Vroniurial.

The nomination of candidates for Reading took place on Monday. Mr. Sergeant Pigott addressed the electors, commencing with a defence of his profession, which had been sneered at by Captain Walter's seconder ; for every farthing the lawyers had taken out of the pockets of the nation, soldiers had drawn millions ; for during the last sixty years 3,000,000,0001. had been expended on war, and on the army. He is in favour of the ballot and an extension of the franchise, believing the time has gone by when property can be made the test of respectability or intelligence. He is not prepared to go for universal suffrage, or anything like it, nor does he believe with Mr. Bright, that the franchise is the cure for every evil.' He is in favour of direct taxation, because he thinks by indirect taxation more money is raised and is spent than is necessary. He strongly ob- jects to the proposed fortifications, and puts more faith in yeomanry, volunteers, and the navy, than stones, bricks, and mortar. Our real de- fences are our stalwart forms, stout hearts, and well-filled purses.

Captain Walter critically reviewed the conduct of Sergeant Pigott's friends, and then proceeded to state his own political articles of faith. He is against the ballot, and had only found two voters in Reading who wanted it for themselves ; everybody wanted it for somebody else. But in all probability the poor classes were the most independent ; he is cer- tain that the working classes don't want the ballot, and that they would be ashamed of it. The military expenditure was not disbursed on the soldiers ; ho does not believe there is a general officer as well paid as a county-court judge. Mr. Gladstone, he admits, is a Liberal man ; but, like every true Liberal, he belongs to no party. Why should a man not be perfectly indepenient ? Our real want is a want of real measures, no

matter by what party they may be proposed. For years back, we have been at the mercies of parties. If Captain Walter had been in Parlia- ment, he would have given Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill a hearty support. The show of hands was in favour of Sergeant Pigott. The polling took place on Tuesday ; Sergeant Pigott took the lead and kept it all the day, until the close. Then the numbers were : Pigott, 577. Walter, 447. Majority for Pigott, 130.

Viscount Emlyn having been raised to the House of Peers, by the death of the Earl Cawdor, a vacancy occurs in the representation of Pem- brokeshire. Two candidates are in the field—Colonel Owen, eldest son of Sir John Owen, Bart., M.P., Lord-Lieutenant of the county ; and Mr. George Lort Phillips, of Lawrenny Park.

Mr. Milner Gibson addressed his constituents at Ashton-under-Lyne on Wednesday. He thought that there had been a habit of late to discredit Parliamentary speaking. It had been said by an eminent writer that Parliamentary Government was a Government by speaking ; and so he believes it to he, and thinks the debates may be lengthened, as they have a tendency to elicit the truth and ripen public opinion. There were failures during the last session, but there were also great commercial re- forms. In the first nine months of this year, the value of our exports was 102,000,000/. ; last year they were only 98,000,000!. In the same period, British tonnage cleared with cargoes increased by 785,522 tons, against an increase of 475,165 of foreign tonnage; so that British ship- ping was :holding its own. He praised the commercial treaty and its author, Mr. Cobden. It was said that Englishmen could not drink French wine, but there had been a very remarkable increase in the amount imported. He agrees with Mr. Bright, in his speech at Wake- field, that it was a strange thing if the peoples of England and France, separated only from each other by a narrow sea, cannot have as great a trade with each other as with people separated by the Atlantic. The French tariff would turn out to be the most liberal in Europe, except our own. He defends the Ballot and the Income-tax, and thinks 10d. in the pound not out of proportion with a vote of 30,000,0001. for Army and Navy. He does not think that property is paying more than its fair share of taxation, for out of every 1001. only 22/. was contributed by property, and 78!. by Customs and Excise. On questions of foreign policy, Mr. Gibson spoke with official reserve ; the Government are pledged to the policy of non-intervention, but sympathize with nations struggling for freedom. As to a Reform Bill, nobody seems willing to support one, and everybody seems ready to quarrel if one is not brought in. A vote of confidence in Mr. Gibson was passed.

