7 FEBRUARY 1852, Page 9

SCOTLAND.

The election for Perth, it seems, will be contested. The Scotsman states that the Lord Provost and Treasurer of the Fair City were at the railway station, expecting Mr. Fox Mauls, on Monday evening ; but he did not appear. We suppose he is now on the spot. Mr. Maule's oppo- nent was to be Mr. Charles Gilpin, the Liberal Quaker publisher of Lon- don, who had at some former time pledged himself to stand for Perth on the first vacancy ; but who, we believe, has no chance on the present occasion.

While a dozen labourers were making a drain at the head of the Cowgate, Edinburgh, they came upon a smoothed stone. Curious to know what structure they had discovered, they removed the stone, when a foul vapour issued ; presently a light was incautiously brought to the orifice, and the men crowded round the mysterious opening : an explosion ensued, by which four men were burnt, two severely ; while a neighbouring shop-front was shattered and a window so high as the fourth story broken. The explosion blew off the arch of the vault, which turned out to be a disused well of large dimensions. During the late floods, a widow and her daughter attempted to pass a river on a slender pole which had been laid across it, the suspension-bridge of Feochan having been swept away : the mother appears to have crossed safely, but returned to the frail bridge to aid her daughter, who had become dizzy : the extra weight bent the pole into the stream, the current carried it away, and both mother and daughter perished.

A drunken couple quarrelled in the streets of Glasgow on Friday night ; and on arriving at the wooden bridge which crosses the canal at St. Rollox the man pushed the woman into the water. On reflection, however, he rushed in also, but wasunable to save his intended victim. A boatman hear- ing their cries ran to the spot, and succeeded in bringing out the woman, but the man was drowned.