12 AUGUST 1848, Page 6

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The election of Sheriffs terminated on Monday. The numbers polled were—for Alderman Finnis, 384; Mr. Emanuel Goodhart, 366; Mr. Bew- ley, 29; Mr. J. Goodhart, 10; Mr. Dicey, 3; Mr. Lawrence, 2. On Wed- nesday, a Common Hall assembled, and the Recorder presented Alderman Finnis and Mr. J. Emanuel Goodhart as the new Sheriffs. Afterwards a Court of Aldermen was held, and the result was declared.

A special meeting of the members of the Field Lane Ragged Schools institution was held on Monday, at the new school-room erected in Vic- toria Street, Holborn Bridge, to celebrate its opening. Lord Ashley pre- sided; and informed the meeting that Government proposed to take every year 150 pupils from the Schools and send them to the Colonies, with cer- tificates of good conduct which would certainly procure them work and wages. Fourteen pupils had already been despatched from the school. It was stated by the secretary that there are sixty-two of these schools now in London. Resolutions promising annual support to the Schools, by sub- scriptions, were passed.

Messrs. Dickenson and Company, the stationers in the Old Bailey, have for some time past been robbed to the extent of nearly a hundred pounds per month;

and their plain cards have been sold in great quantities to divers stationers, con- siderably under cost price. At length they employed two policemen to watch the warehouse from an opposite house, and have this detected the delinquents. Five men have been examined at Guildhall, and remanded on charges of stealing or receiving goods. Turner, the foreman, was seen to give to one Blanchett, early in the morning, a large quantity of cards, which he carried away in a bag: both were at once arrested. At the house of Solomon Cowan, in Goswell Street, stolen property was discovered. Edwards and Williams, two men living at the East end of the town, were proved to have been engaged in disposing of cards, of which Messrs. Dickenson and Company had been robbed.

It is stated that forged five-pound Bank of England notes have been put into circulation at the East end of London. The water-mark is clumsily done; and they are dated Plymouth, 16th November 1847, No. 35,021.

An explosion of a remarkable kind, attended by serious and fatal consequences, occurred in Albany Street, Regent's Park, on Monday night. Soon after the shop of Mr. Loten, a dealer in Berlin wool, had been closed, about ten o'clock, a violent concussion tore the house to pieces; the ruins dashing in the windows of the shops opposite, and damaging the buildings in other directions: the remains of the housethen burst into flames, and the fire raged for three hours. A servant girl was blown to the opposite side of the street; where she was found mangled and burnt, and quite dead. The only other persons in the house—Captain Loten the brother of Mr. Loten, and Miss Burgh the sister of Mrs. Loten- were dashed through the back part of the building; and it was found necessary to convey them to the hospital of University College, where they now lie. The houses on each side of Mr. Loten's are shattered to their foundation; it is said that about a hundred more have been damaged, and some two thousand panes of glass broken. A list is published of thirty-nine houses in Albany Street alone that suffered more or less.

It was at first feared that several persons had perished in the fire; but, happily, most of the residents in the house were away from home at the time. Captain Wen Miss Burgh, and Mary Bentley the nurse-maid, were in the house at sup- per-time: there had been a smell of gas on previous occasions, and on Monday night it was very apparent; Captain Lotco, with a lighted candle, opened a door into the shop, and in an instant the explosion followed. The firemen and others thought that the explosion could not have been produced by gas, but rather by some detonating substance such as gun-cotton; but Captain Loten denied that anything of the kind was on the premises.

In a quarrel on Sunday last, between a couple named Merrick, living in Maiden- head Court, Aldersgate Street, the man struck the woman on the head, she fell against some paling, and died in a few minutes. Merrick was immediately taken into custody. It appeared from an examination at the Clerkenwell Poliae- oBoe, that he had given his wife money to obtain a dinner; that she neglected to do this, and appears to have spent the money in liquor. At le inquest, on Wednesday, two surgeons described the cause of death as it appeared on a post-mortem examination: there was an effusion of blood on the bram, produced by the rupture of a vessel; the organ was diseased, and a blow or fall might have caused the rupture, conjoined perhaps with excitement and in- toxication. The Jury returned a verdict of "Manslaughter" against Merrick.