30iffullautnue.

The Seventy-fourth Highlanders, under orders for Gibraltar, are to embark for the Cape of Good Hope on board her Majesty's steam-ship Vulcan, now on her passage to Cork, as a reinforcement to the troops under the command of Sir Harry Smith; and, if necessary, the Third Buffs will follow the Seventy-fourth.

Government has also availed itself of its contract powers with the Pe- ninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, to charter the Shape pore, one of the Company's largest and most powerful vessels, to hasten detachments of the Seventy-fifth and Forty-fifth Regiments from South- ampton to the Cape. of Good Hope. The troops sent will bo about 300 ; they will start on Monday, and will probably reach Cape Town in a month—some ten days before the screw mail-steamer Sir Robert Peel, which departs on the same day.

It is rumoured that an intention exists on the part of Government to reunite the civil government of Malta with the military command of the island, in the person of a general officer now in command of one of the distriets.

We understand that Mr. Darkly, the present Governor of British Guiana, is to be immediately recalled, and his place supplied by the Colo- nial Secretary, Mr. Walker, as Lieutenant-Governor ; an office which that gentleman filled, after the recall of Sir Henry Light, in 1848, previous to the arrival out of Mr. Barkly. Mr. Walker is now on leave in Eng- land, but expects to be ordered out immediately, to take up his new ap- pointment.—Shipping Gazette.

Lord. Edward Russell has been appointed to the command of the Ven- geance, now being refitted for service at Portsmouth, and intended for the Mediterranean station.

Copies have been published of the two reports made to Earl Grey by Mr. W. Morehead and Mr. J. Rhodes, the two Ceylon Commissioners ap- pointed to inquire into the authenticity of Captain Watson's signatures to the Cingalese proclamations which he disclaimed before the Select Com- mittee of the House of Commons. These proclamations ordered all persons having the opportunity and power, to bring in to the Government the property of certain persons denounced by the authorities, and threatened death to the disobedient. They were issued at Matelle in Cingalese, and were signed by Captain Watson. When they were produced before the Se- lect Committee of the House of Commons, as one proof of the cruel se- verity with which the local Government acted, Captain Watson denied their saith, enticity ; declared that the signatures were forgeries; and added, that he never signed any Cingalese proclamations at all. The Commissioners have examined sixty witnesses—including Colonel Drought, under whose orders -Captain Watson acted, several other English officers, two Native witnesses who are sons of the persons named in two of the four proclamations, seven of the Native servants of those persons, seven persons employed in Captain Watson's own office at Matelle, and twenty-two head-men who were under Captain Watson's orders and in frequent attendance at the office, and upwards of two hundred documents bearing the acknowledged signa- ture of Captain Watson. The evidence establishes that the disowned signatures are of Captain Watson's own writing; that the proclamations were issued by him—with a great many others to the same purport, which have been placed in the hands of the Commissioners; and that -Captain Watson, whilst at Matelle in 1848, was in the habit of signing and issuing Cingalese orders and proclamations. Many of the witnesses were so friendly to Captain Watson that they did not come forward with their proofs till the Government officers had pointed out to them the pub- lished notice of the Commissioners calling all witnesses before them, and made them aware of their duty. The Commissioners have recorded the statement of Mr. Staples, the father-in-law of Captain Watson, who watched the whole of the inquiry, that he " wishes for no further exami- nation on behalf of Captain Watson."

[The circumstances under which this report comes before the public are -very disgraceful to the Government. Last session Lord John Russell re- fused to allow its publication, because the evidence had not been received, and could not appear with it : the evidence arrived during the vacation, tut it has been shuffled out of -the country—intrusted to the War Office for court-martial purposes, and sent by that department to Ceylon, with- -out any copy having been taken ! The withholding of the report any longer under such circumstances would have been too scandalous ; so the report wriggles out without the evidence after all.]

The United States frigate St. Lawrence, (50,) Commander Sands, ar- rived at Southampton on Thursday, freighted with one thousand tons of pankoges forming the contribution of our cousins to the Great Industrial Show, The freight was so much larger than was expected, that "all the -armament of the St. Lawrence, save only the guns on her upper spar -deck, had to be taken out,"—a happy illustration and omen of the in- fluences which it is expected the Exhibition will exercise.

