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LONDON, AIONDAY, UNE 14, 18-11

ITHE SEVENTH ANNUAL EXHIBI-
TION of the NEW SOCIETY of PAINTERS in
WATER COLOURS, FIFTY-THREE, PALL MALL,
next the British Institution, is NOW OPEN from Nino
o'clock till Dusk.

PUBLICATION S.

THE GENERAL POST-OFFICE.

NEW WORK, UNIFORM WITH " THE WOMEN OF
ENGLAND."
taIM ER and:WINTER in the PYR E-
LTY NEES. By the Author of " The Women of Eland;"
" Fathily Secrets ;" and " The Sons of the Soil." With a
View of the Town and Castle of Pau. Cloth, 9s. ;
Silk, Ils.
Fisher, Son, and Co., 33, Ne.rgate-street. London.

In consequence of Mr. William Howitt having applied
to the Lord Mayor for a summons against the Post-
master-General, to compel him to show cause why the
General Post-office should not refund to him (Mr.
Howitt) the sum of twenty-pence, which he (Mr.Howitt)
had paid on a letter addressed to Mrs. Hewitt, in Ger-
many, and which letter was never sent, the Lord Mayor
despatched a messenger to the Postmaster-General, and
on Tuesday, the Bth of May, there appeared on behalf
of his Lordship Mr. Peacock, the Solicitor to the Ge-
neral Post-office, and Mr. Bokenham, the Super-
intending President of the Inland Depa,r;anent, ac-
companied by two receiving clerks. Mr. Howitt ap-
peared with Mr. Wire, the Solicitor, and Mr. Maiming,
printer, Ivy-lane, Paternoster-row. Mr. Howitt produced
a letter addressed to " Mrs. Howitt, Heidelberg, Ger-
many," and having various postmarks upon it. Mr.
Howitt said that having just landed in London from
Gerrilauy, he was anxious that no accident should occur
to prevent Mrs:HoWitt and his fainily having the most
early intelligence of his safe arrival. He therefore had
taken the letter himself to the General Post-office, paid
for it, and received the proper change. That about three
weeks afterwards he received a letter from Mrs. HOwitt,
stating that she and the family had suffered the extremest
anxiety in consequence of not having received a letter
from him since his departure, but that she had at length
received a printed circular from the General Post-office
in London, informing her that a letter addressed to herwas
then lying at that office. which was detained because the
postage of ls. Bd. had not been paid
On the receipt of this letter Mr. Howitt immediately
proceeded to the General Post-office. He applied to the
clerk at the window where he had delivered the letter
addressed to Mrs. Howitt. The letter was immediately
shown him. He recognised also the young man at the
window as the clerk to whom he had given it, and said—
" This letter I posted myself and paid for, and you are
the person to whom I paid the money." The clerk would
not admit that he had made such an error, but expressed
regret that such an accident had occurred, and the let-
ter was handed out to him. On receiving it, Mr. Howitt ob-
served, "Now, Sir, I wilake this letter and make you ac-
count for your conduct." When the clerk heard this, he ex-
claimed, "You can't have it ! Stop him ! stop him !" A
policeman was about to lay hands on him, when he said
—"Don't touch me ! Neither you nor any man shall
have this letter till I have seen the Secretary, and I insist
on being taken to him." Mr. Howitt was accordingly,
taken into the office to Mr. Bokenham, the superin-
tendent of the inland department. He handed the letter
to this gentleman, and stated what had taken place. Mr.
Bokenham expressed great regret at the circumstance,
but endeavoured to persuade Mr. Howitt that he could
not have paid the postage. Mr. Howitt then demanded
to see Col. Maberly, but being told that he was not there,
he assured Mr. Bokenham that he would immediately
bring the case before him, and left the office.
Mr. Hewitt went on to show that, in consequence, a
long correspondence took place on the subject between
him and the Post-office, and he complained that great
apathy had been shouli by Colonel Maberly on the sub-
ject ; that he had written very plainly to Colonel Ma--
berly, reminding him that complaints in the days of Sir
Francis Freeling received immediate personal attention
from that gentleman, and were neither subjected to un-
necessary delay, nor turned over to subordinates ; that,
in consequence, Colonel Maberly assured him that every
attention should be given to the case ; and a report
from the superintendent of the inland department to
Colonel Maberly on the case had been handed to Mr.
Howitt, but without the slightest evidence by any docu-
ment from Colonel Maberly himself that the case had
been laid- before either him or the Postmaster-General ;
that he had; therefore, informed Colonel Maberly that,
as he saw no hope of redress from the Post-office, he
should take the proper steps to recover the postage of the
letter, and bad now applied to the Lord Mayor for that
purpose, _ -

Admission, Is. Catalogue, W.
JAMES FAHEY, Hon. Secretary.

