i4t Vruniutto.

The South Staffordshire election has resulted in the return of Lord Paget by a triumphant majority. The official statement of the poll, on Monday, was—Paget, 4328; Ingestre, 2769. The announcement of the numbers was received with exulting cheers.

Mr. W. E. Powell, Member for Cardiganshire, has announced to his constituents his intention of retiring from Parliament/my life.

Mr. Henry Wyndham, son of Colonel Wyndham, was elected, on Mon- day, Member for West Sussex. Mr. Whitehouse, of the Ballot Society, was nominated, but the nomination was withdrawn.

Mr. Lawrence Palk was elected Member for South Devon on Tuesday. Sir Stafford Northcote withdrew from the contest.

The advocates of secular education have gained a sort of negative vic- tory in the Manchester City Council. On Wednesday, Alderman Hey- wood proposed a string of resolutions, the practical bearing of which was, that any legislation upon the subject of education ought not to be special or local, but general, and ought to be proposed by Government ; and, "without giving an opinion on the principle or details" of the Man- chester and Salford Bill, the concluding resolution protested against its introduction into Parliament as a private bill, and instructed the Corpo- ration to oppose its progress.

The Duke of Newcastle is a real friend to the labouring people on his estates. At Worksop he has provided work for those in want of it, at good wages, in clearing and trenching furze-brakes, as a preparative to planting. In different ways he employs, at Worksop and Clumber, 250 people. He is building a village and lodginghouse in the Tudor style for some of his labourers at Hardwick, where extensive draining opera- tions are going on, converting wet land into irrigated meadows. The drainers are paid 3.1. a day. Farm-hands are paid 16s. a week, and have free cottages and other privileges.

The Norwich Jenny Lind Infirmary for the Sick having received the approval of the General Board of Health, will be opened for the reception of patients on the 25th of March. It was originally proposed to admit them on the 1st of January.

Up to Saturday some hundreds of operatives had resumed work at Preston ; but the great bulk of the workpeople still stood out. It had been incorrectly reported that Mr. Almond and Mr. Rodgett had given an advance equal to the 10 per cent demanded : in fact, the prices paid by these gentlemen in March last, and which they now pay, were considered by the operatives as satisfactory. On Monday, from the diminution in the number of claimants, the power-loom weavers' committee advanced the pay of the turn-outs from 48. to 58.

At Teignmouth, the Police asked for an increase of pay to meet the high price of provisions ; an addition of 2s. a week was granted to them, to be continued while the cost of necessaries is so great. The Devonport Dockyard riggers have received an increase of 28. a week. The Exeter Police have failed in their application for advanced wages. Lord Bridport is assisting the poor in his neighbourhood by supplying them with bread at sixpence the four-pound loaf, while the market price is ninepenee.

There is an unprecedented demand for coal throughout South Wales ; large quantities being required for the ocean-going steamers, while an ad- ditional impetus has been given by the contracts with Government for the supply of Welsh coal in the Baltic and Mediterranean.

At Leicester, last week, the number of in-door paupers was 584, while last year the total was only 202. Out-door applicants are also more numerous.

Pauperism has increased in Norwich to the extent of 20 per cent.

I A new railway station is about to be built at Lowestoft.

It is stated that a private joint-stock company has been formed for the purpose of establishing a line of powerful screw-steamers between Liver- pool and Australia. The first ship will be the Great Britain; and the others will be built on the same principle.

Lord Brownlow Cecil, son of the Marquis of Exeter, applied, on Wednes- day, at the Dover Insolvent Court, to be discharged from custody. His debts amounted to 13,1891.; for 8601. of which no consideration bad been received. He was twenty-six years of age, and had contracted no debts for the last five years. His insolvency was attributed to the heavy interest, premiums, and costs for loans of money, and to the insufficient sum, 2701. per annum, allowed by his father. It further appeared that he had lost money by bet- ting said turf transactions. He was unexpectedly arrested, on the 18th January ; having two days previously come over from Ostend. There was not a single tradesman's debt in the whole schedule. Some opposition was'

made, but disallowed by the Judge, or withdraw; and the insolvent was discharged forthwith.

