The Press. — London, England, 1854-08-19 00:00:00

778 THE TOTAL NUMBER or DEATHS registered in London last week was 1,882, whilst the births numbered 1,662, the return exhibiting the unusual result of an excess in the mortality. The corrected decennial average of deaths is 1,221; the actual number of deaths last week therefore exceeds the estimated amount by 611. This excess corresponds nearly with the number of fatal cases of cholera re corded during the week, which was 644, while those of diarrhoea numbered 195. In the thirty-second week of 1849, which ended August 11, 823 deaths occurred from cholera and 173 from diarrhoea. The progress of the present epidemic, which slightly manifested itself in the second week of July, is shown by the following weekly numbers :—Deaths from cholera, 5, 26, 133, 309, and 844; from diarrhoea and dysentery, 51, 63, 87, 146, and 200. Of last week's deaths from cholera, 446 occurred on the south side of the river, 68 in the west districts, 60 in the east, 30 in the north, and 31 in the central districts. THE NEW ACT to make better provision for the administration of the laws relating to the public health was issued on Tuesday last. Under this act Sir Benjamin Hall has been appointed presi dent, his salary not to exceed 2,000/. a year. The act determines from the 10th August instant the General Board of Health, and constitutes the new board to continue for one year next after the day of the passing of the act (10th August) and to the end of the then next session of Parliament, "and no longer." The new board is to appoint officers, and also so many "superintending inspectors" as the Treasury may think fit. The Treasury is to fix the salaries of the officers and the allowances to superin tending inspectors. All the powers and duties vested in the board may be exercised by the president or any two members. The powers of the General Board of Health are transferred to the new board. All inquiries and proceedings commenced under the board now determined may be completed by the new board. There is a clause in this act empower ing the Treasury to grant a compensation, super annuation, Or retiring allowance to one of the members of the board determined of not exceeding 1,000/. a year, as the commissioners may deem just and proper to he awarded. The salaries and expenses of this act are to be paid out of money to be provided by Parliament. TilE trains of the London and North-Western Company have been worked during the week with their usual regularity, the places of the dissentients having been filled with competent men from the company's own resources. The differences between the men and their masters have been thus far accommodated, and there is no reason to apprehend further disturbance. An immediate investigation is to be made into the alleged grievances of the drivers and firemen. CAPTAIN MARK HALPEN SWENY has been appointed one of the resident captains of Greenwich Hospital, vice Dickenson, deceased. Capte . in Sweny for several years has been actively engaged in the managing duties of many of the naval charitable institutions. He was born in 1785, and entered the Wavy in June, 171)$. THE ROYAL COMMISSIONERS FOR THE EXHIBITION or 1951, with the view of rendering the valuable trade collection in their possession, and now de posited at Kensington Palace, of practical advantage at as early a period as possible, have addressed a circular to the authorities of various free museums established throughout the country, offering to present to them collections of illustrative samples amounting to some hundreds of specimens, and con sisting chiefly of raw produce taken from that trade collection. LIEUTENANT ROBERT ROBERTSON, who has for several years past had the charge of the steam department cfloat at Woolwich, has been appointed, with the sanction of the Admiralt:„ surveyor of the mercantile marine of this country, under the Board of Trade. THE accounts recently received from the manufac turing districts show that the late revival in trade is well maintained. Operations are sufficiently active to keep the hands at work at fair rates of wages, and a healthy tone is apparent throughout. A COURT OF DIRECTORS was held on the nth inst. at the East India house, when Walter Elliott, Esq., was appointed a Member of Council at Fort St. George ; and Sir Henry Conyngham Montgomery, Bart., a Provisional Member of Council at that presidency. MR. CHARLES COMPTON and Mr. William Garner, the accountant and deputy accountant general of her Majesty's Post-office, have retired after the respective services of forty-six and forty-two years. THE NEWLY-APPOINTED SPANISH MINISTER to our Court, the Chevalier Antonio Gonzalez, is expected to arrive at the Legation in Gloucester-place early in September, and to enter on his diplomatic duties at the close of the month. The new Spanish envoy at Paris, M. Olozngo, is very shortly expected to arrive from Madrid to present his credentials to the French Emperor, in the room of the Marquis Veluma, recalled. THE THE HARVEST REPORTS from various districts con tinue to be highly favourable. Reaping has begun in all the southern counties, and neatly finished in the more advanced localities. Everywhere the crops are spoken of as most luxuriant, while the damage from storms has been partial and not extensive. If fine weather continues for a few more days there is every reason to believe that the product of the pre sent harvest will be almost unprecedented both for quantity and quality. THE WEATHER on the 12th