31liortllautnuo.

• 'The new Parliament, it is expected, will be opened by the Sovereign in person, on her Majesty's return from Scotland, in the second week in November.—Norning Herald.

M. de Persigny, the confidential adviser of Louis Napoleon, has ar- rived in London, in order to discuss with our Government various topics of political and commercial interest affecting Great Britain and France.— Standard.

The Honourable R. 1. Ingersoll has been appointed Minister to Eng- land from the United States, in the room of Mr. Abbott Lawrence.

The Emperor of Austria entered his twenty-third year on the 18th in- stant. A Te Deum was sung in the church of St. Stephen on the occa- sion, and in the evening all the theatres were brilliantly illuminated.

The King of Prussia, who has been staying at Putbus, was to leave that place on the 24th, for Stettin.

The Queen of Sweden and Prince Albert of Prussia arrived at Munich on the 15th.

Count Nesselrode passed through Milan early in th. e week, on his way to Naples ; where he is to remain some time.

General Radowitz has been appointed Director of the Schools for Mili- tary Instruction in Prussia.

Princess Caroline Wass and her mother are now at Vienna.

The Austrian Lloyd's contradicts the statement of General Gorgey being about to be transferred to the fortress of Kufstein ; he is to remain, says the journal, at Klagenfurth.

The Earl of Westmoreland arrived in Florence from Vienna on the 17th.

Cardinal Wiseman presided over a grand ceremony at Cambrai last Sunday, to inaugurate a miraculous statue of the Virgin, whin; had 'caught cannon-balls in its apron upon the occasion of a siege. He also headed a procession of a miraculous picture of the Virgin, "painted by ..St. Luke."

An English gentleman named Hogg has been convicted before the Paris Correctional Police for having illegally introduced and circulated in France a publication called the Nouveau Bulletin Francais. Five hun- dred copies were packed up under the false bottom of a flower-box, ad- dressed to M. Thomas ; which Mr. Hogg claimed. He was sentenced to six months' imprisonment and fined 3000 francs.

A private letter from Warsaw, of the 17th instant, gives the following account of the origin of the cholera which is at present committing such ravages in the neighbourhood of Kalisch-

" It was thoughtsexpedient some time since to make some improvements in the small town of Link, near TroliFeh. For that purpose, it was found necessary to make excavations in the cemetery where the victims of the cholera of 1832 had been interred. Almost immediately afterwards, the operatives employed in the work were attacked with cholera, and every one of them died. Since then it has spread, and is attended with more than -ordinary mortality."

Mr. Hind, of Mr. Bishop's Observatory, Regent's Park, has discovered -another planet, being the sixth he has detected during the past five years. It is in the constellation Aquarius, and will be readily seen with a telescope • of very ordinary power. In brightness it equals a star of the ninth magnitude, and appears to have the same yellowish tinge that has been noticed about Pallas, Melpomene, and others of the same group of planets. At 11 h. 35 Min. 31 sec., Greenwich mean time, (August 22,) its right ascension was 22h. 22 rain. 29.7 sec., and its North polar distance 97 deg. 32 min. 14 sec. • the diurnal motion in right ascension is 53 see. towards the West, and in N.P.D. about 5 min. towards the South.

