Zbe Vrobintts.

The reelection of Lord Morpeth for the West Riding of Yorkshire took place on Saturday, in the Town-hall at Wakefield. After being duly nominated by Lord Milton, and seconded by Mr. Hamer Stansfeld of Leeds, Lord Morpeth addressed the electors in a speech characterized by his usual kindly feelings and liberality of views. He entered at consider- able length into the Sugar question; a consideration of personal consistency being in his case mixed up with it-

" I do not know whether it may be in your recollection, that at the period of my last election I declared, in the neighbouring yard, that whilst I professed my- self a willing votary of the doctrines and consequences of free trade, I did not think myself bound to identify those doctrines and principles with what I called, I believe, the blood-red flag of the slave-trade.' Now, I know when I consented , to join the Government of which Lord John Russell was the chief, and of which his colleagues were the component parts, that I did consent to join a Cabinet which sooner or later would repeal any difference of duty in the admission of slave-grown or of foreign-grown sugar. I hope I have not done what was wrong. s s If I had been really convinced in my own naind tbat the difference of the duty on free or slave-grown sugar did really affect in a positive degree the encouragement) the extension or the continuation of slavery and the slave- trade, I trust, however willing I might have been upon all other grounds to act with my colleague?, still that there would have been nothing so peculiarly gratifying in my eye in the possession of office—there would have been nothing so dazzling to my ambition, even in charge of her Majesty's Woods and Forests—as should have induced me to have been false to my foremost con- victions, or to have abandoned for those considerations' or for any considerations, the cause of the suffering slaves. But my faith in the practicability of really benefiting the slave' or of influencing the continuation of the slave-trade by any such differential duties as at present exist, has become very much shaken." Lord Morpeth then adverted to those treaties under which the slave-grown sugars of Venezuela and the United States are admitted on the terms "of the most favoured nation' " and to the treaty with Spain bearing on the same sub- ject, and from whieh England only extricated herself by "a quibble." He pro- ceeded—" Well, then, I greatly doubt whether we are warranted, as a matter of principle, in enforcing the principle of exclusion against one country, when we take other slave-grown produce from almost all the remaining countries, and when we take other slave-grown produce, and except only this one. article of sugar from Brazil itself, more especially when we should be at the same time depriving our own population of an article which. conduces so much to their health, their comfort, and their enjoyment; . and when we are embroiling and embarrassing our own commercial deal- ings with a country which exports so largely of our own manufactures. Still I thought—I hope you all excuse me if I appear to dwell a little longer upon this subject than may perhaps seem necessary, but I feel that it is due in some respect to my own position and character—(Cheers)--still I felt that, if we were really to aggravate the horrors of the slave-trade, those considerations ought not to prevail. But when it was made clear to me, that in ordinary years we have no demand at all for all the free grown sugar which is produced for the market of the world, and that when free-grown and slave-grown sugar meet in the general market of the world the same article can only have one price, and therefore, that the only effect of one portion of that general market (such a petition as this country compared with the rest of the world) confining itself only to a part of the free-grown sugar, and sending the rest to mix with the slave-grostri sugar in the general market, would be to drive the slave-grown sugar into other places in- stead of the portion of free-grown sugar which they would send to us,—when I saw that this was the effect, I saw that we were really contributing to raise the ptit of the slave-grown sugar at the expense of the free; and, therefore, that for e` principle which militated against the whole of the remaining principles of -free' trade, we were pursuing a very doubtful course even as concerned the encourage- ment of the slave-trade itself. I felt, therefore, that even on this matter, as on all others, the time was come when I might commit myself without reserve to the general and universal principles of free trade."

Mr. William Brown was elected on Tuesday, at Newton, to represent South Lancashire, in the room of Lord Francis Egerton, created Earl of Ellesmere. Mr. Hyde Greg, of Manchester, was the proposer, and Mr. Ewart, of Liverpool, the seconder. The proceedings throughout were of the true Free-trade character.

An influential public meeting was held at Liverpool on Wednesday,:—. Mr. Brown, the new Member for South Lancashire, in the chair,—to ate- morialize the Government on the subject of the present postal arrange- ments to and from Liverpool. The proceedings expanded from a local to a general character. Mr. Jeffrey spoke of Mr. Rowland Hill as the only man fit to administer with advantage the great reform of which he was the author. The same idea was embodied in one of the resolutions: it incor- porated this assertion- " That a Post-office system carried to the utmost possible perfection, at what- ever cost short of actual waste, would yield a larger revenue than has hitherto been derived from each a source; and therefore it appears most desirable, on every. account—moral, social, commercial, and fiscal—that the whole of Mr. Rowland Hill's plans of Post-office management should be carried into immediate effect, with all such further improvements as experience and new facilities may suggest, and that it is the opinion of this meeting that the services of Mr. Rowland Hill' himself, in perfecting the Post-office system, would be extremely valuable to the country."

The Archaeological Institute commenced its meetings for 1846 on Thurs- day, at York, under the presidency of Earl Fitzwilliam.

At York Assizes, yesterday week, John Rodda, an Irishman who lived at Ski ton, was tried for the wilful murder of his daughter, an infant twelve months old. The child died from vitriol or some each poison having been given to it the man had bought some vitriol; he had been left with the child just before it became ill and vomited a corrosive substance; • and he had remarked to people that he would get a sum of money from a burial society if the infant died. Wilds had other children entered in such societies, and used to talk of what he should got if they died. The prisoner was found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged.

