Miscellaneous.

Lord John Russell has issued the customary official circular to the Members of Parliament on the Ministerial side, inviting them to be punc- tual on the opening of the session.

Lord Stanley, as the Morning Post announces, " has addressed a circular to the Protectionist Members of the House of Peers, informing them that Parliament is to meet for the despatch of business on the 19th January; suggesting that matters of importance will, in all probability, be imme- diately brought under their consideration; and expressing a hope that it may consist with their Lordships convenience to give their attendance at the commencement of the session." " We need not remind our readers," adds the Poet, " that this is the usual course adopted by the recognized leader of a party."

It is rumoured in well-informed circles, that the most prominent place in Opposition during the ensuing session will be conceded to Lord Lincoln. The report, we imagine, must be considered to have reference rather to those who will occupy the seats opposite to the Ministerial benches than to any portion of the House of Commons disposed to treat the measures of the Government in a spirit of party hostility. Technically and as Ex- Ministerialists the Opposition, Lord Lincoln and his friends can have no other intention than that of supporting the Liberal policy of the present Cabinet, as Lord John Russell supported the great measures of Sir Robert Poch—Morning Chronicle.

Lieutenant-Colonel the Honourable Charles Phipps, brother of the Mar- quis of Normanby, is to succeed Mr. Anson as Private Secretary to his Royal Highness Prince Albert. Lieutenant-Colonel Phipps held the office of private secretary to his brother when Governor of Jamaica. He held also the office of steward of his brother's household when Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and was also for a short time secretary to the Master-General of the Ordnance. He was appointed Equerry in Waiting to her Majesty on the accession of Lord John Russell's Administration, in the room of Colonel Arbuthnot—Times.

It was announced some days ago, that early in the next session her Ma- jesty's Ministers would propose to Parliament the immediate erection of Lancashire into a separate see, under the title of " the Diocese of Man- chester." It is now stated that the Warden and Fellows of the Collegiate Church of Manchester are to be constituted Dean and Chapter, and that the see of Manchester will be in the province of York. Mr. Murray, of Chancery Lane, is to be appointed Registrar of the new diocese. The annual income of the Bishop has been fixed at 4,5001. per annum. A rumour exists that among the projects of Government which the pre- sent Ministry have under consideration, is that of sending a Royal Coin- mission of Inquiry to both the Universities.—Morning Post.

Tuesday's Gazette announced the appointment of Sir John Gaspard Le Merchant, Lieutenant-Colonel in the Army, to be Governor and Command- er-in-chief in the island of Newfoundland and its dependencies.

Mr. Cobden has not turned his steps homeward from Perpignan, bet has extended his tour to Italy; having passed through Marseilles on his way thither.

The Reverend H. M. Walker, of Oriel College, Oxford, and the Reverend F. Laing, of Queen's College, Cambridge, made their public profession of the Roman Catholic faith, and were received into that Church, on Sunday the 20th December, at Oscott College.

The Lincolnshire Chronicle announces that Colonel Sibthorp, the Mem- ber for Lincoln, " has distributed his annual and very liberal donation of coals earlier this season than on former occasions " to the people of the city. One cannot help admiring the discrimination exhibited by the gal- lant legislator in the choice of the recipients of his bounty and the quantity given to each class—" every freeman and elector received a quarter of c ton, and the widows of freemen half that quantity."

Major-General William Napier has addressed the following characteristic denial to the Times-

" In your paper of the 23d instant there is a letter on the Seinde prize-money, containing the following passage—' Rumour says, Sir C. Napier has received his share.' This 'rumour,' Sir, Ls a lie, propagated by persons at Bombay, who are striving to cheat Sir C. Napier and his army of their prize-money. It is one of a thousand lies from the same quarter; the authors of which, notwithstanding their high situation, shall one day be exposed as they deserve."

Mr. Chambers of Llanelly has intimated to the clergy of every parish in which he has property, that he will devote land, rent-free, for the benefit of any weekly schools that have for their object the education of the poor of all religious denominations. " The land is to be cultivated by the master and the pupils: the former will reap the benefit of its produce, and the latter will be instructed in the elements of horticulture and agricul tore by means of the spade."