of August was very unfavourable for sportsmen. The Dumfries Courier says :—" In consequence of the rain, some sportsmen never went upon the ground at all ; and the more ardent, who threaded the moors in defiance of the elements, met with but slight reward in exchange for a thorough wetting. In one or two instances we have heard of some seven or eight brace having been bagged, but a single brace or a single bird were more common." ON Tuesday there was no military on duty at the Royal Mint, Tower-hill, and the entire duty of guarding that establishment has now devolved upon the police. A MONSTER EXCURSION TRAIN from Maidstone and other Kentish towns arrived at Brighton on Monday, quite inundating the town. It consisted of 110 carriages, containing 4,000 persons, accompanied by two bands. TRAVELLERS returning from Russia mention that all exotic necessaries of life, such as colonial produce, have reached enormous prices there; sugar, for instance, costs Is. 9d. per lb., and coffee in propor tion. Commercial transactions in southern Russia are completely paralysed, in consequence of the great scarcity of money. The accounts from the theatre of war were beginning to circulate in the country, thanks to Israelite hawkers, who realised large sums of money bylhe importation, on an exten sive scale, of foreign journals and correspondence. THE expenses of taking the census in 1851 were 125,4871. Ils. ld., which sum is within the amount voted by Parliament by 10,5121. Bs. Ild. Of these expenses the charge for postage was 32,355/. Os. Ild. The cost per 1,000 letters in 1851 was Si. 45.; in 1841, 5/. Os. NINE AND TWENTY COLUMNS of Tuesday's Gazette were occupied by Orders in Council closing over gorged graveyards. THE SOUTH-EASTERN RAILWAY COMPANY have, OD portions of their railway, placed electric telegraphic stations at intervals along the line, and no train is allowed to pass one of these stations until a notifica tion has been received from the next station that the preceding train has passed off that portion of the line. The Board of Trade (in a circular which we reprint elsewhere) commends this plan to the con sideration of other railways. THE new office of Inspector-General of Mails, re cently sanctioned by the Treasury, has been filled up by the appointment of Mr. Edward Page, who for some years has taken a leading part in the arrange• ments relating to the same branch of the duty in the secretary's office. MR. WILLIAM GATtROW LETTSOM, now paid attache to her Majesty's mission at Madrid, is appointed Se cretary of Legation at Mexico. THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL has appointed Dr. Gavin to be Medical Superintendent of the General Post-office during the prevalence of the cholera. The health of the functionaries of the department is closely watched, and, asupply of medicines being kept at the chief office in St. Martin's le Grand, and at the principal branch offices, immediate relief can be given in cases of illness. SIR BENJAMIN Hsu. transacted business on Satur day for the first time at the General Board of Health, Whitehall. The hon. baronet has appointed Mr•. Arthur Berrington to act as his private secretary, and has continued Mr. Taylor as secretary of the board. The staff of the office is completed, with the exception of the inspectors. Dr. Sutherland and Dr. Granger will be immediately employed as medical inspectors, to act for the metropolis, and to confer with the various local authorities in all measures for arresting the spread of the cholera. Sin JAMES GRAHAM, who has recovered from his severe attack of illness, proceeded on Thursday with a full board of Admiralty, and attended by the Surveyor of the Navy, Captain Sir B. Walker, and the principal officers, to Portsmouth, on the annual visit of inspection to the Admiralty establishment. The tour of inspection this year will be the most important since the old war. THE General Screw Steam-packet Company's steamer Mauritius has been taken up by Government to convey cut the :14th Regiment from Portsmouth to the seat of war. SINCE THE WAR recruitingin Ireland has certainly not improved, if it has not decreased; whilst in Eng land it has increased cent. per cent., and in Scotland more even than that. The men, now that they have an object in view, throng to the regiments on active service—in the words of an old sergeant—" faster than we can clothe 0 em." SATURDAY THE DISC OVERT or SOME NEW GUANO DEPOSIT has been made in the West Indies. A letter dated St. Croix, the 28th July, says :—" Her Britannic Majesty's steamer Devastation was at Frederickstad yesterday. Commander de Horsey mentioned that he had been up to the Isles of Ayes, south-east of Saba Bank, and bad there found three American vessels with large crews loading guano. It is strange that this valuable deposit has remained thus so long undiscovered." In consequence of the present un• precedonted price of Peruvian guano, several private expeditions of discovery, it is stated, have been fitted out both from England and America, with orders to survey carefully various isolated isles in various parts where it is either known or supposed that sea-fowl resort as places of habitation. The habits of these birds are sufficiently well known to point out as places where it is likely guano exists those that are not frequently visited by man. It appears expedient that the extent of the deposit and the quality and value of this guano be immediately inquired into. THE new act repealing the usury laws has just been printed. It