solemn act reject the doctrine of baptismal regeneration; before that it would be an act of schism-an abandonment of the ship in distress.

13.-Fire at Westhead's warehouses, Piccadilly-street, Manchester, destroying property to the amount of 100,000l. The buildings had five shafts piercing each floor, and covered by a dome skylight. When the glass was destroyed, each of the series of openings acted as immense flues, through which a resistless draught of air rushed, roaring and spouting forth like so many volcanoes. Rolls of ribbons, and the remnants of partially consumed light goods, drawn within the vortex of these flues, were shot up into the air like rockets.

14.-Lord Ashley obtains leave to bring in a bill to declare the intention of the Legislature in respect of the hours and mode of working under the Factory Act, the object being to interdict the shift and relay system. The measure, with some emendations, passed through both Houses, and received the Royal Assent on the 5th of August.

15.-Wurtemberg denounces the insidious action of the King of Prussia in German politics, and intimates an intention of allying herself, under the sanction of Austria, with Bavaria and Saxony.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer introduces his annual Budget, the income for the ensuing year being set down at 52,285,000!., and the expenditure at 50,613,5827. The surplus he purposed disposing of in reducing certain recently contracted debts, repealing the duty on bricks, and in reducing the stamp duties upon the transfer of landed property.

- Official announcement made of the election of three Socialist candidates for the city of Paris; and extensive military preparations commenced against threatened outbreaks.

16.-Explosion of fire-damp in Evan and Turner's Rock Pit, Haydock. Eleven of the workmen, engaged in a drift 1,000 yards from the shaft when the explosion took place, were barnt to death.

Lord Gough entertained by the East India Company on his return home.

17.-Dr. Wilson, a medical practitioner Jesiding at Juniper Green, near Edinburgh, and his aged mother living in the same house, murdered and mangled by a maniac named Pearson. He was found next morning sound asleep in one of the rooms upstairs, stripped of his ordinary apparel, which he appeared to have burnt in one of the grates.

18.-In the House of Commons, Mr. Hutt moves for an address praying her Majesty to direct negotiations to be commenced for the purpose of relieving the country from all treaties which at present engage us to maintain a squadron on the coast of Africa. Negatived by 232 to 154

20.-Extensive sugar refinery burnt near the London Docks.

Hohenzollern-Hechinzen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, for many centuries in the possession of the elder branch, united to Prussia by treaty.

21.-The Lord Mayor of London gives a banquet at the Mansion House to the chief magistrates of the cities, towns, and boroughs of the United Kingdom, with the view of exciting an interest in the projected Exhibition of Industry. Prince Albert said: "Whilst formerly the greatest mental energies strove at universal knowledge, and that knowledge was confined to the few, now they are directed on specialities, and in these, again, even to the minutest points; but the knowledge acquired becomes at once the property of the community at large. For, whilst formerly discovery was wrapped in secrecy, the publicity of the present day causes, that no sooner is a discovery or invention made than it is improved upon and surpassed by competing efforts. The products of all quarters of the globe are placed at our disposal, and we have only to choose which is the best and the cheapest for our purposes, and the powers of production are entrusted to the stimulus of competition and capital. The Exhibition of 1851 is to give us a true test and a living picture of the point of development at which the whole of mankind has arrived in this great task, and a new starting-point from which all nations wil be able to direct their further exertions."

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Lord Brougham, in referring to the con templated Exhibition in 1851 of the works of all nations, said he had been designated by Lord Stanley, at the Lord Mayor's dinner on the previous evening, as his "volatile friend." 66 Volatile, said Lord Brougham, flighty; but I, to answer a speech made in my presence in the House of Lords, have never flown to the House of Mayors."-Lord Stan ley was sorry he had occasioned disquietude to his noble and learned and very grave and

