tht Zrtrultnlio.

The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury sat again on Saturday. The chief business was transacted in the Lower House. The address was agreed to as it had been drawn:by the Bishops. On the motion of the Reverend Canon Wordsworth, the lower House adopted the following resolution

" That a Committee of this House be appointed to consider the best means of obtaining the counsel and cooperation of the laity of the Church, particularly at annual visitations or Diocesan Synods; and that the Committee be desired to report to this House on the subject as soon as convenient; and also to frame the draught of a dutiful representation upon it from this House to his Grace the President and their Lordships in the -Upper House."

An attempt was made by Dr. M`Caul to strike out the words "Diocesan Synods,", but it failed.

The Court of Common Council has been engaged for the last two Thursdays in discussing the case of Sir William Magnay. Mr. Blake moved that as Sir William, in a Belgian Court, by default had been found guilty on a charge Of fraud, he should be requested to resign his office as one of the Aldermen of the City. Mr. Besley seconded the motion. Mr. Millard moved a long amendment, reciting the circumstances under which the Belgian judgment was obtained, and declaring that the Court was not bound to express an opinion. Mr. Anderton seconded the amendment.

Sir William Magnay made a long explanation. He had been charged with abstracting 58,000/. from the funds of the Great Luxembourg Railway. Company. A grosser and more unjust charge had never been made. The shareholders of the company had approved of the application of that money—and that is sufficient. He admitted that a portion had been disposed of as "secret service" money, but it had saved the company from utter destruction. In justification of his refusal to appear before the Belgian Court, Sir William detailed the arrest and imprisonment of Mr. Aahwell, an officer of the company, who, on the faith of an assurance that he would not he arrested, had proceeded to Belgium : he was arrested on a charge of bribery, treated as a criminal, and imprisoned for eleven weeks before the first charge was brought before a grand jury ; when the bill was ignored. Then he was charged with robbery ; but again the bill was ignored. After a lapse of six weeks, he was, without notice tried for misdemeanour, and acquitted ; but he did not even then obtain his liberty until after a lapse of twelve days. That treatment, Sir William held, justified him in not appearing before the Belgian Court. He demanded a full and fair inquiry.

On Thursday the discussion was renewed. Mr. Millard's amendment was negatived by a large majority. Mr. Fry then moved and Mr. Ross seconded an amendment referring the whole question to a special committee. On a division' there being 39 for and 39 against this amendment, it was carried by the casting-vote of the Lord Mayor. A comraittee of investigation was then nominated.

The Hackney parishes held a meeting in the Manor Rooms on Thursday, and joined in the movement for an equalization of poor-rates.

At the meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, on Monday, Sir Henry Rawlinson delivered a lecture on Mohammerah and the operations of Sir James Outram. Before coming to the latter, he described the exact position of Mohammerah, on the Western and Only navigable mouth of the Euphrates. 'Some time since a question arose between the Turkish and Persian Governments respecting the town : it was claimed by both; Persia averring that it is on the Kamen, Turkey that it is on the Euphrates : it was decided to be in Persia, but the decision Sir Henry thought was geographically wrong.

Sir James 0 utram decided upon attacking Mohammerah for three reasons,— first, on account of the health of his troops; secondly, the necessity for feeding them; cord thirdly, because of the favourable military position Mohammerahaffiwded. Had 'he remained at Bushire, he could not have kept his

troops in health, neither could he have fed them. Mohammerah is the most pestilential hole in the world ; and to prove that, it was only necessary to mention that on one occasion, when 500 Persian troops were sent in, only 100 came out-400 had died. That, indeed, was considered a bad se,ason ; but the mortality was always about 50 per cent. The heat was extreme—so hot, that, according to an ancient author, a lizard could not cross the street, for he was burnt to death in his passage from one side to the other. Then the most important question to consider is, what should be done with the British troops to prevent great mortality during the time it maybe necessary for them to remain. Their stay would be prolonged until the articles in the treaty of peace are acted upon i which would not be until the expiration of three months after the ratification, which is not to take place before the 4th of June ; and the unhealthiest months of all in the year are those in which the troops have to remain for the heat commences in April and continues until September. He hoped, therefore, General Outs-am would adopt every precaution to prevent, as far as possible, the troops falling victims to the climate.

[It appears, however, to be doubtful whether the terms of the treatyleave Sir James Outram any power to occupy any part of the country beyond his own outposts when the conclusion of the treaty was officially reported to him. If this be so, it is a fatal oversight on the part of our negotiators at Paris.]

