_Miscellaneous.

A Cabinet Council sat for three hours at the Foreign Office on Wednes- day.

A report is in circulation of an intention on the part of the Govern- ment to propose the reduction of the Army upon the meeting of Parlia- ment; and various plans for the furtherance thereof have been stated. We may add, that nothing decisive is known upon the subject, but that we con- sider it as far from being improbable.—.horning Chronicle.

The Commander-in-chief has issued a letter and enclosure from the Co- lonial Office, communicating terms and conditions, fixed by the Colonial Secretary, upon which military settlers may obtain land in the British Colonies. " The colonies in which military and naval officers are allowed privileges in the acquisition of public lands, are the Australian settlements, the Northern Province of New Zealand, Ceylon, and the Cape of Good Hope. Officers purchasing land are allowed a remission of the purchase- money, according to a scale ranging from 6001. to field-officers of twenty- five years' service and upwards, to 2001. to subalterns of seven years' ser- vice and upwards." " Subalterns, under seven years' standing, are not en- titled to any remission in the purchase of land. Regimental steel'-officers, and medical officers of the Army and Navy, are allowed the benefit of this rule."

The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company has submitted to the Lords of the Admiralty a plan for accelerating and improving the communication between Great Britain and her Western dependencies, as well as with the foreign Antilles, and with the Spanish main and Pacific. The chief fea- tures of the plan are, the avoidance of the dangerous Bermuda route, and the establishment at St. Thomas's of a head-quarters fur coasting and for the transfer of mails, passengers, cargo, &c., to and from the various branch steamers diverging from the main line between England and the Isthmus of Panama. New steamers, of burden between 2,000 and 3,000 tons, and of proportionate powers, are to be constructed for this main (or trunk) line. It is expected that the plan will be sanctioned by the Admiralty.

The Government have ordered the Enterprise and Investigator to be refitted with the utmost despatch, in order to another expedition in search of Sir John Franklin, by way of Bebring's Straits.

Sir Christopher Rawlinson is appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Madras, in the room of Sir James E. Gambier; who retires, after a very long service on the bench in India. William Jeffcott, Esq., succeeds Sir Christopher Rawlinson as Recorder of Palo Penang, and Chief Judge in the High Court of Criminal Judicature for that island and Singapore.

On Monday, the Royal Academy distributed their annual prizes, and elected officers for the ensuing year.

President—Sir Martin Archer Shee.

Council—Richard Westmacott junior, Daniel Maolise, William Frederick Withering- ton, and Solomon Alexander Hart, Esqrs.

Visitors in the Life Academy—Abraham Cooper, John Rogers Herbert, Patrick MAO- dowell, William Frederick Witherington, and Richard Westmacott junior, Esqrs. Visiters in the School of Painting—William Muiready, Charles Lock Eastlake, our' Jones, and Thomas Webster, Esqrs. kap Auditors (reelected)—William Muiready, Esq., Sir Richard Westmacott, arid

• Hardwick, Esq.

In consequence of the decease of the Queen Dowager. the theat Per- formances at Windsor Castle are postponed.

le, Hamp-

shire. Earl of Carnarvon died on Monday, ro.

one 1800, was shire. His disease was supposed to be an ar Henry John George Herbert, third Earl, ' `rvon, and of Elizabeth

the eldest son of Henry George, sect' ..rion in Devonshire. At an early Catherine, daughter of Colonel Adam' feat to Eton; where he was the

age, Lord Camarvon, then Lord Por Pell. The university portion of his contemporary of Lord Morpeth and education he received at Christchur /d. In 1820 he proceeded upon his travels; of 1821; visited Germany, Greece, avels; was in Italy the r Morocco, and Spain; in which le. was for some time a prisoner, having Don Caries. His career in the House of Com- kable for a speech which won the eulogy of Sir Bill. In 1833, by the death of his father he House; where, however, he seldom took a promi- and conscientious Tory. His Lordship was mar- s, eldest daughter of Lord H. Molyneux Howard, rfolk. Of this marriage there has been numerous in the nineteenth year of his age, succeeds his

