Mr. Walter the former Member for Berkshire, is the "Anti-Poor-

law candidate" for Nottingham, one of the seats for which is vacated by the death of Sir Ronald Ferguson. He addressed the electors on Wed- nesday. The Liberal candidate is Mr. G. G. de H. Larpent. He avows himself a Radical, in favour of repeal of the Corn-laws, abolition of church-rates, ballot, and extension of the suffrage. The Liberal party of the place is said to be divided on the Poor-law question ; a lucky thing for Mr. Walter. The Chartists, however, have declared for Mr. Larpent.

The Durham Chronicle contradicts the statement that Mr. Hedworth Lambton, the Member for North Durham, is about to accept the Chiltern Hundreds : he had been very ill, but is better, and is ex- pected to resume his Parliamentary duties immediately after the Easter recess.

A public meeting was held at Liverpool on Monday, to consider a petition to Parliament for the total repeal of the Corn-laws. The attend- ance seems to have been numerous, but it was not so great as was ex- pected. Sir Joshua Waltnesley, the late Mayor, presided ; and Mr. Thornely, the Member for Wolverhampton, and several of the Liberal gentlemen of Liverpool, were present. Not only were the proceedings uninterrupted by Chartists, but the working-class appears to have fur- nished a considerable part of the audience ; and one of the resolutions was seconded by a working-man. Indeed the resolutions proposed and the petition were all carried without opposition from any one. The subject is so old, and has been so perpetually handled of late, that it is difficult for speakers to strike out any thing fresh. Some of those at the Liverpool meeting, however, put one or two points happily. Sir Joshua Wahnsley cited a high authority for the safety to the revenue in a change of our commercial policy— It must be borne in mind that our present exports amounted to between forty and fifty millions per annum ; that three-fourths of the cotton imported into this country was exported again in the shape of twist and cotton goods. For what were we hazarding this great branch of national wealth ? for what were we refusing to take the grain of the United States, the coffee and sugar of the Brazils, and the timber of the North of Europe? for what were we re- stricting the labour and enhancing the price of the food of the people ? It was in order that the rent-roll of a comparatively small number of landlords, and the revenue of a few colonial monopolists might be increased. It was urged that we should support our Colonies ; but we might support them at too great a cost, and at the sacrifice of the Mother-country. Give them free trade, and they would support themselves. Some were afraid that, by an alteration in our Tariff and in the Corn-laws, we might endanger the revenues of the country. Perhaps there was no set of men in the world more tenacious of national faith and honour than Englishmen, and especially British merchants. Now they were perfectly satisfied up in this subject, and had openly expressed their sentiments again and again, that by the removal of restrictions and prohibitions commerce would be increased, and with it the revenue of the country.

Mr. William Rathbone reminded the meeting, that restricted trade had formerly been more than tolerated by the people— Look at ten years ago, when the timber-duties were proposed to be altered, which was one of our great abuses. The whole country was in arms, and the Administration was very nearly put out because the people rose to prevent the timber-duties being altertd and improved. If, ten years ago, the people had petitioned for a repeal of the timber-duties, he believed we should at this moment have been very much nearer the repeal of the Corn-laws ; nay, in his conscience he believed that those Corn-laws would not have existed at this moment if that Administration had been supported in the repeal of the timber. duties.

Mr. Thornely gave a practical illustration to show that the repeal of the Corn-laws would not tend to lower wages-

" No man in Liverpool, of all the places in the world, ought to believe any thing of the sort. If they would walk round the docks, they would see a great number of vessels advertised to take emigrants from the labouring portion of the population, to labour in the United States and in Canada. Would these labourers go to the United States and to Canada if wages were lower than they were in this country ? No, indeed they would not. They were going there to get better wages, or they had much better stay at home. But all those vessels which took out emigrants to Canada were going to bring back flour from Canada to this country ; and the meeting might be sure that flour was brought from Canada because it would bring a greater price in this market. Therefore these very voyages across the Atlantic and back again, in which la- bourers were going from this country to get better wages than they could at home—those same vessels bringing back cheap flour to a better market, showed that all the representations about the cheapness of corn bringing down wages was a complete delusion."

Mr. Thornely said that he believed the attention of the Ministry was "now being directed to the state of the Tariff of this country."

