Zbt Itletropolis.

A Special General Court of Proprietors was held on Wednesday at the India House, pursuant to a requisition from the gentlemen who advocate the cause of the late Rajah of Setters. Mr. Hume moved a resolution trging an inquiry into the case of the deceased: but, although he was sup- forted by several proprietors, the question was again shelved; the Chair- Inn moving an adjournment, which was carried by 63 to e6.

At a Court of Directors, held at the East India House on Tuesday, Viscount Falkland was appointed Governor of the Presidency of Bombay.

At the annual meeting of the Governors of the Seamen's Hospital Society, Keying, Imperial Commissioner to the Emperor of China, was elected one of the Vice-Presidents!

In the Court of Queen's Bench, on Tuesday, the four Judges who have heard the arguments in the case of Regina versus the Archbishop of Canterbury, gave their opinions on the question whether or not the mandamus should issue. Each member of the Court had prepared his opinion at great length in writing.

The junior Puisne Judge, Mr. Justice Erle, began, and stated the connected grounds on which the rale was sought. They were, that the office of the Arch- bishop in confirming was strictly judicial, and that persons had a right to object to the validity of the election, and to have a judgment on their objections; and that this right might be enforced by the writ of mandamus. His right was, that since the passing of the statute 25 Henry VIII. chap. 20, the right to object did not exist, and that the application for the rule must on that ground fail. [Mr. Justice Erle recited the important sections of this act; and as thejudg- ment turns upon it, we recapitulate the main points of those sections. The fourth section declared that on voidance of a bishopric, the King might grant to the Dean and C hapter a licence to elect, and might name in a letter-missive the person to e elected; and that thereupon the electors should with all speed and celerity and in due form elect such person, and none other. The fifth section declared such election, if made, to be good and effectual to all intents; and that the person so elected, after certificate thereof, should be reputed the " lord elected" of the dig- nity elected to; and it provided that the King, after fealty sworn to him by the Nilsen, might by letters-patent signify the election to the Archbishop, and re- quire and demand him to confirm that election. Farther, it was by the fourth section provided, that if the electors did not in twelve days elect, the King might himself, by letters-patent, nominate and present to the Archbishop such person as he thought able and convenient; whom the Archbishop should " with all speed

and celerity invest and consecrate" to the office and dignity indicated, and " give and use a pall, and all other benedictions, ceremonies, and things requisite." The

sixth section enacted that every parson " chosen, elected, nominated, presented, invested, and consecrated to the dignity or office" of Bishop, might sue out his temporalities, and after fealty "be installed"; have restitution from the King of all spiritualities and temporalities of his bishopric; be obeyed in all things according to his dignity, and do in everything as any Bishop might lawfully do. Lastly, the seventh section enacted, that if any electors delayed or refused election over twenty days, or if any Archbishop, " after any such election, presentation, or nomination," signified to him by the King, "did not confirm and invest and consecrate " " every such person so elected, nominated, or presented," and signi- fied, they should, as should some other offenders also specified, " run into the dangers, pains, and penalties of the statutes of the provision and praimunire made in the 25th year of Edward ILL and 16th year of Richard IV] Mr. Justice Erle said, that as it was not contended that the Archbishop could sit and judge of the King's " nomination," the only question was, whether, in electoral cases, the word " confirm " meant that the qualifications of the person elected should be tried? He thought the general rule was here unrestrained, that the words of a statute should bear their ordinary sense, and that " confirm " im- ported nothing of judicial authority. If the election were to be good and effectual to all intents, it could not be voidable by the Archbishop. The technical sense of the Canon law could not be here put on the word " confirm" without doing violence to the statute. It was not permissible to bring extrinsic evidence to alter the sense of the known words of a statute. Bat, granting this liberty, there was no clear case made out from the practice or usage that confirmation was judicial in the Canon law; and it was therefore improbable that the Parliament, which was jealous of that law, used the word in its technical sense. The forms of cita- tion of opposers availed little to this view, when against the statute; mere ves- tiges of rights which had ceased, they might have been preserved only to colour the changes made. As the practice and usage and these forms failed, so entirely did authority; the text writers from Coke downwards denying any real rights of op- position to those cited. The arguments on the advantage to the church and peo- ple might be balanced by the practised mind. The duty of the judge was simply to " declare the law." Effect should be given to all the parts of the statute; and he thought that the intent of the whole was not only to destroy the usurpation of the Pope, but also to declare the rights of the King, and conclude all con- tests between him and the Ecclesiastical authorities.

