fistel lantous.

Letters from Madeira were received at Marlborough House on Monday morning, announcing the safe arrival of the Queen Dowager and suite; all in good health: A Cabinet Council, which sat tnerhormr and a half, was held on Tues- day, at the Foreign Office.

A meeting of Protectionist Peers and Members, which was to have been held at Lord Stanley's house in St. James's Square on Thursday morning, was postponed till Monday; Lord Stanley having been detained at Knows- ley by a severe fit of the gout.

The medical advisers of the honourable Member for Finsbury [Mr. Thomas Dancombe] have recommended his temporary retirement from public life. The honourable gentleman is about to " pair off" for the en- smug session; and purposes sojourning for a few months at Lisbon, to re- crait his health.—Morning Post. The vacancy created by the retirement of Mr. Gatty, the Taxing Mas- ter, has been filled by the appointment of Mr. Joseph Parkes. That in selecting Mr. Parkes for this office( the Government has rewarded an active and most efficient partisan no one will doubt; but we believe that Mr. Parkes's qualifications for the post are unquestionable, and that it will be extremely acceptable to the profession. Mr. Parkes has been for many years solicitor to the Charity Commission, and in that capacity earned the esteem not only of Whig but of Tory Attorneys-General, and has, we are told, been recommended by the most eminent men of all opinions upon the bench and among the bar.—Times.

It is understood that Mr. J. Drinkwater Bethune, who has filled for some years the office of Parliamentary counsel to the Home Office, has been appointed President of the Indian Law Council as successor to Mr. Charles Henry Cameron. Mr. Bethune will be a member of the Supreme Council at Calcutta.

Mr. Bonham, who was formerly the Governor of Singapore, is named as the new Governor of Hong-koug, in the place of Sir John Davis; who has resigned.

Mr. George Rennie, formerly Member for Ipswich, has been appointed Governor of the Falkland Islands.

The Board of Ordnance have, after repeated applications, awarded a pension of 201. per annum to the widow of the late James Marsh, whose test for the detection of minute quantities of arsenic and other discoveries in chemistry bad given to his name an Europeau reputation.

The dispute between Mr. Busfeild Fernand and Mr. George Cornewall Lewis, as Poor-law Commissioner, has been settled out of court. It may be recollected, that at Michaelmas in 1846, Mr. Lewis applied to the Court of Queen's Bench for a criminal information against Mr. Ferrand, on the score of two inculpatory letters published by Mr. Ferrand in the Time. It is now stated, on authority, that by the intervention of friends—Lord John Manners acting for Mr. Ferrand, and Mr. Hayward the Queen's counsel for Mr. Lewis—the affair has been amicably settled; Mr. Ferrand withdrawing the charges. The following is the memorandum upon which the friends of the litigants have agreed-

" Mr. Ferrand withdraws the letters which constitute:the alleged libels in this case, and also the pleas pleaded in justification of them.

" Both letters were written under feelings of considerable irritation and excite- ment, when Mr. Ferrand was suffering from illness, and had no opportunity of consulting with his friends. Before writing the first, (of August 6, 1846) he had received information, which at that time and for some time afterwards he saw no reason to distrust, leading him to conclude that Mr. Lewis had coupe- rated with Sir James Graham to lower him in public estimation; and he wrote the second letter (of August 10, 1846) under a bona fide, though erroneous im- pression, that the mistake into which Mr. Lewis fell in his evidence, and which was the sole cause of the second letter being written, was an intentional mis- statement. On full and calm inquiry, and after consulting with his friends, Mr. Ferrand is now convinced that he acted hastily and without accurate information in both instances. He therefore withdraws the charges contained in the letters so far as they affect Mr. Lewis' who will stand precisely as if they had never been written; and Mr. Ferrand regrets that he ever wrote and published them."

A notice has been issued from the Post-office giving the public the pri- vilege of marking or writing upon newspapers sent by post, provided a penny stamp be affixed upon them— In cases where newspapers are at present subject to the penny postage, as when they are both posted and delivered in the same town,) the writing or marlm will involve no additional charge. This privilege, however, is to be confined to inscriptions on the newspaper itself, and is not to extend to the cover; which, as heretofore, must contain nothing but the address. If additional writing be placed upon the cover, or if a marked newspaper be sent without the penny stamp, it will then be liable to the same postage as that which would be charged for an unpaid letter of like weight. The new regulation does not apply to newspapers to or from the Colonies or foreign countries: these when written upon, or when con- taining enclosures, will still be liable to the treble rate of postage at present charged upon them.

