The Sun.
London, England, 1836-10-10 00:00:00

O'CONNELL ON IRISH TITHES.

(From the London Mercury of yesterday.)
In a letter to his constituents, Mr. O'Connell has
touched on many topics most important to the Irish
people.
He thus defends his course on the tithe question.
" I am perfectly safe in asserting, that in the last session
nothing could be more impossible than obtaining the total
abolition of tithes.

" This being so, a question arises, and it is this :—ls it
reasonable to reject a proposition for abolishing part of the
tithes—simply because we cannot at present get rid of the
entire ? • •

" I, therefore, who am for the total abolition of tithes,
voted for the abolition, in the first instance, of part only. To
act otherwise would be on a par with the folly of a man in
Dublin who should declare that as his object was to go to
Shrewsbury he would not go in the steam-packet because the
final destination of that packet was Holyhead, and it would
not take him further."

Mr. O'Connell appears altogether to misunderstand the
nature of the objections that have been taken to his con-
duct on the tithe question. The acceptance of a reduc-
tion of tithes to the amount of 30 per • cent.—until tithes
could be abolished altogether—has never been objected to.
The objection has been as to the application of the 30 per
cent in question. Mr. O'Connell would give the 30 per
cent. to the landlords. I contend now, as I contended
three years ago, that the Irish poor ought to have the
benefit of the reduction.

The mere composition of tithes, or commutation of tithes,
or annihilation of tithes—although of great importance, as
involving the subversion of the existing system—will do no-
thing toward elevating the mass of Irish society from its
present debasement. Were tithes annihilated to-morrow by
Act of Parliament, the great body of the Irish people
would be no gainers by the change. The landlords of Ire-
land would quietly add the amount of tithe to the amount
of rent, and the peasantry would remain in the same abject
state of vassalage as before. Vassalage, indeed, is not the
term by which to denote their condition—nor do I know
that the English language supplies a descriptive expression.
Vassals had, according to the system of vassalage, rights as
clearly defined as were the rights of their feudal superiors
but the mass of the Irish people have no social rights -
ever. Serf, again, is a title to which an Irish peasant has
no pretensions—for if a serf was bound to the land, the land
was reciprocally bound to him. The serfs of former days
had a right of maintenance from the soil—but such aright
the Irish peasant of the nineteenth century—the emancipated
Irish peasant—is not permitted to enjoy. The condition of
society in Ireland is, indeed, an anomaly, and one of the
most fearful kind. We there see the mass of the occupants
of the soil, denied the meanest and most comm on of those
rights, for the creation and maintenance of which, all social
institutions were in the first instance devised ;—and while
all social rights are withheld, the attempt to assert natural
rights is punished as the most unnatural of crimes. Ire-
lad would be less wretched than she is, if none of the ma-
chinery of civilization were at work within her shores ; for
that machinery—the laws and institutions which prevail—
has been merely an instrument of oppression in the hands of
the men who, under the sanction of existing laws, have
contrived to possess themselves of the soil. If Ireland had
no pretensions to civilization, the law of force would prevail
—but scarcely to a greater extent than the law of force
prevails there at this moment and with this difference in the
result—that the law of force would then be, as all laws ought
to be, on the side ofthe many ! Give the Irish the benefits
which every social scheme ought to secure for every mem-
ber of society—or permit the Irish to fall back entirely upon
the law of nature! There is no other honest alternative!
If tithes, I repeat, were abolished to-morrow, the land-
lords would claim the inheritance of the Church—and the
condition of the peasantry would be even more wretched
than it is at present. Yet the landlords cannot—even aF-
cording to the present most iniquitous relations which in
Ireland connect the rich with the poor—show any title to
tithe. They bought their estates subject to tithe-charges;
and if they succeed to tithes, the Legislature ought ts,
exact from them the fullest value which tithes would fetch
in the market. That value ought to be carried to the credit
of the poor—ought to form a fund for the maintenance of
all born on the soil—and, in addition to that fund, the
whole land of Ireland ought forthwith to be charges!, with
a rate, not merely for the support of the indigent P:nd help-
less,. but for the purpose of supplying permanent and pro-
fitable employment to every man willing and able to labour.
The landlords of . Ireland must be made to understand the
nature of the position which they ought to occupy in so-
ciety. They must abandon their preposterous pretensions
to an absolute right of. property lit the soil. They must he
taught that the soil of Ireland was no more made for their
exclusive uses, than the sun which shines on Ireland was
designed to warm and cheer them alone ; and they must be
taught, moreover, that it will be more easy for the rest of
society to find another race of landlords, than for the pre-
sent race of landlords to find other possessions.
The sooner Mr. O'Connell lays these thinge to heart, the
sooner will he understand what English Radicals mean when
they express their disapprobation of the tithe-commutation
scheme which he supports.