repeals at one swoop eleven acts from the reign of Elizabeth to the 13th and 14th Vic., and several of the Parliament of Scotland, and also of the Parliament of Ireland of very early dates. Legal or current rates of interest is to mean the same as if this act had not been passed. THE senior lieutenant, Mr. Annesley, of the flag ship Conway, at Queenstown, on hearing a report by the gun-room steward of a boy being overboard, made the best of his way from the breakfast table, gallantly dashed into the sea, and succeeded in saving the Loy as he was sinking. Yabr an Value. CARDINAL WISEMAN was the defendant in an ac tion for libel tried at Guildford Assizes on Saturday last. A Popish priest named Boyle was plaintiff, and the damages were laid at 10,0001. The publica tion of the alleged libel followed a series of proceed ings, in which the plaintiff complained that he had been very tyrannically treated by his ecclesiastical superiors, and especially by the cardinal. His case was thus stated by his counsel, Mr. E. James : Mr. Boyle was a native of England, and educated at Pula as a an Hom Catholic priest. In 1825 he was what was called fi postulant of the order of the Jesuits, and was appointed by Dr. Gritlithe, who at that time tilled the office to which Cardinal Wiseman succeeded, to the curacy of 'lslington in 1847. Betore he approached the question at issue, it wan, perhaps, necessary that he should state the actual position of a Roman Catholic priest, in order that the jury should be able to appreciate the deep injury that he might sustain if be incurred the enmity of a person in the position of Cardinal Wiseman, and also the condi- tion of the Roman Catholic religion in England at this period. The persons professing that faith were. it appenred, divided into two parties, known as the ultramontane party and the cisrnon tane party. Of the latter, there were a great number of the English Catholic gentry who would not go the lengths proposed by Cardinal Wiseman, who espoused the ultramontane party. The journal in France which supported the opinions of this latter section was the Univers, and to that journal lie believed Cardinal Wiseman was a constant contributor wetly years, and gave it considerable support. The Anti de In licligion was the organ of the more moderate party of the Roman Catholics, of those who thought that the ultramontane party had been carry ing things too far in England. Much excitement prevailed in this country in 1850, when Cardinal Wiseman returned, after having been raised to that dignity by the Pope. The plaintiff and the moderate portion of the Roman Catholics were of opi nion that he was going much too far , a nd that the arrogance of Cardinal Wiseman, and his assumption of the title of Archbishop of Westminster, were calculated to shook the feelings of the Protestant people of England, and that the interests of their re ligion would suffer by his proceedings. These feelings were en tertained by a large number of the English Catholics, and they gave vent to this opinion in the Anti de La Religion, and articles upon the subject were from time ti time inserted in that journal. These articles were written by a gentleman of great attainments , the Rev. Mr. ivory, but, in accordance with the law in France, were signed by M. Coguet, the principal editor; and it appeared that the defendant took upon himself to answer ono of them that was published on May 25rd, and he accordingly inserted a letter in the Catholic Standard of the 27th of May. if he bad confined himself to merely answering the article that had appeared in the And de in Religion, there could have been no complaint; but, under the pretence that the plaintiff was the author of the arti cles that had appeared representing the state of feeling in Eng land, the Cardinal had made use of the opportunity to publish a foul libel, with the intention evidently of crushing a poor Catholic priest, whom he bad years before attempted to destroy by other means. He would show that Cardinal Wiseman knew at the time be published the libel that the plaintiff did not write one of the articles, and he now pleaded not guilty, and had not even offered an apology. In the original artielesthere bad been no personal attack upon Cardinal Wiseman- all that was com plained of was his proceedings, which they said were calculated to irritate the English people , and t hat the domineering, tyran nical conduct of the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster was calculated to excite the manly feelings that existed in the breasts of Englishmen. In one of these nrticles, as tending to show the domineering tyranny of Cardinal Wiseman, hie treatment of the plaintiff on a former occasion, and to which he would presently call their attention, was certainly alluded to, but this could not be any justification for the subsequent conduct of the defendan t The libel, which was read in the course of the trial, contained no allegations against the plaintiff's morals, nor even mentioned him by name. Hie identity was, however, sufficiently pointed out, an d various charge s of negligence in his duti es, caballin g in his district, and disobedience to his spiritual rulers were ma de against him. It was stated also that he had been deprived of his functions in Islington, and that, as the letter in question had been extensively repub lished in Ireland, and even at Rome, the future pros pects of the plaintiff, either in his priestly careeri, sed. c.r any other walk of life, were heavil y comprom PRESS.