_Miscellaneous.

The Birmingham Advertiser announces a toy for the Prince of Wales ; not the best for a baby-potentate to play withal- " A townsman of ours, named Griffiths, has manufactured and sent as a present to the Prince of Wales a brace of guns, which, though complete in all pests, weigh only one ounce and a half and a fourpenny piece. The individual, although only a young man, manufactured all the parts, we are told, with his own hands:"

But healthier amusement is also provided betimes: a pair of Shetland ponies, intended for the young Prince's pony-phaeton arrived at the Aberdeen Steam-packet Wharf, St. Katherine's, last week.

Mr. Washington Irving delayed his departure for Spain, in conse- quence of a special invitation to the Queen's ball. Friday's Gazette stated that the Queen has conferred the honour of knighthood on Mr. Justice Cresswell Cresswell. Miss Adelaide Kembie has made a brilliant debitt in Dublin.

We have great pleasure in stating, that it is in contemplation to issue forthwith a Queen's letter inviting contributions in the several places of ?worship throughout the Three Kingdoms for the purpose of affording more adequate relief to the industrious population of the manufacturing districts than local subscriptions can be expected to yield. A confer- ence was held on Saturday upon this very interesting subject, at the house of Sir Robert Peel in Whitehall, at which the First Lord of the Treasury, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Lord Primate, and the Lord Bishop of London were present It was deter- mined that the appeal we have mentioned should be immediately made to the benevolence of her Majesty's subjects. That it will be eminently successful, no one who understands the character of the British nation can for a moment doubt —Morning Post.

Sir Robert Peel has received addresses in support of his financial policy, from certain inhabitants of Plymouth, 104 inhabitants of Here- ford, inhabitants of Rochdale. the Operative Conservative Associations of Derby, Stockport, and Bradford, the Provost, Magistrates, and Councillors of Dumbarton, 464 inhabitants of Ayr, and the Chief Ma- gistrate and 660 inhabitants of Kirkintilloch.

A conflagration, unprecedented since the Great Fire of London, has laid the city of Hamburg in ruins, after lasting four days before any mastery was gained over the progress of the flames. The fire broke out soon after midnight on Wednesday, at a house in the Doich Strasse one of the narrowest streets of the oldest part of the town, built as much of wood as of other materials ; and it passed from house to house until it entered a square court surrounded by large warehouses and unap- proachable by the street A warehouse of spirits caught fire, and now the flames began to threaten every thing far and near. It was nearly Tour o'clock ; the Senate was called together, and to arrest the spread of the ire, it was proposed to pull down houses; but that was refused as -a needless sacrifice of property. The Burgher Guard was called out ; bat the services of a body twenty thousand strong were useless in the management of a few bad fire-engines; and, when it was too late, a few bouses were ordered to be pulled down. The flames ao longer dealt with a few houses : they were arrested for a short time by reachipg the wider space of the Hoffen Market ; when suddenly, in the afternoon, smoke burst from the steeple of the Nicolai Church. .Accumulated in the large body of the church, the heat set fire to a new quarter, and the warehouses on the Catherineu Canal were soon blazing for a quarter of a mile, Mr, Lindley, an English gentleman who was engaged by the town in the construction of a railroad, suggested that a large line of buildings already given up should be razed; and the attempt was, begun, at six o'clock on Thursday evening ; but it was inefficiently carried on : the quarter to be saved was overtaken by the tide of fire,. which shifted hither and thither with the wind ; and for the next three days it ebbed and flowed in uncontrolled fury. The Town-house, the Borsenhalle, the Post-office, the Senate-house, and other public build- ings, were successively destroyed; the masses of buildings in the inter- vals being swept away.

In the mean time, the town was like one in a state of siege : as each quarter took fire, the inhabitants hastily abandoned it Some hurried away to the country; others brought their property into the streets, ancl there, in their panic, left it ; and it served as fuel to the flames, which thus found the readier passage across the crowded streets. The poor,

driven from house and home, and destitute of means, assembled in the streets which were yet free from the flames ; and many more of all classes poured out into the fields, where they collected their furniture and household ware. One of the sufferers, writing on Sunday, thus describes the scene ; speaking, apparently, of Friday or Saturday- " After taking a few short hours of rest, and some little refreshment, I left my friend's house in the country, about one English mile from the Damthor

Gate, and proceeded in his company to have a minute inspection of the whole scene of destruction before us, and which presented a most awful spectacle. About half-past three o'clock p.m., on arriving in the immediate vicinity of the Damthor, we observed some hundreds of families encamped and engaged in the same operation, and surrounded by their weeping families and relations. Some portion of their furniture accompanied a few, and others again were seen la- menting their fate in being deprived, by so sudden and unexpected a calamity

in so short a space of time, of all they probably possessed in the world. Myself and friend, a gentleman long resident in Hamburg, and to whom I am in a

great measure not only indebted for my present home but for the assistance he

rendered me in making good my retreat from the city before my house was completely burnt down, after taking a hasty survey of all we could outside the city, entered the Damthor Gate, and proceeded along the Damthor Strasse and

the Esplanade, as far as the Junglernsteig. Wherever we passed, nothing was to be seen but loaded waggons and carriages with furniture, and families

busily employed in packing and handing out their property, amidst the most fearful solicitude and anxiety for their safety. The streets were literally crammed with them ; and it took us considerable time and great caution to make good our passage through the mass of unfortunate beings, presenting the picture of despair and a fearful certainty that the worst was to come."