BRUSSELS, OCT. 7.—Messrs. Kats and Michaels
have been set at liberty to-day on giving bail to the amount
of 800 francs (321.) each. The exorbitant amount of the
bail is not one of the least sin,,,,ular circumstance of this affair,
especially when we recollect that two other persons, who. are
to be tried on an accusation which (in the case of •one of
them) is more serious than that against M. Kats }lave not
been arrested.—Brussels Paper.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Everything with the Tories is, "great." They had
a "great Conservative dinner ' at Northampton on
Friday last, at which the chair was taken by one who,
from his language, may not uncharitably be pronounced
a great fool, if he has been correctly reported in the
Times. "He contended, that if it were not for the
House of Lords, the Protestants of Ireland would
have been handed over to the tender mercies of another
Irish massacre." And this is the sort of language that
Tory Chairmen dare to address to the poor deluded
fools that partake of their feeds. We do not quarrel
with the opinion entertained by this or any other
weak man of the merits of the House of Lords ;
but we contend that it reflects disgrace on the
assembled Tory gentlemen who heard this in-
famous aspersion that they did not instantly
protest against it. They know that it is a foul
calumny to charge the Catholics with harbouring any
idea of massacreing their fellow-countrymen. Why
then charge the Catholics with harbouring any such
wicked design, if they do not wish to excite the mem-
bers of the two religions to acts of vengeance and
bloodshed ? At the Northampton, as at the Ludlow
dinner, Mr. Buckingham passes for a great authority
in favour of Tory excellency. Mr. Charles Ross was
quite full of the sayings of the Hon. Member for
Sheffield. What did Mr. Buckingham say of the
Tories ? " Why, that they were courteous ; that they
practised what they professed ; that they were faithful
to each other, and were grateful for the support they
received." After this the Tories are bound to be
grateful to Mr. Buckingham.—Morning Chronicle.
The Northamptonshire Conservative meeting, re-
ported in our paper of Saturday last, ought to be looked
upon as of high example, and cheering encouragement
to that cause which involves the timely salvation of the
Briti:;11 empire. The return of four Conservative mem-
bers for the two divisions of Northamptonshire was, in
the truest sense of the word, a popular return, being
effected by the independent gentry and yeomanry
aeainst a powerful and concentrated oligarchy of Whig
Lords, amongst whom are to be found the names of
Spencer, Fitzwilliam, and Northampton. A perverse
and spiteful oligarchy on one side, and a reckless and
revolutionary rabble on the other, having formed an
unholy league against the free exercise of the Regal
powers, and of the political rights of property, can be
met no otherwise so effectually as by a counteracting
union of independent and otherwise unconnected men,
round whose necks the cord of faction has never yet
been twisted—men who neither sympathize with a
coterie of selfish Lords, dividing among themselves
and their relations all the most lucrative and respon-
sible offices under the Crown ; nor with the turbulent
and untaught thousands, who see no possibility of
losing, but every chance of winning, by a convulsion
the most violent and sweeping, what they have not
patience or virtue to seek by more lawful means—viz.,
a fixed stake and possession in their country. The
meeting at Northampton was composed of persons set-
ting at defiance the former branch of the above unna-
tural confederates, and holding the latter portion of
them in abhorrence. It is true that, irresistibly as the
Conservative principle has spread throughout North-
ampton town and county, nothing more can be done in
one respect than has already been realised for, both by
the return of Conservative members of Parliament, and
the exclusion of wretched Ministerial adherents. But
in other respects we can accomplish a great deal more
by meetings such as this. There may, through the cul-
tivation of the Conservative sentiment, be produced,
not merely a sufficiency, but an excess of constitu-
tional votes—not merely the Whig-Radical force
on the hustings may be again overpowered, but the
Whig-Radical feeling throughout society may be
crashed, and the redundant strength of Conservatism
may overflow upon other counties. Besides the dis-
play of property and character observable at the meet-
ing of last Thursday, the talent with which the great
cause was supported ought not to be forgotten. It is
a common-place excuse of the Whig Ministers for
going with O'Connell a certain length in his attacks
