gbt likobintes.

The election of a Member for North Lancashire, in the room of Lord Stanley, took place at Lancaster, on Friday. Mr. John Talbot Clifton was proposed by Mr. Townley Parker, and seconded by Mr. C. Swainson, an extensive manufacturer of Preston. Mr. Livesey proposed Sir Thomas Potter, of Buile Hill, Pendleton ; but be only did so as an excuse for making a long Free-trade speech. In the course of it, Mr. Livesey, who is connected with :the Preston Chronicle, and is an extensive cheese-dealer, stated that he paid 1,0001. a month for cheese ; a considerable portion of which went, in the shape of rent from his tenantry, to Colonel Clifton of Lytham, the candidate's father,—to whose personal worth the Free-trader bore ample testimony. However, he declared against protection for agriculture, which only means protection for rents; and to show how little it benefits the farmer, he asserted that in many districts there are not more farms now than there were when the Doomsday Book was written, v.hile the farmers have multiplied, and depress their own business by competing with one another. At the beginning of his address, Mr. Livesey was much interrupted by cries of " Cheese !" and such jeers; but the Sheriff insisted upon his being heard throughout. After a short conversation, Sir Thomas Potter's name, having answered its purpose, was with- drawn ; and there being no other candidate, Mr. Clifton was declared duly elected. He addressed the electors, stating that he would support a Conservative Government as long as it should remain Conservative; contending that free trade would be mischievous so long as foreign countries do not reciprocally give free admission to our goods, that it would injure agriculture in particular, and that this country ought to be independent of a foreign supply of corn. He announced a gratify- ing fact- " I believe, gentlemen, that the power of the League is upon the decay. (Cheers, and cries of" No, no ! ") Where is their boast that they would con- test every vacancy in Parliament ? I will tell you why they have not. They had no money—(Cheers)—and a very good reason why. (Renewed cheers.) I will tell you why they have no money—it is because you have all your eyes

at so open that you will not subscribe to them : for you are perfectly re

this time, that the cry for cheap bread is only another cry for low wages ; and. which of you would like low wages ? Where would be the advantage of the change, if you could not get anything to eat ?" (Loud applause.) He avowed himself a supporter of the Church of England, but an advocate of religious freedom. Mr. John Brooks, of Manchester, rose to question the candidate; and was assailed by loud hootings and laughter. He called out in a very loud voice, "Before I commence "- an exordium which he repeated. at least twenty times, amid roars of laughter. At length, the Sheriff obtained a hearing for him ; and he went on to catechize Mr. Clifton. Among other things, he asked, what " protection " meant, what are the peculiar burdens on land, and whe- ther Mr. Clifton would pledge himself to reduce the duties on sugar? The questions, however, were not very cogently put, and the new Member easily evaded them ; the pledge to lower the Sugar-duties being most distinctly refused. Thanks were voted to the Sheriff, and the meeting broke up, with cheers for the new Member, his friends, and " old cheese"! The Member was duly chaired ; and in the after- noon he was entertained at dinner by his supporters.

The Archbishop of Canterbury held his visitation in All Saints Church at Maidstone, on Tuesday. Archdeacon Lyall and more than a hundred clergymen were present ; and among the lay auditors was Mr. A. B. Hope, M.P. In the course of his charge, the Archbishop more than once alluded, with mixed apprehension and hope, to the pre- sent position of the Church and its dissensions, exhorting the clergy to harmony, but not mentioning the Tractarian schism by name. In the evening, he dined with his clergy at the Star Hotel.

