3littrupnlio.

The strife in the parish of St. George's-in-the-East has been greatly lessened by the intervention of the Bishop of London. The vestry took the initiative in declaring their readiness to submit all differences to the arbitration of the Bishop, and the Reverend Bryan King soon acquiesced in this wise and sensible course. The parishioners were officially in- formed of the facts on Sunday, and it is remarked that the congregation behaved much better than they have for some time.

A vestry meeting was held on Wednesday, whereat a letter was read from the Bishop of London, stating that he deemed it his duty to close the parish church for the present. A formal statement of the allegations which the vestry will submit to the Bishop was read and adopted. In answer to a question, Mr. Churchwarden Thompson said he considered that the Bishop meant that the church should be closed on week days as well as on Sundays. He should write to the curate "in charge," and if he refused to comply he should present him to the Bishop. He should also issue the following public notice- " Notice is hereby- given, that by order of the Bishop of London, the parish church will be closed until further notice."

Mr. Stephens—" Suppose the clergyman insists upon having service ?" Mr. Churchwarden Thompson—" I will stop the supplies. I will cut off the gas." (Laughter.) Mr. Stephens doubted whether the Bishop had power to close the church, as there had been no riot there ; a state- ment which Mr. Thompson met by a recapitulation of his experiences as churchwarden.

A public meeting has been held at Woolwich to denounce flogging in the Army and Navy. Letters were read from Mr. Salomons, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Bristow, Members of Parliament, concuning in the ob- ject of the meeting, and from Mr. Angerstein, one of the borough mem- bers, who had the moral courage to dissent from its offhand views of mili- tary and naval administration.

At the Central Criminal Court, on Monday, William Denbigh Sloper Marshall was prosecuted for bigamy. This is the fellow who induced Mrs. Haves to marry him, he having a wife alive at the time ; and although he thus had two wives, he was at the same time entertaining a mistress. The Judge sentenced him to four years penal servitude.

Mr. John Nicoll, merchant, criminally indicted by Messrs. Fowles and Co., for having feloniously converted a bill of lading to his own use, has been triumphantly acquitted. In certain transactions with the prosecutors Mr. Nicoll judged that he had been "swindled ," to use his expression. In a subsequent transaction, acting under the advice of his solicitor, he pro- tected himself by retaining and using the bill of lading. He had been sup- plied with a cargo of coals of very inferior quality, the bill of lading referred to a second cargo, and Nicoll offered to submit the matter to arbitration or pay the difference between the price of the second cargo and the amount he had improperly paid on the first. By bringing a criminal instead of a civil action, the prosecutor, as the Judge said, secured an opportunity of telling his own story, while the mouth of the accused was effectually closed. It would be a material question for the Jury to consider whether if the money had been paid they would have ever heard of this criminal prosecution. The Jury found Mr. Nicoll "Not Guilty," the Judge concurred, andj Mr. Nicoll was discharged.

Mr. Alfred Cooper," the tax-collector in St. Giles's, Camberwell, was tried and acquitted of two distinct charges of embezzling parish moneys. The deficiency in his accounts was admitted, but it was shown that the parish had treated the money due as a debt, and a deed was produced show- ing that Cooper had made assignments to the parish to meet the deficiency. Under these circumstances the Recorder directed the Jury to acquit the prisoner of one charge, and on the second being submitted to them they arrived at a similar conclusion.

The trial of Annois, a Portuguese, charged with the murder of Philip Barker on the high seas, within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty, has been postponed. Barker was the master of the ship. The ground for the post- ponement is the allegation that Annois is a lunatic ; a fact that has to be ascertained by communicating with the authorities of Lisbon.

The trial of Royal, charged with murdering by poison a young woman with whom he lived, has also been postponed with the consent of the Crown.

William Rae, not a regular practitioner, but a " surgeon-accoucheur," was acquitted of a charge of killing Mrs. Pool, a woman he had attended during her confinement. The indictment alleged negligence, but it was not proved.

Mr. David Hughes, solicitor, apprehended in the Colony of Victoria, was brought before the Guildhall Bench, on Wednesday, to answer a charge of feloniously absconding from his creditors and not surrendering to his bank- ruptcy. Hughes fell into difficulties in 1858, and quitted England for Aus- tralia, leaving behind liabilities exceeding 150,0001. In Australia every effort was made to prevent his arrest, but Sergeant Brett, the officer in chase, succeeded in his object, and in five months and six days after his de- parture from London returned with his prisoner. The prisoner was re- manded ; and his counsel allege that there was no fraud, and that the pri- soner's assets will cover his liabilities.

Susannah Ashley, a small child twelve years of age, was convicted of pocket-picking before the Bow Street Magistrate. Mr. Henry sent for her mother. Mrs. Ashley said she was the wife of a soldier in the 74th High- landers, now in India. Her child had always shown a thievish tendency, and having stolen a purse ,she was placed in a reformatory. The poor mother refunded the money, 11. 19s., to the plundered persons out of her earnings.) 'When ordered to be in readiness to join her husband she took the child out of the reformatory, and the little thief at once began to plunder again. It would, she said be a great shock to her husband if she did not take the child to India. Mr. Henry consented to keep her in custody until the mother was ready to start.