upon the Church of Ireland, that they " will stop at
the point which it would in their opinion be wrong to
transgress, and that they are not answerable for the
extravagance or criminality of his intentions." Upon
this point Mr. Cartwright made an apposite quotation
from the recorded language of Horne Tooke, and a
striking allusion to a commentary upon Tooke's words
by the late Mr. Coleridge. Horne Tooke had said,
that if some of his friends were inclined to go in their
road of reform as far as Slough, he who could not
proceed so far would nevertheless accompany them to
Hounslow. Upon which Coleridge very pithily asks,
" Should I be justified in walking arm in arm to
Hounslow with a man who was going to commit a rob-
bery at Slough ?" Now, Lord Melbourne gives a dif-
ferent answer to the question from any that the keen
moral sense of Coleridge had anticipated. The Whig
Prime Minister marches a good deal more than to
Hounslow with O'Connell; for his Lordship makes him
a present of the appropriation clause—the very instru-
ment with which O'Connell avows his design of com-
mitting a wholesale robbery on the church of Ireland !
Mr. Maunseil, in an energetic and eloquent speech,
described the established church as the rock on which
our free and noble Constitution rested, and eulogized
the House of Lords for the glorious and triumphant
stand it had made in defence of our most sacred rights
and institutions. Sir Charles Knightley took occasion
to signalize and applaud the services which had been
rendered by the Conservative press to the best interests
of the country ; but though neither on account of cur
Conservative colleagues nor of ourselves do we affect
to be indifferent to the approbation of honourable
men, we must remind Sir Charles Knightley that the
real force of our exertions lies in the truth and ma-
jesty of the cause which we aspire to vindicate ; that
if we were to put forth doctrines, or to recommend
measures which were not faithfully responded to by
the English mind, all our efforts would be vain and
illusory—our exhortations would be poured into an
empty sieve, and our most laboured appeals to the na-
tional spirit would be treated with scorn like others
that we wot of, as the mercenary trickery of sophists,
knaves, and traitors.—Times.
Without any cause, personal or political, of grati-
tude or affection towards Lord Brougham other than
that feeling of admiration and sympathy which every
mind not sunk into the lowest depths of baseness enter-
tains for great intellectual power, we may express, in
the full assurance that we do but re-echo the general
voice of the community, our sincere satisfaction and
delight that the bodily health, and with it the fine
mental faculties, of the Noble and Learned Lord are
perfectly restored. Upon such an occasion these are
natural and healthy feelings, and we should indulge
them even although we could only share them in
common with the mean, selfish, ungrateful, and un-
:English party now in possession of power. Happily,
however, we are exempt from the mortification andthe
misgivings which such extraordinary community of
sen-
timent could not fail to produce ; and we do not hesitate to
acknowledge that we rejoice the more freely and heartily
,at Lord Brougham's restoration because we perceive,by
symptoms the most unequivocal, that this circumstance,
upon which it might have been expected that the joy
of the Melbourne Ministry and its partisans would
have been more exuberant than ours, has had no
other effect upon them than of exciting dismay, vexa-
tion, and chagrin, to a degree which admits of no con-
cealment, and sets the most practised hypocrisy at de-
fiance. The Whig-Radical Ministers, or which we
take to be the same thing, their unanimous organs of
the press, speaking at their suggestion and by their in-
structions, intimate in a manner not to be misunder-
stood, that they regard the recovery from dangerous
disease of the only man of extraordinary talents and
endowments who at the present day is suspected of at-
iachment to their party as a party calamity. This is
st.range; but, to the disgrace, we will not say of hu-
man nature, but of Whig-Radical nature, it is not
more strange than true. The man who shed upon the
Whig-Radical party whatever of light and lustre has
ever illumined or adorned their dark and dreary ranks
—the man whose vigour and activity of rnind contri-
buted more than any other cause, or than all other
,causes put together, to open to them the way to political
power—the man who brought to their aid, for he alone
a,,oft;tlwpfity was capable of doing so, a large propor-
• Df the Commons of England—this man has
-Out ..",a lingering sickness, which threatened to
*tive,.tat4l3.aa\the Whig-Radical Ministers or their

