Ailtscellantous.

The Queen is to hold a levee, at St. James's Palace, on Wednesday the 2d May; and drawingrooms on Thursday the 26th April, Saturday the 19th May, (to celebrate her Majesty's birthday,) and Thursday the 31st May.

It was at the personal desire of the Queen that Sir George Grey ac- cepted the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.— Globe.

Lord John Russell has requested the Irish Members to meet him in Downing Street on Wednesday the 18th instant, at eleven o'clock.

The health of Mr. Thomas Duncombe has so far improved that it is his intention to resume his Parliamentary duties shortly after the termination of the Easter recess. The disease under which Mr. Duncombe has suf- fered so severely for a protracted period has yielded to the skill and unremitting care of his medical attendants; who are, we understand, of opinion that, with proper precautions, the honourable Member for Fins- bury has yet many years of public usefuluess before him.—Globs.

Letters from Frohsdorff state that the Duke of Bordeaux has had a very painful operation recently performed. A wen having formed upon his neck, which was becoming daily larger, an attempt was made, by a sur- geon brought from England for the purpose, to cut it out. The operation has failed, and the patient has consequently suffered a great deal. It is said that the disease is incurable.

It is stated in accounts from the Continent, that "the Emperor of Rus- sia intends visiting Franzensbrunneu in April; a little town in Bohemia, known for its waters and springs. The Emperor of Austria, the King of Bavaria, and several other Sovereigns, will meet at the same place, where a Congress will be held. The questions to be discussed may be guessed from the known tendencies of the members."

Tuesday's Gazette contains notifications by the Foreign Office of official intimations—from the Neapolitan Government, that from the 1st of April, "the Port and Gulf of Palermo and the adjacent coasts shall be placed in a state of blockade, and that cruisers of war of the Royal Navy shall watch over the coasts of Sicily, in order that ammunition, arms, or any other ar- ticles which may be used in war, be not introduced into any part of the island"; from the Austrian Government, that the blockade of Venice would commence on the 4th of April; and front the Danish Government, that a blockade of the German ports of Caramin, Swinemunde, Wolgast, Griefs- will& Stralsund, and Rostock, will commence on the 5th of April, and a blockade of the ports Pillau and Dantzie, and of the rivers the Elbe, the Weser, and the Jahcle, will commence on the 12th of April.

The Times recounts "a story current in the diplomatic world, with re- ference to the immediate cause of the resumption of hostilities by the Danes, and the proclamation of the blockade of the German ports, which admirably illustrates the mode in which these important duties of a media- tor have been discharged." "The armistice between Denmark and Germany had already been denounced, and was to terminate on the 2d of April, when a courier from Copenhagen arrived in London on the 26th of March, who was the bearer of the final propositions of the Danish Government in answer to the ceusitiens offered by the German Pleni- potentiary. This communication was immediately forwarded to the British Se- cretary for Foreign Affairs as the mediating power, and it was of the more im- portance, not only from the nature of its contents, but because the Danish courier was strictly ordered to leave London, with or without an answer, so as to reach Copenhagen again before the conclusion of the armistice. This period of time, short iii Itself and decisive as to the settlement of the question, gradually passed away. The courier left London, no notice having been taken of the communica- tion, and his return to Denmark was the signal for the precipitate departure of that expedition which has cost the lives of several hundred brave seamen and the Danish fleet two of its finest ships. At length, on the 29th of March, the Queen happened to hold a drawingroom, at which some sort of personal explanation took place between the Ministers and Diplomatists. It was then ascertained, that the all-important despatch of the Danish Government, upon which the question of peace and war turned, had not been opened or read by Lord Palmerston dar- ing the interval of two or three days allowed for the answer. No answer at all was therefore given. The German Plenipotentiary remained in total ignorance that any such proposals had been made; as, on the other hand, the Danish Pleni- potentiary does not seem to have been clearly apprized of the extent of the con- cession made in his favour. Thus the messenger of actual war was allowed to leave this country, because it had not suited the convenience of an English Minis- ter to read a letter."