The annual meeting of the South Derbyshire Agricultural As- sociation was held at Ashbourn, on Saturday. The show of stock and implements was not large, but good. In the afternoon, a numerous party dined together at the Green Man Inn ; Mr. Charles Robert Colvile, M.P., in the chair. After dinner, labourers to whom prizes of money had been awarded for meritorious conduct, were called in to receive the prizes. One glass of wine was given to each ; and the Chair- man invited the guests at the table to drink their health, and that of the whole body of agricultural labourers in England. Independently of the Christian feelings which ought to actuate and govern their conduct towards their fellow men, he hoped they were not blind to the advantage which they derived in having as tillers ot their land, able, honest, and trustworthy servants. He was sure he spoke their feelings when he told the meritorious men around him how obliged to them they felt for their exer- tions and good conduct; and, on their return home, he trusted they would in- cite their neighbours and children to walk in the same steps of probity and honour. The interests of the landlord, the farmer, the yeoman, and the la- bourer, were knit together—were one and the same ; and he sincerely hoped such proceedings as those in which they had participated would teach them that their interests being inseparably connected, it was their duty, and ought to be their desire, to act kindly to those under them ; and that the labourers would also derive the lesson that time is money, and that to waste the one is to rob their employers of the other. In thanking the company when they drank his own health, Mr. Col- vile announced some improvements in the regulations of the Society. Its meetings would no longer be confined to Derby, as if it belonged to the town instead of the county, but would be ambulatory, bringing the benefit of the exhibition home to the doors of the farmers. Another im- provement was, that politics were for ever banished from their discus- sions. He called upon tenant-farmers and country gentlemen to support so useful an association better than they had done. He proceeded to reassure the farmers respecting the importations of foreign cheese— Many of his brother cheese-makers were terribly alarmed at the apparent great importation of American cheese ; and on this subject complaints were loud and frequent, many of the farmers anticipating, if not instant, at least certain ruin. They seemed to think that this great importation would utterly swamp them. It was by way of reply to these communications, and with the view also of relieving the minds of farmers in the cheese-districts, that he was desirous of communicating some facts of which he had obtained possession. In order to obtain correct information on the subject, he bad searched, with great care and labour, through the Parliamentary returns for the last twelve years. The returns spread over many volumes; but he had reduced the main facts upon a sheet of paper, so that they might see at once how the case really stood. What he intended to show was this, that although the importation of American cheese was greatly increased, it had driven the Dutch cheese out of the market, and the aggregate importation is less now than it was several years ago. Though the American cheese had come in in shoals, the Dutch cheese, instead of being brought here as formerly, was taken elsewhere—to France, he was told. rile produced a table which showed, that from 1831 to 1840, the importation from America had fluctuated, without any regularity, between nothing and 50 hundredweight ; from Holland or Belgium the importation had increased, in the same period, from 133,397 hundredweight to 224.957 hundredweight ; from other European countries the supply had remained insignificant and nearly stationary-1.049 in 1831,1,464 in 1840: the aggregate importations advanced from 134,459 in 1831 to 226,462 in 1840. The last figures of the table we take as they stand : they show the imports of cheese, in hundredweights, from the places named for the last three years.] Year. America. Europe. Total.

1841 15.154 254,995 270,149 1842 14.098 165.614 179,748 1843 42,312 136.998 179.389

The importation of cheese had decreased during the last ten years by nearly '32,000 hundredweight, while the population has increased by 2,300,000 mouths.

At a meeting of the Manchester Agricultural Society, on Tuesday, Mr. George Wilbraham President of the Society and High Sheriff of Cheshire, alluded to the condition of the agricultural population, and the landlord's duty to take care of the labourer's welfare— He would not contrast the condition of manufacturing and agricultural labour- ers; but there had been symptoms of late in different parts of England and Wales, that the people of the country had a deep-rooted feeling among them of discon- tent with their social condition. It was our duty to take them into serious consideration. People would say, and justly, " Why don't you educate them, and teach them the difference between right and wrong; their duty to God and man ; that honesty is the best policy, and that it is only by thrifty and sober habits that an agricultural labourer can ever arrive at independence? "- and all this was true. It was the business of every man to give the labourers every instruction in his power : but what was the use of preaching the doc- trines of political economy to a man deprived of the first necessaries of life— when he could not send his children to school, and could only feed them per- haps on half mouldy potatoes ? Give them physical comforts first. He had no nostrum, no specific. Much had been said of the good effect of allotments ; and be looked on them with favour, as giving the labourer some feeling of property and independence : but this in itself was not sufficient. He knew no more melan- choly sight than a number of stout young men applying for relief to the union, willing and able to work, and unable to find a farmer to employ them. We must not lose sight of the evil because it was difficult to meet it. He would call on all men of capital to meet—such a meeting had been held last week in Suffolk, driven to it by incendiary fires ; he would call on men of property. Per- haps farmers had great difficulty in making out their rents: but men of pro- perty. must take this into consideration ; for he held that property had its du- ties as well as its rights. There must be a stay put to this increasing evil, which concerned every one,—a subject which her Majesty recommended to the consideration of her subjects in her last address from the Throne, and it had been considered in agricultural meetings in Suffolk and elsewhere. Employ- ment was wanted. If every one bad a good day's wages for a good day's work, King Lud and Rebecca might be set at defiance. He never saw the farm (ex- cept show-farms) to which a great degree of husbandry-labour might not be ap- plied with the greatest advantage; for there was no machine that could be com- pared to a pair of stoat human hands, especially if _directed by an intelligent lased.