means

discreet friend, but he had been "somewhat volatile." "In point of acuteness, activity, rapidity, and pungency, sal-volatile is nothing when compared with my noble and learned friend. You may put a stopper of glass or leather on that etherial essence, but I defy any human power, even that of my noble and learned friend himself, to put any stopper, either of glass, or leather, or any other material, over the activity, ingenuity, and pungency of his mind. Volatile his wit and readiness of humour are, but acrimonious or offensive never : that I shall at all times be prepared to deny. I hope the long friendship between us will not be disturbed for a single moment by the expression I used. I will form a more correct estimate of his character; I will look on him, not as one of those great, rapid, and energetic men, who take part in any and every questionand come in with such velocity that they seem not many questions, but one continuous question-but as a man of a grave, serious, plodding, and rather slow and heavy nature; not hasty in taking up a subject, nor in laying it down -nor in expressing his opinion upon it, unless he had previously considered it in every light and in every bearing."-Lord Brougham, who sat covering his face with his hand, now rose to reply, with much energy. In the course of his speech he declared that he possessed the kindest and most benevolent feeling that he could possibly entertain for Lord Stanley, but rebuked him for attempting by a dull joke to set people laughing at an absent man. He concluded by saying, that no one could entertain a higher respect "for that illustrious Prince;" a respect increased by the interest which the Prince had recently shown in the condition of the working classes, "so that it is difficult to know which most to admire, the sound judgment or the benevolent feelings of the Prince."-Their lordships, who had roared with laughter during the encounter, then proceeded to business.

25.-Hostilities resumed between Denmark and the Duchies of Schleswig-Holstein.

28. At the Liverpool assizes, Dr. Nolan, minister of a congregation of Independents at Manchester, appeared as plaintiff in an action of slander against one Pettigrew, for stating, in the presence of a person named Ford, that Dr. Nolan had seduced certain female members, and given medicine to one to prevent the consequences. There had been religious strife in Dr. Nolan's congregation; he had resigned, and been re-elected minister; afterwards it was found that the re-election was not legal in form, and a heated canvassing and contest arose. It was in the course of this agitation that the defendant made the statement complained of. The defence was-that the communication was privileged; and that it was true. evidence was contradictory, scandalous facts being sworn to on the one hand, and denied on the other. The judge ruled that the communication was privileged; and a verdict was given for the defendant.

The

29.-The church of St. Anne's, Limehouse, destroyed by fire, originating in the chamber between the ceiling and the roof, where a fluepipe conducted the smoke outside.

30.-The Royal Adelaide steamship, trading between Cork and London, wrecked on the Tongue Sand, North Foreland, and all on board drowned. She had put into Plymouth all right, and was known to have left there with 180 passengers, a crew of 24, and a cargo of general merchandise.

31.-Died at Washington, aged 67, J. C. Calhoun, American statesman.

Publicity given to a recriminatory corre spondence between Sir Charles Napier and the Board of Admiralty regarding the discretion of the former.

April 2.-Lord John Russell, on a visit to Manchester, presented with an address by the Corporation.

4.-Wreck of the Indian on the Cargados reef, near the Mauritius. About eight o'clock at night, when running at six knots an hour, through some mistake, as it appeared, in the reckoning, she suddenly struck with a dreadful crash, and almost immediately went to pieces.

Destructive incendiary fires at Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, the greater part of the village being consumed, along with a large amount o agricultural produce.

Banquet given by the Corporation of Liverpool to Major Edwardes in acknowledg

ment of his Indian achievements.

7.-Died at Salisbury, aged 89, Rev. W. L. Bowles, poet.

8.-Prince Albert writes to the Duke of Wellington, declining to agree in a proposed new arrangement by which he was to assume the command of the British army:-"The Queen and myself have thoroughly considered your proposal to join the offices of AdjutantGeneral and Quartermaster-General into one of a chief of the staff, with a view to facilitate the future assumption of the command of the army by myself. . The question, whether it will be advisable that I should take the command of the army or not, has been most anxiously weighed by me, and I have come to the conclusion that my decision ought entirely and solely to be guided by the consideration, whether it would interfere with, or assist, my position of Consort of the Sovereign, and the performance of the duties which this position imposes on me. This position is a most peculiar and delicate one. Whilst a female sovereign has a great many disadvantages in comparison with a king, yet if she is married, and her husband understands and does his duty, her position, on the other hand, has many compensating advantages, and, in the long run, will be found even to be stronger than that of a male sovereign. But this requires that the husband should entirely sink his own individual existence in that of his wife; tha

