The Express.
London, England, 1850-02-11 00:00:00

Dosmr,

Two notices of elation, to reenvee finis of fifty
pounds (soh, were served yesterday on the Lord
Mayer, for presiding in his official capacity at the
corporation meetings of the lit and 71h inst. Notion
has also been fervid on the treasurer of the corpsni-
don, cautioning him sgainst paying any Emmy
daring the disputed mayoralty of Mr. Remain
Meetings have =ready been held or com'e's" Is
belt a dose. of the wards, to collect pecuniary help
fir Mr. Reynolds.
A verdict was obtaieed yesterday by the plaintiff
in the amusing ease of" Taylor v. Simpson." Damages
were awarded to the amount of 3071. 10s., being the
full estimated value of the four pictures detained and
disposed of by the defendant. The verdict has
afforded very general satisfaction.
The Tenant Protection Societies ere extending in
the month. On Sunday last the great meeting of the
Ballingsrry Tenant Protection Society came off, and
was folly ere to the anticipations formed of it. The
attendance is described as having been very great,
and as not having been by any means exclu4vely
composed of the labouring clauses. " Seldom,
says the Kilkenny Journal' "has such an array
of the most respectable farmers been brousht
together; and some of the gentlemen who occupied
the platform came a distance of 26 miles to attest
their devotion to the cause. Larg' contributions of
men were poured in from Mullinabone and Callao."
A Tenant Protection Society was established 'ast week
at Caetlecomer, where a large and reepectably-at-
tended meeting was held. The Kilkenny Journal,
after enumerating the names of several persons who
were present, says: "Amongst these we Fecognise
some of the largest landholders in this
neighbourhood; and they appeared to be the
most enthusiastic in math g for the institution of a
Terant Protection Society." Fifty members were
enrolled on this occasion, and it was expected that all
the farmers in the locality would have their names
lot cribed on the records of the society. The organi-
sation which is thus extending itself throughout the
north and south of Ireland is as yet very imperfectly
anderet:od here or in England ; but that it is a most
important, as well as a novel movement, is quite
certain. _ _

Another very important tenant•farmer meeting has
been held in Ulster, in the town of Comber. It was

attended by some five hundred " substantial tenant
farmers," and by clergymen of the presbyterian
church, and the proceedings were conducted with
firmness and moderation. The following were among
the res)lutions adopted, and they accurately express
the feelings of the tenant farmers of Ulster on the
subject :
That we consider the present agitation on behalf of the
protection of agricultural produce an unwise and hopeless
attempt to keep up landlord exactions at the expense of the
public inttrests ; and we belt, vs every tax on the bread of
the people, which renders the 'ostentation of human life
more difficult, to be a great public wrong. We therefore
demand that the principles of free trade which have been
adopted by our legislators with regard to food, be also by
then extended to land, which produces food.
That eompensation for what are call-d " at:exhausted
Improvements" is only one simple element in the tenant
right of Ulster," and that no measure of tenant right
legalisation, which is based upon this element alone, can be
iatisfactory to the tenant farmers of this country, or can be
accepted by them as a remedy for the exating grievances of
tae agricultural population; bat, ea the contrary, every
merely fragmentary measure of this nature shall receive our
united and most determined opposition.