The Crayford Anti-Corn-law Association convened a public meeting at the Market-house of Bexley Heath, in Kent, on Monday, to receive a lecture from Mr. Sidney Smith. About seven hundred persons of the

middle and working classes attended, one-fourth of the number being females. It was announced after the lecture, that petitions would be circulated throughout the neighbourhood for signatures.

A very numerous Anti-Corn-law meeting was held at Mitcham, in Surrey, on Wednesday week, to hear a lectdre from Mr. Sidney Smith. Several Chartists attended, and proposed a chairman of their own ; but they were defeated by a great majority ; and they offered no further in- terruption to the proceedings.

The Ministerial Globe, quoting the Chartist Northern Star, describes the failure of an attempt to get up a "Protestant Operative Associa- tion" at Bath. The Reverend Hugh Stowell and Mr. Lord, a barrister of the Inner Temple, and the author of a law-book against Maynooth College, procured a meeting to be called lately in the Assembly Rooms of that town, to receive their proposition in the matter. About 2,000 persons attended ; but the Operative Protestants were forestalled by the Chartists, who appointed a Chairman of their own, and carried, by a large majority, a resolution that a Protestant Operative Association was not wanted in Bath. Mr. Stowell then addressed the meeting ; but if the subjoined extract of the report can be trusted, he was not heard with much patience, or indeed with much decorum— He feared that many present had lent themselves as the tools of Popery. (Laughter. 44 Oh dear ! ") He had met a gentleman of Bath in a railway-. train, who told him that a good Protestant Operative Association might be formed in Bath. (Cries of " Go back by the next train.") He had made such liberal speeches, that he could not fail to please the people of Bath, for many who had heard him had set him down for a thoroughgoing Radical. (" Soft soup r) But he was open to declare himself a red-hot Tory. (Chen; from the parsons, and groans and yells from the meeting, with cries of "A bad lot altogether.") His motto was to fear God and honour the Queen. He had done much to relieve the distresses of his own starving flock. He wished. more attention had been paid by the nobility and gentry to the wants of the people. He must say they were too widely severed, and the best way to unite them was to fin-m such associations as he hail come there to establish. Be was an advocate of religious liberty, but be would beat down Romanism.

A flagrant case of clerical iutolerance is related by the Hampshire In- dependent. On Thursday fortnight, the body of an old lady named White was taken to the village-church, at Easton, near Winchester, to be buried ; and the funeral was attended by the daughters and several other relatives of the deceased. When the procession arrived at the churchyard-gate, it was met by the clergyman of the parish, the Reverend Dudley Ryder. On theie taking the path to the church, Mr. Ryder commanded the bearers to stop, and bear the body direct to the grave, as he would not allow it to enter the church. The procession accordingly proceeded to the grave, and the service went on ; that portion of it appointed to be read in the church being skipped. The undertaker, at the request of some of the relatives, asked the reason why this insult was offered to the dead? Mr. Ryder's answer was, "Do not interrupt me ; don't brawl in the churchyard." The relations would not allow the service to proceed under such circumstances, and the body was taken hack to the house. The incident had the most painful effect on the mourners, and two of the daughters fainted in the churchyard. The undertaker and two. sons-in-law of Mrs. White then went to Mr. Ryder's house for an ea- planation. He received them in the presence of another clergyman, the Reverend R. J. Wilberforce, Archdeacon of York. He would give no other explanation than pointing out the passage in the regulations for the Burial-service in the Rubric, which directs that " The priest, meeting the corpse at the entrance of the churchyard, and going before it either into the church or towards the grave, shall say," &c. A subse- quent interview took place, when he admitted that the reason of his procedure was, "because Mrs. White had let a portion of her house to a body of Dissenters, and her son-in-law was a Dissenter, and had in- troduced Dissent into the parish." Some of the relations wished the body to be buried in the new cemetery, but Mrs. White had expressed a wish to be interred in a family-vault : they therefore succumbed to Mr. Ryder's conditions, and the funeral-procession again sought the church on Friday last. No bell was tolling, and no parson or clerk was present. The bearers set the coffin down in the nave of the church ; seeming to hope that Mr. Ryder would suffer tacitly what he would not avowedly surrender. When he appeared, however, he ordered them from the building ; threatened the undertaker with an action at law for entering it ; and commanded them to take the body away, or to the grave. It was borne to the vault, and buried ; the por- tion of the service to be read in the church being omitted.

