Zbe Vrobinces.

By Saturday evening, Nottingham was thrown into all the excite- ment of a contested election, by the arrival of Mr. Walter ; whose ap- pearance in active canvassing and speechmaking was signalized by due conflicts between his partisans and those of the expected Liberal can- didate, Mr. Joseph Sturge; who did not arrive till Monday. The advo-

cate of "complete suffrage" was supported by Dr. 3I'Douall, Mr. Cooper of Leicester, Mr. Feargus O'Connor, and other Chartists. Mr. Walter's party called in the aid of the Reverend Joseph Rayner Stephens. The writ was received and was proclaimed on Sunday.

The nomination took place on Thursday. Mr. Walter and Mr. Jo- seph Sturge were proposed ; Mr. Walter being seconded by Mr. Charl- ton, who described him as the "popular" Member at the last election, and dwelt on his exertions against the Poor-law. Mr. Feargus O'Connor and Mr. Vincent were also put in nomination.

Mr. Walter, interrupted at first by some uproar, made a long speech, in which he entered on a sort of defence against the charge of bribery.

Mr. Cripps, who seconded Mr. Sturge, said that Mr. Walter came down to Nottingham at his first election with a bag of gold and shook it in the faces of the electors, and that he had introduced " those practices." Mr. Walter declared that he came down an utter stranger to the prac- tices which, to his cost, he found to prevail ; and he believed that they were pretty much of the same description as those which were resorted to in 1837, when Mr. Eagle, who did not spend a shilling unduly, was thrown out. Mr. Cripps had said something about Mr. Walter's wish to enhance the price of food to the people, referring to the Whig Budget— Now he begged to recall to their recollection the fact, that one of the objects of his return to Parliament was to produce the retirement of the Whigs from office. They had all expressed their utter want of confidence in the late Administration. Why, then, would it not have been most absurd if, after they bad returned him for that specific purpose, the first vote he was called on to give in Parliament had been to maintain them in office ? Besides, he had no confidence in the sincerity of their intentions in proposing their new Corn-law.

In one of his earliest addresses to the electors, Mr. Sturge had said that he had not considered the question of the Poor-law-

Mr. :Walter bad done more than consider it. He had always strenuously opposed it, and with what great statesmen consider the best sinews of war. But anoponent, neither on that nor on any other constitutional question, was &used to make any pecuniary sacrifice. He was not going to speak about ..ction-expenses; but this he would assert, from some experience, that no sefal political object could be carried into effect without some expense to those aho were desirous of carrying it.

By way of testimonial to his own merits, Mr. Walter quoted largely from praise which Mr. Wakley had bestowed upon him ; and he de- clared that the Compromise Committee had ended in smoke. Mr. Sturge rested on his scheme for "equality of civil, political, and social privileges," "complete suffrage "-

If it were fully carried out, it would lead to a total abolition of the barbarous punishment of death; it would lead to the transfer of the taxes from the hard- working labourer to the property of the country ; it would lead to the separa- tion of the so-called Church from the State ; it would lead to the complete es- tablishment of free trade in all legitimate articles with every part of the world— it would lead to the establishment of permanent and universal peace ; and it would lead to the granting to every individual above twenty-one years of age who had not been convicted by a jury of his countrymen the right to select those by whom the laws were to be made which he was bound to obey.

And he expatiated on the prospective advantages of free trade. Mr. Feargus O'Connor and Mr. Vincent delivered speeches in sup- port of Mr. Sturge. Mr. O'Connor put the grounds of choice between the two candidates thus :" Mr. Walter would excite the people upon the Poor-law Amendment Act, but he defied Mr. Walter to effect any change in it : Mr. Sturge would give the people the means of altering it themselves." Mr. O'Connor and Mr. Vincent then withdrew from the contest. The show of hands was altogether in favour of Mr. Sturge ; and the poll demanded on behalf of Mr. Walter was fixed for the next day.

After the nomination, Mr. Walter, attended by a crowd of his parti- sans, went to the George the Fourth Hotel ; where there was more speechmaking. Mr. Soarnes, Mr. Walter's agent, made two assertions against the opposite party: the first was, that " Lambs " had been hired, and that they ate and were paid at the Complete Suffrage Committee- room on Boston Hill : the other was this— Mr. O'Connor had suggested to him a new mode of influencing the votes of the constituency: he had told them that gold had been inserted in loaves of bread, and distributed for their suffrages among the voters. Now, if this had been done, it had not been done by Mr. Walter or any of his friends. It might have been done perhaps by Mr. O'Connor, and some of the persons connected with him ; but sure he was that it could not have been done by Mr. Sturge ; for he had that morning told them that he had buttoned up his pocket, and that he would not give more than a brass farthing towards the promotion of his election.

The Conservative candidates for Southampton are, Mr. Hope, the Under-Secretary for the Colonies, and Sir John Mildmay ; the Liberal candidates, Lord Nugent and Mr. George Thompson. It is a grievance with the Conservatives, that Mr. Joseph Sturge has issued an admonitory address to the Southampton electors, purporting to be from the Council of the National Complete Suffrage Association. A correspondent of the Globe says that Mr. Thompson, "the eloquent opponent of slavery, and the friend and associate of all the distinguished philanthropists in the kingdom," is well-known and exceedingly popular in Southamp- ton. The nomination is fixed for today, the polling for Monday.