Mr. Justice Coleridge held confirmation to be a solemn judicial act, to be still conducted under the old accustomed forms. Two of the great General Councils of Christendom, those of Nictea and Chalcedon, declared that no Bishop could be confirmed peter voluntatem metropolitani; and both of these Councils were recognized by our Statute law. But further, when the Canon law afterwards arose, it is established beyond doubt that confirmation was under it a judicial proceeding. The force of the Canon law is questioned in these realms, but as a general rule our Ecclesiastical Courts governed themselves by it. Coming to the statute of Henry already cited, how did it affect this order of things? He con- cluded, that though it abolished the free election of the Dean and Chapter, and restored the ancient patronal right of the King, grounded on his foundation of the sees, yet as there was not a word in express derogation of the metropolitan's rights or functions, they still subsisted untouched. Very strong words would be needed to destroy those rights, and there were no express words at all. The penalties in section seventh must be measured by the then scale of punishment, under which even South Sea bubble frauds ran the actors into the same penalties of praimunire here enforced. Mr. Justice Patteson considered it established that confirmation was a judi- cial act from the passing of the statute of Henry VIII. Did that statute in re- ducing the election by the Dean and Chapter to "a colour, shadow, and pretence," do the same by confirmation? Though it is said that the election is to stand good to all intents, it may be so meant merely as an election. There is no pro- vision to compel confirmation, and it may have been meant to allow a refusal subject to penal consequences. It seems impossible, if any legal impediment ex- isted, that the Archbishop should be still driven to confirm. The penal clause does not preclude the idea of inquiry; for if the confirmation be judicial and the inquiry were made without delay, though more than twenty days elapsed agood answer to an indictment would exist. The prannunire is incurred only by delay without lawful cause. This is so with all laws. Conceding the general right, he thought the parties who applied in this case were entitled to be heard in oppo- sition to the confirmation. Upon the question if the Court could properly en- force its writ, his mind had fluctuated both during the argument and in the course of the speech of his brother Erle. Those doubts, themselves, however, in- duced him now to accede to the application, in order that there might be opportu- nity of fuller consideration and of review.

Lord Denman had no doubt that the rule ought to be refused. If, however, in doubt, he would not run the risk of abridging the established prerogative of the Crown in a matter of such vital importance to the interests still more of the peo- ple than of the Crown. With reference to the statute of Henry the Eighth, was such a thing likely, at the time when he deprived the Pope of his veto, as that he would give it to one of his own subjects? The arguments rest on the meaning of the word " confirm " found in the statute in connexion with election. After the election was made, two things required to be certified to the metropolitan,—the due election, and the identity of the person elected; and it was desirable, no doubt, that the Archbishop, by his benediction and gracious reception of his new colleague, should inspire the people with confidence in him. The evidence of opposition in early times is meagre, and for three hundred years has been only existent in mat- ters of form. In Evans versus Ascuith, Judge Whitlocke alluded to the possibility of the ceremony's not being completed, but dropped no hint of any right of op- rs to be heard. So in the work prepared by Gibson—a perfect storehouse of

celesiastical law—in no page is the power of the Archbishop to defeat the nomi- nation of the Crown asserted. The duty of the Archbishop seems to be clear, and to be analogous to that of a returning-officer at an election. If he find mate ter of objection to the person nominated, he can advise that no cong6 d'ilire be issued; he can remonstrate; he may again resort to the presence of his Sovereign and pray the nomination to be revoked; and at the worst he may resign, as the Judges of this Conte have done. Looking to the frightful state of theological animosity at present, the granting of the rale would create and perpetuate it for perhaps two years by the sanction that it would give on the avoidance of every see to the course of summoning all mankind as objectors to the appointment of the Crown in an open court, which might in fact never be closed. Bearing in mind the discretion of this Court, even where it allowed the proceeding complained of to bejudicial and thought the judge might be compelled to hear objectors, he felt bound to refuse the writ. He had, however, no doubt on the law. With reference to the able argument of his brother Coleridge, it only confirmed him as to the danger of exposing the clear construction of acts of Parliament to those who would bring down their forgotten books and wipe off in this court the cobwebs from decretals and canons of which it knows nothing.

