'be iffittropolis.

The Lord Mayor gave a magnificent banquet on Wednesday, in the Egyptian Hall of the Mansionbouse, to a party numbering about a hundred and fifty, and consisting chiefly of the late Ministers and their principal Parliamentary supporters ; a great many of the gentlemen being accompanied by their ladies. Among the guests were the Saxon and Spanish Ministers. The Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord John Rus- sell, and Lord Palmerston, were the principal respondents to the toasts ; but there was not the slightest interest in the merely complimentary addresses. The company broke up at eleven o'clock.

The annual general meeting of the Metropolitan Anti-Corn-law-As- sociation took place on Tuesday evening, at the Mechanics Institution, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane. The theatre was crowded by the friends and supporters of the Association. Mr. Henry War- burton took the chair. Mr. Sydney Smith, the Secretary, read the Fourth Report of the Business Committee ; from which it appeared, that "the sum subscribed to the Association up to the period of the suspension of the canvass" for contributions to the Association and the League- fund was 1,100/. 18s. 11d. ; the disbursements (including printing, 51/. 178. ; tracts, newspapers, and advertisements, 641.; clerks, mes- sengers, and superintendents, 182/.; lecture and deputations, 2251.; Se- cretary's expenses, 1501.; liabilities due in 1842, 87/. 10s. ; and a variety

of items of wages, travelling-expenses, &c.) 1,0971. 118. ; balance, Si. 6s. Hid. The report indicated considerable activity ; giving sta- tistics of the operations— "Up to the end of the year, the number of lectures that had been delivered under the auspices of the Association amounted to 634, and of the tracts dis- tributed 300,000.

"The number of petitioners against the Corn-laws for the year 1840, was 1,459,545; for 1841, they increased to 1,756,645: for 1842, the number of pe- titions agaipst the Corn-law amounted to 3,897, and 1,706,432 signatures ; against the Corn-law and class-legislation twenty-five petitions, and 3,324,325 signatures; exhibiting an aggregate of 3,922 petitions and 5,030,757 signatures. Of these, there were issued from the office of the Association 1,788 petitions; of which the returns of the signatures from London alone were 122,811, and from various adjoining districts 248,081: in all, presented to Parliament through the office of the Association, 1,788 petitions and 370,892 -signa-

tures. • • •

"Mr. Villiers's motion for the immediate total repeal of the Corn-law was supported by no fewer than 110 votes; and the motion for inquiry, which, in 1841, had found only 177 adherents, acquired in the new Parliament of 1842, 226 votes; exhibiting an increase of 49 supporters in a single session."

The report recommended efforts to obtain the largest possible num- ber of signatures to petitions in favour of Mr. Villiers's motion of 4th May. The plan of enrolment has been useful—it has inlisted 18,274 members of the League in London. The following statement and ex- ample are curious— The economy with which the business of the Association has been con- ducted has not, it is trusted, been found by the experience of its subscribers and members to be incompatible with a due manifestation of spirit, usefulness, and energy. At the period of the late insurrections in the iron districts and in the North, the Prime Minister ventured to issue a threat that he would visit the vengeance of the Government upon this and kindred societies. The Association promptly assembled, and agreed upon an address to the country on the state of the nation, and also served upon Sir Robert Peel a representation, in which the members pledged themselves never to dissolve or to discontinue their exertions until the Corn and Provision laws were entirely repealed." Speeches were delivered by Mr. P. A. Taylor, Mr. Cobden, Mr. Lawrence Heyworth, and the Chairman. Mr. Taylor, Mr. Cobden, and Mr. Warburton, all spoke against emigration ; Mr. Cobden antici- pating his future motion in the Commons by some allusions to the comparative profit and cost of colonies to this country— The Parliamentary returns of our trade did not exceed 12,000,0001.; while the costs of establishments, civil, naval, military, ecclesiastical, &c., to the tax- payers of this country, was more than 6,000,0001. per annum. Now, that was the same as if a shopkeeper, out of every shilling of profit, threw a eixpe.nee away. That must be profitable to somebody—to those who bad the appoint- ments in the colonies. They had voted the other day 6,000/. for a Bishop in New Zealand. How convenient these colonies were as an excuse for the Government to put their hand in the pockets of the people ! Suppose they bad proposed to appoint a Bishop of Paddington, what an outcry there would be among the Dissenters; and yet bow meekly these men submitted to Church-extension on the other side of the globe. He doubted whether mono- poly could exist without the buttress of the Colonies.

