The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-05-22 00:00:00

•

was in actual. existence. As to the complaint against per-
petually renewed revisions, it would be removed by the sim-
ple amendment, that a vote, once established and registered,
should not be again questionable, except for matter having
arisen since the registration. So as to the double appeal, the
objections might be obviated by easy amendments. It had
been said, but be could not believe it to be really meant, that
the house ought to leave gross abuses in operation, because
their honest removal would diminish the Irish constituency.
He would do all in his power to prevent that diminution
fairly ; but he would not, eves with this view, keep up a ma-
chinery for the fabrication of illegal votes.
Mr. GISBORNE, in his character of an Irish representa-
tive, thought himself bound to oppose the bill. The house
by divers cries of " Question," intimated that they did not
feel the duty of making a speech to be at all imperative upon
him.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL contended that to go into com-
mittee on this bill would be to impair the efficiency of the
Reform Act. Annual registration existed in England, and
was loudly complained of. The people had been long expect-
ing measures from the government to reform it (satirical and
repeated cheers); and nothing had prevented the government
from maturing such measures, except the understanding that
no measure would succeed in the other house which did not
go to impair the Reform Act. The learned gentleman then
went over the often-repeated objections of detail, with
reference chiefly to what had fallen from Lord Howick. In
this part of his speech he fell into an error as to one of the
clauses of the bill, which occasioned a great deal of laughter
at the expense of this acute and usually accurate lawyer ;
but the house gave him no quarter, and indeed were now be-
coming generally impatient. The learned gentleman, how-
ever, travelled on into other topics, not all of them very
relevant. If our readers should be surprised at the absence
of his usual talent, their wonder will perhaps be relieved by
the intelligence that he was speaking against time, fur the
purpose of getting the debate carried over to another even-
ing.
Lord MILTON who had paired, was not come up, and his
pair was. Mr. O'Connell expected to he beaten on an im-
mediate division, and issued- his commands therefore that
the debate should be adjourned, in order to take the chance
of Lord Milton's arrival, and of the chapter of accidents.
Accordingly, when the Solicitor-General sate down, Mr.
HUME moved, and Mr. O'CONNELL seconded, the adjourn-
ment of the debate. A division took place, the motion was
defeated, and another motion of the like nature met the
same fate.
Strangers having been re-admitted, Mr. HOME, seconded
by Mr. O'CONNELL, made yet another motion of adjourn-
ment. _

Lord STANLEY then rose, and said it was time for the
house to determine how far this system of impediment should
be pursued. He had expected that the learned member for
Dublin, who had come over burning with resentment, would
have seized the earliest moment for meeting him face to face;
that member, however, had not once offered himself to the
chair, and yet the house was now desired again to adjourn,
in order that he might have an opportunity of being heard.

HOUSE OF LORDS.—WEDNESDAY.
The House of Lords did not assemble this day.
HOUSE OF COMMONS.—Wednesday.
Among a great heap of-petitions presented last night in the
House of Commons by different members was one by Lord
TEIGNMOUTH from certain inhabitants of Marylebone, com-
plaining of the system of the centralization of the police by
Lord John Russell, and praying that an impeachment might
be instituted against him.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL gave notice, that in the com-
mittee on the Poor Law Amendment Act he should intro-
duce a clause to exempt stock in trade from being rated.
Mr. HUME gave notice, that he should move us an amend-
ment on the motion of Sir R. Inglis to-day a humble address
to her Majesty on the appropriation of church property.
The orders and notices which stood on the paper were then
disposed of seriatim, previous to the resumption of the debate
on the Irish Registration Bill.

