At Dublin on Wednesday, there was a stormy meeting of
the Irish " Con- federates "; the question of debate being "Peace or war?" Mr. Smith O'Brien proposed a set of resolutions to restore unanimity, and pledging the association to peace. Mr. Mitchell moved an amendment in favour of war. He deprecated all ' balmy balderdash " about peace and that sort of humbug. " There is, ' he said, "no opinion in Ireland, worth a farthing, which is not illegal." The debaters could not agree, and adjourned their discussion. The first of the eight great iron tubes required for carrying the Chester and Holyhead Railway over the Menai Strait was tested on Saturday, at Chester, in the presence of Mr. Stephenson the projector, and a large number of engineers. All support being removed, the tube had a clear span of 400 feet, each end resting e n a stone pier. The experiment was then made by running locomotives and heavily-laden ballast-waggons through; one train of 28 waggons filled with iron, weighing upwards of 300 tons. The deflection of the tube was not more than a few inches.
Henry Tucker, a soldier in the Second Battalion of Coldstream Guards, was shot dead by a woman, last evening, in Bird Cage Walk, St. James's Park, close to the entrance into Queen Square. The crime was committed by Annette Mayers, a French servant girl, with whom Tucker had been intimate. The atten- tion of several persons was first attracted by the report of a pistol, and the man was observed to fall; the woman leaving him at the same moment, and dropping a pistoL On being raised, Tucker breathed once or twice, but died before he could be conveyed to the Barrack Hospital. Mayers was in a state of great excitement: she made no attempt to escape, avowed her guilt, and expressed her satisfaction at Tucker's death; saying that she did not now care how soon she herself died.
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