The exertions of the new police in Westminster have caused

a great increase of robberies on the Surrey side of the Thames, where increase might have seemed scarcely possible. On Wednesday night, several of the new houses now finish- ing in and around Vauxhall were plundered of sashes, pipes, and coppers. The most daring attempt at burglary, however, was made on the Oxford Arms wine- vaults, in the Westminster Road. The panels of a strong bow-shutter, nearly six feet from the ground, were cut out; though the spot projects on the high road, and is under two gas-fights, with two watchmen in the immediate vicinity, and a few paces from the watchhouse. Street robberies are numerous. A lady was attacked in the Lambeth Road, in the open space before Bethlem Hospital; but her cries caused the villains to make off, and they escaped in the fog. A child was robbed of a bundle of linen near the same spot in open day. The local watch , is ordered to be on duty from dusk till six the next morning. The new police, it is said, will undertake the district at Christmas ; when the thieves must progress over the Bridges into the City, or farther into Surrey. A correspondent of the Times of Thursday complains of the gross affront which Government offers to the public in sending convicted felons from one place to another in stage coaches.

The Rev. William O'Brien, who was tried and convicted at the Cork Assizes in 1827, for an attempt to assassinate the Rev. Dr. Collins, but respited on the score of insanity, hanged himself in his cell last week.

A fellow calling himself Captain Paton has been playing the swindler on a small scale at Tyne. Mr. Royle of Manchester, whose warehouse was robbed some weeks ago, was asked the other day to give his opinion of some muslin which the landlady of a tavern showed him. This was part of the goods which he had lost. She named the person who had offered them for sale. The thieves were all secured. Among them was Mr. Royle's warehouseman.

On Wednesday last, Mr. Wentworth of Rockley's keepers had an engage- ment with a band of potehers. Shots were exchanged, and one of the keepers was dreadfully wounded.

A band of poachers, fourteen or fifteen in number, with their faces blackened, scoured the preserves of Sir George Armitage of Kirklees, near Doncaster, last week' set his keepers at defiance and destroyed as much game as they bad a fancy for.

The Earl of Lonsdale's head keeper was deliberately shot by a poacher on Thursday week, and died on Saturday last. The ruffian has not been appre- hended.

In another conflict with poachers, one of the keepers of Mr. Gordon of Kemble-house, near Cirencester, was so much injured that his recovery is doubtful. The keeper of the turnpike-gate near Rumford, was called up early in the morning of Saturday last. On going to the door, he was seized and struck down by two men, who rifled his person, while a third robbed the toll-house. The ruffians obtained upwards of 4/.

After a very long examination at the Mansionhouse at Doncaster, on Monday, James alias Josiah Smart, of Brydges Street, Covent Garden, was fully com- mitted to take his trial at the next York Assizes for the robbery of the Doncaster Betting-room.

James Hargrave, a letter-carrier, has been committed at Bow Street, for exact- ing the postage of a post-paid letter.

exact-

ing young man, a gilder, on his way home to London last week, was stopped, gagged, and robbed, near Burton-upon-Trent, by two men with crape upon their faces.

• On Saturday night, in the pit of the Adelphi Theatre, a gentleman named Charles Hinde was robbed of his purse, containing eight and a half sovereigns, and two five-pound notes.

A Petty Sessions was held at Wandsworth on Tuesday, to investigate charges of swindling preferred by numerous tradesmen of Windsor against a man of the name of Parkes, and a woman named Thomson. Thomson's husband, a partner in their plans, had not been apprehended. The trio had appeared at Windsor some weeks ago, in a dashing equipage ; they had been installed, on the strength of appearances, into two handsome cottages, supplied with goods of various sorts by the credulous tradesmen, and been detected, and two of the prisoners appre- hended in the act of removing their feloniously acquired property. Parkes was committed, and Thomson remanded.

As Mr. Newman, upholsterer in Windsor, was returning from Wandsworth, where he had been giving evidence against the swindlers Parkes and Thomson, he was attacked at Long Ford by two ruffians, one of whom seized his horse by the rein, while the other stepped into the gig and seized Mr. Newman by the collar. Mr. Newman struck the rascal down, and then plied the butt-end of a heavy whip with such success as to rid himself of both his assailants.

At a meeting of the Aylesbury Magistrates, last week, it was stated by one of them, that the late assistant overseer of the parish, the person who contracted for the supply of meat to the paupers, having died in debt, his securities had thought fit to screen themselves from the consequences of an unprofitable contract, by exacting a shilling a week from each of those who derived assistance from the parish. The Magistrates immediately declared that the impost should be put an end to.