TIGRE ISLAND IN THE PACIFIC.—On the 16th of
lest October her Majesty's steam-sloop Gorgon, Commander
Paynter, took rossession of Tigre 1-land in the name of
the Queen, in consequence of the Honduras Government re-
facing to pay their just debts, and returned to the comman-
der-in-chief on the station, leaving a party of 46 officers and
men on the island. Roar-Admiral Hamby, however, hav-
ing disapproved of the steps taken by the commander, de-
spatched the Gorgm from Callao on the 14th December last
to Migra Island, to embark the party, and to surrender the
island.—Hunts Tek :pooh.
EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW BASIL—The annual
general meeting of this establishment was held at Glasvw
on Thursday. The usual dividend of six per cent , tree of
income tax, was declareLOd.
COLLIERY EXPSION. STOURBRIDGE, &Hui-
day.—A shocking colliery explosion, attended with the
loss of four lives, has hoppened this week at the Dudley-
wood coal-pit, at the Five Ways, near this town, belonging
to Megan. Porgeter and Darby, in reference to which au
inquiry was commenced on Friday before the coroner. The
pit is 120 yards deep, and below the coal is an iron mine,
one engine working both mines, there bring a separate
shaft tor each, though they are connected with each other
below the surface. A skip was descending the coal shaft
at the time of the explosion, and was hurled out to an ex
traordioary height in the air by the explosion, some portions
of it felling at a distance of 100 yards from the mouth of
the pit. In consequence of the mob of foul air from the
pit it was some time before any person could descend into the
mine. The two mines are ventilated by an opening made be-
tween them, by which the fresh air passed from the coal min_
into the iron mine, and then passed outward. The explosion
had by some unaccountable process reversed these cur-
rents of air, and this b. log discovered, an intrepid fellow,
sensed John Web!), descended the iron shaft, and, climbing
into the coal mine, with a safety-lamp in his hand, was the
instrument of saving several unfortunate miners who were
in a state of exhaustion in the pit. Others followed Webb,
and the miners were got out before midnight, though tour of
them—named Joseph Warwick, a putts named Griffiths
(son of the superintendent, who was also in the mine, and
was blown to some distance), and two brothers named Web.
ster—were killed. Mtst of the men (14 in number) who sur-
vived were burnt; Griffiths, the superintendent, has received
some very serious injuries, and is in a precarious state. The
workings of the mine extend in a southerly direction from
the shalt, and it is thought that the fire commenced about
midway between the shaft and the head of the workings,
near a "bolt hole" leading to an old workinp now dammed
off, where an inequality in the roof of the muse would allow
of some little accumulation of the vapour undetected. The
pit is recasionally liable to be charged with sulphur; some
four or five years ago 11 men were killed in it by a similar
explosion. It appears that when the wind is in a southerly
direction, or shortly before a shower of rain, sulphur accumu-
lates in the pit, and then safely lamps are used, though at
other times the =there work with naked lights, and this was
the caw when the explosion took place. It is supposed that
the high wind of Tuesday evening d,sturbea the foul air from
some braisehee of old workings, supposed to be securely
dammed up, and than 'soaping to the place when the men
were at work with naked candles, the septillion took place.
CAI'TDRE OF HIGHWAYMEN.—Six highwaymen,
who have long infested the neighbourhood of Bristol, have
been captured. It appears that to suck an extent have their
depredations been canted, more especially in the rural dis-
tricts of Brislington and Keyneham, that many of the
farmers have been unwilling to attend, as anal, our corn
and ether marktto, several outrages having recently been
committed, attended with a great degree of per:onal
violence. A Mr. Thomas White, farmer, of Batcombe, was
attacked the other day, within a few hundred yards of a
farm house on the Frame Turnptke-road, by two armed
men, who demanded his money or his life; they dragged
him off his horse, and commenced rifling his pockets. He
shouted for assistance, upon which they stuffed his mouth
full of dirt, and robbed him of all his loose cash, hie notes,
which he hod pieced in a private pocket, fortunately escaping
their notice. Mr. Joseph Wyat, firmer, M Witt, was
attacked in the lame manner near Lansdowne, and robbed
of his watch and all he had about him ; the highwaymen
eat his bridle reins and stirrups to p t his pursuing
them. Mr. Wilkins, of the Bell Inn, Cheleruod, Somerset,
was waylaid at the bottom of Knowle.hill, by five men, who
robbed him and then made off in the direction of Revak's&
About an hoar later the same evegiag, Mr. Barrow, a
blacksmith and farrier, wt o carries on business at Re ynehasu,
was stopped, and although he resisted till he was nearly
throttled, the blood gushing from his mouth and nostril., he
was robbed of M. By the exertions of poliee-errgeant Buell
five men, named S. Bryant, W. Powell, W. Gunning,
S. Rogers, and J. Rogers were taken into custody.
Subsequently to their apprehension, another man, named J.
Britten, was t.ken into custody, and also the keeper of •
beer shop in the vicinity of Benham, named J. B. Tremlett,
at whose house the pclice received information the gang used
to meet. Them fellows have since been fully committed t
take their trial on the several offences which were brought
home to them by William Powell, who was allowed to turn

approver.
A MAN BOASTSD.—The Sherborne Journal say.:
" We scarcely ever have had to chronicle a more revolting
outrage than was perpetrated a few days ago in the parish
of Compton Dondon, near this town. A small termer
named Edward Allen was drinking in the house of his
tenant, a man named Paul Hill. Hill bad purchased a
quantity of cider of Allen, who had given them • bucket
fall or two over, and • party of seven or eight persons were
merry making over the apple juioe. Some of the natty pro.
posed to send for tobacco, and asked Allen for money,
which he refused. In order to compel him to pay his por-
tion, they blocked up the chimney corner in which he was
sitting, and heaped Mob fuel on the Are, keeping hint
there for a period of, it is said, two bout,, and literally
roasting him. When the poor fallow essayed tt% pt off hie
small clothes, the skin of his legs came off with his garments,
and he now lies in • very daagerogs state. ltalph Neville,
Neg., attended by Mr. Welsh, the magistrates' clerk, went
down to the house on Wednesday, to take his deposition,
bat found him light headed and unable to give • connected
account of the affair."
SUSPMEP roisoNnia AT BACKIIIIT.—On St.
turday, Mr:Wns. Biker resumed the investigation at the Old
Mermaid, at Hackney, into the eases of death of Richerd
Merritt, aged 61, whose body bad been exhume,' be order of
the coroner, in consequence of the extraordinery disclosures
made at the inquest on the body of James Merritt, a eon of
the deceased, whose wife, Mary Merritt, has undergoes seve-
ral examinations at Worship-etriret Polies-6Mee, on the
charge of musing hie death by arslll6l3c. Several witnemse
having been examined, the jury returned a verdict of
" MMus' death foam Asiatic eholara."