OYAL .POLYTECHNIC
.11_44) TION, REGENT-STREET.
The FIRST EXHIBITION of C...RY'S DISSOLVING
ORRERY, magnified and illuminated by the Oxyhydrogen
t. with Thirty-eight beautiful Illust►ations, in addition to
the DISSOLVING VIEWS. Th.. Orrery explained in Three
Lectures, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fr days, at a Quarter
past Two o'clock, and in the Evenings of Tuesdays, TlYursdays,
and Saturdays, at Eight o'clock, alternately with the Lecture
on BARWISE and BAIN'S ELECTRICAL CLOCKS, and
other Popular Lecture.' and Experiments. The PHOTO-
GRAPHIC PORTRAITS, and numeral': Works which dis-
phy eminent art, science, and ingenuity, the Direr and Div-
ing Bell.

• This day,
COMMERCIAL and FINANCIAL
SITUATION of tim COUNTRY CONSIDERED,
with REFERENCE to the PRESENT CRISIS.
H. llooper, Pall-mall East.

Opens at Half-past Ten o'clock in the Morning, and Seven
o'clock in the Evening. Admission, One Shilling.

EDUCATION.

WIDOW LADY many years accustomed
to the culture of the youthful Mind whiles for an EN-
GAGEMENT as a RESIDENT or DAILY GOVERNESS,
where a substantial English Education on Scriptural Princi-
ples would' be the paramount object, to which would be added
French, Drawing, &c.
Address 20, Sherrard-street. Golden-square.

TO WOOLLEN AND LINEN-DRAPERS.
A MOST VALUABLE aria RESPECT-
ABLE CONCERN to be DISPOSED OF, and may
be entered upon immediately. Coming-in moderate.
Enquire of Mr. Boyeot, sen., Kidderminster.

In defence, Mr. Peacock stated that it appeared, bn
inquiry, that this letter had been posted at a w_ndow
where both foreign and inland letters were rusted, but
only till four o'clock in the afternoon, and tkai, after that
hour, the foreign letters were posted at another window ;
that this letter had been posted, it appeared, between five
and six and therefore it ought to have been posted at the
other side ; that the clerk had taken it ill as a penny
letter, and when the mistake was discovered the letter
had been opened in order to return it to the writer, but
that it was found to contain no address, and therefore the
circular which had been mentioned had been sent to Mrs.
Howitt. Mr. Peacock contended that the clerk would
not have received that letter at that hour had he been
aware that it was a foreign letter, and added that it often
occurred that letters were put in, and before the change
was given out the person to whom it belonged was gone
away, and somebody else took it up ; and he had no doubt
that this was the case in the present instance; so that, al-
though Mr. Howitt paid the full Is. Bd., change was given
out which somebody else got.

