'rbc Probintes.

Sir Robert Peel " turned the first sod" for the works of the Trent Valley Railway on Thursday. The railway is to ran from the Rugby station of the London and Birmingham to Stone in Staffordshire; it will be constructed with the narrow gauge; and it is expected that the works will be completed in eighteen months. The scene of the ceremony was Cant's Close, a field about half a mile from Tamworth, adjoining Stafford- shire Moor. At one o'clock the Mayor and members of the Corporation, with the Directors of the Railway Company, assembled at the Town-hall and fortified themselves with a dejeimer. They then sallied forth, and met the party from Drayton Manor, who arrived in carriages; and all went in procession to Cannt's Close. Among the company, were Sir Robert and Lady and Miss Peel, Mr. Edmund Peel, the Chairman of the Company, and Mrs. Edmund Peel, Mr. William Yates Peel, Captain A'Court, Mr. George Hudson, M.P., Mr. Ricardo, M.P., Mr. Entwistle, M.P., Cap- tain Carnegie, M.P., Mr. Watkins, Mayor of Manchester, and Mr. Creed. Arrived at the ground, Sir Robert Peel and the other gentlemen alighted. It was now observed that Sir Robert still wore a slipper on his right foot, and that he did not yet look quite strong. Mr. Edmund Peel delivered an oral address to Sir Robert, thanking him for the kind manner in which he had consented to perform the first mechanical operation of the works; and taking pains to mark out distinctly the footing on which the Baronet joined in the ceremony- " Sir, it will ever be an important event in the annals of our railway, that the first turf was turned by the Prime Minister of this country. But, Sir, we are sensible that on no occasion did you ever exercise, in the slightest degree, any in- fluence which you might possess from that position which you hold in the councils of this country—we know that you supported our measure from the connexion you have with the town of Tamworth, and you felt that you were discharging your duty when you did everything you could to give us your aid and assistance in procuring the bill."

Sir Robert Peel acknowledged the compliment, and took still more pains clearly to establish the footing on which be appeared. He began thus— "I have always attempted to reconcile the performance of those public duties which my official station imposes on me with those which I owe to my consti- tuents, the inhabitants of this borough; and I see no reason whatever why that official station should prevent me from being present at a ceremony which is in- teresting to those constituents and the inhabitants of this district. Gentlemen, in my capacity as Representative of this borough, I have given a cordial support to this undertaking. I gave it that support from a sincere belief that it was cal- culated to be beneficial to this district, in the interests of which I must take na- turally a warm concern; but I supported it also from a conviction that the suc- cess of this undertaking would be cooducive to the public welfare."

Sir Robert calculated that the effect of the new railway would soon be to place Manchester and Liverpool within six or seven hours of London, Dublin within fourteen or fifteen hours; that the answer of a letter from London to Dublin might be received on the morning of the next day but one after—the time now required in London for an answer from Tamworth. It would directly connect the Metropolis with the most important parts of the United Kingdom. Another and personal reason why he rejoiced in the establishment of the railway was, that it would connect Tamworth, his birthplace and the seat of his family, with those important districts. The owners of land in the neighbourhood had made sacrifices, because they felt that private interest and feelings ought not to obstruct the public benefit, and that this was not one of those ephemeral schemes which are proposed as mere gambling speculations, or from the cupidity of gain-

