The Press.
London, England, 1857-09-12 00:00:00

corporation were acting as trustees for the benefit of
the public. It had been computed that 1,600 houses
had been pulled down for making the new street,
which, at an average of ten persons to a house, made
a population of 16,000 persons displaced to seek a
home elsewhere. This depopulation had caused a
great increase in the local taxation upon the remain-
ing inhabitants. There was the strongest necessity
for pressing the corporation to sell the land for
building, to complete the improvements for the
benefit of the public and put an end to the injury
sustained by its non-completion.

THE REV. ROBERT MAGUIRE, the recently elected
incumbent of Clerkenwell, has commenced a series
of services for the working classes in the parish
church. The church is thrown open during the
whole of the week for working-class services ; all the
seats are free, the body of the church and the upper
galleries being reserved for working men. Several
eminent preachers give their support to the services.
A MAN was picked up in the Haymarket last
Saturday morning in a dying condition. He had
poisoned himself with laudanum, and died twenty
minutes after his admission into Charing-cross
Hospital. He was dressed like a respectable trades.
man.

THE EARLY CLOSING ASSOCIATION held a meeting
at Exeter-hall this week, under the presidency of
Mr. Alderman Wire, who stated that the result of
the efforts of that association bad been that the
hours of labour had now been considerably abridged
in nearly all branches of trade, and that advantage
had even been extended to the profession of the law,
to which he belonged, in which, owing to the exer.
tions of the association, the Saturday half•holiday
had been almost universally adopted. It still, how.
ever, remained that the benefit of the weekly half-
holiday should be extended to the other classes of
the community. The principal obstacle he saw at
present to that being carried out was the custom of
paying wages late on Saturday afternoons; but he
thought that wages might be paid earlier on that
day, or the payment of them changed to another
day, and were either of these courses adopted he
saw no reason why the Saturday half-holiday should
not be enjoyed by every class of the community in
the metropolis. The meeting was addressed by
several clergymen and gentlemen, and various reso-
lutions in accordance with the objects of the associa-
tion were proposed and carried.
Two HOUSES in Artillery-lane, Spitalfields, fell
down last Sunday night. No lives fortunately were
lost, though the inhabitants were severely bruised.
The lane has been occupied upwards of a century by
secondhand-clothes dealers and miscellaneous curio-
sity-shops, kept principally by Jews. Five adjoining
houses have been condemned by the district surveyor,
and the occupants ordered to leave.
A TREMENDOUS FIRE broke out at Bowles Wharf,
Ratcliffe, on Monday night. The fire was first dis-
covered in the hey and clover premises, and rapidly
spread to the other storehouses on the wharf. The
engines of the fire brigade and the two river
engines were soon at work; yet never was the ineffi-
ciency of water to suppress a fire more apparent.
For hours were some thousands of tons of water
thrown every minute upon the burning mass, but
without efiect. The fire raged, caught building after
building, and destroyed no less than six distinct
premises before it burned itself cut and consented
to be subdued.