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May is noted in London for its religious and philanthropical meetings, and accordingly Exeter Hall has been in a continual bustle this week.
The Wesleyan Missionary Society had their annual meeting there on Monday. The report showed receipts to the amount of 101,688!.; ex- penditure, 98,7541. ; surplus, 2,9341. The present number of principal or central mission stations, called circuits, occupied by the Society in several parts of the world, is 261; the number of missionaries employed, exclusively of catechists, 368; the number of full and accredited mem- bers, exclusively of those under the care of the Society's missionaries in Ireland, 87,258; and the number of scholars in the mission schools is nearly 60,000/. The Church Missionary Society met on Wednesday ; and a favour- able report was given of labours in Africa, New Zealand, and other British colonies. The receipts for the year were 90,8211.; expenditure, 110,8081.; deficiency, 19,987/.
The London City Mission assembled on Thursday. Their min.. sionary agents have been increased from 42 to 61; their finance-ac. counts showed an increase of 700I. in the year's receipts.
The Literary Association of the Friends of Poland met for the tenth year, on Wednesday, at Sussex Chambers, St. James's. The fête at Stafford House, at which Mademoiselle Rachel assisted, produced 876!.; the Guildhall entertainment, aided by Miss Adelaide Kemble and Win Rainforth, 7361.; subscriptions have been received to the amount of 660C.; besides a donation of 150/. for educational purposes. Forty Poles are dependent on this institution.
The Chartists bad a "grand demonstration" on Monday, in carrying up their petition to the House of Commons. Parties assembled in the
Waterloo Road, at Bermondsey, Deptford, Croydon, Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, Finsbury, Somers Town, St. Pancras, Marylebone, and several oilier places, between seven and eleven o'clock. At twelve they came to the rendezvous in Lincoln's Inn Fields. At one arrived the members of the National Convention, preceded by the monster petition, borne on the shoulders of sixteen able-bodied men, selected from the different trades in the Metropolis. It'was carried on a kind of portable stage or platform, which had been constructed for the purpose ; and was covered with ribands, and otherwise decorated. On the front was placed a placard, displaying the number of signatures which it contained, and from that it appeared that the number was 3,315,752. The procession was formed soon after one o'clock, the petition being placed in front ; and it was followed immediately by a black banner in- scribed "Murder demands Justice : 19th August 1819." Then came some staves, surmounted each by a cap of liberty ; and then some flags, in all numbering seventy. These were some of the mottoes- " O'Connor, the tried Champion of the People," "The Sovereignty of the People," "The Charter," "Universal Charter," "No Surrender,' "Liberty," "Free Press," and "More Pigs and less Parsons," with "Universal Suffrage," on the same flag. The procession went down Little Queen Street, Holborn, Tottenham Court Road, the New Road, Langham Place, Regent Street, and through Westminster to the House of Commons. Here the open places were thickly crowded with spec- tators. At the windows of the Committee-rooms were Members of the House ; in one, Mr. Thomas Dancombe, who was to take charge of the petition, was recognized, and loudly cheered. The petition was taken to the Members' entrance, but it was found too vast for admit- tance: it was then carried to the front-door, but neither was that large enough ; so it was broken up, and carried into the House piecemeal, by a long line of men. That done, the procession filed oft and departed across Westminster Bridge.
In the Consistory Court, on Wednesday, Dr. Lushington gave jag- mete in the Braintree Church-rate case, Veley and Joslin, the Church- wardens, against Goslin, a recusant rate-payer. The substantial ques- tion at issue was, whether the Churchwardens and a minority of the Vestry can make a rate after it has been refused by the majority ; and the Judge decided against the validity of such a rate.
A desperate highwayman of the old school has been detected in fall practice in the immediate neighbourhood of London, and he has sig- nalized his seizure by a murder. Several persons have complained lately that they had been stopped and robbed in the fields near Hornsey Wood. One of these was a brewer's collecting-clerk, who had 701. in his pocket.; but he made the robber believe that 118. was "his all "; and the latter magnanimously returned him a shilling. Moss, an active Policeman, was set to watch ; and at half-past three o'clock on Thurs- day afternoon, he saw a dark young man, whose waist was bulky, as if he had weapons concealed about him, following a gentleman on the road to Ramsey Wood. The Policeman approached, not heeding the warning to stand back ; and the man drew a horse-pistol from his bosom and fired; shattering the Policeman's left arm. He fled across the fields towards Highbury, pursued by the wounded Policeman and Motte, a journeyman baker, who was near the spot. At Highbury South, he ran down a blind lane ; and then, seeing escape impossible, he stood at bay. Several persons had now joined in the pursuit. Motte rushed forward to seize him, and received the ball from one pistol in his left arm ; and the contents of another pistol passed through the heart of Policeman Daly. A crowd closed upon the murderer; who exclaimed, "I'm done now I I give myself up "; and he surrendered his pistols. A knife, stained with blood, was found concealed in his watch-fob. He is a small man, very fair, and thin and sharp in the face. Taken before a Magistrate, he said that his name is Thomas Cooper; that he is twenty-three years of age ; and that he had been out of work. After he was placed in confinement, he became very sick, and it was supposed that he had taken poison ; but a medical man attributed the sickness to his state of excitement.
Cooper was placed before the Magistrate at Clerkenwell Police-office yesterday ; and the first surmise as to his having swallowed poison proved to be correct ; for he was suddenly taken ill, and then he con- fessed that he had swallowed arsenic and laudanum, as he fled from Moss. He was carried to the House of Correction, and placed under medical care.
An inquest was opened yesterday, on the body of Daly ; but it WU at once adjourned till Monday.
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