special friends, the partakers and expectants of their
official bounty, are the only persons in the United
Kingdom who receive the intelligence with sullen
()loom and spiteful dissatisfaction. The former col-
leagues of Lord Brougham, having previously cast
cast away all that are generous, or powerful, or re-
spectable of their number, have shown themselves in-
capable of witnessing his re-appearance upon the po-
litical scene with so much as even a decent show of
welcome. All their savings and doings intimate with-
, out disguise how glad they would have been that he
should come there no more. The Conservatives do
justice, upon this occasion, to the talent and spirit of
the Noble and Learned Lord—for Conservatives can
do justice even to their political enemies ; and the
Ministerialists raise the cry of interested artifice
and cunning. The genuine and straightfor-
ward Radicals exult in the anticipated accession
of his Lordship to their ranks ; and the suspicious,
feeble, and terrified Ministerialists utter a loud shriek
of terror, as if conscious that their darling places are
in danger. The Edinburgh Radicals cannot offer Lord
Brougham, on his restoration to health, the civility
of a dinner without being told by the Ministerial
Morning Chronicle that it is "not altogether satis-
fied," or without being beseeched " not to allow them-
selves to be led by arts or intrigues from what is useful
to the common cause." " Tait's Magazine" cannot
pay his Lordship the common-place tribute of an occa-
sional eulogy without being reminded by the Ministe-
rial Examiner of what would scarcely be worth re-
collecting even if it were true, which it is not, namely,
that once upon a time, in the city of Edinburgh,
" Lord Durham rose up as the champion of Reform,
and crushed the advocate of the drag-chain'—over-
whelmed the then courtier Chancellor with the rebukes
of truth and justice !" We might adduce other illus-
trations, if it were necessary, of the low-minded and
malignant jealousy—of the pitiful and odious rancour
—which the recovery of Lord Brougham has awak-
ened in the breasts of the present Ministers and their
tools. But we could not produce a better. The party
which talks of Lord Durham having crushed and
overwhelmed Lord Brougham must needs be in the
last feeble agony of ineffectual malice. Our satisfac-
tion on the recovery of Lord Brougham is entirely in-
dependent of party considerations, unless it may, per-
adventure, have acquired a tinge of that complexion
from our intimate and constant persuasion that what-
ever especially vexes and frightens the people now in
power (as this event evidently does) is likely to prove
beneficial to the country. We shall be glad to see
this eminent person once more in the House of Lords,
even although his Radicalism should, as the Ministe-
rial party fear, be more consistent, intelligible, and dis-
interested than theirs. It will be something to have
one antagonist in the Upper House of Parliament not
altogether unworthy of the vigorous arms and well-
tempered weapons of the Conservative champions.
But we confess that we see no strong reason to be-
lieve that Lord Brougham, in the new career upon
which lie is about to enter, will be the thorough-
going Radical the present half-and-half men affect
to apprehend. Since Lord Brougham's temporary
secession from public life, the state and visible cha-
racter of parties have undergone much change—a
change which of necessity dissolves all pre-existing
political connections had there been any left to hamper
time Noble Lord, and imperatively calls upon a man,
situated as his Lordship is, to re-consider the princi-
ples upon which he has acted heretofore, with a view
to the application to the new circumstances of the
times. That change in public affairs, and in the
visible position, character, and objects of political
parties which has been sufficient to detach from their
former colleagues such honourable and intelligent
statesmen as Lord Stanley, Lord Ripon, the Duke of
Richmond, and Sir James Graham—that change which
has been sufficient to make Earl Grey stand aloof from
his former colleagues in their utmost need, although
his son remains in their ranks—that change which has
been sufficient to decide the issue of every contested
election in England in favour of the Conservative body
in the State, to which the most able and respectable
members of Lord Grey's Administration now belong,
may not have been without its natural and proper
effect upon the searching and capacious mind of
Lord Brougham. To whatever party in the State
his Lordship may determine to unite himself, lie will
unquestionably be an important acquisition. The Ra-
dicals are striving to enlist him. The Ministerialists,
knowing full well that with them he cannot be, are
labouring with their usual sense of honesty and grati-
tude to discredit and defame him. The Conservatives
regard the paltry game played by these two parties
with curiosity, but without solicitude. They acknow-
ledge that Lord Brougham might be a valuable auxi-
liary to their ranks, but they are neither so weak nor
so humble as to feel any undue anxiety respecting the
course which any single individual, however distin-
guished, may think proper to pursue.—Morning Post.
The Russian character of Louis Philippe's Cabinet
is daily exhibiting the natural and necessary workings
of its Russian construction. We have already laid
before our readers sufficient proofs that it was patched
together, after an intentional delay, for this especial
object. If we were, indeed, deficient in the proofs of
the inclinations, as well as the intentions, of the new
French Cabinet, modelled in pliant subserviency to its
master's wishes, which daily and hourly multiply upon
our hands—we need look no farther, and point to no