In the columns of the Mark Lane Express, Mr. F. W. Denton brings a serious charge against Mr. Rushbrooke, son of the late Colonel Rushbrooke,

and owner of an estate near Bury St. Edmund's. Mr. Denton has been steward on the estate for twenty-seven years, and has held a farm on it for seven years; having spent all his savings and great part of money be- queathed to him by his friends on improving the farm. Colonel Rush- brooke died about two years ago. Before his death, he exhorted Mr. Den- ton to watch the increase of game on the estate, lest it should become mischievous. Accordingly, at a meeting of the West Suffolk Agricultural Association, Mr. Denton drew attention to the subject of game. For that offence, he was dismissed from the stewardship, and had a six-months no- tice to quit his farm. Mr. Rushbrooke justifies his conduct, on the ground that his friends have taunted him for suffering his tenants to speak too freely.

The first of a series of letters has appeared in the Morning Post under the initials " T. C. F." [Thomas Campbell Foster] on the present state of the laws relating to marriage. Mr. Foster commences by referring to a recent decision at Liverpool in the case of the Queen versus Chadwick, the effect of which, he observes, is to offer a direct encouragement to crime. In that case, the verdict of acquittal was grounded on the supposed applica- tion of a recent statute of William the Fourth, " passed avowedly for a temporary purpose." The defence set up was that no bigamy had been committed, because the first wife named in the indictment was sister to a deceased wife; that this marriage with the deceased wife's sister was within " the prohibited degrees," as set out in Archbishop Parker's table of kin in our Prayer-books, and that the recent statute of William the Fourth, ren- dering voidable marriages within "the prohibited degrees" absolutely void, applied to it and made it void. The answer to this plea is, that such mar- riages are not within " the prohibited degrees," as defined by any binding Statute or Canon law, or by the Bible- " The table of kin in our Prayer-books rests on an invalid and unbinding au- thority. The Canon law of 1603, on which it rests, has never been sanctioned by Parliament, and has been solemnly pronounced by our Courts of Law not to bind the laity. There is no earlier canon of the Church binding by either the Com- mon or the Statute law, which renders this marriage voidable; and if it be not voidable, the statute of William IV. will not make it void. The Statute law defines 'the prohibited degrees' to be those prohibited in Leviticus, of which the Judges of the Common Law Courts are expressly declared to be the expounders; and the 18th chapter of Leviticus, in which those prohibited degrees are set out, does not prohibit this marriage, but, on the contrary, sanctions it." Mr. Foster promises to show in future letters, and from authentic facts, the total disregard of this law amongst both rich and poor; its question- able evasion by the rich, its open infringement by the poor- " I will show you the great extent to which its evasion and infringement have proceeded in the course of the last dozen years, and its results in branding some thousands of respectable women as concubines in law • in rendering their children illegitimate; in sowing the seeds of enormous future 'litigation as to the rights of property, whether accruing by descent, under marriage-settlements, or by will. I will show you its probable fruitful result in parish disputes as to the settleutent of children born in wedlock, but bastardized by this law; 1 will show you its effect in taking from helpless and deceived women their remedy against the broken faith of heartless men; and I will show you that (in the words of the late Lord Wharncliffe) 'this law is unnecessarily severe—that instead of conducing to the proper moral state of the inhabitants of this country, it is in point of fact demoralizing, in a great degree, many of them.' "

A " commission," understood to have been appointed by Mr. Foster, is making an inquiry into the subject in the provinces, with a view to farther proceedings.

The Nuremberg Correspondent states that Austria and Prussia have positively refused to refer the question of the suppression of Cracow to the examination and decision of an European Congress.

The Chambers of the States of Hanover have just addressed a petition to the King, beseeching him to extend the civil rights of the Jews, and particularly to abrogate the Imperial law, passed at Augsburg in 1571, forbidding Jews to pass to Christians such credits as they might have OA other Christians.