THE IRISH REGISTRATION BILL.—ADJOURNED DEBATE.
The dull debate, worn threadbare on Tuesday night, was
then opened by Mr. HUME, who opposed Lord Stanley's
bill in a tiresome speech on Irish affairs in general. He
compared the number of Irish with the number of English
electors, complaining that the proportion of Irish is too
small. He repeated the often-disproved allegation that the
object of the bill was to disfranchiese the people of Ireland.
He entered upon the Catholic question, and condemned the
opinions of a party who, he said, were trying to restore the
obsolete penalties against the Papists. During the whole of
this.speech a large body of conservatives, with truly patriotic
patience, sat fast on their benches, and defeated the object
of those radicals who had hoped, not perhaps without some
reasonable ground, that the speech of their Kilkenny com-
rade would reduce the house to
_a state in which it might be
counted out. _ _ _ _

Mr. LUCAS observed, that the reason why Ireland had
fewer electors than England in proportion to the population
was not that any party sought to withhold from Ireland the
franchise allowed to England, but that Ireland comprised a
mtich smaller number than England of the persons possess-
ing the requisite qualification in property. But he would
rather reduce the qualification from £lO to £5, computed on
ant bond fide test (little as he should he disposed to such a
reduction),ihan continue a fictitious franchise at 1.:10. At-
tempts had been made to mystify the English members about
vexation practised by the conservatives. He had to complain
of vexation on the other side of the question. There was
now a quarterly registration ; and he mentioned an instance
where 800 notices of registration had been given, and only
about 200 of the parties giving them had appeared to sub-
stantiate their votes. Under the present system this sort of
feint might be practised four times in every year. Yet the
bill before the house, which would reform the registration by
changing the process from a quarterly to a yearly one, was
earnestly resisted by men professing to be the opponents of
vexation, the very men who, for the most part, were the
zealous champions of annual parliaments.
Mr. REDINGTON uttered a loud and voluble declamation
against the bill.
Mr. GASKELL, though not surprised that after the signi-
ficant demands of a certain party in Ireland the ministry
should have opposed the second reading of this bill, wds yet
astonished that they concurred in the present attempt at
interposing vexatious delay, and still more that they had
found no better masons to justify their conduct than the
arguments advanced by the English Solicitor-General, or
the panygerics pronounced on Mr. o.Connel by the leader
of the ministry. When the existence of gross abuses was
not denied, not by the government, not by those adherents
of theirs who had already introduced bills of their own
against those very abuses, why this sudden hostility to the
remedy ? It looked as if the discovery had now been made,
that the removal of those abuses would affect some party
interest, and that, bad as such abuses might be, they yet
were not so bad as the loss of office. The bill was talked of
as a measure of disfranchisement. He knew not why, for
it did not even touch the real franchise; it disfranchised only
fictitious voters. Were the fictitious voters then so very

numerous that to get rid of them would work a serious dimi.
nution of the whole constituency? If so, that afforded him
the strongest possible argument for going into the committee,
when he should be preparcd to vote for every clause of this
bill. _ _ _

