miurial.

The Liverpool Chamber of Commerce held its half-yearly meeting on- Monday ; Mr. Charles Holland in the chair. Among the matters men- tioned in the report, of a wide interest, was the proposed interoceanic railway through Honduras. The meeting resolved to sanction the ap. pointment of the President of the Chamber as the member of any provi- sional committee thatmight be formed to promote this undertaking. Mr. William Brown stated that he had consented to act as chairman of the company started to effect the object. In the course of the proceedings, Mr. Horsfall M.P. made some allusion to the Board of Trade, and the anomaly that its President should be a lord and its Vice-President a law- yer. He thought that the Chamber should take into consideration the original constitution and objects of the Board of Trade, and what it should be still. When established, so far back as the time of Oliver Cromwell, the Board of Trade was composed of a peer and a lawyer, and twenty merchants were associated with it, drawn from different parts of the country. If the same principle were again recognized and acted upon, the commercial interests of the country would be watched much more beneficially than now.

At a meeting held in Manchester on Thursday, to promote the exten- sion of the Saturday half-holiday to shopkeepers,—the Mayor in the chair,—it was agreed that this would be facilitated were wages paid on Friday and markets closed early on Saturday. The meeting adopted a memorial to the Corporation praying for an alteration of market-hours.

Gloucester is rapidly recovering its commercial prosperity under the- influence of peace : its imports are chiefly corn and timber from the Bal- tic and the Euxine, and the war was disastrous to its trade.

The committee of the colliers now on strike at Barnsley have notified that any man assaulting those miners who are now at work shall have no assistance from the colliers' fund in defending any legal proceedings taken against them.

It appears that Miss Nightingale peacefully accomplished the voyage home from Scutari under the name of "Miss Smith" : a wise pre- caution. She now requires "rest." But from a recent reply to a con- gratulatory address sent to her by the workmen of a factory near New- castle, it would appear that she has not yet obtained absolute repose. Her beautiful reply was expressed in the following terms. "August 23, 1856.

"My dear Triends—I wish it were in my power to tell you what was in my heart when I received your letter. Your welcome home, your sympa- thy with what has been passing while I have been absent, have touched me more than lean tell in words. My dear friends, the things that are deepest in our hearts are perhaps what it is most difficult to us to express. She bath done what she could,'—those words I inscribed on the tomb of one of

my best helpers whom I left in the graveyard at Scutari. It has been my endeavour, in the sight of God, to do as she has done. I will not speak of reward, when permitted to do our country's work. It is what we live for. But I may say, to receive sympathy from affectionate Leads like yours, is the greatest support, the greatest gratification, that it is possible for me to receive from man.

"I thank you all, the 1800, with grateful, tender affection. And I should have written before to do so were not the business, which my return home

has not ended, almost more so, I can manage.

"Pray believe me, my dear friends, yours faithfully and gratefully,

" FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE."

Colonel Percy Herbert, late Quartermaster-General in the Crimea, was the hero of a public demonstration at Ludlow on Saturday. The Corpo- ration and his constituents met him in procession as he came from Oakley Park, escorted by the mounted tenantry of his family. He was the chief guest at a banquet, where a sword and an address were presented to him. Colonel Herbert replied in a manly and sensible speech ; containing a vindication of Lord Raglan, and some remarks on the change in the morale of the Army and in the tone of feeling towards it.

"People now find that there is nothing in the training requisite to make a man a good soldier which prevents him from being also a good citizen ; and all I would ask is, that when you have an opportunity of assisting men who, having served their country in the humbler ranks of the army, settle down in the towns or villages us which they formerly resided, that you should help them to some employment, and show to their neighbours, as well as to those of their own standing, that they are respected and respectable on account of the services which they have rendered to the public ; and nothing that I can conceive will tend so much to do what has often been anxiously sought for in England—to raise the general standard of respectability of the individual soldiery of the country:. I think there is nobody who has watched the progress of men who have left their neigh- bourhood and afterwards returned to it as discharged soldiers, but must have seen and become convinced that military discipline means something more than teaching a man to use his arms, or to march, or to wear his uniform ; that there is a moral discipline about it ; and that we should not have seen that bravery in danger, that fortitude in suffering, that constant sense of acting according to what was their duty, that obedience in the hour of peril, if there was not a moral discipline educed by serving in our ranks."

The British Archmological Association have held their annual cam- paign this week in the West; choosing Bridgewater as head-quarters, and radiating thence through the neighbouring districts, so rich in relics of the middle ages—Glastonbury, Wells, Clevedon, Walton, Bath, and the camps, castles, and churches abounding thereabouts.

