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At a meeting of the Court of Aldermen, held on Wednesday, after the new Sheriffs Messrs. Magnay and Rogers were sworn in, Sir Matthew Wood brought up the report of the Committee to whom had been referred the consideration of Dr. Reid's plan of ventilating the Courts of the Old Bailey. Dr. Reid proposes that a reservoir cham- ber be fitted with apparatus, calculated, by filtration and transmission through lime-water, to purify air enough for the breathing of 2,000 persons per diem ; and that a steam-engine turning a fanner should be used to drive this air through the floors of the several Courts; the rate of supply being controlled by single ingress and exit valves, and a free- dom from currents being secured by using double-windows, and co- vering the floors with porous cloth or perforated zinc plates. The cost is estimated by Dr. Reid at about 1,9251. The Committee's report was favourable to the plan ; and on the motion of Sir Peter Laurie, the re- port itself was unanimously confirmed. At another Court which sat on Thursday, the report was sent back to the Committee, to be carried into effect.

The Devastation, a war-steamer of the first class, was launched at Woolwich on Saturday. Although the intention to launch her was only known in the town that morning, there was a numerous attend-

ance, and the scene was animated. The daughter of Captain Hornby, superintendent of the Dockyard, named the vessel ; and the launch was managed by Mr. Lang, the master-shipwright. The steamer is 180 feet long, and about 1,050 tons burden by the old, or 1,000 by the new mea- surement.

A meeting of Middlesex Magistrates at Clerkenwell Sessions-house, on Thursday, agreed to the motion of Sir George Farrant to produce the evidence taken before the Committee appointed to inquire into the charge against Mr. Charles Henry Moreton Dyer, one of the Bench, of

offering to procure the release of a prisoner for a sum of money. The prisoner is Mr. Medhurst, who is undergoing a sentence for stabbing a fellow-pupil at a school in Hayes ; and the offer was made in March last. Sergeant Adams, who had newly been elected Chairman for the year, read an extract of a letter from the Lord Chancellor, in which he

said that Mr. Dyer had been removed from the Bench solely for "the admitted fact of his having held such communications with a prisoner under sentence, as Mr. Dyer himself admitted to have taken place": any ulterior inference was not justified by the removal. The evidence, however, which Sir George Farrant drew forth, and which has been published in the papers, leaves no inference to be drawn. It consists of statements made before the Committee of Justices, by Mr. Chesterton. the Governor of the Prison, the Reverend E. A. Illingworth the Chap- lain, the Reverend John Williams the Assistant Chaplain, Thomas Fillery an engineer employed in the prison, and Mr. Medhurst himself. It is taken in the form of depositions. We proceed at once to Mr. Medhurst's account; premising that Fillery, whom he mentions as being present at the conversations in the prison workshop, with the person who offered to obtain his release, described Mr. Dyer as the person who held such conversations with Mr. Medhurst, and said that Mr. Dyer

had employed him to make a circular saw, and had more than once ex- pressed a wish that Mr. Medhurst should get out. Mr. Medhurst says- " I don't feel at liberty to give the name of the gentleman who made the proposal to me. It was first made about two months ago. The other party

introduced the matter. The words used were, 'If you wish to obtain your

liberty, the fact is, you must stand some money.' Then followed a more general conversation, such as you had better be out.' The conversation was in the engineer's shop. I don't think Fillery was present. I was horror- struck; and asked if such things were done in England. The party said, em- ployments and places were got by such means, and why should not this be done. About a week, ten days, or a fortnight after the conversation, which I

mentioned to my solicitor, and who thought something further should be done to screen me, 1 saw the party again. Ile renewed the conversation ; and upon my pressing him as to what sum would be wanted, after some difficulty he

said about 3,0001. The party staid from eight to ten minutes with me gene- rally. 'When he mentioned thesum, I gave him no positive answer. 1 told him I must see my solicitor; but he wished to confine me to secrecy altogether." Mr. Medhurst sent his solicitor, however, ostensibly to make arrange- ments for the promised release, but really to obtain a confirmation of what the party had said to Mr. Medhurst ; which he did- " At the third conversation, the name of the Marquis of Normanby was men- tioned; but that Lady Normanby was the person through whom it must be done, or words to that effect. I had at least five or more conversations with the party. Lord Melbourne's name was mentioned." Mr. Chesterton said in his evidence- " When I endeavoured to ascertain of Medhurst who it was, [who had spoken to himd he said, There is one thing I have positively ascertained, that the party who made the proposition to me was authorized to do so by Lord Nor- manhy and Lord Melbourne.' He said also, If there was no r'-ity, there was to be no pay."

The Chairman said that Mr. Dyer had been mentioned as a relation of Lord Normanby—a cousin ; but he had heard that such was not the case.

Mr. Dyer has this morning published a correspondence which he has had with Lcrd Normanby, the Lord Chancellor, and Mr. Edmonds, Mr. Medhurst's solicitor ; comprising the explanation of the matter which he gave to Lord Normanby. He says, that visiting the prison in the execution of his duty, he was interested by Medhurst's contrition ; and that when the latter entreated him to use some means to facilitate his release, he investigated the question with some care. Comparing the present case with that of Bull, who was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for a similar offence, but released at the end of eighteen months, be thought that a like remission of punishment might be ob- tained for Medhurst; especially if he helped to expiate his crime by a large contribution, of two or three thousand pounds, to some national charity. But the name of Lord Normanby or of any one else was never mentioned. This was the letter upon which the Lord Chancellor

grounded Mr. Dyer's removal : be stood acquitted of all corrupt mo- tives, but was considered to have acted with indiscretion, which dis- qualified him for his post. Mr. Edmonds says, that in the interview which he had with Mr. Dyer, nothing passed to affect his honour : he seemed actuated by motives of humanity.