He reported favourably of the impression which he had made on the farmers in the rural tour of the deputations to the South ; and he stated, that should Mr. Villiers's motion be rejected, the League would strive for double the amount originally fixed as their fund—for 100,000/. There were ten or a dozen individuals who had already offered to put down their names for 1,0001.—for 1,000/. each. Others had offered to work their mills and give for a time the entire profits to the National League. (Great applause.) A variety of resolutions were carried, including one repudiating all monopoly.

Drury Lane Theatre was crowded on Wednesday evening, by the weekly meeting of the Anti-Corn-law League, the fifth, and last before the holydays. As usual, several Members of Parliament and leading supporters of the League were present. The first speaker was Dr. Bowring ; who, in proof of the effect produced by the League, quoted a letter which he had received from Ava, " the country of the Lord of the Golden Foot and of the White Elephant," which said that what had occurred in England had attracted so much atten- tion there that they were attacking their monopolists ; having dis- covered that their monarch was pillaging them under the guise of pro- tection. And there were at that meeting persons of distinction from Egypt, " who are desirous of ascertaining whether or not the super- abundance and overflowing productions of their granaries may be per- mitted to come to feed your starving and perishing people." There was nothing, in times called barbarous, to prevent the sons of Jacob from bringing food from the banks of the Nile. [No: the Corn-laws of Pharaoh did not prohibit exportation—besides, Jacob's son was Pre- mier, able and willing to do a good turn to his own family]. Dr. Bow- ring closed his speech in verse; the following being the last of four stanzas which he recited- " The vow ! that leagued in heart and hand.

One purpose ours, erect the stand.

Each bound to each, a plighted band, Whom nou„eht shall sever; Till the unfettered world shall see Labour, and trade, and industry Free as the winds of Heaven, and free, Free, free, for ever."

The next speaker was Mr. Howard Elphinstone ; who advised the electors to abandon the usual party distinctions, and to know no dis- tinction in the choice of candidates except Free-traders and their op- ponents.

The Reverend John Burnett made a long speech, in which there was a grave defence of Mr. Cobden's rhetoric on a former evening, when, in talking against emigration, he described a mother and a grandmother at parting struggling for a child— Sometimes it had been said, when advantage was taken of these meetings in that house—that gentlemen there were trying to get up scenes. As if, indeed, they who said this had never attended "scenes" in that house ! as if they,

forsooth, were so far above such low entertainments—as if they had not, night after night, spent hour after hour there, which ought to have been devoted to

the people ! a • * Some one, too, had said that Mr. Cobden had got up a scene of a grandmamma compelled to emigrate. Let no man, he said, ever be a friend of his who could cordially despise a grandmamma. If a man despised another's grandmamma, he was afraid he might despise his own; and if he could despise his own, but little hope could be entertained for him.

Mr. Lawrence Heyworth moved an address of "the Anti-Corn-law League to the People of Great Britain," urging them not longer to en-

dure the monopoly which fills the country with distress. It mentions as proofs of the progress of their cause, the great meetings in the country, from St. Andrew's Hall at Norwich to the Assize Hall at Taunton, and in that theatre. Even the imputations on the League were such proofs- " The League has learned, not without occasion, the lesson of living down calumnies. But why has one followed another in rapid though vain succession ?

