'Ube Vrobintes.

The labours of the opposing parties at Sunderland have been tediously pro- tracted by the delay in issuing the writ; which was accounted for by Lord Grey, in a letter to the Mayor. The patent by which the Peerage is held could not be found for some days, though diligent search was made for it among the papers kept by the late Earl. On Saturday, however, it was found; and the no- cessary documents were on that day forwarded to London. Should the writ ar- rive in time, the nomination is expected to be fixed for Monday, the poll for Tuesday. Some surprise was created, on Wednesday, by the issue of a placard signed "John Botterill," requesting the electors to suspend their votes, since the writer intended to offer himself as an independent Conservative. Mr. Botterill not being known, some supposed that the placard was a hoax; but there is no reasonelea believe that it is such.

On Monday evening, a tea-party was held by the operative cotton-spinners of Bolton, in the Temperance Hall, to commemorate the great and important fact of the masters having made two advances of wages, not only without a strike, but with the utmost cheerfulness and good-will. Every seat in the hall was occupied; and, therefore, the company would consist of 800 persons. The master cotton- spinners were invited to the party [and twelve gentlemen are mentioned as at- tending].—Manchester Guardian.

At the rent audit of Robert Berkeley, Esq., of Spetehley, held a few days ago, it was announced to his numerous tenantry, that instead of the return of 10 per cent which had lately been made, a permanent abatement of rent would be made to that amount.—Birmingham Gazette.

The Manchester Parks Committee have offered two prizes, one of fifty guineas and the other of twenty-five guineas, for the best and second-best set of plans, with estimates for the laying-out, &c., of the three sites already purchased for the Manchester Parks.

The Archmological Association assembled at Winchester on Monday. Lord Albert Conyngham was at his post as President, and the attendance was very nu- merous. At a general meeting in the Town-hall, Mr. Pettigrew, the Treasurer, read a long report, in which it was stated that the society had succeeded in making several important discoveries, and in saving from destruction many inte- resting_ancient buildings.

On Tuesday, several parties set out on short excursions to view the antiquities of Hampshire—the barrows on Chilford and Twyford Downs, the hospital of St. Cross—the only relic of the mode of administering relief in the monkish times, and other places. Among the papers read at a meeting in the Town-hall, in the evening, was one by the President, in which it was stated that a letter, hitherto. unpublished, was sent by Lord James Stuart to Queen Elizabeth, dated 1st Decem- ber 1567, announcing the consent of Queen Mary, his sister, to the coronation of her infant son James, and to James Stuart's becoming Regent. Another paper, by the Reverend Stephen Isaacson, gave a detailed account of a series of barrotrs in Derbyshire. In the most prominent were found several ornaments, which, from their association, indicated that they were the offering of some wealthy hunter- chief to the manes of his departed wife or daughter, centuries before the time of the Saxon invader. In this grave there was not the least vestige of bone, nor any difference in the colour of the soil; but there was a necklace of glass beads,_of which eleven were found as perfect as on the day on which they were deposited. Withthese was found the enamel of twenty-six human teeth, which, owing to some chemical action in the surrounding soil, were the only vestiges of the pri- meval beauty over whose mortal remains the hand of affection raised the lasting monument.

The proceedings of Wednesday and Thursday were of a similar kind. Oir Wednesday evening, Lord Albert Conyngham gave a soiree to a large party in St. John's Rooms; on 'Thursday, Mr. Hughes gave a soiree.

At Lewes, on Tuesday, a Sheriff's Jury was empanelled to' assess damages in an action brought by Mr. John Henry Dew, against the publisher of the Brighton Guardian, for a libel arising out of the late charge against a Mr. Rallett and others of being concerned in negotiations for the sale of an East India cadetship. In a condensed account of one of the examinations of Mr. Dew at Marlborough Street Police-office it was asserted that a signature purporting to be Mr. Shank's was a forgery. This was not in the original report To justify the necessity of the . present action, it was stated that Mr. Dew had had a large business con.- flexion as an auctioneer in Sussex, which had greatly fallen off since the pub lication of this libel. For the defendant it was alleged, that the statement Wag. inerely an error; Mr. Dew should have sued the Times, for the loss of his Stifsez

business ought to have been ascribed to the accounts which appeared in the Lon- don papers in extenso, not to a paragraph in a Brighton Journal; and it was insinuated that an action commmenced against the Sussex Express had been stopped for a payment in money. It would seem that some sort of apology had been made by the Brighton paper for its mistake. A verdict was returned for the plaintiff, with damages of one-eighth of a penny. There was load applause in the court on the announcement of the decision.

A rather remarkable trial for murder took place at Monmouth on Friday week. Twenty years ago, on the 16th April 1825, one Powell was killed in the parish of Llanfillangel Crucorney; and a verdict of "Wilful Murder" was returned by a Coroner's Jury against Christopher, a farmer; who absconded. Recently this man has returned to the parish, apparently driven by poverty, oppressed with the weight of eighty years, deaf, feeble, and almost childish. The Parish-constable having learned from himself who he really was, he was apprehended for the murder. After such a lapse of time, many of the parties who were acquainted with the occurrence have died; and on the trial, the prisoner could not be clearly identified as the man who killed Powell; moreover, the evidence of Powell's having been really murdered was not conclusive. The aged prisoner did not cross-examine the witnesses. On being called upon for his defence, he stated, that Powell came into his yard on the day in question, and cursed and swore, and was going to take the pigs out of the yard, when the prisoner's wife (now dead) ran and fastened the gate, and stood by it. Powell tried to draw her away; and, not being able, began to kick her, the mother of ten children, as hard as he was able against the wall: upon which the prisoner "fetched him a lick" on the head with a stick; and he fell to the ground, and hit his head against the side of the wall. Christopher was acquitted.

