15 MAY 1858, Page 6

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It has been stated that at a meeting in the East India House on Wed- nesday, the Court of Directors adopted a resolution expressing confidence in Lord Canning.

Mr. Layard has returned from his tour in India, and has again en- tered upon public life in this country. On Tuesday evening he lectured in St. James's Hall ; Lord Bury in the chair. Among those present were thirty-six Members of Parliament, and a number of other distin- guished persons. The drift of his address was that the disturbances in India were not a military mutiny, but a popular insurrection, and that they ought to be ascribed to the annexation policy of Lord Dalhousie and the treatment of the Natives by Europeans. Almost the first Native gentlemen that he met in India, on being asked what was the cause of the rebellion, said, "while the English Government was just and honest God gave them prosperity ; but when the Government became unjust and severe, God afflicted them with adversity, which generated discon- tent and rebellion." He asked the same question of a young Native, who said that the mutiny had arisen because the Government had be- come immoral. He also set forth the inquiry into titles, the practice of torture, the selling of the land of Zemindars to recover revenuer our interference with Native usages and customs, and the conversion of the 5 per cent into a 4 per cent loan, as grievances which had contributed to disaffection. He did not believe that the Natives were ungrateful. He had seen the portraits of Mountstutut Elphinstone in the Deccan, of Sir Charles Napier in Scinde, and of Mr. Gubbins in Benares, in many of the houses of the Natives. India, he said, must be governed in India.

" You must open your council not only to an European, but to an Indian element. You have already done it on a small scale in Ceylon. There you have a population raised from 700,000 to 4,000,000. You have planters raised from six to 600; you have a council founded upon 'liberal and ci- vilized principles, where Indians, even Buddhists, and almost native half- castes, are represented. The experiment has been most successful. That experiment you must try in India. If you do, and if you lose India, it will be no dishonour and no disgrace to you that future history should say that you made the people of India civilized, prosperous, and happy, and, if it can be effected by our example, let me add Christian."

The Reverend George Lynch Cotton, D.D., head master of Marlbo- rough School, was, on Thursday, consecrated Bishop of Calcutta. The ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the pre- sence of eight other Bishops, in Westminster Abbey.

A deputation from the London parishes, headed by Mr. Ayrton, waited on Lord Derby to inquire whether he would support Mr. Ayr- ton's bill for the equalization of the poor's rates. Lord Derby said that the bill subverted the whole principle of the Poor-law, and therefore he could not support it. The bill might afford relief to the peculiar griev- ances of the Metropolis, but it would have an injurious effect by destroy- ing individual interest in the general management of the rates. "Of course the decision rests with the House of Commons " ; but he had given them what they asked for-his candid opinion.

The fifty-third annual meeting of the British and Foreign School Society was held in the school-room, Borough Road, on Monday. Lord John Russell occupied the chair, and among those around him were Lord Gasuiville, the Earl of Ducie, and Lord Ebrington. Lord John Russell celebrated the progress of education, hoped that it would go on at an accelerated pace ; and paid high compliments to Sir John Peking- ton for the zeal in the cause he has displayed and the comprehensive principles upon which he has acted. Lord John ceded the chair to Lord Granville. The report of the progress of the Society was very en- couraging.

The forty-eighth anniversary of the Artists' Benevolent Fund was celebrated on Saturday by the eating of the usual dinner-Mr. Charles Dickens in the chair-followed by speechmaking of the approved pat- tern. The amount subscribed was 600/.