" Upon that ground there has been a willing consent to the passage of this railway through this locality. Now it will be exposed to formidable com- petition. If this is not the best railway between London and Manchester, if this is not the most direct communication, I fairly say, in the face of my consti- tuents, that no consideration of local benefit would prevent me from giving my Support to another line. But the way in which the directors of this railway must establish their claim to the continuance of the privileges they possess, is by being enabled to show that they combine the greatest degree of velocity in travelling with the greatest degree of safety to the traveller. They must show that they have neglected no precaution that can have a tendency to diminish the risk of those accidents, the frequent occurrence of which shakes confidence in railway- travelling. They must make sacrifices of pecuniary gain for the purpose of taking those precautions. They must be enabled to state that they have con- salted the comfort of all classes of railway-travellers—of the poor as well as of the rich. They must be enabled to show that their carriages are suitably provided with comfort and accommodation for the third-class as well as for the first- and if they are wise, they will, by moderate fares and comfortable accommodation, in- crease that love of locomotion upon which, after all, the permanent prosperity of railways must depend. Now, I advised them to take this course upon the com- prehensive view of their own permanent interests, as well as of the interests of the public; and if they do that, then I shall, in turning the first sod this day, not only be commencing a line of railway through the Trent Valley, but I shall be laying the foundation of a permanent and prosperous company, which can establish a claim to Parliamentary support more powerful than the union of great companies, more powerful than the canvassing of Members of Parliament—a claim to public support which will be founded on the proof that the privilege conferred on the company is exercised for public advantage. Gentlemen, I shall now proceed to execute that part of my duty which consists in turning the first sod." (Cheers.) The spade was handed to Sir Robert Peel, the wheelbarrow stood by his side. The spade was a handsome tool, with a handle of carved oak, and an escutcheon-shaped blade, electroplated. The barrow was made of maho- gany, highly ornamented with carving. Sir Robert began to dig some of the turf; throwing it into the barrow. The turf had been previously loosened for the purpose, but the trampling of the crowd had made it firm again; and Sir Robert found it required a greater pressure upon the spade than his right foot could afford; he changed almost immediately to the use of the left, and, after throwing about four spadefuls into the barrow, wheeled it, amidst much cheering, along a line of planks placed upon the grass. The crowd retired before him; but the throng was too great for him to proceed more than four or five yards; and for the same reason he was un- able to empty the barrow. He set it down, and returned to his former place.

A written address of thanks was read to Sir Robert Peel by the Secre- tary of the Company; which Sir Robert accepted with a bow; and, re- entering his carriage, he drove off with his friends. He took away the spade, and the barrow was carried after him by four men.

In the evening, a numerous party dined with Sir Robert Peel at Drayton Manor; and another party celebrated the event with a dinner at the prin- cipal hotel in Tamworth.

The Anti-Corn-law League had a meeting at Halifax, in the Odd Fol- lows' Hall, on Wednesday evening last week, to beat up recruits for the West Riding registration; and the large room was crowded to excess. Mr. Jonathan Akroyd was called to the chair. The principal speech was that of Mr. Cobden; who made good use of the recent Cabinet Councils (sup- posed) to deliberate on the suspension of the Corn-laws. Why, he asked suspend laws professing " protection," when protection is so much needed? why suspend, in time of dearth, laws professing to secure plenty ? Why has the failure in the potato crop caused such a panic ?—Because the Corn- law is in effect a potato-law-

It was virtually a law condemning the people to live on potatoes and cold water. It might not be known, perhaps, to everybody in the room, that it took a much larger surface of land to subsist a man upon corn than upon potatoes. The same surface of land that would keep only one man upon meat, which was the most condensed kind of human food, would keep four men upon bread, with a little meat as a supplementary relish; and it would keep twelve men who lived only upon potatoes. Now what was the effect of a law which said they should not have an importation of foreign corn into these limited islands? The population was increasing at the rate of three or four hundred thousand a year; and to sup- ply this annual increase of population with a proportionate increase of food, these ought to be added to these islands every year (according to the Poor-law Com- missioners) a surface equal to the whole of the county of Bedford. These were facts resting upon official testimony. Yet they passed a law that corn should not be imported from abroad to supply the increasing wants of those people. Why, the effect was just as much to reduce the people to live on potatoes as if they had passed a law in this form—" Whereas it is expedient that the people of these islands shall live more and more on potatoes, he it therefore enacted, that there shall be no foreign corn brought into this country." He asked them to look at what had actually taken place. If they would look into any old agricultural writer of about a hundred years ago, they would find that potatoes were then a sort of curiosity for the garden, as radishes and parsnips are now; and even sixty or seventy years ago it was comparatively a rare thing to see a potato field in England or Ireland. It was within the knowledge of living men that they bad bad not only whole fields but whole farms thrown out of other kinds of cultivation and ploughed up for potatoes. Such a people was but one degree removed from famine. He had almost as much horror as Cobbett himself had of a people being reduced to live upon potatoes. Let them have something that came to the face of day, and do not let men be grubbing under-ground like hogs and living on roots. Old Cobbett used to call potatoes " mud and puddery." A people brought down to live on potatoes were always on the verge of famine. They could not store potatoes beyond a year. People who lived on corn might have a two-years stock on hand beyond their annual consumption; but potatoes would get confoundedly bad towards the end of the year. And it was in such a state of things as this that they would have the Monopolists themselves turning up the whites of their eyes and calling upon them to be charitable to the poor! Why, it reminded him of a well-known his- torical anecdote of Charles the Fifth, who after be had made the Pope prisoner and locked him up in the castle of St. Angelo, being a good Catholic, ordered that prayers should be read in all the churches of Spain for a speedy release of his Holiness the Pope. In like manner, the supporters of the Corn-laws, after impri- soning the people in these islands so that they might get no corn from abroad, when famine came on turned up the whites of their eyes, and, with as much con- sistency and about as much honesty as Charles the Fifth, prayed that they might be relieved from the distress produced by those very laws themselves.