The Spanish and Portuguese slave-traders recently convicted at Exeter of murder have been respited till the 5th September, in order that certain legal points raised by their counsel may be argued before the Judges. William Clapham, a prisoner in the Manchester New Bailey, has murdered another prisoner in the hospital of the gaol, by beating him on the head with an iron bar. He was about to strike a third person when the deceased interfered. Clap- ham had been placed in the hospital as insane, but his companions declared his madness fictitious: this motiveless crime would seem to sh :w that they were in error. A short time ago, the murderer accused himself of having committed a murder eighteen months since, by pushing a man into the water near Lincoln; and the statement seems to be true.

Another fatal railway accident has followed close upon the disasters of last week. It occurred on Monday, soon after one p. in., on the Cambridge line of the Eastern Counties Railway. This is the Company's report of it. " From some cause, which cannot at present be clearly ascertained, the engine was thrown off the rails when passing over the embankment near Wendon, about twelve miles below Cambridge. It is thought that one of the wedges having started from its position was the cause of the accident. The engine and tender were thrown over upon the up-line of rails; and the trucks, with the passengers' luggage, and some of the carriages, were very much broken. Most providentially, none of the pas- sengers were injured. The fireman was thrown under the engine and killed upon

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the spot. One of the guards had his leg broken; and the engine-driver and the pperintendent of the engine-department were much shaken by the concussion. The officers of the Company are sedulously engaged in ascertaining the cause of the accident, which at present appears involved in considerable uncertainty." Other accounts, however, declare that several passengers were hurt. At the time of the accident, the train consisted of two second-elss.s and three first-class car- riages; between which and the tender and engine were the luggage-van and a 'Iterse-box containing two horses. At one o'clock the train left Wendon. The line between this station and the next, Chesterford, is slightly on the incline, it is said 1 foot in 150; and according to all accounts the speed here maintained was greater than during the preceding part of the journey, so much so as to produce a violent oscillation of the carriages Suddenly, on the train's merging into a kind of cutting near a village called Littleborough, half-way between the Wendon and Chesterford stations, the passengers sustained a slight shock; which was immediately succeeded by one more tremendous, accompanied by an explosion. When the affrighted passengers got out of the carriages, they found that the engine was turned over, with the stoker lying beneath it, one hand only being visible; the luggage-carriag,e and the horse-box were on fire; and both lines of rail were torn up for a considerable distance. Two hours elapsed before the body of the stoker could be extricated, and it was then found to be a charred and un- recognizable mass. It was many hours before the line could be put in order, and all traffic was at a stand-still.

General Pasley inspected the locality on Wednesday, and examined the Railway- officers. It had been said that the train was going at a rate of more than thirty -miles an hoar; but the engineer declared that the speed was not more than twenty-eight miles an hour. The general impression, however, appeared to be, that the disaster was the result of too great a degree of speed, which caused the engine to run off the rail. General Pasley gave no opinion as to the cause of the accident; indeed he was particularly reserved. But the General remarked, that if there had been an engine behind the train as well as before it, "the whole train would have been settled,"—that is, the carriages and passengers woull have been all crushed together: and no one dissented from this. The inquest on the body of Richard Peat, the stoker, commenced at Littlebury on Thursday:. Many witnesses were of opinion that the train was not proceeding at an excessive speed at the time of the accident, but about thirty miles an hour. Cox, a labourer, considered, however, that it was going at fifty miles an hour: he had worked on railways for eight years. Mr. Jackson, the superintendent of the line between Cambridge and Brandon, had examined the line after the accident, and found it torn up for something like a hundred yards of both rails of the down- line. There was a rail injured at one end, and he saw in a moment that that was the cause of the accident without going farther. A piece of it was not broken ofF, but bent right down. He traced the flange of the wheel; on the bent part and it occurred therefore to him that that bit of metal was not quite sound, at least not BO sound as the rails generally are. It was the end of the rail that was bent. He thought there was a flaw in the rail, which could not be discovered previously. Mr. Phipps,. the engineer of the line, agreed with Mr. Jackson. The inquest was adjourned till next Wednesday, in order that General Pasley might be examined A dreadful explosion of fire-damp occurred on Saturday, in a coal-mine at Crombach, near Merthyr Tydvil. Upwards of one hundred and fifty men and boys were at work in the colliery at the time, and twenty-eight perished. The explosion produced a loud report and violent concussion of the earth; which an- nounced to the neighbourhood the disaster that had happened; and a heart- rending scene ensued—women and children running to the pit's mouth shrieking for their relatives who were in the mine. The Davy-lamp was constantly em- ployed in the pit; which had a very ill repute, the ventilation being bad. All the bodies having been recovered out of the pit, the inquest began on Mon- day; when the Jury viewed the corpses. Many were dreadfully burnt, while others were but slightly scorched by the explosion. The inquiry concluded on v It appeared that naked lights were i

used in the part of the me where the explosion occurred; the air having been tested in the morning, and found good. A verdict of "Accidental Death" was returned, with this addition—" This Jury are of opinion that the present sys- tem of ventilation employed in the Dyffryn or Crombach colliery, though as per factas the said system will admit, is inadequate to insure the safety of the lives 'Of the men employed in the said works, and they strongly recommend that a sys-

tern which will prevent the gas from oozing out of the old or abandoned workings into a train-road air-way may be adopted in preference, as soon as possible."

The premises of an upholsterer have been burnt down at Manchester, svith loss of 4,0001.