On Friday, says the Newcastle Chronicle, considerable excitement was created in Tynemouth garrison, by the Vicar of Tynemouth re- fusing to allow the body of John Larkin, a private in the Ninety-fifth Regiment, who had died in the early part of last week, to be interred in the Castle burial-ground. The deceased was a Roman Catholic, as most of the depot are, and during his last moments he received the consa- lations of the Romish priest. The corpse was consequently interred in the new cemetery. II is in contemplation by the Roman Catholics of Shields to bring the affair before the authorities.

The Lords of the Treasury have declared Chester a free bonding- port for teas, coffee, sugars, and all other goods that can be legally imported.

On Saturday last, trial- was made on the London and Birmingham Railway, in presence of Sir Frederick Smith, of two plans for accom- plishing the grand object of efficient railway signals. The first was that of Mr. Pettitt, already described in this journal, for effecting a communication between the guard and engine-driver : the other a con- trivance to enable a policetnan on the line to open a whistle on the engine by fixing a catch upoil the chairs which support the rails, and thus give notice to the driver in a fog, or under other circumstances, should any thing be wrong ahead. We understand that 'both plans proved highly satisfactory.—Roiltvity Times.

A Mr. Walker, formerly a sergeant of Horse Guards, and now in the Mounted Revenue Guard, has invented a new mode of establishing a communication between wrecked vessels and the shore, by means of a kite, which he calls "the mariner's safety kite." His kite was put to a trial at Sandgate, last week, with complete success, in the presence of Lieutenant Batt, of the Royal Navy, and several nautical men. It carried out one hundred fathoms of line. A light has also been in-

vented, inextinguishable by wind or rain, to be fixed to the tail of the kite, so that the people on shore may see where it is. It is supposed that a swimmer might reach even uninhabited shores by the help of such a kite, having the line under his arms for support.

At East Sussex Quarter-sessions, on Tuesday, Mr. Batty, the pro- prietor of the Circus at Brighton, appealed against the decision of the -Magistrates, who had fined him 50/. for performing a pantomime in an unlicensed place. It was contended in support of the conviction, that the case came under the operation of an act passed in the reign of George the Second, which declared any persons performing "any in- terlude, play, tragedy, comedy, opera, farce, or other entertainment, ex- cept under letters-patent, the licence of the Lord Chamberlain, or in a place privileged," to be rogues and vagabonds, or liable to a fine of 50/. An act of the reign of George the Third gave the Magistrates power to license ; but the Circus had not been licensed at all. The former act was meant to repress the licentiousness of the stage : pantomimes were in use at the time of its passing ; and made as they were the vehicles for personal and political satire, it must have been the intention of the Legislature to include them in the operation of the act, by the term "other entertainments." On the other side, it was averred that the enter- tainment which formed the subject of the penalty, was not a stage en- tertainment at all : it required no scenery ; there were only fourteen lines of dialogue in it ; and it was a mere exhibition of posture-making and horsemanship. It was no more a pantomime than Billy Button's Ride to Brentford, or Punch. The act being penal must be construed strictly : in an act against sheep-stealing, the term "other cattle" was held by the Judges to be of no effect, for want of precision ; and in an act to prevent cruelty to animals, a list comprising "ox, cow, heifer, steer, or other cattle," was held not to include a bull. On the same principle of strict construction, the terms of the penal act to restrain stage-plays could not be held to include pantomimes in its operation. The in- dictment was quashed.

At Weymouth, aspirants for church-rate martyrdom appear by the score. On Tuesday last about twenty persons were summoned for non- payment of rates. Their objections were all overruled ; and they were ordered to pay under pain of distress.

At Norwich Assizes, on the 8th, Charlotte Yaxley was convicted of the murder of Lavinia Kerrison. The prisoner was married some months back to a fisherman of Yarmouth ; and Lavinia Kerrison was the illegitimate child of her husband and a woman who lived in the neighbourhood, and born not long before their marriage. Charlotte Yaxley had always been kind to the child, and begged to have it to live with her, and had persuaded her husband to allow its mother Is. a week. She drowned it one morning, and then ran to some neigh- bours and told them of what she had done. Her manner was very in- coherent : she said that her husband ill-used her, and that she had done it that she might lose her own life : when she saw its mother, she flung her arms round her neck, and told her not to cry, for her child was happy. She then, though always a sober woman, made herself very tipsy : but all the while she obstinately refused to explain how she had drowned the infant. She always seemed dissolved in grief at what she had done, and she was utterly subdued at the trial. The Judge, taking into account the mitigating circumstances of the case, did not pronounce sentence of death, but adjudged the prisoner to be transported for life.

