Incendiary fires, some of them attended with the loss of
consider- able property, occurred last week at Anset, in Essex ; at Cromer and Aylsham, in Norfolk ; at Halesworth and Dennington, in Suffolk ; at Ruekings, in Kent ; and at two places in Northamptonshire. At Ruckings, the incendiary, with a mask on his face, was discovered in the stack-yard by a boy, whom he knocked down : be then made off, leaving his tinder-box and Straw behind him. The Magistrates are very active in their search after the guilty parties, and several persons have been taken up, on suspicion, and examined.
The lower parts of Plymouth, in the neighbourhood of the Custom- house, were alarmed on Wednesday week, by an affray between the mili- tary and civilians. It appears to have arisen at a public-house between several privates of the 75th and 53d, and a party of seamen and marines. As usual on all such occasions, the military drew their bayonets, and the inhabitants were obliged to interfere to prevent the shedding of blood. The soldiers then left; but shortly after returned with a tein- forcement, to the number of twenty-four or twenty-five, and charged upon every person who came in their way. The towmpolice, headed by the Mayor, were speedily on the spot ; but not until a strong picket arrived from the garrison, by whom the soldiers were put to the rout. Several of them were subsequently taken into custody and lodged in the town prison until the following morning, when they were brought before the Mayor and magistrates; and four of them, who were identi- fied as having committed violent assaults upon two of the police, were committed to take their trials at the ensuing Sessions ; the others were handed over to the military authorities, and the officers in attendance pledged themselves to an investigation into the case. Fortunately, no one received any mortal wound in this affray, but several persons were severely cut and bruised.—Ply»mouth Chronicle.
On Monday week, the dwelling-house of Mr. Ellis, a farmer war Diss, was broken into about midnight. Mrs. Ellis hearing some little noise in the kitchen, procured a light and went down without disturb- ing her husband. No sooner had she entered the room, than she was seized by two men, armed and disguised; a third presented a pistol, and demanded all the money that was in the house, swearing that on the least resistance or alarm they would murder her on the spot. In this situation, she put them in possession of 16/. and they took what- ever other articles they thought proper to select. • Not yet satisfied, they insisted on her conducting them to the attic, where the serving- man was sleeping ; from whose pocket they took I Is. They then de- parted, admonishing Mrs. Ellis to make no alarm till they should be out of hearing.—Nvefolk Chronicle.
At Liverpool, on Christmas-day, a negro quarrelled with a female of bad character, and,. in a fit of rage, stabbed her to the heart with a clasp knife; and she died immediately. The num (who was mate to vessel trading to New South Wales) has been committed to take his trial for the murder.
The Bristol mail on the night of Thursday week, came in contact with some gates which some miscreant had placed in the road between Tewkesbury and Severn Stoke. In consequence of the shock thus occasioned, the coachman was jerked off the box in the midst of the horses he was dragged a considerable distance before the guard could stop the horses, but was not seriously hurt. On several occasions lately, stumps of trees or posts have been laid in the road about the same spot. The mails up and down are so timed that they usually meet near this point of the road ; and the conjecture is, that the villains who placed these obstructions hoped to overturn the mails, and in the confusion carry off some of the bags or parcels.—Orfird Journal.
The Brothers of Liverpool, a vessel of 375 tons burden, trading to Bahia, was wrecked on the Carnarthenshire coast in the gale of the 19th December. The carpenter, who lashed himself to a part of the wreck, is the only survivor out of a crew of sixteen. Another vessel, the Iludscott of Bideford, laden with 556 chests of oranges from Ssville to Glasgow, was stranded on the same part of the tase:t, on the .23d December. About atal chests of oranges were saved, and no lives lost. The next day, the Elizabeth, a vessel of 600 tons, bound to Liverpool from Calcutta, with an extremely valuable cargo, was driven ashore on the South part of Bideford bar. At daylight, she was discovered • by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, in great distress.; but from the violence of the gale, there was no possibility of rendering her any as. sistance, till the tide receded, when she was left dry. Her crew, are all safe, and hopes were entertained that when the ship is lightened she %vill be got off.
Upwards of three hundred vessels left Liverpool on Christmas-day, including five of the American packet-ships. It will be well for those who got clear of the Channel ; for on Tuesday last, about ten o'clock in the morning, a most violent gale came urs A Liverpool journal thus describes its appearance and effects-
" Two ridges of foam and spray were observed to be proceeding rapidly up the river, the one about the centre of the streont, and the other lu-mrer to the ,1111re. With the suddenness of a tropical hurricane, that storm came on, carrying every thing before it. The waves literally had their crests torn off by the wind, some- 'what in the manner so graphically described by Tom Cringle in his Log. The vessels in the river—we can as yet say nothing of those outside—were all, with- out exception, driven from their moorings. It was high water about two o'clock ; and it being a high tide, the water rolled in unbroken masses over the pier- heads; the breeze carrying the spray over the tops of the highest warehouses.
The accounts of the damage done to the vessels are as yet scanty. The Vale of Clwyd steam-boat, the Jamaica, a West Indianian, and the Grecian, for the Cape, were dashed to pieces,—the first near St. George's pier-head, the two others on the hanks. In the town, ellim- nies were blown down, roofs damaged, and cellars filled with water; but no one received bodily injury.
A party of fourteen men and women, singers in the parish rhureh of Stillingilect, kft home on Thursday week, aceording to the custom at this season of the year, for the purpose of visiting the prineilatl farmers in the vicinity. After calling at several places, they proceeded, in a boat on the river Ouse, to Kelfield. On their passage, they met a coal-vessel, drawn by a horse coming down the river. The party in the boat called out to the hauling-man, to hold his line tight, so as to allow them to get under it. This he would not do, as be said he should sweep them out of the boat ; but he slackened the line to enable them to pass over it. Unfortunately, one of the men in the boat seized the line and attempted to throw it over the boat ; but in this he fimiled, and the line caught the stern, and upset it. The whole party fell into the water, and five men and six women were drowned.
The son of Mr. Walker of Chamingdean, near Worthing, a very fine boy, was thrown off his pony on Thursday week ; and being dragged along by his foot, which was caught in the stirrup-iron, was so much injured that he died in a few minutes.
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