Vrnuiurts.
In the great towns, the news of the splendid opening of the campaign in the Crimea caused the greatest delight and excitement. Bells were rung, flags were hoisted, groups assembled in the streets, the news was read aloud in public rooms, At the ports and naval stations salutes of cannon acknowledged the receipt of the intelligence ; and from one end of the land to the other, by Monday night, there had been national thanks- giving for the harvest and national rejoicings for victors.
In reply to a letter from the Blackburn Protestant Association, Mr. Disraeli has issued a brief manifesto from Hughenden Manor, September la, He notices the anomalous condition of the constitution, and the dangers threatening both Roman Catholics and Protestants. Far from wishing to make the settlement of the question a means of obtaining pow- er, he remembers pointing out Lord John Russell as a man who possessed high qualifications for the office, and expressing a hope that he would undertake it.
" In that case," says Mr. Disraeli, "I should extend to him the same sup- port which I did at the time of the Papal aggression, when he attempted to grapple with a great evil, though he was defeated in his purpose by the in- trigues of the Jesuit party, whose policy was on that occasion upheld in Par- liament, with eminent ability and unhappy success, by Lord Aberdeen, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Gladstone. I still retain the hope that Lord John Russell will seize the opportunity which he unfortunately lost in 18.51, and
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deal with the relations, in all their bearings, of our Roman Catholic fellow subjects to our Protestant constitution. But, however this may be, there can be no doubt that, sooner or later, the work must be done, with gravity, I trust, and with as little beat as possible in so great a controversy, but with earnestness and without equivocation ; for the continuance of the present state of affairs must lead inevitably to civil discord, and perhaps to national disaster."
The annual meeting of the South Bucks Agricultural Association was held on Tuesday, at the Burnham Abbey Farm ; and the usual dinner was celebrated at the "Windmill Tavern, SalthilL Mr. Henry Labou- chere M.P. was the chairman ; and, avoiding politics, he discoursed upon the happy absence of any question which should make the agriculture of the country the subject of a party struggle for power. They might rely on it, he said, that so long as England prospers, agriculture will prosper ; and that agriculture never stood on a sounder basis than at the present moment.
The Hertfordshire Agricultural Society held its show and dinner at Hertford on Wednesday. At the banquet, the chief speakers were Sir Bulwer Lytton, Mr. Pullen, the Marquis of Salisbury, and Mr. Roberts. The speaking, "however, did not get beyond a local interest.
Two candidates start for the vacant seat at Frome: Lord Dungarvan, Liberal Conservative ; and Mr. Donald Nicoll, of Regent Street, Liberal.
A voluntary church-rate is in course of subscription at Rotherham. At Honiton a rate has been refused, by a majority of 20 on the poll : at Thane, one has been carried, by a majority of 12.
The inquiry into the discreditable affair on board the Dauntless, before the Portsmouth Magistrates, begun on Friday last week, terminated on Wednesday, in the dismissal of the charge of manslaughter against Lieu- tenants Knight and Seymour. No evidence was adduced materially different from that which had been given before the Coroner, but it was given in greater fulness. It is beyond doubt that Lieutenant Knight took the two girls on board the ship ; that he there plied them with drink ; that Matilda Jane Lodge got too drunk to be removed ; that after Emma White had left the ship, Lodge was placed on the bed in Knight's cabin ; that no violence was offered to her, but on the contrary, great kindness was shown to her by Lieutenant Jervis and the medical officers of the ship; that she fell off the bed twice and knocked herself about against the bulkheads, and rumpled her clothes; that her dress was torn in movingher from the ship; and that she died, according to all the medical testimony, in consequence of the rupture of the distended bladder, caused by her falls from the bed. Mr. Gray, the Gosport sur- geon who attended her at her deathbed, and who, at first believing that violence had been used towards her, said so in his examination before the Coroner, now retracted his opinion ; giving as a reason, that hedid so "in consequence of what he had heard." In announcing the judgment of the Magistrates, Mr. Stigant, the Mayor, carefully went over the whole case; dismissing the charge against Lieutenant Seymour with the remark that he.left the court without his character being affected by the charge; but censuring Lieutenant Knight, while he dismissed the criminal charge against him,—for having taken the woman on board, and for having shown so little interest in her fate as to allow her to'be put in a boat without seeing her off. There was not, be.said, evidenceaufficient to justify the sending of Lieutenant Knight for triaL Mr. Knight is therefore discharged by the Magistrates ; but he remains under arrest, awaiting thepleasureof. the Lords of the Admiralty, on his own application for a -court-martial.
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