other indication, than the ultimatum of the French
Government to Switzerland, and signed by the Dukc
de Montebello, which will be found in last Thurs-

day's Advertiser. The atrocious design of excom-
municating the transit of liberal opinions into France,
by the hermetic blockade of Switzerland, is there
not only avowed, but threatened instanter with
all the reckless profligacy of irresponsible power.
The baseness and the cowardice implied by the
menace of this atrocious document—which rivals the
fulminations of Pilnitz, and disgraces the hereditary
lustre of the name of Montebello—is fully commen-
surate to the arrogant impudence of its tone of unprin-
cipled digression. It is an outrage offered by a strong
power to a weak—calculating on the inadequacy of the
other to resist. It is an outrage offered to justice by
injustice—calculating on the incoSpetency of the
former to redress itself, and defying the natural conse-
quences of cause and effect—.by which in the long
run retribution and injustice are certain to be ultimately
chained together. The treachery and cowardice of
this document are indeed more prominent character-
istics of its revolting physiognomy than selfishness,
arrogance, or audacity. It says, in words to this
effect, to the Swiss Confederation, "We would at once
crush you, if we dared—we would extinguish at once, if
we dared, the sparks of liberty which still burn on the altar
of William Tell's birth-place, in order that they may not
communicate a flame to the dry, rotten, and withered
branches of the tree of liberty in benighted France. But
this political sacrilege we dare not openly commit ; our
power is wanting, though our will is good. We will, how-
ever, by stimulating attention to your alleged enormities
against despotic thrones, draw down upon your heads
the crushing weight of those combined powers of des-
potism which we dare not individually employ. " We
will not hurt you ourselves," as said the saintly and
Cowardly hypocrite to the offending dog, " but we will
call you mad, and thereby provoke others to torture
and hunt
you down." Such is the character of this
nefarious
document ; but our readers must have been
doubly prepared, both for its appearance and its com-
position ; partly
by our strictures, which appeared a
month ago (September 5, and 13), on the subject of
the instructions published in the September Number
,—and partly from the curious evidences we
of the Portfolio, from the Russian Cabinet to M. de
private sources of the highest authenticity,
gSacvvee ricno
of the Russian structure of the French Cabinet, and of
l l
the determination of Louis Philippe to break away the
ca
join the maturing
armament ble of the
of
theua dr
Holyupletreaty,ian c
eagainst the movement
A and
principle of European liberty. The document we
refer to was addressed to M. de Severin, when entering
on his functions as envoy of Russia, to the Swiss con-
federation. As we stated at the time, there is not a
line of it which is not as applicable to the present
posture of affairs in Switzerland, as when it was first
concocted in that nursery of mischief, the bureau of
Russia's Foreign Ministry'. There is not a line of it
which does not pour the strongest ray of illustration on
the actuating motive of the Duke de Montebello's