The effect of this equal judgment is that no mandamus is issued.

In the Court of Arches, on Saturday last, Sir Herbert Jenner Fust alluded to the imputations made upon him, and repelled the charge of abusing his patron- age in the court. During the forty-five years that he had sat there, including thirteen in the chair, the only office within the court that became vacant was the apparitorship, which he bestowed on a faithful clerk; and the only office within his disposal as Dean of Arches was the place of seal-keeper, which he bestowed on a gentleman high in the profession: the two offices together are not worth more than 501.

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A commission of lunacy has been held at Chiswick to inquire into the mental sanity of Miss Maria Collins, daughter of the late Captain Collins, and niece of Sir William Collins, of Guernsey. The inquiry was instituted by her sister and brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Findlater. Miss Collins's age is thirty-three. In August last she commenced an extravagant correspondence with Mr. Goodman, the then Lord Mayor's clerk, with Lord Palmerston, and Lord John Russell: she claimed to be the heiress of the Spanish crown, a descendant of Ferdinand the Seventh, and called herself Princess Bourbon de Bourbon: she imagined that her mother had been assassinated in the island of Guernsey, and that her uncle, Sir William Collins, had something to do with the murder. A number of medical men pronounced her insane; but several admitted that her mind was not unsound except on the above subjects. Fourteen of the Jury found a verdict "That Miss Maria Collins is of sound mind, and perfectly competent to take care of herself and affairs." The Commissioner, Mr. Barlow, was dissatisfied with this, and read over the evidence to the Jury, who were directed to reconsider their verdict. They did so, and thirteen adhered to their original conclusion. An inquiry as to the sanity of Miss Amelia Hortense Collins, a sister of the other lady, who is said to labour under delusions like those described above, was adjourned for a week.

At the Central Criminal Court, on Wednesday, four men—Aaronson, Frieda- burg, Kauffman, and Muscovitz—were put on their trial for forging notes of the Russian Bank. Aaronson and Muscovitz pleaded guilty; and the evidence against the other two was so conclusive that the Jury immediately convicted them. The latter have been sentenced to be transported for ten years; Muscovitz and Aaronson to be imprisoned for eighteen months.

Yesterday, Harriet Parker, alias Blake, was convicted of the murder of Amine and Robert Henry Blake, the two children of a man with whom Parker coha- bited: the murder was committed in Cupid's Court, St. Luke's. The Jury ac- companied their verdict with a strong recommendation to mercy, on the score of the unparalleled provocation she had received." The Court, however, passed sentence of death.

The Magistrates of the Marlborough Street Police-office have resolved to check the trade in Italian beggar-boys, by punishing those who import them. On Saturday, two of the boys were charged with Legng. Mr. Hardwick ordered the " padroni" to be summoned; but only one ne could be found. The boy said he had been brought to England by this man, Pietro Majocchi; that he was sent out to beg in the streets; and that whatever money he got was handed to Majocchi: sometimes he got as much as 2s. 6d. in one day, but the average was about ls. The Magistrate committed Majocchi to prison for a month, with hard labour.

The adjourned inquest on Hickey and Cadge, two of the three men who have died from wounds caused by the fall of brick-work at Euston Square terminus, was resumed on Monday, and closed on Thursday. Mr. Philip Hardwicke, archi- tect of the railway, stated that the contractors were not bound to complete the work by a given time, but, for the convenience of the public, great haste was made: the foundation was good; the best materials were employed; and he imputed the disaster to the fact that the cement of the brick columns, in conse- quence of rapidity of construction in damp weather, had not sufficiently set to box the supenncambent weight; the scaffold might have pressed against the columns and tended to weaken them. Mr. Tite and Mr. Blurs, the architects, concurred. Mr. Cubitt, the contractor, ascribed the accident to the cement's not having set: cement varies greatly in the time required for hardening. Several workmen expressed a similar opinion. James Harris stated that one of the de- ceased had spoken to him of the pillars as being too weak, and had prognosticated a disaster. Mr. Hosking, the architect appointed by Government to assist the Jury, ascribed the falling in to the pressure of the scaffold on the columns while the cement was yet nnhardened. Mr. Braithwaite in some measure agreed with him. The verdict described the cause of the men's death—the fall of brick-work from non-induration of the cement; and the Jury expressed an opinion that " due caution was not taken in the erection of the building, considering the time of year at which it was put together."