THE CONFESSIONAL.
Public meetings touching the confessiOtal begin to be held in the pro- vinces. At Southampton, on Wednesday, Lord IL Cholmondeley pre- sided over a large assembly called to consider the subject. The two borough Members—Mr. Willcox and Mr. Weguelin—were absent, but sent letters cordially concurring in the objects of the meeting, and ex- pressing their abhorrence of the practice of confession and absolution. Mr. Palk, Justice of the Peace and " churchwarden of twenty-seven years' standing," moving the first resolution, contrasted the morality of countries where confession prevails and where it is not recognized. Mr. Bateman said that the extinguisher must be put upon the confessional by the mass of the people themselves. The Reverend F. Russell en- tered into a learned argument to show that there is no priest in the church militant except the one high priest. Unanimity prevailed after a noisy clergyman had been expelled. The resolutions were both of the same tenour. The first was this- " That, repudiating:the practices of auricular confession and priestly.ab- solution, as well as the fiction of there being a priestly order in Christ's church,— our great High Priest himself being the only priest,--thia meet- ing sees with grief and indignation that not a few of the clergy of the Ns„ tional Church have of late been actively promoting the introduction 4sech practices among their flocks." A memorial founded on them prayed the Queen to take such steps gs she might see fit to do away with the scandal.
A similar meeting has been held at Sudbury, and a memorial of the same purport adopted.
Mr. Hutt, M.P. took the chair at a meeting of the Gateshead Temper. ante Union on Wednesday. He made a warm speech against drunken. ness and drinking, which he described as the master source of all our evils," but he declined to support the Maine Liquor Law, which he said, if passed, would prove useless. He thinks the Legislature at be compelled to deal with the subject drink and drink-supplying houses.
The success of the late festival of the Three Choirs at Hereford proves to have been greater, as far as concerns the charity which it was intended to benefit, than any which has preceded it in the century and a lead the existence of these meetings. The contributions to the charity (the Clergymen's Widows' and Orphans' Charity of the Dioceses of Worcester Hereford, and Gloucester,) which have come in since the meeting 1114 swelled the total amount to 10631. 3s. 4d. The largest collection realised prior to this year at Hereford was in 1840, when 10611. 2s. Id. was re. ceived. Arrangements are also in progress for the next Hereford meet- ing in 1861, and 24 out of the 25 stewards required have already been obtained. The meeting of the Three Choirs for 1859, will be at Gloucester. —.Post Correspondent.
The dispute in the riband trade at Coventry has at length been ami- cably settled by mutual concession. A conference of manufacturers and weavers have drawn up a revised list which is likely to give general satisfaction, and the principle of payment by wages has been conceded to the weavers, so that " piece-work " will be discontinued. At a final meeting of the disputants and others on Friday week, a very sensible re- solution was adopted.
" That in order to meet in the outset any future dispute which may arise in the trade, it is desirable to constitute a board of reference, formed elan equal number of manufacturers and weavers, with full power to settle all matters which may become the subject of dispute."
No less than fifteen persons have been poisoned at Bradford, and nearly a hundred and fifty have suffered from the effects of the poison. A manu- facturer of lozenges used arsenic, by mistake, in their composition. As soon as the error was discovered the most strenuous efforts were made to prevent a further consumption of the fatal sweetmeats.
Inquiries have been instituted before the Coroner and the Magistrates. Mr. Hodgson, chemist, William Goddard, his assistant, who sold the arsenic for " daff," plaster of Paris used in the concoction of Bradford lozenges, and Neal the maker of them have been arrested, Neal being admitted to bail. The evidence, so far as . it goes, points to culpable remissness in the sale of the arsenic, and in its use.
A whole family of feer persons have been suffocated at Newport by an escape of gas which filled the house in which they resided. An inquiry has been instituted, but the jury have been unable to determine whether the gas leaked from the ordinary gas mains, or whether it was exhaled from de- cayed and putrid animal and vegetable matter, and set loose by the opening of drains. They divided their censure between the gas companies and the drainage contractors.
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