At a meeting of the Society of Arta, on Wednesday, Mr. J. B. Smith, Member for Stockport, read a paper on the best mode of increasing our supplies of cotton. He looked to India as capable of furnishing an almost unlimited supply. India must be placed in a position to compete with America,—by furnishing her with a system of irrigation, which would at once fertilize the soil and serve as channels of communication ; by improving the land-tenure, the state of the law, and of the police. In Candeish alone there is land capable of producing more cotton than is now grown in the United States.

Several gentlemen present took part in the subsequent discussion. Sir Erskine Perry said— If asked the cause why the development of the resources of our Eastern empire had been impeded, he should answer, because the Government of that empire WAS confided to a monopolizing company, whose policy was to keep down British enterprise and British colonization. Before India could prosper, and the growth of cotton and other products, for which she had unlimited capabilities, could be fostered and stimulated, she must be placed under the direct government of the Queen. The admirable working of the latter system of administration is illustrated by the example of Ceylon, in which a thriving middle class is now springing up, and a large surplus ' revenue exists; Whereas in India there are only two classes in the community—the money-lender, with enormous ivZSlth, and the miserable cultivator, who lives under a cocoa-nut tree ; while there is a heavy annual deficit in the finances.

Dr. Livingstone drew attention to the capabilities of Western Africa ; where the natives, unaided by European superintendence, already grow vast quantities of cotton. Lord Stanley showed how the growth of our demand for cotton from the -United States has stimulated the system of slaveliolding. He confirmed Sir Erskine Perry's statement with respect to Ceylon ; and advocated the construction of canals in India, and of railways on the Atnerican plan. Sir John Pakington remarked that the direct pecuniary interests of England point unmistakeably to a better fulfilment on her part of the grave responsibility she has undertaken in connexion with the government of India. The subject of that evening's lecture ought to undergo Parliamentary discussion. This last suggestion was received with cheering.

The festival of the Sons 'of the Clergy was kept on Wednesday, with service at St. Paul's in the morning, and a dintIer at Merchant Tailors Hall in the evening. There were present on both occasions the Archbishops of Canterbury, the Bishops of London, Landaff, Worcester, Lincoln, and Durham • and besides these, the Bishops of Salisbury, St. Asaph, and Bangor, Lord Wensleydale Baron Channell, and Dr. Jelf, were present at the dinner. The Lord Mayor presided. The society is now nearly two hundred years old. Last year it expended 16,000/. in relieving 1200 persona; aged clergymen, widows and daughters of clergymen. In the course of the evening 32101. was subscribed ; and it was announced that Miss Charlotte Beaumont had bequeathed to the society the sum of 14,000/.

The splendid new reading-room of the British Museum, erected at an expense of about 150,000/., has been open to the inspection of the general public during this week, and has been visited by admiring crowds. It is of vast proportions, magnificent in appearance, and, most important of all, it seems admirably adapted for its purpose. The building is erected in the internal quadrangle of the Museum : the reading-room is circular; the dome is 106 feet in height, and 140 feet in diameter— two feet less than that of the Pantheon at Rome, but one foot more than the dome of St. Peter's. The building is mainly of iron.; 2000 tons have been employed in its construction. There is convenient accommodation for 300 readers, with ample means for warming and ventilation. Some 80,000 volumes are now ranged on the shelves of the reading-room ; there are three miles of book-cases eight feet high—equal to twenty-five miles of shelves if they were all spaced for the average octavo book size. There is much gilding in the structure ; which, with the azure blue and cream-colour painting, gives it a light and elegant appearance. It is proposed to place colossal marble statues on the consoles in the cornice from which the ribs of the roof spring.

Newgate Prison is to be rebuilt, on an improved plan, so as to permit the adoption of the separate system. The work of demolition commenced on Tuesday. The reconstruction will be carried on bit by bit, so that the gaol will still be used for prisoners during the progress of the work.

An interesting action arising out, of a disputed will has been recently argued before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on an appeal from the Prerogative Court. Judgment was delivered on Monday. The question to be decided was, whether probate could be granted to a will made by an English lady in France, the bulk of her property being in England. The Prerogative Court had decided that it could. The testatrix was the daughter of General Caleraft ; she had lived in Paris from 1838 to 1853, and had declared her determination never to quit it ; but she had never obtained an authorization to establish her domicile in France. It was admitted, however, that she had acquired a French domicile, although an unauthorized one, and one that, therefore, did not enable her to enjoy civil rights. But it was doubtful, and matter of inquiry whether testacy was among these civil rights. In giving judgment, -Lord Wensleydale said that "the maxim

• mobilia sequuntur personam' has long prevailed ; and whatever the origin of that doctrine may be—whether it was derived from a fictitious annexation of moveables to the person, or from an enlarged policy growing out of their transitory nature—it has so general a sanction among all civilized nations that it may now be treated as a part of the jus gentaum. It follows from this maxim, that the post-mortuary distribution of the effects of a deceased person must be made according to the law of his domicil at the time of his death, if he dies without a will • and it equally seems to follow, that if the law of that country allowed hint to make a will, the will must be in the form and with the solemnities which that law required." But the will of Madame Allegri was made in the English form ; and the Judicial Committee, reversing the judgment of the Prerogative Court, decided that in this case the will is invalid.