A man named Cadman, eighty years of age, was opposed yesterday at Guild- hall in his application for relief from the benefit society called the " United Bro- thers," to which he had contributed for sixty years,—on the ground that the ill health of which he complained was caused by the keenness of his appetite. Smith, a man who was lately committed to Maidstone gaol as a rogue and va- gabond, has confessed that he was of the gang of burglars by \shorn the late rob- beries at Woolwich and Chatham have been committed.

At Salford fair, on Tuesday, Mr. Borne, manufacturer in Manchester, was insulted and threatened by five or six ruffians. He drew a pistol from his pocket, and declared that he would shoot the first who should assault him. A friend of his seeing the pistol levelled, pulled him by the arm, to prevent mischief. At that moment the pistol went off, and the ball passed through the head of a young man standing near. He died almost immediately. Mr. Borne has been lodged in the Old Bailey.

William Mockford, Collector of King's and Parochial Taxes at Eastbourne in Kent, absconded on Saturday last with a considerable sum of the public money, leav- ing his wife and four children in a state of destitution. Application was made at Bow Street, and an intelligent officer appointed to trace him. By dint of great ingenuity and promptitude, he was captured at Dover, and sent back to Eastbourne.

A most audacious robbery has been committed at the gambling-house in the Rue Richelieu. An Englishman, who had been admitted but a few days, seized hold of a parcel containing bank-notes to the amount of twenty thousand francs, and jumped out of one of the windows going into the Boulevard, after breaking the blinds. Alarm was immediately given • he was taken, but the twenty thou- sand francs had disappeared. —Menai' ez !des Chambres. [Another person has been apprehended, and the money recovered.]

Major-General Don Nazario-Eguia has just fallen a victim to a crime of a new species at Madrid. A letter had been delivered to him by a stranger, whose ap- pearance was not calculated to excite suspicion : when he opened the seal an ex- plosion like that of a musket took place, which besides wounding him severely, carried off several fingers of his right hand, so that it was absolutely necessary to amputate it. The police has not been able to discover the author, only it appears that the letter came from Leon, because it had the post-mark of that city.

At Antwerp, a family of six persons were poisoned a few days ago by white lead, which has been discovered in butter. The author of this homicidal fraud is not likely to be detected, as the mistress of the family, who bought it at market, is among the victims,

At the next Assizes for Aveyron, a trial is about to come on, of a female, for the murder of her own daughter, whom she stabbed in the dark, mistaking her for another girl in the same bed; who had excited her jealousy: On Monday week some sensation was created at Boulogne-sur-Mer, by the arrest of a young Englishman named Payne, who had been for years the guard of the English coach which runs between Calais and that place. It appears that for some time past, large sums of money have been taken from the coach-office at Boulogne, without suspicion being entertained of the prisoner. On one occasion 8,000 francs were alastracted, and during the last few weeks several lesser sums have been missed. On Monday week, the bookkeeper of the office having stepped out, left the prisoner in the office ; but chancing to return suddenly, detected him in the act of abstracting money from the drawers which he had opened by a false key. He was immediately given over to the Commissary of Police, and sent to prison, to await his trial at the assizes.

Mr. Robert Wate of Heazille Barton, near Exeter, who has been insane for some time, shot, last week, the female who had been appointed to nurse him.

A boy named Fry, twelve years of age, was committed to Lynn gaol for killing, with the assistance of a boy seven years old, a sheep, the property of a butcher, and selling the fat of it for 74.

A fire broke out yesterday morning in the house of Mr. Keefe, Albion Row, Walworth Road. The whole of the furniture was consumed, the h burned to the ground, and the lives of the inmates narrowly preserved.

SCRUPLES OF Cortsemscs.—Mrs. Collins of Isleworth, an old lady who had sworn never to swear, having been cited last week as a witness to a will at Doctors' Commons, hanged herself before the case came on.

A young tradesman named Henry White, died on Tuesday in the London Hospital, of a lock jaw, produced by a blow ?rom the bludgeon of a ruffian, who had attempted to rob him near Bromley about a fortnight ago. Mr. Hibbert, of the India Company's service, met with a serious accident last week at the Artillery Barracks, Chatham. In taking some powder from a flask, near the fire, an explosion took place, which shattered his right hand, and rendered its amputation necessary. The body of Mr. Adam Barret, who disappeared from Manchester about three weeks ago, was found in the Rochdale Canal on Saturday. The money which he carried with him from home was found on his person. There is no ground for suspecting violence of any kind, but some, it is said for blaming intoxication, as the cause of his untimely death.

A fire broke out on Saturday at the White Hart Inn at Slough. Part of the house and nearly the whole of the stables have been consumed. Three of the horses were burned, and several, in the confusion lost. The property is said to have been insured.

Last week, a fire broke out in the Dockyard at Portsmouth, but it was subdued before it did much damage.