Why, at first, were the founders of the League accused of meditating a war upon wages ? Why were pains taken to fix on them the responsibility of dis- turbances by which they were the likeliest to suffer? Why has the monstrous

suggestion been ventured, that they were not indisposed to abet assassination ? and why are they accused of being jealous of colonization, lest it should become a rival remedy for national distress with the repeal of the Corn-laws ? Why ?-

simply because monopoly has been made increasingly uneasy. The ground was cleared of arguments, and it only remained to dabble in the dirt of impu-

tations. We nail them as confessions of our progress. Devices, so paltry as some, so preposterous as others, and so ineffectual as all have proved, only serve to indicate a desperate cause. IVhen anger succeeds to argument, and is fol- lowed by vituperation—when the denial of principle is abandoned for the abuse of persons—and when avowed hostility to the end subsides into captious ob- jection against the means—it is easy to see which way the tide is flowing. The public has appreciated these endeavours accordingly."

The "easy task" of the League "has been, not to confute our assail- ants, but to congratulate our supporters." The time was at hand when it would be seen what effect had been produced upon the Legislature-

" Any proportionate result it would be idle to expect. The Legislature is the stronghold of the food-monopoly. We have to ask its abolition from the very class by whose influence and for whose imagined profit that monopoly was created and is sustained ; we ask it from a Government which was raised to power for the sake of its preservation and yet who does not already see the shadow of the coming event? Who now dreams that the question is any thing more than one of time ? The last Corn-law was professedly immutable, the present Corn•law is confessedly experimental ; a fixed duty is scouted by one of the great aristocratical parties, a eliding-scale is denounced by the other ; and no resting-place is left but the firm principle and sound policy of free trade. On the 4th of next month Mr. Villiers will renew his motion for the immediate abolition of the Corn-laws ; and its reception will at least render apparent the degree of respect with which the majority of the House of Com- mons is disposed to treat the reiterated demands, the acknowledged wants, and the growing determination of the people." The people are exhorted, in spite of a prevailing distaste to do so any Tam, to petition by hundreds of thousands and millions. Advice is given to electors, to whom the period since the last election has not been uninstructive- " Information has reached thousands of minds which have not attended suf- ficiently to this great subject. Suffering and uncertainty have proved impressive monitors both to the commercial and the agricultural classes. Failing experi- ments and disappointed hopes have left their lessons on record. The state of the public revenue eloquently portrays the condition of the people. You can- not at this moment revise your electoral choice ; but you can and ought to apprize your members of your present views ; speak out to them in your cha- racter as electors; remind them that rim and they are trustees for the good of the whole, and not for the profit or a class ; tell them that every form of industry is languishing for those defined prospects which only the complete removal of restrictions can bestow; that all calculation is baffled, all hope confounded ; that the whole body is sick, the whole heart faint ;' and that you, who placed them where they are, seek from them, in their legislative capacity, that relief from present and prevention of future miseries, which the wisdom and justice of laws for the freedom of trade can alone bestow. At a crisis like the present, all constituencies should put themselves into a direct and influential communication with their representatives." The address concluded with an aspiration that the Legislature might "at length be moved to grant that the food which Providence bestows shall not be intercepted or diminished by taxation."

Mr. Milner Gisbon seconded the motion ; and the address was una- nimously adopted.

In the closing speech, the Chairman sketched the agitation actually in progress— Five gentlemen who stood on that platform on the previous night were now engaged in addressing meetings in different parts of the country, labouring in their honourable vocations. Meetings had been arranged to be held through the whole country in Easter week, for the purpose of requesting members to be in their places on the day fixed for the discussion of the question in the House. No exertions should be spared which were necessary to secure the great object of their labours—the total abolition of the Bread-tax. Seven millions of tracts had been distributed in the last three months ; and they bad loads of correspondence from all quarters, cheering them with the assurance that the Corn-laws in every part of:the agricultural districts were crumbling to pieces. Another month, and who knew what might be their fate ? But if twelve months were required for the purpose, they should witness no cessation of hostilities for the abolition of these cruel laws.