Mr. ROCHE, of Cork, opposed the measure, which he re-
garded as having been introduced for mere purposes of party.
\Vales was a poorer country than Ireland, and yet possessed
a larger proportion of electors.
A long pause now ensued, during which no attempt was
made to address the chair by any of those who on the pre-
ceding night had clamoured for adjournment, to give an op-
portunity to the numerous candidates bursting with the ges-
tation of their speeches. But
The SPEAKER having directed strangers to withdraw, in
order to a division, and the conservative party being obviously
a majority of the members present, the opponents of the bill
did not venture to let the debate conclude ; to avert which
consummation,
Mr. CALLAGHAN rose, and after a sketch of the history of
registration in Ireland from the date of the reform bill, re-
curred in the usual terms to the standing libel, the alleged
hostility of Lord Stanley to the Irish people.
Mr. SOMERS spoke on the same side, as the vindicator of
the morality of the Irish.
The O'Connellites were now relieved from all further ap-
prehension of a premature termination to the debate by no
less durable an interposition than that of
Sir. C. GREY, who occupiel his first quarter of an hour with
a general dissertation upon the reasonableness of the adjourn-
ment, with reference to the various questions which were,
or might have been, under consideration on the Tuesday and
on the Wednesday, including copyright and China, and with
reference to the advantage conferred on the house by the op-
portunity of hearing his speech. Nor did he forget, in passing,
to censure the absence of Lord Stanley ; not, perhaps, per-
ceiving that among the absentees at that moment, were also
every one of the cabinet ministers—Lord Morpeth only ex-
cepted, and, greater than all—the great agitator himself. He
then announced, that he was coming to the discussion of the
main question, but instead of doing this, he launched into an
illitnitable discourse upon the very subject which the bill had
been the most roughly censured by other members for avoid-
ing—namely, the definition and construction of the franchise
with respect to beneficial value. He contended, that as the
franchise was mere matter of election law, the opinion of the
majority of the judges was not binding on the minority. The
legislature had referred the decision to a single judge of assize,
not to a tribunal of many judges. The exemplary patience
of the house, which had now been exercised in the learned
gentleman's favour for upwards of an hour, was not proof
against such a strain of argument as this, and he at last gave
way to the general uneasiness of the house.
Mr. THESIGER animadverted upon the strange irrelevancy
of the foregoing discourse, and on the unsatisfactory nature
of the speech delivered on the preceding night by the Attorney -
General. That learned gentleman had objected to the want
of convenient places for registration ' • but the 36 and 17th
sections of the bill had fully provided for bringing home the
registration to the very doors of the voters. Objection had
also been made to the annual revision. It could not be
doubted, that if there had not been an octennial system of
registration pre-existing when the reform act passed, that
act would have assimilated the Irish, to the English and
Scotch registrations, which were both of them annual. Then,
as to the double appeal, which was the only mode of expelling
a fraudulent vote from the registry, the question respecting
the tribunal to which such appeal should be referred was one
the discussion whereof belonged not to this stage of the bill,
but to the next. Mr. Thesiger then availed himself of his
experience before election committees to illustrate in a very
lucid manner the monstrous hardships and difficulties im-
posed on those who seek, under the present system, to
expunge a bad vote from a poll—hardships and difficulties
which some such enactments as those of the present measure
were indispensable to redress.
Mr. O'CONNELL rose. He admitted that the bill was
was good for members of parliament, for the £5O freeholders,
and for the clergy of the established church, but it was a bad
bill for the poorer voters. His quarrel with Lord Stanley
lie would adjourn till the bill should be in committee. It

was a bill for annihilating nine-tenths of the constituencies
in Ireland. He read a circular from a district secretary of
the conservative partyestating that the success of the party
6 4
depended wholly on preventing the tenants from re-
registering their votes;" not. fraudulent votes but any votes.
act
iiror,
iiiiaasnt
He read also an admisson from a witness, that he received an
enle,ei annuity
electioneering
et
ifene4co a-year, " for swearing against votes."
witness was a surveyor employed to make valua-
tions
this bill to rish
•nlg properties, and depose to the particu-
lars of them.) Ther' people, proceeded Mr. O'Connell,
and malignant 1 • two causes—national antipathy to them,
electioneering addressyeiii,n7nd The
your
after antipathy
ngotrd i
tilsn proveder speeches, by y
and
your press, your vile
produced as many bursts eB.
(This phrase thrice repeated,
Londonderry had cheered, ofat laughter.) The member for
a public meeting, the assertion
that a Catholic was less mindful
of his oath than a Pro-
testant. He would not venture
to
repeat that cheer in this
place. Such a cheer had been raised,
by Mr. Emerson Tennent, yet i too, at Belfast,
whom Lord Stanley had selected he
wasone of those his
the preparation of this bill.
Theascoadjutors in
great Liverpool petition then shared ti 7 'scribers of the
orator's wrath,
and he railed very roundly at varioues other classes,
who, he said, were calumniators of the greatatl
The union had given Ireland a right to equality. c body.
was
the poorer country, and therefore a poorer class in She
Ireland
were entitled to take the same level with a richer class
England. She had but 60,000 electors in all, yet there werein
33,000 in one riding in Ycrkshire. He then went through a
England series of parallels between various districts of
and
of Ireland; after which he made a laboured argument, for
time purpose of showing that the fictitious votes now existing,
were the mere accidents of the carelessness natural to the
first registration, not the results of any systematic fraud.
The bill should have contained a provision for settling the
franchise, which he could not consider as settled by the deci•
sion of the judges. He would move, if the bill should go into
committee, an instruction for the insertion of a clause which
should settle the franchise in the opposite direction, in the
direction really contemplated by the reform act. Let the