ultimatum, and on the prime and real mover of that
nefarious demonstration.—Mornino. Advertiser.
As far as appearances indicate, it seems to be evi-
dently the intention of Ministers not to assemble Par-
lianient before February. For this, though they have,
we admit, ample precedent, they have equal proof of
inconvenience in the hurried dog-day legislation to
which it leads. Nothing appears to be more obvious
or convenient than that Parliament should assemble
about the time the Law Courts meet. Taken even
in that point of view only, it is fitting that the House
of Lords, the High Court of Appeal, should be acces-
sible when and as long as the other Courts are, espe-
cially as by.the present practice, the attendance of the
Judges cannot be obtained during more than half of
the Session. Till of late years Parliament always
assembled before Christmas, either in October or No-
vember, and was prorogued before Midsummer. It is
true that was in times when money, when supplies were
more urgently required, than in these piping times of
peace. But what Ministers in those days could do to
suit their own political wants, surely ought not to be
discontinued to the prejudice of the public service.
We are almost ashamed to advert to the true, but
childish schoolboy kind of reason for this change.
That reason evidently is a desire to put off the evil
day, and not to encounter trouble and labour till the
very latest hour to which it can be postponed. That
such a mode of reasoning should influence Statesmen
would be indeed extraordinary, if hourly experience did
not convince us that " men are but children of a larger
growth," and that the high notions which we attach to
tne higher stations of life usually end but in a confir-
mation of the truth of the maxim " quam parva sapi-
entia regitur mundus." Though the present Ministers
must be pretty well convinced of the inconvenience and
inexpediency of the practice, it is but fair to admit that
they of all men have the least personal motive to deviate
from it. To them the early meeting of Parliament,
and the chance of a dog-day sitting, present but a choice
of evils. Their political existence hangs upon so
slight a thread, that it may be considered both by them-
selves and their dependents as an act of unpardonable
rashness to run the risk of accelerating a fate which
is in hourly danger of overtaking them. As an ar-
gumentunz ad komines, then, the Foint we are press-
ing may be out of place as regards them. Yet if
there are among them any who are influened by higher
than mere personal motives, it is next to impossible
but that they must see the annual inconvenience
which has now for some time past occurred by the
late meeting and late sitting of Parliament, 'and the
earnest call, therefore, there is upon them to remedy,
and not perpetuate, the nuisance. We shall be
told, perhaps, of the hardship of bringing the Scotch
and Irish Members, and even the English country
gentlemen, to town before Christmas. As a valid
excuse for postponing and neglecting the important
affairs of the nation, this excuse is beneath con-
tempi:. An officer may as well plead the inconvenience
of joining his regiment, as a Member of Parliament
expect to be excused, from personal reasons, for neg-
lecting his duties. We are aware of the advantage of
gentlemen residing upon their estates. We are aware,
too, of the inconvenience to certain persons of encoun-
tering the expense of a London life who have scarcely
the means of living anywhere. But the time for assem-
bling Parliament cannot be regulated to meet the con-
venience of country gentlemen on the one hand, or
the necessities of the joints of the tail on the other.
The experience of the last session, especially its hur-
ried and unsatisfactory conclusion, show, if any thing
can show, the imperious necessity of an altered prac-
tice. Yet, with such recent overwhelming and unan-
swerable experience before our eyes, we see no chance
for the present of those who ought to be influenced by
it, paying it time least attention.—Morning Herald.

EIGHT PERSDNS KILLED.—A private letter from
the vicinity of St Petcrsburgh, dated Peterhoff, Sept. 22
(N. S.), received in town yesterday, gives the following :
" A most fiendish act was committed a few days ago, which
has excited the utmost indignation and sorrow in the breasts
of the neighbours. An individual who kept an hotel, finding
that all his exertions were attended with ill-success, resolved
to dispose of his business. He soon found a purchaser at the
low terms which the declining state of his trade induced him
to offer it. His successor found that much better fortune at-
tended him, and the hotel soon became one of the most pros-
perous in the neighbourhood. The former proprietor, on
hearing of the circumstance, felt much chagrined, and went
to his successor, and expressed a wish to be re-instated in the
business. This unreasonable request was of course refused,
and he left the house in great dudgeon. In passing through
the kitchen, however, he had the malignity to throw into a
saucepan of vegetables a quantity of arsenic, and eight indi
viduals, who were in the habit of frequenting the house, died
from the effects of the poison. It is hardly possible to ima-
gine the sensation which this monstrous and inhuman act has
occasioned."