he should aim at no power by himself or for himself-should shun all ostentation-assume no separate responsibility before the public, but make his position entirely a part of hers; fill up every gap which, as a woman, she would naturally leave in the exercise of her regal functions; continually and anxiously watch every part of the public business, in order to be able to advise and assist her at any moment, in any of the multifarious and difficult questions or duties brought before her, sometimes international, sometimes political, or social, or personal. As the natural head of her family, superintendent of her household, manager of her private affairs, sole confidential adviser in politics, and only assistant in her communications with the officers of Government, he is, besides husband of the Queen, the tutor of the Royal children, the private secretary of the Sovereign, and her permanent minister. How far would it be consistent with this position to undertake the management and administration of a most important branch of the public service, and the individual responsibility attaching to it-becoming an executive officer of the Crown, receiving the Queen's commands through her Secretaries of State, &c. &c.? I feel sure that, having undertaken the responsibility, I should not be satisfied to leave the business and real work in the hands of another (the chief of the staff), but should feel it my duty to look to them myself. But whilst I should in this manner perform duties which, I am sure, every able general officer, who has gained experience in the field, would be able to perform better than myself, who have not had the advantage of such experience, most important duties connected with the welfare of the Sovereign would be left unperformed, which nobody could perform but myself. I am afraid, therefore, that I must discard the tempting idea of being placed in command of the British army.'

ceremony and splendour. His Holiness proceeded in state to the Vatican, and afterwards received the Sacred College and Corps Diplomatique in the palace.

13. The brigs Lady Franklin and Sophia sail from Aberdeen in search of Sir John Franklin.

15.-Ministers defeated on their Stamp Duty Bill, a majority of 164 to 135 supporting Su Henry Willoughby's amendment for fixing the duty at Is. instead of 2s. 6d. on 50l.

16.-Died, in her 90th year, Madame Tussaud, of the popular wax exhibition in Bakerstreet, and one of the survivors of the first French Revolution.

The French 11th regiment, on the march to Algiers (whither they were being sent for taking part in a democratic demonstration), lose 252 men by the breaking down of the wire suspension bridge over the Loire, at Angers.

Mr. M. Gibson's series of resolutions for repealing the taxes on knowledge negatived by the narrow majority of 190 to 189 votes.

18.-Severe hailstorm in Dublin, destroy. ing glass alone to the estimated amount of 27,000l.

19.

Signed at Washington the BulwerClayton treaty, providing for the construction of a canal between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The contracting parties stipulated that they would not erect fortifications in the line of the proposed canal, nor assume dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mos quito Coast, or any part of Central America. From the involvements to which it gave rise, and in pursuance of the President's Message in 1857, this treaty was abrogated.

20.-Sir Fitzroy Kelly applies to the Court of Queen's Bench for a rule calling on Sir H. J. Fust to show cause why he should not be prohibited from carrying out the sentence of the Judicial Committee of Privy Council, in the case of Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter. The statutes relied on were the 24th Henry VIII., c. 12, and the 25th of same reign, c. 19; showing, it was affirmed, the right of appeal in the first instance from the archdeacon to the bishop, then to the archbishop, and in the case of any matter touching the king the final appeal was to the Upper House of Convocation, who alone had power to determine the same. Lord Chief Justice Campbell delivered the judgment of the Court against the rule. He adhered to the construction put upon the statute by Lord Coke, and acted upon since his time, that the final appeal in ecclesiastical cases was not to Convocation, but to the commissioners of the king in Chancery, or, in other words, the High Court of Delegates, now represented by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

