The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-12-29 00:00:00

•MERCANTILE LA TV CONFERENCE.

The following programme of a Mercantile Law Con-
ference, which will take place in January next under the
presidency of the Right Hon. Lord Brougham, has just
been issued. The Conference has for its vice-president,
the Right Hon, Sir John Pakington, Bart., M.P., Sir
'Fitzroy Kelly, Q.C., M.P., Mr. Alderman Salomons, Mr.
Charles Holland, president of the Chamber of Commerce,
Liverpool, Mr. Thomas Batley, president of the Chamber
of Commerce and Manufactures, Manchester, Mr. John
Selmer], president of the Chamber of Commerce, Bristol,
Mr Wm. Balfour, presidentof the Chamber of Commerce
and Manufactures,- Glasgow, and Mr. R. Grinishaw, presi-
dent of the Chamber of Commerce, Belfast. Mr. Thomas
Head!am, Q.C., M.P., chairman of the committee. The
Conference will meet at the rooms of the Lav Amend-
ment Society, Waterloo Place, on the 28th and 29th of
January. and will be composed, first of such members
of the Law Amendment Society as shall desire to
attend ; secondly, of representatives of town councils,
chambers of commerce, trade associations, law societies,
and other public bodies of a simiiar nature; thirdly. of
such peers, members of parliamere, and other persons,
as the committee of the Conferenee may invite. The
ebivts of the Conference are-1. To discuss and bring
under the notice of government, parliament, and the
public, those imperfections in the mercantile law, of the
United Kingdom which most require amendment.
2. To collect information from the various bodies repre-
sented at the Conference as to the best legislative
remedies for those imperfections. 3. To consider
the practical steps which ought to be adopted for
obtaining such legislative measures. Tie subjects for
discnssion will be classified by the committee before the
opening of the Conference, and their selection will be
guided by the communications to be receirod from tho
bodies by whom delegates may be sent. Among the sub-
jects already determined on are-1. The Law of Bank-
ruptcy ; 2. the Law of Partnership ; 3. the Law of
Merchant Shipping • 4. the Law of Principal and Agent ;
5. the 17th section of time Statute of Frauds; 6. the Law
of Banking ; '7- Assimilation of the Commercial Law of
England, Scotland, and Ireland ; 8. Tribunals of Com-
merce. The list of names composing the committee is a
most itifluential one,embracing 15 members of parliament
and a number of other gentlemen well versed in legal
and mercantile matters.

RESUMPTION OF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS
WITH THE UNITED STATES.

We are glad to be enabled to state that arrangements are nearly
completed fur the full and complete resumption of diplomatic
relations with the Republic of the United States. The Minister
selected as the representative of the Queen of Great Britain
will probably arrive at Washington before the 4th of March,
and will be accompanied, or very soon followed, by the consuls
of the three places left vacant at the time of the enlistment
dispute, and by the Consul for Baltimore, vacant by death,
and the Consul for Buffalo, which is henceforth to have a
British resident to watch over the large British interests in that
very rising town. When the name of the Minister appointed
shall be announced in a few days, we have no doubt that it
will be received with satisfaction upon the other side of the
Atlantic as well as upon this. When President Pierce, in the
midst of his long speech to congress. not remarkable for its
amenities to his enemies at home or abroad, thought proper to
adopt a most conciliatory tone as regards England and the
British government, and when he gave official and formal
acknowledgments that the disputes with Great Britain, which
ho bad got up during his presidency, were at an end, it was
easy to see that the door was opened o our government for
the renewal of the intercourse which has been temporarily
disturbed. There is no occasion to open up the questions of
enlistment in the neighbourhood of the States, nor the
Central American question, since Mr. Pierce announces that
all differences relating to them are at an end. Since these
questions are happily set at rest for ever, they may be at the
same time, let us hope, forgotten for ever also. It is now krown,
nd admitted on both sides of the Atlantic, that these questions
have been settled by the admirable temper and discretion of
the statesmen of Great Britain, to whom the decision of these
delicate matters was referred. It is only following up the
system of conciliation—of the abandonment of fruitless
claims—and of the dignified refusal to reciprocate email
resentments—that the Government of Great Britain
has resolved to finish the work of conciliation, and to
promote, as f r as lies in them, that cordial inter-
course that should subsist between friendly states,
by sending an experienced and honoured representative to the
newly elected Government of the States. We may bo per-
mitted, perhaps, to express our regret that a gentleman p093C89-
lug so many of the re Trish° qualifications and talents as the
Right Hon, Charles Pelham Villiers, is not to he, as suggested
by a morning cotereporary, the person to inaugurate this
renewal of friendly intercourse at Washington. But we believe
we may also feel assured that the minister seeetecl for the
delicate and friendly mission, will give ample satisfaction on all
sides.— Observer.