Mr. John Frost appeared as the hero of a Chartist meeting at Hey- head Green, Todmorden, on Sunday afternoon. It is stated that there were from fifteen to twenty thousand people present. An address was presented to this " ill-used " patriot ; and he made a speech in reply, going back to the discordant councils in the Chartist camp in 1839, and dealing largely in a description of the state of the corruption and im- morality which he had seen in the penal colonies. The rest of his life, the speaker said, should be devoted to the accomplishment of a radical reform of the House of Commons. The meeting resolved that the prin- ciples of the People's Charter are "the only principles that will redeem the people."

The Indus brought an unwonted cargo to Southampton last week —the mother and the son of the deposed King of Oude, the boy's uncle, and a large suite of "eunuchs," " moonshees," "native gentlemen," and servants. Few persons of the male sex have ever seen the Queen Dowager ; and the greatest difficulty was experienced in con- veying her from the ship to the land and from the land to her carriage.

e pressure of the crowd," says an eye-witness, "to get a glimpse of her was intense, and the gigantic eunuchs were in agony. The diffi- culty of getting her Majesty into the carriage without being seen was immense. At length a screen was placed against the body of the car- riage, and her Majesty was just in the act of stepping in, when, horror of horrors ! two men were detected on the coachman's box looking delibe- rately into the carriage, and about to stare her Majesty in the face. A shout of indignation drove them from their exalted post, to the infinite relief of the courtiers." The Royal York Hotel is the head-quarters of the party. They are accompanied by a Major Bird, described as "agent to the Queen." Mr. Andrews the Mayor was introduced to the " Princes " by Major Bird. "Two finer looking princes one would not wish to see. The heir-apparent is a youth about five feet six inches in height, with a thin lithe figure, and looking not certainly more than eighteen years of age. His face was of a pale brown colour, and his eye bright and intelligent. His uncle, the heir-presumptive, is a handsome stout-built man, regal in appearance. They were both gorgeously dressed ; their head-dresses being in the shape of a helmet, and glitter- ing with the lustre of precious stones." On the same day, the Major addressed the crowd in the name of his royal employers ; saying that they had come to demand a full inquiry into the annexation of Oude, and to "appeal against that act of the East India Company that has de- prived the Royal Family of Oude of their throne and country." He called for "three cheers for the Royal Family of Oude" ; which were duly forthcoming. On Saturday, the Mayor, Lord and Lady Hard- siicke, Admiral Ayscough, Sir George Wombwell, Sir George Pollock, and others, were presented to the Princes ; and several ladies were received by the Queen-Mother. The Princes, by themselves, have driven about the town, and have been much looked after. The Rajah of Surat, "with a splendid suite," has gone to Southampton to welcome the Royal Family. One of the reporters makes this significant state- ment—" The moonshees are busy all day long writing to distinguished per- sons in India, and the secretaries are equally busy in writing to Members of Parliament and distinguished individuals in this country."

At Liverpool Assizes, last week, there was a second trial of a wife for poisoning her husband : in this ease the man died. The accused was Betsy M‘Iitullen ; her husband, Daniel, was a flour-dealer at Bolton. Both were addicted to drink ; the husband seems to have had some cause to be jealous of his wife ; the two had insured their lives for 1001., to be paid to the sur- vivor. It was clearly shown—the prisoner's counsel admitted it—that ti'Mullen died from repeated small doses of antimony.. There could be no doubt that the wife administered them. At Bolton, it appears, there are druggists who sell powders called " quietners," or "quietness," containing

