25 MARCH 1837, Page 7

The General Shipowners Society had their annual meeting on Times-

day, at the City of London Tavern ; Mr. George Frederick Young in the chair. The report of the Committee was read ; and we gather from it that the shipowners are doing pretty well—at any rate, they grumble less than usual. Their chief anxiety seems to be the preser- vation of the timber-duties. The Committee express "their undi- minished conviction of the fatal consequences fiat would result to the shipping interests from any measure calculated to transfer the supply of timber from the British North American colonies to the Baltic, and their consequent determination to meet any such proposition with their most strenuous and uncompromising opposition."

A new political society, to be called " the East London Democratic Association," is projected, apparently on the model of the " Working Men's."

The Vestry of St. Luke's, on Thursday, passed resolutions con- demning the conduct of Dr. Rice, curate of this parish, who was recently fined for riotous conduct while performing the burial-service in the parish churchyard. The Vestry also called upon the Rector, the Reverend Trefitsis Lovell, to pay more attention to his paro- chial duties himself, or to provide more curates.

A new theatre is announced to be opened, on Monday next, called the " New City Theatre," situate in Norton Feticide, three doors without the City boundary.

A fire broke out about nine o'clock on Tuesday morning, in the printing-house of Mr. Spottiswoode, New Street, Shoe Lane. The persons employed in the establishment were most of them gone to breakfast, and the fire was first discovered by a man in the employment of Mr. Richard Taylor. Many engines arrived very soon ; and as there was a good supply of water, the fire was extinguished in about an hour. It appears that the flames were confined principally to one room on the ground flour, called the ware-room, where a large quantity of printed sheets were stored. Among those which were destroyed, the penny-a-line gentlemen have been careful to tell us, we know not on what authority, were Byron's works, Lardner's Cyclopadia, several new publications of Messrs. Longman, Murray, and Bentley, and the Statutes at Large—the last could not be very valuable. Mr. Spottis- woode is said to be fully insured.