I GUI lit In 1, The festival of the three

choirs,—Hereford, Worcester, and Gloucester', —held this year at Hereford, began on Tuesday. The cathedral is now undergoing a process of repairs' and the opening service was performed amidst the preparations of the workmen. Spohr's overture to "The Last Judgment" was performed as a prelude. Prayers were chanted by the Reverend Mr. Havergrd, and the Reverend Canons Huntingford and Hopton assisted in the service. The sermon was preached by Arch- deacon Waring. The collection at the doors only amounted to 119/. 98. 8d.—less by 50/. than the sum collected in 1855. The con- certs were performed in the Shire-hall, the oratorios in the cathedral. The oratorio performed on Wednesday was "Elijah." The collection was 181/., or 26/. less than the sum collected last year. The concert in the Shire-hall, on Wednesday, did not draw a full audience, and its "frigid coldness" is a subject of humorous remark. On Thursday, se- lections from "Athaliah," the whole of Rossiui's " Stabat Mater," and " The Creation," were performed in the cathedral. The receipts at the doors again were less by 50/. than the sum collected last year. 7 Yesterday the performance of the "Messiah" brought the festival to a close. It attracted a full audience. The total sum collected during the week is 738/. 17s. 9d. or 60/. less than in 1855.

The conduct of the Dean of Hereford has excited considerable remark. There arc two parties in the Chapter one for and one against these festivals ; the Dean belongs to the latter, and he absented himself from Hereford. A wag put up a notice on the Deanery—" These premises to. let during festival week." The Dean was not alone in his retirement. The Mayor and many persons of local influence were away. The Bishop was at his post.

A church-rate, intended to provide funds for the restoration of the parish church of Waddingham, in Lincolnshire, has been negatived by 20 to 2. A rate proposed for simply repairing Marsden Church, York- shire, has been negatived by 100 to 16.

Tamworth stands fast to church rates. On Friday week, when the annual meeting was held for granting church-rates there, an opposition was raised; and it was moved that the rate should be refused. The motion for refusal of the rate having been rejected by a very large majority, a poll was demanded, which was brought to a close on Tuesday last—the votes in favour of the rate being 501, against it 186; majority for the rate, 315.

The strike of the colliers for increased wages in part of Staffordshire and Worcestershire continues. The men hold meetings, whereat Chartists and Communists are to be found putting forward their peculiar views. The men are, however, peaceful at present, and they do not seem to be altogether united or in earnest. The police are kept on the

alert, and the gatherings of discontented men are closely watched. Many Yorkshire collier's are also on strike.

At the Liverpool Assizes there was a trial of great importance, arising out of the concerns of the Liverpool Borough Bank. It was the case of Scott and another versus Dixon. Messrs. John Scott and Robert Robinson were the purchasers of shares in the bank, on the faith of a favourable report, issued when the bank was not sound, and they lost the value of their shares. The Borough Bank was established in 1837, on the remains of one belong- ing to Hope and Co. By the deed of arrangement, the management was vested in certain directors, who, by the constituent rules embodied in the clauses of the deed, were bound to give a true and correct summary and ba- lance sheet, with such further accounts as the directors should deem expe- dient for the interests of the company to be made public. In the ma- nagement of the bank, the directors were bound, first to ascertain and set apart sums for the bad and doubtful debts, next to lay aside a sum such as they should think proper for a reserve fund, and then to declare the dividend. About three years ago, Mr. Joshua Dixon purchased shares in the bank solely to become a Director. He was not satisfied with the management of the affairs ; and in June 1857 he accepted a seat at the board of the managing Directors. He obtained a statement of the affairs from Mr. Smith, the retiring manager, and Mr. Dixon himself was then of opinion that no dividend ought to be declared. But still, according to his own account, he was overruled, and he did not persist in carrying out his views. It was thus that he became a party to the report which the Directors issued to the proprietors on the 28th of Silly 1857. In that report the Directors stated that the bank possessed a capital of one million, though the actual capital reported was only 936,000/. They reported that there was a balance of 7439 6s. 6d. to be carried to the reserve fund, though there was no reserve fund in existence, that all bygone losses before the current year had been amply provided for, although it has been stated, before a meeting at which Mr. Dixon was present, that 371,000/. odd had actually been written off as loss ; yet the directors declared a profit of 6 per cent. This was done on the 28th of July ; on the 236 of August Messrs. Scott and Robinson were registered as having bought their ten shares ; the bank stopped payment on the 26th of October. Mr. Dixon appears to have resisted the mismanagement; he protested against the report; and he yielded only to the representations of the Board, that to declare no dividend would be dangerous, would cause a run upon the bank, and its stoppage. The Jury found a verdict for the plaintiff for the amount claimed.