The ports should be opened, as they have been by the despotic Govern- ments of Russia and Turkey: but Sir Robert Peel dares not do it, because he is under a more inexorable despot than any, the landed monopolists. Besides, Government might not like to get rid of their sliding-scale so soon—

It was only three years old; and Sir Robert Peel had taken six months to con- coct it. It was a graduated scale ; it was fitted exactly, and dovetailed as cle- verly as any joiner could do it: it rose and fell a shilling a time just to snit the prices in the country; and was to let corn in just when it was wanted, and to keep it out when it was not wanted. Now here they were at the end of the third year of the sliding-scale, and it would not work. Just when they wanted the hands of the clock to be moving, the hands stood still; and the Cabinet were meeting together to give them a shove. Now, it was natural that the Prime Minister should not like to be obliged just now to proclaim to the world what a bungling mess he made of his Corn-law of 1842. He was therefore reluctant to meddle with it.

It would be a bitter pill to swallow; but he would have to swallow it, or he would have to swallow something much worse. For, assuming the ac- counts from Ireland to be true, there might not be a sound potato in the country in January; and then in what sort of position would the Prima Minister be?— There were three courses open to him—Sir Robert Peel himself was fond of talking about three courses—he might open the ports; he might call Parliament together instantly to do it; or he might resign. If he did none of these things, and if he did not do them promptly too—and if the accounts from Ireland were cor- rect, and what was expected there should happen—then there had not been a Minister in this country who had so richly deserved impeachment as would Sir Robert Peel when Parliament met next session. But it ought to have been done long ago. Why had they allowed other countries to go over the earth scrambling up the little corn that was to be found, while this country did nothing? He understood the steamer sailed for America yesterday. He did not know whether it sailed once a fortnight—(Turning to the gentlemen on the platform)—" How often does the steamer sail ?"

Agentleman on the platform—" Once a fortnight in summer, but only once a month in winter."

Mr. Cobden—" Then I say, Sir Robert Peel deserves impeachment for allowing that steamer to sail without instructions. If that steamer had carried out the news that the ports of this country would be opened for six months, we should have got an immense supply of corn over and above what we can get if the news do not go out till the 1st of December. The news would have arrived in America in time to have induced the Americans—who are uncommonly shrewd and fond of money—not only to gather up the last grain of their Indian corn, and thrash out their wheat with additional care, but it would have decided them to economize their grain to the utmost both in their own and their cattle's food, and to do that which of all men on the earth Americans are fond of doing, to send all they could to the Atlantic cities and get as much money back as possible in re- turn? Any man who knew the American character would acknowledge that these would have been the effects if news of the opening of the ports had been sent out by the last steamer. Now he asserted, that if any man starved next year owing to Sir Robert Peel's vacillation or hesitation in this matter, a heavy re- sponsibility would rest on his shoulders.