Mr. Bright attended the soiree of the Wakefield Mechanics' Institute on Tuesday night. He disclaimed any sympathy with politics, although he had been for twenty years engaged in party movements. But as, at agricultural meetings, every speaker made the same disclaimer and yet branched off into politics, he did not see why he should not also do so, if only he went into politics which had no reference to party. Political economy is yet in its infancy, although it has been practised by very able men for a hundred years ; it is a mistake to suppose that it is only members of mechanics' institutes who are ignorant of it. Mr. Bright went to the question of combinations to raise wages. If any class in the country had been benefited by increased wages it was the class of housemaids. But who ever heard of a combination of housemaids ? The error on the part of the workmen was a belief that masters can control wages, but surely if a master can control wages he can control prices. Neither were to be controlled by the capitalist ; he had received a letter from Glasgow in which the writer suggested that Par- liament should fix a ofiininium rate of wages, and that it should be an indictable offence to reduce the rate below that sum. But unless the manufacturer could secure his price at the other end, it seemed unrea- sonable to suppose that he should give a fixed rate of wages. Mr. Bright concluded by inveighing in strong terms against the amount of taxation, and instituted a comparison, not at all in favour of his own country, between England andthe United States.

Mr. Monckton Milnes followed Mr. Bright as a speaker at Wakefield, and incidentally answered the Member for Birmingham ; speaking of intellectual labour, he said, that it had made Englishmen " able to occupy this old country of ours "—

" This old country with its old debt, of which Mr. Bright never took the slightest account in his speech, with those old difficulties which we could not throw off, any more than we could throw off the parents who had begotten us—but had also produced that wonderful country on the other side of the Atlantic, from which Mr. Bright has looked at England through a micro- scope, in order to see all its defects magnificently exaggerated. ("Bear, hear!'' and laughter.) It is impossible to understand the future if we neglect and despise the past. It is impossible for us to understand really what is the capability of England, what is the meaning of different grades of society here, unless we follow out our English history, and see how won- derfully, under the eye of Providence, England has grown up a great tree, and thrown out its branches until it stands in its present marvellous form. How is it that England is the only country in the world of which the aristocracy has never been anything else but a part of the people ? Why is it that in England the aristocracy have mingled among the people, have married among the people, and mixed themselves up with them as one class of intelligent Englishmen ? There is no reason any one of us knows why this has been done, except it is the special favour of Providence to the society in which we live. In looking back to our history, we find it was the very tyrannous power of our old kings which kept down the aris- tocracy, which forced the aristocracy into intimate communion with the people, and brought about that old charter of British liberty which Lord John Russell is always talking about—the Magna Charts, and which made the constitution of England totally different from that of any other country, because the nobility of this country did not merely wring liberties and powers from the King for themselves, but they demanded the same liberties, franchises, and powers for the people. Surely these were things, of which every Englishman should be proud, but which every Englishmen will not understand or value, nor will he be able to judge the times in which he lives, unless he knows and understands the history of his own country. Therefore, gentlemen, I will ask you to attend to all these things ; I will ask you to attend to the history of your country, and attend also to the his- tory of foreign nations."

Sir john Trelawny met his constituents at Tavistock on Saturday. He ran over the topics of the late session, defending Parliamentary chaff as occasionally containing some grains of wheat. He is in favour of the French treaty, and trusts in commerce to extinguish war between the two countries. He disapproved of the Religious Census, but he supported

the Government on the Poor-law Bill. He is against the expenditure of twelve millions on fortifications, which may, never be wanted, and he assumes that if they are we may rely on our Todlebens to meet the danger. He deplores the course which the Lords took'upon, the Paper- duties. He thinks the true basis of reform is a household suffrage, and he regretted the fate of the Bankruptcy Bill, which was too long to be finished in the session.

Mr. Bass, M.P., addressed his constituents at a dinner, given on Wed- nesday, to the Mayor of Derby. Mr. Baas facetiously defended Par- liamentary talk so far as the great leaders were concerned, but severely condemned the loquacity of private Members. 10,473 speeches were delivered in the session. The leaders on each side never speak oftener than is absolutely necessary ; Sir George Lewis never utters a word more than is required; Lord Stanley only spoke nine times in the Session. But Mr. Ayrton spoke 217 times; Mr. E. James, 196; Mr. Newdegate, 123 ; Mr. Hennessey, 109 ; Mr. Malin; 103 ; and Mr. Darby Griffiths, 101. Nine of the Metropolitan Members delivered 955 speeches, so that if the Metropolitan Boroughs got twenty-seven Members, they would give us, in proportion, 2700 speeches, and take five years to get through a session. Mr. Bass eulogised the 246 Members who had been "elo- quent in their silence."

