aligrrlInutuits.

f". It is stated on authority, that Mr. Labouchere has offered the vacant poet of Governor of Victoria to the Earl of Elgin ; but that Lord Elgin has declined to accept it, preferring to remain at home.

Mr. Thomas, a Madras civil servant, is said to have been appointed by the Crown a Director of the East India Company under the late Charter Act,

DEATH or Rum COWPER.—Lord Cowper left town on Tuesday morning, to attend Quarter-Sessions at Maidstone. Just before the conclusion of the business, and as he was speaking, he was taken ill. He was removed to a room near the Court ; a medical man soon arrived ; and at his request Lord Cowper was carried into the Governor's house. There, a few minutes after nine in the evening, he died of spasms of the heart. Earl Cowper was the eldest son of Lady Palmerston by her former marriage. He was born in 1806, and in 1833 he married a daughter of Earl De Grey. In early life he held a commission in the Horse Guards ; and he sat in the House of Com- mons until 1837, when he succeeded to the title. For a brief period, in 1834, he was Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Although, after he became a Peer, he withdrew from active polities, he uniformly supported the Whip in Parliament. In 1846 he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Kent. He is succeeded by his eldest son, Lord Fordwich.

DEATH OF Counts', DAwsori DAMER.—This gentleman, the third son of the first Earl of Portarlington, died on Monday evening, after a short ill- ness. He was born in 1788. He made choice of the army as a profession, and served with the Eighty-ninth at Waterloo. He sat in the House of Commons for Portarthigton in 1836, and afterwards for Dorchester. In 1841, Sir Robert Peel made him a Privy Councillor, and gave him the office of Comptroller of the Queen's Household. As he supported the policy of Sir Robert to the last, he thereby lost the favour of his Dorchester constituents, and was rejected by them at the last election.

DEATH- OF CAPTAIN DEANS DUNDA/3.—Captain Dundas died at Edin- burgh on the 11th. He was the eldest son of Admiral Deans Dundas, late Commander of the Black Sea Fleet. Captain Dundas formerly held a com- mission in the Coldstream Guards, and represented Flintshire in Parlia- ment. He married a granddaughter of Bruce the traveller.

The French Academy have elected M. Blot and M. de Falloux members, in the place of the late M. Lacretelle and Count Mold.

The Gazette de Lyons speaks of an interview which has taken place be- tween the Count de Chambord and the Countess de Neuilly, at which were present the Duke de Nemours and the Princess Clementine. The Countess de Neuilly having several times expressed a desire to visit the Count de Chambord, but being prevented by the state of her health, the Count anti- cipated the intention of his august aunt, and visited her at Nervi on the 6th instant.

It is intended to raise a statue of John Wesley in his native town of Ep- worth, in North Lincolnshire, by means of a penny subscription.

La Palma, a Cadiz paper, has a serious announcement of the retirement of Lord Palmerston from public life. A negotiation is in progress, it says, for the purchase by the Premier of a magnificent property at San Lucar-de- Barrameda ; where he intends to end his days "amid the perfume of orange groves and under the shade of gigantic olive-trees."

The late Colonel Sibthorp, it appears, was a great collector of articles of verta and of pictures ; his collection is now under the hammer of Christie and Manson, and a large sum will be realized. From the prices obtained, the Colonel would seem to have been a good judge in these matters. A carving in ivory, in the form of a pedestal, representing Silenus and at- tendants, in high relief, mounted with or-molu, was sold for 208 guineas—

Colonel Sibthorp had bought it for 46. It is believed that many purchases have been made for the Museum of Art at Marlborough Horne.

The expenditure of the British Museum during the year ending 31st March was 62,0041. The visitors to the general collections in 1855 were 334,089; a great falling-off from former years.

The Persia has made the quickest passage on record from New York ; she arrived at Liverpool in nine days twelve hours and seven minufes,—six hours less than any former passage.

Both the St. Petersburg .Northern Bee and advices from Odessa warn English merchants that they are in error in supposing that there are great stores of produce accumulated in the Russian ports : during the whole of the war superfluous produce at the ports has been regularly exported, and prin- cipally to England, and fresh supplies from the interior cannot be for- warded at a few weeks' notice.

While the French authorities have given facilities for travellers from England, by allowing luggage to proceed to Paris ,before examination, our own officials will not grant permission for luggage landed at Folkstone to be forwarded at once to London, with the exception of that brought by one train. The present system causes great delay.

"U." informs the limes that no improvement worth mentioning has been made this year in the arrangements for admitting ladies and gentle- men to the Queen's drawingrooms : the ladies are still not "treated with common decency" on their way to the Royal presence. Some ladies ac- tually carry camp-stools with them, that they may rest themselves in their weary journey ; no seats being allowed in the Royal apartments.

On the 20th November, the Queen's ship Electra, while on a voyage from Auckland to Sydney, was greatly endangered from a water-spout that burst upon her ; a rare occurrence, though water-spouts are often seen. After.a few minutes of awful suspense for the crew, the vessel recovered from the shock.

Mrs. Phin, wife of a railway-guard, has given birth at Birmingham to five children at once—three boys alive, and two girls still-born.

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

Ten Weeks of 1846-'55. 'Week of 1856_ Zymotic Diseases 215.3 .... 235 Dropsy, Cancer, and other Diseases of uncertain or variable seat 45.0 .... 57 Tubercular Diseases 206.3 .... 179 Diseases of the Brain, Spinal Marrow, Nerves, and Senses 128.9 .... 143 Diseases of the Heart and Blood-vessels 42.5. 37 Diseases of the Lungs, and of the other Organs of Respiration., 209.6 .... 218 Diseases of the Stomach, Liver, and other Organs of Digestion 60.0 .... 53

Diseases of the Kidneys, Sc.

12.2 .... 15

Childbirth, Diseases of the Uterus, Be

2.7....

7

Rheumatism, Diseases of the Bones, Joints, Sr.

7.7 .... 6 Diseases of the Skin, Cellular mane, Sc 2.0 .... 3 Malformations

3.3 ....

5-

Premature Birth 26.2 .... 28 Atrophy 26.7 .... 26 Age 47.6 31 Sudden 7-0

Violence, Privation, Cold, and Intemperance

23.4

Total (including unspecified causes 1078.6 1115

Two French officers have settled a difference at Grenoble in a most effec- tual and " honourable " manner—by killing each other. Aimed with pistols, they were placed opposite each other at twenty paces; they advanced five paces each, and then fired—both fell dead.

A few days since, a gentleman while walking through Farley, a village near Bath, heard the sound of a drum near a brook ; and he found on in- quiry that the drum was beaten to recover the body of a carter recently drowned : the notion was, that when the drummer came to the spot where the body lay, it would rise to the surface ! The plan failed. But there was another to be tried : a half-quartern loaf was to be put into the brook where the deceased fell in, to be floated down the stream, and on reaching the spot where the body was, the loaf was expected to turn round three times and- then sink.

Great alarm exists at Barnsley from the deer in Stainborough Park suf- fering in large numbers from hydrophobia, caused, it is said, by a mad dog having roamed the vicinity a few months since. Nearly a hundred deer have fallen victims ; the animals become very savage under the influence of the disease, and bite and tear each other. A workman's child has been bitter; by one of the rabid animals.