At length, energetic measures were taken: the troops were called out ; others, Prussians, were summoned from Magdeburg ; artillery was sent for from Harburg in Hanover, and gunpowder from Gluckstadt and the Stade ; and cannon was brought to bear in cutting off the path of the flames': by which means, on Sunday night the conflagration was brought under command; and by Tuesday it was entirely extinguished. But a quarter of the great and wealthy city is gone: one who went to look for the safety of the Senate-house could not find the spot! Little reliance can as yet be placed on the statistics of the calamity ; but it helps to shape the idea of it when it is told that nearly the whole of the public building and churches are destroyed, with two or three thousand houses, and the number of the streets entirely destroyed is computed at forty-six ! The New Exchange escaped unhurt, through the exertions of a Mr. Smith. The number of those who lost their lives is estimated at 150 to 250; but the real number will probably never be known.

Surveyors have already been engaged in the hopeless task of estimat- ing the destruction of property. : The local fire-offices are understood to be quite unequal to meet the burden thrown upon them. The Lon- don offices, it has been said, will suffer severely ; and it as supposed that the Sun, the Royal Exchange, and the Phenix fire-offices were in the aggregate liable to the amount of 1,000,0001.; but a paragraph

in the daily papers denies that the London offices had insured any buildings. The estimate of the loss has varied greatly; the latest and

highest being 7,000,000/. Although the Bank of Hamburg was de- stroyed, it has been officially announced that its treasure and books are safe.

During the conflagration, the conduct of the people was admirable for order and peaceableness. After it, however, some reports of in-

cendiarism were circulated, and the anger of the people was naturally

roused. It was directed against some of the English residents, and especially against a Mr. Thompson, who gave great assistance in blow- ing up some buildings. Is this disturbance, some persons were seri- ously, and, it is feared, even mortally injured. An official declaration, however, was issued, stating that the reports were groundless ; and order was restored by Tuesday. Assistance was afforded to the suf- ferers in every possible way. The inhabitants were returning to the town with their goods ; the authorities providing shelter for the house-

less ; Governors of neighbouring provinces, Schleswig, Holstein, and Bremen, came to the town to render assistance in person 1,400 car- penters were sent for from Bremen ; and the English residents were convened in a public meeting by Colonel Hodges to make an appeal to this country, in a case where the claims of afflicted humanity come powerfully recommended by the sympathies of close intercourse in business and in friendship.

The most frightful railway accident tiiat ever happened has just oc- curred in France. Sunday was fixed tor the celebration of the King's fete at Versailles, with a display of waterworks and fireworks. The waterworks were over at half-past five, and there was a rush to the railway-trains which just then departed for Paris. That which went by the road along the left bank of the Seine was very long and heavily- crowded, and it was dragged by two engines. Between Bellevue and Meudon the axle of the foremost engine broke; and it stopped, the fire and grease-boxes falling to the ground. The second engine passed over the first, crushing the conductor and the stokers ; and, being also overthrown, it poured its fire on to that which had fallen from the first engine. Three carriages were dragged upon the ruins of the engines, and broken in all directions. Newly-painted, the carriages caught fire; and the passengers had been locked in ! The breaking of parts of the carriages enabled some of the passengers to escape, but about forty were kept fast, and those who survived the first shock perished in the flames, from which the bystanders could not release them. The people in the fourth and the succeeding carriages were severely, and many of them fatally heal but they eseapet1 the awful fate of those in the three

first; Assistance was immediately sent for, and as quickly as possible the Prefect of Police galloped to the place with twenty medical men. At this time the scene resembled a field of battle: some of those locked up in the carriages perished shrieking for water ; the frantic bystanders, and those who were not rendered incapable by hurts or terror, were busied in extricating the dead, the dying, and the mutilated ; amputa- tions were performed on the spot, and wonnds were dressed ; in the mean time people were borne from the field on litters and hastily-pro- cured substitutes, to the Royal Château at Mendon, to private houses, and to a steam-boat on the Seine, in order to be taken to Paris. By a late account, which seems carefully compiled, in the hfoniteur Pansies of Tuesday, the number of the dead up to that time is stated at fifty- two or fifty-three, and the number of wounded, previously reckoned as hundred and fifty, at no more than forty. The removal of the burnt bodies was a task of the most painful kiud : in some cases the bodies appear to have been so calcined and fused, as it were, together, that they could not be removed separately ; and in the first lump of destro)ed humanity the only portion that could be distinguished was the foot of a female. As soon as possible, troops were brought to the place, to aid and keep order ; priests came to administer consolation to the dying ; several Government officials gave directions and undertook responsibi- lity; and, in short, all seems to have been done, after the catastrophe, that humanity or propriety could dictate.

