Vrouintial.

The Members for Manchester, Mr. Milner Gibson and Mr. John Bright, met some of their friends at a gathering in the Corn Exchange, on Mon- day evening. The admission was by ticket ; about a thousand tickets were sold, and many applications were declined. The standing chair- man, Mr. George Wilson, presided ; Mr. Heywood M.P., General Thompson, Sir Elkanah Armitage, and Mr. Joseph Sturge, were on the platform. In his opening speech, Mr. Wilson said that the meeting was a triumphant refutation of the statement that the Members for Man- chester had lost their popularity. Whatever course things may take at the next election, "Manchester has made her decision." Mr. Milner Gibson, making some observations on domestic legislation, and the few opportunities that the war had given him of supporting measures of do- mestic improvement, said he had never taken a hobgoblin view of the question of war : he never believed the West would be overrun by the nations of the East. Russia had never come to the West, except by the invitation of the Western Powers—both France and England have invoked her assistance in days gone by. As for the conditions of peace, he was as satisfied with them as he was with those of April last ; for he believed the present solution is not one whit better for the security of Europe than that proposed last year by Austria. He urged a close union in the Liberal party, under the banner of "Peace, retrenchment, and reform."

Mr. Bright made the monster speech ; which, in a partially abridged form, occupies five small-type columns of the Times. A very large Portion of it, not delivered all at once but scattered here and there, was devoted to abuse of the press. The whole may be summed up in a Ben- tenee. The writers of the press had told the people that "Russia is a colossal power, that not only threatened Turkey—poor, emaciated, de- erepid Turkey—but robust France and robust England : there is not a soul of them, who can write a sentence in English, who, in his opinion,

believed it." Mr. Bright also took the Bishops and Dissenting minis- ters to task for forgetting their sacred duties and advocating the war. He went into the "sphere of poetry," and contrasted the gross slang of the last poem of the Poet Laureate with Longfellow's "exquisite poem which treats of the legends of the Indian tribes." In dealing with the terms and prospects of peace, Mr. Bright took great pains to make out that "they are just as good for the avowed objects of the war as any terms that could have been gained by any number of campaigns between France, England, and Russia." Ile thought them admirable, indeed, but chiefly because he had reason to believe they would lead to a pacifi- cation. With regard to the Christian protectorate, Russia was quite willing, before the war, to take the other powers into a general partner- ship ; which now, he supposed, would be under the Limited Liability Act. As to the Principalities, it matters not whether they are independ- ent states or not ; it will make no difference in the power of Russia, or in her influence over the population of those regions. People think the terms of peace referring to the question of the Danube wonderfully im- portant— "They think, no doubt, that ships are not allowed by the Russians to go up the Danube ; and some persons have a dark suspicion that ships which go up that river are never allowed to come back. These people seem. to be quite unaware of this fact, that notwithstanding all that the wise men of the newspapers have told you, there is probably not a river in Europe on which traffic or commerce have increased during the lust ten years in a greater ratio than upon the Danube."

Then there is the "rectification" of the Russian territory, the cutting off of a little slip from Bessarabia. People may make what estimate they please of that, but it was not thought necessary in April last.

"Then we conic to the next question—the neutralization of the Black Sea. Wonderful words these. Ministers of State get up ! First we had 'counterpoise '—a word of three syllables ; next limitation '—which has four ; and now we have neutralization '—a word of five syllables. What is the meaning of it ? It means what ire have recommended very generally, and therefore we are not likely to find fault with it. I doubt not my friend and colleague will propose that it be extended to the Mediterranean when it is established with regard to the Black Sea." Why, Russia offered the same thing in April. It is a resurrection of the "four points" ; and when these points are secured, has the object attained been worth the war ? England has lost 50,000 men ; Franco 100,000 men ; the Turkish army has nearly disappeared ; the ruin of the Turkish empire has been accelerated by IN estern intervention' the Rus- sians have lost 250,000 men. Again, England has spent 100,000,000/.' - France an equal or a larger sum ; Russia has probably spent 50,000,0001. But these items represent only a portion of the cost. The "moral loss" has been enormous. The price of food has increased by 25,000,000/. per annum in the last two years. [In treating on this topic Mr. Bright went widely afield into economical questions.] For a great number of years "there has not been a year of business so entirely unsatisfactory as the last," throughout the cotton district. The banking, flannel, iron, and ship- ping trades' have not suffered ; but "they have been maintained out of the taxes of the population." And what for ? "The balance of power !" Look at the policy of the United States : in his last message the Pre- • sident contemns your balance of power. " The defence of the liberties of Europe ! "—a phrase Lord John Russell borrowed from a King's speech in the time of William the Third ! Mr. Bright did not believe it was intended that the Ottoman should rule for ever, but rather that, if Turkey became a spoil, she should not become only a Russian spoil, but a general spoil in the interests of the balance of power. At the close of his Speech, Mr. Bright assailed the riille8 for stating, what it knew to be an "unmitigated falsehood," that he had entered into a coalition with Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone. What turned out to be the fact ? That Lord Palmerston, with whom the Times now has an unholy alliance, was himself trying to get up a coalition. He did not go to Mr. Gladstone, but he went to Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. Glad- stone's intimate friend. He did not go to Mn. Disraeli, but he went to his most intimate and personal friend, Lord Stanley. "Lord Palmerston at that moment was ofiering a profligate bribe to a young man in Parlia- ment, whom he hoped to find as unscrupulous and changeable a poli- tician as he has proved himself' to be."