amount of the franchise be diminished, and the vote would
'be of less value, and the temptation to perjury less. The ,
noble lord who had introduced this bill had had somebody's
luck beside his own. (Cries of " Name, name." The learn-
ed member, however, did not take that liberty with his
friend.)
Sir ROBERT PEEL said he would enter into none of the
details, the discussion whereof had been desultory and use-
less. He would inquire only into that material question,
whether the house, having great abuse's proved before it,
should make an attempt to cure them—not to carry the par-
ticular clauses of this bill, but to apply some remedy to a
clear evil. He trusted to the right feeling of those who had
before absented themselves from -the resistance against the
second reading, and td the honourable example set by Lord
Howick and Mr. Wood, in despite of their own preposses-
sions. Lord Stanley had been Most unjustly assailed : his
principle was to aid the legitimate-franchise, and discourage
unjust objections. Where was the danger of the committee ?
The majority of the house had ample power to prevent any
undue restriction, even If any such had been contemplated.
In 1835, so convinced had Mr. O'Connell been of the fitness
of the main principles embodied in this bill, that he had sup-
ported in this house both the annual revision and the ap-
peal both ways. Yet now these very. proposals were evi-
dence of national antipathy and religious bigotry ! If par-
ticular clauses were objectionable, let them be altered in
committee : but let not the abuses of the registration he
perpetuated by a total rejection of the subject matter.
The ministers promised a bill of their own ; but they had
promised it in most equivalent terms, and not at all until
they had been defeated on the second reading of this measure.
Then it was that Mr. O'Connell had expressed his gratitude
to Lord John Russell, not for having advanced a salutary
amendment, but for having furnishes the English members
with an excuse to vote against the further progress of the
bill now in debate. This bill was censured for containing no
clause to define the franchise ; yet Lord John admitted that
his own bill was to contain no such definition. But when
was Lord John's bill to pass the House of Lords ? The So-
licitor-General had said it would 'pass when the present
bigoted race of peers should have been succeeded by their
more liberal heirs, now sitting in the House of Commons.
A long time to wait ; and what, meanwhile, was to become
of the abuses of Irish registration? Seven years the minis-
ters had talked of a remedy ; and if this bill were rejected,
seven more would elapse before that remedy would be com-
pleted. All the arguments about the proportions of voters
in England and in Ireland were here irrelevant. If the fran-
chise ought to be lowered, let a bill be introduced to lower
it ; but that subject should not be mixed.with the question of
fair or unfair registration. It was not true kindness or con-
ciliation to Ireland to let the boa fide voter be overborne by
false claims of franchise. When fictitious voters were sus-
pected in Scotland, adverse to your party interests, when
corporations were attacked which it would profit you to abo-
lish, you were eager for reform ; do not now oppose the re-
dress of proved abuse and Corruption, because you find it
would be unpalatable to your own supporters.
Lord MORPETII likened Sir Robert Peel to Ulysses co:ning
in aid of Ajax. His next illustration was a whirlpool, from
the vortex whereof he dick not him Self escape without a woful
draggling. His third allusion was to the painter who. com-
bined in his picture the charms'of all the beauties of Rhodes ;
and his fourth, to a fowler catching small birds with chaff.
These displays of imagination seemed to the house a little
inapplicable, but the noble lord corrected their impatience by
telling them, that if they would not hear him they should
have another adjournment. He admitted that it would have
been desirable to produce, somewhat earlier, the bill prepared
by the Irish Solicitor-General ; but he said it was actually
drawn, and had been held back only in hopes of making it
more perfect. As to the present measure, he had the satis-
faction to feel convinced, that even if it should go into com-
mittee, it must be eventually defeated. For the present, at
least, that satisfaction was postponed, inasmuch as, on a di-
vision, the conservatives carried their motion by a majority
of 301 against 298, striking dismay into the ministers, and
despair into the " Tail."
The house then went into committee; but the chairman
was immediately ordered to report pro tress and to ask leave
to sit again on Friday pro forma, when Lord Stanley will fix
a day on which the proceedings in committee will really com-
mence.—The house then adjourned at a quarter-past two
o'clock.