Among the things which arrived at the doors of the Great Exhibition last week, were the whole of the parts of the celebrated hydraulic press by which the tubes of the Britannia Railway Bridge were lifted to their present situation. Some detached portions of this enormous apparatus weigh no less than fifteen tons.

The Great Northern Railway has undertaken to lay down two hundred yards of specimen permanent railway, embracing all the latest improve- ments of construction and apparatus, for the trial of the troop of locomo- tive engines which will be exhibited. The work is already begun.

The Queen will exhibit the beautiful carpet worked for her by a hun- dred ladies of Great Britain. It is said also that her Majesty will con- fide the celebrated Koh-i-noor diamond to the custody of the Commis- sioners for exhibition.

About five thousand of the season tickets of admission to the Great Exhibition have been sold—in the proportion of about three gentleman's tickets to every two lady's tickets.

A probable calculation by " Inquirer," in the Daily Hews, gives the following financial receipts for admission to the Exhibition. Season tickets at a mean price of 21. 128. 6d.,.8000=21,0001. ; tickets on each of the second and third days at 11. eaoh, 7500=15,00W.•, admissions on each of the following eighteen days at 5a., 6000.27,000/. ; shilling tickets, 20001., half-a-crown tickets for Fridays, 1000/., and crown tickets for Saturdays, 1500/. a day respectively, for twenty weeks,=

; total, 153,000/.

It is anticipated that the Queen will honour Pembroke Dockyard with her presence on the occasion of the lamch of the Victoria, first-rate, which will take place very shortly.

The next meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science will open at Ipswich on Wednesday the 2d July, and will ex- tend over a week or eight days. Professor Airy, Astronomer Royal, is the President for the year. Mr. Ewart, M.P., has supplied, in a note to the Times of Wednesday, a supplementary report of an interesting question and answer overlooked in the Parliamentary reports of the newspapers- " In answer to a question from myself, Lord Palmerston stated that it was his intention to introduce the principle of examination as a test of admission into the diplomatic service of the country. The question was raised by my- self and other Members on the Diplomatic votes in the Estimates last year. Lord Palmerston then said that the subject was under his consideration; and he has now promised to lay the examination-papers before the House."

Metropolis

Ten Weeks

Zymotic Diseases of 1941-30.1,907

Dropsy, Cancer, and other diseases of uncertain or variable seat 653 Tubercular Diseases 1,511 Diseases of the Brain, Spinal Marrow, Nerves, and Senses Diseases of the Heart and Blood-vessels Diseases of the Lungs, and of the other Organs of Respiration 1,924 Diseases of the Stomach, Liver, and other Organs of Digestion 576

Diseases of the Kidneys, as 112

Childbirth, diseases of the Uterus, &c 112 Rheumatism, diseases of the Bones, Joints, &c 69 Diseases of the Skin, Cellular Tissue, ike. 13 Malformations 30

Premature Birth 220

Atrophy 143

Age 623

Sudden 139 Violence, Privation, Cold, andInteraperanee 279 Total (including unspecified causes) 10,010 .. ..

..

• • .. ..

• • •

..•

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • - • • • • • •

Week. of 1851.

251

60

308 125 70 345

74 7

3 8 36

40

43 1/

a

1,247

The mortality was higher than in any corresponding week since 1841—it exceeded the corrected average by no less than 155 deaths. The young, and persons in advanced age, were the principal sufferers. The births were 1580: the average of the six corresponding weeks in 1845-50 was 1412.

A statement made by a correspondent, on information from an au- thentic source," that Baron Rothschild had embraced Christianity, is re- ferred to by the Jewish Chronicle as " too absurd to require contradiction."

A subscription is being raised by the Churchwardens of St. Paul's and St. Barnabas, Knightsbridge, assisted by a committee, to present, on the 25th instant, a testimonial to the Reverend W. J. E. Bennett. The committee, in a circular, call to mind, "that Mr. Bennett has sacrificed the whole of his private fortune in support of the various works of charity which he has established in this parish. It has therefore been decided that the testimo- nial should be presented in money ; and it is hoped that the subscriptions will be of such an amount as will afford some provision for himself and family."

The ninth annual report of the Copyhold Commissioners has been printed and circulated. Fifty-three enfranchisements have been made since the last report. The Commissioners consider that enfranchisements of copyholds would considerably increase provided that money rent-charges instead of corn rent-charges were allowed ; and they think that three-fourths of the tenants, with the consent of the lord, should bind the others to make en- franchisements.