At a meeting of labourers held at Spirthill, in Wiltshire, to consider their distressed condition, the Chairman announced that any one pre- sent might speak ; on which a woman, Mary Ferris, came forward, and said that the men, many of them, were afraid to speak. A voice an- swered, that they who were living on potatoes and water had not the spirit Co do so. Mary Ferris proceeded— She thought a little more land would be of great service to the labourers generally. Her husband had to maintain her and five children out of 8s. per week. They had half an acre of land ; but that was not sufficient, with his low wages, to maintain them in a manner fitting to do a day's work. This last summer they had no potatoes for a considerable length of time, and nothing but the Os per week. Her children were often crying round her for food, and she did not know how to get any. She said the men knew nothing of their hardships in comparison to the women : they brought the 88. home on Satur- day night ; but the management was left to the women, who could not supply the wants of their families from it. She stated that they did not taste a morsel of animal food for two months together.

All the labourers who did speak complained of their miserable state.

The Phcenix Fire-office of London has contributed 200/. towards the subscription for public walks and parks in Manchester. The donation was conveyed in these terms-

" The benevolent measure entertained by the leading merchants and manu- facturers of your town, for the promotion of the health and comfort of its in- dustrious population, by the establishment of public walks and gardens, has to- day come under the notice of our Board ; and the Board feeling that, during its long and extensive connexion with the trade of Manchester, the Pbcenix Company has had frequent experience of the good disposition of! the labouring classes, when their personal services have been required in cases of fire, are desirous to avail themselves of the opportunity which the measure alluded to presents, of adding their assistance towards the success of a measure so well calculated to effect the object contemplated."

Sir John Ramsden has left 20,0001. towards improving the town of Huddersfield.

Two more incendiary fires are reported in Suffolk : at one of these the farm was fired in three places at once.

A powder-mill at Sedgwick, near Kendal, exploded last week, and a -workman was blown to pieces.

A portion of the Middlesbrough branch of the Stockton and Darling- ton Railway has been on fire ; but the traffic on it has been prosecuted as usual. A large quantity of small coal had been used in forming an embankment at the end of the bridge over the Tees: this has ignited ; and great quantities of water have been thrown on it to extinguish it, in vain.

Mr. George Sidingham, a miller at Datchet, near Windsor, was killed on Tuesday morning, by one of the shafts of his mill striking him on the temple.

A bell-411pr at Newington Church, near Sandgate, Kent, has been killed by the bellhe was pulling: it turned over, and drew him up to the ceiling of the belfry, where his head struck with such violence that he died in half-!n-hour.

John Teesdale, a man of robust constitution, has been killed at Hest Bank, in Lancashire, by eating of the berries of the deadly nightshade. Two women and a man also partook of the poisonous fruit, in mistake for barberries, and one of the women ate nearly a pint : but all three recovered by means of emetics. Teesdale went into a hay-loft when taken ill; and no one knew where he was, till he was found on the fol- lowing day frightfully swollen, with eyes closed, and in so desperate a state that medical skill was of no avail.