SCOTLAND.
The British Association for the Advancement of Science are again holding their assembly at Edinburgh, after sixteen years of rotation at other great centres. A very large number of distinguished foreigners are present; including Dr. Struve from the unrivalled Observatory of Pul- kova, Dr. Kupffer from Petersburg, and Professor Hitchcock from Am- herst College, United States. The first General Committee meeting was held on Wednesday. The financial state of the society was 'declared to be very flourishing; last year showing a balance of 400/. more receipts than expenses. In. Sir David Brewster's scientific survey, he mentioned that it was the intention of the late Sir Robert Peel, when in power, to invigorate the Royal Society by adding to it several young working mem- bers, to be paid for their scientific researches; and the further point of interest, that a document has been found among the papers of Sir Isaac Newton, sketching the same plan for increasing the utility of the Royal Society.
At the High Court of Judiciary, last week, William Bennis= was tried for bigamy and murder. Some years since, when resident in Ireland, he married an Irishwoman ; but soon deserted her, and coming home to Scot- land, married there a woman remarkable for her meek virtue and her devo- tion to himself: he left his second wife, returned to his first wife in Ireland, and soon after she died suddenly. He then once more returned to his second wife, and gave her the Lord." of his first wife as those of a deceased sister —" a sister m the Lord. He was distinguished for his gift in prayer, and' at last was every evening at the prayer-meeting. Here his eye fell urn one whom he resolved to make his third wife. Six weeks after his acquaint- ance with this girl, his second wife died : it was proved that six weeks be- fore her death he bought arsenic, and with that poison frequently adminis- tered he took his confiding helpmate's life. Her deathbed strikingly exem- plified pious resignation and trustful attachment to her husband. With a climax of hypocrisy, immediately after her death, he exclaimed at her bed- side, "Thank God, she is gone to glory! I have seen manra deathbed, but never a pleasanter one than my wife's." The Jury that tried the wretch found him guilty on both charges. Sentence of death was passed, and he was removed protesting his innocence of the murder: but he has since con- fessed. A dreadful accident occurred at the Cowlairs railway station in Glasgow, on Thursday morning. A special train left Perth in the morning,by the Scottish Central Railway, to convey a large party of excursionists to view the Highland Society's exhibition in Glasgow. On approaching the city, the train was divided into two sections; when the first went forward it vtas de- tained by another train being on the line at Cowlairs. While thus station- ary, the second portion of the train suddenly approached at a great speed, and dashed into the first train. Two cattle-trucks, in which were twenty or thirty persons, were smashed to pieces, and the other carriages were damaged. Five persons were killed, and several others were turt—some, it is feared, fatally. A man employed on the railway at Glasgow has died of hydrophobia: he was bitten by a terrier while removing it from a carriage, two months ago. The fatal symptoms did not appear tiewithin about a week of his death.
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