Lord Melville steam-packet left the Tower Stairs for Calais on
Thurs- day ; and arriving off Hanover-hole, the Bridget (Captain John Arkle, of Sunderland) being very improperly swung before high- water, she came in contact with the Lord Melville. The mizen- mast of the latter was broken, and in its fall seriously injured the lion. Mrs. Rouse, the daughter-in-law of Lord Stradbroke • and the second mate, who attempted to save her. The latter died on his way to the hospital.
STORM IN ABEIMEENSHIRE.-011 Sunday the 30th ult, there was a heavy thunder-storm in the parish of Marnoch, particularly at Auchin- toul, accompanied by one of the heaviest hail-showers ever witnessed in the county. Though the shower did not continue above fifteen minutes, it covered the ground in many places as many inches deep ; nor was it wholly dissolved for more than thirty hours after. The hothouses at Auchintoul House were almost entirely destroyed, and a great many of the shrubs in the gardens. In a neighbouring hamlet, the skylights were wholly beaten in, and even some of the tiles were broken. 'Nearly about the same time, a whirlwind passed over the same district, sweeping the thatch from the outhouses, and every thing besides of a portable 'kind that came in its way. A peat-stack was among the moveables car- ried off. And what is almost incredible, the miscellaneous plunder car- ried off by the whirlwind was not again deposited until it had travelled nearly twenty miles from the place whence it took its unwilling flight. The descent of the peat-stack was distinctly seen by a lady travelling that way, who describes it as resembling a flock of crows alighting.
The week before last, a Cromarty boat, with ten persons on board, eight of them belonging to one family, was lost near Lossiemouth. Four of the bodies, those of the mother, father, eldest daughter, and one of the boatmen, were found soon after the accident. On Wednesday last week, the body of a girl apparently about ten, and on Thursday one of an infant about one year, drifted ashore at Lossiernouth.
FRENCH SHIPIVRECK.—The French papers of last week announced the shipwreck of two brigs, the Silene and Aventures on the coast of Africa, but added no particulars. The first rumours stated, that out of onehundred and five only eleven had escaped, by the interposition of the English Con. sid,and that these were threatened. The rest were represented as having
fallen victims to the Bedouins and the Algerines. The Moniteur of Suns- day contains the official report of the senior commander, dated from the Bagne, or slave-prison of Algiers. It appears that the two brigs went ashore on the 15th, in consequence of email mistake in their reckoning. They had been only four days at sea, and the one brig was in Long. 15 minutes east, the other 10 minutes west of Paris ! The crews were got safely ashore, with the exception of one man ; but while proceeding along shore towards Algiers, they were surprised by a troop of Bedouins, by whom they were made prisoners, and plundered to their shirts. They would, probably, have been treated still worse, i ad it not been for a Maltese sailor, who spoke Arabic, and who persuaded the Bedouins that they were English. After being detained for several days by these rovers, the second in command, Bruat, reached a Turkish post by swimming ; and orders were hi consequence sent to the Bedouins to bring the prisoners to Algiers. Before these orders could be executed, however, some quarrel had taken place, or some cause of offence been taken, and twenty- five of the miserable Frenchmen were massacred by their treacherous cap. tors. The rest, seventy-nine in number, were marched to Algiers ; where they remained when the despatch was sent off. It appears that the French acted on this occasion, as they always do in cases of danger or difficulty, without firmness or prudence. Had they kept their arms in marching along the coast, the Bedouins, in all probability, would never have ap- proached them. Even when these ruffians began the massacre, two soldiers, the one armed with a fork and the other with a hatchet, fought their way through the murderers, and came safe into Algiers.
Ft RE-DAM r.—A d readfu acci dent from fire-damp took place on the 31st of May, at the coal-mines at Ronchamp, near Mulhausen. The explo- sion was occasioned by the foolhardiness of a miner who would unscrew. his " Davy," to show that there was no inflammable gas in the chamber. Thirty persons, among whom was the reckless individual who occasioned the mischief, perished by the blast or the subsequent choak-damp, and live were severely hurt. EARTH QUAKE.—Letters from Port-att-Prince, of the 15th April, de- scribe that town as having suffered considerably from an earthquake that took place two days before. It lasted for about fifteen seconds only, but all time walls of the brick buildings were rent by the shock.
CLEVER SUICIDE.—A slater named M'Ewan hanged himself last week at Glasgow. The act was most deliberately gone about. The sui. cide rose silently from his bed, fastened a rope to the railing of the stair, and putting the noose round his neck, drew his ni;ylitcap over his eyes, and threw himself off as regularly and scientifically as any professional man in the country could have done ! On -Monday week, a lady, named Da Costa, who has resided for several years at Bishop's Cleeve, near Cheltenham, walked from her house, with a loaded blunderbuss in her hands, to the opposite side of the road, where she applied the muzzle to her breast, and fired its contents through her heart.
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