The meeting was then dismissed until the 26th instant.

There was "a public meeting of inhabitant electors of the borough of Finsbury," in Sadler's Wells Theatre, on Friday evening ; Mr. Lawrence Heywortb, of Liverpool, in the chair ; and other officers of the League attending. The theatre was very full. The speeches were all by the members of the League.

The report of the Morning Chronicle said that a letter of apology from Mr. Thomas Duncombe, one of the members of the borough, for non-attendance, "was greeted with a storm of hisses and great disap- probation." Mr. Duncombe has written a letter to the Chronicle, from which it appears that the public meeting was held by ticket, that the hisses were uttered by few, and that Mr. Duncombe has put himself in communication with the Finsbury Central Committee, submitting to them his correspondence with the Secretary of the National Anti- Corn-law League, which they pronounced to be satisfactory. In the correspondence, the Secretary stated that the Committee had required the Members of the borough to declare their views. Mr. Duncombe referred to his speeches and votes in Parliament, and, rebutting the in- tervention of the League, offered to meet his constitutents, in public meeting assembled, whenever the Committee might see fit to call them together. Another letter, by a member of the local Anti-Corn-law Committee, contradicts Mr. Duncombe's statements.

A meeting was held at Finsbury Chapel, on Wednesday evening, to take into consideration the education clauses of the Factories Bill; Mr. Charles Hindley in the chair. The speakers, who were mostly Dis- senting ministers, strongly condemned the measure. Dr. Campbell read some passages from a little book, entitled Songs and Poems for the People, by John M. Neale, A.B., of Trinity, Cambridge, "To il- lustrate the sort of popular instructions and tone of thinking which John M. Neale, A.B., of Trinity College, Cambridge, and other Puseyite gentlemen, were about to infuse into the minds of the rising generation, and to perpetuate for all generations to come, if Sir James Graham were to have his way." One song described the Church of England as standing always, while Dissenters are like muhrooras, and " 'Tis pre- sumption in Dissenters, when they pretend to preach." This song, says the report of the Morning Chronicle, was received with "immense laughter." Another extract was against the going to meeting; and a. third was an answer to the question, "Why don't you go to meeting ? "—

- Oh, no I I dare not turn away. As you would hale me do; 1 dare not leave God's house today,

To go the meeting to.

" In church God always waits, I know, To bear his peoples prayer ; But at the place to which you go, His presence is not there.

God's priest in church for God doll, stand ; And when the prayers begin, The Lord will give me, at his hand, Forgiveness of my sin."

" The repetition of these verses," says the Chronicle, "excited a mixed feeling of religious horror and of personal indignation in every one present."

Mr. Green declared that Lord John Russell's resolutions did not mend the matter, but only made it worse. Mr. Hawes, M.P., alto- gether dissented from that position-

, The first resolution placed the management of the schools under the care of trustees who were to be elected by the people; and thus far, at all events, the people bad a control over the funds which were raised. There was nothing whatever in the resolutions against the voluntary system; on the contrary, they upheld and did full homage to the voluntary system. (" Hear, hear! ") There was local taxation, under local trustees responsible to the people, and elected by them, applied to a great purpose, and public aid to all the voluntary schools. It appeared to him that this was a great step in the right direction- (" Hear, hear ")—a mode by which the bill before the House might be ren- dered a measure calculated to bring about sound education for the people, con- sistently with the maintenance of the rights of conszience and of the voluntary principle. To reject the measure summarily, would be to leave the people amid all their unhappy ignorance, and to foster the tendencies of that ignorance towards crime and infidelity. He really thought that all classes should come forward in a similar spirit, and give their hearty encouragement to those who :ought to advance the principle so far now, in order hereafter to carry out to the full extent the object which was so dear to them all. ("Hear, hear! ") There was nothing so fatal to the progress of rational liberty in this country as the discouraging any attempt that might be made to advance the principles of that rational liberty, merely because all could not be done at once. Mr. Evans junior, however, said, that the resolutions so praised by Mr. Hawes were discountenanced and rejected by men of all denomi- nations, with whom he had made it his business to consult upon the subject. The resolutions against the bill were passed without oppo- sition.

