The Press. — London, England, 1854-03-25 00:00:00

274 ditto! and 'Strand. Ma. CROWDER, Q.C., of the Western Circuit, has been appointed judge in the place of the late Mr. Justice Talfourd. THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE WAS 011 Thursday elected j President of Christ's Hospital. Lord Mayor Sidney was a rival candidate for the post, which has, it seems, since the year 1552, been invariably filled by a member of the City Corporation, and generally by its actual chief upon the year of election. The con test was carried to a poll, resulting in 210 votes for his Royal Highness, and 87 for the Lord Mayor. In the evening the Duke of Cambridge underwent the ceremony of installation. THE SPACE ROUND THE TOWER OF LONDON, for merly used as a moat, is now used as a place of exercise for the military quartered in the fortress. The 19th Regiment, at present stationed there, previously to departing for the East, are daily drilled and instructed in this place. THE FESTIVAL in aid of the Benevolent Fund of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland takes place on Thursday, the 30th instant, at the London Tavern, under very distinguished patronage. THE WAGES MOVEMENT IN PRESTON has acquired new interest, through the decisive conduct of the local authorities. During Saturday the borough magistrates remained in consultation with closed dcors, occasioning much uncertainty among the strikes-men as to their intentions. In the evening warrants for the apprehension of twelve ringleaders in the movement were issued, three of whom, Cowell, Grimshaw, and Waddington, were arrested early on Monday. Six men were taken into custody on Wed nesday, and the whole batch, nine in number, were examined before the bench, and committed for trial on charges of conspiracy. Bail was, however, taken for their appearance at the sessions. The town presented a scene of great excitement, but has remained quiet. The " strikes" subscriptions for the week ending Saturday last amounted to 2,1001. THE RELEASE OF MR. BELL, the English engineer, is again announced in a letter from Brody, of the 14th inst., which states that he had arrived in that town, accompanied by a Russian officer. Although it is long since the Czar profe ssed to g ive Mr. Bell his freedom, he has only just been released, and his friends have remained uncertain even as to the fact of his existence. Offers were made to him while a prisoner to enter the Russian service, but be refused them. He is now on his way to Trieste vid Vienna. Letters to the officers of the Baltic fleet will be conveyed at a postage of sixpence each. THERE is a report in Van Diemen's Land that a new office is to be created in England in conse quence of the cessation of transportation to that colony, entitled " Director-General of Convict Dis• cipline for the United Kingdom," and that Sir Wil liam Denison is to be nominated, with a salary of 4,0001. a year. THE Indus left Southampton on Monday afternoon, with the heavy portion of the East India and China mails, 70 passengers, 255,0001. in specie for India, and 29,0001. for Alexandria and Malta. THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH has been completed from Bombay to Tanna, and messages are now trans mitted from the presidency to that station. A year hence this communication will be established all the way to Agra. A DEPUTATION on the subject of the Medical Practitioners Bill, now before Parliament, to state objections to that. measure, and to recommend a comprehensive measure of medical reform, had an interview with Viscount Palmerston ou Tuesday. MRS. CHISHOLM, to whose philanthropic efforts in the cause of Australian emigration many persons have reason to ascribe their success in those colonies, is on the eve of leaving England to join her husband, Captain Chisholm, in Melbourne, the country of their adoption. Mrs. Chisholm's passage has been taken on board the Ballarat, which will sail for Port Phillip on the 3rd proximo. THE REGISTRAR OF JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES re ports a list of :339 companies provisionally registered in 1853, and 124 completely registered. The two lists comprise 59 assurance companies, 80 railway, 93 gas, 37 for other public works, 50 mining companies, 40 companies for conducting manufactures or working patents, 28 shipping companies, 3 land conveyance companies, 4 fishing, and 9 trading companies. A MEETING OF ROMAN CATHOLICS was held On Tuesday in St. Martin's-hall, for the purpose of ex pressing their sentiments in regard to the threatened interference with religious houses. About 700 per sons were present. The chair was taken by the Hon. Charles Langdale. The proceedings resulted in the adoption of the following resolutions : That the proposed inquiry is an unworthy concession to afac tion animated by a blind hatred of the Catholic religion, and a step towards the subversion of religious liberty. • That the proposed inquiry cannot fail to excite the deepest in dignation amongst the Catholic population of Great Britain and Ireland, and to inthune religious animosity at a crisis when the union of all classes of subjects is required to resist the foreign foe. A DEPUTATION OF MERCHANTS connectedwith the Russian trade waited on Lord Clarendon