A singular death by apoplexy is mentioned by the
Havre journals :—The ship's carpenter of the whaler
Espadon, anchored in that port, was engaged on one of
the masts taking the measure of a spar with a rope, the
end of which was held by the captain on deck, when of a
sudden his hands dropped and his head sank on his
breast. A sailor was sent aloft to see what was the
matter, and to his horror he discovered that the carpenter
was dead, but that even in death his body preserved its
equilibrium on the spar on which he was seated.
THE STAFFIELD MIIRDER.—The great feature of the
case now is the confession of the murderer. William
Graham admits having on the night of the murder gone to
Eden Banks for the purpose of poaching. He had not
been long there when the unfortunate gamekeeper,. Thos.
Simpson, suddenly presented himself from behind the wall
and laid hold of the gun which Graham had in his hand,
for the purpose of wresting it from his grasp. A struggle
ensued, in the course of which Simpson succeeded in firing
off the gun, but Graham maintained his hold, and eventu-
ally freed it entirely from Simpson's grasp. Seizing upon
this advantage Graham struck Simpson a heavy blow
upon the:front of the head with the barrel of the gun, felling
him senseless to the ground, and while upon the ground
the, poacher dealt his defenceless antagonist three other
blows upon the base of the skull with the butt end of his
gun, which effectually killed him, if the deed had not
already been done. Graham then went home and roused
his brothers, Henry and Joseph, told them what he had
done, and obtained their assistance in the disposal of the
corpse. The prisoner's confession was' made formally
before the Penrith magistrates on Wednesday, at the
police-office, where Graham was lying, apparently in a
dying state.
GAOL PROSELYTISM.—Mr. George Bowyer, M.P., in a
letter to the Times, charges the chaplain of Winchester
Gaol with having attempted proselytism in the case of the
three Italian convicts recently executed. He says:—"The
prisoners never asked for the assistance of the Protestant
chaplain; but that gentleman, nevertheless, having secured
the assistance of an interpreter, named Ferretti, formerly
a Roman Catholic but now a Protestant, commenced an
active crusade against their religious faith as soon as sen-
tence of death had been passed on them, though they had
the services of two priests of their own church. The
miserable men hoped for a commutation of their sentence,
and they dared not refuse to hear the chaplain, a govern-
ment officer. lam indeed convinced, from information
which I have received, that Barbalano thought that by
becoming a Protestant he might save his life." The
writer adds, "-By the joint efforts of the Roman Catholic
clergy, Barbafaue and Lagava were brought to rep.n-
tance and to receive the rhos of the church on the very
day before their execution. Barbalano had not been
confirmed, and our saintly bishop, the Right Rev. Dr.
Grant, went down from
.London on Monday to administer
that sacrament, and remained with,.the prisoners to the
last. As for retrici, the report in the Times shows that in
him the love of life was peculiarly strong. He would let
slip no chance of saving it. He refused to admit the
priest on Monday, and received the Church of England
sacrament. But the bishop informs me that the other
prisoners asserted to him that Petrici went to execution
a Roman Catholic after all."
An address, signed by 43 rectors, vicars, and curates,
of the diocese of Salisbury, was forwarded to the Bishop
of Salisbury, expressing the pain which the subscribers to
said address had felt on seeing the signatures of two of the
said bishop's chaplains to the recent public protest against
the decision of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the case
'of Archdeacon Denison, and the relief ft would be to their
minds to hear that the bishop had not sanctioned it. The
bishop, in a reply dated " Palace, Salisbury, Wednesday
in Ember week," expresses to his "reverend and dear
brethren " regret that his chaplains should have caused
them so much pain, and that he could not relieve their
anxiety in the way that they suggested. He then adds,
that was he to make known whether his chaplains had his
sanction for signing the protest, it would be acknowledg-
ing a most unauthorised claim on the part of the signers
of the address to interfere with the relations of confidence
in which a bishop and his chaplains stand to one another ;
and, he trusted, that if one of his chaplains taught anything
contrary to the doctrines of the Church, that the rev,
addressers would not have any occasion to call him to
explain whether ha was a party in any way to unsound
teaching, whilst he desires to re press any undue license
setting aside the authority of the Church of England.
Fle:is not jealous of the addressers enjoying that liberty
which the Church allows. His lordship adds, that per-
haps the address was only used as a means of obtaining an
expression of his judgment on the conduct and issue of the
trial of Archdeacon Denison at Bath; and, if' so, he obeli
be happy, by private advice, to quiet the doubti or per-
plexities which his rev. brethren may entertain, but at
present it will be more in accordance with ecclesiastical
principles, and for the good of' the diocese, to refrain from
making any public declaration about the judgment lately
passed in the case of Archdeacon Denison. His lordship
concludes by saying : " And now, in the earnest hope that
all my clergy will endeavour to combine with a loyal
jealousy for God's truth a spirit of forbearance and can-
dour, and a desire, above all things, to do to others as they
wonld be done by." Signed, "W. K. sarum."—" To the
Rev. G. Abbot, &e."