4 APRIL 1846, Page 6

Sbe liAtttopolts.

The Proprietors of East India Stock assembled yesterday, at the East -India House, to awards vote of thanks to the victors of Aliwal and Sobraon. ar Henry Willock, the Chairman, proposed the resolutions; and Mr. Hogg Called upon the proprietors not to pass them unanimously merely, but to pass them with acclamation: the reply was given in loud cheers. Mr. Poynder improved the opportunity to impress upon the proprietors the necessity of measures to improve the condition, morally and physically, of the people of India: it was in the power of the Indian Government to con- fer unutterable blessings on the people of that vast region.

The fifty-seventh anniversary of the City Dispensary was celebrated at the London Coffeehouse on Tuesday sennigbt; Lord Grosvenor presiding. It appeared from the report that 5,038 patients were relieved during the year, at an expense of 5501. The evening's subscriptions exceeded 2501 A meeting was held in the Lancasterian School-room at Peckham, on Thursday night, for the purpose of inducing masters and mistresses to unite with their servants in raising a fund towards the erection of asylums for invalid and aged servants, and also for providing means of support and a refuge for servants out of place. From the report read and several statements made, both by masters and servants, it appeared that there are in the vicinity of London 125,000 servants, who by subscribing 4si each would realize 25,0001.; which would allow 10,000/. for building almshouses, and 10,000/. for a relief fund; leaving a surplus of 5,000k Communications from several noblemen, clergymen, and others, were read, promising support; and resolutions were passed for forming a Servants=- Protection Society.

A meeting in furtherance of the abolition of the Malt-tax was held on Monday, at the York Hotel, Bridge Street, Blackfriars Sir Charles Lamb was in the chair ; and the attendance included farmers from Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and other contiguous counties. The abolition of the Corn-laws was deemed un fait accompli; and the resolutions adopted spoke strongly of the necessity of relieving the farmer from the fetters of the Malt-tax. A subscription to defray expenses was opened, and 2701. contributed in the room.

An iron steam-ship, named the Sir Henry Pottinger, was launched on &turday, from the building-yard of Messrs. Fairburn and Sons, at Millwall; said to be tha largest steam-ship afloat with the exception of the Great Britain—the tonnage 1,225 tons, the engine power 450 horses. The Sir Henry Pottinger is intended for the China line from Ceylon to Hong-kong, and to carry the Government mails. Extensive premises at Rotherhithe, called the Canada steam saw-mills, and belonging to Messrs. Vertne, were destroyed by fire early on Wednesday morning; The firm is said to have been uninsured.

Au action for slander, raised by the Reverend Robert Pemberton, D.D., Vicar of Wandsworth, against the Reverend John Flowerdesv Coils, D.D., &mate of St. Anne's Chapel, Wandsworth, was tried at Kingston on Monday, before Lord Chief Justice Denman and a special Jury. In 1844, Dr. Pemberton became Vicar of Wandsworth; and in the course of the same vear he appointed Dr. Coils to the curacy of St. Anne's Chapel in the same parish. In connexion with this appoint- ment, several articles of agreement were drawn up: one was that Dr. Coils should resign his curacy on being asked to do so, Dr. Pemberton intending to confer it upon his son when of age; another article was that Dr. Coils should pay Dr. Pemberton 1301. a year, the estimated half of, the income,- the money to be ex- pended in the erection Of a vicarage-house; the third article bound Dr. Coils not to complain or express dissatisfaction at being compelled to make these pars ments, or to vacate the curacy. As a collateral security for the fulfilment. of theengagement, Dr. Cells gave a promissory note to Dr. Pemberton for 2,6001., which was to be enforced in the event of a breach taking place. The engagement was signed and the promissory note drawn up by Dr. Calls him- self, at the house of Dr. Pemberton, after dinner, and after two glasses of wine. The documents were placed in an envelope, and both parties sealed it up. The slander complained of arose out of this transaction and was promulgated in this way: Dr. Pemberton has a curate named Cockrell; Dr. Calls called upon him about a fortnight after his arrival in the parish, in great distress of mind, stating that Dr. Pemberton had invited him to dinner on the day that he came into residence—that he only drank two glasses of wine, which-must have been drugged, for he was completely stupified—that while in that state Dr. Pemberton asked him to sign the agreement and the promissory note—and that on recover- ing from the effects of the wine he was perfectly horrified at who lie had done. This statement was communicated by Mr. Cockrell to Dr. Pm.~on, on the occasion of a quarrel which he had with Dr. Coils. Dr. Pemberton remonstrated with the offender on the subject, and a retractation was the consequence-' but Dr. Coils did not adhere to it, and began to circulate anew his allegation through the parish. In the.mean time, the Bishop of Winchester, within whose diocese Wands- worth is, received information of what was going on from the Churchwarden; and on calling for an explanation, Dr. Pemberton delivered to him a sealed packet which contained the agreement and the promissory note. In consequence of this occur- rence, the Bishop struck Dr. Pemberton's mule from a commission appointed to-make certain investigations under the act of Parliament for the augmentation of small livings. [In the course of his examination, the Bishop statedthat he should never have sanctioned such an agreement as that he had heard read. Without reference to the charge of dragging the wine, be considered that the proceeding of the plaintiff in making such an agreement, and taking a bill of exchange. from his curate, was so improper, that if no satisfactory explanation had been given of it, he should probably have felt it his duty to suspend him from his functions, and perhaps remove him altogether. He considered it a transaction of a simoniacal character; and this was alone sufficient to cause him to strike the plaintiff's name out of the commission. Dr. Coils was entitled to the whole of his salary.] No evidence was offered in defence. The Jary returned a verdict for the plaintiff-.- damages 2001.

Thomas Wicks, the young man who shot his master in Drury Lane, was exei cuted at Newgate on Monday morning. There has been delay in inflicting the punishment in consequence of an application to the Home Secretary for a commu- tation, on the ground of the prisoner's insanity: a medical examination took place, and the convict was declar.d to be of sound mind. He apps to have been a determined ruffian. After his condemnation, he expressed a wish to see a girl who had lived with him: this was refused; and he confessed that if he had been allowed to meet the girl, whom he had a spite against for her evidence on the trial, he would have received her with apparent affection, but while pretending to kiss her he had determined to seize-herby the throat with his teeth and suffocate her! On Saturday he dictated a confession, full of atrocious avowals of wicked intentions. He behaved with disgusting hardihood in his last hour. When passing through the chapel-yard to the scaffold, he exclaimed, "Now, then, as Dr. Dodd said, I shall soon know the grand secret." Under the gallows, he bowed twice to the mob; who set up a tremendous cheer. The Ordinary checked the convict when he was about tore peat his bowings; and in a few seconds the hangman had completed his task, Wicks swinging in the air " while yet the hor rible cheering of the multitude assembled was ringing in his ears." .And so the great moral lesson closed.

It has been ascertained that Wicks has witneaseigesarly all the executions which have taken place since that Of Crouch, some years since. He appeals to have had a morbid curiosity for such scenes; and on the occasion of Martha Browning's recent execution he paid 2s. 6d. for a seat in a room opposite the scaffold.

As usual, pickpockets were arrested pursuing their avocations amid the crowd in the Old Bailey whilst the murderer was suspended.