on Monday, with a view of obtaining some more precise informa tion regarding the views of the Government with i respect to Russian produce in the event of war. The substance of the answer given by Lord Clarendon was : " That the Government hoped to put the question of neutral trade on a liberal basis. " That it was not proposed by Government to inquire into the origin of goods, or to require certificates of production, in the event of goods coming from neutral ports. " The Government was not prepared to lay down any specific proposition regarding the course which would he pursued in the case of goods shipped after a declaration of war (should such declaration take place). This part of the subject was underthe consideration of the law advisers of the allied powers." LORD BATEMAN, lord lieutenant of Herefordshire, has, upon the unanimous solicitation of the directors, accepted the chairmanship of the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway Company, vacant by the decease of Robert Clive, Esq., M.P. THE NUMBER OF DEATHS registered in the metro polis in the week that ended last Saturday was 1,188, exhibiting a decrease on that of the preceding week, when 1,343 were registered. The deaths returned last week are less by 46 than the calculated average. THE BISHOPRIC or SALISBURY will be conferred on the Itev. Walter Kerr Hamilton, M.A., canon residentiary of Salisbury and precentor. THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH is erecting a range of first-class dwellings at Eckford, in Itosburghshire, to be occupied by the day labourers, foresters, and others on his estate of Eckford Barony. Each house contains five apartments, and is constructed on the most approved style of sanitary and household comfort. A COMPANY is now in course of formation for con structing a railway from the northern counties to London, for the exclusive carriage of coals and other minerals, bulky goods, and agricultural pro duce. The estimated capital required is 4,000,(XX)/. IT is proposed in Manchester that any one who likes to turn "jarvey " may do so, obliging him, how ever, to have painted upon his coach, in legible characters, what he will run for per mile, and to that he must adhere. A WHALE,of the finner species, measuring between seventy and eighty feet, has been captured in the North Sea, by two smacks. It was towed into the Humber on Saturday morning. Pill 40 olict. A CASE OF LIBEL was heard at Maidstone, on the Home Circuit, on Tuesday, the plaintiff being Mr. John Hooper Hartnall, formerly the proprietor of a newspaper published at Greenwich, called the Kentish Mercury, and conductor of a weekly publication called the Post Magazine, which devoted its attention exclu sively to matters connected with insurance comps • nies. The defendant, Mr. Durham, was the chair man of the board of directors of a company called the " Unity Fire Assurance Association." It seems that Mr. Hartnett, in the course of a series of articles on assurance companies, had questioned the sound ness of the Unity Fire Association, declaring that many of the subscribers had not paid up their shares towards its capital, and that the expenditure in ma nagement, Sc., was exorbitant. The defendant replied to this attack in a pamphlet containing the libel complained of. It was entitled "An Address to the Shareholders of the Unity Fire Association, in reply to the unwarrantable attacks made upon it •by the Assurance Moni►or." The plaintiff was classed in it as a journalist with the writers in the Satirist, Age, Paul Pry, and other disreputable prints, and described as a hireling writer, like those who had formerly written in the publications referred to, who lived by extortion, and levying "black mail" from his victims. It also charged him with having made statements respecting the company which he knew to be false, and stated that he was not actuated by any desire for the interests of the public, hut solely by a desire of gain, and was merely the paid agent of the old insurance companies, who were jealous of the success of a young rival. The proceedings, which occupied the court for the entire day, involved chiefly the determination of the motives by which both plaintiff and defendant had been actuated in their respective writings. At the close the jury found a verdict for the plaintiff, but gave him only nominal damages. SEVERAL GUNSMITHS HAVE BEEN ROBBED by two fashionably-dressed foreigners, distinguished by pro•• digious beards, who have visited their shops in com pany. One of the men asked for something in broken English, or in purposely unintelligible phrase, and while he contrived to distract attention his col league secreted revolvers, pistols, or any article SATURDA' . _ . lying within reacß beneathliir eToZc. — Wink caught at length the pair were charged at Bow-street with felony, under the names of Antonio 13nchiazo and Thomas Jarazzini, an d committed for trial. A FIRM OF NIEILCHANTS, having establishments both in London and at Natal, and trading with Africa under the denomination of Bergtheil and Jung, have had their estate vested in the Court of Bankruptcy, where one of the partners came up for last examination on Wednesday. In June, 1852, the house possessed a capital of 27,0001., and claim now a