In effect, the new sliding-scale is worse than the preceding one— Under the old system, the duty was low when prices rose above a certain mark; and a temptation was thus afforded to the speculator or merchant to " work the averages," as it was called, so as to get corn admitted at a very low duty: but this was now prevented by a contrivance of Sir Robert Peel's, called " rest," which allowed three weeks to pass over without varying the duty at all. He also showed another effect of the sliding scale, which had been pointed out by Earl Fitzwilliam five years ago, and which operated with great cruelty in seasons when, as in the present one, the grain was bad in quality. The best quality of corn had been sold at 80s., and the worst at 48s.; and the consequence was, that when the greater part of the corn was of bad quality, the average prices were low, and thus the very inferiority of quality operated to prevent a reduction of duties and the ad- mission of good foreign corn.

Mr. Cobden then adverted to the particular business of the day, the registration. They wanted 2,000 more qualifications. At the last election they asked for 2,000, and they obtained 2,300: those who qualified were principally of the class of manufacturers, merchants, wholesale dealers, and shopkeepers; and there was still an immense field for their operations among the skilled portions of the working classes. If they carried for- ward successfully the plan of registration, that would be the last occa- sion on which he should have to bore them with a speech against the Corn-laws.

Speeches were also delivered by Mr. Flint and Mr. John Bright; who, with Mr. Cobden, received a vote of thanks for their exertions.

A great Free-trade demonstration was made at Birmingham on Thurs- day, in the shape of a dinner to Mr. Charles Villiers, the Member for Wol- verhampton. The place was the Town-hall, which was crowded: seven or eight hundred gentlemen sat down to dinner, and the principal gallery was filled with ladies. Mr. W. H. Smith, the newly-elected Mayor of the borough, presided; and among the guests on either side of him were, Mr. Villiers, his colleague Mr. Thornely, Mr. Robert Scott, M.P., (Walsall,) Mr. Bright, M.P., Colonel Thompson, Earl Ducie, Mr. Cobden, M.P., Mr. William Brown, and several gentlemen of influence in the neighbourhood. Among the excuses from absentees some may be mentioned: Lord Radnor excused himself on the plea of old age; Mr. Robert Hyde Greg was at- tending the marriage of his only brother; Mr. Mark Philips was also in attendance as Mr. Greg's brother-in-law; Mr. Mintz, the Liberal Member for the borough, had an engagement with Prince Albert, at the Queen's Palace! After the usual toasts of ceremony, Mr. Villiers's health was drunk ; Mr. Cobden volunteering to act as fugleman, and telling the com- pany to make their cheers heard at Tamworth. Mr. Villiers's speech was long and able; but, however well suited to the occasion, much of it went over beaten ground. He glanced at the progress of Free-trade opinions, of which that meeting was a token; and described the danger of millions living in the midst of unavailing splendours and exposed to want,—a want inflicted not by Providence but by human legislation. The sliding scale professes to spring from the desire to make food abundant in this country, and to make us independent of foreigners: now is the time to see how it works out those objects. Holland and Belgium too had their sliding scales; but, when a real scarcity arose, their Governments, wiser than ours, sent their sliding scales to where the people hoped they never would re- turn from. Ministers had been deliberating four hours a day all last week to devise how decently they could get rid of their own work; and it would be most foolish not to get rid of it altogether. It is said, indeed, that Sir Robert Peel is to give a bounty on importation: who would pay it?—Sir Robert? No- the people. They are called upon to pay too much for their food, and then they are to pay a special tax for the bounty! After some general arguments against the Corn-laws—a glance at the past session—at the new adherents, Captain Rous, Lord Ashley, and Mr. Esoott—and at the Free-trade admissions of Sir James Graham, Mr. Villiers prophesied for the future- " One great article of food is supposed to be lost, and there is great difficulty in obtaining food from any other country. The price of the necessaries of life is now rising everywhere. The price has now reached that point at which it was when, after a long duration, starving men broke into the shops of tradesmen and plun- dered them to get food. The price has now reached that point at which it was when the scenes of Paisley and Stockport were enacted—scenes to which Sir Robert Peel said he could not refer without emotion, which sprung from that scarcity, and during which Sir James Graham said crime, poverty, mortality, and political discontent, invariably pervaded the country. The price has now reached that point at which it was when the revenue declined; when the imposition of the Income-tax was found necessary; and when the public works commenced under more favourable auspices were checked. There is a prospect of the recurrence of such a state of things. There is no confidence to be placed in the apparent prosperity of the country. In 1838 everything appeared as healthy and sound as possible. It was in that year that I implored the House to take the Corn-laws-into their con- sideration, warning them that the career of prosperity might be stopped by some unforeseen calamity. In May, they rejected my motion by an overwhelming majority; and in the September following, the whole country was alarmed by a deficient harvest."