The Committee appointed by the York, Newcastle, and Berwick Rail- way, to investigate the charges made against Mr. Hudson in relation to the purchase of the Great North of England Railway, have published their re- port. It states that, on the 26th of October 1846, an understanding was come to by the board of Directors that Mr. Hudson should have the exclu- sive management of the purchase of North of England shares; in order that it might be kept the more secret, no minute was made of the fact, and. Mr. Hudson was authorized to go into the open market and discreetly" and privately buy up shares for the York, Newcastle, and Berwick Com- pany. In anticipation of this resolution, Mr. Hudson had commenced 012 the 5th of October buying up North of England shares for his private ac- count; and on the 27th, the day after the instruction, he sold the shares he had purchased in his private capacity to his own company, for 131,8671. Notwithstanding the instruction of the 26th investing hint with the character of a trustee and directing him to buy up for the company, he continued till the 12th November to purchase shares on his own account, and to sell them at a profit to his company. Besides the profit thus made, supposing he had sold at the market rate, he realized 8,4181. by charging a price above the market rate; but concerning 7,185/. of this sum, there is a difference of opinion on the Committee, whether it was not charged only by mistake and not by intention. In the usual course of business, if Mr. Hudson had sold his shares in the open market, and the company had bought them there, each would have had to pay brokerage—he on the sale, they on the purchase; but as the sales by him to the company were made direct and without the intervention of a broker, brokerage should have been saved to both parties; nevertheless the company was charged by Mr. Hudson with brokerage on his sale of these shares. Thus he gained a sum of 990/. 18s. at the company's expense. It appears that the usage between the York, Berwick, and Newcastle Company, and the brokers it usually em- ployed, was that the latter extended to the company the same pro- fessional advantage usually extended to bankers, of charging only half the brokerage charged to individual principals. On this score Messrs. Lawrence and Cazenove returned half of a sum of 547/. paid to them for commission on purchases made on account of the York, Newcastle, and Berwick: but Mr. Hudson now asserts that these purchases were made for him as Chairman of the York Banking Company, and not as chairman of his railway company; and he asserts that he has paid the returned half of 545/. to his banking company; but he declares he thinks it would be inconsistent with his duty to the latter to allow an inspection of their books to test the truth of his assertion by a search for the entry of the sum in their profit and loss account. In another case Mr. Hudson has charged the company a sum quite different from that which he really paid —the items seem to have been put down at mere guess long after the trans- action: the result, however, was, that he charged 62/. 10s. more than he ought—received that sum in excess of what he had really paid. Lastly, that is on the 19th of February, on the eve of a general meeting, he voluntarily paid 2,874/. on account of the unpaid calls on the 151. shares, and declared, "I am sure there is something wrong in these 151. shares—we must look into it after the meeting "; yet at the meeting, held next day, though possessing the power to give explanation, he "moved the adoption of the report, including the Great North of England Purchase Account, without making any correction, or noticing the existence of any error." The Committee reports in addition, that the Auditors have mis- apprehended their duty % the Directors have been blameably remiss, and, the Secretary has not confined himself to the business of the Company. The report closes with this sentence of guarded severity —

"A course of proceeding directly the reverse of that which we have found to have existed with respect to the Great North of England Purchase Account ought to be pursued both by Auditors and Directors, in the affairs of the York, Newcastle, and Berwick Railway Company, in order to give to that railway, pos- sessing as it does so many essential elements of prosperity yet undeveloped, its true value, and to insure the confidence of the proprietors in its management."