tartar emetic, intended to be given secretly by wives to drunken husbands, to cure them of the effects of their potations and to take away for a time the desire to renew them. Mrs. M‘Mullen bought some of these powders, and administered them to the deceased ; she did not do this merely when he had been drinking, but actually continued to dose him with the powders when he was very ill and under the doctor's hands, indeed at the point of death : suspicion was excited, and the prisoner's practices were discovered, but too late. To show the recklessness with which poisons are sold, we extract the evidence of Joseph Hardman. He said—" I am an as- sistant to Mr. Simpson, druggist and grocer, Bolton. I have served the prisoner with groceries, and I sold her an emetic powder on Tuesday the 1st of July. That is the only one I remember." Cross-examined by Mr. Ser- geant Wilkins—"I don't remember that this woman bought 'quietness' at our shop ; I have repeatedly sold them to others. We have let Bolton wo- men have them frequently, but we have cautioned them when we sold the powder to them. I know there is tartarized antimony in the ' quietness ' powder ,• and we kept four, five, six, and seven, made up together. I don't know what they are for, only they say they want them for their husbands. I did not know that tiutarizecl antimony was poison. I went from school to Mr. Simpson's shop. I rim nineteen years of age now. Mr. Simpson mixed them up, and I was to sell them. We charged a penny each for them. On the 1st of July, when she came for a 'quietness' powder, I asked her if she meant an antimonial or emetic powder. I was- told to caution purchasers to give only one-fifth part of a powder at a dose." This youth's master deposed—"I am a grocer and druggist at Bolton. I have seen the prisoner once or twice in my shop. I never sold her 'quiet- ness' powder. We never sell it under that name. We make them up of 4 grains of tartar emetic and 15 grains of cream of tartar." Cross-examined by Mr. Sergeant Wilkins—" The last witness is my only shopmmi to sell drugs. I don't to my knowledge remember the prisoner coming for quiet- ness.' I can't remember everybody coming into my shop. I don't make the nineteen-grain powders into four, because it is the practice in the town to sell them in that quantity. They are used by factory operatives to clear cotton from their stomachs. I don't remember ever having seen a man come for these powders. We always tell purchasers to divide each powder into four doses. We sell about five a week."

For the defence, Mr. Sergeant Wilkins urged that the prisoner had merely done as other ignorant women of Bolton did, given " quietness " powders to a drunken husband, being unaware that they were poisonous : she thought slip was doing her husband good. The utmost the Jury could do was to convict her of manslaughter, for an illegal act in administering the powders, even though she had no intention to kill her husband. Mr. Justice Willes instructed the Jury that it was manslaughter for the prisoner to give the powders secretly to her husband, even though her intent was merely to cure him of drunkenness. If the powders were given with intent to kill, of course the act was murder. The Jury pronounced the prisoner guilty of" manslaughter" only; but "they desired to say they had taken a merciful view of the case." The Judge told the prisoner he should con- sider the evidence again and consult with a brother Judge before pronoun-

cing sentence. Ile then raised his /voice and addressed the people in the body of the court—" I likewise think it right to state, that if Mr. Simpson

or any other person engaged in the sale of drugs chooses to sell to married women such poisonous drugs without the knowledge of their husbands, and well knowing that they are intended to be administered to their husbands, no matter for what purpose, and death ensues, I repeat that Mr. Simpson and all others so acting are equally guilty of manslaughter. On Monday, Mr. Justice Willes sentenced the convict to be transported for life.

At the same Assizes, Brewer, a pilot, and Shaw, mate of the Excelsior, were tried for having by "gross and wilful negligence" caused a collision between the Excelsior and the Mail in the Mersey, whereby a number of poor Irishmen were killed. The case broke down : the prosecution failed to make out the gross and wilful negligence ; and the prisoners were acquitted.

Private Mansell, of the Forty-ninth Regiment, stationed at Dover, has murdered Lance-Corporal M'Burney. While M`Burney was kneeling down cleaning his accoutrements. Mansell walked up to him with a loaded rifle in his hand, and shot him lathe left side : the victim died in a few seconds. The assassination originated in a quarrel about a pair of boots, which Man- sell had falsely accused M`Burney of stealing.

The Coroner's Jury who have sat at Oldbury to inquire into the cause of death of four of the sufferers by the explosion at the Ramrod Hall Colliery returned their verdict on Tuesday. The evidence showed gross negligence on the part of nearly all persons oonnected with the pit ; the actual cause of the explosion having been a wilful carrying down the shaft of blazing coals by Baker, a butty, spite of a warning to the contrary—Baker was among the killed. The Coroner's summing-up was in consonance with the evidence of neglect and disobedience ; but the Jury, chiefly men connected with collieries, gave a verdict of "Accidental death," to the ssirprise of most people. The Commercial Bank of Newcastle has been compelled to succumb under the difficulties caused by the Sadleir frauds : recent disclosures caused a panic among the customers ; and the managing director, Mr. Walker, has found it necessary to close the bank. It would appear that though (he shareholders will lose their capital, the customers of the bank will be paid in full as the outstanding assets come to hand.

The great fall of rain Wet week- flooded the river Don : near Doncaster, two young men foolishly attempted to cross the raging stream in a small boat—they were washed out of the boat, swept down by the current, and drowned, before the eyes of their agonized parents.