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111th election took place on Tuesday ; and the citizens chose the Libe- ral candidate, Captain &obeli, in preference to their own Conservative Alderman, Mr. Sutcliffe. The numbers were—for Scohell, 1109; for Sutcliffe, 1041; majority, 69. The representation has again reverted to the complexion which it showed before the parenthesis of philanthropic Conservatism under Lord Ashley, in the hearty political Liberalism of Mr. Roebuck.
The Diocesan Synod convened by the Bishop of Exeter has met, and gone through the ecclesiastical deliberation fixed by its programme. The only full account has appeared in the Morning Chronicle ; the Bishop having, as the Standard vexedly declares, "excluded the reporters for the public press, with the single exception of a semi-Papistic morning jour- nal:" But the account of the Chronicle, though expanded to great bulk by the insertion of the Bishop's address, the declarations which were put before the Synod, and those same declarations as they were amended and eked by the Synod, has very little of a descriptive or popular interest. The Dean and some of the Chapter declined to attend, but of the thirty. two rural deaneries only two refused to send delegates. There were pre- sent seventeen dignitaries, canons and prebendaries, seven officials, twenty-nine out of thirty-two rural deans, and fifty-eight representatives of the rural deaneries—total, one hundred and eleven diocesan ecclesias- tics. Sonic apprehensions were felt on Tuesday that a popular ferment would arise, and violence be done to the Synod; but the Mayor of Exeter called on the Bishop and assured him that no apprehension need be felt—good arrangements had been made. The proceedings began on Wednesday, with divine service in the Cathedral ; which was attended by a crowded and attentive congregation. The litany was "beautifully intoned "; Chancellor Harington read the com- munion; Archdeacons Froude and Moore Stevens read the Epistle and Gospel ; and the Reverend George Hole, Prebendary, and Rector of Chumleigh, preached a sermon on the text " Hold fast the form of sound words," taken from the first chapter of Paul's First Epistle to Timothy. The Synod was held in the Chapterhouse' a fine oblong room of pure style of pointed architecture, used as the Cathedral library. "The Bishop's chair was at the head of a long table, the Archdeaeons sat on the right and left, and the other members of the Synod ranged themselves as in chapter on each side of the Chapterhouse." The reporter adds, with fervour—" The affecting sight of the Bishop and so many clergy and laity communicating in the holiest mysteries of the gospel formed an apt intro- duction to the Synod." After special prayers, and the enumeration of the "Synods-men," the Bishop delivered his address ; an historical vindication of Diocesan Synods, the legitimate means of restoring and vindicating the rights of the inferior clergy. After the address, were read those declara- tions of faith with regard to baptism &c., the making of which was the os- tensible reason put forward after the Gorham decision for assembling the Synod. The declarations had been touched and retouched in details more than once, and suggestions were made in the Synod for furtheramendments. The Synod deliberated on the amended documents, and seemed prepared to adopt them ; but the time of " even song" having arrived, their adoption was postponed. A declaration that the appointment of a see of Plymouth by the Pope " is schismatical and void—setting up altar against altar in our diocese, and usurping the primacy of England"—was unanimously adopted. On Thursday, the declaration on baptism, as finally arranged, was "unanimously adopted." Yesterday the proceedings were chiefly discussions on the subjects of education and religious catechizing. Satis- factory resolutions were adopted on those matters. The proceedings com- menced on Thursday and Friday with services, as on Wednesday ; and they concluded yesterday with solemn ceremonial forms. "The Synod then dissolved, and its members departed, as they came, in peace."
The inhabitants of Derby gave a public dinner on Saturday to their townsman Mr. Fox of the firm of Fox, Henderson, and Company, the builders of the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. Mr. Douglas Fox presided; Mr. Bass, M.P., Mr. Heyworth, M.P., Mr. Edward Strutt, and Mr. Pax- ton, were among the leading guests of a party of about one hundred and fifty. Mr. Fox acknowledged the toast of the evening in a speech re- tracing the main incidents of Mr. Paxton's conception and his own exe- cution of the building which is now become famous through the world. Two of his statements were new and striking : the drawings of the building occupied Mr. Fox himself personally "about eighteen hours a day for seven weeks "—he did them all with his own hand ; and when the work was well afoot, he says, "at one period we fixed as much iron- work every day as would be required in a roof of extent equal to the pas- senger-station of Derby, which is one of the largest in the kingdom."