Mr. Hudson has published a letter in reply to the report. The substance of his defence appears in these extracts- " I find that my conduct has been viewed as improper, by reason of my being cleaned to stand towards the company in the relation of a trustee. The com- mittee proceed to state, 'that they are of opinion that the sum charged by Mr. Hudson for these shares ought to be reduced to the sum he actually paid for them, and the difference repaid with interest.' • • * So far from considering myself in the light of a trustee, and thereby disqualified from acting in any other character, I may say with truth, that I have never hesitated to take upon my- self any amount of personal responsibility the interests of the company might require; and I trust I may be forgiven for calling this to mind when I am charged with having, in the character of a trustee, made a profit of the company. • • * At a period of great difficulty, I took upon myself the responsibility of giving personally the guarantee then necessary for completing the arrangement for raising the funds requisite to extend the railway communication Northward to Newcastle. The risk was mine, and I was entitled to the advantages which ultimately arose to myself and the other guaranteeing parties. When the in- terests of the company required, in my opinion, that those advantages should be relinquished, I did not hesitate to become a party to an arrangement with the company for surrendering them; and by that surrender I sacrified a considerable annual income- Other instances, in which the same principle has governed ray conduct, and not to the disadvantage of the company, will present themselves to your recollection. I advert to them for the purpose of showing on what principle I have hitherto acted. * • • But I care nothing for pecuniary considerations in this matter. I must pursue the course which my own feelings and judgment point out to be correct, under the circumstances in which I find myself placed; circumstances to me of a most painful nature, but in which I have become in- valved without the slightest idea on my part that I was doing anything deserving reprehension.' The first report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Audit of Railway Accounts exposes some cases of extraordinary perversion and malfeasance in the use of Railway funds by Railway Companies. Here is an instance. The directors of the North Wales, the South-western, and the Richmond Companies, were in 1846 to a great extent identical; and the circumstance was taken advantage of to tmnfer monies from one

adconnt to the other of these companies in a manner equally irregular and Illegal In addition, some of the directors took advantage of their posi- tion to lend money to themselves and their relatives, upon securities compara- tively worthless. In one instance, 5,5001. was advanced at Si. per cent in- terest to a director's son a minor; the security being railway shares, upon which a respectable share-broker would have made no advance at any in- terest whatever.

"An Old Traveller and Amateur," writing to the Times from Chelten- ham, reports another instance of the mode in which works of art are lost to the country, through the mismanagement of public servants— "A gentleman who has spent a large portion of his life in travelling through every quarter of the globe in search of objects worthy of the attention of an ele- -grated mind, and who has acquired a taste for and a discriminating critical know- ledge of antiquities and works of art, such as but few men possess, brought to England about two years ago several pictures of the very highest quality and in- texest, which he obtained in Italy at great cost. He wrote to the Trustees of the National Gallery, as it is so unworthily called, offering four or five of the most rere and valuable of those works ass gift to the nation; and at the same time he tient to the British Museum several relics of antiquity. The latter, he informed me, were received with due and gratifying acknowledgments; but what answer did he receive to the former? In effect, it was precisely this—' There being no more room in the National Gallery, the Trustees cannot, or have decided not to receive any more pictures!' This answer was given without the pictures being seen—without baying any idea of their value, or evincing the least concern whe- ther they would have been a desirable acquisition to the nation or not! I am able, however, to give an opinion on that point, and to say that those pictures would have done credit to any national collection ; and one of them especially was the finest and purest and best authenticated specimen of one of the rarest masters of the Venetian school in the fifteenth century; and it would have been of inestimable value to our National Gallery, even if it had been only regarded as a connecting link in the history of art.'

Miss Tempest, of the Grange, near Ackworth, (sister to Sir Charles Tempest Bart., of Broughton Hall, in the county of York) has been appointed overseer of the poor for the parish of Acksvortb, together with John Hagues, cow-leech, also of the parish of Ackworth. The appointment was made at Wentbridge on the 26th ultimo, and is endorsed by "two of her Majesty's Justices of the Peace."— Doncaster Chronkle.