• In the Court of Queen's Bench, on Saturday, on a prosecution by indictment, William Dugdale was found guilty of publishing obscene prints at his shop in Holywell Street, and sentenced by Lord Campbell to one year's imprisonment with hard labour. William Strange, a publisher in Fleet Street, was sent to prison for three months for the like offence.

Mr. Commissioner Holroyd gave judgment on Thursday in the ease of the Royal British Bank. As the examinations have closed with the exception of some formal depositions, he thought it his duty to interpose at once, lest justice should be defeated, and to direct copies of the examinations to be transmitted to the Attorney-General, so that the Government may be advised by its Law-officers as to the institution of criminal proceedings. "I do not believe," he said, "that a scene of greater recklessness, fraud, and criminality of conduct in the management of a banking establishment, was ever exhibited in a court of justice than is disclosed by the examinations taken in this court under the adjudication of bankruptcy against the Royal British Bank; and I may observe that these examinations will be admissible in evidence against the parties in case of a prosecution." After a clear and perspicacious review of the evidence, the learned Commissioner states that the following charges have been established against the authorities of the Bank. First, commencing business before all the shares were subscribed for, and thus imposing upon the Board of Trade; making, declaring, and publish' rig false statements and balance-sheets of the assets, liabilities, and profits of the bank, for the; purpose of concealing the actual state and position of the affairs of the corporation ; declaring dividends when no profits had been made, and when great losses had been incurred ; conspiring to raise the price of theshares of the company by illegal means and with a criminal view ; conspiring to obtain a supplemental charter by false representations and false reports and balance-sheets; by making repeated gross misapplications of the funds of the bank; by large loans to some of the directors and other persons on terms of the utmost risk, and in total disregard of the discretion vested in the directors by the charter; by embarking in a hazardous speculation quite foreign to the legitimate business of banking (the Welsh mince); and, lastly, by not exercising proper superintendence and control over the general managers in conducting the business and affairs of the company. After condemning the auditors for signing fictitious accounts, the Commissioner went on—" The directors of such a company therefore ought to be, and I think it will be found that they are, amenable to the law for their conduct as directors, and subject to punishment for not faithfully discharging their duty." Finally-, he directed that the proceedings under the bankruptcy should be forthwith brought to the special notice of her Majesty's Government.

A good deal of interest has been excited by the protracted investigations connected with the charge against Thomas Fuller Bacon and Martha his wife, for the murder of their two children in December last. The charge was finally brought to trial at the Central Criminal Court on Wednesday and Thursday. It may be recollected that the two children were found dead in the house of their parents, and that Mrs. Bacon, when arrested, said that a man had got into the house by the window and cut their throats. She had been confined in a lunatic asylum, and was believed to be insane. Her husband had left home for Reigate early on the morning of the murders—it is now believed while the children were yet unharmed ; but suspicion soon fell on him, and he was arrested. In his examinations before the Police Magistrate, be made several assertions to back up his wife's fabricated story of the burglar ; but these were proved to be falsehoods, and suspicion settled more darkly upon him. It was increased when his wife, in a letter to the Magistrate, charged her husband with the murders, and with an attempt on her own life. When the evidence was all brought together at the trial, it was seen, however, that, except the lies he told to escape suspicion, and to screen his wife, there was no evidence to implicate Bacon. In fact, it was shown that Mrs. Bacon must have committed the murders. The Jury found Bacon "Not Guilty"; anl Mrs. Bacon "Not Guilty, on the ground of insanity." Lord Campbell concurred in this verdict. He thought it right to say, that since the female prisoner had been confined in Newgate she had stated to the ordinary that she alone killed the children. Bacon is still in custody, on a charge of poisoning his mother, at Stamford.

The Bow Street Magistrate has decided that a commercial traveller's dog-cart, having no outward signs of trading purposes upon it, is entitled to pass through St. James's Park as a "private carriage." A Mr. &Hamlin, after traversing the Park for four months unimpeded, was stopped the other evening by the police ; as he persisted on his right to pass, he was taken into custody, and his vehicle taken to the green-yard : he appears to have been very harshly treated.