Robert Knowlson was tried for the murder of his father, at Kirk Brarnwith by beating him on the head with a clock-weight It appeared from the evidence Let the crime was committed in a fit of furious insanity; and that the new had been

deranged for many years, without, as it appears, any sort of restraint being placed on him. The Jury found a verdict accordingly.

At the Cambridge Assizes, on Monday, three young men and two lads were tried for setting fire to a house at Soham, on the 28th Jane. The fire was con- ceived to have been wilful, like many others which have occurred in the town, and suspicion fell upon the prisoners. The evidence was circumstantial; and all were acquitted.

On Tuesday, the two Harveys were tried for causing the recent very extensive fire at Soham. The particulars of the suspicions agamst them have been lately

stated. At the trial, the evidence was inconclusive; in fact, on one material point it was in favour of the younger prisoner. The Judge, with the consent of the prosecuting counsel, stopped the case; and a verdict of acquittal was recorded. Thomas Badcock was indicted for firing a stack of straw at Burwell. There was every probability of a conviction, when it was discovered that the stack of "-straw" was really one of sedge and rashes; and the culprit thus slipped through the meshes of the law.

Another man was tried for arson at Waterbeach, a place where many fires oc- curred till the prisoner absented himself. The evidence was weak, and a verdict of "Not guilty' was returned.

At the Maidstone Assizes, on Thursday, the four boys who attempted to over- turn a train on the Whitstable Railway, by .putting pieces of iron and wood on the rails, were tried for that offence: the train passed over one chain, and then a search was made, which doubtless prevented a disaster. Two of the boys were found guilty; the others were acquitted.

A correspondent of the Times signing himself "A Passenger," relates a colli- sion that occurred on the South-eastern Railway on Saturday night, which appears to have been the result of gross mismanagement. "The mail-train ought to have left the London Bridge terminus at half-past eight p.m. on Saturday: the train did not start until about twenty minutes after its time; and it continued getting a little more behindhand at every station until it arrived at Paddock Wood. The engine had just been put in motion to leave that spot, when a special train, which was said to be bringing Mr. Macgregor, the chairman, and a party of the directors, from a dinner-party at Maidstone, proceeded to cross from that branch on to the up-rails of the line to London. A collision accordingly took place with the down-train; which, though comparatively slight, was sufficient to throw the engine from Maid- stone off the rails, and across the line, where it caused an impediment to the fur- ther progress of any train either one way or the other. The passengers in the train from London sustained a very severe shock, and many of those in the car- riages near the engine were much bruised by the concussion. One gentleman re- ceived the head of another on his mouth, causing the knocking out of one of the former's teeth, and a smart blow to the latter. Fortunately, there was no serious injury done • but if the accident had occurred a few seconds later, the Maidstone engine must have run into the very midst of the carriages of the train from London." There was a delay of an hour and three-quarters at the station: daring this time, the rain was falling incessantly, and the third-class passengers were compelled to sit in their open carriages and be drenched. "There is no doubt that the casualty was the result of the most shameful carelessness. The train from London was, in the first place, long after the time at which it should have passed the Paddock Wood station. In the next place, it was allowed to start without the usual signal of ringing the bell; and on one of the servants of the company being asked the reason of this, he replied, that the bell was not always rung as a signal for starting." A rather laughable thing happened with respect to the electric telegraph: the clerk at Paddock Wood made some signal upon it, and then left the station without waiting for a reply; presently, the alarum-bell of the telegraph began to ring, and no one answering, it continued to ring inces- santly. At one o'clock the train started: at Ashford there was a delay of fifty minutes in obtaining an engine to take the Ramsgate train. At this station the telegraph-bell was still ringing !—the man who could have read and worked the machine was gone to bed: apparently, the bells were ringing all down the line for burs. The train reached Ramsgate three hours past its time.

An accident fatal to two persons occurred on the Midland Railway last week. A party of the members of the Leeds Mechanics and Literary Society set out on an excursion by rail to Wentworth House, the seat of Earl Fitzwilliam. Before the train got up to the Barnsley station, the steam was turned off for the purpose of stopping on arrival at the station; but the engine-driver, finding that he had turned the power off a little too soon, put it on again, which caused a sudden jerk to the carriages: two men were incautiously standing on the seats of a third-class carriage- the jerk threw one over the aide of the carriage, and in falling he clutched his companion; both fell on to the roadway, and the train passed over them. One ffied on the spot, and the other two days after.

The inquest on the body of Clarke, the Policeman who was murdered at Da- genham, was resumed on Thursday. Nothing of much real importance came out in the evidence. Policeman Kempton was accused of stating falsehoods in his testimony; but the motive could not be discovered. A woman named Dodd said she saw deceased on the night of the murder in a field at Dagenham with "a tall man in a fustian coat"; that man she had seen before in the fields at Rom- ford. The inquiry was adjourned for a month.

Norris, the head gamekeeper to Lord Ward at Himley, who was shot by Hull another gamekeeper, during an altercation, has died of the wound. Hull has been committed to prison on a charge of murder.

Ward, a milkman living at Gloucester, was cutting grass in a field, the other day, when he observed three little boys sitting on the bank of a brook which runs through the ground: he ordered them away; as they passed him, he made a cut at one with his scithe striking the point into the lower part of the boy's back, so that the bowels protruded. The life of the sufferer is in danger. 'Ward is of a morose disposition; and he had been irritated by lads trespassing on his field to bathe in the brook.

About a month ago, a man hanged himself at Cowbridge, in Wales. Last week, his son, a child seven years old, was found dead, hanging from the same beam as that on which the father had suspended himself. It is supposed that the boy, having had his curiosity excited by the remarks of people on his father's suicide, wished to try what hanging was like.