On and after the 4th of next month, the British and North American Mail Steam-ship Company will despatch a steamer for America every fortnight (until the 25th of March; after which, weekly ; the vessels of course returning from America at corresponding intervals. The Com- pany's fleet of steamers will be increased to the number of nine, by the ad- dition of four new ships—the America, Canada, Niagara, and Europa.

Although the week has been comparatively free from disaster, we have still to record some additions to the City failures.

The suspension of the great house of Trueman and Cooke, the leading Colonial* brokers, was announced on Monday, in the following circular from the firm-

" The long-continued pressure of the times, and the sacrifice of property at the pre-, sent depressed prices which would become necessary for the due fulfilment of the heavy engagements which have entirely devolved upon us from the failure of so many rife= connexions and friends, have determined us, for the present, not to make any mrtner payments. " We regret the temporary inconvenience whb h this course will occasion ; but we shall lose no time In laying a statement of our affairs before the parties interested, and we have no doubt that such statement will give satisfaction and confidence as to the

result."

The liabilities are stated at 350,0001., chiefly in acceptances; and the difficulty is said to arise from the advances made to the large East India and Mauritius houses which have recently failed. The firm, however, announced their intention to con- tinue their brokerage business; and their sales accordingly proceeded on These day in the usual way.

Mr. A. Arkell, of the Stock Exchange, and Mr. Robert Ferrand, corn-factor, Mark Lane, failed on Tuesday. The amount of liabilities is said to be not at all large.

At Liverpool, on Monday, the local house of Castellain and Co. followed the example of its London namesake, and stopped payment. The liabilities are not supposed to be large. On Wednesday another failure occurred in the soap trade —that of Messrs. G. and J. Blake, for about 18,0001.

The firm of Rickerby and Harding, engaged in the corn and cotton trades, stop, ped payment on Thursday; but their liabilities are trifling.

On Wednesday, the failure of the large and respectable iron-founder, Mr. Na. pier, of Camlachie, was made known on the Liverpool Exchange. The liabilities are stated at 40,0001.; and the assets will, it is expected, realize 12e. 6d. in the pound.

From Manchester we bear of the suspension of J. T. Harvey Pendleton, for an inconsiderable amount. Some excitement was felt in Leeds at the rumour of difficulties experienced by a large woollen house; but the report turned out to be unfounded. The firm, If which the name has been withheld from publication, is believed to be perfectly able to meet its engagements. Letters from Hull, received in the City on Thursday, mention the stoppage or Mr. Norrison Levett, a merchant in the Baltic trade; but without stating the liabilities.

From Newcastle also a failure is reported. At Glasgow, Messrs. George Young and Co., calico-printers, have failed: liabili ties stated at 16,0001. From Havre we hear of the failure of Messrs. Bonaffe and Co., American mer- chants; a firm of some standing and of the highest respectability. Accounts from Bayonne of the 11th instant announce the failure of the old- established house of Palengat and Co., of that city; attributed to extensive specu- lations in corn. Their engagements are stated to amount to 800,000 francs. Forty-four bankruptcies were announced in Tuesday's Gazette.

The Caledonia steamer, which arrived on Monday from Hamburg, brought nearly 100,0001. in gold; and the Ocean steamer, from Rotterdam, about 10,0001.

The directors of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and Manufactures have memorialized the Treasury urging the adoption of measures to arrest the enormous expenditure in railway works.

The fishermen of the coast to which the South-eastern Railway affords means of communicating with London now send vast quantities of fish to the Metropolis by rail.

Accounts from Lemberg to the 3d instant state that the cholera is ad- vancing by rapid strides, and is within twenty-four miles of the Galician frontier. Numbers are carried off daily at Krzemieniec, Podolski, and Rad- ziwillaf, about thirty-two miles from Lemberg. The cholera appears to have subsided at Moscow, but to be hastening on to St. Petersburg. A few cases had occurred at Novogorod, a town only forty leagues from the capital. In Paris, where some cases were reported last week, doubts are thrown upon its epidemical character. The agent to Lloyd's at Falmouth has published a letter contradicting the report that a case of cholera had occurred at that port on board a vessel arrived from the Black Sea. There has been no colour for the rumour; no vessel having even been subjected to quarantine through sickness.