The Chester coach, Victory, was overturned in Deansgate, Manchester, last week. There were seven passengers, but the coachman was the only person hurt : he sprained his ankle.

There have again been very heavy rains in the north of Scotland. Several of the Mails have }icon delayed for hours in consequence of the floods.

A dragoon, mounted on a spirited charger. was endeavouring to rein him in at that part of the Crescent adjoining the Military Road, in Limerick ; the horse reared and he and the rider fell over the bounds-wall down a precipice upwards of eighteen feet deep ; and although they fell backwards, both the dragoon and the horse escaped unhurt.

A pauper lunatic hanged himself at St. Luke's on Saturday.

Colonel }limber, while driving his gig on the Marine Parade, Brighton, was run away with by the horse. The gig-wheel came at length in contact with a post, and the Colonel was thrown out and injured very seriously: Miss Hunter, the Colonel's protegee, leapt out of the gig without being hurt. The gig was dashed to pieces.

The Gipsy steamer, from Liverpool to Waterford, with thirty-five passengers, struck on a sunken rock near the Tuscar on Monday sennight, and was oinking water fast, when the preventive boats came up, and carried the passengers, in- cluding Mr. W. Sheppard and sister, Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Hayman, to the Wexford shore, where they were landed. The steamer kept her pumps going, and got into Waterford, but in a disabled state.

Last week, Mr. Thomas Matthews, poulterer, Long Acre, threw himself from the Kent, Gravesend steam-packet, and was drowned. His complaint was poverty. Joseph Austen, the driver of the coach employed to convey the convicts from Chester, has died of injuries which he appears to have suffered when the criminals attempted to escape. On Thursday morning, about four o'clock, a policeman discovered the premises of Messrs. Robinson and Co., silk-mercers, Oxford Street, to be on fire. lie burst open the door just in time to save the lives of the inmates. A great deal of property was consumed, and very little of it was insured.

A young gentleman, who entered his name in the sway-bill as "Mr. Ramsay," died on Wednesday week at Birmingham, as he was stepping into a Liverpool coach.

A gentleman, about forty years of age, arrived at Renton Inn, Berwickshire, one evening about the beginning of last week. He was found dead in bed next morning, and an empty phial marked "prussic acid" was discovered beside him. There was nothing to identify him but a certificate by the Manager of the Edin- burgh Loan Company, addressed to Mr. King, Portland Place. Ann Morris, a girl twelve years of age, residing in Manchester, was affected with a sore throat, which obliged her some weeks ago to leave her work. Leeches were prescribed by an apothecary, and applied by her mother on going to bed. She was found dead in the morning—bathed in blood. The leeches had opened the jugular vein. A few days ago, an appraiser called at the dwelling of a certain individual for the melancholy purpose of taking an inventory of his household stuff preparatory to a general meeting of creditors. The wife, although unaware of the probability of such a visit, was not at all astonished at it, for her husband was so close a man that she could seldom give more than a guess at his proceedings ; and she merely requested the appraiser to go on with the furniture, and leave the linen till the following day ; which he very feelingly and very delicately complied wiffi. Be- fore he called again, however, he ascertained that wrong names had been given him, and that he had been overhauling the furniture, not of the bankrupt, but of the petitioning creditor, the value of whose goods and chattels he now knows to a fraction.

Robert Archibald, who kept a public-house at the village of Redding, near Fal- kirk, had for near two months past shown symptoms of derangement. Lately, he became quite outrageous ; and having escaped from his house, he made his way to the mouth of a neighbouring coal-pit. His wife and daughter instantly followed, and seized the skirts of his coat ; but in spite of their utmost efforts to restrain him, he threw off his coat and plunged into the pit. He was taken out

lifeless.

On the 6th of this month, the Vice-Consul of France at the Helder, returnin five.] lived, but who was absent during the whole night, has been taken into custody. hours.

Samuel Tucknell, a labourer in St. Katherine's Docks, was crushed to death Barnet, till near Midnight?"

examine bins strictly, to see what was the matter. Upon looking into his mouth,the LITUOTRITY3 AN ENGLISII DISCOVERY.—It appears by a communication in- smith discovered that his tongue had been torn out almost fromthe root ; and upon sorted in the Medical Gazette, for November 14, that lithotrity (or the discovery search being made, the animal's tongue was found in his stall, nearly consumed of an apparatus to supersede the painful operation of cutting for the stone) origi- by rut:. The separation was too near the root to justify the supposition that it noted with an Englishman, Mr. J. Elderton, surgeon, of Northampton, and that could have been bit off by the animal itself. The horse, however, is again be- the introduction of the apparatus into France, in 1818, did not take place until ginning to eat his food, and to all appearance is not likely to be materially the some years after an instrument for accomplishing such an object had been exhi- xvorse for the accident.— Glasgow Paper.