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We omitted to mention last week, that the cause of the absence of Sir John Hobhouse and Captain 1‘'ernyss from the great division on Lord John Russell's motion (though both paired off in favour of it), was the illness of Lady Julia Hobliouse and Lady Emma Wemysa. We regret to add, that Lady Julia Hobhouse died on Friday morning. The name of Mr. J. W. Scott, M.P. for North Hampshire, was omitted from our list of those who voted o ids Lord John Russell on the great division of Thursday week. We had in the first instance placed it in the list of the majority, but afterwards struck it out upon seeing a statement in one of the papers that Air. Scott did not vo!.e against Alinisters. It now appears, by a letter from that gentleman to the Times, that some person is in the habit of sending false statements respecting Alr. Scott's votes to the newspapers, and that his name is constantly misplaced in the division-lists. The di-missal of Captain Pechell from his post of Equery to the Queen did not actually place. It is said that her Majesty sent the Captain a notification which was considered equivalent to a dismissal; but that it rras recalled on the representation of Sir Robert Peel to the King, that it would be more politic to pass over the offence.
The Windsor Election Committee have decided that Sir J. De Beauvoir was not, and that Sir John Elley was, duly remitted for the boron It at the last election.
We mentioned in our second edition last week, that the Dublin Election Committee, on Saturday afternoon, resolved to issue a com- mission to examine witnesses in Dublin. This will postpone the final decision for some months; and probably another election may intervene before the inquiry can be finally closed. This decision is much the same as one in 'f'avour of the sitting Members. The object of the petitioners was to overwhelm O'Connell by the expense which the examination of several hundred witnesses in London would have caused.
The cumber of witnesses required to attend the Committee of the House of Commons in support of the sitting Member for Rochester was, it appears, sixty; and the cost of the Speaker's summonses re. quiring their attendance was one shilliny for each summons. Up to the period of the election of Mr. Abercromby, the regular charge for every summons was one guinea. The alteration is striking ; instead of Alr. Hodges being taxed to the amount of sixty guineas for this preliminary proceeding, the cost of the summonses under the new order of things is only sixty shillings !— Leeds Mercury.
The House of Lords sat yesterday morning in a Committee of Pri- vileges on the Rutherford Peerage. Their Lordships decided that Mr. Thomas Rutherford, the claimant to this vacant peerage, had failed to make out his claim, and dismissed his petition accordingly.
On Monday last week, Mrs. Somerville received an autograph letter from Sir Robert Peel, informing her in the most delicate style of com- pliment that the knowledge of her acquirements in science had made it Lis duty to submit to his Majesty the propriety of granting to her a pension on the civil list of 200/. a year. Mrs. Somerville's letter of thanks was accompanied by a copy of her book. The day following (Thursday last), she received a handsome acknowledgment for the book, with an expression of regret that it had lost the charm of novelty, as he had already read it in the first edition. The Reverend Mr. Alilinan Las also received an autograph letter from Sir Robert Peel, offering this shamefully-persecuted author of the admirable History of the Jews the living of St. Margaret's, Westminster. Mrs. Hermits, who has employed her talents entirely for the support of a large family, having been long since deserted by her husband, was lately (within ten days) most dangerously ill. In this state, in bed, with a pencil, she wrote some beautiful verses, which were sent to her friend, the accomplished Mrs. Lawrence, of Liverpool, who sent them to a nobleman in Lon- don ; who was so struck with them and the unhappy situation of their author, that he took them to Sir Robert Peel; who instantly desired the nobleman to cause Mrs. Ilemans's eldest son, about eighteen (who Las been educated gratis by Dr. Butler, of Shrewsbury), to come to London to receive an appointment in a public office, whilst Sir Robert Peel himself wrote a letter of condolence to the mother, en- closing a Bank note of 1001. for his outfit.—Times. [ We cannot per- ceive the wonderful merit of the late Premier in these transactions, so pompously paraded by the Times, and so bepraised by other Tory Journals. Every one admits Mrs. Somerville's talents, and the value of her contributions to science ; but it must be remembered that her hus- band, Dr. Somerville, already enjoys a place worth 1,0001. a year. Surely Sir Robert Peel might have selected other objects for the Royal bounty by whom it was more needed. Mr. Alamo is called a " shamefully-persecuted" man, in order to enhance the generosity of the Tory Premier in bestowing a good living upon him: but Mr. Milman bad previously an Oxford Professorship, and some Church preferment. The fame he has acquired is certainly not below his deserts, and it is altogether absurd to describe him as a ahatnefully-persecuted man, albeit he has been denounced, by some of Sir Robert Peel's own party, as little better than an infidel, on ac• count of doctrines advanced by him in his History of the Jews. PerhapS Sir Robert may have bad an eye to the Professor's services as a Quarterly Reviewer its well as to the persecution he has suffered. The gift of a hundred pounds to Mr. Ilemans's son is honourable to the private character of Sir Robert. Similar instances of liberality are however by no means rare in this country of unequal fortunes; and it is rather indelicate to blazon forth to the world what was intended to be an act of private generosity. It gives rise to the suspicion that Sir Robert Peel, like the Pharisees, performed his good deeds before witnesses, that men may talk of them.1
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