• arvon. eludes the name of Sir lumbar(' Brunel. He died after a long illness, following a slight attack of him soon after the completion of the Thames at Hacqueville, in Normandy; and was at first intended

genius for mathematics early showing itself, he was re- .ry of St. Nicani, at Rouen, and after due course of study vy. His Royalist opinions necessitating his emigration at the , he proceeded to America, and commenced civil engineering About 1799 he came to England ; where the influence of ards Earl Spenser) assisted him in obtaining employment His first work was the making of ship-blocks by machinery; superseded after the lapse of forty years. In 1824, he con- Tunnel; which, after various interruptions, was completed knighted during the Melbourne Administration, on the recom.- Althorp. Sir Isambard leaves one son, the eminent engineer, , the elder married to Mr. Hawes, Under Secretary for the rummond, M.P., lectured at Guildford on Saturday, upon agricul-

paid to the York and Berwick Railway 75,0001. last week, in all claims upon him, except a balance of interest of some 10,000L, upposed the company will either give up or divide between them and

This includes his bill for forty odd thousand pounds for the Sun- -Herapath's Railway Journal. oriel to the Queen from the parish of St. Clement Danes states, that in h, containing 728 shops, 200 are kept open for Sunday trading. The is complain that the present law is too feebly carried out, and that its are too small. taken an active part in favour o mons was brief, and mainly rem Robert Peel, against the Reforn became a member of the Uppe nent part. He was a moderat rigid in 1830, to Henrietta An and niece of the Duke of N issue; and the eldest, no father, as fourth Earl of C The week's obituary i in his eighty-first year paralysis, which visit Tunnel.

Isambard Brunel was for the church; but h moved from the semin entered the French N time of the Revolutie in the United States Lord Altborp (afte from Government. an improvement n menced the The in 1843. He wa mendation of Lo and two daugh Colonies.

Mr. Henry tend chemist Mr. Huds quittance of which it is Mr. H derland D

A mer that pa memori penalti

The Reverend J. A. Harmer, Carats of Tidcombe Portion, Tiverton, has gone over to the Church of Rome.

An association entitled " The Bach Society " has just been formed, for the purpose of cultivating an acquaintance with the works of the illustrious John Sebastian Bach.

-The affairs of the " Newspaper Press Benevolent Association" have been rather strangely wound up; some twenty of its members dividing among themselves the funds, to the amount of 8691.

'Resells of the Registrar-General's return of mortality in the Metropolis for th week ending on Saturday last—

Number of Autumn Deaths. Average.

Bymotic Diseases 203 .... 307 Dropsy, Cancer, and other diseases of uncertain or sociable seat 61 .... 40 Tubercular Diseases 170 .... 174 Diseases of the Brain, Spinal Marrow, Nerves, and Senses 126 .... 125 Diseases of the Heart and Blood-vessels 55 .... 40 Diseases of the Lungs, and of the other Organs of Respiration 203 .... 214 - Diseases of the Stomach. Liver, and other Organs of Digestion 61 .... 65 Diseases of the Kidneys, Ste 11 .... 11 • Childbirth, di...sea of the Uterus, Stc 12 .... 10 - Rheumatism, diseases of the Bones, Joints, &c

- Diseases of the Skin, Cellular Tissue, do

Malformations

Premature Birth 25 .... 23 Atrophy 18 .... 18 Age Si ..., 57 • Sudden 8 .... 12 Violence, Privation, Cold, and Intemperance 86 .... 38 Total (including unspecified causes) 1053 1152

