t jiltetropolis.

The City Commissioners of Sewers held their first meeting under the new act of Parliament on Tuesday. Mr. Simon was elected medical offi- cer for the City, during one year, and read a report on the sanatory state of the Metropolis.

He assured the Commissioners, that "it is quite impossible, in the present state of medical knowledge on the subject, to predict whether or not, with the warmth of approaching summer, the disease may develop itself in the city of Lon- don, and rage here even as severely as in Glasgow." However, it was his "strong opinion, that by the enforcement of the Gist and 105th clauses of the act, the Commissioners have within their control as good an antidote for the spread of fever as vaccination is for the infection of smallpox." He recommended the ab- solute prohibition of the practice, common in Newgate and Whitechapel markets, of slaughtering in underground cellars, where perfect cleanliness and ventilation are impossible.

The discussion on prison discipline which we last week mentioned as an intended sequence to Mr. Charles Pearson's lectures, was held on Monday and Tuesday, and has not yet terminated. Mr. Charles Pearson opened the proceedings on Monday by reading the following resolutions-

" 1. That the number of commitments and recommitments to prison in England and Wales on criminal charges has increased during the present century upwards of four hundred per cent, whilst population has increased only sixty-five per cent. -" 2. That sixty per cent of these commitments and recommitments are larce- nies, vagrancies, misdemeanours, juvenile offences, and other petty delinquencies, punished by short time sentences of imprisonment, varying from seven days to six months.

"3. That to habits of indolence, improvidence, and self-indulgence, the origin of a large portion of these offences may be traced; and, in the opinion of this meeting, the improvement in the beauty and comfort of our gaols, and the sub- stitution of short imprisonment for graver punishment, is the fruitful source of increase both of committed and recommitted prisoners; as English gaols no longer create either terror er shame' but are often regarded as a place of shelter for the unfortunate, and for the idle criminal a congenial home. " 4. That the elegant model gaol andhouse -correction at Reading, with its cellular system, is calculated, in the opinion of this meeting, further to increase the number of petty offenders within the range of its influence. By the rules of the goal hard 1bear is excluded. By this system so direct means of reformation, except religious teaching, are employed. Cellular separation is the only punish_ ment; and every prisoner is provided with a spacious, well-warmed, and ventilated cell, with an abundance of wholesome and palatable food without himself making a single effort to earn it, and with ten hours for sleep, and the remainder of his time at his own disposal, for instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic, or some light occupationsnot enjoined but only permitted, for his recreation and amuse- ment.

"5. That, in the opinion of this meeting, in order to check the increase of crime it is necessary that a total change of system should take place ,• that the aspect of our prisons should be made rather sad and repulsive than cheerful and attractive: and that not one shilling should be expended in the beauty or convenienceor strength of a prison more than is required for the health and security of the in- mates.

" 6. That while it ought to be an essential part of prison discipline to endeavour to eradicate the seeds of crime by the moral and religious instruction of prisoners, no system can be sound that does not attempt at the same time to counteract its proximate causes—indolence, improvidence, and self-indulgence--by endeavouring to create and confirm the antagonistic habits of industry, forethought, self-depend- ence, and self-control.

" 7. That besides the cost of building gaols the annual expenses of maintaining the criminal classes in the prisons of England and Wales amount to upwards of 400,0001., while their productive labour does not realize above 30,000/.

" 8. That eighty-three per cent of our male criminals annually committed are between the ages of fifteen and forty-five—the age when in a free condition men not only maintain themselves, but supply a large portion of the surplus labour and industry by which the females, the children, and other non-producing classes of the community are supported.

" 9. That the criminals in some of the American prisons entirely, and in France and Belgium nearly, maintain themselves and defray the charges of the adminis- tration by their own labour and industry, moved by the stimulants of rewards for exertion and good conduct. " 10. That while imprisonment is used as a means of punishing and reforming criminals, the interests of the honest portion of the community have a right to be regarded, by enforcing the prisoners' employment in productive labour, if it can be accomplished without detriment to other portions of the community.

"11. That John Howard, Archdeacon Paley, and Archbishop Whately, proposed, and Captain Maconochie has systematized and exemplified with success, a fdan for calling into full activity the productive powers of a prison population, by re- gulating the quality and quantity of the prisoners' diet, and extending or abridging the duration of their confinement, according to their labour, industry, and conduct in prison.

" 12. That in the opinion of this meeting, such a system of prison discipline applied to the cultivation of the land, would be adapted in this country to the punishment and reformation of the description of offenders which constitutes the principal portion of our criminal populatio ,n provided it were one of its funda- mental conditions that the labour should be severe, having reference to the age, sex, and strength of each individual, and that more bodily work should be ex- acted, with less bodily comforts, than the same quantity of work could procure in a state of freedom.

