2 JANUARY 1841, Page 8

SCOTLAND.

Mr. Drinkwater Bethune, who was one of the candidates for the re- presentation of the Kirkcaldy burghs, has retired for the present. He bag addressed a circular to the electors, from which it appears he will come forward on a future occasion. The Edinburgh Observer says that Colonel Ferguson will be returned without opposition ; though there has been a meeting at which the expediency of nominating Colonel Peyronnet Thompson was advocated. •

Mr. Gillon was entertained by his constituents at Falkirk last week ; Sir Gilbert Stirling of Larbert presiding. The Member's speech was of the apologetic kind that most of the Liberal Members have recently made to their constituents for not having done more in the past session. He expressed his regret at the conduct of the Government for not baying adopted means to remedy the evil of fictitious votes, and also for excluding Dissenters from the Bible-Board. He complained, "more in sorrow than in anger " ; and excused his support of the Ministers on the old plea that they served to keep out the Tories. He announced his intention of moving in the ensuing session for a Committee of in- quiry into the parochial system of Scotland, and for a grant to mechanics institutions and schools of art. If, he said, it should turn out that the battle of religious liberty has yet to be fought in Scotland, as the rejection of Mr. Black's claims to civic honours in Edinburgh on account of his religious opinions led him to believe was the case, he trusted they would not decline the contest. Mr. Gillon alluded to the chances of another election, and said, that though anxious to retire into private life, yet if they thought he could best fight for them the battle of independence, he would not shrink from that duty.

We are informed that the invitation to the Lord Advocate and Mr. Fox Maule to a public dinner, as an expression of the sense entertained of their exertions on behalf of the Church of Scotland, has already re- ceived upwards of three hundred signatures of gentlemen of all parties in Edinburgh alone.—Caledonian Mercury. [Mr. Fox Maule and Mr. Andrew Rutherford would be better employed in attending to their own civil duties, leaving the Church of Scotland to its proper spiritualities.] A meeting of Chartists was held at Inverness on Monday week ; at which Mr. Julian Harney, from London, was present, to call the at- tention of the people of Inverness to the condition of the working- classes. The small charge of twopence for admission, to defray the ex- penses, served as a damper on the attendance; not one hundred could be collected. Even those few were far from unanimous ; and a resolu- tion was proposed, to the effect that the Chartist leaders having advo- cated riot and disorder, and incited the working-classes to riot and re- bellion, had proved themselves the enemies of every class of society, and had mainly contributed to stop the gradual progress of safe and ra- tional reform. On this resolution, after a noisy discussion, the meeting divided ; when the majority appeared in its favour ; but the disorder became so great that the room was cleared by the Police.

The Royal Society of Edinburgh have voted the sum of NU to Sir John Robison in acknowledgment of his long services as General Se- cretary of the Society, from which office he has retired. The office .bas been filled by Sir John Robison for thirteen years gratuitously.

Two men were taken to the Glasgow Police-office a few days since, in the last state of physical exhaustion from cold and hunger: they died in the coarse of the night.

Two skinners in Jedburgh were tried before the Sheriff-Substitute, on Monday, for having stolen the skin of a horse, by opening the grave, in a field where, out of respect for past services, it had been deposited, with the skin and shoes on. The defendants were acquitted ; on the ground, as stated by the Sheriff, that as the relatives of a deceased person have no property in the body after interment, the same rule must be held to apply in the case of a dead horse, and that therefore the act charged was not theft.

The Bible presented by Barns to the " Mary " whom he celebrated in his poems, was lately recovered in Canada: it was last week received in Glasgow, and has been sent to be deposited in Ayr. The Bible is in two volumes, in a good state of preservation, and bears marks of having been well but carefully used. The poet's name has been nearly obliterated ; but the texts he inscribed upon them, and which are readily recognized to be in the hand of Burns by any one moderately ac- painted with his writing, are perfectly legible. Under his own name is a masonic mark, a triangular figure, which is also very distinct. One of the blank leaves contains a lock of Mary's hair. Mary Campbell died in Greenock, and lies buried in the West Churchyard, "without a stone to mark the whereabouts."