The fall of houses supplies the place of fatal railway "accidents." Early on Saturday morning, three houses in Tottenham:Court Road fell down, and caused the immediate death of five persons, while others were badly hurt. Between Grafton Street and Tottenham Place there were seven houses, five of which were occupied by two furniture-warehousemen: Messrs. Maple and Co. held those numbered 145 to 147, and Mr. Hunter Nos. 148 and 149. Recently a portion of the house No. 148 had been destroyed by fire ; Mr. Hunter was having it rebuilt; Mr. Maple thought this a good opportunity to have some alterations made on his own premises adjoining No. 148; so that the two houses were pulled to pieces at the same moment. On Friday afternoon, the district-surveyor inspected the place;. he pronounced the party-wall of No. 147 to be unsafe, and directed that it should be immediately "under-pinned" and a new wall carried up as high as the first floor. When the.workmen arrived on Saturday morning, they went to work on this wall,. and made two large holes in the lower part, one at each extremity of the wall. Soon after seven o'clock, Mr. Hughes, one of Messrs. Maple's clerks, noticed dust coming from the wall; the instant after, a bricklayer

called out to him to "run for his " ; he darted into some back premises, and bad hardly, done so when the wall fell, dragging down with it three houses—Nos.146, 147, and 148. At the moment that the houses fell there were a good many persons in and about them—besides the shopmen, clerks, and young females employed at Maple's, there were workpeople engaged in the building operations.

Several persons appear to have got out of the ruins unaided, and not much hurt. Measures were taken to dig out those buried in the rubbish. Frederick Byng, a clerk, who was suffocated while lying in bed—Ann Briscoe, the cook at Maple's, who was employed at the moment in preparing break. fast for the establishment—Richard Turner and George Garnett, carpenters, who were at woek in a second floor—and George Keyil, a labourer—were taken out dead. Mr. Joseph Taylor, son of one of the builders employed, though rescued alive, suffered much, a beam having fallen across his body. A large amount of property was destroyed on the premises of Maple and Co. ; but Mr. Hunter's house did not contain any furniture.

The inquest on the bodies was opened by Mr. Brent, Deputy-Coroner, .on Wednesday. He wished to confine the preliminary inquiry to the identification of the bodies and the surgical evidence, but some other information was elicited. From the evidence of the widows of the two carpenters it would seem that there had been some vague talk that the work was not quite safe. Frederick Byng was found in his bed With the lead from the roof lying flat upon him. The party-wall between 147 and 148 was common to the two houses. Mr. Hunter's workmen were cutting holes in this wall at two places ; there were discrepancies in the statements as to the size of these holes at the time of the downfall. The wall was cut away., not at the basement, but on the ground-floor. Several persons noticed dust falling from the wall ; and King, a bricklayer employed at Maple's, called out to the workmen that they were taking away too much of the brickwork. Harrison, foreman to Mr. Johnson, the builder employed at Hunter's, was asked if he had not thought it necessary to there up the party-wall while under-pinning it: he answered—" Not at all."

From the statement of Mr. Reeves, surveyor of the Police, No. 146, Maple's house at the corner of Tottenham Place, is to be taken down immediately, as it is dangerous. The unfortunate young man Joseph Taylor expired `early on Thursday morning—the sixth victim. His wife and infants and his father were present at his last moments, and the scene was exceedingly distressing ; but the sufferer was calm and resigned.

A very alarming incident occurred at the Princess's Theatre on Wednesday, night : in raising the velvet curtain at the beginning of the fourth act of Richard II it took fire by coining in contact with the gas-lights. Mrs. Keau was on the stage, and she entreated the audience to be calm. The blaze was BOOR extinguished ; but many preens had left the theatre in alarm, and the performances abruptly terminated.

Mr. Charles Stewart, a surgeon residing in Woburn Buildings ,has destroyed himself, while suffering from mental excitement, by swallowing a large quantity of prussic acid.

The " championship " of the Thames and a purse of 200/. were rowed for on Tuesday, between Putney and Mortlake. James Messenger, of Teddington was the Thames champion till that day ; his supremacy was challenged by 'Henry Kelly, another Thames waterman, who had recently acquired fame as a sculler. The day was fine, much interest was felt by the boating fraternity*of London, and an immense concourse of people lined the shores or filled a fleet of steamers and hundreds of row-boats. The crowd met with a great disappointment, for the race hardly seemed a contest. Kelly, the favourite, soon took the lead, ilicreased the distance between himself and Messenger, and eventually won by a great distance, and with little effort towards the close—at one time he waited for his opponent when the latter met with an obstruction. Kelly is five years younger than Messenger : he can pull thirty-four strokes per minute.