SbE Vrobinces.

A meeting of Chartists was held at Bolton on the Mb, to con- sider the state of the country. The following resolutions were all passed unanimously- " That the distress in the country is unparalleled in severity and duratioD •

Manufacturers are not receiving profits for their outlay ; shopkeepers and men in business are fast hastening to bankruptcy ; mechanics, artisans, and labourers of every description, are but partially employed; labour is not receiving a just remuneration; and the whole country is suffering through the vicious and unjust legislation of a corrupt House of Commons, an irresponsible House of Lords, and an extravagant Government. "That this meeting is of opinion that this state of things is contrary to all just law, and calls aloud for that change that would make this country peaceful and prosperous, and its inhabitants happy ; and are of opinion that they ought to avail themselves of every constitutional right to bring about so desirable an object. •

"That this meeting is of opinion that the People's Charter would confer upon them this power, and give them these just and constitutional rights ; and therefore determine to petition the House of Commons to make the same the law of the land."

A petition for "the People's Charter" was adopted. Mr. Parkinson, who seconded the first resolution, referred to the panic of 1826, and said that it bore no comparison to the depression now existing. He called on the people in the room to testify to the universal distress, by desiring every one who was not receiving a sufficient supply of the necessaries of life to hold up his hand. Almost every hand was raised in response. Mr. Parkinson observed, that if any doubted the facts thus signified, he believed each was ready to take the doubter to his home and give him proof. His hearers cried out, "We will."

A correspondent of the Globe describes the state of Nottingham-

" Hundreds are starving on straw beds, without food, fire, or covering ; and these are people who would work if they could get it. Each day, parties of men, with starvation in their looks and dressed in absolute rags, have been parading the town in processions of two, three, and four hundred, carrying a "board, on which is printed in large letters= distressed and out of work.' -Other parties, to the number of thirty or forty, drag carts loaded with sand -through the streets, and beg from door to door. The relief-list at the Union Workhouse contains 3,600 recipients. The house itself has 900 inmates -crammed within its walls. * * Besides those receiving parish-relief, thpwards of 2,000 are starving. Distress and gaunt misery haunt the whole town. Trade is dead; not a single master employs full hands."

Meetings to devise measures of relief are going on. A few days ago, the bellman of Bradford was employed in crying • "houses to let, at eighteenpence a week, in a part of the town which

• has been considered the most densely populated." The houses in this part consist mostly of cottages inhabited, while trade was good, by workmen who found employment in the neighbouring factories, but who during the depression of trade have been obliged to quit. Had there been a free trade in corn there is little doubt not only that the present cottages would have been occupied, but also that there would . have been a demand for more. At the time of the late census there were 656 houses unoccupied in Bradford, being about one in eleven ; and the number, we fear, is increasing.—Leeds Mercury. At the Oldham Petty Sessions, on Monday last, eighty-seven persons of the poorer class of rate-payers were summoned for recovery of arrears of poor-rates. The parties were required to pay by instalments. There are at present upwards of 1,600 empty houses in the borough of .-Oldham.—Preston Chronicle.

The Birmingham Advertiser says that there is equal untruth. in the extreme opposite reports that Birmingham labours under desperate distress, and that its trade, especially the gun-trade, is "superlatively brisk "—

" Things are looking up with us in some degree, and a much better winter may be expected for our industrious artisans than could have been anticipated some time ago. Our hopes, repeatedly expressed, of the effect of Mr. M‘Leod's acquittal, have not been without their realization. Some of our manufacturers are now receiving large orders from the United States, which orders were sus- pended while the misunderstanding between the two countries was pending, and issued after the trial was over. The calamitous fire at the Tower, too, though a national loss, will prove a temporary benefit to this town, as well as an essential benefit to the united services ; the 100,000 or 200,000 flint-muskets destroyed being about to be replaced by percussion ones. Captain Boldero, Clerk of the Ordnance, and Mr. Lovell, Inspector of Small Arms, have already visited this town for the purpose of entering into contracts with the manufac- turers to supply the loss ; and when one portion of our trade is brisk, it gives a stimulus to others, both because more money is stirring, and because numbers of our artisans are able to work at various kinds of employment, and many being drawn from other branches to those which are brisk, will leave more work for the remainder at those which are slack."