Lord Ducie delivered a short agriculturist Free-trade speech; in which he excused the apparent apathy of the Anti-Corn-law Peers-

" lt is not the cue of Ministers in the Upper House to declare themselves friends of free trade in the abstract.' Were we to press the subject, we might call forth some doggrel dictum from the Duke of Wellington which might inspire our opponents, and strengthen their opposition; wherea.s., all who know the House of Lords are sufficiently aware that it will go with the tames."

Mr. Cobden began with less than his usual vigour and novelty of manner; but as he proceeded he warmed to the work. He speculated what the thirteen notables in the Cabinet Council could be deliberating and hesitat- ing about. Presuming the Duke of Wellington and Lord Stanley to be the opponents of Corn-law repeal, he told the Duke, that, in spite of his great qualities and victories, he had never yet conquered Englishmen. He warned Sir Robert Peel, who so often uses the word " I," that he is the Government, and will be responsible for the upshot. It is said that there are to be works in Ireland: but pickaxes and shovels will not feed the people; and if they do not take care there will be enormous jobbery out of the antici- pated famine. Mr. Cobden also prophesied- " What happened in the spring of 1822, I am afraid, is very likely to happen again. Mark my words, and I speak them in sorrow, that next spring will de- velop the calamitous result of our present suicidal policy. It was only in the spring after the harvest of 1821 that the evil (to which I have just alluded) was felt. In the spring of 1822, when the country-people had eaten up the potatoes which were left them, they flecked in crowds to the towns for subsistence; for it is in towns that you find ample supplies of food generally accumulated, and in the towns the starving masses had to be fed from the charity of their fellow-coun- trymen. Depend upon it, you will have to feed large masses of the people of Ire- land, in like manner, out of a public fund, before midsummer. Bat where is the subsistence to come from which you are to administer to them? It is not in this country, and must be procured elsewhere. But does it not behove the Minister of the Crown to see, in the present emergency, that not a moment is lost in accumu- lating in this country the stock of food, which may not be procurable next spring, when famine presses heavily upon us, for less than double the price which some time ago we should have been called upon to pay for it ?"

Sir Robert Peel, in not opening the ports, has let pass a critical moment of his political fortune, and is not half the man that he might have been-

" We have all been thinking for some time past that Peel was the man—not the coming man, but the come man. Everybody began to say, Peel is the man for a practical statesman, to govern a practical people; and I have no hesitation in saying, that if Sir Robert Peel had taken the course I have suggested, of boldly bearding the Iron Duke, and at once dismissing him and his tail from the Ca- binet—I have no hesitation in saying, so far as Lancashire and Yorkshire are concerned, he would have rallied around him the whole of the mighty population of those counties as one man in his support- We should have buried Whig or Tory from the moment we found Sir Robera'eel had abolished the Corn-laws. * * * There can be no doubt that Sir Robert Peel is at heart as good a Free-trader as I am myself. He has told us so in the House of Commons again and again; nor do I doubt that Sir Robert Peel has in his inmost heart the desire to be the man who shall carry out the principles of free trade in this country. But he has been tam- pering with the question ni order to adopt his policy to the ignorance of his party; and we see the state into which the country has been brought the while. * * * I can tell you, that if there is one man who will go up to Parliament next session with a heavier heart than another, that man is Sir Robert Peel. It is my belief, that if in the mean time he do not take the step of throwing open the ports, he will not dare to face us at all next session. Of this I am quite sure, that if the leading members of the Opposition, in another session, take the position they ought to take, • * * they will shake him out of his office in a week. But I do not like altogether the idea of giving Peel up. He is a Lancashire man, and in my part of the country we are proud of Lancashire men. We used to think that Sir Robert cast a sheep's-eye on the tall chimnies, and that he had something of a longing kindness for Lancashire; and I can tell him, it would have been a proud day for the Lancashire men, when they saw a Lancashire man, and the son of a Lancashire manufacturer, stand forward to rescue the commerce of the country from the shackles of that feudal and senseless oppression it has so long laboured under."