Several incidents are recited which show the terrible nature of the calamity. The Academy of Sciences appointed a Committee to inquire whether or not Admiral di:Irvine, the circumnavigator, was among the victims : he was found among the dead, so mutilated that he was only to be recognized by M. Dumoustier, who knew his skull from having taken phrenological casts of it ! The Admiral's wife and son, a lad, died with him. A family of eleven persons were altogether missing. A young lady, who was in a carriage with an uncle and some other re- lations, was thrown out, whether by the accident or by her friends she did not know : all her relatives perished. One man was deprived of memory by fright. Some of the escapes were remarkable. Air. Henry Bulwer had tried to obtain a seat, but found every place full. The Duke de Montpensier, the King's youngest son, went by the train to a short distance from Versailles, and then got out. A son of the Due Decazes was in the train, but was placed in one of the last carriages. M. Chain- bolles, a Deputy and chief editor of the Siec/e, was on thepoint of enter- ing the train with three sons, when a friend offered to take them home in his private carriage. A country merchant succeeded in breaking out of one of the carriages, and in dragging out his wife and daughter; and finally, though severely wounded himself, in saving eight other persons. Mr. George, an Englishman, the engineer in charge of the second engine, perished of suffocation, in his efforts to save the passengers locked up in the carriages.

'The Engineers of Mines, Messrs. Combes and de Senarmont, who are charged with the inspection of railways, have made a report of the ac- cident to tile Minister of the Interior. They say that the first engine was a small one with only four wheels, and to the use of that they attri- bute the accident ; the second was a large engine with six wheels. In a discussion at the Academy of Sciences, the custom of employing more than one locomotive engine was strongly reprobated, as well as the practice of locking-in passengers.

M. Gnizot has been ill with a cold : on Saturday, he could not attend a Cabinet Council at the Tuileries.

Another conspiracy has been detected in Paris. The Commerce states that a number of domiciliary visits were made throughout that city on Saturday, particularly in the neighbourhood of the Faubourgs St. Antoine, St. Denis, and of the Temple. The keeper of a wine-shop in the Rue des Marais du Temple was arrested. Quenisset still remains at the Conciergerie; and it is said that the late captures were made in con- sequence of information furnished by him. Others pretend that the information was given to the Prefect of Police by the chere amie of one of the parties, who had since disappeared, and been killed and thrown into the river by the conspirators. The projectiles seized were of glass, and were of the nature of hand-grenades ; and it is supposed that they were intended for the destruction of the King by being thrown into and exploding in his carriage.

The steam-ship Great Western arrived at Liverpool on Wednesday, with intelligence from New York to the 28th April.

There had been some warlike chatter in Congress ; which had been rebuked by Mr. Adams. Mr. Adams had expressed a strong opinion against the right of search ; but he ridiculed a Senator who talked of burning London ; and he censured the pamphlet of General Cass, which had been praised for inducing France to abstain from signing the Quintuple Slave-trade Treaty-

" It looks like an interrneddling with the political affairs of Europe : it has the aspect of engaging us to entangling alliances with foreign nations, the very evil against which the venerable Washington and the venerable Jeffer- son both so emphatically warned their countrymen. And 1 here ask the House and the country to believe that if the refusal of France to ratify the Quintuple Treaty shall be persevered in, (which I can scarcely believe possible,) the right of search has not any part in the wars which may follow, and in which we are in some danger of becoming entangled. That, I say, will form no part in such wars. It is no question between France and the Four Powers. France has conceded it. It is her bad faith in refusing the ratification that is more likely than any thing else to embroil her with those Powers, just as it happened in -what was called the Syrian question."

It was said that Lord Ashburton had proposed to the Legislatures of Massachusetts and Maine that the North-eastern boundary should be determined by a " conventional " line.

Mr. Webster, the Foreign Secretary, bad entertained Lord Ashburton at a dinner, to which all parties were invited. The President had in- vited him to meet a party of Foreign Ministers and Americans at a grand diplomatic dinner.

A frightful steam-boat explosion had occurred on the Chesapeake. The boiler of a new steamer, the Medora, burst during a race: twenty- three persons were killed on the spot ; and of many others who were itcalded few were expected to recover,

The latest intelligence from Mexico seems to make it certain that no general invasion of Texas was contemplated..