Great pleasure is expressed in the American papers at the news that permission has been received in Canada from Queen Victoria to build St bridge across the Niagara river, at some point below the Falls. A letter from Pernambuco mentions the discovery of a conspiracy among the Blacks to raise that city into an independent state. The leader was Agostinho Joseph Pereira, a fanatic Creole; whose father was executed in 1825. Pereira and the most influential members of the association we in safe custody; and every requisite measure has been taken to pre- vent the execution of their criminal designs.

We learn by a letter from Senegal, that M. Anne Raffenel had set out on an expedition, the object of which was to cross the African continent. His project is said to have been to go first to Bakel, on the upper part of the river, and thence to proceed towards the great central lake; but he afterwards changed his route, and joined a caravan going to Timbuctoo.— Galignam's Messenger.

The American mission to Japan has been unsuccessful. Commodore Biddle, in the Columbus, eighty-gun ship, accompanied by the Vincennes frigate, Captain Paulding, arrived at the entrance of the Bay of Yeddo on the 20th July. The ships were immediately surrounded by innumerable small boats, and the people evinced both curiosity and jealousy. They first tried to prevent communication between the two ships, but made no opposition on a determination being manifested to allow of no interruption of the in- tercourse. No one went on shore from the vessels, though they remained at anchor ten days. A public despatch was sent off by the American Com- modore (acting as Envoy) to the Court at Yeddo, distant some leagues; and a written reply received in seven days, stating that no trade whatever could be allowed with America. The Mandarins were extremely polite and well- conducted, and, when out of sight of their followers, disposed to be sociable and communicative; even making exchanges of small presents—as fans, &c.

The author of the Claims of Labour has written a letter to the Times tirepbg the duty as well as necessity of exertions on the part of private individuals to alleviate the present deplorable condition of Ireland. His arguments point to pecuniary assistance by means of private subscription.

The immigration of Irish paupers is not merely complained of in Liver- pool, but also in Manchester, Warrington, Stockport, and all the principal places in the county.—Liverpool Times.

Mr. Joseph Martin, writing from Liverpool, gives the following state- ment:of the relative value of different kinds of farinaceous food. The table, exhibits the present medium wholesale prices in Liverpool of the articles mentioned, the yield or increase by cooking, and the cost per pound of each kind in the cooked state-

1 240per rid pounds of wheat flour, at 46s., will yield 330 pounds of bread, at nearly

44 pou. 240 pounds of potatoes, at 20s., will yield 180 pounds of food, at nearly lid per pound. 240 pounds of oatmeal, at 48s. 6d, will yield 720 pounds of food, at nearly ld p er pound. 240 pounds of rice, at 61s., will yield 960 pounds of food, at nearly IcL per pound.

,240 pounds of hominy, at 40s. 3d., will yield 1,200 pounds of food, at nearly id 240 pounds of maize powder, at 45s., will yield 1,200 pounds of food, at nearly id. 240 pounds of Indian meal, at 38s. 6d., will yield 960 pounds of food, at nearly id During the past week London has received a very large importation of

potatoes from abroad. The supply is quite unprecedented in extent, and has come principally from France and the Netherlands.

The first cargo o of Brazilian sugar, under the provisions of the new Sugar-duties Act, has just arrived at LiverpooL In order that there may be no lack of horse-radish for the beef consumed at this season, one vessel alone has brought from Hamburg no fewer than 154 barrels of the pungent root.

*.Among those who have been called in to advise in the case of the un- feetnnate Great Britain, is Mr. Brunel; who has made a report to the directors. He considers it absurd to be devising the means of getting the vessel off while she is in constant danger of being entirely destroyed, and too means for her extraction could be brought to bear in less than three months. Ho therefore shelves that consideration; though he more than hints that it is out of the question to float her off. Ho thinks she must be raised by mechanical means, and so taken further on shore, to be sub- sequently repaired and relaunched. Meanwhile, he prescribes a large dose of fagots, as a certain and the least expensive expedient for present protection-

" What I recommend is, to form, under the stern and along the exposed side of the vessel, a mass of fagots, made of strong and long sticks, and used in the manner which has been so successfully practised in Holland and elsewhere for the repair and protection of banks against the sea; the fagots being packed closely, and, for a considerable thickness, against the ship's side, and up to the level of the decks, secured with rods run vertically through the mass, and chains laid horizontally, and binding the whole tightly to the ship. The heaviest sea has no effect upon such a mass; and I believe the vessel would remain as un- injured, and indeed as unaffected by the sea, as if in dock."