Some officers have been making an aristocratic riot at Canterbury. Their names are Byng Doherty, Edmund Doherty, John Allgood, and John Goddard ; and they are called in the report Captains in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Light Dragoons ; but the two latter are sup- posed to be subalterns. They made a drunken disturbance in the streets on Thursday night, and were arrested by the Police. On their way to the stationhouse, Allgood tried to bribe a policeman to let him go ; but the policeman was firm. Allgood then said to two privates of the Thirteenth, who were in the street, "Go down to the Prince of Orange, and tell your comrades that their officers are taken to the stationhouse." This brought to their rescue a party of soldiers ; who forcibly entered the stationhouse, endeavoured to break open the cell in which the officers were confined, and used very formidable threats against the police. Clements, a Superintendent, then gave up the pri- soners, for fear of bloodshed. The officers were examined before the Magistrates yesterday. They expressed their penitence, and offered to pay any fine that might be inflicted. But the Magistrates, with a proper sense of duty, determined to send the case to a jury ; and the offenders were held to bail. It is supposed that the affair will also be brought before a court-martial. The Fourteenth is under orders to depart for India in May.

A formidable gang of burglars has been discovered and broken up, in Lancashire. Their last exploit was the robbery of Mr. Shaw, a farmer, near Warrington, on the 26th March. The 1 o isekeeper, who looked out of the window when the house was first attacked, was shot at and wounded in the forehead by a slug. This led to the offer of a free pardon to any of the robbers who should come forward and give evi- dence; and the Police were stimulated to increased exertions. On their way to rob Mr. Shaw's farm, the thieves called at the house of a man named Bibby, at Blackbrook, and had some butter-milk. The Police heard of Bibby's suspicious guests, and caused him to seek them out in Manchester. He found one of them, named Parkinson, at a beer-house ; and after drinking with him for a while, he accompanied the burglar to his house in Chorlton-upon-Medlock ; where he met two more of the gang, Ellis and Barber. He made another drinking-appointment with them for the next day ; and he was met by Parkinson, Ellis, and another of the robbers, named Sutton. They went with him to the Liverpool station ; and were there seized by the Police, who were in waiting. Mr. Jones, the Deputy Constable of Warrington, then went with a Police- man to Parkinson's house. On searching it, they found a pair of duelling-pistols, bullet-moulds, powder-flasks, crow-bars, crapes for the faces, black calico jackets, two dark lanterns, (one of these was without a slide, and the slide of a lantern found in Mr. Shaw's house after the robbery exactly fitted it,) the key of Mr. Shaw's front-door, ladles for melting metal, with silver dross in one of them, lucifer matches, two saws, a vice, some files, and various other articles which had been taken from the houses that they had robbed. While they were in the house,

Barber and another of the gang came in. To the house of Barber Mr. Jones and the Policemen repaired. There they found a crow-bar, sundry keys, two boxes of lucifer-matches, and a piece of black calico, exactly corresponding in texture and quality with the jackets found in Parkin- son's house. It had been a jacket, and had been recently taken to pieces. The Police continued their search ; and on the 3d April, Jones appre- hended one Goodyear, at his house at Salemoor. The person who an- swered the knock at the door denied Goodyear's being in the house ; but Jones, on going inside, found him standing behind the door naked, with lils clothes on his arm. In all nine men were taken. One of them, Sutton, was admitted to give evidence for the Crown ; and he fully proved the burglary at Mr. Shaw's house, by six of the gang. They took some rum, a silver watch, some silver spoons, and a purse contain- ing seven sovereigns. The man that took the sovereigns gave his com- panions one a piece, and kept the other to divide when they next met. Sutton got ls. 3d. for his share of the spoons and watch. Three cases in which the band were concerned were brought before the Warrington Magistrates, on Monday ; when six of them, Parkinson, Barber, Pen- nington, Ellis, Goodyear, and Woollaston, were charged with a burglary at the house of Mr. Stubbs, a farmer at Gorton, on the 17th February ; and all six were committed. The same men, except Woollaston, were then charged with the burglary at Mr. Shaw's, (Sutton made the sixth on that occasion,) and committed on that charge also ; and Parkinson was committed on a third charge, for a burglary at Bickershaw Hall, the residence of Mr. Abraham Akers, on the 7th December ; the case not being proved against the others.

