AGRICULTURAL ANNIVERSARIES.

At the North Walaham Agricultural Meeting, Lord Wodehouse touched upon the politics of the day, and some passages from his speOCh are equally remarkable— He believedthat, no matter what the chances, the changes, and the corn_ binations of party might be, the foundations of that prosperity were so kid that we should be in the main well-governed, whether the Prime Minister were Lord Palmerston or whether he were Lord Derby. There happened to be at the present moment what many people considered far too great unanimity 111. political matters, but, for his part, he did not think that any evil was likely to accrue from the present state of things, nor did he regard it as so bad a sign of the times as many persons were disposed to consider it, It seemed to him that we were passing from an old phase and entering ono new one, in which all parties were determined to adopt those measure, which, in their opinion, were the very best for the country. Such being the case, we could not be very far from a sound condition. Lord Wodehouse stated from his experience that the true 01 mystery. which makes mastery in diplomacy is an honest straightforward course. Too much he said had been said in favour of the French alliance. No doubt an al- liance with France was necessary to this country, and no doubt such a union had been especially beneficial in the case of the war with Russia; but if such an alliance was to prevent the expression of our free opinion on the ad- ministration of affairs in France herself, or on what took place in thateoun. try, it was no longer a healthy alliance, and the moment it came to be tried it would be found to be a broken reed, on which it was unsafe to lean. Alluding to Russia, he said she had been no more conquered in the late struggle than we were, though she got the worst of it. When it was re- membered that the Russians had embarked in such works as the emancipa- tion of the serfs, the construction of 6000 or 6000 miles of railway, the re- form of their courts of justice, the making the press free,—towards which a considerable step had already been taken,—and the carrying out of many other great and important changes, it must be obvious that every sensible Russian could but wish that his country should enjoy a considerable term of peace.

At the meeting of the Herefordshire Agricultural Society, Mr. Clive dwelt on the importance of establishing methods for the transfer of land-

" Every year this country accumulated between fifty and sixty millions of capital, and much of this was invested in foreign speculations and went out of the country. Now, if any portion of that accumulated capital could be devoted to the purchase of land in this country, it would effect a great benefit, but the chief difficulty in the way of such purchases was the cost of the transfer. In the first place, the landowners generally did not like to have their title-deeds overhauled, lest some clever lawyer should detect a flaw, real or imaginary, in them. Then there were family settlements to disclose, and to arrange for, and lastly the transfer was generally accom- panied by a prodigious lawyer's bill. And thus it was that they had not so much land in the market as they should have. Mr. Clive referred next to what had been done in Ireland under the Encumbered Estate Act, to show that the transfer of land could be simplified by act of Parliament. What the legislature did in that case was to give the purchaser a simple parlia- mentary title, without the encumbrance of a bundle of deeds, and a gentle- man sitting at that table now held land in Ireland under that act, the title to which was comprised in a bit of paper no bigger than his hand. The re- sult of the recent act of Parliament in Ireland had been that a great deal of land in Ireland had come into the market, and a great deal of capital had been brought forward to buy it. Nobody knew where the capital came from, and it was supposed that it was found by English capitalists. but it turned out that a great deal was supplied by Ireland herself—hoarded up, probably, in old stoclrings, and such like hiding-places, and brought out When facilities were afforded for its investment in land at home."

Mr. Blakemore, M.P., expressed his concurrence in what had fallen from Mr. Clive. The simplication of the transfer of land was a question to which he had long given his close attention, and one on which he had formed a decided opinion, which he should act upon whenever the mat- ter came before Parliament. For his part he could not ace why the transfer of a piece of land, large or small, should give occasion for a long lawyer's bill any more than a simple purchase of a railway share.

At the twentieth annual meeting of the Leominster Agricultural As- sociation on Saturday, present Lord Bateman, Mr. Gathorne Hardy, Mr. King King, and other Members of Parliament, besides Captain Hanbury, the Candidate for Leominster, Mr. King King, one of the Members for the County, explained how he performed his functions, sot as a speaking Member-

" Mr. Booker Blakemore generally did the speaking, and ho (Mr- King) then came up and did the voting. He thought a good listener did not de- tract from the merit of being a good speaker, and he was in the habit of sitting still and silently listening to the arguments of the talkers. He was convinced there were too many speakers in the House of Commons, and he was not inclined to add to their number, but having heard the arguments on both sides, he formed his opinion on the question, and voted accordingly." . . . .