large surplus of property on the balance-sheet, where debts to the amount of nearly 30,0001. are in. serted. The property consists chiefly of assets in distant parts of the world, and comprises 50,000 acres of land in Asia, said to be of considerable value. The bankrupt passed. Joint BURLEY, described as a farm labourer, was in dicted at the Surrey Sessions for stealing one swede turnip, the property of Charles Hampden, farmer, of Godstone :- The only interest in connection with this case was its frivolity, and the curious method in which the jury inti mated their appreciation of the felonious intent. The prisoner was seen by a policeman to take up, in a field belonging to the prosescutor, a turnip belonging to the pro secutor. When he saw that he was detected in the act, he cut the turnip into two pieces, and threw them away. The evidence of the fact was quite clear, and the chairman having explained that the taking of a turnip out of the ground amounted only to a misdemeanour, whilst the taking off the ground constituted a felony, the jury. after a short consideration, returned the following sapient verdict :-" We find the prisoner guilty of taking the turnip, but we don't think he meant to steal it " (Loud laughter.) Chairman : Why, that is virtually an acquittal. Foreman : We believe he took the turnip to eat it because he was hungry, and threw it away when he saw the police man. Chairman : That is a verdict of guilty, and in pursuance of that opinion (addressing the prisoner) I sentence you to seven days imprisonment. The value of the property in the above case, which amounted next to nothing, entailed on the county the expense of a counsel and two witnesses, and the charge may be taken as a sample of the majority of ninety-three cases tried at the same sessions, the absurd nature of which called forth some strong remarks from the grand jury on their being discharged from further attendance. THE: LESSEE OV VAUXHALL GARDENS, ROIIERT WAR DELL, applied on Saturday to the Insolvent Court to be liberated from the Queen's Prison till his hearing. There was no opposition to the applica tion. The schedule filed by the insolvent exhibits debts extending over a period of several years, to 8,4801. 17s. 4d., of which sum no consideration had been received for 5391. 12s. 2d. He had no debts owing to him. The insolvency was attributed "to the inclement weather for the last two seasons the gardens were open." In 1848, 1840, and part of 1850, there were no profits. In 1851 (Exhibition time) the profits of the "royal property " were 2,000/., whilst in the seasons of 1852 and 1853 be made " nothing," and had heavy expenses to pay. He had been in prison since the 2nd of March inst., and his schedule numbered about ninety creditors. The applicant was discharged till the day of hearing. COURT OF BANKRUPTCY.-A parliamentary paper just issued contains a statement of the sums paid into and out of the various funds of the Bankruptcy Court during the year 1853. It appears that 656,283/. 3s. 7d. was paid into the general account of bankruptcy estates by official assignees, exclusive of 87,6371. 10a., the proceeds of stock from the fund account. The following sums were paid out :-By order of the Lord Chancellor. 5161. Os. 6d.; by order of the Lords Justices, 3031. Ills. 2d. ; and by order of the Commissioners, 196,4801. 14s. Bd. On the dividend account the sum of 540,4001. 10s. 54. was transferred, and the sum of 533,3631. Os. 9d. paid. The sum of 1,2471. 16s. 2d. was paid in to the unclaimed dividend account. On the chief registrar's account 61,8061. 7s. Bd. was paid in by official assignees, including interest, &c.. 10,5921. Os. 2d. by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, and 14,8681. 15s. accrued from the proceeds of sales of stock. The net balances on the Ist January, 1854, were as follows :-General account of bankrupts' estates, 64,116/. 2a. 6d.; bankruptcy fund account, 1,132,9261. ss. 5(1.; un claimed dividend account, 1,4361. is. 3d. • (thief registrar's account, 4,7961. Os. An appendix added to the returns shows the amounts paid for salaries, compensation, and allowances, &c. It appears that 59,7591. 15s. 9d. was paid as salaries, 21,865/. 4s. Id. as compensations, 2,600/. as annuities, and 6,3161. for expenses, making a total of 90,541/. 2s. There are five commissioners in the London district receiving 2,0001. per annum each, and six regis trars receiving 1,000/. per annum each. The accountant receives 1,5001. a year. The chief clerk to the registrar receives WO/. ; three of his other clerks 4001. each, one 3201., four 3001. each, three 2.501. each, two 2001. each, and three 150/. each. The chief registrar receives 1,200/. a year. His chief clerk receives 500/., and four other clerks 200/. a year each. The taxing-master receives 1,2001. a year, and his two clerks 300/. and 1501. respectively. In the country districts, twelve commissioners receive 1,800/. per annum each, and twelve registrars 800/. per annum each. The registrar has a salary of 8001. The compensa tions include five payments of 2001. to the late London co mmissioners, 3861. to the late clerk of hanaper, 300/. to the late clerk of enrolments, and 7,352/. lb, fid. to the Rev. T. Thurlow, as patentee of bankrupts. THE PRESS.