"13. That proofs have been tendered to this meeting by Mr. Charles Pearson, that 1,000 acres of suitable land may be purchased and enclosed in a wall as lofty and strong as the wall round Millbank Prison, and that a gaol with every requisite for the health and safe keeping of 1,000 prisoners may be erected, at less than 100/. per prisoner; being lass than one-half of the sum per prisoner which the Reading Model Gaol has cost. "14. That it has likewise been offered to be proved, that by the employment of the labour of the 1,000 prisoners, the ground may be cultivated by the spade, i the prison may be kept n repair, the prisoners may be clothed and fed, and a sufficiency of surplus productions may be disposed of nearly or entirely to defray all the charges of administration, from the superintendent to the lowest turnkey.

"15. That, without pledging itself to the accuracy of these statements in Mi- nute details, this meeting is of opinion there is so much palpable truth and sound sense in the proposal, that it ought to be subjected to investigation by a Par- liamentary Committee; and if it shall appear that such a result, or anything ap- proaching to it, can be realized, that measures should be taken to found establish- ments for carrying the project into execution; it appearing to this meeting, that a large portion of the criminal population of this country, if subjected to industrial and reformatory discipline in the way proposed, may be transplanted as free settlers, with advantage to this over-populated nation, as well as to the colonies to which they may be transferred. "1G. That petitions founded upon the foregoing resolutions be signed by the chairman on behalf of the meeting, and be presented to both Houses or Par- liament."

Mr. Pearson intimated that these resolutions were proposed for attack and opposition by all comers; after everybody who chose had advanced all the objections which they might be open to, he would reply; and then the final opinion of the meeting would be taken.

The Reverend John Field, chaplain of Reading Gaol, appeared as the champion of the separate system there pursued. He occupied three hours of the first evening in an elaborate criticism of the detailed objections which had been urged against the management of the model establishment under his care. His details and figures went to prove, that the results of the system had been misre- presented by Mr. Pearson; and that instead of increasing, it had so far reduced the average of crime in Berkshire, that, after deductions proper on account of special circumstances, the county now showed a lower average of crime than any district in the kingdom of similar population. He ex- plained too the causes of the great apparent cost—architectural failures, and experiments not essential to the scheme: allowing for these, the cost was reduced to half what Mr. Pearson had charged against it. He wound up with an eloquent general discourse on the principles of the "Berkshire system,"—which were seclusion as a punishment, labour as a relaxesion, and Scriptural instruction as a corrective.

On Tuesday, Mr. Pownall, Chairman of the Middlesex Magistrates, declared himself in favour of the principle of separate confinement before trial; the effect of which might be somewhat seen in the fact that more than half the juvenile offenders in Middlesex now plead guilty.

Mr. Rotch, the Middlesex Magistrate, abhorred the Coldbathfields system of silence and congregation. He thought Mr. Pearson's resolutions contradictory, but his plans commendable, and, with modification, capable of good use.

Captain Macenochie opposed the separate system, because though it made excellent prisoners, it did not fit men for returning into freedom and society. The congregated and mark system, though promising less, effected more: by placing subsistence- and liberty within the scope of the prisoner's own exertions, as things to be earned; it called out men's energies, moral:

and physical, their industry, self-control, and self-reliance, and fitted pri- soners to reenter society as improved men. Mr. Pearson's reply is to be given next Monday evening.

The Chartist Executive Council held a meeting on Wednesday, at the South London Chartist Hall, in Blackfriars Road. The meeting had been extensively placarded, and was fully attended. Mr. Julian Harney of the Northern Star was expected, but did not present himself. A Mr. Swain was therefore voted into the chair, and opened the business. He stated, that as possibly they might soon have a revolution, it was as well to be prepared what to do; and, in the event of their gaining the day, he advised them to have nothing to do with home colonies, and all that humbug, as advised by the Spirit of the Age and the Star newspapers. Projects were very plentiful ; Feargus O'Connor had put forth one, which he styled " The Landlord's Protector." Now they did not want any landlords at all; and their object was to get rid of them altogether; and should they accomplish a revolution, he advised them not to put up with waste lands and bits of rough, but to root out the present system entirely, for if they did not they would again be brought under subjection.

Other orators addressed the meeting, and urged them to enrol and renew the agitation for the Charter. The appeal, however, was not re- sponded to. "One by one," says the report in the Morning Chronicle, "their hearers gradually drew out of the room, and notwithstanding the pressing to sign of 400 persons, only six were enrolled."

In the Court of Common Plate on Monday, the proprietors of the Daily News obtained a rule absolute fora new trial in the case of Powell versus Bradbury and others; on the ground that the verdict was against evidence.