The Railway Record mentions, that with the new year the rate of charges for parcels on the South-eastern Railway is to be greatly increased. Thus, a parcel weighing a hundred pounds, which is now conveyed from London to Dover for Is. 2d., will be charged 6a.; one of the same weight to Maid- stone, now 8d., will be 4s. 2d.

Government has ordered an inquiry into the condition and management of the Manchester and Bolton Railway, at the request of the Town-Council of Bolton and of several County Magistrates.—Liverpool Times.

Fifteen hundred convicts are to be sent from this country to Jersey, to be placed at the disposal of the Governor-General for employment on the works to be commenced in St. Catherine's Bay.

" H.P.," a correspondent of the Times, who writes from Bermondsey Square, has recorded an extraordinary barometrical disturbance. " On Saturday the 19th instant, the barometer stood 29.87 inches; on the 23d, I registered it at 28.67,— being a fall of 1.20 inches within four days. This morning I found the mercury had been elevated to 30.89,--showing a rise of nearly inches within five days. This change is extraordinary, from the very low barometric index and its very high state within such a short time at this season of the year."

The frost returned in London on Thursday week, with some seventy. People were so eager to skate and slide in the Parks, that thousands trusted themselves on the surface of the waters before the ice was sufficiently strong; and on Satur- day and Sunday a number of skaters were immersed by breakages, though, for- tunately, none perished. Mr. Charlier, the Secretary of the Royal Humane So• ciety, suffered a docking in the Serpentine; the ice having broken while he was giving directions to his man. Stamford and the neighbourhood have been visited by a fall of snow which lasted for nine hours; and traffic was greatly impeded. Two men have perished in the snow in Northumberland. In both cases the, sufferers had been drinking; on going into the air at night, the cold affected them; they wandered about, and at last fell among the snow, where, in the morning, one was found dead and the other dying.

A poor old woman named Sefton has been frozen to death, at Hallow, near Worcester. She was weak in her intellect; and was, with her husband, a pensioner. On the 23d December, she left her cottage at Warndou for the- ridge Court, a distance of nine miles, to receive a seasonable alms from the Reve- rend Mr. Berkeley: she seems to have lost her way; was missing for five days; and was then found lying dead on some hop-poles in a field, having perished from the cold. A farm-labourer had seen the woman in the middle of a field, near where the corpse was found, on the night of the 24th; she appeared to have missed her road: he spoke to her; her answer was incoherent; but as the man had a pig to look after,lae left her.

After a is of nine years, the deep water of the Wye, from the b;iersotal: Hereford to Belmont, was last week frozen sufficiently hard to render it

secure for skating and sliding.—Hereford Journal. There never was known so much ice in the river Mersey so early in the season as there is this year.--Liverpool Times. The weather abroad has been very boisterous and inclement, particularly in the South of Europe. In Switzerland, the frost has been so intense, that at Neuf- chatel last week the thermometer fell to 27 degrees below zero of the Centigrade scale (t7i below zero of Fahrenheit). Letters from Florence, dated the 10th December, state that the weather has been very severe there. There had been a heavy fall of snow, and the ice was so firm that skating took place daily; two sledges also were seen—a very unusual sight for the Florentines—driving through the streets.

In Rome, excessive cold accompanied by snow has followed the inundation.

The frost has set in again at Paris, and the weather on the coast has been very bad. Bordeaux and Toulouse have suffered from a hurricane. The Garonne had risen. A letter from La Rochelle states, that during the 22d and 23d a heavy gale was felt on that coast. The streets of that town were trans- formed into perfect lakes, chimnies thrown down, and trees torn up by the roots. The Chateaubriant, of about 1,400 tons burden, was driven on shore near loch- fort. At Cherbourg, immense quantities of rain had fallen. Several parts of the town of Rennes are inundated, and at the quays the water is within less than a metre of the top.