COURT CIRCULAR.-Tu SDAY.

Viscount Melbourne had an audience yesterday of the
Queen.

The Royal dinner party at the Palace last evening included
the Marquis of Hertf,wd, Marquis and Marchioness of West-
minster, Earl of Uxbridge, Earl of Surrey, Earl and Countess
of Clanwillian, Earl of Morley, Viscount Melbourne, Lord
and Lady Norreys, Colonel and Lady Isabella Wemyss, and
Sir William Lumley.
The band of the Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards was
in attendance at the Palace during the evening.
Her Majesty the Queen Dowager rode out yesterday after-
noon in the parks, attended by Frances Lady Clinton, Hon.
Miss Anne Gore, Sir Horace Seymour, Earl Howe, and the
Rev. J. R. Wood. _

The Duchess and the Princess Augusta of Cambridge
visited the Princess Augusta yesterday at Clarence-house,
St. James's.
The Duchess Ida, with the Princes and Princesses of Saxe
Weimar, took an airing yesterday afternoon, in a pony phreton
and four.

Sir Robert Peel, Lord Stanley, Lord Ashburton, and Sir
Robert Inglis, a deputation from the Trustees of the British
Museum, had an interview with the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer yesterday, in Downing-street.
The Marquis of Downshire had an interview with Viscount
Melbourne yesterday, in Downing-street. •
Sir John Guest and Lieut. Littlehales, of her Majesty's
brig Dolphin, had interviews with Lord John Russell yes-
terday, at the Colonial-office.
The Earl of Zetland, Dr. Bailey, Mr. Gibson Craig, M.P.
and Mr. Price, had interviewsyesterday with the Marquis of
Normanby, at the Home-office.
Despatches from Governor Light, at British Guiana, were
received yesterday, at the Colonial-office.
W EDNESDAY.
Viscount Melbourne and Lord J. Russell had audience of
the Queen yesterday.
Her Majesty and Prince Albert, attended by the Countess
of Sandwich, Hon. Miss Cocks, Viscount Torrington, Hon.
Major Keppel, Hon. Colonel Grey. Col. Wylde, and Mr. F.
Seymour, honoured the Italian Opera with tteir presence last
evening.
Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent has been for
some days much indisposed
,from a rheumatic affection,
which prevented her being present at the great ball at Buck-
ingham palace, and the last draWing-room.
Her Majesty the Queen Dowager and the Duchess Ida of
Saxe Weimar visited the Princess Augusta yesterday, at
Gloucester-house. _

The Duchess and the Princess' Augusta of Cambridge
visited her Majesty the Queen Dowager yesterday.
Prince Edward of Saxe Weimar arrived at Marlborough
House yesterday morning, from the Royal 'Military College
at Sandhurst.
The Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke of Sussex, and the
Duke of Cambridge visited the Princess Augusta yesterday.
His Royal Highness Prince Albert inspected, yesterday,
Mr. G. E. Hering's Sketches of the Tyrol, at Buckingham
Palace, which were submitted to his Royal Highness by the
artist.

Her Majesty the Queen Dowager and the Duchess Ida of
Saxe Weimar visited the Duchess of Kent yesterday, at In-
gestrie House, Belgrave-square.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Princess
Augusta of Cambridge honoured Mrs. COX with their com-
pany on Monday evening, in Grosvenor-place.
Sir George Strickland, Mr. Chester, M.P. and Mr. Turn-
bull had inter views with Lord John Russell yesterday, at the
Colonial-offiee. .

Lord De Lisle had an interview with Viscount Melbourne
yesterday, in Downing-street.

THE FREEMEN OF NORWICH.

