runiurinl.
A public meeting was held in the Manchester Town-hall on the 19th instant, remarkable as including men of all parties—Mr. Watts the Mayor, Lord Stanley, Mr. Aspinall Turner, Mr. James Platt, Colonel Wilson Patten, and Mr. Kershaw. The object of the meeting was to give a public recognition to the Cotton Supply Association recently founded in Manchester, with a view of decreasing the dependence of this country for its cotton-supply on the United States, and of promoting the development of the ample sources of supply in the Colonial and other dependencies of Great Britain. Lord Stanley said— Without wishing to overstate the case, he considered that our almost exclusive dependence on the United States for our cotton was neither desirable nor safe, however improbable it might be that the supply would be interrupted, either by war, by a social disturbance in the Southern States, or by a failure of the crop. This state of dependence was of comparatively recent origin, and it was increasing year by year. In considering how we were to remedy the evil, he by no means recommended exclusive attention to one part of the world, but, whatever we could do elsewhere, it was to British India that we must chiefly look. There we had the government in our hands, a people singularly docile, and not unfitted for industry, a command of labour which was practically unlimited, and vast districts comparatively if not wholly uncultivated.
Dr. Buist of Bombay, and Mr. T. S. Mort, late Member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, also addressed the meeting.
The "Commemoration" or general breaking-up festival at the University of Oxford was brought to a close on Wednesday, with the usual ceremonials in the Sheldonian Theatre. The undergraduates used their lungs with as much animation as formerly; but the cries this year, rarely political, have not much interest. The men who were received with the greatest amount of approving uproar were Sir Colin Campbell, Sir Fenwick Williams of Kars, and Dr. Livingstone. Upon the two former degrees were conferred last year : these were presented and admitted on Wednesday. Honorary degrees were this year conferred on Baron Hooschild the Swedish Minister, Mr. Dallas the American Minister, the Earl of Powis, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Sir John 31Neill, Sir Charles Nicholson Provost of the University of Sydney, Mr. Bother= Estcourt, Mr. Robert Stephenson, Mr. Isambart Brunel, Dr. Waagen, Director of the Museum of Pictures at Berlin, Dr. Livingstone, and Dr. Farr. The prize compositions were all read by their authors, except the Newdegate prize poem—" the Temple of Janus," by Mr. Philip Wonky, Scholar of Corpus Christi College. Mr. Worsley, too unwell to attend, was represented by a deputy. Fine weather has favoured the festivities of the week,
The Judge of the Bath County Court has decided that a locomotive steamengine employed to work a threshing-machine is "an implement of agriculture," and thus entitled to pass turnpike-gates without toll. The question has been the cause of much disputing before Magistrates in the locality, who decided against the claim of exemption from toll.
An atrocious murder has been committed at Ching,ford Hatch, a few miles from Woodford in Essex. Mr. Small, a farmer, accompanied by his wife, left home about half-past ten on Sunday morning to attend the parishchurch. Mrs. Mary White, an aged person, sister-in-law to Mrs. Small, was left in charge of the house. At twelve o'clock, Mrs. Emma Small, niece to Mrs. White, arrived from London on a visit ; receiving no answer when she knocked at the front-door, she went to the back of the house and entered by the garden. All the gates and doors were open. On entering the kitchen, she found her aunt lying in the doorway—her heed in the kitchen and her legs on the stairs. Thinking Mrs. White was in alit, Mrs. Small called in a neighbour, and the two lifted up Mrs. White : she was dead— her throat had been cut. On further examination, bruises were found on her body ; her clothes were torn.; she had evidently struggled with her murderer. Money, watches, and jewellery had been stolen from the house. No trace of the assassin could at first be found.
Mr. Edward Briggs, a manufacturer, and a Magistrate and Town-Councillor of Blackburn, has committed suicide, by hanging himself to a beam in the engine-house of one of his factories. Ile was a kind and charitable man, much respected by his workpeople.
During R thunder-storm last week, at Inkpon in Berkshire, two men were killed by the lightning. Martin, Buxey, and Palmer, were mowing when the storm came on ; one suggested that they should seek shelter under a tree ; Martin said that this was a most dangerous course, and he set out for a cottage' his companions persisted in going -under a tree. Half an hour later, they were found under the tree, dead; and Buxey's clothes were on IRELAND.
The Police of Dublin appear to have at length got hold of the murderer of Mr. Little, but not by any skill or tact on their part. On Wednesday last, Joseph Spollen was secretly denounced by his wife as the assassin. It would seem that Spollen had been threatening her with violence, and in revenge
she accused him of the murder. Spollen is a painter; he was employed at the Broadstone terminus, and his cottage is on the railway premises; he has a son, a lad, also employed on the railway. Shortly before the murder he had been engaged in painting Mr. Little's room. Suspicion fell on him as on others in the railway service, and his cottage was searched; but nothing was found at all criminatory. Mrs. Spollen now told the police, that on the night of the murder her husband came home with his clothes spotted with blood, but he daubed paint on the spots and thus concealed them. He told her that he had killed Mr. Little, seized the money, and escaped by the roof of the house. He brought home money in a bucket; he burnt his cravat and a pocket-book. A hammer and razor found in the canal were Spollen's : he was in great apprehension lest the razor should be recognized as his. The bag of money found in a tank had been placed there by him. So far a revengeful woman might easily have concocted a false story against her husband, merely ascribing to him acts many of which were publicly known. But Mrs. Spollen's testimony went further she told the Police that she had assisted her husband in secreting the money in two places; she indicated the spots—and there the money, was found. Deep down in a place used by the railway people as a water-closet, a little tub was found, apparently filled with red-lead—under the lead were bags of silver, amounting to 67/. 6s. It was very difficult to get at this tub —one person could hardly have succeeded in the task of secreting it. In another place higher up, between two walls, a bundle was found, containing coin and bank-notes to the amount of 132/. Os. 8id. The money was in parcels, as if just received from different stations. The money thus discovered and the sum found in the tank amount together to nearly 2501., leaving only some 40/. to be accounted for to make up the total taken from Mr. Little 's office. Mrs. Spollen gave up clothes which she says her husband wore on the night of the murder. After her denunciation of her husband she was kept in safe custody ; Spollen was arrested; the son also was secured, as he may be required as a witness. Spollen is a man of about forty-three, athletic., and has lost the sight of one eye. He bore a good character as e workman.
On Wednesday night, Spollen was charged at the Police-station with murder and robbery. His wife was present, and appeared to be much affected. She said, addressing him, "Confess your guilt, you unfortunate man : what I have done was to save your soul, and that you may repent of your crime." On the charge being read to him, he only said, "I deny it." He was then led back to his cell.
Having once obtained a clue, it is believed that the Police will be able to make out the case against Spollen quite irrespective of the wife's statement.,
SCOTLAND.
A lad of eighteen has been drowned in a quarry-hole near Glasgow under singular circumstances. Ile was swimming in a pool ; tired with the exertion, he stood upright ; the bottom of the pool had a thick bed of mud ; the lad began to sink in this ; in vain he strove to withdraw his feet and legs— his struggles only fixed him faster and deeper. No aid was immediately at hand. The sufferer sank so deep that at length the water was over his head. When a daring fellow plunged in and at great risk drew out the body, life was extinct.
Shetland has met with a heavy calamity : three fishing-boats belonging to That and one to North Movine have gone down in a gate or wind, and thewhole of the crews perished—no fewer than twenty-four men. It is supposed that the disaster has made at least sixty orphans.
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