Lord Nugent and Mr. Thompson were introduced to the electors on Wednesday ; Lord Nugent by Sir John Easthope. He made a short speech to the electors from the window of his committee-room, telling them that the time was too short for him to go into particulars that

evening. A Chartist, however, put a string of questions : in reply to which, Lord Nugent stated that he was an advocate for Household Suf- frage, Ballot, Triennial Parliaments, and No Property Qualification for Members ; and be had no objection to payment of Members and equal electoral districts. Mr. George Thompson advanced himself as the enemy of all monopoly, and of all corrupt means of procuring his own election— He would not spend a penny beyond the legal and necessary expenses of that election : he would not give away a drop of beer, not a drop of ardent spirits, not a morsel of bread, as an inducement to obtain the votes of the inhabitants of this town. He offered them neither meat, drink, silver, nor gold; but he set before them great principles.

At Guildford Assizes, on Thursday, Lord Abinger and a special Jury tried an action of libel brought by the Honourable Mr. Greville against Chapman and another, the proprietors of the Sunday Times. The libel complained of was contained in a report of the proceedings of the last Epsom Races; and the plaintiff was accused of having withdrawn his horse Canadian from that race in order that he might win several large bets that he had made against him. The defendants put in several pleas, tantamount to a plea of justification. There was much conflict- ing evidence respecting an unaccountable lameness which seized the horse just before the race ; but it seemed put beyond a doubt that the horse really was lame ; and the Jury, after a few minutes' consultation, returned a verdict for the plaintiff, with 250/. damages.

An action was tried at Guildford Assizes, on Wednesday, which had been brought by Messrs. Cook and Gladstone, Manchester-warehouse- men and silk-merchants, against Mr. George Hitchcock, the brother of William Hitchcock, the &gent Street linendraper whose bankruptcy drew so much attention some time ago. The action was to recover the amount of a bill of exchange for 7,0001., accepted by the defendant and his brother. The defendant pleaded, first, that he did not accept the bill in question ; secondly, that it was accepted only upon the condition that it was to be renewed at the expiration of every twelvemonth for seven years, and also that it was only given as a security for the repay- ment of the sum mentioned in seven years, but that, in violation of the agreement, the plaintiffs never advanced the money ; and it was like- wise pleaded that they had charged a usurious rate of interest, viz. 71. 10s. per cent for the use of the money, and that the defendant, therefore, was not liable. After a good deal of dry examination, in which William Hitchcock was a witness, and much discussion among the counsel, the Jury decided that the sum of 7,000/. had been advanced by the plaintiff; and they also expressed their opinion that the lease was

only given as a collateral security, and that the bill of exchange was the real security taken by the plaintiff. A special verdict for the plaintiff was then recorded ; leave being given to the defendant's counsel to move the Court upon the question of law.

At Shrewsbury Assizes, on Saturday, Thomas Williams Henry Ed- wards, Benjamin Nicholls, and Thomas Brothwood, were Charged with illegal combination to raise wages, with riot, and various assaults. The wages of the colliers in the pits of the Lilleshall Company, who employ 2,300 men, having been reduced from 2s. 9d. to 2s. 6d, a day, the men determined upon a strike; and at six o'clock in the morning of the 20th of July, they assembled in large numbers, at Donnington Wood, where they forced a large number of their fellows to join them • and, their numbers gradually increasing, they went in a body, shouting and huzzaing, to Priors Lee, two miles from Donnington Wood, and there drew the men from five pits in succession. Some of these men joined them from choice, some from fear ; and their numbers swelled to be- tween 2,000 and 3,000. They avowed their intention of stopping all the men from working ; and in one or two instances, stones were thrown, and threats used that if any one interfered with them they would throw him into the pits or into the canal. They were all found guilty ; and five were sentenced to two months' imprisonment, the rest being discharged on their own recogn:zances to reappear when called upon. William Vann was tried at Leicester Assizes on Saturday, for at- tempting to cut his wife's throat. He was confined to his bed by a paralytic stroke, which had deprived him of the use of his legs. On the 28th of June, he quarrelled with his wife before she got up; and while she was dressing, he called her to him, drew her backwards on the bed, pulled a razor from under the pillow, and, in spite of her struggles, inflicted a severe wound on her throat. She got away, and her mother ran in and held the wound until a surgeon arrived. Vann then tried to cut his own throat ; and when Mrs. Vann's father and some of the neighbours went to him, he told them that he had done for himself. In extenuation, Vann imputed infidelity to his wife. He was found guilty, and sentence of death was recorded.

William Powell, aged twenty-seven, and Mary Powell, his mother, aged seventy-two, were tried at Hereford Assizes' on Tuesday, for the wil- ful murder of Lucy Parker, the aunt of Powell. Powell was to have been married to Parker (who had lately lost her husband) within two days after that of her death ; but they had already lived together, though not without frequent ebullitions of jealousy on his part. The following

declaration was produced-

" Upper Mil, 10th May 1842.

" I, William Powell, of the parish of Hope-under-Dinmore, in the county of Hereford, do solemnly declare, from this time forth, never to lay hands on Lucy my much-beloved wife, in anger, so long as we both live. So hereunto I set my hand and seal, this 10th day of May in the year of our Lord 1842.

"WILLIAM POWELL.

"The 4 of MARY POWELL."

Dated on the same day, was a letter which Mrs. Parker received from one George, proposing marriage ; and that occasioned the quarrel, in, the course of which Powell seems to have struck the woman with a hatchet. There appears to have been a struggle, for Mary Powell was much bruised. The Jury, however, acquitted her, and convicted Powell of manslaughter ; there being no evidence to prove that he did not deal the fatal blow in a moment of unforeseen anger. He was sentenced to. transportation for life.

In a letter to the daily papers, Mr. John D. Paine contradicts a re- port that an iron caissoon, which has been sunk at Goodwin Sands as the first foundation of " The Light for All Nations," had burst. The undertaking proceeds well. The caissoon is forty-two feet high ; tux below low-water mark, and eighteen feet above high-wow Aiirk.