In consequence of some communications between the Home Office and Colonel Wemyss, the commanding-officer of the troops stationed in Holton, respecting the total withdrawal of the troops in the winter, or the providing suitable barracks for their accommodation, a meeting of rate-payers was held at the Police-office, on Wednesday week, to con- sider the subject. The proposal to build barracks was ill-received. One rate-payer expressed a fear that " Government were about to dis- -tribute soldiers all over the country, in order to make the starving people die quietly " ; another objected to the unconstitutional nature of a stand- - ing army ; and eventually a series of resolutions was carried, declaring -that the patient demeanour of the people under their sufferings was highly praiseworthy, deprecating military despotism, and affirming -that it was not desirable to assist in making Bolton a military station. -Only two hands were held up against the resolutions.

Daring the East Kent election, last September, Sir Edward Knatchball resisted the payment of the turnpike-tolls on his road from his seat, Merstham Hatch, to the place of nomination, on the ground that he was exempt as going to an election. One of the toll-keepers determined to try this right; and on Monday the case came before the Magistrates at Canterbury, where the matter excited much interest. The election took place on a Monday ; and Sir Edward, whose residence was twenty miles from the place of nomination, claimed exemption on the Saturday, as he intended to visit Sir B. W. Bridges, at Goodnestone Park, and to stay with him during Sunday. The opinion of the Attorney-General was put in ; which stated, that as Sunday could be esteemed "no day," Sir Edward's travelling on the Saturday must be construed, under all cir- cumstances, as that of going to the election. The Magistrates, however, overruled that plea ; and having convicted Sir Edward of endeavouring to evade the toll, mulcted hins in the penalty of 2/. 2s., with Os. 6d. costs. His legal adviser immediately gave notice of appeal.

A shocking murder was committed at Wincolmlee, near Hall, on Friday last. Robert Hickson, a deaf and dumb man, who seems to have employed himself both as a coal-porter and an artist, returned to dinner on that day, and found a waistcoat unwashed; his wife saying that she had been too unwell to do it. They had quarrelled on the day before "about marrying," said their little daughter at the inquest ; and. now they quarrelled about the waistcoat. He seized a poker, and, striking his wife four or five times, killed her on the spot ; and then he took a razor from the cupboard and cut his own throat. The little girl ran out of the house. Hickson had been jealous of his wife, who had lately taken a walk with one Richardson. An inquest was held on the same day ; and the Jury, as to the woman's death, considering that she had provoked her husband, returned the extraordinary verdict of "Excusable Homicide;" and as to the man's death, of Temporary Insanity."

Blakesley has had an imitator, though without any fatal success, at Upton-upon-Severn. A respectable woman, who was living apart from her husband, was persecuted by him with importunities to sign a legal instrument which would put him in possession of some property ; but she constantly resisted. On Monday, he met her in the street and as- saulted her. The woman took refuge in a public-house kept by a friend, —imagining, probably, that the company present would be some protec- tion. The husband followed, and took a seat. After the lapse of a short time, he said she had better go to his lodgings and "sign." She refused. He then rushed on her with an open knife in his hand, and saying, "Then, madam, I'll do for you!' aimed a desperate blow at her side ; fortunately, however, her arm caught the blow and received the wound. The husband then left the room, brandishing the knife to deter any one from impeding his escape.