Popular tradition has from time immemorial attached a poisonous influence to the toad, but enlightened opinion presumed that the idea was an ignorant prejudice. All doubts, however, as to the poisonous nature of the contents of the skin-pustules of the toad and salamander lizard are set at rest by the recent experiments of two French philosophers, MM. Gratiolet and S. Cloez, who by inoculating various animals with the cutaneous poison of toads and salamanders, have demonstrated that the substances in question are endowed with well-marked and exceedingly dangerous qualities. The first experi- ment of these gentlemen was prosecuted on_a little African tortoise, Which was inoculated with some of the toad-poison in one of its hinder feet : pa- ralysis of the limb supervened, and still existed at the expiration of eight months; thus demonstrating the possibility of local poisoning by the agent In order to determine whether the poisonous material spoiled by keeping, the two gentlemen procured about 29 grains of the poison, on the 25th April 1851, and having placed it aside until the 16th March 1852, they inoculated a goldfinch with a little of this material. The bird almost immediately died. Subsequently the investigators succeeded in eliminating the poisonous principle from the inert matters with which it is associated in the skin- pustules and they found that when thus purified its effects are greatly .more intense than before. Like most of the known very strong organic poisons, the active principle of toad-venom is alkaline in its character ; almost inso- luble in water, slightly soluble in ether, and very soluble in alcohol. MM. Gratiolet and S. Cloez are at this time occupied in collecting a large amount of toad-venom, and will shortly make known the result of their further in- vestigations, which are calculated, in the opinion of the investigators, to throw considerable light upon the nature and action of the poisons of hydro- phobia, of serpents, of contagious diseases, and animal poisons generally.

In draining the lake of Haarlem, an enormous mass of human bones has been found on the spot where, according to a topographical chart drawn up in 1545, stood the unfortunate village of Neiuweinkerke, which in 1539 was swallowed up by an irruption of the North Sea, which formed the lake.

The Giornale di Boma announces that four suspension-bridges are to be constructed over the Tiber, namely, at Itipetta, San Giovanni de' Fiorentini,

Pouts Rotto, and Rips Grande. A company has undertaken the work, on condition of exacting a moderate toll.

The South-eastern Railway Company gave a treat to a number of the men in their employment at Ashford, with their wives and families, on Wed- nesday: 1004 persons were conveyed to Folkstone, thence in two steamers to Boulogne, and returned to Ashford at ten o'clock the same evening.

Of late there have been immense arrivals of shipping in the Thames; on Sunday and Monday, no fewer than 346 sail, with a tonnage of 61,500.

Le Corse, a French war-steamer, was off Shields on the 23d of August, accompanied by two tenders. Her "mission" is very singular. It ap- pears that a number of French boats are engaged in the herring-fishery, and that they are paid a premium by their own Government upon what they catch. As they fish outside our boats, the men very frequently act in concert with our men, and purchase fish of them, instead of engaging themselves in fishing. So much for bounties!

Fatal thunder-storms continue to be reported. At Exeter, a house was struck by the lightning, and several persons were hurt ; one, a gentleman named Burnham, being killed. The wife of a railway labourer at Newnham in Gloucestershire took her husband's,dinner to him ; she sought shelter from a storm under a tree ; her husband Called to her to leave that dangerous place, and go to a neighbouring beer-shop ; he thought she had gone, but in a few minutes the lightning ran down the bark of the tree, and smoke was seen to rise: the husband and his companions ran to the spot, and found the poor woman dead, with her clothes on fire.

Railway accidents seem to be as rife in France as in this country. Several are mentioned this week. At Nismes, a number of passengers were hurt ; near Nancy, a stoker was killed and' several passengers were wounded, some seriously ; near Asnieres, a train ran into a locomotive, and a great number of persons were bruised or cut.

James Jones, a young Londoner, is attempting a novel pedestrian feat at Manchester, for a prize of 1001.—walking 1500 miles in 1000 successive hours a mile and a half each hour. Up to the present time he is suc- cessful.

The Anzeiger Zeitung has a letter from Regensburg recounting "an Eng- lish freak." "Three English gentlemen (Messrs. Mansfield, Comprest, and Thompson) have undertaken to go from London to Constantinople in their own boat. They arrived here on the afternoon of the 10th, and excited much interest Their little vessel is built of beautiful mahogany. It is twenty-five feet long, and rather more than three feet wide in the middle. It is exceedingly elegant. It is rowed by two of the voyagers while the third steers. It shoots across the water with the rapidity of an arrow. It is so exceedingly light that two persons can with ease carry it out of the water. This we ourselves witnessed yesterday ; for the amateur voyagers, in order to avoid the extremely rapid and dangerous current just below the stone bridge of the Danube, took it out of the water on the one side of the bridge and carried it to the other."