Almost every day during last week Connie has been visited with shocks of earthquake. They generally happened during the night-time, yet were con- siderable enough to be distinctly felt by many. They were accompanied only by a slight noise.—Scotsnian.

It appears that the late Mr. Thomas Grenville originally bequeathed his valuable library to his great-nephew the Duke of Buckingham ; but by a codicil, dated in October 1845, he revoked this bequest in favour of the British Museum. The reasons for this change are thus set forth in the document. " A great part of my library has been purchased from the profits of a sinecure office given to me by the public; and I feel it to be a debt and a duty that I should acknowledge this obligation by giving,___that library so acquired to the British Museum, for the use of the public." This revocation does not, however, apply to such letters and papers as the executors may consider worth being added to the large manuscript collection at Stowe.

A newly-married pair—Mr. Philip Miles, M.P., and the daughter of General Na- pier—have been received at Cherbourg with unexpected honours. They proceeded from Guernsey to the French port in the Prince of Wales steamer; as soon as their vessel was sighted, three guns were fired from a guard-ship, and the salvo was re- peated by two batteries; and on the happy couple's landing, they found the Na- tional Guard drawn out, and the whole population assembled to receive them,— or rather, to welcome the Prince de Joinnlle and the Baron de Mackan, who were expected to arrive about that time, the Prince of Wales having been mistaken for their vessel.

The papers describe an ornamental mode of keeping game, devised by M. Soyer, chef de cuisine at the Reform Club. He calls a group of game thus prepared a " bouquet de gibier." One of them has just been sent to the King of the French, and graciously received. " The length of it was about-ten feet, and wide in pro- portion. The frame was richly covered with Christmas holly, laurels, mistletoe, and evergreen, with a great variety of winter flowers. There were twenty-two heads of gibier•' consisting of larks, snipes, woodcocks, black pivots, teals, French and English partridges, grouse, widgeons, wild ducks, black cocks, pheasants, a lapereau, a hare, and golden plovers: the interstices were lightly filled with wheat and oats, the whole ornamented with tricoloured ribanda and small flags at the top; and, to give a still more pleasing effect, fancy birds of beautiful plu- mage, so abundant in England, were spread in every part of this magnificent nosegay."

The Royal Court of Paris has decided on the appeal of a French West India planter against the decision of the Court of Martimco, which had declared free the children under age of a Black woman who had been emancipated. The planter had not been able to prevail on a single member of the Parisian bar to support his appeal; and nobody having appeared on his behalf; the Royal Court confirmed the decision of the first judge.

Sidi Abdallah, a most venerated marabout, who had given his name to the street in which he resided, lately died at Algiers, in the hundred and tenth year of his age. "That holy personage," says a local paper, "bad not quitted his dwelling for the last twenty years, except at distant mtervala, and by night, to enjoy a bath. During the same period he neither touched his beard nor his hair. The Natives affirm that he never beheld the face of a Frenchman. It was no doubt on account of this peculiarity that the Mnssulmen regarded him as a saint." A Professor in one of the Southern Colleges of the United States writes, very much in earnest, upon a plan for making cities impregnable by surrounding them with a galvanic bailey.