Mr. Cobden repeated some of his registration statistics; exhorting his hearers to qualify, and reminding them that votes, not meetings, prevail with Sir Robert Peel.

Among the other speakers was Mr. Bright; who declared that he had never seen so sudden and so sad a reverse in commerce as within the last six months: in Lancashire there is almost a paralysis of trade.

The toast-drinking and speaking was kept up till a late hour; and the demonstration was as effective as could be wished.

The elections of Mayors took place in the several boroughs throughout the country on Monday. The returns generally state merely the names of the new Mayors; which to the distant stranger convey no information. But the matter appears naturally to have excited far less interest than the election of Town-Councillors.

In our second edition last week, we mentioned the result of the Windsor election, and its unexpected incident, the appearance of a candidate in opposition to Colonel Reid. Late on Friday evening appeared a handbill, announcing that a barrister of the Oxford Circuit would come forward; and early on Saturday morning appeared a second handbill, addressed "to the independent electors of the borough of Windsor," and signed " Rupert Kettle." The writer said- " I have heard this evening with inexpressible regret of the scandalous victory achieved by the minions of the Court and of the Government over the man of your free choice, Mr. Walter. So long as he was a candidate for your suffrages, I de- termined to yield to his superior claims on your support; but now that he feels compelled to retire from the field, owing to the unprecedented combination of evil influences against him, I can no longer resist the wishes of my friends; and I feel my duty, as an honest and independent En,glishman, to appear among you on the day of election as the champion of your independence, and as the unflinch- ing opponent of the arrogant attempts recently made to dragoon you into sub- mission, and to convert you into the slaves of an overbearing faction. " In one short paragraph, I declare myself the determined antagonist of all equivocating, temporizing, and vacillating Ministers, the advocate of free in- stitutions for all classes of her Majesty's subjects, the supporter of all useful re- forms, the upholder of civil and religious liberty, and the determined enemy of the existing Corn-laws. But my chief claim to your support at present I rest upon my determination to rescue your borough from the oppressive domination with which it is threatened, and to establish its independence for the future on a secure and permanent foundation."

At the hustings in the Town-hall, Mr. Kettle's speech was an ampli- fication of this address; with the additional statement that he was an opponent of the Poor-law, and some copious sarcasms on Colonel Reid's speech to the electors. That was indeed tame enough; and the Colonel

seems to have laboured under some sense of deficiency, for he claimed in- dulgence as being wholly unpractised in public speaking. Charges of Court interference flew about freely; and among the means of " bribery " em- ployed, Mr. Kettle mentioned that, " early in November, honourable Mem- bers of Parliament had paid their Christmas bills!" The show of hands having been taken, the Mayor pronounced it to be in favour of Colonel Reid. The friends of Mr. Kettle insisted that by far the greater number were held up for him, and called upon the Mayor to take the show again; but he refused to do so. Mr. Moss, Mr. Kettle's proposer, said that he had intended to demand a poll on behalf of Mr. Kettle; but, after the extra- ordinary decision of the Mayor, he had determined to content himself by protesting against the election; and he accordingly handed to the Mayor a written protest. Colonel Reid was then declared duly elected.

At night, the soldiers of Colonel Reid's Regiment got into a squabble With the townspeople, and there was some disturbance.

At the Town-hall, Windsor, on Tuesday, the Magistrates began an in- vestigation into the riot on Saturday night between the townspeople and a number of the soldiers in the Second Regiment of Life Guards. The evidence was somewhat contradictory; but we gather that, about ten o'clock on Saturday night, a number of Mr. Walter's supporters paraded the streets, bearing flags, hissing before the houses of their opponents, and cheering before those of their own faction. Falling in with some parties of soldiers who had been drinking, they jeered and taunted them; and this naturally ended in a general melee; the soldiers using canes, sticks, and fists, while the civilians employed brickbats, stones, and cudgels. The re- sult was that both parties sustained some damage, especially a few of the townspeople. Among the weapons of the soldiers were broomsticks; and part of the inquiry- turned upon the profound question where they were procured. The examination has been adjourned.

