Ebe igirobinces.
More agricultural meetings against the Premier's Currency Bill have taken place. On Saturday last, the Vale of Gloucester Agricultural Protection Society held a meeting, and passed resolutions condemning -the bill. At a preliminary meeting of the Surrey Protection Society, held at Croydon on the same day, the opposition to the measure was less successful ; but it was announced that a general meeting, either of the Society or of the county, would be called.
The Morning Chronicle has sent a Commission of Inquiry into Suffolk, in the shape of a reporter, in opposition to the one issued by the Times. Three communications have appeared in consequence ; the gist of which -is, that Essex and Suffolk are in a very bad state, with a failure of pas- tures and of the hay-crops, and a partial failure of the corn-crops, while -the condition of most classes is uneasy, and of some desperate ; that the Times is doing evil by ascribing the sufferings of the labourers, and the incendiary fires, to the new Poor-law ; that the great evil is want of employment, from the excess of population to the present means of employing it under a bad system of culture ; and that the incendiary _fires cannot be attributed in any way to the operation of the new Poor- law, but are rather the result of the old Poor-law, which bred up an idle, criminal, and desperate population.
A church-rate contest has taken place in the parish of All Saints, Northampton. After two days' polling, the parishioners, by a vote of 424 to 292, decided against the rate.
More incendiary fires are recorded. On Monday week, an extensive -fire broke out in a farm-yard at Waterbeach, in Cambridgeshire; on Thursday week, another occurred at Fawkam, in Kent, but was con- fined to a stack of straw ; both are supposed to have been wilful. Two fires have occurred at Birkenhead ; one in an unfinished house, and the other in the timber-yard and stable of Mr. Taylor : a sawyer is in custody, suspected of having fired the premises to be revenged of the owner for having had timber sawn at patent saw-mills. On Saturday morning, a straw-stack was consumed at Wissett : a labourer is in cus- tody. On the same day, in the afternoon, two barns, containing much property, were destroyed at Jenkins Farm, near Braintree : a lad, an in- door servant, has been apprehended. At night, another fire occurred near Woodbridge, in Suffolk : some boys are suspected. On Tues- day morning, the farm of Mr. Davey, at Weathersfleld, near Braintree, and Columbine Hall Farm, near Stowmarket, were set on fire. Incen- diarism has extended to Cornwall: a parsonage farm, at Sherviock, in that county, was set on fire on Monday week. At Liverpool, also, an oil-warehouse was discovered in flames on Monday ; circumstances leading to the suspicion that an incendiary was the cause.
'Great conflagrations have recently taken place on Chat Moss, on the 'line of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which extended over many hundred acres, destroying plantations and other property. The -peat being as dry and inflammable as tinder, and the wind high, the flames when once kindled spread with the greatest rapidity. Quantities alpine of all kinds were destroyed by the fires.
A very destructive fire occurred on Sunday morning at Boston,
arising from an explosion at a shipchandler's. The Customhouse, being contiguous, very narrowly escaped destruction ; it was much injured.
The roof of a powder-mill in Ewell Marshes, near Epsom, belonging to Sir Henry Brydges, was blown off at five o'clock on Monday morn- ing; the explosion being occasioned by an accidental combustion of the materials used in manufacturing gunpowder. No person was in- jured, though several were employed about the mills at the time.
Daring Tuesday night, at Worcester, a man named Jabus Hooper murdered a child, his nephew-, who slept with him, by cutting its throat ; and afterwards cut his own throat, but without succeeding in destroying himself. The murderer was a drunkard, and is supposed to be some- what insane.
An old couple named Crosby, residing at Long Sutton, near Wis- beach, died on Monday week from the effects of arsenic taken in their tea at breakfast ; the poison having been put into the tea-kettle. A strange woman, 'who asked to be allowed to sit down and rest in the house of the Crosbys on the morning of the poisoning, and who assisted in making the breakfast, is suspected of the crime. She has not yet been arrested.
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