Meetings for the like purpose have been held at the Tabernacle in the City Road, and by "the Sunday School teachers and friends of civil and religious liberty" at the Poplar Sunday School.

A meeting of the friends to Protestant Missions was held in the great room at Exeter Hall, on Wednesday, for the purpose of adopting such measures as were considered necessary in consequence of the recent seizure of the sovereignty of Tahiti by the French, and for securing the general interests of British missions in the islands of the South Pacific. The room was not full. Mr. Charles Hindley, M.P., who was called to the chair, read a statement of the events which led to the French occupation of Tahiti. In November 1836, two French Roman Catholic priests landed on the island, in spite of a law, intended to exclude runaway sailors and convicts, which for- bade the landing of any stranger without the leave of the Queen and Governors ; and they were conveyed back, uninjured, to the vessel which brought them. In August 1838, Captain (now Admiral) Dupetit-Thouars appeared with the Venus 64-gun frigate, and de- manded an apology and 2,000 dollars as indemnity for the priests. The foreign residents advanced the money, and the Queen apologized. In 1839, Commodore La Place arrived in the frigate Artemise, which put into Papeete, the principal harbour, to repair some damage incurred on a reef. The natives assisted in the repairs ; and in return the Queen was obliged to abrogate a law which excluded Roman Catholics from the island. From that period. Catholic missionaries had equal liberty there with others. In May 1842, arrived Captain Dabuset, in l'Aube ; and he obliged the Queen to disband her police, because, in the dis- charge of their duty, they had put the master of a French whaler into confinement for drunkenness and riot. The consummation of these successive acts of injustice was the actual occupation of the island by Admiral Dupetit-Thonars; who arrived in the Reine Blanche, 60-gun frigate, on the 1st September 1842. Mr. Hindley read the conditions which the Admiral forced the Queen to accept, under threat of assum- ing the entire sovereignty in the name of France—

"1st. That the title and the government of the Queen, and the authority also of the principal chiefs, remain in themselves over their people.

"2d. That all laws and observances be established in the name of the Queen, and have her signature attached to them, to render them binding on her subjects. "3d. That the lands of the Queen and all her people shall remain in their own hands; and all discussions about lands shall be among themselves; fo- reigners shall not interfere. "4th. That every man shall follow that religion which accords with his own desire ; no one shall influence him in his thoughts towards God.

"5th. That the places of worship belonging to the English missionaries, which are now known, shall remain unmolested, and the British missionaries shall continue to perform the duties of their office. "6th. Persons of all other persuasions shall be entitled to equal privileges." A Supreme Council of three Frenchmen was appointed, from whom there is no appeal but to the King of the French.

The Rev. Dr. Vaughan moved the first resolution-

" That this meeting, representing different sections of the Protestant Chris- tian churches in Britain, has received with feelings of the deepest sorrow and the strongest reprehension, the intelligence of the unjust assumption of sove- reignty by the French in the island of Tahiti, and the establishment by force of the sistem of Popery in that island ; that it regards the treaty by which the native government was constrained to sacrifice ita independence, as the result solely of extortion and violence—means no less at variance with the character of a brave and gallant nation than with the principles of political and moral justice; and, although this meeting, confiding in the omnipotence of truth and the sure support of its Divine Author, utterly repudiates the prin- ciple of restriction and coercion towards other systems of religious belief for the purpose of upholding exclusively the interests of Protestantism, it cannot but regard the imposition of Popery by the arms of France in the Christianized nations of Polynesia as the greatest violation of religious liberty, and as an evidence of a spirit of proselytism rather than any sign of Christian benevolence."