The inquiry was resumed on Thursday. Mr. Kettle was present, and some hours were spent principally in squabbles between him and the lawyer who ap- peared for the soldiers and Mr. Blunt, a Magistrate. What evidence was adduced did not add much to the previous information. The matter was again adjourned till Monday.

A serious accident occurred on Sunday morning, on the Eastern Counties Rail- way, a line notorious for mishaps. About five o'clock on that morning, a stoppage was caused at Waltham Cross station; a truck of the goods-train having been disabled: before the line was cleared there arrived a fish-train from Yarmouth, to which a second-class carriage and truck with sheep and agricultural produce were attached; and the train was detained close to the station. The mail-train, due at five o'clock, being now expected, a porter was sent down the line for nearly four hundred yards with a red light: but the mail-engine was not stopped in time to prevent its running with terrific force into the fish-train; crushing the trucks and overturning the second-class carriage. There were only two passengers in this carriage—Captain Laurence, E.I.C.S., a director of the Norfolk Railway, and Fisher, a drover in charge of the sheep. The car- riage was lifted several yards into the air, and fell into a ditch some distance from the line. The Captain's right shoulder was put out, and he was much bruised; the drover was severely cut in the head. The engine of the mail- train, quite a new one, was reduced to a mere wreck: the engineer and stoker were thrown off by the concussion, but fell ipto a ditch, and thus escaped any serious injury. The passengers were only shaken. Some twenty sheep were killed by the shock, and others had to be slaughtered. General Palley instituted an inquiry into the causes of the disaster at the Shoreditch terminus, on Thursday. It was a private proceeding; but the re- porters appear to have examined the witnesses after the General had done with them, and they publish long accounts of their testimony. The description of the accident does not differ from the narration above. The track which broke down was overloaded with an immense quantity of flour. The morning was foggy, the rails were slippery. The men who signalled the mail-train to stop did not proceed far enough down the line to insure that object--only 500 yards at the most. The engine-driver declared that he did all he could to stop the train as soon as he saw the signal, but from the short distance in which he had to do this, and the wetness of the rails, he could not avoid a collision: after he had shut the steam off and put the break on, he could hear the wheels "jumping" along the rails —they would not "bite." It is supposed that one guard neglected to apply his break. General Feeley proceeded to the scene of the accident, and inspected the damaged engine and carriages. On his return to town, he left the terminus without expressing any opinion as to the cause of the accident.

An accident similar in its causes, though fortunately not so disastrous in its results, as that which lately occurred on the Midland Railway, happened on the Manchester and Birmingham line on Thursday morning. A train left Manches- ter at half-past six o'clock; the morning was very foggy, and a signal-lamp was attached to the last carriage; in consequence of a hoar-frost the rails were so slippery that the engine made hardly any progress. To attain some degree of speed the fireman sanded the rails; and the engine-driver blew his whistle for assistance. The train was going rather faster, the whistle being still sounded, it is said, when an engine which had been sent to render aid dashed into the train. Some of the carriages at the rear were unhooked by the shock, the engine of the train was detached, and every carriage was more or less injured; while the pas- sengers were dreadfully shaken. No bones were broken, but the people in a third- class carriage near the end of the train were severely bruised. Lomas' the driver of the assistant-engine, declared that be did not see the rear lamp till too late to prevent a collision: he had left the station twenty minutes after the departure of the train, and thought it was much further ahead; it had not advanced above two miles in twenty-five minutes.

A deaf man who was labouring on the Scarborough Railway, near Kirkham station, has been killed by a train; his infirmity having prevented him from hear- ing its approach till too late.

A man has been suffocated at Ardwick, a suburb of Manchester, by incautiously entering a brewer's vat to cleanse it. Some dregs and water had been left in the vessel, with which it was to be cleaned; the brewer descended, and began to stir tIR the liquid; the carbonic acid gas overpowered him, and he fell down: twenty In elapsed before he could be got out by means of a hook, and he was then quite dead. A boy only nine years old has committed suicide, by throwing himself into a river near Toweester- because his mother refused to allow him to attend Floore Feast, a holyday-making in the neighbourhood.