A vagabond named Bernard Cavanagh, whose transparent imposture had deceived many marvel-lovers, has been detected. The man astonished his friends in Mayo by extraordinary powers of fasting. The fact of his miraculous existence without food was keenly discussed; he grew famous and he has lately been making a tour of exhibition in England. At Reading, he came under the sharp eyes of a Mrs. Hats; who was little satisfied with his manner on the first visit which she paid to the monster of abstinence ; and who afterwards saw him, disguised with a handkerchief over his eyes and a black patch over his nose, go into a public-house to buy "a quarter of a pound of ham, cat fat, a saveloy, and threepennyworth of bread." She communicated her dis- covery to the police ; the impostor was arrested, taken before the Ma- gistrates, and committed to three months' hard labour in the House of Correction as a rogue and a vagabond. When he found conviction in- evitable, he confessed that "the Lord caused him to be hungry, and he did eat "; but he insinuated, that though he now ate like other men, he had really fasted five years and a half. He still has his faithful believers, however; and a correspondent of the Morning Chronicle affirms that he has been harshly treated, that he has fasted ever since he has been in prison—seven days—and that his being a Catholic probably influenced the Magistrates in committing him ! An inquest was held on Saturday week, at the White Horse Inn, Disley, on the body of John Emery, a schoolmaster. Mr. Emery was returning on foot to Higley, from Stockport, on the evening of Thursday week, in company with the Reverend Roger Kent. When they had reached a part of the road called Disley Wood, they heard the sound of wheels at a distance; and Mr. Emery said he thought a car belonging to Jordan Bradbury, a man whom he knew, was coming up ; and he asked Mr. Kent if he had any objection to ride in it to Disley, as he felt rather tired. Mr. Kent assented ; and they waited for the vehicle to come up. On hailing the driver, he did not stop ; and Mr. Emery went in front of the gig in order to stop it ; but the person who was driving dashed furiously on, and Mr. Emery was thrown on the ground, and he lay there quite insensible. He was removed to Disley, where medical aid was procured; but he died shortly afterwards. When Mr. Emery was knocked down by the gig, Mr. Kent called out to the driver ; but he went on, only increasing his speed. The person in the vehicle was Mr. James Ingham, of the firm of Ingham and Gates, of the New Mills ; and his violent driving proceeded from a notion that the two persons who addressed him were robbers. The Jury returned a verdict of " Homi- cide by misadventure." Mr. Ingham announced his intention of allow- ing Mr. Emery's widow an annuity for life, the amount to be decided by two of the Jury. Several more fires, bearing the stamp of incendiarism, have recently occurred in different parts of the country. On Friday fortnight, a fire broke out in the dvrellinghouse of Mr. Callard of Upton, Torquay, which was put out before it could extend to the outhouses where wheat was deposited. On the following Tuesday, however, these outhouses were entirely destroyed by fire. Suspicion fell on three men who had applied for relief at Mr. Callard's, and were told they might sleep in an out- house; when one of them replied, "Take care that you keep a house over your own head." But a pauper apprentice-girl of fourteen con- fessed to having set both buildings on fire; the first by lighting a bundle of reeds with a candle, and the second by throwing a stick taken from the fire into the hay-loft over the stable. She was committed for trial at the next Assizes. A haystack belonging to Mr. William Gore of the New Road Tavern, at Driffield, in Yorkshire, was completely destroyed by fire early on Sunday morning. The fire communicated to two build- ings adjoining the tavern, but was checked before the tavern itself was injured. Seven barley-ricks and a wheat hovel, containing about forty quarters of wheat, were burnt down at Mr. William Whitten's, Green's Norton Park, near Towcester, on Saturday night. Mr. Whitten is in- sured in the Globe fire-office.

The Northern Times enumerates twelve vessels that were driven on shore at Hartlepool on the afternoon of Saturday. Among them was the Aerial, a valuable vessel, just arrived from the West Indies. She is expected to be got offi On Tuesday morning, several hundred yards of a high embankment beyond New Cross, on the Brighton Railroad, slipped over the rails to a depth of almost thirty feet. The place nearly adjoins that which has so lately been cleared. In consequence of this interruption to the traffic of the railroad, the carriages for conveying passengers from the New Cross to the Dartmouth Arms station have been again resumed.