A subscription has been commenced by the gentry of Norfolk in favour of Mies Emily Sandford—now destitute and cast upon the world. Messrs.11anbury, Tay- lor, and Lloyd, of Lombard Street, have consented to receive subscriptions of not less than U. till some plan shall be devised for Miss Sandford's benefit. Upwards of 1501. has been received.

The family of Mary Staight, who was murdered by Palley, the convict lately hanged at Worcester, has suffered many fatalities. Mary Staight's mother Was tossed to death by a cow, near the spot where Mary was murdered. One of her uncles, a game-watcher, was killed by poachers. Another of her uncles was killed by the accidental falling of a wall.

The London and Brighton Railway Company have made considerable reductions in their charges for periodical tickets, with the view of encouraging building and extending facilities for suburban residence, in connexion with the short stations -between London, Croydon, and Epsom.

On Thursday sennight, a seam of blackband ironstone of a fine quality was dis- covered in the lands of Captain Blair, of Blair, near Dairy. The borers had gone twelve inches into it. In the afternoon numerous flags were hoisted, and other testimonies of rejoicing, in celebration of the auspicious discovery. This will add, we are glad to learn, many thousand pounds to the value of the Ayrshire Iron Company's lease.—Ayr Advertiser.

An iron lighthouse on the Fastnett rock, at Cape Clear, is in progress. It is to be seventy-five feet high, fourteen of which have been completed. In a recent gale the sea was exceedingly violent, and the workmen make astounding state- ments as to the height of the waves.

A large clock, showing the time upon two faces, and striking the hours and quarters, has recently been placed in a tower built for the purpose in the arsenal at Constantinople. This clock was made by Mr. Valliamy, of Pall Mall ; and is the first public clock that has ever been put up in a country professing the Mos- lem faith.

Two magnificent ships have lately been launched in New York for the packet lines to Liverpool ; the first being the Constellation, and the second the Gay Man- wring, each of 1,600 tons burden. The latter will be commanded by Captain Edwards, late of the celebrated ships Sea, Marmion, and Ivanhoe.—Eiverpool Mercury. ,

The steam-ship United States, lately purchased in New York for the German navy, carries twelve guns on each side, two brass swivels forward, and two aft. Her enginrs have undergone repairs and alterations, and she was expected to be ready for sea on the lot instant.—Liverpool Mercury. The Leicestershire County Magistrates have caused the sentence pronounced by Chief Justice Wilde upon William Taylor, convicted and sentenced to seven years' transportation at the late Assizes at Leicester, for wilful perjury, to be cir- culated in the form of a handbill, and to be hung up in the Petty Sessions Courts, as an example to false swearers a crime, unhappily, become too prevalent at the present time--Leicester Chronicle. At the Dorchester Assizes, last week, Matthew Squires was indicted for the manslaughter of Samuel Strand, a child three years of age, whom he inoculated at a time when the smallpox was prevalent in the neighbourhood. He pleaded 4' Guilty ": he had acted in ignorance of the law, and at the express desire of the infant's parents. Lord Denman hoped that this indictment would make it widely known that inoculation is in any event an offence punishable by imprisonment; in the event of death following it is ;punishable as manslaughter. Squires had already been long imprisoned; and under the circumstances he was sentenced only to the nominal penalty of two days' further imprisonment.

An extensive system of fraud has been discovered on the York, Newcastle, and Berwick Railway. The persons implicated were examined at Newcastle on Fri- day sennight. They were Hayes, a clerk, Bowie, a guard, Alexander and Codling, ticket-collectors. Tickets issued at Newcastle for Percy Main and North Shields, instead of being sent on to York as a check on the money-receipts, were conveyed back to Newcastle, where Hayes reissued them on the Same day, sharing the proceeds with his fellow conspirators. Suspicion was excited by low numbers having been seen late in the day by the person who examines them before trains depart, as the checks should be numbered consecutively during the day. Hayes endeavoured to explain this. A watch Was set, and the fraud was detected. A policeman found 831. in gold on the guard, and at his house nearly 4001. in silver; one of the collectors had 501. in his possession.—Remanded.