On Saturday week, the Governor of York Castle received a respite of the sentence of death which was passed at the last Yorkshire Assizes on John Mitchell, the youth who was tried for the murder of Mr. George Blackburn, near Barnsley. Mitchell will consequently be transported for life. He has made a long confession, positively charging Robinson as theman who killed Mr. Blackburn by throwing a large stone at his head ; and one Cherry is charged with assisting Robinson in the murder.

Frances Bostock, v:hose throat was cut by her paramour William Hanipsoo, at a beer-shop in Manchester, died lately in the Manchester Infirmary. An inquest was held on the body on the 8th ; when a verdict of "Wilful Murder" was returned against Hanipson, and he was committed for trial on the Coroner's warrant.

The Worcester Herald relates a fatal accident on the Gloucester and Birmingham Railway, on the night of the 6th. " Whilst the steam of one of the engines used in drawing the trains up the inclined plane at the Lickey was being got up,' a plug from the boiler was blown out : the consequence was, a sudden rush of the water and steam from the boiler, and the fire. door being open, all those on the platform of the engine or on the tender were more or less scalded. These were Mr. Creuze, the engineer of the locomotive ; Walworth, his foreman' Mr. Torry, a foreman of Messrs. Nasmyth and Co. ; the stoker, and Mrs. Walworth. Mr. Creuze, we lament to say, was so dreadfully injured, that, after lin- gering in much agony till Thursday morning, he expired. Walworth and the stoker, with Mrs. Walworth, were severely scalded, but it is hoped they will do well ; whilst Torry escaped comparatively unhurt."

An inquest was held on the body of Mr. Creuze on Thursday ; and it was then explained by one of the witnesses, that a tube had been removed from the boiler to be introduced at another part ; and the hole which was left was stopped up by a plug, which was not fastened on the inside, but merely fixed by the great force with which it was driven in. The Jury returned a verdict of "Accidental Death," with a deodand of 25/. on the engine.

The Worcester Herald mentions two other accidents on the same line. On the morning of the eth, at tio great distatice from Spetchley, the lading of one of the luggage-waggons was ignited by the sparks from the engine-furnace, and goods to some amount destroyed before the fire could be extinguished ; and the following night the second up-mail train was delay ed an hour and a half at D'efford, in consequence of one of the boiler-tubes cf the engine bursting.

A very alarming accident lately elicited much fortitude in two little girls. One evening last week, Mr. John Neale, the son of the landlord of the Mitre leaven], at Portsea, was taking his two young sisters home from school, through the New Forest, in a chaise-cart; when part of the harness snapped, the horse was frightened, and the cart was upset. All were thrown out. Mr. Neale had his hip broken and his ankle dislocated. His sister Agnes, who is ten years of age, was scalped from the forehead to the back of the head ; and Adeline, the other sister, a year younger, had her arm broken. 'The young man was quite insensible ; and the little girls, in spite of their sufferings, managed to draw their brother to the roadside, and then set out in search of assistance. After wandering in the Forest for about an hour, they found the house of one cf the keepers. Here the eldest sister remained, being quite exhausted. The other guided the keeper to the place where Mr. Neale lay ; and he was carried to the Crown Inn at Lyndhurst, where he remained in a state of considerable danger. Last week, a fatal accident happened in an old furnace at Dowlais Iron-works, near Merthyr. A furnace of the kind is composed of four square walls outside, and a circular wall in the inside ; and the space be- tween the inner and outer walls is filled up with loose stones and earth which become so closely compacted as to form one solid mass. In con- sequence of decay in a.portion of the inner or circular wall of the fur- nace in question, the outer wall and the intervening stones and earth were pierced, that the necessary repairs might be effected, and a small space was cleared for the men to carry on the work. A scaffolding was raised over the workmen, to protect them in case of any of the stones giving way. It did not prove effectual. On Tuesday morn- ing, an alarm was given that the loose stones were falling ; but only one man was able to leave the hole where they were at work before the whole mass, to the weight, it is estimated, of one hundred tons, came down on the scaffolding, smashing it to pieces, and burying eight men. Owing to the smallness of the space, only one man could work at :a time on the mass of fallen rubbish ; aid thus it was six o'clock in the evening before the first man was got :"''he and two more were extricated alive, though much injured ; the others were quite dead.