VistrIkums.

The Queen has appointed Sir John Jervis, Attorney-General, Mr. Samuel Martin, Q.C., Mr. William Henry Walton, Master of the Court of Exchequer, Mr. George William Bramwell, barrister, and Mr. James Shaw Wines, barrister, "to be her Majesty's Commissioners for inquiring into the process, practice, and system of pleading, in the Superior Courts of Law at Westminster and on Circuit."

Mr. Edward Lewes, barrister-at-law, is announced as Secretary to the Commission, An English Earldom and an Irish Barony become extinct by the de- mise of Michael James Robert Dillon, twelfth Earl of Roscommon and Baron of Kilkenny West. Ho died on the 15th, at Fitzwilliam Lodge, Blackrock, near Dublin. The late Earl was a posthumous son of Captain Michael Dillon, of the Dublin Militia, who fell at the battle of Ross. He claimed the title on the death of the eleventh Earl, in 1816, as de- scended from the youngest son of the first Earl, who obtained the dignity in 1622; and the claim was confirmed by the House of Lords in 1828. He married a sister of the seventeenth Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1880; but that lady died in 1843.

It is said that Mr. Dillon Browne, the Member for Mao, is actively engaged in asserting his claim to the dormant title. Some other anony-

mous claimant is also looked for, now an humble settler in the United States.

The Queen has appointed the Honourable and Reverend Robert Plan- ket, Archdeacon of K,nnln, to the Deanery of Tuam, vacant by the death of Dean Carter.

A reply by the Bishop of Exeter to an address of the clergy of Barn- staple, expressing their dissatisfaction with the existing court of appeal from the Ecclesiastical Courts, contains these assurances- " I have not only strong reason to hope that the judgment itaelf will ulti- mately be proved to be invalid, but, even if that hope be disappointed, I am confident that it can be shown, on close inspection, to be of no authority

whatever as a precedent in any future case. Into the grounds of this ex- pectation I will not now enter. Suffice it to say, that so confident am I in-

their soundness and force, that if it should be again my misfortune to be required by the Crown, or any other patron, to institute to cure of souls within my diocese any clergyman who holds the opinions held by Mr. Gor- ham, or otherwise plainly contradicting the doctrine of our Church ow the great article of baptism, I should not only feel it my duty to reject him, but should rely with full assurance on the justice even of the Judicial'. Committee that they would sustain me in taking the course which I here an- nounce."

The Reverend William Maskell has officially resigned the living of St. Mary Church, Devon.—Guardian.

The Lightning steam-vessel has returned to Woolwich, from accom- panying the Arctic Expedition as far as Cape Wrath and the edge of the ice, on their voyage of search. The Expedition left the Long Hope of the Orkney Islands in the forenoon of the 15th instant, and was left by the Lightning about forty miles further on their way in the evening of that day. The weather had been found unusually cold ; a circumstance attri- buted to a cause of good omen—the unusually early breaking-up and Southward drift of the Arctic ice.

The act for abolishing the Brick-duty came into force on the 17th in- stant. Half the duty is to be remitted on the stock of bricks remaining- on the " entered " premises of the maker; and a clause, not very intel- ligibly worded, provides for the extension of the advantage to persons who- have made contracts on the faith that the duty was to continue.' The marginal note runs thus—" Purchasers of bricks under contracts made be- fore the 27th day of March 1850, to be allowed by the seller an abatement from the price thereof equivalent to the duties from which the latter is relieved, and to allow the same to the persons with whom they have con- tracted."

The Irish papers continue to describe the fairs held throughout the country as the best for prices that have been known for a long period.

The Scottish Press of Wednesday announces the death of Mrs. Jeffrey,, the widow of Lord Jeffrey. "Shortly after Lord Jeffrey's decease, his midow„, affected in a more than ordinary degree by the sad event, broke up her esta- blishment in Moray Place, and took up her abode with Mr. and Mrs. Empson, ' her son-in-law and daughter, at Haileybury, Hertford.. Though naturally cheerful, her spirits never recovered thh' shock she sustained by the death of her distinguished partner, whom she has not survived: few months,"

A gentleman of highly-respectable family and connexicsis, and the owner in fee of different estates in the county of Tipperary, producing a rental of' 1,0001. a year, died lately in one of the workhouses of Dublin, a recipient of. in-door relief. His father had been High Sheriff of the. county, and held, the commission of the peace for three other counties, and had at one time possessed one-and-twenty fee-simple estates, and in early life was a close companion and favourite of George the Fourth when Prince of Wales.

We are authorized to say that Mr. John Macdonald,„of Mansfield Wood- house, who attained his hundredth year last November001 run any pm- in England, his own weight and age, for any sum. N.13.:th4Ifti.nohurld.1.. Nottingham Guardian. A letter passed through the Shields Post-office, a short

Betsy Robinson, a Scotch Woman with One Eye, earey Bmik, /46itli &melds."

Some few years ago, Mrs. Salter, the widow of a wealthy brewer at Rick- mansworth, Herta, provided in her will that a hogshead of ale should be daily given away by the possessors of the brewery for ever ! - Accordingly,: every morning the ale-barrel is placed on the public road, with an iron-We by its side, when such of her Majesty's liegeS,air are, not above queffie )a. ladleful of stingo in that public manner may be seen wetting the' clay;abr- washing down their eleven o'clock. Formerly, a4mase takwas put ittr the barrel ; but as that frequently disappeared with the ale, the raere,pripilliye: method was substituted of a spike-hole.—Sussex Express. - The driver of a coach which journies between a distant.eity and Brithr last week received a hint from the ostler of an inn in -the =barbs of the latter city that a common informer was seated on the roof of his coach. Conscious, that he had exceeded his licensed number, the knight of the whip resigned the ribands to the ostler, and hastened to the Magistrates, laid an informa-, tion against himself, was fined 5l.% and received back one-half as the in- former's fee. Great was the chagrin of the common informer, on presenting himself before the Bench for a summons, to find that he had been forestalled. —Bristol Mercury.

Mr. Robert Lindsay Maulever, an extensive land-agent, and Magistrate for- the County of Londonderry, was assassinated in open day at Croesmaglen, on the Borders of Louth and Armagh, on Thursday. He was shot from behind a hedge ; a large sum of money being found on his dead body, revenge is' presumed to have been the motive.

At the High Court of Justiciary, in Edinburgh, last week,. Peter Pearson was put on his trial for the murder of George Wilson and Jean Ritchie, at Juniper Green, as formerly narrated. The proceedings were stopped by the counsel for the defence proving Pearson's insanity,. Two surgeons deposed: that he was "a dangerous madman" ; and the coRnsal himself, who had. known him for ten years, stated that he had been insane daring, the whole- period. The Court directed that the maniac should be detained in the general prison at Perth.

Miss Sinclair, a lady living at Leopold Place, Edinburgh, was awakened during the night by a noise in her bedroom • and she found a young man standing by her bedside, with a pistol in one hand M i

id a candle in the other, his face sail by a plaster of rouge: He demanded ten pounds. Miss Sinclair • she had not the money ; and on her niece, a little girl, corro- borating this, the ruffian presented the pistol at her.: He then ordered the lady to show him the plate-chest, and made her rise in her night-clothes. While looking for the keys of the chest, she noticed that the door-key was outside the bedroom': .-in;a, moment she sprang through, and locked the robber in; then hastened into the street and raised an alarm. When assist- ance came, it was found that the burglar had escaped at the back of the house, descending to the-ground by means of a pipe. He carried off a watch and guard-chain.