Monday last was announced as the day on which the free-
men would place in the hands of the Marquis of Douro, their
petition to parliament, agreed to at a Common-hall, and pray-
ing- to be restored to their ancient right of voting at munici-
pal elections. It will hardly be believed that the mayor re-
fused the use of St. Andrew's Hall for this purpose. We
scarcely dare trust ourselves to advert to this refusal, for fear
we should express too strongly the contempt which we feel
at an act so outrageously insulting to the great body of free-
men, and bearing the impress of such petty, peevish, party
spite. But it occasions us no surprise. No! Authority
confided to such hands is sure to be used with unkindness,
and, when it can safely be done, with despotic severity.
Stephens, Julian Harney, and other chartist leaders ; O'Con-
nell, any other political ruffian, if he has but radicalism in
his soul, may spout trash, breathing of rebellion, within the
walls of St. Andrew's Hall; But if the freemen desire pub-
licly to place in the hands of a conservative nobleman—that
nobleman being the son of the Duke of Wellington—if a de-
sire is shown by the poor freemen, to place in his hands a
petition to parliament for a restitution of their rights, the
doors of their own ancient hall are shut against them. Is it
to be supposed that this refusal will not remind freemen of
those times when they themselves had a voice in the election
of the mayor of the city ; of days gone by, ere a new con-
stituency had built up town-councils, and such political hot-
beds spawned forth your robeless civic dignitaries ; when the
chief magistrate of the day was indeed the head and leading
personage of the town ; doing some good to its trade ' • looked
up to with respect from the office which he held ; and, after
his year of duty, retiring to the bench of justice, raised to a
post of honour by the good opiniOn and regard of a majority
of his fellow-citizens. Is the change for the better ? Will
not men, freemen especially. henceforth at the name of
liberal turn up their noses and say " Bah !"
The committee of the operative freemen were not to be
diverted from their object by the impediment thus thrown
in their way, and the use of the Greyhound-yard having been
granted to them, they immediately announced that as the
place of meeting, for presenting the petition to the Marquis
of Douro. _ _

Lieutenant-Colonel Harvey was called to the chair, and
the petition having been presented to the Marquis of Douro,
his lordship addressed the meeting in an appropriate speech,
in which he took occasion to express his conviction that
" the freemen are as ancient as any other class in the coun-
try, and were equally entitled to protection ; and if privileged
classes, it should be said, are not necessary to the prosperity
of the country, it cannot be denied that they are co-existent
with that prosperity. (Hear.) Consistently with cowardly
and revolutionary principles, the first attack is made upon
the privileged class of freemen—a class the least protected
and the least prepared for defence, and the least suspicious
of the injury intended. I will not proceed round the world
with the most ancjent freemen of Norwich, for charges
against the government, but will at once come to this point,
the injustice done to the freemen, and the way in which they
have it in their power to resent it. You are aware that the
strength of the administration is in the borough towns ; in
the counties they are in a minority. But a large proportion
of the constituency in the bbrough towns is still composed of
freemen, and yet, in the elections of 1837, no ministry had
less reason to be dissatisfied with the support of the freemen
than the present administration. This, too, was after the
Municipal Corporations Bill had passed, and after the injury
had been inflicted on the freemen. (Hear.) Nor have the
freemen themselves given the administration reason to sup-
pose that they were dissatisfied. Half the freemen are con-
servatives, but as a body the freemen have never evinced
towards those who deprived them of their rights the distrust
they deserved. (Hear.) You have to blame yourselves,
then, for that; and if it he true that you are to blame, you
have the remedy in your own hands. (Loud cheers.) No
one can give you the assistance which it is in your power to
afford yourselves. lam satisfied that there is a strong feel-
ing amongst those who are injured in favour of the restora-
tion of their rights. But an ebullition of the moment is not
sufficient. (Hear.) Nothing can procure your rights but a
determined and persevering resolution, that no• man shall
obtain your assistance and support hut by the advocacy of
your ancient rights."
S. Bignold, Esq., and several other gentlemen, also ad-
dressed the meeting; and a resolution of approbation of the
conduct of the noble marquis having been passed, the meet-
ing separated.—Abridged from the Norfolk Chronicle.