A Mr. Banvard has been exhibiting in Boston a panorama of the Mississippi, which covers three miles of canvass, and occupies six hours in unrolling before the eye of the spectator. Thursday, being the eve of Christmas Day, says one of the Paris journals, nearly 30,000 geese were brought to the market of the Vallee, which was literally encumbered with them. Geese are nearly as favourite a food with the middle and lower classes of the French at Christmas as at Michaelmas with the English A Naval Court-martial was held on Monday, on board the Victory at Ports-. mouth, to try Commander Frederick Patten, with the officers and ship's company of the late war-sloop Osprey, for the loss of that vessel, on the Western coast of New Zealand, in March last. Some evidence was brought forward; bet a simple statement of the circumstances of the wreck carried with it the exculpation of the parties under trial. There are two places on the coast of New Zealand within fifteen miles of each other known as True Hokianga and False Hokianga. They resemble each other in so extraordinary a manner as to baffle the most experienced navigator. The coast has never been surveyed. The ship made the True Hold- anga m the evening, and then stood off for the night; during which the weather became boisterous, and the Osprey drifted to the Northward, opposite the False Hokianga. Commander Patten was not aware of the existence of the two places so exactly resembling one another. In the morning, he found the landmarks and comss bearings precisely the same as on the previous evening. A flag like that at Hokianga was raised as a signal [probably by a Native] in reply to a gun; Captain Patten approached the land in full confidence; and the ship struck within three miles of the shore. All efforts to get her clear were unavailing, and it was only by great coolness and exertion that the lives on board were saved. These facts appearing clear, the Court acquitted Captain Patten, the officers, and ship's company, from all blame, and pronounced that every exertion had been made to save the ship. The President returned Captain Patten his sword, with a highly complimentary speech.

Keene's Bath Journal makes a good suggestion. " A subscription has been set on foot to repair the Wellington monument which holds a prominent position on the Blackdown Hills, near Wellington. It has been suggested, as the authorities do not know what to do with the colossal statue of his Grace, that the monument here would be just the site for it, out of everybody's way, and be seen by every one who travels the West of England." A correspondent of the Glasgow Argus says that the "interesting antiquarian discovery" near Beattock, which has been going the round of the papers on the authority of the Dumfries Courier, is a pure fabrication.

A large wolf, supposed to have escaped from some travelling menagerie, was killed in a field near Peckham on Wednesday morning. The skins of several dogs and cats, found near its lair, showed how the beast had subsisted. A fatal explosion of fire-damp has occurred in the Shankrey Muir limestone-pit. The men feared such a disaster, a miner having been burned the day before; and they shrank from descending in the morning: the overseer taunted them with cowardice, and, with the workmen, entered the mine with naked lights: an ex- plosion ensued, killing the rash overseer and two other men, and severely scorch- ing three more.

We continue to receive melancholy accounts of the sickness in the Queen's Twenty-second Regiment, in the Barracks at Colabah, consisting of 650 men. The total number of sufferers in the hospital is 183 men. The admissions and readmissions, in October only, were 750, and continue to increase at the rate of 25 patients daily. Besides this, there is scarcely a healthy man in the Barracks. The men say the disorder is the Scinde fever. In August the Grenadiers were 100 strong, but now so sickly that 24 only can muster on parade; the rest being in the hospital. The families of the soldiers are also sickly; even infants at the breast are affected with fever and ague. The Female Hospital is crowded with women and children.-Indian Telegraph.

Results of the Registrar-General's return of mortality in the Metropolis for the week ending on Saturday last-

Number of Autumn Annual. deaths. average. average Bymotic (or Epidemic, Endemic, and Contagious) Diseases 150 ... 206 ... 168 Dropsy, Cancer, and other diseases of uncertain or variable seat 103 ... 101 104 Diseases of the Brain, Spinal Marrow, Nerves, and Senses 182 ... 151 ... 157 Diseases of the Lungs, and of the other Organs of Respiration 508 ... 313 ... 294 Diseases of the Heart and Blood-vessels

Diseases of the Stomach, Liver, and other Organs of Digestion 85 ... 70 ... 72 Diseases of the Kidneys, de

Childbirth, diseases of the Uterus, Ac 22 ... 11 ... 10 Rheumatism, diseases of the Bones, Joints, de. 11 ... 6 ...

7

Diseases of the Skin, Cellular Tissue, de.

Ohl Age 70 ... 66 ... 67

Violence, Privation, Cold, and Intemperance

40 ... 27 ... 26 Total (including unspecified muses) 1,268 ... 1,000 ... 868

The temperature of the thermometer ranged from 50.3° in the sun to 26.3° in the shade; the mean temperature by day being colder than the average mean temperature by 2.3°. The mean direction of the wind for the first three days was South-west, and for the remainder of the week North.