At the Middlesex Sessions, on Monday, the Haymarket Derby sweep case came before the Bench. One Casey, it may be remembered, was convicted by the Bow Street Magistrate of an offence against the Lottery Act, and sentenced to a month's imprisonment; Casey gave notice of appeal. Since the conviction, how- ever, he has memorialised the Home Secretary, acknowledging that he had no defence to the charge against him, and appealing for mercy. This being the first ease prosecuted at the instance of the Government, Sir George Grey thought a lenient course might be pursued; so on Monday the conviction was formally affirmed, but the defendant was only ordered to enter into his own recognizanc.es to appear for judgment if called upon; Mr. Bodkin announcing that in any future case the law would be rigorously enforced.

At the Mansionhonse, on Wednesday, Thomas Ford was reexamined on a barge of uttering a forged check for 300/. upon Smith, Payne, and Smiths' bank. It purported to be signed by Mr. Blackburn, a wine-merchant of Mark Lane; the punted check was from a forged plate. Ford made use of a porter named Taylor, in the endeavour to get the check cashed: he pretended to engage Tap- er for Mr. Blackburn's service, and then sent him to the bank; but the cheek was not paid. Ford had been disguised in his interviews with Taylor, and called himself "Mr. Thompson." The evidence in this case was complete, but Ford was not at once committed on it, as there was another charge against him.

In April last a forged check for 4341. was passed at Lubbock's; two men were arrested at Brussels with the proceeds of the crime on them; and they were tried and convicted. That fraud was performed by pretending to hire a porter, who took the check to the bank. George Thomas was the unconscious instrument; he received the check from a person calling himself Jackson, and gave him the proceeds; and he now recognized in Ford the quondam "Jackson." The pri- soner was remanded.

O'Brien, the man implicated in the attempted fraud on the North-western Rail- way Company, was captured on Wednesday.

At the Lambeth Police-office, on Thursday, Ann Walsh, a middle-aged woman, dressed as a widow, was charged with stealing ninepennyworth of beef-steak. On her person 91. 8s. in gold and silver were found. She was fined 51.

Joseph Cushway, a youth living near Bishopsgate Street, has shot his sweet.. heart, Emma Tyler, a girl of nineteen, apparently in a fit of jealousy. A bullet grazed the flesh of the head, but the girl is rapidly recovering. Cushway has been utterly prostrated by remorse since he committed the crime. The Lord Major has sent him to prison for triaL The Westminster Magistrate is in some difficulty with respect to money sent to him for the distressed family of the deceased artist Williams: a brother Ma- gistrate has informed him that the father and children were formerly charged with felony, that the boy and girl had been convicted, and that in another instance a person declined to prosecute the girl for theft on account of the distress of the family. On Monday, Mr. Broderip announced that he wished the contributors to the fund to give him fresh instructions as to the disposal of it: there was no doubt of the extreme distress of the people.

The Magistrates are daily sending begging impostors to prison, that they may stiffer that which they heartily abhor—hard work.

Many important deeds have been dug out of the ruins of the burnt chambers in Lincoln's Inn, in a perfect state: plate and other articles of value have also been recovered.

Mary Bedford Howells, a young married woman, in Wells Street, Oxford Street, has died of a wound in the breast. She had quarrelled with her husband, and there is a doubt whether she or the man inflicted the wound, though before her death she said it was her own act ; which the husband also avers. At the in- quest, a surgeon expressed an opinion that the deceased could not have given her- self such a wound. All the witnesses spoke well of the man. In the verdict, the Jury described the cause of death, but said there was not sufficient evidence to show how or by what means the wound was inflicted.

The inquest commenced a fortnight since by Mr. Wakley on the four children of Holborn Union who died in the Royal Free Hospital within a few hours after their removal from Mr. Drouet's establishment at Tooting, was resumed and con- cluded on Tuesday. Many additional witnesses were called; but the evidence was cumulative rather than new. Mr. Withal!, Registrar of Deaths for Tooting, stated that he had re- gistered in all about 150 deaths from cholera in the Surrey Hall establishment. Ile, and Mr. Erasmus G. Livesey, a schoolmaster of Tooting, deposed that the average health of Tooting was good. Mr. Lovich and Dr. Grainger explained and adhered to their original evidence: the latter declared that if he had known all that he had heard during the inquest, he should have insisted more strongly on the insufficiency of diet as one of the causes of the cholera outbreak.