Emma Dutton was brought before the Worship Street Magistrate on a charge of stealing a check from the pocket of Mr. Delorn, a stock-broker. The woman declared that Mr. Delorn gave her the check. It appeared that they had formerly lived together for ten years. They parted in 1857, but Delorn said that since 1857 he had tried to do all he possibly could for her. She was engaged in clearing his rooms when she took the check. In reply to Mr. D'Eyncourt, the woman said she was twenty-nine years old, and that she had no family ; the last answer being made with tears. She was remanded, and on quitting the court turned to Delorn and exclaimed, " Oh, you cruel, cruel man !"

James Turner and Edmund Keefe are in custody on a charge of attempt- ing to poison Honors Turner, the wife of the first named prisoner. Turner had neglected his wife, and in consequence had been discharged by his em- ployers. It seems that lie then conspired with Keefe, who bought sugar of lead for him, and this poison one or both put in some beer when Mrs. Tur- ner was engaged elsewhere. A neighbour coming in drank some of the beer and, being made ill, was prematurely confined. Mrs. Turner drank some, but feeling sick, she smoked a pipe of tobacco " to make herself ill." That saved her.

A police inspector made his way early on Sunday morning into a low coffee-house in Castle Street, Leicester Square. A constable in plain clothes had preceded him. They found a number of the worst kind of per- sons drinking gin. An attempt to arrest the proprietor and his female col- league brought on a general skirmish, but the constables prevailed. The sellers of gin were smartly punished by the Marlborough Street Magistrate— the man being fined 501., the woman 551.

Richard Dixon, the beadle of St. Michael's Church, Chester Square, has been remanded on a charge of robbing the poor-box. As much property had been stolen from the pews, including books from those of Sir George Grey and Sir Richard Mayne, and money from the poor-box, marked coins were placed in a box, and a sergeant of police was set to watch. Dixon was seen to enter the church and proceed to a cupboard, whence he took a chisel, a hammer, a piece of thin wood, and a glue-pot, and taking off his coat and hat, struck a lucifer match and lighted a wax-taper which he had with him. He then returned to the box at the south entrance and took some money from it. This he effected in an ingenious manner. The front of the box is ornamented and secured with scroll iron-work, which underlaps the bottom ; the iron having been cut across at about two inches up, can, by the with- drawal of a small nail, be removed on one side, by which means an inter- stice can be made between the bottom and front of the box large enough to admit a slip of wood a quarter of an inch thick, and thus money in the bot- tom can be swept out. Dixon, having taken the money in the mode de- scribed, applied the wax taper to a portion of the iron-work to warm it, and then applying the glue-brush, and hammering the bottom again tight, left the box as apparently secure as before. As soon as he had got the money the constable appeared, and surprised him with a question—by whose au- thority he had opened the box ? Dixon at once implored the constable to let him go. He had stolen the money because, being out of work, he had only 201. a year from his situation at St. Michael's Church to live upon and support his family.

A sailor, George Willett, who had served in the Crimea, went with a comrade to drink in a public-house. There a woman forced her attentions upon him attentions he repelled. She had seen Willett take money to pay his score from the lining of his cap. Her object was to provoke a quarrel, that she might get the cap, and she drank his beer. Willett did not resent it, and the woman then had recourse to open theft, snatching his cap and run- ning off. Happily she was captured, and the sailor's medal was found in the possession of her husband, who was also arrested. The Worship Street Magistrate sent both to prison for six months.

Price, a boatman, has been fined 40s. for refusing to take the master of a Russian ship from Limehouse to Rotherhithe. He had engaged to carry the Russian across, but meeting a steamer he took a fare thence and brought the Russian back again. Brought before the Thames Street Magis- trate the vagabond attempted to prove that the Russian was drunk and would not land. Wholly failing in this, Mr. Yardley reprimanded and punished him.

An inquest, held on the body of a male infant by order of the Secre- tary of State, has led to the public disclosure of a painful story. The Bishop of London, it seems, was in August informed by " a parishioner " that the Reverend d. Bonwell, Rector of St. Philip's, Stepney, had kept a young woman in a room of the schoolhouse, that on the 11th August she was there delivered of a child, and that subsequently mother and child disappeared. The Bishop invoked the aid of the police, and Inspector Whicher was employed to investigate the matter. He found that the rector was a married man ; that, representing himself as a widower, he had seduced the young woman, lived with her at Southend, and subsequently in London. After they quitted the schoolhouse the rector installed both mother and child at an hotel in Southwark, and on the 3d September the child die& It was hastily buried in the Tower Hamlets Cemetery, the next day, not in a separate coffin, but with the body of a pauper, Mr. Bonwell furnishing the undertaker with a certificate. The body of the child has been exhumed, and the inquest, begun on Saturday, was adjourned to await the issue of a chemical analysis.

A fire broke out in Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row, on Saturday morning, which was not extinguished until much property was destroyed. It began in a large house stretching from Ivy Lane to Lovell Court. Before it was extinguished, several houses and parts of houses were greatly damaged, in- cluding a coffee shop, a millinery, a printing, a bookbinding, and a bookselling establishment. The conflagration extended across Ivy Lane. The houses and their contents were insured.