Professor Simpson, of Edinburgh University, has succeeded in discover- ing a therapeutic agent in lieu of inhaled ether, more efficacious, less trou- blesome, less disagreeable. The new " anaesthetic " agent is described in a pamphlet published by Dr. Simpson, in terms at once distinct, moderate, and trustworthy. It is called " chloroform, or perchloride of formyle." It is described as "a dense, limpid, colourless liquid, readily evaporating, possessing an agreeable fruit-like odour, and a saccharine pleasant taste." In its application as an anmsthetic it is inhaled like ether: its advantages over that agent are thus enumerated-

" 1. A much less quantity will produce the same effect. 2. A more rapid, complete, and generally more persistent action, with less preliminary excitement and tendency to exhilaration and talking. 3. The inhalation is far more agree- able and pleasant than that of ether. 4. As a smaller quantity is used, the ap- plication is less expensive; which becomes an important consideration if brought into general use. o. Its perfume is not unpleasant, but the reverse, and more evanescent. 6. and 7. No particular instrument or inhaler is necessary: it is quite portable; and all that is required is to diffuse a little of the liquid upon a hollow- sipped sponge, or even the pocket-handkerchief, and apply the same over the mouth and nostrils, so as to he fully inhaled."

Dr. Simpson and some of his medical friends have used chloroform with perfect success in several cases of midwifery and painful operations.

Formyle is the hypothetical radical of formic acid"; the acid being so called because it was first observed in the formica rufa, or red ant; but chemists now obtain it from many sources, such as starch, sugar, and most vegetable substances. The perchloride of formyle, or chloroform, may be made by various' processes,—" by making milk of lime or an aqueous solution of caustic alkali to act upon chloral; by distilling alcohol, pyroxylic spirit, or acetone, with chloride of lime; by leading a stream of Chlorine gas into a solution of caustic potass in spirit of wine," &c.

A new mode of propelling steam-boats, invented by Mr. Simpson, was tried in the Thames on Monday afternoon. The new propeller consults of a wheel acting horizontally or vertically within a case entirely submerged. The case is a circle, rendered eccentric by its position with relation to the wheel. It is so much larger than the wheel as to give effect to the centrifugal action of the water. The principle of the invention consists in the ejectment of a column of water in a parallel line with that of the vessel's motion, which column acts against the water outside the vessel. The experiment was tried with a small steamer called the Albion, of 20-horse power. The speed attained ranged be- tween ten to twelve knots, with an entire absence of all surface swell or wave. The diameter of the submerged propeller is very small: for a vessel of 400 tons it would not be greater than 30 inches.

Mr. Elijah Galloway has patented what has hitherto been esteemed much more as a philosopher's stone of steam power thou a practicable invention. It is said to be so wondrously portable as not to weigh more than two or three hundredweight and not to occupy more than half the space of an ordinary hat box. A steam-pipe from the boiler brings the steam into this little receptacle; an eccentric crank is turned by the rotary motion within it; and here is all the machinery said to be necessary to propel the largest engines, whether mining, marine, or locomotive. The Admiralty are said to have ordered an estimate for supplying the Minx with a fifty-horse power one. They could not do better, we think, than name such a little whirling machine the Minx itself, and provide it with the all-sufficient accommodation of a band-box.—The Builder.

The New Testament has, for the first time, been translated into the Servian language, by Dr. Wuk Stephanowitsch Koradschitsch. It is from the ancient Slavoman version, compared with the Greek. Hamburg witnessed a curious legal proceeding on the 8th instant. The scaf- fold was erected as for an execution, before the principal front of the Exchange; and at noon a large furnace filled with resinous wood was placed on it. The wood having been set on fire, the bell of the Town-hall was rung violently, as is usual during the execution of decrees inflicting infamous penalties. At one o'clock, the hour at which merchants are assembled on the Exchange, the public executioner ascended the scaffold, followed by two of his assistants; and, after having caused a drum to be beat, he proclaimed in a loud voice the name of a merchant who had been declared guilty of fraudulent bankruptcy, and who had taken to flight. He then displayed to the spectators an enormous placard bearing the name of the culprit in gigantic letters. He next caused the drum to be beat a second time; after which he tossed the placard in the flames. For twenty-three years no similar execution bad taken place at Hamburg.