Some little time since, a farm-labourer named Atlee, his wife, and three children, died at Waddington, a village near Croydon, in a rather sudden manner, and in rapid succession. Two medical men ascribed death to want of necessary sustenance and typhoid fever, the latter probably caused by the family's drinking water from a stagnant pond. A Coroner's Jury pronounced a veraict of "Natural death." Mr. Bottomley, a surgeon of Croydon, was not satisfied that the real cause of the mortality had been traced; he memo- rialized the Home Secretary ; Lord Palmerston took prompt measures - the body of Mrs. Atlee was exhumed, another inquest instituted, and the vb.. cera were sent to Professor Taylor, of Guy's Hospital, for analysis. Last week his report was laid before the Jury. He found no poison in the stomach or intestines, but in the liver he discovered arsenic • the arsenic had been absorbed by that organ; Mrs. Atlee had died from arsenic; effects of the mineral. The Jury, after hearing evidence respecting Mrs. Atlee's con- duct and language, gave this verdict—" Deceased caused her own death by taking poison (arsenic) ; but there was no evidence before them to show the state of her mind at the time she committed euicide." Souse personstdis- satisfied with this termination of the inquiry, intend to memorialize Lard Palmerston to have fresh inquests on all the bodies.

Tapner, who murdered Mrs. Saujon in Guernsey, was executed yesterday sennight. There was much bungling on the scaffold and the culprit suffered for a considerable time. Tapner was a young man, a native of Woolwich; he was clerk in the Engineer department at Guernsey, and had considerable attainments.

The reexamination of Mr. Weber; late cashier at the Liverpool sta- tion of the North-Western Railway, made the case against him very bad. He had said that a sum of 596/. deducted Dann the receipts he had trans- ferred to the East Lancashire Company's account, by order of Mr. Goalen ; but he subsequently admitted to Mr. Menu, travelling inspector, that he had sent 250/. of it to Mr. Goalen, and lent the rest to a friend, who would shortly return it. There was another deficiency of 251/. On this charge he was remanded ; but the Magistrate committedhim on the former.

A collision on the Eastern Counties line took place at Cambridge on Sun- day morning. Three cattleetrucks were destroyed and several bullocks were killed; but no human lives were lost. The collision was occasioned by a de- fect in the reversing apparatus attached to one of the engines and the ab- sence of a pointsman from his post.

A passenger-train on the Whitstable and Canterbury Railway has had a narrow escape. A train drawn by two engines ran into a siding, the points not having been properly adjusted ; the engines were precipitated over the end of the rails down a bank into a wood; but the guard screwed the breaks so firmly that he stopped the carriages from following.

By a boiler explosion at Brierley iron-works one man and three youths have been killed. The property destroyed is valued at 1000/. The owners are Messrs. Bradley and Co.

Mary Parvin, wife of a fisherman at Boston, has been found drowned in a small cistern. While she was trying to dip some water out with a jug, she overbalanced herself and fell in; the lid closing upon her leg and quite preventing her escape. Her body was found by her son, soon after the ac- cident.

Three men have been drowned in Park iron-mines, near Illverston by the breaking in of a pond situated over the workings. The water had been greatly increased by recent rains. Nine men managed to escape alive, though with difficulty.

Ninety-nine families of coal-miners have left Llanelly for Ohio, to work the vast coal-mines of the West Columbian Mining Company.

The Mormon converts who are leaving Wales are not all poor labouring people, but some are persons of substance. One gentleman of Merthyr has thrown 2000/. into the treasury of the "saints," and many others are selling their property that they may seek the American wilds.

En-atm.—The announcement last week, that public works had been commenced at Norwich and Wisbeach, was erroneous : works have been com- menced at Wisbeach only.