A gentleman in the body of the hall attempted to speak on this reso- lution; but he was prevented by the noise which prevailed. The reso- lution was agreed to.

The Reverend Dr. Alder, Secretary to the Wesleyan Missionary So- ciety, ;denounced the exertions of "Infidel France" in favour of "Popish missions ; " and he said he had already heard that a French frigate and" the Romish Bishop schooner," had appeared in the Friendly Islands. It was their duty to see that what "God had given us the Devil did not take from us ;" to guard against the possibility of any people among whom they had established their missions "falling away from the true faith under the deteriorating and destroying power of Popery." He moved a resolution expressing sympathy with the injured Queen of Tahiti, and with the missionaries of the society of the Tahitian Church. The Reverend Baptist Noel seconded the resolution ; expressing a con- viction that M. Guizot could scarcely like his name to go down to pos- terity as the author of an outrage so unprovoked and unjustifiable. Nevertheless, not unmindful of the British colonization of New Zea- land, or of the wars in Afghanistan and Scinde, he deprecated the use of violent language towards France. The resolution was carried.

The Reverend J. Blackburn, seconded by the Reverend J. Burnet, moved a resolution calling upon all Christian Churches to unite in pub- lic reprobation of this act of French aggression and Popish intrigue, to unite in their efforts to restore the Queen of Tahiti to her kingdom and her independence, and to memorialize the Government in the terms of the resolutions already adopted. This final resolution was carried amid loud applause. Before the meeting separated two gentlemen from the body of the hall insisted on addressing them. One of them, Mr. Miller, in- formed the meeting, mach to their amusement, "that he was possessed of a secret which would save the country if only acted on " : the other, Mr. Swain, loudly complained of the tone adopted by some of the speakers towards the Catholic Church ; and was going into the ques- tion of the New Poor-law, for the purpose of showing the unchristian character of the bastardy clauses, when he was called to order by the Chairman, and forced to desist. Thanks having been voted to the Chair- man, the meeting separated.

At the Sheriff's Court, on Wednesday, Mr. J. Wilde, Mr. J. Blu- ebell, and Mr. W. Barchell, sat as Commissioners to inquire into alleged frauds, by which Messrs. Videl and Hurel, glove-dealers, who have one establishment in the Old Jewry and another at Grenoble, had evaded the payment of sufficient duties. The duties range from 4s. to 6s. Gloves are imported from France in deal cases, which are measured by the Customhouse-officers ; and, the amount in cubical feet being ascertained, persons experienced in the glove-trade are enabled to state with great general accuracy the number of dozens of gloves contained in each case. This is set down in what is called a " sight-entry ;" and the alleged fraud was, that one Tye, the agent of the defendants, con- spired with Homercham, a Customhouse-officer, to set down too little for the contents of the cases, thirty-eight in number. For instance, on the 11th July 1840, one of the defendants got a "sight-entry" of a case in the presence of a Customhouse-officer. He returned its contents as about 200 dozens of gloves, and duty was paid on that amount ; whereas the case really contained 680 dozens. The Commissioners gave judg- ment on Thursday, that the defendants were indebted to the Crown, for duties which ought to have been paid between the 1st March 1840 and the 31st December 1841, to the amount of 5,238/. The inquiry is pre- liminary to proceedings in another court.

