7 JULY 1849, Page 9

flbe Vrabinces.

The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company gave an ex- cursion on Saturday last, from Southampton round the Needles, to a large party of their friends, in the Hindustan frigate steamer, on her trial-trip under Government inspection. Earl Talbot, the Earl of Morley, Admiral Sir Charles Napier, Sir James Weir Hogg, Mr. Monckton Mines, the Count and Countess Reventlow, and the Countess Hilda Reventlow, M. Pas- quali, and Ilafiz Bey, were among the guests. The average of the speed against and with the tide gave a result of in statute miles per hour through still water.

The workmen of Hull are in a very distressed condition; thousands are out of employment, or obtain it only for one or two days in the week. The conduct of the poor men is reported to be exemplary; they have shown great repugnance to applying for parochial relief.

The Agapemone society has figured in a County Court snit at Bridgewater. Isaac Thomas, a labourer, brought an action against Messrs. Starkey, Price, and Williams, the directing spirits of the Agapemone, for 20/., as damage es for an as- sault on the plaintiff. As Thorium was passing the "Abode of Love," he heard some noise in the grounds, which induced him to get on a hedge where he might see what was doing • and he saw about forty men and women playing at " hockey." Bot his prying had 'been noted, and some twenty of the players rushed out upon him, and, with more apparent rage than love, thrashed him most severely with their "bandies." The Judge gave the plaintif a verdict for eleven guineas.

An inquest has been held at Hulme on the body of Eliza Green, aged three years, who died under the cold-water treatment. The mother described that treat- ment, pursued under the direction of an hydropathist named Ross. A surgeon stated that he had found the vessels congested with blood. He admitted that a cold-water treatment was powerful and efficacious when judiciously applied ; but in this case the disease of the child was aggravated by the alternate application of hot and cold water. The jury found that the child had died from "congestion of the brain and lunge, aggravated by the cold-water treatment advised by one David Boss, in ignorance of the effects it might produce."