Mr. Bright took great credit to himself for his own consistency. There are "steeps of the Alma in morals as well as on the field of battle and blood." It is not profitable to swim against the stream ; but he wished to pass on uninfluenced by the baits that seduce and that feed ambition, and to make that which is just and true the lodestar of his political career.

General Thompson censured the conduct of the war ; and Mr. Hey- wood expressed his delight that a good opportunity was offered for the restoration of peace. The meeting separated with three cheers for Cob- den, Gibson, and Bright. speech consisted of a glance at the successive actions in the campaign ; in the course of which he vindicated the army from the charges made against it in the newspapers respecting the repulse at the Redan. Two things he mentioned of greater novelty.

Speaking of the battle of the Alma he said—" We saw the troops advance to the attack ; and so striking was that movement that General Canrobert, at that time second in command of the French army, told me afterwards, that he could only compare it to an English red brick wall supernaturally lifted up from the ground and propelled forward, so steady, so unwavering, and so irresistible was that attack.' Referring to the operations in the Sea of Azoff, he said—" And here, perhaps, it may not be irrelevant to say that, in the course of our expedition there, a letter was intercepted from the Em- - perm., in which his Imperial Majesty emphatically declared that he would almost as soon see the Allies in his Palace at St. Petersburg as in the Sea of Azoff."

" lithe negotiations terminate in a safe and honourable peace," he remark- ed, "then all the objects of the war will be attained : but we must not forget the proverb, Si via pacein pars helium.' There will bone relaxation on our parts in preparing for a continuance of the war, so that, if the enemy will not listen to reason and shall prevent peace being made, we may look con- fidently, through the blessing of God and a righteous cause, to another glorious campaign."

Mr. Blackett has now taken a farewell of his constituents at New- castle ; and Mr. George Ridley has put forward an address to the electors, as a candidate in the Liberal interest. Mr. Ridley will support "the principles of civil and religious liberty " ; "well-considered reforms in the several departments of administrative government " ; and only such a peace as is "compatible with national honour and the permanent tran- quillity of Europe."

The members of the Liverpool Juvenile Reformatory Association met on Tuesday, in the Council Chamber, to receive a report of progress from the Managing Committee. The Mayor occupied the chair, and gentlemen of various shades of polities and religion took part in the pro- ceedings. The business done by the Committee shows progress. Al- though they are still without land whereon to commence operations, they have obtained from the Government the use of the frigate Ackbar, to be employed as a naval school for the training of boys. The Coin- niiftee hope much from this first attempt to train boys for the naval ser- vice in a floating reformatory. With regard to their funds the Committee do not give a flourishing account. The donations and subscriptions have been large and encouraging ; but not so much so as to enable the Com- mittee to work the institution efficiently even with Government aid, and they therefore put forward an earnest appeal for support.

The newly-formed Railway Reform Association was submitted by Mr. Malins to a meeting of railway proprietors at Liverpool on Monday, Mr. Lawrence Heyworth M.P. in the chair, and adopted by them.

Do certain poisons so easily escape the detection of the chemist, in the dead body, as we have been led to suppose ? Mr. William Herapath, Professor of Toxicology at the Bristol Medical School, affirms that they do not. After a lecture delivered on Monday by his son, Mr. Herapath referred to the poisoning cases, and their effect on the public mind. "Apprehensions," he said, " respecting the seemity of life had been greatly increased by the statements which had gone forth as to the difficulty of detecting certain poisons after death. He understood it had been stated •

that prussic acid could not be detected after fourteen den-a; that strychnine could only be detected a few hours after death ; and that coeculus indicus could not be discovered at all. Now, he had himself, in a case which had been published, detected prussic acid in a human body which had been buried two mouths; lie had discovered coeculus indieus in beer, in dead fishes,and in a human body exhumed after ten mouths ; and with regard to strych-

nine, his belief was that he should be able to discover its presence as long as any fluids remained in the body. The difficulties in the way of detecting cages of poisoning were therefore not so great as had been supposed, and he hoped that the public mind ;night be reassured by that knowledge."

John Siniinohda, a Manilla boy, now in a Liverpool hospital, is charged With murdering a seaman of the Owen Williams. While the ship was pro- ceeding from Africa to Liverpool, this boy had been guilty of some offence, and he fled to the rigging ; a seaman was directed to seize him ; as the sea- man approached, the offender struck him on the head with a marlin-spike, and the seaman fell dead upon the deck. Siunnonds refused to descend : next day, blank pistol elm-a-es were fired at him, without effect; then a loaded pistol was fired, and the untoward boy was slightly wounded ; he fell, and broke his collar-bone.

On Saturday night, a pointsman at Manchester turned the wrong points, and a departing passenger-train ran into agoods-engine which was slowly approaching. Three passengers were hurt : Mrs. Palmer, of Sale Moor, suf- fered a concussion of the brain.

There has been a fatal boiler-explosion at Messrs. Taylor's colliery, Stand- ish, near Wigan. William Yates, a workman, and Martha Riding, an aged widow, who had brought her son's breakfast to the place, were killed : others were hurt more or less severely. The boiler is believed to have been in a defective state : the explosion occurred during the stoppage of the engine while the workpeople were at breakfast.