Five additional gentlemen gave medical testimony,—Mr. Whitfield, medical officer of the Holborn Union, who removed the children from Tooting; Dr. Thomas f:ebill Peacock, Dr. Alfred Garrod, Mr. Thomas Carr Jackson, and Mr. Wil- liam Marsden, medical officers of the Royal Free Hospital. These gentlemen were unanimous in attributing the deaths now the subject of inquiry to poisonous in- fluences received at the Tooting establishment, and in attributing the outbreak of disease there to overcrowding of the children and insufficiency of their diet and ,clathing. One witness, Mr. Marsden, differed from his professional brethren in ,als view of the disease: he deemed the deaths to have been cases of asphyxia aura want of sufficient air: and he quoted other instances in which the concur- lance of similar circumstances had produced similar wholesale results. In Dub- 1111, the Maternity Hospital received 7,700 children in four years, and 2,792 of tla,osa died of disease similar to the present: want. of veotaation was traced out as uae cause; improved' arrangements reduced the fatality during a subsequent

period of four years to 299. At Norwood, a great mortality arose from the same cause, and was similarly arrested. Mr. Marsden gave pathological reasons also for denying the disease to be cholera; but he concurred with the other medical men in his statement as to the specific causes of the disease and deaths. He gave some singular but signifi- cant statistics. Taking twenty-five of the Holborn boys from Tooting, whose ages amounted to 255 years, and 25 boys from the Welsh Hospital, whose ape amounted to 259 years, he found these comparative results. The total weight of the Tooting boys was 1,339 lb., that of the Welsh boys 1,516 lb. The aggregate measure of the Tooting boys round the arm was 162 inches; that of the Welsh boys 180 inches. In size round the abdomen the Tooting boys measured 595 inches; the Welsh boys, only 567 inches. The last fact was in remarkable con- currence with the preceding facts: a protuberant abdomen, thin limbs and low scrofulous habit, characterized all the Tooting children. Measurements of the dormitories gave but 133 square feet of air for each child's respiration : the air must have been so impure in one of the girls' rooms that a candle placed on the floor would most likely have gone out before morning. Mr. Ballantine called as a witness one Porter, who dealt out the rations to the boys, and who thought the boys "seemed satisfied "; and he put in evidence the certificates of visitations made by the Holborn Guardians, every one of them couched in terms of approval.

Mr. Wakley summed up at great length. He went in succession through the inculpatory case that arose out of the evidence, against each and all of the per- sons connected with the placing and keeping of the children in the Tooting es- tablishment. It was first to be regretted that a more specific contract had not been made between the Guardians and Mr. Drouet: in this case the contract was vaguely to be gathered from letters, resolutions, and conversations; it existed- nowhere in a separate and exact form; though a general and certain understand- ing was come to, that Mr. Dronet was to adequately maintain, clothe, and lodge the children, for a sum per week, which was liberally agreed on and punctually paid. He thought the Guardians as a body, had done all they could, and were not legally responsible. The Visiters, too, he thought free from legal responsibility, though their duty had been done in a slovenly inefficient manner. The Poor-law Commissioners were protected by the loose legislation under which they held their powers; by the construction of the Poor-law they were absolved from legal re- sponsibility. Their servant Mr. Hall must be placed in the same category, though he was certainly not to be complimented on the manner in which he had dis- charged his duty. Mr. Kite was also to be acquitted, although he had not per- haps acted with the greatest energy or the highest skilL Mr. Wakley examined at some length the incriminatory bearing of the evidence against Mr. Dronet. He gave his opinion, speaking medically, and with astonishment that there should be any doubts on the point—that the children had been over-crowded and under-fed and clothed; and -he asked, did the children lose their lives from those causes ? If so, he put it to the Jury, whether those causes arose out of circumstances over which Mr. Dronet had control or not. If he had, Mr. Drouet was respon- sible to the law.

The Jury retired at ten o'clock in the evening; and after an hour's delibera- tion, returned with the following verdict, which they had unanimously agreed on- " That Bartholomew Peter Dronet is guilty of manslaughter ; and the Jury have to add, that the Guardians of St. Andrew's parish, Holborn, acted most negligently trt their engagement with Mr. Drouet, and also with regard to their visit to his establish- ment. They regret that the Poor-law Act is quite insufficient for the purposes for which it is intended ; and hope that the time is not far distant when the necessity for such establishments as Mr. Drouet's will entirely cease."

Mr. Drouet had left the inquest-room shortly before the Jury retired, and Mr. Wakley immediately issued a warrant for his arrest.

In the Bail Court, on Wednesday, Mr. Ballantine obtained from Mr. Justice Erie a rule Nisi to show cause why Mr. Bartholomew Peter Drouet, against whom a Coroner's Jury had found a verdict of "Manslaughter," should not be ad- . mitted to bail. It was understood that Mr. Drouet would surrender to the Coro- ner's warrant today; and the rule will then be argued.