"The opinions which he professed when he entered Parliament. were not changed. Of course he knew that as civilization and the population of the country increased and circumstances of great importance changed, cer- tain other changes must follow. He did not think that every change must

necessarily be an improvement, but there were certain changes which might be improvements, and be productive of benefit to the country at large. ms constituents might find fault with him for his want of talent, but they would never be able to charge him with having, as their representative, sought to forward his own interests, or with haying given any other than an independent vote."

At the annual meeting of the Collinghain Farmer's Club, Mr. Barrow, M.P., the chairman, expressed an opinion that a very large supply Of corn is likely to be sent from the mouths of the Danube, but he trusted that whatever competition might come, the energy and talent which bare been aroused in the country will be sufficient at all times to maintain the farmer in the prosperity which he so well deserves. Mr. Chewier con- gratulated the society upon its continued prosperity. He expressed doubts indeed, whether the farmers are in a condition quite so flourishing as that of last year. In some crops there is decided deficiency. Tlie state of the money market might also affect prices ; for undoubtedly there had been a merely consumptive demand, and no such speculative demand as usually influences prices. He contradicted the idea that the farmers of Eng- land treat their labourers as mere machines : the men are generally working for not less than 2s. a day ; and though prices have been low., there.is a steady decrease of the poor-rates throughout the agricultural districts. Nor do the farmers throw their men on the Union, by arresting work for it is in the nature of agriculture, that the operations of the field and of the stackyard—of one crop and of another, succeed each other so as to make the employment continuous. The state of the labourers as coin- with what it was twenty years ago, exhibits a remarkable im- _,rTeesent Their cottages are. better, the inhabitants more cleanly and orderly. Masters and mistresses do not exercise the control that they'used to do, partly because servants board out ; and perhaps also the -r-eal reason is that masters and mistresses are not so much amongst the esvants themselves as they ought to be. There was more to the same egeet ; Mr. Chewier vindicating the money reward to faithful servants and the utility of Agricultural Societies.

The Mayor of Melbourne, Mr. John Thomas Smith, spoke on Tuesday evening at an entertainment given in his honour by the Mayor of Bir- mingham. His remarks went to show the warm interest and pride which the people of the Australian colonies feel in the honour and pros- perity of England : "if England were in danger tomorrow," he said, "there are more than a hundred thousand true British hearts in Austra- lia who would rush to your assistance." But the most important topic on which he touched is the state of the mail communication. The care- leafless of England in this respect, he said, is keenly felt by the people of Australia. "I could tell you of numberless cases where mercantile men have bad their character blasted as the result of the indifference mani- fested in this important matter." But he has been in communication with "gentlemen in office" here, and thinks that the present Government are alive to the necessity of a better state of things, and that it will be brought about before long.

The shareholders of the Bank of Manchester have just adopted uncial- Mealy the three following resolutions at the recommendation of the di- recWrs-1. That the Board be authorised to appoint one or two paid directors, one of whom, at least, shall devote his whole time to the busi- ness of the establishment. 2. That the surplus fund be capitalized. And 3. That the Bank should be placed under the Limited Liability Act. The latter is indicative of confidence in the position of the bank, since its credit will in future have to depend exclusively upon the healthy character of its transactions.