" The return for the week ending last Saturday shows that the total deaths re- gistered in the Metropolis were 1,053. The average of the season, corrected for increase of population, is 1,162, and therefore exceeds the deaths of last week by 109. The mortality, which for some time after the abatement of the epidemic continued to fall till it reached a point unusually low, again steadily increases, as appears from the numbers successively returned in the last four weeks, which were 878, 892, 931, and 1,053. The cause of the increase may be discovered in the fact, that whereas deaths from epidemic diseases in these four weeks were respectively 204, 178, 173, and 203, those caused by diseases of the respiratory organs (chiefly bronchitis and pueumonia) were 134, 170, 194, and 203, showing a gradual rise towards the average, which is 214. The deaths from phthisis (which are not included in the above) have been in the last four weeks 128, 104, 134, and 133; the weekly average is 128. Hooping-cough was fatal in the same periods to 22, 12, 23, and 18 children; the average is 34. There were 9 deaths from influenza last week, showing an increase on recent returns; the average of previous seasons is 21, but is chiefly derived from the mortality in 1847, when influenza was epidemic, and multiplied the deaths both from this and other affec- tions of the respiratory organs. The deaths in last week from typhus were 51, a considerable increase on previous weeks; but other epidemics are still much be- low the average. It is gratifying to state that no person in London was regis- tered as having died in the last week from cholera; this is the first week in which the bills of mortality have been quite free from this disease since June 1848, a period of nearly eighteen months. The deaths from diarrhma were 17, less by 6 than the average. A man agforty-seven years died of marasmus, after sfwit drinking.' The death of a man of sixty-three in St. Andrew Eastern (Holborn) was caused by destitution. In Norwood a man died of glanders caught from a diseased horse.

"Accompanying the present return is a diagram, which exhibits the mortality nom cholera in the London districts, with the average elevation of the inhabited ytions of each; and shows also by which of the nine water companies each dis- 'et is supplied, and the source from which its water is obtained. the mean daily reading of the barometer on Thursday was 29.635 in., the I in the week; the mean of the week was 29.419. The mean daily tern- high re, which fell to 33° on Tuesday, rose to 46° on Thursday. The mean of peratw k was 42° 2' ; slightly above the average of the same week in seven years.

we wee- 'ay the mean temperature was 8° below the average, and on Thursday On Theo. ,on of the wind for the week was variable.

Leyden, exclusively occupied in zoological and ,taatusion of his left knee, from a fall in

his chamber. He had been ooug, ,red 23d November, the exportation By a ukase of the Emperor of ridden during the year 1848, isagain of Russian gold and silver coin, whit tern frontier. permitted, both from the seaports am. tn, and Norway, there is no cottage Throughout Russia, Finland, Lapis •-..eour-bath. In America a bath-

so poor, no but so destitute, but it possesses as s. one will occupy a house without room is a part of every modern dwelling, and no r from a peculiar and ingenious one- the bath itself being provided with hot wate in the houses of our nobility, kind of cooking-stove, somewhat like those used but on a more economical plan.—Builder. :ides that the Dukes of East - A letter from Upsala, of the 24th November, si 'ty of Upsala, being desirous Gotha and Dalecarlia, now students at the Universe /Gustavus Vasa,) which are of seeing the mortal remains of Gustavus the First, t city, the marble sarcopha- deposited in one of the vaults of the cathedral of that aecial authorization of the

all the clothes (of the ancient Spanish costume) are iota' gold and silver brocade. freshness. These garments are of velvet and silk, with the scabbard enclosing The crown, the sceptre, the globe, the ornaments of re of fine and massive the royal sword, and the buckles of the girdle and shoes, gold, and partly adorned with precious stones. ) th medals" have been introduced into Hungary. They are considered by the 1 a likeness of Kossuth, with this inscription—"Louis Kossut above it. 6° - The Prince ornithological re.

The King of Denmark us bed.

containing the body was opened, by virtue of a s, sins but the skeleton • but g. Of the body of the great monarch nothing rem., and a certain at, preserve .a,gyar patriots as of on one aide is seen h, born 27th April ry. The medal is 1806"; on the reverse are seen the Republican arms of Hunga

folded up in a paper containing a short biography of the celebis red Dictator.