A painful trial took place at the Bristol Assizes on Monday. The plaintiff was the Reverend Mr. Yeseombe of Bath, the defendant Mr. Walter Savage Lander. The action was for libel, and a breach of an undertaking given by Mr. Landor not to repeat the libel. Up to May 1857 the Yescombes and Mr. Lander were on very intimate terms, but in that month a young lady residing at Bath with Mrs. Yescombe was sent away to Cheltenham ; why, was not explained at the trial. Mr. Landor seems afterwards to have been animated by hatred of the Yescombes ; his hatred came to light in a pam- phlet, charging Mrs. Yescombe with perjury, theft, and fraud. Upon this, Mr. Yescombe consulted his solicitor, and an action appeared certain, when Mr. John Forster, the author, interfered, and with much difficulty persuaded Mr. Lander to withdraw the libels. Mr. Landor then had recourse to ano- nymous letters, some of them containing imputations too foul for publicity ; and he followed them up by publishing a book called "A Bundle of Dry Sticks." In this volume all the old libels, expressed in epigrammatic verses, were renewed, and others of an obscene kind were added. When the latter were read, Baron Channell suggested that something should be done to prevent the case from going on. Mr. Phinn, the defendant's coun- sel said that counsel are now bound and cannot act, and that he had in vain sought authority to stop the case. No attempt was made to substantiate the plea of justification. The defence was that Mr. Lander was a con- temporary of Byron and Moore whose writings were full of immoralities. Some allowance should be made for this. The Jury amerced Mr. Lauder in 1000/. damages.

The Lander action was not the only remarkable trial at Bristol. A Cap- tain Franklin of the ship Undaunted was indicted for assaulting Mr. Ignatius Krog, and putting him in irons on board that ship. The Un- daunted was on her voyage from Calcutta to London yid the Cape. She had on board a number of troops, several officers, and many ladies. Captain Franklin rendered himself unpleasant to the passengers, used expressions insulting to the officers, threatened to pull the noses of two, and talked about facing them at twelve paces. The hostility rose to a climax when the captain insisted that the lights in the saloon should be extinguished at eight o'clock. Mr. Krog, not knowing what the noise was about, asked what the row was. The captain called out, "Who the devil are you?" Mr. Krog said, "My name is Mr. Krog." The captain repeated and mis- pronounced the name several times in a most insulting manner. Mr. Krog said, "My status in society is as good as yours." The captain then began making a noise. Mr. Krog said, "Captain Franklin, no doubt you are captain of the ship and the crew, and so far as the crew are concerned, they are bound to submit to your orders, but it is different with respect to the passengers, who have a right to the use and enjoyment of the saloon; but you are like the landlord of a floating hotel." Infuriated by this speech, Franklin got a revolver, piped up his crew, chose to believe there was a mutiny, put Mr. Krog in irons, and kept him there for ten days. All the time he held out to Mr. Krog a promise of release, providing Mr. Krog would apologise for saying Franklin was the landlord of a floating hotel. He released Mr. Krog upon medical certificate. The defence was that Franklin believed the passengers intended to upset his authority, to mutiny in fact, and get possession of the ship. Yet he admitted under cross-examination, that he did not put Mr. Krog in irons to prevent a mutiny, because Mr. Krog had said he was the landlord of a floating hotel. Baron Watson, in his summing up said, the ship was in one sense a kind of hotel, but the captain had a control over the saloon, to take care that there was not improper conduct, and he presumed it would be very much the same as a respectable hotel in this city. It was not yet the law of England that a captain could put a passenger in irons because he called him the landlord of a floating hotel. The jury found for the plaintiff —damages 3751.

A jury at Bristol have awarded 4001. damages to a poor woman deprived of the use other limbs by an accident at a station on the Midland Railway. There was a right of way across the line. When a train halted it was divided so as to leave an opening for foot-passengers. The poor woman was passing, when, without warning of any kind, the engine was put in motion, and she was crushed between the trucks. As they rebounded she crept out. She has been a cripple ever since.