A frightful shipwreck has occurred on the South-western coast of Ireland. The packet-ship Stephen Whitney, a splendid vessel of more than a thousand tons burden, lett New York for Liverpool on the 18th October. All seems to have gone well till Wednesday sennight ; about ten o'clock on that night the ship i

was ran on the West Calf, an island of Skull, and in fifteen minutes was an utter wreck. The scene of the disaster is a fearfully rugged coast, within a few miles of Cape Clear. There were on board the vessel a hundred and tenngers and crew; of whom ninety-one perished, only nineteen getting to laud alive. The shore and rocks were strewed with the ; which the country people, who

assembled by thousands, industriously p A letter from Mr. Allen, the chief mate of the ill.fated vessel, to the consignees, describes the disaster. " It is my painful duty to inform you of the loss of the Stephen Whitney, with her noble commander, on the night of the 10th instant. We had no observation on that day. Wind strong from S.W., weather thick. At six o'clock p.m. we close-reefed the topsails and reefed the courses, intending to haat off the land at eight p.m. But at eight precisely we made the land off Crookhaven, which we judged by the lighthouse to be the Old Head of Kinsale. We immediately made all possible sail, and hauled off shore.' At nine, kept away Channel course, judging we were clear of all danger; but at ten made the land ahead within pistol-shot. In the act of staying (owing to the tremendous sea) the ship went ashore, stern first, nearly broadside on. The island proved to be the Western Calf, inside Cape Clear. The scene that followed baffles description. Out of 110 persons (passengers and crew) only 19 are saved. Captain Popham was washed away from alongside me, and I have no doubt killed instantly. In

less than fifteen minutes from the time the ship struck, she went to atoms. The survivors are all landed here, half naked, and all more or less hurt on the wreck and rocks. The authorities here are very busy saving the wreck; but it is in such a dreadful state that it will never pay the labour. Several bodies have been found today, seamen and steerage passengers, and were buried on the island. have written to the Consul at Cork, stating our loss and distress, and hope to hear from him shortly; as we should have perished had it not been for the kind-

ness of some gentlemen here—Lieutenant Short of the Coast Guard, the Reverend Mr. Niphook, and the Magistrate, Mr. Limerick—to whose kind offices we are deeply indebted." He gives a list of the cabin-passengers who perished—" Mr.

Roberts, New York; Mr. MCabe, Ohio; Mr. Fordyce, Scotland; Dr. Sweeny, Ireland; Mr. Robinson, Liverpool; Mrs. Shaw, England; and two children were lost from the cabin." Mr. Gill, the second mate, was drowned; the third mate, Mr. Mackay, escaped.

It appears that those persons who escaped did so not by any exertions of their own—for the disaster was too sudden—but by the waves casting them on shore.

They scrambled up the rocks; and on finding two miserable huts, learned that they had been thrown on West Calf island. The day after the wreck, a Govern- ment vessel went to endeavour to save some of the cargo; but it was found that the noble ship had been ground into fragments: a few bales of cotton and two or three boxes of cheese have been rescued by the Coast Guard Service, and that is all. It would seem that no one on board the ship knew that a light had been erected on Rock Island: and so it was mistaken for that of the Old Head. In the Rectory sub-district of St. Marylebone a woman is reported to have died at the advanced age of a hundred and three years. In the week ending October 30, a woman was registered as having died in the sub-district of St. Andrew, East Holborn, at the age of a hundred and one years.—Register of Births and Deaths, Results of the Registrar-General's return of mortality in the Metropolis for the week ending on Saturday last—

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Total (including unspecified causes) 1095 1016 The comparison of the deaths registered last week in London with the deaths which would have been registered if the rate of mortality had been the same as in Dorsetshire, shows these totals—London, 1,098; Dorsetahire, 659; excess, 439. The lowest temperature of the thermometer in the shade was 27.0°; the mean temperature by day being warmer than the average mean temperature by 6.1°. The thermometer whose bulb was placed in the full rays of the sun was broken. The mean direction of the wind for the week was South-south-west.

Number of Autumn deaths. avenge. Zymotie (or Epidemic, Endemic, and Contagious) Diseases 322 . 211 Dropsy, Cancer, and other diseases of uncertain or variable seat Diseases of the Brain, Spinal Marrow, Nerves, and Senses 131 ... 167 Diereses of the Lungs, and of the other Organs of Respiration 299 .... 333 Diseases of the Heart and mood-vessels

Dioceses of the Stomach, Liver, and other Organs of Digestion 97 .... 71

Diseases of the Kidneys, die.

Childbirth, diseases of the Uterus, &c. 17 .... 14 Rheumatism, diseases of the Bones, Allots, Me.

Diseases of the Skin, Cellular Tissue, Rte.

Old Age 46 .... 65 Violence, Privation, Cold, and‘kntemperance 27 ....