First Lieutenant James Splaine Dowman, of the Royal Marines, has been tried by a Court-martial, at Woolwich, for appearing at a ball-practice exercise in such a state of intoxication that he could not be retained on duty. He was found guilty, and sentenced to be cashiered: the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty have confirmed the verdict and sentence.

An impudent and ingenious robbery has been committed in York Row, next door to the Lambeth Police-office. Three men came to the house at night, saying they belonged to the police, and that thieves had entered by the rear of the pre- mises and were in the house: they advised the occupants, all women, to keep within their rooms while they would search for the depredators. In about twenty minutes the three men went away, carrying with them a quantity of plunder from an upper room.

Cleaver, a policeman on the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway, got intoxicated at Padfield during Good Friday, and on returning to his post walked down the line while a train was approaching: when close to it, though he had seen it just before, he stepped on to the rails upon which the train was run- ning, and he was killed in an instant. A mother and child have perished in the Thames at Reading. The 140111811 was the wife of a labourer at Lower Caversham , she bad been to Reading to boy groceries; her basket was found on a slight wooden bridge which spans a cascade of the stream: it is supposed that the child—a girl, six years old—by some means fell into the water, and then the mother was drowned in attempting to rescue her.

A shoemaker of Crynant, suffering from pecuniary losses, has committed sui- cide by leaping from Pontrhydyfen aqueduct bridge, at Cwmafon, into a valley seventy feet below.

A short time ago, an old beggar died at Dudley, leaviug a crutch and a great- coat as legacies to his two daughters. "After the old man's decease, the cast-off garment and crutch were thrown on one side, and almost forgotten, till one day the crutch was called into requisition to punish a refractory cow which had broken into a garden; when lo ! the handle came off, and 350 sovereigns were found en- closed. The other daughter, hearing of this golden shower, hastened home and examined the greatcoat left by the old man; much to her astonishment and de- light, a similar number of sovereigns were found stitched in old rags in the collar and waist. The daughters had not the slightest idea that the old man, who hail lived in a most penurious manner, had ever possessed such a sum of money as- that they now equally inherit."

On recently opening the burial-vault of the Chaplin family at Blankney in Lincolnshire, it was ascertained that a large grey bat, which had been found within the place on several occasions when the vault was opened, was still an inhabitant. It is calculated that the bat has lived in the tomb for thirty-three years.

A fat sow, having got under the floor of a barn, at Brickendon in Herefordshire, was fast wedged between two rows of brick-work; it remained there undiscovered for five weeks, and was then extricated alive. The sow weighed sixteen stone whin missed, but had wasted to five stone daring its long fast: it is now recovering flesh.

Results of the Registrar-General's return of mortality in the Metropolis for the week ending on Saturday last—

Number of Swing Deaths. Average.

Zymotic Diseases 221 .... 196

Dropsy, Cancer, sad other diseases of uncertain or variable seat 38 .... 48

Tubercular Diseases 196 .... 200 Diseases of the Brain, Spinal Marrow, Nerves, and Senses. Ill .... 123 Diseases of the Heart and Blood-vessels 39 Diseases of the Lungs, and of the other Organs of Respiration... 202 .... 121, Diseases of the Stomach, Liver, and other Organs of Digestion 59

Diseases of the Kidneys, itc 10

Childbirth, diseases of the Uterus, Sc. 7

Rheumatism, diseases of the Bones, Joints, Se 6

Diseases of the Skin, Cellular Tissue, Sc. 3 Malformations 5 Premature Birth 24 Atrophy 22

age as

Sudden 4

Violence, Privation, Cold, and Intemperance 11 Total (including unspecified causes) 994 962

The temperature of the thermometer ranged from 83.00 in the sun to 24.80 in the shade; the mean temperature by day being warmer than the average mean temperature by 0.6°. The direction of the wind for the week was variable.