The Royal Mendicity Society held its annual meeting on Saturday. During the past year it has disbursed 10461. on mendicants ; bestowed 54,074 meals ; investigated 3785 begging letters ' • and exposed several scoundrels who subsisted upon the produce of fraudulent applications. Unfortunately it stands in need of funds, having, in consequence of the distress among the poor, spent 600/. more than it received from the

The full Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes sat on Monday for the first time. The Judges were Lord Campbell, Lord Chief Baron Pollock, and the Judge Ordinary, Sir Cresewell Cresewell. On that one day the Court decreed the dissolution of marriage in no fewer than five cases. In two, the wife was the petitioner and the ground of divorce was adultery coupled with desertion. The next day three marriages were dissolved, one on the petition of a wife. In one case the co-respondent of the wife, accused of

lultery, was a clergyman.; in another a cornet of dragoons. Loid Camp- bell at the conclusion of the second day's sitting, said lie could not rayon from expressing his satisfaction with the beneficial operation of the new act. The Court had pronounced sentence of dissolution in eight cases, hr all of which the petitioners had proved that they were clearly entitled to the remedy they sought. Although in some of those cases the petitioners would have been able to obtain a divorce under the old system by passing a bill through Parliament, yet in others they would have been debarred from that remedy by their poverty. It was satisfactory to think that rich and poor were now upon an equal footing, and that the same remedy was open to all who could establish their right to it. The Court rose at the end of the week.

The Exchequer Chamber, sitting in error, have reaffirmed the decision in the ease " Simmonds v. Taylor." The London Joint-Stock Bank paid a cheque for 126t. ; it had been crossed " and Co." ; it had been abstracted from a letter ; the thief removed the crossing ; the cashier at the bank saw no signs of erasure, and he paid the cheque. A jury found that there was no negligence, and gave a verdict for the defendants—the bank. This ver- dict the Exchequer Chamber has upheld. Incidentally, the decision in this case was that a " crossing" on a cheque is not essentially apart of the cheque.

At the Central Criminal Court, on Tuesday, the Reverend George Rat- cliffe pleaded guilty to the whole of the charges in connexion with his fraudulent transfer of Government Stock. He was one of two trustees for a sum of 1028/. Consols ; by means of forged certificates of the decease of his co-trustee, who was really living, he got the stock sold and appropriated the proceeds to his own use. The prisoner appeared to feel his degraded position very acutely. His counsel felt it best to leave the matter entirely in the hands of the Court. The Recorder, commenting on the very serious nature of the crime, sentenced the accused to ten years' penal servitude.

On Wednesday, William Selless, a boy of twelve, and Henry John Ham- brook, who has been many years a police-officer, were convicted, of the man- slaughter of John Thomas Bolton, a boy. Selless and Bolton quarrelled and fought ; Hambrook, instead of interfering to stop the fight, told Selless to hit his opponent " under the ear " : Selless did so, and either the blow, or a fall which it caused, produced death. The Jury recommended both prisoners to mercy. Mr. Baron Martin inflicted only the nominal punish- ment of one day's imprisonment on the boy ; but he sent Hambrook to pri- son for three months—he ought to have stopped instead of encouraging the fight.

George Hammond pleaded guilty, and George Barrow was found guilty after a trial, of forging and uttering five bills of exchange on the Union Bank. The prisoners, who set up as wholesale stationers, got the bills dis- counted—the acceptances had been forged. Sentence, fifteen years' trans- portation.

On Thursday, Patrick O'Brien, an Inspector of the D division of police, was tried for stealing two pieces of bacon from a shop at Paddington. The Jury, after a very brief consultation, acquitted the prisoner : on hearing the verdict he fell down in a fit.

The Bow Street Magistrate has committed " Alexander Borromeo," otherwise " Dr. Tucker "—an Italian Count, according to his own state- ment, but " manifestly a smart young Irishman," says the reporter—on a charge of defrauding the manager of the Morning Star of 1/. le., the pay- ment for a report of a meeting of the " Italian Conference "—the said re- port and " Conference" being, to all appearance, entire fictions. The ac- cused attempted to defend himself by raising a cloud of mystery—he could not call witnesses, because, by cross-examination, information was to be elicited to injure them ; and so on.

The Worship Street Magistrate has received some subscriptions for Jacob Bayliss a labouring man, who recently saved a person who was drowning. It is dated that Bayliss lens saved no fewer than twenty-six people from drowning.

A storm of wind and rain visited the south side of London on Thursday afternoon ; the violence of the wind did a great deal of damage.