In the Court of Chancery, on Monday, the Lord Chancellor gave judgment in the case of an information complaining of the management of the Free School of Broxbourne, in Hertfordshire. The defendants were Mr. Bosanquet, a trustee of the charity, and Mr. Hill, the school- master. It appeared that Mr. Hill, who is a competent teacher of the higher branches of education, had been in the habit of instructing the sons of wealthier parents, who paid for their education ; and that the number of poor children who attended was never more than fourteen, and had latterly decreased to six. In order to extend the benefits of the charity, Mr. Bosanquet took a more commodious school-room in the parish, and appointed another master, who received the stipend of 201. a year with which the Free School was endowed ; and the result of this arrangement was an increase in the number of poor children edu- cated to between forty and fifty. The relator, an inhabitant of Brox- bourne, denied the right of the trustee to make this alteration, and of Mr. Hill to continue in occupation of the house belonging to the charity. The Lord Chancellor, in pronouncing judgment, commented severely on the charges made by the relator, which he characterized as extravagant and unfounded, and dictated by private feeling, not by a desire to benefit the objects of the charity. Against Mr. Bosanquet the information had already been dismissed ; and against Mr. Hill there was no ground of complaint ; he therefore dismissed the information as against both defendants, with costs to be paid by the relator. His.

Lordship added, that although the Court was always open to just and well-founded complaints of mismanagement, and ready to rectify all proved abuses of charitable trusts, yet relators were not to suppose that informations could be wantonly filed when there were no proper grounds to support them.

In the Court of Bankruptcy, on Thursday, a fiat was issued against Michael William Balfe, the composer ; who was described as of 61 Conduit Street, Bond Street, musicseller, dealer, and chapman. The insolvency is said to have arisen from Mr. Balfe's disastrous theatrical speculation at the English Opera-house within a very recent period.

Catharine Macarthy, an aged Irishwoman, was on Tuesday brought to the Thames Police-office, on a charge of stealing coals from the craft on the river. The poor creature has been known to the Police as a " mud-lark" for upwards of thirty years. The report of a daily paper gives a ludicrous but shocking account of her squalid occupation : the story reminds one of the female Yahoo that seized Captain Gulliver in her embraces-

" Last winter, during the severe front, and while the river was covered with ice and the coal-barges were locked in opposite the wharfs by immense ice- bergs, the old woman was pursuing her business, alternately wading up to her armpits in the mud, and then walking into the river to wash herself. She is the dread of the Thames Police, and has often set them at defiance. On many occasions, after wading the mud-banks, she has embraced the officers like a bear, and, after half smothering them, has left them as muddy as herself. On Monday, she was detected among the coal-barges at the Salisbury Wharf, be- longing to Messrs. Pugh and Judkins in the Strand ; and Grimstone, a Thames Police Inspector, observed her take some large pieces of coal off the barges, daub them with mud, and then deposit them in a bag. She was about to leave the place, laden with as many 'painted' coals as her strength would sustain, when Grimstone stopped her, and said she must come along with him. She immediately threw down her bag of coals and ran back into the mud. A river constable made an attempt to stop her, and she hugged him closely and dragged him into a mud-bank. They rolled over each other, and the old woman ap- peared to consider it as glorious fun ; but it was nearly death to the man, who came out of the mud quite exhausted, and in the most pitiable condition that can well be imagined. Kate Macarthy buried herself in the mud up to her chin ; and Grimstone and two other officers, fearing that they should meet the same fate as their companion, whose clothes were completely spoiled, left her there until the tide rising compelled her to retreat. She then surrendered to the Police, and asked them what they thought of a mud-lark."

She was sentenced to imprisonment and hard labour for six weeks.

Since the liberation of Jones, the boy who intruded into the Palace, he has been frequently seen on Constitution Hill, and in the immediate neighbourhood of Buckingham Palace. The circumstance being commu- nicated to the authorities, orders were given to the Police to watch his movements ; but there was nothing in his manner or behaviour different from those who daily frequent the Parks in hopes of obtaining a sight of royalty. Still he was suspected, (says a report in the Times,) and " he• has been taken in hand by the proper authorities, and placed on board She Diamond emigration-ship, bound to Australia or some other of the English colonies, being apprenticed as a seaman for five years. His father thinks it is only for three years ; that he is going to Port William, and will in a twelvemonth return, when he will receive wages, and be allowed to remain at home with his friends for a short time. He (the boy's father) also thinks that his son left London for Gravesend on Friday last ; but it is stated by others, that although the Diamond sailed from Gravesend on Friday, Jones, accompanied by an officer of the Thames Police, only left London, by railway, on Monday last; and that orders were given to those in whose charge he was not to lose sight of him until he was placed on board the Diamond, in the harbour of Cork."

The Dowager Countess of Scarborough was nearly shot on Tuesday afternoon, while sitting in her back drawing-room in Portman Square. A young gentleman had been amusing himself by shooting birds with bullets the size of peas, from an air-pistol; and one of these passed through the drawing-room window.