed the assembled company.

The project for establishing waterworks at Bury St. Edmund's has been revived during the past week ; and on Thursday a public meeting was held in the town to consider the subject.

The Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, and Huntingdonshire Magistrate; have determined on building a new Lunatic Asylum for the use of all three counties, at the aggregate cost of 69,0001.

The Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway was opened to the public on Monday.

When the Preston operatives held their usual Saturday gathering, Cowell, their chief orator, exhorted them not to go to work on Monday at the terms offered by the masters. The meeting passed a resolution anant. mously to continue the demand for an "unconditional ten per cent" ad- vance. To rebut an imputation against the delegates, of selfishly profit- ing at the expense of the suffering turn-outs, Cowell stateduthat the fifteen delegates received only 21. a week each out of the common fund. But he remarked that this covered b.1.1 travelling expenses.

The proposed resumption of work on Monday was unsuccessful : very few persons applied to be received at the mills. • Some women who went to one factory were hooted by. a mob of females. The short-time movement in other parts seems to have made the work- ers there increase their subscriptions for the Preston hands. For the weavers 22001. was received last week.

The Burnley mills having been reopened with success for four days in the week, the Bacup manufacturers opened theirs on Monday, likewise at old prices, but only for three days in the week. At first the workmen did not return freely, but in the afternoon more offered themselves, and it is expected that labour generally will be resumed. At Bury, the operatives do not seem disposed to go in, as they are supported by the many artisans in that town engaged in other employments.

The overlookers of Wigan having applied to the masters to reopen their mills, the spinners and manufacturers met on Monday, and resolved to give the workpeople an opportunity of returning to their labour, by allowing the overlookers to receive applications for work.

The workmen at the Ebbw Vale works of the British Iron Company have turned out, because an advance of 10 per cent made to the colliers and miners was not extended to the mechanics and labourers. The Com- pany were determined to concede nothing.

"The miners under the employ" of Messrs. Swire and Lees, Dukin- field—or rather a great part of them—sent a letter to their employers asking them to make some of their fellow-miners contribute to the sup- port of the Colliers Union and hinting at a strike if this were not done. Messrs. Swire and Lees declined to do an act "unjust and illegal " ; and cited remarks by the late Lord Chief Justice Tindal on the right of the working man to do what be pleases with his earnings, untrammelled by the dictation of his fellows.

Messrs. Du Fay and Co., of Manchester, in their trade report estimate that in the districts where short-time is in operation, or the hands are out, therein a reduction of 357,000 pieces of 37i yards in the ordinary weekly production of cotton goods : this and the decrease in the export of yarns will cause a diminution in the consumption of cotton of 10,000 bags weekly.

The deposits in the Leeds Savings-Bank during the present year show an increase of 19,1351.; the number of depositors has increased by 725.

Six seamen of the Russian frigate Aurora, recently at Portsmouth, desert- ed. It is said they were seduced by Polish refugees, but there is no proof of anything of the kind. They had reached Guildford, when a Russian officer and a policeman overtook them, conveyed them back to Portsmouth, and placed them on board the Victorious hulk. The hulk hail been assigned to the Russian crew while the Aurora was under repair; and in it the Russian captain caused the deserters to be flogged. Hearing the story, some persons in London obtained a writ of habeas corpus from Mr. Justice Wightman ; and it was served first upon Admiral Martin, who referred the servers to the Admiralty, on the advice of the Judge-Advocate-General and Sir Thomas Cochrane. They also stated that the deserters had been transferred to the Aurora ; so that there were no Russian deserters on board any ship or vessel under the command of the Port Admiral. Whereupon the writ was tendered to the Russian captain ; but he refused it, saying, that if it were really a writ from the Queen, it would no doubt come through the Russian Ambassa- dor. The document was then thrust in at a port-hole, and thrust out again by a lieutenant. On Tuesday a writ was issued by the Lord Chief Justice, ordering the production of the six men and the Russian captain himself: but it was too late—the Aurora had sailed a few hours before.

At the Liverpool Assizes, Robert Snape, a young man, was convicted of "feloniously stabbing, cutting, and wounding" Mr. James Crompton, of Pendleton. Snape was one of the band of riotous turn-out dyers who com- mitted such gross outrages at Mr. Crompton's works. He was sentenced to four years' penal servitude.

Mr. Nattrass, the master-of the Matanzas, who fired at a seaman on board his ship at Bahia, because the man refused to work the vessel short-handed, was convicted of shooting with intent to do grievous bodily harm. Sentence, eighteen months' imprisonment.

Thomas Copeland, the young man who stabbed Policeman Sunderland during a riot connected with the Liverpool municipal election, was tried for murder, but was convicted of " manslaughter" only. He was sentenced to be transported for life.

A young man and three boys, who were found guilty of takiug part in the Wigan riots, were sentenced to imprisonment, tie man for twelve months, the boys for three months. Hetty Churchman, of Fonlmire, Cambridgeshire, and her two daughters Mary and Esther, have been committed for trial on the charge of conspiring to murder the illegitimate child of one of the younger women. While the Earl of Stamford was walking in the neighbourhood of his seat, Enville Hall, near Stourbridge, one evening, he came upon three poachers ; they ran ; he overtook and seized one ; but another of them struck him a blow on the back of the head, which felled him to the ground. The Earl

lire. Amelia Opie, widow of the late Mr. Opie, R.A., and author of several works of fiction much admired for their truthful simplicity, died last week, at her residence in Norwich, at the advanced age of eighty-eight. She had been an exemplary member of the Society of Friends for the last twenty-five Tars and was much respected by a very large circle. She was a daughter of the late Dr. Alderson of Norwich, and a sister of Mr. Baron Alderson.