Newcastle-on-Tine has been within an ace of being made the theatre of another " Figaro' tragedy, the hero being this time an English editor, who daring the excitement of a Ward-election has had the temerity to hurt the feelings of a French Consul who has a son in the 11th Dragoons. One day, early last week, a letter appeared in the Northern Daily Express, a penny paper published in Newcastle and edited by Mr. James Boliver Manson, warning the electors of the Westgate Ward of that town, against the inter- ference of the French Consul, M. le Comte de Maricourt, in behalf of a Catholic candidate named Dunn, the Count being designated by the writer as "The agent in this country of that arch traitor and destroyer of his country's liberty, Louis Napoleon.' On the day following, a very highly-spiced leading article appeared in the Northern Express, in which the Count was somewhat roughly handled, and which was wound up in these terms : "What are the electors of Westgate to be polled by a French prefet ? Monsieur mistakes ns, and forgets himself. Westgate will see to its own character we apprehend, for we have greatly misunderstood it if it sub- mits to be Fronehified at this rate. We cannot have the ' Continental sys- tem' inNewcastle, either in love or politics. Monsieur must follow Ma- dame' "—" Madame " being a woman lately banished from the town for her vicious trading. Mr. Manson himself relates what followed. On the even- ing of the day on which the letter appeared, a card was left at the Northern Express office, and on the said card were these ominous words : "F. De Maricourt, lleme Dragon, fera Phonneur a l'editeur de I'attendre de- main a knit heures du matin au smoking-room de l'Exchange Hotel. Si l'editeur ne clam pas, il aura le plaisir de Faller cravacher chez lui." (F. De Maricourt, 11th Dragoons, will do the editor the honour to wait for him at the smoking-room of the Exchange Hotel tomorrow morning at eight o'clock. if the editor does not come, he will have the pleasure to chastise him at his own home.] By some chance the card did not reach Mr. Manson's hand until the even- mgof the next day, that on which the leading article was published ; but on the morning of that day the writer of the note made his appearance with a pistol in his hand at the Express office, and succeeded in terrifying one of the clerks into giving him the private address of the editor. Betaking himself to Mr. Manson's house, ha dashed into the room in which the editor was writing, and saluted him with such gesticulations and such a torrent of vehemently articulated French that Mr. Manson says he took him for a lunatic escaped from the neighbouring asylum at Bensham. At last Mr. Manson succeeded in catching the word "Maricourt " and guessed what was the matter ; his visitor too, seeing that he was not making himself understood, changed his mode of proceeding, and enunciating very slowly, said,—"I speak English. You insult Count Maricourt—I kill you." Whereupon he pulled a small pistol out of his pocket, cocked it, and, with his finger on the trigger, brought it round to within a few inches of Mr. Manson's head. "Now do be calm, and tell me why you have come here," Mr. Manson said to him : I am calm—I am Cahn,' he repeated, as fast as he possibly could, his lips and the muscles of his cheeks quivering convulsively ; I am calm, calm, calm, calm, Wm. I kill you in sang froid.' And forthwith he burst into another torrent of rapid and unintelligible French, of which, says Mr. Manson, I only caught the word' kisser' and the frequent exclamation, Je to tuerai '1 " All this time, ' Mr. Manson goes on to say, he stood leaning with his left hand on a massive walking-stick, with the pistol in its original position, a few inches from my right eye. I saw that if he did fire I should never know what hurt me, and the agitation of his countenance and voice was so great that I began to fear he might draw the trigger involuntarily.' " After awhile Mr. Manson arranged with his fiery visitor to go in a cab with him to the French Consulate to see the Count de Maricourt ; and on leaving the room to dress, he became aware of a fact that a second M. de Maricourt was waiting in the door-way armed with a stout walking-stick. fie reached the French Consulate happily without accident, and endeavoured to explain to Count de Maricourt that what had been said of him in the ReRress had been said in good faith, and that if there were any mistakes as to the facts they should be rectified in the Count's own words. So the in- terview ended, and on the next day Mr. Manson received from the Dragoon of the 11th the following note - :.".Slr—After having reflected, the only reparation which I require from you is Tat you should insert, without observation, in your paper of tomorrow the article sTlicu with this letter—I mean both article and letter. Salute you and expect, " VISCOILTIC F. DB MARICOrItT. you do not judge proper to insert these lines I shall have the pleasure .1retrariing to see you.'" I ge Pro P Neither the note nor the " article " was inserted in the Express, and the avenger did not return as he had threatened ; but instead, was taken before

tagistrate and held to bail, himself in 2001. and two sureties of 1001., the

th er hearing of the case being adjourned from Saturday last until the 'allevving Tuesday. In the mean time, Count ?daricourt has addressed a letter to the newspapers, the pith of which ill contained in the concluding

sentences.

