30 DECEMBER 1854, Page 2

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At a Court of Lieutenancy held in Guildhall on Monday, Lord Fal- merston's reply was read accepting the request of the Court that the City of London Militia should be embodied to serve where her Majesty might please to direct ; but stating that as the officers were too numerous in proportion to the men, he proposed to take one Lieutenant-Colonel, one Major, four Captains, and eight subalterns for service—omitting eighteen, including Colonel Wilson. A resolution was passed thanking Lord Pal- merston for assenting to the wishes of the Court ; and notice was given of a motion to raise the regiment from 600 to 1000 men.

At the meeting of the City Court of Sewers last week, Mr. Simon, the Medical Officer of Health, submitted a report on the cholera epidemic of 1854, so far as it affected the City of London. From this interesting document it appeared that the cholera of the present year was less fatal in the Metropolis, and greatly less in the City, than the visitation of 1849. In 1849, there died in the City 728 persons; in 1854, only 211, or 16 in 10,000, a reduction of 71 per cent on the previous mortality. Through- out the Metropolis the deaths in the present year were at the rate of 45 In 10,000; in 1849 the rate was 60 in 10,000. Two passages in Mr. Simon's report will give its drift.

"It has been my principal aim in this report briefly to set before you the coincidence of two facts-1. That you have suffered from cholera below your former mortality in the proportion of 211 to 728, below the Metropolitan mortality in the proportion of 16 to 45, and even below the lighter mortality on the North side of the Thames (from Hampstead to the river) in the pro- portion of 16 to 26. 2. That for many months before the outbreak of cholera there had been extensively prosecuted through the entire city such attainable sanitary measures as you deemed the best protection against disease.

"Beyond this collation of facts it is hitherto most difficult to argue. The laws of epidemic visitation are very imperfectly known to us. Partly we have learnt the conditions which augment their local spoil, but nothing of what evokes their slumbering power, nothing of what governs their world- wide spread, nothing of what determines their eventual decline, nothing of what permits their fitful mildness. In this domain of unknown perhaps unconjectured influences, science would count it irreverence and temerity to dogmatize on single instances of correlation, or to speak of the impure im- pulses of that wandering plague as though they were the strokes of some machine subject to the guidance of one's human will."

But although cholera is called capricious, because many populations, despite great filthiness, have suffered little retribution, yet Mr. Simon believes that in the great harmonies-of nature there is no place for sod- I dent or caprice; and that scientific insight, the fruit of larger observation, will ultimately enable us to arrive at some conclusions.

The trial of the action Hope versus Aguado, in theCourt of Queen's Bench, charging criminal conversation with the wife of the plaintiff, commenced on Saturday last, at Guildhall, before the Lord Chief Justice and a Special Jury. Mr. Adrian Hope is the second son of the author of "Anastatius" ; Mrs. Rope is the daughter of General Rapp, the favourite aide-de-camp to the Emperor Napoleon ; Count Aguado is the son of the Marquis of Aguado, formerly a. banker in Spain. Sir Frederick Thesiger, Mr. Bevil!, and Mr- Phipaon appeared for the plaintiff;, and the Attorney-General, Mr. Sergeant Wilkins, and 31r. Wise for the defendant. The counsellor the plaintiff pro- tested against going on with the case in vacation ; but Lord Campbell said he had full authority for that course. In his opening speech, Sir Frede rick Thesiger simply stated the facts which he said would be proved in evidence, and made little comment. He remarked that the action was brought in this country, although Count Aguado is a foreigner, because it is doubtful whether the House of Lords would not require the action to be brought before granting a divorce, as Count Aguado had been in this country to make an affidavit in recent proceedings respecting Mrs-. Hope's children. The witnesses at present examined for the plaintiff were the Reverend W. Harness, a clergyman; James Young, valet to Mr. Hope ; Mrs. Kitchen- er, a-retired lodginghouse-keeper; John Boxer, a carrier; Mr. G. W. Howe, formerly under-steward at Deepdene ; Marie Frances Desmaisons, formerly concierge at Frascati's Hotel at Havre ; Clarisse Soutrieul, and Julia Lowen- stein, formerly femmes de chambre at the same hotel.

Mr. Harness proved the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Hope on the 21st July, 1836; and two letters were read. by Sir Frederick Thesiger to show that seven years after the marriage they were living on the most affectionate terms. Mrs. Hope had eight children, the eldest in 1837, the youngest in 1847; three have died. It was in 1846, shortly before Mr. Hope went to reside in the Quai d'Orsay at Paris, that Mrs. Hope became acquainted with Count Aguade. In that year, according to the evidence of Desmaisone and Soutrieul, Mrs. Hope went to Havre with two of her children, and lodged at Fmseatie Hotel. Count Aguado was also them with his family. Then commenced the intercourse which gave' rise to this action. Tie Court met again on, Wednesday; but the-Attorney-General was to unwelt to attend, and Lord Campbell adjourned proceedings until the 12th February. The evidence as it stands is very imperfect ; several witnesses for olio plaintiff not having been examined, and none for the defence.

A circular issued by Ridley and Co., wine-merchants, of Crutched Friars, makes public a discovery of a great system of fraud supposed to have been in operation in the London Docks for years past. The especial case, about which there seems to be no doubt, which led to detection, is this. A person bought at a " rummage " sale in the dock a large quantity of sour Italian, port, and French wines, forty-one pipes in all ; this wine was put into good port-shaped pipes, and sent to the East vault, where port is stored ; in a short time these forty-one pipes were "miraculously metamorphosed" into excellent port ! The sour wine had been bought for a mere trifle ; the port it was " changed " into was worth 30i. to 38/. a pipe. But how was this admirable transformation effected ? It is not as yet known precisely, but the mode is supposed to have been this : some dockmen got themselves locked in the vault in the afternoon ; during the night they transferred the sour wines into the pipes of port around, from which they took an equal quantity of port, making up from the property of others forty-one pipes of ex- cellent port : or they might have " started " the sour wine into the ground, and then filled the empty pipes with port ;—there are 21,000 pipes in the vault, and a quart stolen from each, which would not be missed, would fill fifty pipes. The Crown officers and the Dock Company have now this extra- ordinary affair in hand, and an embargo has been laid on twenty-two pipes of port, of which fifteen were sour Italian wine when they were placed in the vault.

Mr. Arnold, the Westminster Magistrate, in sending a brutal coalheaver to. prison for six months for beating his wife, expressed an opinion that the law for the protection of women is quite inadequate : in high life brutality such as this case disclosed would be followed by divorce; and Magistrates ought to have the power of separating wives from cruel husbands when the parties are poor.

More inculpatory evidence has-been given before the Clerkenwell Magis- trate against Mr. Nunn, the jeweller accused, of transposing an old hall-mark to a ring, which was also not of the proper fineness. Mr. Carrie again liberated. him on bail, but he required heavier sureties.

Frederick Charles Maturin, the agent of the Emigration Commissioners at Woolwich, has been committed on five charges of fraudulently obtaining money from would-be emigrants, on pretence that Is had "influence," with the Commissioners. Besides this kind of roguery, he seems to have vic- timized tradesmen by getting into their debt.

The Magistrates have had their hands full this week in dealing with eases of assault arising out of drunkenness; for which vice Christmas is made the scapegoat. In some instances the brutes assailed their wives after ctuarrelling; and several have been sent to prison for having beaten inoffenwielemales who happened to be going through the streets at night while the drunkards were abroad.