An accident happened to the Bishop of Natal and the Bishop of Graham's Town on their way to visit the Bishop of Oxford at Cuddesden .Palace. Their

carriage upset near Wheatley, and they had to be taken out of the window. Bet they were not hurt; and the Bishop of Oxford's carriage coming up, they reached Cuddesden in safety.

Mr. Hind, one of a mercantile firm and two poor boys, brothers, have been ;

I lied in South John Street, Liverpool, by the fall of a wall of a yard into the street. The owners, Messrs. Hemming and Co., iron-house builders,

had piled &quantity of corrugated iron against the wall, which was unable to sustain the weight, and it fell outwards into a thoroughfare usually thronged with passengers.

Mr. John Board, a farmer of South Brent, has been drowned, at night, near the station at Highbridge, on the Bristol and Exeter Railway. He had got out of a carriage on to the parapet of a bridge over a river, ap- parently mistaking it for the platform; a porter called out to warn him, but at that instant Mr. Board fell into the stream, and before he could be gokout he was dead.

Mr. Wharam, a farmer of Sandal], near Doncaster, has been drowned in the Don, into which he fell at night during a fog.

Phcebe Sadler, her son and daughter, and a male lodger, have been found dead in a cottage at Elseear, near Rotherham, suffocated by fumes of cyanide of potassium, which had entered through fissures in the wall, front an old smelting-furnace against which the house abutted. A small portion of the vapour is fatal to life.

obsequently managed to reach a cottage, and sent for his carriage to convey

him home.

A gentleman has been "garotted" and robbed in Manchester. An at- tempt was made to rob Mr. Lees, cotton-spinner, in the same way- but he shook the garotter off, and broke his head by vigorous blows with his walk- ing-stick. Some of the robber's companions came up ; Mr. Lees said he would serve them the same ; and they did not venture to approach too near. The man who first attacked sprang upon him twice again, and each time the walking-stack repelled him.

An inquest was held at Berkhampstead on Saturday, on William Blayney, the guard who was killed by the collision on the North-Western Railway. The particulars of the collision as narrated by the witnesses did not differ from those noted last week. The engine appears to have been not in a very high state of efficiency. The axle had been noticed to get " warm " by the driver ; he reported it ; a weak spring was taken out and a new one put in. The engine "ran a little on one side" ; but nearly all locomotives do so, from running over curves. The engineers at Camden Town deposed that the machine was in a perfectly safe condition when it went out. The driver and stoker thought that the axle had broken from having got dogged with dirt. Mr. M'Connell, the locomotive superintendent, and other witnesses, from an examination of the axle after the accident, came to the conclusion that the oil-holes had been stopped with grit: when this occurs, the axle gets hot and the metal even melts from want of lubrication, and the axle gives way. In this case the broken axle had evidently been in almost a state of fusion ; in- deed the metal had melted into the oil-holes. John Page, the farm-labourer who warned the up-train in time to prevent worse consequences than ensued, was complimented by the Coroner ; and Mr. EPConnell said the Company were fully sensible of his services. The Jury gave a verdict of "Accidental death" ; but the Foreman added, "We consider that the Company is not free from blame in sending out engine with a fast-train when any doubt of its efficiency existed."

Several ships bound from Liverpool to America have been compelled to put back having encountered very load weather. Among them was the New York packet E. Z., which had met with a dreadful misfortune: a huge wave washed away the deck-house and galley, with thirteen passengers, nine of the crew, and a young man who had hidden himself in the ship ; and of these only four of the seamen were saved.

171There can no longer be any doubt of the loss of the Hull and Hamburg steamer Marshall' she has not arrived at any port, and no one of her crew

or passengers has been heard of. It is supposed that 150 persons perished. The master of the Woodbridge has made a declaration on oath describing the collisions he had with a steamer. The steamer ran into him, on the atarboard side, in spite of warning shouts; he hailed her to keep by him, as he feared his vessel would sink; she consented, but presently ran again into the •Wocalbridge ; in a few minutes she disappeared. The Woodbridge was got into the Humber, though there were great apprehensions that she would founder from the damage she had suffered. Fishermen report that they have seen the masts of a vessel in the sea near the spot where the collision oceurred.

Two men, Culyer an engineer and Hall a labourer, have been killed at Chatham by an explosion of gas. At new gas-works erected to supply Gil- lingham, a gasometer was filled for the first time ; in testing the condition

ef the gasometer, the two men, who were on the top of it, applied a light to an orifice; the gas took fire, with a tremendous explosion, which rent the gasometer ; and Culyer and Hall fell into the water beneath. When taken out they were dead. The Coroner's Jury, who pronounced the deaths to be "accidental," were unable to say whether the victims died by suffocation by gas or from drowning in the tank.