The

29.-Sir George Grey moves the second reading of the Ecclesiastical Commission Bill. He said the principal feature of the measure was the separation of the ecclesiastical and lay departments by the appointment of a tribunal to be designated the "Church Estates Committee," which was to be invested with the management of the property of the Church, and to report to the Commission thereupon. This Estates Committee was to consist of three persons, two to be appointed by the Crown, and the third by the Archbishop of Canterbury; one of the former and the latter to be paid Commissioners. In the course of the debate which ensued, Mr. Horsman made a smart attack on the Episcopal Bench. Church, he said, had been plundered oftenby the monarchs first, then by the nobles; in the last century by the bishops, in the present day by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners."The bishops are not exempt from human infirmities, and think they are taking care of all when sometimes taking care of themselves alone. In earlier days, the bishop's residence was in the cathedral city; he was at the centre of a religious community, ever at home, ever in the public gaze, ever accessible to his clergy and people now he is metamorphosed into a rural dignitary, secluded in an aristocratic mansion, which the clergy penetrate with difficulty, the people not at all. In this age of active speculation and cultivated intellect-in this age so unsusceptible of belief-who should be the guides in the arduous and critical warfare? Surely men of a higher spiritual order than those who, though styled 'Fathers in God,' are yet wholly engrossed with worldly affairs, vigilant only of the Church's moneys, tenacious only of her dignities and ranks-more likely to smite and sink her than to save her in the struggle." Mr. Goulburn vindicated the bench of bishops with great warmth, and made a personal attack on Mr. Horsman, who, he said, had assaulted and vilified them with laboriously prepared eloquence. He described Mr. Horsman as a 66 disappointed man," who had once been a Lord of the Treasury, and desired higher office-a taunt which Mr. Bernal Osborne repaid by describing Mr. Goulburn

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as a "tin kettle attached to the tail of the member for Tamworth."

May 1.-At twenty-five minutes past eight o'clock this morning the Queen gave birth to a son, Prince Arthur William Patrick Albert. On the same day Prince Albert visited the Duke of Wellington to congratulate him on his eighty-first birthday, and stated that the Queen, as a token of regard, intended to have the royal infant baptized by the name of Arthur.

M. de Blainville, the successor of Cuvier in the chair of Comparative Anatomy at the Museum of Natural History at Paris, found dead in one of the carriages of the night train on the Rouen Railway, while on his way to England. He was in his seventy-second year.

Explosion of a fleet of powder-laden boats at Benares, causing the death of 420 human beings on the spot, and injuring over 800 employed about the river.

Motion. for leave to bring in a bill to repeal the duties on attorneys' certificates carried against Ministers by 155 to 136 votes.

2.-The Ultra-democrats of Paris succeed in returning M. Eugène Sue, the Socialist candidate, for their representative, by a large majority over M. Leclerc, of the Moderate party. The French funds fell 2 per cent.

The Duke of Richmond presents above one hundred petitions complaining of agricul tural distress.

4.-The ships Resolute, Assistance, Intrepid, and Pioneer sail from Greenhithe, under the command of Captain Austin, in search of Sir John Franklin. On the 23d Sir John Ross sailed with other two vessels from Ardrossan, and on the same day the Advance and Rescue, equipped by the liberality of Mr. Henry Grinnel, New York, left that port to join in the search for the missing expedition.

A large portion of the town of Bingen on the Rhine destroyed by fire.

6.-In the House of Lords, the Archbishop of Canterbury makes a formal explanation relative to the appointment of his son to the Registrarship of the Prerogative Court of Chancery.

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The Bishop of London introduces a bill to amend the law with reference to appeals from Ecclesiastical Courts to her Majesty's Privy Council.

The house at Charlecote Lucy, near Stratford-on-Avon, entered by robbers, and various relics of the Shakspearian age stolen.

The Court of Queen's Bench refuses a rule moved for by Mr. Cockburn, calling on Mr. John Murray, publisher, to show cause why a criminal information should not issue against him for an article in the Quarterly, imputing to Count Pulszky an actual agency in the murder of Count Latour in 1848.

7.-A Protectionist demonstration, attended by eleven peers and forty members of the House of Commons, held in the Crown and Anchor Tavern. Mr. Chowler, a Nottinghamshire farmer, said the farmers would not mount their horses to stop the labourers from coming forward to claim their just rights. If the landlords would only stick to them, they would stick to the landlords. Mr. E. Ball said it was painful to speak of the landlords in terms of disparagement, but it was too true that the farmers had fallen, not by the League, nor yet by the treachery of Sir Robert Peel, but because their landlords had swerved from their duty. Would they tell him, a broken-hearted man passing into a state of poverty, that he was to fear the threats of a demagogue? The tenantfarmers should be prepared to take those terrible steps which it was frightful to imagine, but which necessity was driving them to contemplate. This dark sentiment was followed by tremendous cheering, at the close of which a person on the platform proposed three groans for "Sir Robert Peel, the arch-enemy of the human species."