A railway tragedy, which approaches, in its lists of killed and wounded, the dimensions of a military combat, has occurred on the Oxford, Worces- ter, and Wolverhampton line. There was on Monday "a very cheap Sunday school excursion" from Wolverhampton to Worcester. The train consisted of forty-five carriages, containing 2000 persons of all ages and sexes. This huge train seems to have performed its first journey safely ; but some apprehensions must have been felt, for on its return the train w cut in two, and one engine was attached to each division, instead of havinges one in front and rear of the whole. The first train started about half-p

six, the second a quarter of an hour later. Both proceeded safely as far asthe Round Oak station. "There" aavs the _Birmingham .Daily p - "either just before the train arrived at ihe station, which is situated (reign a' steep incline, or when it was put in motion to leave the station, 12 or 13 of the last carriages became detached from the former part of the train by the breaking of the couplings of two of the carriages, and rolled back down the incline towards Brettel-lane with ever-increasing velocity. The guard who occupied the van at the extremity of the train applied his break with all the force of which it was capable, but its power was insufficient to check the retrograde motion of the carriages, which soon attained a very high rate of apeed. On arriving at Bug Hole, a little more than half-way to Brettel Lane, they dashed into the second excursion train, which, as before stated. was despatched from Worcester only .flfteen minutes after the first, aed being a lighter train, naturally gained upon it during the journey. The driver of the second train perceived the carriages running' back upon him down the incline, and had nearly succeeded in bringing his train to a stand at the time of the collision, thus considerably mitigating the severity of the crash. But as it was the consequences were fearful. The guard's van and the carriage next to it were split into matchwood, and the second carriage escaped little better. The guard jumped out just before the collision occurred, and escaped without injury ; but the effect upon the passengers crowded in the two oho. tered carriages was dreadful. The scene that ensued it is impossible to de- scribe. Fragments of the crushed and broken carriages, mutilated human forms, some still in death, some writhing in their last agonies, others se- riously but not fatally hurt, shrieking with pain and terror, were com- mingled in a general tnOlee, hardly distinguishable amid the darkness, and the duet occasioned by the collision. The terrified passengers who escaped without serious injury ran hither and thither in bewilderment, and for a time none knew what to do. A few of the more self-possessed, however, epeeslily bestirred themselves to render all the possible assistance to the unfortunate sufferers, and remove them from the wreck that bestrewed the line, and messengers were despatched for medical and other aid. It was soon ap- parent that the loss of life was lamentably great. Eleven lifeless forms were discovered among the rubbish, in addition to many frightfully mangled and disfigured. As speedily as possible the latter were conveyed on stretch- ers, furnished by the shivered coaches, to the various hotels in the neigh- bourhood ; and the next duty attended to was the removal of the dead hi like manner. Many of those only slightly injured proceeded onwards by the train."

Medical men soon arrived, to attend the wounded who could not be safely removed. The earlier returns of the casualties werel2 killed and 40 wounded*. Almost all the persons thus destroyed or injured, resided, it is supposed, in and about one place.

A Coroner's Jury assembled on Wednesday to investigate how the twelve persons destroyed came by their deaths. So far the inquiry has made little progress, but that little brings out many statements which, if not hereafter rebutted, tell heavily against the railway officials.

Isaac Baldwin, a waggoner, deposed that on the journey to Worcester there were no fewer than three violent concussions caused by portions of the train running against other portions. He was told that the cause of one at least was that the breaks were down at starting. William Skeldon, a boiler-plate roller, went to Worcester in the guard's break-van. He deposed that the guard smoked -while a brother of the witness, a mere lad, hardly ever on a railway before, worked the breaks. Skeldon de- posed that the couplings broke twice on the journey to Worcester. He went in the break-van because the carriages were so crowded that per- sons were standing up. The train, although advertised for school children was open to the public. The Reverend E. C. Perry, a clergyman who went with the school children, spoke of the shocks on the journey to Worcester. On one occasion he got out and saw the officers unite the detached portions. "The union was effected simply by the centre chain being hooked on. It seemed to me that the coupling of this chain to the preceding carriage had been neglected. I saw some chain or chains broken, but can't say that they were the side coupling chains. If the centre chain had been connected with the preceding carriage it must have broken, and could not have been hooked on afterwards. I infer that, from the ease with which these two separate couplings took place, in both cases of breakage the centre chain was not hooked on. After we had again started, I said to the guard, don't know whether those engine-drivers are playing tricks with us,. or are drunk, but certainly, from the extraordinary jerks that they are giving us, I should think that they were drunk.'" Mr. Philips, station-master at Round Oak, said that it is not usual for persons to travel in the guard's-van, but sometimes in ease of excursion-trains, passengers will force themselves in. I am aware there is an order against persons travelling in the guard's- van on ordinary occasions.

The inquest stands adjourned for a week.

It is now stated that the dead amount to 13 and the wounded to ninety. One statement is that 15 have died.

Four gentlemen have been drowned off Emsworth, Hants. Six went to sea in a pleasure smack. A squall capsized the boat and four were drowned. They were the Reverend H. Morse, Mr. Joshua Smith, solicitor, Mr. Brown Moorhead, and Mr. George Sheen. Mr. Morse had reached the shore by swimming. He plunged in again to save any one left in the wreck and perished.