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Mr. Estcourt has been elected Member for 'Devizes, in the room of Mr. Ludlow Bruges, resigned. There was no opposition.
Meetings against the increase of the Income:tax have been held in the towns of Leeds, Wolverhampton, Warrington, Wigan, Blackburn, Ha- wk*, Stourbridge, Leicester, Ashburton, Lynn, Yarmouth, Banbury, Win- chester, Wells, Cheltenham, Petersfield, Tiverton, &c. At Leeds a resolu- tion-was added to the proceedings, expressing admiration at Mr. Cobden's stand for retrenchment in the House of Commons. The Chamber of Commerce and Manufactures of Manchester have agreed to petition against the unequal pressure of the tax on commerce and manufactures.
At Northampton Assizes, on Wednesday, Thomas Crane, late postmaster at Peterborough, was tried for stealing a letter containing a ten-pound note. The case was
Peterborough, the day after the letter was posted, the prisoner went to North- ampton and changed the note at an inn. He was found guilty.
At the Winchester Assizes, on Tuesday, Mr. Bishop, formerly manager of the Christchurch branch of the Wilts and DorsetBanking Company, was tried for embezzling 1,0001., the property of the company. There were other indictments against him, charging him with embezzlements to the amount of 8,0001., and with forging an I 0 U for 8,4701. In last August, 1,4761. 13s, 9d. was paid into the Christchurch branch, to the account of Mr. Skipwick: the clerk entered it correctly; but Bishop changed the first figure into a cipher, and thus made the amount to be accounted for less by 1,0001. It appeared from the evidence, that the prisoner gambled in railway shares, and employed the money of the bank for that purpose; hoping, it would seem, to make his accounts correct if his deal- ings prospered. Testimony was given respecting the I 0 U: this was signed by a Mr. Welsh, who had a connexion with Bishop in his railway share transactions; it was given to the prisoner to fill up for-any amount of loss that might accrue from a certain dealing, but not with the intention that it should be filled up with the large sum written in by Bishop. This IOU was presented, by direction of the accused, at the bank with which Mr. Welsh was connected: of course payment WWI refused. If it had been paid, Bishop's accounts would have been made cor- rect, and he would not have been prosecuted by the company. He was found guilty.
There was a considerable slip of earth on the Brighton Railway last week. The top part of the deep cutting Northward of Hayward's Heath tunnel fell in, covering the rails for a hundred yards. The driver of a luggage-train discovered the disaster in time to prevent any accident to his own or other trains. But on Monday morning, a temporary line of rails, which had been constructed for keep- ing open a communication while the permanent line was cleared, gave way under hurt a goods-train, and the engine was tumbled into a ditch: however, nobody was An explosion of fire-damp in the Victoria Pits, a colliery at Dukinfield, has been fatal to several workmen. The men were working with unprotected candles; one entered an old working, where gas had collected, and it took fire; four miners were killed on the spot, and several dreadfully burnt.
A boiler has exploded in a mill at Heywood in Lancashire, killing three people on the spot, and dreadfully mangling a fourth.
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