" 1 think it, therefore, unnecessary to repeat that the accusation directed against me by the _Vorthern Daily Ezreu, of having interfered in the municipal electioni is completely without foundation. " It is, therefore; with as much astonishment as pain, that I see myself, in one of the journals of a country for which I cherish a profound esteem, the object of a groundless attack, against which I cannot defend myself by means which are open to others. Under these circumstances, I was contented to submit in silence to the personal attack directed against me, in the full confidence that the good sense and loyalty of the English; people would do me justice, which has, indeed, already been done.

"But, coupled with the attack on me personally, were words conveying an out- rage upon the Emperor, which I should have thought it my duty to submit to his Majesty's Ambassador in London, awaiting in silence his instructions. This si- lence I should have preserved, except for a circumstance unexpected by me. " I have a son who has fought side by side with your countrymen in the Crimea, and who has, in consequence, learnt like myself to appreciate their good qualities, and to cherish for them the same sentiment of esteem and affection with which I myself am animated. Stung by the insult offered to his Sovereign, whose unifortn he wore, as well as that offered to his father, this young man of two-and-twenty has thought it right to take into his own hands the duty of avenging these insults. Carried away by the frenzy of youth he has committed an infraction of the laws of this country, which fault, both as a diplomatist and a father, I must de- plore. The only reparation which I can make iC to plead his youth and inexpe- rience—a view which has already been taken of his conduct by a journal like yours. capable of appreciating the facts, and the respectability of which is admitted by the public.

"I have the honour to be, &c., the Consul of France, " Coma as MAB/C017RT."

On Tuesday the case was finally disposed of at the Gateshead police court. Mr. Glynn, who defended the Vicomte de Maricourt, made some very strong remarks upon the article in the Northern Express, the writer of which he said "was a man who would insult a woman or strike a priest." The Count de Maricourt he described as a man whom the town of Newcastle should have been delighted to honour ; he was little known, but, said Mr. Glynn, in order to hear the name of Maricourt we should go to the Infirmary, or amongst the poor and destitute in the abandoned districts of the town ; an allusion which was hailed with loud applause in the court. As for the young Vicomte, Mr. Glynn admitted that he had made the "mistake" of going to the editor armed with s pistol instead of a whip or a cudgel. After a quarter of an hours' deli- beration with the other magistrates on the bench, the Mayor adjudged the dragon to pay a fine of five pounds for the assault—a decision which was received with cheers by a large number of people gathered together in the neighbourhood of the court.

A family of five persons has been destroyed by suffocation at Pilgwenlly, a suburb of the town of Newport. Charles Webb, a hobbler, with his wife and three children, lived in a wretched little house, consisting of one room of moderate size and two smaller rooms, the latter described as being almost air-tight at night and having scarcely any ventilation in the day. On Friday morning last, the neighbours noticed that the family were not about at their usual time, and upon looking through one of the shutters perceived the father, mother, and youngest child apparently asleep. Twelve o'clock having arrived, and the Webbs still not coming abroad, the neighbours be- came alarmed, and two women got into the house through one of the windows. It was then discovered that Webb was to all appearance dead, his wife gasping in the last agonies of death, the youngest child already dead ; and in one of the other rooms the remaining children were found, both of them dead. Attempts were made to restore the father and mother, but without success. The cause of death appears beyond doubt to have been an escape of gas from a pipe laid some nine or ten feet from the house. " When I opened the window," said one of the witnesses " I found a very disagreeable smell of gas, and when I went into theplace I thought I could not remain there, the stench was so bad." The Webbs have fallen victims to that dread of "fresh air" which is the bugbear of so many of their class, to whom soap and water are emblems of discomfort, and close- shut doors and windows sources of snugness.

The hills east and west of Penrith were, on Friday morning last, covered with snow, the wind blowing from the north.