18 DECEMBER 1852, Page 8

int Vrnuiurto.

Mr. Bruce of Dyffryn, nephew of Sir James Lewis Knight Bruce, has been elected, without opposition, as the successor of Sir John Guest in the representation of Merthyr Tydvil. He is a " Conservative Free- trader."

Many meetings have been held in the provinces to denounce the Budget ; and resolutions of a severely adverse character have been passed at Exeter, Gloucester, Liverpool, Manchester, Bedford, Newcastle-on- Tyne, Worcester, Stourbridge, Southampton, Buckingham, Chatham, and many other towns. Lord Carlisle, on Tuesday, read a lecture to the members of the Shef- field Mechanics Institution, on the Poetry of Gray. It was characterized by the geniality and graceful criticism of all Lord Carlisle's lectures. He mentioned a fact of present historical interest : at the time Gray was writing his Ode on a Distant View of Eton College, one of the boys play- ing by the " margent green " was Arthur Wellesley.

At Liverpool Assizes, Mary Price was convicted of administering arsenic to her husband, with intent to kill him. The husband is a glass-worker at St. Helen's ; his wife, a woman of forty-nine, was a drunkard ; one day Price went home, and, with his son, drank tea which the prisoner had prepared. Both father and son were ill in consequence, but recovered. Arsenic had been placed in the tea. The prisoner had been heard to threaten her hus- band; and it was proved that she had bought a mixture of arsenic and soft- soap, but the soft-soap had not been put in the tea—the chemists found no trace of soap. Sentence of death was recorded ; but Mr. Justice Cresswell intimated that he should recommend a commutation, as the criminal had not actually taken life. John Moran has been convicted of complicity in the burglary at Didsbury, near Manchester, and Ellen Burke of feloniously receiving some of the property stolen. In this case the house of a farmer named Gerrard was entered at night by a gang, armed with guns and pistols, and wearing masks, lobo plundered the place : previously to the entry of the robbers, fire-arms were presented at. Mr. Gerrard as he looked from a window. Sentence of death was recorded. against Moran. Another of the burglars, Cosgrove, pleaded guilty to this charge and to another. It is believed that the desperate gang has now been effectually broken up. At both the Liverpool and York Assizes, there have been many convic- tions of ruffians who have adopted the "garotte" plan of overcoming per- sons in order to robbing them. William Peak; a sawyer, has been found murdered near Ross, on the Western borders of the Forest of Dean. He had been stabbed in the eye, the weapon passing through the brain, and fracturing the back of the skull. James Greenhaf is M custody on suspicion.

Mary Ann Parr, a single woman, who was an inmate of Bingham Work- house in Nottingham, has killed her infant in a most revolting manner : according to her own confession, while the child was sucking her breast, she squeezed its face so tightly to her bosom and held it so long in that position that it was suffocated ! She had several times refused to suckle the infant ; and she appears to have destroyed it that she might get rid of the task.

A woman named Antcliffe, living at Norwell, near Newark, has been com- mitted for trial for the slaughter of a boy, two years old, her stepson. Her husband had several children when he married her ; she systematically ill- used them when he was from home ; and the little boy died from this mal- treatment.

The Coroner's Jury who sat on the bodies of the Blackburn, at Stafford, have found a verdict of " Wilful murder" against Moore, Kirwan, and Walsh; but they did not implicate Henry Blackburn, the son of the de- ceased, who had been previously committed for trial by the Magistrates.

Leeds is becoming notorious for highway robberies committed with brutal circumstances. Many persona have suffered from thieves adopting the " garotte" system of overpowering them ; and now two eases are reported of men being pounced upon by a number of ruffians, knocked down, beaten and kicked, and then robbed.

I Mr. Dell, a Quaker confectioner at Bromsgrove, has been tossed in a blanket by the boys of the public grammar school there, who had a grudge against him. While their master was absent, they sent for Mr. Dell on a pretence; seized and bound him, and then tossed him in a blanket or rug for half an hour.

A passenger-train has run into a goods-train on the Midland Railway, near Leeds, in consequence of the negligence of a pointsman, who turned the second train on to a line of rails without having first ascertained that the preceding one had moved away. The driver of the passenger-train was thrown off the engine, much out and bruised ; and several passengers were hurt.

Two men have been killed in a coal-pit at Shortwood, near Bristol, by a large quantity of water rushing in from an old pit now disused. The old pit -was on a much higher level than the new. More than sixty men were at -work at the time, but all were drawn up the shaft in safety except the two.

A man has been shot dead at Newcastle by misadventure with a contri- vance of his own to punish thieves. His room had been robbed ; he placed a loaded gun within, which would explode if the door were not opened with precautions known only to himself; one day he forgot to observe these, and he was slightly wounded in the leg. He then placed a large horse-pistol in -a somewhat different position ; his friends warned him of his danger, but he persisted ; again he neglected his precautionary tactics, and this time a bul- let went through his heart.

The recurring rains have produced floods anew. On Saturday last, there was such a flow, of water into the Tyne that two vessels were sunk in the -harbour, and numbers of others were damaged. Four men were drowned. At Carnarvon, a petty stream was so swollen that it washed down a high wall, and broke into the town ; much damage was done in the lower -parts of' houses, and some persons were in danger of drowning. A -mountain lake burst its boundaries near Penrhyn slate quarry ; several houses were swept away, and one man was drowned. In other parts of Wales, and in the island of Anglesea, much damage has been done. At Bangor a large stream flowed through the streets on Sunday morning, and people who had attended the service in the Cathedral had to be conveyed -home in coaches.