Mr. Howitt said-that this was a string of suppositions,
but the simple fact was this, that he paid the whole
money and received the proper change, and was con-
vinced that the whole transaction was right. That he
posted four or five inland letters at the same time, that
he had placed the letter uppermost, that the clerk might
see what it was. Then he demanded what was the
postage, which amounted to something more than 'ls.,
and received a few pence out of half-a-crown. That he
had stated those particulars to Mr. Bokenham in presence
of Mr. Manning, who was here to give evidence of the fact.
Mr. Howitt then said that Mr. Bokenham, at his first
interview with him and th'i Post-office authoriti:qi alto-
gether, had pleaded that they could not admit that the
postage had been paid to the clerk at the window with-
out charging him with dishonesty, and that they had no
reason whatever to believe him dishonest. Mr. Howitt
had no wish, and never had had for a moment, to charge
the clerk with dishonesty ; on the contrary, he had
stated to Mr. Bokenham and to Colonel Maberly, and
he stated it there again publicly, that there was a noto-
rious and most obvious cause for the accident, which was
in the defective arrangements of the General Post-office.
He admitted that he had taken his letter to the window -
specified, at the hour after it was customary to receive
foreign- letters there, and it had occurred thus : when he
went to the General Post-office he looked round to find
the department " Foreign-office," but to his astonishment
no such words could be found. Seeing, therefore, a
slide marked " Paid letters received here," he offered it
there, in the assurance that if that were not the right
place the clerk would reject the letter. The letter, how li
-
ever, was taken in, and the money received. The
error, therefore, on his part arose from no proper
external directions being painted up at the General
Post-office. There was no such word as " Foreign:
office" up at all ; but the foreign letters were actually
received with the inland letters at this very window every
day till four o'clock, and then at another at some dis-
tance. Since he had, made his strong remonstrances
against this disgraceful state of things, some slight at-
tempt had been made to remedy it by the placing up of a
little trumpery board with Foreign'iOffice upon it, though
on getting to the place you saw on the slide, "Foreign
letters not received here until after four o'clock," so that
you had again to seek for the spot where foreign letters
were received, and find it in the inland department still.
Now, he asked whether this was a state of things fit for
the General Post-Office of the greatest commercial
nation of the world. • But this was only a small part of
the want of arrangement and accommodation, and it was
this to which he called the particular attention of the
Lord Mayor. In the evening, when the press of posting
letters was greatest, there was only one receiviug place for
general post-paid -letters, causing a rush towards that
window and a tumult most unseemly and disgraceful,
and it was impossible for a boy or female servant after
five o'clock to approach the Window ; this was so noto-
rious that gentlemen had told him they frequently walked
in the hall of an evening to witness it. _ _ _

The gentlemen from the Post-office admitted the ex-
istence of this riotous scene, and regretted it, but could
see no remedy unless the public would use them fairly,
and post their letters earlier.

The Lord Mayor then reminded them that commer-
cial men were oblitied to answer their letters at the last
possible hour, and they had been actually curtailed of
one ; besides, merchants did not leave 'Change till five.
He must strongly recommend them to give the metropo-
lis another hour in the evening, and open more receiving
places also.
Mr. Wire strongly supported that view of the subject.
He said that Mr. Howitt had come there solely to bring
to the knowledge of the public the evils which he, toge-
ther with vast numbers of persons, had so constantly to
complain of. Under the circumstances of the present
c.tse, he considered the Court must order the money to be
refunded to his client.
Mr. Howitt having affirmed the truth of these state-
ments, the Lord Mayor gave judgment that the money
must be repaid, adding that this would have been his
decision had the amount been 201. instead of twenty
pence.

MANNING THE NAVY.—We have repeatedly
urged this subject on the attention of the public, in the
hope that something would be done to place this branch
of the public service, on a more efficient foundation. We
have always been met with a rejoinder from the Tele-
graph, to the effect, that there was no scarcity of sea-
men! Still we were led to doubt its correctness, seeing
that ships were frequently detained at Spithead for want
of hands, and we know that when they have at length
set sail great difficulties have been experienced in working
the ship, so inferior have been the quality of those par-
ties composing the crews. After these oft-repeated as-
sertions fi oin our contemporary, what do we now wit-
ness? Why, that the Bittern, of 16 guns, fitting in
this harbour, having entered 56 hands, can only boast of
one A.B. in that number. Shall we be told, after this,
that there is no want of seamen ? Her officers, marines,
and boys added to these will make her complement 120,
so that here is a first class brig going to a foreign station
with only one able seaman on board! Deny this who
can.—Hampshire Independent.

ANDOVER._Election warfare has commenced
in Andover with a vigour which somewhat startled the
matter of fact and quiet folks of this quiet town. In ad-
dition to the present Members, Ralph Etwall, Esq., and
Sir John pollen, a third candidate has sprung up in the
person of Lord Huntingtower, a young nobleman who
has lately taken up his residence near Andover.'
Lord Ponsonby's departure from Constantinople,
on his return to this country, has, it is said, been de-
ferred in consequence of the serious state of things in
various parts of the Ottoman empire.