TIIE WEATHER AND THE CROPS.—Accounts from all
parts of the kingdom concur in representing the prospect of
abundance, which the recent seasonable weather has opened
upon us, as being roost gratifying• A more promising season
is scarcely in the memory of man, and its fruits are already
shown in a considerable decline in the price of wheat. This
is a sad work for the anti-corn-law agitators ; bad crops,
high prices, and starvation constitute their stock in trade,
and a golden harvest is a visitation of Providence which
they ought, in consistency, to
Standard.o avert by humilia-
tion and prayer !—Blackburn

SECOND EDITION.

_ -
Standard-office, half-past Ten o'clock.

BURNING OF YORK MINSTER.

We copy the following from a second edition of the Brad-
ford Observer of yesterday, with which we have been po-
litely favoured.

At an early hour this morning, a report reached the town,
that that noble and venerable ecclesiastical edifice, York
Minster, the pride of Yorkshire and the admiration of Eng-
land, was destroyed by fire. This report was not however
credited. People are not generally ready to believe bad news.
But as the day advanced, parties who arrived from Leeds
confirmed the sad story, and at length on the arrival of
the York mail at eleven o'clock, all doubt was set at rest.
A great number of letters have come into the town from
York, but all of them necessarily short. One lying before
is says, " Our beautiful Minster has been on fire. The
whole of the tower which contains the bells, and from
thence to the great tower is one mass of ruins. It is
still burning (one o'clock, A. re.); but we hope soon to
stop the devastating element." Our correspondent writes
us word that he will send further particulars by ex-
press, bnt they have not reached us. In the absence of pre-
cise information, it is of course impossible to tell how far the
reports in circulation are to be believed, but all seem to con-
cur in stating that the fire originated through the careless-
ness of some workmen, plumbers, who neglected to put
out their fire and candles. The fire originated in the
tower at the west end. It was first observed about ten
o'clock last night ; the wind being high the flames spread ra-
pidly, and before any effective assistance could be rendered
the beautiful roof of the nave, constructed of carved oak,
ignited and communicated with the great tower. So quickly
did the devouring element accomplish its work, that in
little better than an hour and a half after the fire
was discovered, one of the towers at the west front fell
with a tremendous crash. We hear that several individuals
were buried in the ruins, but have no authentic intelligence
that the calamity, great as it is, is aggravated by loss of life.

(From a second edition of the York Courant of yesterday.)
It appears that about a quarter before nine o'clock on
'Wednesday night several persons observed a small light in
the south-west tower of this, magnificent pile, but did not
take any particular notice of the circumstance, being aware
that the works connected with the clock had been undergoing
repair. In a short time, however, it appeared that the tower
was in flames. The alarm was given, and two powerful
engines were soon on the spot ; but, unfortunately, full
twenty minutes elapsed before s supply of water could be
obtained. The flames spread with astonishing rapidity, and
by about eleven o'clock nearly the whole of the roof of the
nave had fallen. in. The Lantern tower was, with great
difficulty, preserved. About half•-past twelve, the whole of
the roof having fallen, and two additional engines having
arrived by railway from Leeds, the flames were gradu-
ally surmounted, and between one and two the danger was
over. The south-western tower, with the noble nave are,
however, a mass of ruins. Every pillar in the nave is
more or less injured, and one of the windows near the west-
ern entrance was partially destroyed. The great western win-
dow was, however, entirely preserved, and the others sus-
tained but trifling damage. No injury was done to the screen
or organ, though they were at one time in imminent danger.
The belfry was reduced to a mere shell, and the fine peal of ten
bells fell to the ground. No estimate is given as to the amount
of damage, and nothing is known as to the cause of the fire.
It is supposed to have originated in the carelessness of the
persons employed in repairing the clock. By a singular co-
incidence the south-western tower is that on which the in-
cendiary Martin made his first andjunsuccessful attempt to
fire the cathedral on the 2d of February, 1829.