About forty men and boys have been placed in imminent peril by an ac- cident in a coal-pit at Bedminster, near Bristol, belonging to Messrs. Goal- ston and Co. The pit was sunk about eight years ago ; it is very deep, but very free from water and choke-damp. The main shaft extends 810 feet down ; but at some yards along the workings of the top-seam a second ad-
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ditional shaft called a tip-shaft s sunk from the upper into the lower seam: workings are being opened into still deeper seams. At eleven o'clock last Friday morning, an ascending coal-truck knocked away the timber framing, and caused the sides of the shaft to fall in and completely choke the bottom of the main shaft up above the horizontal working in the upper seam. The news soon spread, and the pit-mouth was crowded with the relatives of the poor miners who had been engulphed. One woman sat on the ground fran- tically crying that her father' uncle, brother, husband, and son, were all buried alive. The attempt to rescue the miners was instantly com- menced, but it was perilous and slow. Only three men could work at once, and they were in constant danger from the looseness of the shaft-sides, whence masses of soil continued to full. Mr. Knight, pro- prietor of an adjacent pit, went down first, and then men were set to work : but everybody, feared that the task was hopeless, for the ven- tilation of the mine would be stopped, or checked, so as to destroy all life in a few hours. It was evening of that day before they could communicate with two men in the upper seam ; and when food had been sent down to them, it still seemed impossible to get them out, for they were too weak tee cling to ropes, and nobody would volunteer to go down and assist them. "Mr. Goulstone looked round the crowd and said, Will no one try to save them ? ' when a modest-looking, indeed rather an effeminate-looking youth, named James North, said, will' ; and soon after he did enter the bucket, over which powerful shields had been fixed, and descended to the men!' Silence was strictly enjoined, and attention was stretched for the signal to haul up. At length the signal was received, and in a few minutes the men appeared, weak and exhausted. They stated that the air was so bad that no. candle could be got near the "tip-shaft," leading to the lower seam. One of them felt sure that all below must be dead ; the other still hoped, and thought exertions should be made. James North again volunteered ; and, encouraged by his example, five other men now offered to go down. They laboured to restore the ventilating apparatus; but were driven up again without any success. North had crept to the edge of the tip-shaft, and shouted and hammered for several minutes; but got no answer. North's idea of hammering was admirable : the buried miners might have heard the stroke, and thought it the sound of helping comrades with rescuing-tools when the human voice would be unheard in the subterranean depths. But North got no signal of life in return. The labour was continued, and at last the ventilation was enough restored to allow the men to erect a windlass,- and lower North down the "lip-shaft." He found the miners alive, huddled together near the blocked-up main shaft, engaged in prayer. They had. worked for hours endeavouring to clear the main shaft—had carried tons a the debris into the workings ; but their lights went out, and they gave. themselves themselves up for lost. Crowding to the fresh earth in the main shaft, which gave out fresher air for breathing, they. prayed to God. The scene at the- pit-mouth, as they appeared among thew relatives one by one, nearly life- less with exhaustion, was affecting. None were dangerously ill, and all, would soon recover.
Two accidents have occurred on the North-western Railway. Between. Crewe and Warrington, an engine left the rails, dragging a number of car- riages after it; the locomotive sank in the earth to its axles, and stopped. The passengers escaped with a fright and a few bruises. Men bad been at work upon the rails, and an inquiry is proceeding whether they left any rails. out of place. On Saturday, while a train was proceeding Northwards, the luggage on, the top of a carriage caught fire. Mr. Crampton, engineer of the Submarine Telegraph, who was proceeding with Mr. Paxton, Mr. Bass, and Mr. Coch- rane, to Mr. Fox's dinner at Derby, got outside the carriage, and clambered forward till he attracted the guard's attention. Thanks to this gentleman'a courage, the passengers escaped with no worse consequence than scorched clothes and a few blisters from the burning fragments.
Parts of Lancashire, principally the towns and villages on the Cheshire border, suffered much from a storm on Saturday evening—lightning, hail, rain, and wind, mingled in frightful uproar. Buildings and trees were blasted by the lightning or blown down, and altogether very serious damage was in- flicted. At one place a child was struck dead by lightnine-' in its mother's arms, while the mother's neck and arms were scorched. Similar accidents occurred in other places.
A young man has been killed by lightning at a mill at Toft Monks in Es- sex. The lightning dashed the mill-sails to pieces, and struck down several persons.
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