FATAL ACCIDENT. About five o'clock on
Thursday afternoon the neighbourhood of Vale-place, Ham_
mersmith, was thrown into a state of the utmost consternation
and alarm by a most terrific explosion, which, on examinatien,
was found to have proceeded from a small room at the rear of
the premises of Messrs. Lee, the extensive florists and nursery-
men, opposite Vale-place. Numbers of persons immediately
proceeded to the spot, where it was found that the room in
question was one complete blaze of fire. The men belonging
to the establishment instantly rendered every assistance, and
by means of water, procured from a large pond on the grounds,
the flames were ultimately got under, but not until the son of
the shopman, a young lad named Jones, was so dreadfully in-
jured, that it was found requisite to remove him to St.
George's Hospital, where he expired about twelve o'clock the
same night.

The extraordinary dryness and great heat of the
weather during the last three weeks begins to create no little
anxiety for the indigo crop, notwithstanding a few favourable
reports received last week from particular factories. We
have a doleful letter before us, received yesterday, from Com-
mercolly, from which we make the following extract :—" Our
indigo prospects are much altered for the worse ; indeed. I
never experienced such weather. The plant is not only
stunted by the drought, but completely burnt up, grass and
all. We have had one shower only at a single factory in the
concern during the last six weeks ; the last sowings are conse-
quently a failure. I believe this state of things is pretty ge-
neral about here." From Moorshedabad the accounts are
still worse. From Kishnagur they write, that some of the
planters have not even a fourth of their sowings in the ground,
and that in many cases the seed has failed for want of rain.
In Purneagh, too, they are crying out. On the other hand,
the letters from Rungpore report the prospects there very
brilliant, and the planters in Dacca also expect to do very
well, the Chota bursaat having set in. But the good pros-
pects in these two districts will go but little way to compensate
for any considerable failure in such a district as Kishnagur
alone.—Calcutta Courier, May 16.

We learn from Angers that, on repairing the walls
of a gallery which leads from the Conciergerie to the apart-
ment of the Prefet, a discovery has been made which may
tend to elucidate the history of the ancient Benedictines of that
town. On clearing the wall, some fragments of ancient Go-
thic sculpture were disclosed, and curiosity leading on to fur-
ther searches, a magnificent range of arcades, of the moresque
style, were apparent. They are composed, as far as it is yet
possible to judge, of six arches, resembling mortuary chapels.
Each of these recesses is sustained on one side by twelve co-
lumns, placed in two parallel lines, and, on the other, by a
plain pilaster, surmounted by an elegant frieze. The capi-
tals of the columns are of different designs, and several
of them rival the Corinthian in richness, and in delicacy
of workmanship. These six arcades are followed by four
others, upon a larger scale, and also supported by co-
lumns. They are extremely rich in symbolical sculpture.
That of the middle, which is the largest, is filled with griffins,
fishes, reptiles, and human figures, more or less artfully gro-
tesque. Some erudite persons affirm that the signs of the
zodiac are meant to be represented. The arch adjoining re-
presents the heavenly abodes. Several groups of archangels,
angels, and cherubims, are worthy of being studied. The
' third division is dedicated to warriors, whose arms and costume
seem to be of the 10th century. The last appears to have
been devoted to the useful arts, and represents numerous
workmen engaged in their respective labours. Measures are
being taken to preserve these truly interesting remains of the
early ages.—Galignani's Messenger.
At a recent auction sale, not many miles from
Salem, the knight of the ivory-headed hammer was provok-
ingly annoyed by the incessant and ludicrous bids of a fellow
whose sole object seemed to be to make sport for the buyers,
rather than himself to buy. After enduring the fellow's im-
pertinence for some time, old Going-going-gone peremptorily
ordered him to be "gone" from the auction-room. The stub-
born animal, instead of obeying, set himself deliberately " to
argufy the topic" with our knock-down friend, and inquired if
he had not an Indisputable right to stay as long as he chose
in a public auction-room? Enraged beyond endurance, he
of the hammer, looking round the room for a champion to
avenge
huge dimensions, a very monarch in strength,
and cried out,
" AfL..._.ch, what I give you to put this fellow
uponbipedhiswrong
a of
upon the insulting sinner, fixed his eyes
out ?" " I takee one fife dollar bill." " Done, gone; do it •
and you shall have it." Assuming the ferocious—knitting his
brows—spreading his nostrils like a lion's—and putting on the
wolf all over his head and shoulders, old M—ch strode up
to the aggressor, and seizing the terrified wretch by the collar,
said to him in a thundering whisper that was heard all over the
room, " My good Erin, you go out wid me, I give you haf de
mining." " Done, done," says the fellow. " Hurrah 1 hurrah 1"
cacchinated the delighted audience. The auctioneer himself
had the good sense to join in the laugh, and coolly forked out
the V.—Salem United States Gazette.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

MANSION-HO USE.

