311ortIlaurnn5.
Cabinet Councils were held at the Foreign Office on Tuesday, on Thursday, and yesterday ; most of the Ministers were present, and long deliberations were held. Lieutenant-Colonel Sir William Reid arrived at Malta harbour on the 12th November, and was immediately sworn in as Governor of the island.
The Leeds Mercury prints a "latest rumour," that the Ministerial pro- gramme at the beginning of the session "will embody a large scheme of financial reform." " Taking into account the very great reduction in the price of commodi- ties, Sir Charles Wood is to announce the intention of Government to effect a very large reduction in the expenditure, in some departments to the ex- tent of 25 per cent. The saving thus effected will be devoted to the reduc- tion of the tea-duty, the paper and the advertisement duties, and other taxes on articles of general consumption, with a view to give an impulse to trade, and reduce the cost of living still further. As for the Income-tax, its re- newal for three years will be proposed, with several considerable changes in the mode of assessment, the result of which will be to relieve the trading and professional classes, but to reduce the rate at which persons are liable to all incomes above 501."
Lord John Russell has appointed the fourth son of Mr. James Augustus St. John to be Chief Surveyor of the colony of Labuan. The Honourable Thomas Montague Wilde has been appointed Registrar in Bankruptcy, in the room of Mr. Wilmot, resigned. Mr. James Archibald Murray, one of the Secretaries at the Rolls, has been appointed to the office of Clerk of Records and Rolls in the Court of Chan- cery, in the room of Mr. John Veal, deceased.
The Royal Society has presented its Copley. medal for the past year to Professor Owen, for his important discoveries in comparative anatomy and paleontology ; and its Royal medals to the Earl of Rowe, for his telescopic observations on the nebulse, and to Mr. G. Newport, for his paper on the im- pregnation of the ovum.
The Paris Afoniteur has the following official notification. " The Am- bassador of her Britannic Majesty at Paris has transmitted to the Minister of Foreign Affairs-1. A telescope and gold medal, offered by the English Go- vernment to Captain Pierre Bernard, Commander of the France et Idresil, of Havre, for having saved and conveyed to France, without consenting to re- ceive any pecuniary recompense, four English sailors who had sought refuge on the desert island the Trinity, off the coast of Brazil. 2. Five silver me- dals destined, independently of an indemnity of 51. sterling which has been paid to each of them, to the sailors of the three-masted ship the France et Bresil, composing the crew of the boat of that vessel charged to receive the English sailors. A sum of 30s. per head has, moreover, been paid to the rest of the crew of the vessel for the services rendered on the occasion. 8. A sword of honour and a gold medal, also accorded by the English Govern- ment, to Captain Pierre Edouard Pottier, of the ship the Louisa Marie, of Havre, who received in open sea the crew and twenty-seven passengers of the English vessel Lady Lilford, and conveyed them to Valparaiso, refusing to accept any indemnity for the maintenance of those persons during the thirty- nine days they passed on board his vessel. These honourable recompenses, transmitted to the Minister of Marine and Colonies by his colleague in the department of Foreign Affairs, were immediately forwarded to the persons for whom they are destined, through the competent maritime authorities."
Mr. Hume announces the closing of the penny subscription for a memorial of the late Sir Robert PeeL The sum subscribed in pence is 17001.
The late Miss Wray, of Bath, has left handsome legacies to divers clergy- men holding "high Calvinistic" views, which she herself fervently enter- tained. The Reverend I. West, Rector of Winehilsea, the Reverend Mr. Doudney, an Irish clergyman, and the Reverend Alfred Hewlett, of Ashley, near Manchester, have legacies of 10001. each; while the bequest to the Reverend J. A. Wallinger, minister of Bethesda Chapel, Bath, a seceder from the Established Church, is 20001.
In the half-year ending 30th June, 37,881,703 passengers were conveyed on the railways of the United Kingdom ; 105 persons were killed, and 173 hurt, but not fatally. From causes beyond their control, 11 passengers and 34 railway people were killed ; 142 passengers and 21 servants wounded. From their ow n misconduct or want of caution, 8 passengers and 21 servants were killed, and 6 passengers and 10 servants wounded. From trespassing, 28 persons lost their lives, and 5 were hurt. There were 3 suicides. The length of railway open on the 31st of December 1850, was 6621 miles, and on the 30th of June 1851, it was 6698 miles, being an increase of 77 in the half-year.
The Postmaster-General has ordered the whole of the districts of the rural letter-carriers to be revised, in order that better accommodation may be af- forded to the public.
The Preussisehe Zeitung states that M. Henke, a learned Bohemian, is publiahing, in Prague, a fac-simile of the Gospels on which the Kings of France have always been sworn at their coronation at Rheims. The manu- script volume is in the Slavonian language, and has been preserved at Rheims ever since the twelfth century, but it has only been lately discovered in what language it was written.
There is now living at Wymondham, Norfolk, with his mental faculties unimpaired, Mr. Robert Bates, father of Mr. Bates, merchant, Mildenball, in the hundred and tenth year of his age. He has now living five children, the youngest sixty, and the eldest eighty years of age. We received this in- formation from one of his boys, aged seventy.—Cambridge Chronick.
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