6 OCTOBER 1849, Page 6

SCOTLAND.

Among various other symptoms that the public mind of Scotland is now awaking to a sense of the evils of the present system of education, and of the necessity of prompt and vigorous effort to substitute a better, we are happy to state that, at a meeting yesterday of the Public Questions Com- mittee of the United Presbyterian Church, (which may be held as fairly as well as authoritatively representing the general body,) it was resolved to pro.. mote or aid an immediate movement throughout the country in favour of an unsectarian national system. Circulars, we understand, are to be issued representing the desirableness of holding public meetings on the subject, not meetings either apparently or really denominational, or in the promotion and conducting of which United Presbyterians shall hold any special promi- nence, but got up by and composed of all who hold views enabling them to cooperate. The object to which, we hear, the Committee suggest that such meetings should direct their efforts, is the liberalizing of the pariah schools—by rendering eligible as teachers all properly-qualified persons, irrespective of ecclesiastical connexion; by freeing the schools from the con- trol of the Church Courts; and by placing the whole system, including the election of teachers, under properly-defined local management.—Scoteman of Saturday.

A public meeting was held at Arbroath, on Thursday week, to form a branch Financial Reform Association. Letters were read from Arr. Hume and others, favouring the suggestion; and resolutions in furtherance of the object were unanimously adopted.

At the Perth Circuit Court, last week, a man pleaded guilty to a charge of bigamy. His counsel urged in extenuation, that there was a common understand- ing among the lower classes, that when a man and wife had lived separately for a certain number of years, either was at liberty to marry again. Lord Cockburn said, the best way of counteracting such an unfounded and injurious impression was, by adding some months to the ordinary period of imprisonment attached in this country to that crime: so the usual sentence of a year's incarceration was extended to fifteen months—" counsel who advanced the plea looking fully as much out as the culprit."

William Liddle, a railway labourer, has been murdered at Reston, near Dunn. His body was found in a field, with the back part of the skull fractured. The deceased was last in company with William leeKew, a man whose sister Liddle intended to marry: the two had been to see this woman. M`Kew has been appre- hended.

A quarrier-on the railway works at Nigg has lost his life in a blasting opera- tion. After a charge had been deposited in the rock, all the men retired to what was considered to be a safe distance; but on the explosion, a piece of stone was blown to a great height, and descended on the head of Kenneth Munro, striking

him dead.