A tall gaunt figure, named Alexander Corbet Sheridan,
was charged by Mrs. Lorton, a milk and butter seller,
under the following circumstances :—The complainant has
been, fiorn a really obliging disposition, in the habit of keep-
ing her shop open on a Sunday morning, and the defendant,
who lives in the same neighbourhood, never has given her
a turn except on the Sabbath, notwithstanding which she
always has treated him as well as if he ordered his blue and
white every morning from her cattle. On Sunday morning
last he called for a dab of butter, and the complainant
served him, without, howeyer, looking particularly at the
article, with which, as the workmen next door had been get-
ting down an old house, a little lime and dust happened to
mix. The defendant went to his lodging, but in very quick
time, and in a very unbecoming spirit returned, threw the
dab down on the counter, swore that she was herself the old
cow it came from, damned her, and departed. She philo-
sophically made allowance for the disappointment, carefully
scraped off the offensive matter, and clapped the dairy-
stamp upon the butter, so that it looked as fresh and clear
as if it never had been handled, and then took it over her-
self to her angry customer. " Who are you ?" said he,
and without waiting for an answer cushioned his foot behind
her so completely as to pocket her head is a tub, which was
on the floor for the reception of the various disagreeable
superfluities of the family.
The LORD MAYOR—You don't appear to have sustained
any damage, and you look quite good hnmoured upon the
subject. Had you not better make it up, and I dare say
he will be a better customer ? Complainant—lf he had
kicked me any where but where he did, I wouldn't care so
much, but (approaching the Lord Mayor) I do assure
your Lordship that he left a mark as black and as big as
your hat upon me.
Defendant—Please you, my Lord, I'll be on my oath
that I never touched her. I certainly told her to quit my
apartment, and in going out she fell over the tub.
The LORD MAYOR-It was very unmanly in you to
frighten her.
The defendant declared that the complainant gave him
butter that would have poisoned the devil if he had eaten it.
Instead of scraping off the lime, she had mixed it up,
so that when he cut the butter it sounded as gritty as
a piece of sandpaper : there was, in fact, streaks of lime
through it.

The LORD MAYOR told the complainant that streaky
bacon was very good, but he never heard any compliment
paid to streaky butter, and he thought the mixture of the
lime and dust very untradeswoman-like.
___

Complainant--The butter was perfectly good, but he
bears a grudge against me, and wants to persuade people
that I had it out of the fire at London-bridge.
Defendant—l'd as soon eat arsenic as lime ; besides, if
your Lordship saw the milk she gives ! The moment my
cat sees a drop of it, she puts up her back and spits as if a
strange dog walked in. It was only the other day a fellow
lodger put a poultice of it on his bad leg, and it festered
him so, that he wanted not to wait for a surgeon, but asked
me to cut it off with a hatchet.

Complainant—l defy you to prove it. It's well known
that we never use anythiny but good spring water.
Defendant—Why; you'll say, by-and-by, that you make
your cream without the assistance of an old shaving brush,
when I'll be on my oath that some of what you wash your
hands with in the morning goes into the stomachs of people
in the evening, with a good froth upon it.
The LORD MAYOR—She does not look as if she was a
customer of her own, although you do, if what you say is
correct.

Defendant—You arc right, my Lord ; until I left off her
milk, I used to have a regular wash inside as well as out,
but since I've been drawing my milk from a proper tit, I'm
less subject to the wind.

The LORD MAYOR (to the complainant)—Have you any
witnesses to the assault ? Complainant—None, my Lord,
excepting this.—(Putting her hand upon the part which
she said was abused.)
The LORD MAYOR—That's a witness I can't examine in
this case.

Defendant.—lt would be a false witness, and I have
two that will report the truth.

Two persons then stated that the complainant was so
terrified at the appearance and manner of the defendant,
that she fell rather by the wind of his foot than the kick
of it ; and the Lord Mayor effected a reconciliation, by a
promise of custom on the part of the gentleman, upon con-
dition that the lady would, in future, allow a cow to act a
part in her dairy.