Though Drory was the murderer of fad Denny, it seems that one medico-legal point of the case against him was fallacious. It is the preva- lent opinion among surgeons, that a slight pressure on the trachia causes insensibility : the rope which caused the death of J321 Denny was coiled thrice, very tightly, round her neck, and the end of it was grasPed. in her hand : it was assumed by the prosecution that the pressure of the first twist must bare caused an insensibility which would render impossible any such persistence in the act of self-destruction as is implied by the That that the rope was thrice coiled round the neck. But Mr. John Thorpe, sur- geon, of Maldon, related this singular case as within his experience- " A suicide had put a rope round the neck, and a piece of stick was then put in and twisted, so as to act as a tourniquet ; and the end of the stick was found by the side of the person, tucked into the waistcoat ; and by this weans the rope was kept tightened so as to cause death." Mr. R. W. West, surgeon, of Alford in Lincolnshire, communicated to the Times on Thursday the following still more singular case, in illustration of his doubt whether immediate insensibility is invariably the result of close compression of the trachea- " I was once called to a case where a man was found strangled in a bush in the following way. lie was riding home drunk, on the top of a cart-load of potatoes • he fell asleep: the horse walked on, approached nearer and nearer to a ditch, and aelast one wheel slipped in ; the man fell over, and his neck caught in the angle between two branches, and then the uppermost branch was pressed closely to his neck by the wheel falling upon it and holding it down. In this position it was evident that the man had endeavoured to liberate himself by taking his knife out of his pocket and- trying with it to cut away the branch. In that he had failed; but the taking the knife out of the pocket, the opening it, and the three or four cuts made with it, must have occupied some time. The man's arm was stiffened in the position in which it must have been when trying to cut the branch. There was no mistake as to the amount of pressure to which the neck was subjected; for the dead body could not be released without the assistance of an axe ; and the branch, so thick as to require an axe to divide it, was held down by the whole weight of the cart."

The l'enice, a Milan journal, gives some interesting statistics respecting foundlings in the Lombardo-Venetian provinces. "On consulting the sta- tistical tables existing since 1660, it is proved that the number of foundling's has been increasing year by year in an almost geometrical ratio. In 1660, 410 infants were abandoned; in 1850, there were no less than 3369, or more than eight times more, although the population is only double what it was From 1660 to 1750, the number of foundlings had been doubled ; and the same occurred in 1799 with respe^t to 1750. At present the foundling hos- pitals have 8924 inmates. At Brescia, the ratio of foundlings to the inhabi- tants is as 1 to 108; at Como and Sondrio, 1 to 364; at Pavia, 1 to 264; at Mantua, 1 to 338 ; at Milan, 1 to 76. It has been at the same time remarked that the number of illegitimate births has diminished, and that foundlings born out of wedlock are only 80 per cent of the total number of foundlings ; so that the enormous proportion of 70 per cent are abandoned by their lawful parents."

A female, eighteen years of age, employed in a large white-lead manufac- tory at Newcastle, is said to have died last week from the absorption of that material into the brain.

A Coroner's Jury at Bristol have found the following verdict over the body

of a young lady who died suddenly, and on whom a surgeon held a - mortem examination—" Idiopathic asphyxia, hastened by tight lacing.'

BANE OF ENGLAND. An Account, pursuant to the Act 7th and lith Victoria, cap. 32, for the week ending On Notesimmed £27,733,195

MeV DEPVILTYRINT.

Government Debt Other Securities Gold Coin and Bullion Silver Bullion

A11.1314,1 2014,90960

1111,8.911110

SAN sfs7A18.110

£47,739,194

Results of the Registrar-General's return of mortality in the for the week ending on Saturday last.

Saturday, the 8th day of March 1851.

DAN KILO DIP•1110012.

Proprietors, Capital £14,553,000 Government Securities (in- Rest 3,814,262 eluding Dead 1V eightAnnuityl £14,115,686

Public Deposita. 8.016,287 Other Securities 13,090,334 Other Deposits 9,363,092 Notes 8,739,140 Seven Day and other Bills 1,059,299 Gold and Silver Coln 890,490 £96,605,880 438,603,880

• Including Exchequer, Savings- Raub), Commissioners of National Debt, & Dividend Accts.