Two men have been convicted before the Gateshead Magistrates, of in- timidation ; a combination exists to prevent workmen in the employ of Messrs. Sowerby and Neville from following their employment. The men were sentenced to two months imprisonment, but they have appealed to the Quarter Sessions.

The murder at Winlaton, Durham, is now under investigation by the Coroner's Jury. A man named Thomas Smith, alias " Lanky," a name by which he is much better known, has been arrested by the police at Whitby, as he was about to go on board a ship. Smith took to the hills West of Winlaton, crossed the county of Durham, and after wandering among the hills and moors of Cleveland, reached Whitby. Other persons are sus- pected. Edward Armstrong, a keelman, spoke to a conversation with Smith, who had told him that he had given Baty a blow on the head with a " Morgan Rattler ;" Smith hid the instrument in a hedge. The inquest was adjourned till Tuesday. Smith was brought before the coroner on Tuesday, in the custody of John- son, a gamekeeper, who apprehended him at Port Musgrave, near Whitby. Smith alleges that he and Baty had a quarrel ; but the jury nevertheless returned a verdict of Wilful Murder.

The accident on the London and North-Western Railway is now under investigation before a Coroner's Jury, at Atherstone. Not one of the nine cattle-drovers has escaped with life; another person, Cooning, is dead, but the Post Office clerks are doing well. Barber, the driver of the Glasgow mail train, stated that he received no intimation at Tamworth that there was a cattle-train a-head of him. The night foreman at Tamworth did not say anything ; the auxiliary signal showed no light, and therefore he did not apprehend danger. The train left Tamworth at 1.58, one minute before the right time. The driver of the goods train stated that Moorcroft, the station-master at Tamworth, told him " to get out of the road," adding there was plenty of time, twenty minutes, before the mail was due at Atherstone. It was a slippery night. "It would have, been a tight run—a very tight run—to get to Nuneaton from Tamworth ; " it would take thirty-five minutes, " but I would have had a hard run for it." The inquiry was ad- journed.

Morecroft gave evidence; he said, "I did not tell the driver of the limited mail'that there was a cattle train before him, or the guard. I did not think it was requisite. The cattle train left twenty-seven minutes before the limited mail; the cattle train had forty-five minutes to get to Nuneaton be- fore the limited mail would be due; the mail was allowed forty minutes to run to Rugby from Tamworth. It is thirteen miles from Tamworth to Nun- eaton. The instructions received were that in the event of a luggage train being in advance of the mail, the latter was to be allowed to proceed if there were forty-five minutes for it to get to Rugby." The inquiry continued on Thursday. The evidence of the officials sta- tioned and the drivers was contradictory. Mr. Grew, traffic-superintendent, thought Morecroft had calculated too closely as to time. Mr. MIConnell thinks the arrangements of signals may be improved; he knows Barber, the driver of the mail, to be one of the best drivers in the country. The in- quest is adjourned till today.

On Sunday, while a goods-train of the London and North-Western Rail- way Company was shunting at Guide Bridge station, a goods-train of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Company, came in collision with it. The Lincolnshire company's engine was buried in the soil; the damage to the North-Western company's engine was slight, but many waggons were destroyed, and both lines were blocked up for a time. One of the guards was slightly injured. The collision occurred in consequence of one of the distant signals not being shown, but whether from negligence, or being fast with the frost, is not at present known.

Another accident en the South-Western Railway occurred on Tuesday night at Temple Combe. An axle-tree broke, and the trainploughed every thing before it. No person was injured, but the company will sustain a loss of 20001. in damages.

On Wednesday afternoon, a fire, threatening to be one of the most exten- sive that has occurred for many years past in Manchester, was discovered about half-past four o'clock in an old manufactory belonging to Messrs. Birley, near Oxford Street. Six fire-engines were despatched up to five o'clock, but the flames made progress. .Many of the workpeoplo were inside the mill, some of them screaming for help, Efforts were made with fire- escapes to rescue them.