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Came on for hearing in the Vice-Chancellor's Court the case of Thomas v. Roberts, being a claim made by "a nearest friend" on behalf of a former inmate of the Agapemone, to appoint a guardian to her infant, on the ground of the father's moral unfitness for its custody and education. Mr. Price, the husband of one of the plaintiff's sisters, said: "There are fifty or sixty living in the Agapemone. We have horses and carriages, and live in good style; but consider all we do to be for the glory of God. Every one does as he pleases on the Sunday. We make no difference between that and any other day. All play at hockey, males as well as females." The defendant denied the charge of irreligion and mmorality. On the 23d, after commenting in the severest language on the conduct of Thomas and his associates, his Honour ordered that the child shall remain in the care of his mother and maternal grandmother, and that the father and his agent be restrained from interfering.

8.-Lord John Russell writes to the Chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge, that the object of the proposed commission is to ascertain what new regulations have been promulgated,

"what obstacles are interposed by the will of founders, the retention of customs, and the decision of competent authority, to the full development of that large and improved system of tady which the universities have sought to establish." Remonstrances were forwarded from each university opposing the commission sill-timed and unnecessary.

9.-Died at Paris, aged 71, Gay-Lussac, 1 peer of France, and widely known for his researches in chemical science.

10.-Walter Watts, late lessee of the Olympic Theatre, tried at the Central Criminal Court, on the charge of stealing a cheque for

1,400/. from his employers the Globe Insurance Company. Watts's nefarious designs were carried out with great ingenuity. A cheque for 554/. 10s., represented as for annuity No. 6, was drawn and paid by the bankers, and entered by them in the pass-book. When the book came into Watts's hands, he erased the 55, thus making the payment appear 4. 10s. ; and in order to mystify the matter further, he altered the number of the annuity to 64, by adding the figure 4. But, in point of fact, no such claim existed against the company at the time as annuity No. 6; and the payments on annuity No. 64 having been previously made, a fictitious claim of 4. 10S. appeared in the pass-book as paid, in order to provide facilities for covering the abstraction. But the difference of 550%. being still left between the payment, as it appeared by the falsified entry in the pass-book, and the actual amount paid, Watts had to find some means of covering the discrepancy in order to avoid detection. For this purpose he selected a trifling fire loss, say of 77. 10s., which had been paid some time before, but which had not yet been passed, and falsified that entry in the pass-book, adding to it the 550., and making it appear that 557%. 10s. was the sum which had been paid; and thus, by making the total addition in the book correct, the cover for the fraud was perfected. Watts's delinquencies amounted to the almost incredible extent of 70,000/.; and so thoroughly systematic were his arrangements, that the balance of cash at the bankers at the date showed a discrepancy of over 9,000l., which for the most part was covered by false additions in the pass-book, until an opportunity offered of altering individual entries that might suit his purpose, previously to their permanent transference to the general books of the company, when detection was no longer to be apprehended. The jury found Watts guilty of one count in the indictment charging him with stealing "a piece of paper. A point of law as to the sufficiency of the count was reserved, and afterwards decided against the prisoner. On the 12th of July he was sentenced to ten years' transportation, but committed suicide in prison the same night, by hanging himself to the iron grating of his cell.

10. The German Powers, with the excep tion of Prussia, meet in congress at Frankfort.

13. The Metropolitan undertakers create a disturbance in a meeting at the Whittington Club in support of the Metropolitan Interment Bill, and ultimately succeed in breaking it up.

Australian Colonies Bill read a third time in the House of Commons, by a majority of 226 to 128. Sir W. Molesworth's motion for a recommittal of the bill had been previously defeated by a division, showing 165 against 42; and Mr. Gladstone's amendment, to give the Church of England in the colonies a power of synodical action, by 187 votes against Certain amendments introduced into the

102.