.ce a complete set

A money-changer of Paris has received from Port-an-Prir ror. They are of of all the coins struck since Soulouque has been declared Empe) tents on one side the same nominal value as the coins of France. Each coin reprea n the day of his the new Emperor, in the Imperial costume, like that of Napoleon e I. Emperor of coronation ; and on the other side the inscription of " Fauatin 0—Gabunani's Hayti." Round the edge are the words " God protect my people.

Messenger. 'main for the

An association of ladies has been formed in the Faubourg St. Ger, ,oss /amities,

relief of the poorer classes. Each lady takes to her own charge six I season, in- whom she supplies with food, clothes, and bed-linen, in this inclement

dependently of providing their children with education. t Brussels, Verbeyst, the most celebrated book-collector in Europe, has died a sisting of at an advanced age. He had founded a very curiae establishment, con. mes, ar- e house of several stories, disposed so as to contain about 300,000 volu

ranged according to their subjects.

d Com- On Tuesday last, the deputation of the Boulogne and Amiens Railroa times at' pony reached Paris from London in eight hours, carrying with them the 7 jute& the same morning. The express forwarded from Paris with the French .

inestimable value. They are about the size of a thaler: , Notwithstanding all the precautions of the police, " Kossu gents of Monday was thus tossed back to the Parisians for their own information almost by noon on the next day; having in the interval been carried 600 miles, and been digested and printed off in the office of a London journal.

An iron warehouse for California is now in course of being constructed at Li- verpool, of very considerable dimensions. It is 60 feet long, 40 wide, and 36 feet high at the most elevated part. There will be three ranges of rooms. It is lighted by 60 windows, and will weigh rather more than 30 tons.

An immense meteor was seen to fall and heard to explode, lately, in Cabanas County, North Carolina. It struck a pine tree in its fall, which it shivered into a thousand pieces; and masses of apparently molten iron were fohnd buried seve- ral feet deep in the ground near the tree, the heaviest weighing 19poands.

Among the novelties introduced by steam into America, are "thae fresh phea- sants, grouse, and hares, from Livertool."

From a Parliamentary return'' obtained by Mr. Bright, it appears that the total number of persons convicted at Assizes in England of offences against the Game- laws, from the 5th May 1846 to the 1st August 1848 amounted to 165; and the convictions at Petty-Sessions during the same period to 10,330; making a total of 10,495. In Wales, the convictions at Assizes and Petty-Sessions were 284. The inquests held on the bodies of gamekeepers and others employed to enforce the Game-laws amounted to 50; in which 37 verdicts of wilful murder were re- turned, 2 of manslaughter, 3 of justifiable homicide, and 8 of accidental death. The punishments inflicted on the offenders against the Game-laws were various— from small fines to transportation and imprisonment with hard labour.

Lloyd's advices report the loss of two Indiamen,—the Emily, 500 tons burden, from Calcutta; and the Hanover, 700 tons. The Emily struck, on the 1st Sep- tember, on one of the Andaman islands, in the China seas. The passengers and crew (with the exception of five seamen) reached the shore, but were compelled by the natives to take to their boats again. For the night they lay inside of the breakers, some distance from the shore. On the next morning the boats parted company, for the purpose of gaining the Cocoa Islands. In the pinnace were the passengers, with the Captain and nine of the crew, and the long boat contained the Chief Mate and the remainder of the crew. The long boat was soon lost sight of by those in the pinnace, and no tidings had been heard- of them up to the period of the intelligence of the ship's loss being sent to England. Those in the pinnace suffered intensely. They were exposed in the boat for thirteen days•' many be- came delirious, and all were in a shocking condition. On the 14th of that month the boat gained the main land, forty miles West of Rangoon; where the natives- acted with friendship and hospitality.

The Hanover ran upon the rocks at the entrance of the harbour of Bath, U. S., on the night of the 9th November. She went to pieces within ten minutes after she struck; and twenty-six men—the entire crew excepting the chief mate— perished.

The Orpheus, 382 tons, engaged in the East India trade, was lost on the 18th October, outside the harbour of Cochin. Crew saved.