At the Court of Requests in Castle Street, on Tuesday, Lord Mont- eagle appeared in answer to the sumons of William Sharman, formerly a constable in the City Police ; who claimed 5/. which he had put into the bands of Lord Monteagle for the purpose of procuring him a situ- ation under Government. Lord Monteagle gave the following en- planation— " One afternoon in May 1840, when entering the House of Peers, the plain- tiff put a letter into his hands, whish he did not then stay to open ; but he broke the seal and examined it after entering the House, when he found that it con- tained a 5/. note, with a request that he would procure for the writer a situation under Government either as a Customhouse-officer or as a letter-carrier in the Post-office. Immediately after, Lord Monteagle returned to the entrance of the House, and inquired of the Police-constable on duty whether he had seen a person give him a letter ? and being answered in the affirmative, he directed the Policeman to follow the man and bring him back. The Policeman was un- successful. Lord Monteagle consequently retained possession of the note and the letter till the plaintiff applied for an answer. Being then desirous to ascer- tain whether the writer had offended against the law in ignorance, he granted him an interview ; when, finding that his knowledge of such matters was much superior to that of the lower orders in general, he referred him to the Lords of the Treasury ; to whom he sent his letter and the.enclosure. After some C0110 sideration, they.determined that, although it was a very bad case they would not indict the writer; but they resolved to pay the 5/. note into the Bank of England, to the credit of the Exchequer, as conscience-money ; which was accordingly done, on the 28th of December 1840. The plaintiff, after applying several times to official parties to ascertain the result, took oat the present summons." In confirmation of this statement, Lord Monteagle produced the Treasury minutes, and various official letters and documents, including the Bank-receipt for the 5L note, and was about to produce witnesses, when the Commissioners interrupted him, and dismissed the case. Lord Monteagle then pointed out a clause in the act of Parliament consti- tuting the Court, which exempts Government-officers from its jurisdic- tion for acts performed in their official capacity : but he had waived the privilege.

At the Mansionhouse, on Saturday, Mary Thomson, a beggar- woman was charged, on suspicion, with having stolen a child. She was received some time ago into the Asylum for the Houseless Poor, having with her a little boy whom she called her own : she was in a state of destitution and illness, and was attended by Mr. Bowie, the surgeon of the establishment, and his son ; and was thus restored to health. During the progress of the woman's illness, the younger Mr. Bowie was struck with the contrast between the mother and the child, whose manners were those of refined breeding ; and his suspicions were increased by the child's answers to his inquiries, and the woman's contradictory statements. The little boy says that he had another mother in the country ; that his name is not Samuel Thomson, but Henry Samory Dupee (as it is spelled in the report) ; that his present mother is unkind to him, and beats him if he tells his real name ; and that when she took him away she burnt his clothes. On seeing a pianoforte, he said his mother in the country had one like it. He speaks of having two sisters, and a governess ; and says that his father wore a coat and his uncle a jacket ; and when the picture of a ship was shown to him, he said it was like his uncle's. The woman is very plausible in her story, and makes a great display of affection for the child. She says he is illegi- mate, and that she taught him to behave as he does. She gave a refer- ence to a clergyman of St. Hilary in Cornwall, where she said she rented a cottage two years ago. This statement proves to be false. She was remanded for a week.

An odd case of treasure-finding has been brought forward at Clerk- enwell Police-office. Benjamin Thomas and five other labourers were engaged in grubbing up the roots of some trees in Tufnell Park, at Holloway, on Wednesday week ; when they found buried in the earth two jars full of sovereigns, supposed to have amounted to 400/. They divided the money between them : but it was claimed by Mr. Henry Tufnell, as Lord of the Manor; and all of them consented to give up what they had, except Thomas, who said that his share was 51/., but he had spent or lost it. The sum recovered, however, only amounted to 231/. 178. Thomas was brought up at Clerkenwell on Saturday, and remanded till Thursday. In the interval, a new claimant appeared, in the person of Mr. Joseph Frost, of the firm of J. and J. Frost, brass- founders in Clerkenwell : some time in August, in a temporary fit of mental delusion, he carried the money out at night and buried it. Mr. Tufnell waived his claim in favour of Mr. Frost. Thomas was com- mitted for trial, on the charge of feloniously appropriating the money to his own use.

The coalwhippers of the Thames began a general strike on Tuesday. Some time ago they were paid 8d. a ton for unloading vessels at She Pool ; but it was then a grievance that they were forced to deal with particular publicans, in whose houses they were paid. Agents started in the business who undertook not to pay them in public-houses ; but another grievance arose, for gradually their wages have been reduced to 5d. a ton.