The Waterford News reports the loss of the Ann Gales, of London, off Credeo. Head. The mate only was saved; twelve people, including the master's wife, perished.

Six vessels were lost in the night of Friday last upon the Gunfieet Sands. The crews were saved.

Gales in the Pentland Frith have for some time past occasioned great irregu- larity in the mails between Wick and Orkney. On Thursday week fourteen bags were delivered together; and from that day there were no bags till Wednesday night last, when also fourteen bags were crossed to Wick. —Edinburgh Advertiser.

A storm has driven the waters of the Neva into St. Petersburg; compelling the inhabitants in some parts to take refuge on the roofs of their houses. At Wassili Ostrow a large two-masted ship was floated into the very midst of the city.

Letters from Vienna speak of immense falls of snow throughout Central Eu- rope.

The body and papers of Mr. Kennedy, who perished in exploring the North- eastern portion of Australia, have been found. A correspondent of the Atheneum. has forwarded an extract from a letter written on board the Harbinger, a vessel which sailed in company with the Freak, in pursuit of these objects. "On arriv- ing at the place we armed two boats-crews. They went ashore, and were suc- cessful in finding and obtaining the papers, and burying Mr. Kennedy, without any bloodshed. This was much to be wondered at; but it was chiefly owing to a wise measure of Captain Simpson of the Harbinger, who ordered the men to fire a volley over the heads of the Indians, while they were in ambush. This had the desired effect; for no sooner did they hear the report of the muskets, than they were off, at a quicker pace than our people cared to follow them." It will be seen, that nothing is said of the three men left by Mr. Kennedy at Melbourne Bay, whose recovery (though against hope) was one of the objects with which the Freak was commissioned.

" We had an opportunity, a few days ago," says the Nottingham Mercury," of witnessing the surprising effect of the fog screamer lately produced by our in- genious townsman Mr. Wells. It is mainly designed for giving signals at sea in foggy weather; or at lighthouses, when from the state of the weather, it is im- possible that their lights can be seen. But it is calculated likewise to be used to immense advantage as a means for giving alarm to a neighbourhood in case of fire or housebreakers in the night, as a whole neighbourhood could be aroused by it to a distance, if necessary, of five or six miles on all sides. The instrument can likewise be used as a ventilator of the holds of ships; or for chapels, churches, public rooms, schools, and private houses." A correspondent of the Times, calling attention to the English " passport sys- tem," observes—" Lately travelling in the Welsh Principality, I met a French gentleman, travelling in his own carriage, with post-horses, who in conversation with me complained that the passports at our turnpike-gates cost him from 10 to 12 francs a day ; and observed that Englishmen in France had nothing to pay for travelling on the roads of the French Republic."

An occultation of the planet Jupiter by the Moon was observed between six and seven on the morning of the 7th.

The rains of a Roman villa, containing many interesting relics, have been ex- cavated at Moulsham. Among the relics, are a small brass coin of Alectus, and some fragments of ornamental tiles, upon one of which a stag-hunt is represented, in relief—Chelmsford Chronicle.

A large seal was shot the other day, in Dunmanus harbour, which it had en- tered in pursuit of a shoal of whitings. Its length from snout to tail was 9 feet, the circumference under the shoulders 6 feet. The quantity of oil produced was about 15 gallons. There is now residing at Wellington a man named William Ball, a native of Horsehay, who is supposed to be the heaviest human being in the world: his weight is supposed to be about 35 stone; he measures 6 feet 5 inches round the body, 3 feet round the thigh, and 22 inches round the arm. He has been a hard- working man, and is very active, notwithstanding his immense size and weight. —Wolverhampton Chronicle.

There hap, ed a curious circumstance at Nailstone Church on Sunday the 25th Nevem . Two children were baptized; the clergyman, the clerk, the fa- thers of the children, the children themselves, and the godfathers to the children, all answer to the name of John Very.—Leicester Journal.