Royal Highness had no disposition to resist any claim that could in fairness be made upon him, whatever might be the legal obligations.' I have now to inform you, on the part of his Royal Highness, that if the parochial authorities had continued to insist upon the payment of the demand, made as a matter of legal right, his Royal Highness would have felt himself compelled, by a sense of the duty which he owes to Her Majesty, to resist the claim. You have informed his Royal Highness that the vestry of Windsor has passed resolutions of which the following are copies:

"That the vestry extremely regrets that the resolutions in reference to the rating of his Royal Highness Prince Albert, passed at the vestry meeting held on the 18th of September last, should have been so carried, inasmuch as this meeting is now fully aware that his Royal Highness is not in any way liable to be rated for Flemish Farm ; and that this vestry deprecates the garbled statements set forth in the public journals on the subject.' Again,

That, inasmuch as the maintenance of the poor presses heavily on the parishioners, a respectful memorial be now presented to his Royal Highness, praying him to take the state of the parish into his gracious consideration, and that such memorial be prepared and presented by the parish officers.'

"His Royal Highness infers from these resolutions that the vestry distinctly admits that his Royal Highness is not in any way liable to be rated for the Flemish Farm; and his Royal Highness feels himself at liberty to take the course which is most satisfactory to his own feelings, and to pay as

"Henry Darvill, Esq." 14. EXTRAORDINARY MORTALITY. An inquest was held at Bilston, before Mr. T. M. Phillips, coroner, on the body of Joseph Revell Pitt, a child about two years and two months old, who had died from loss of blood under the following extraordinary circumstances:-Mary Ann Pitt deposed that she is the wife of Joseph Pitt, a tin-plate worker, residing in Temple Street, in that town, and mother of the deceased child, who had been in perfect health up to Saturday last. About 1 o'clock on that afternoon he was playing about a chair, and began to climb up the back of it; the chair overbalanced and fell with the child to the ground. raised him up, but could not perceive that he was hurt anywhere, excepting on the lower lip and the upper gum, both of which were bruised a little. He did not appear to be in much pain, and soon began to play again. About 6 o'clock in the evening she had her tea and gave her child some, upon which she perceived that the upper gum bled a little. She and her mother took the child to Mr. Dickenson, surgeon, who dressed the gum, and the bleeding ceased for about an hour; but about 8 o'clock it commenced again, and tinued to bleed all night. About 11 the next morning she again

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con

up, the jury acquitted the female prisoner, and returned a verdict of guilty against Smith.

The learned Judge having commented upon the very aggravated character of the offence of which the prisoner had been convicted, sentenced him to be transported for life.

Alfred Jones was subsequently arrested and charged as accessory to this robbery. Some days after the robbery a letter was sent threatening a repetition of the visit; this letter was in the same hand as that presented by Smith, and was identified as the writing of Jones, who was known to be an associate of Smith. He was tried and proved to have kept watch about the house while Smith committed the robbery, convicted and transported.

10. FALL OF A VIADUCt. · About six o'clock in the morning a fearful noise, which was heard as far as Pavilly, aroused the inhabitants of Barentin, through which village the railway now in construction between Rouen and Havre passes. The twenty-eight pillars which supported the arches of the viaduct which at that place span the valley through which the river St. Austreberthe flows, fell one after the other, and almost instantaneously. If these enormous pillars had not providentially fallen in a straight line, had they fallen but a few yards to either side, a great number of persons must have been destroyed in their sleep. One detached building only, a corn-mill, was destroyed by the falling mass. The river St. Austreberthe, which runs beneath the viaduct, turned from its course by aterials, flooded the

"

side, and the maated upon its banks et, and which are

worked by that stream, were suddenly brought to a stand-still. The viaduct was commenced in the spring of 1844, since which time between 200 and 300 workmen have been daily employed upon it; it was not quite completed at the time of its destruction. It was composed of twenty-seven briek arches, each presenting a span of fifteen metres, and supported by twenty-eight pillars, likewise of brick, each of which was four metres thick. The greatest elevation was thirty-two metres. The entire length of the work was 500 metres. The disaster is attributed to defective materials and bad workmanship, further deteriorated by the effect of the wet and frost upon the mortar. The loss will fall upon the contractors.

THE RAILWAY MANIA.-The uncontrollable madness for speculating in railway shares, which produced such an unheard-of number of schemes towards the close of last year, the Bills for which are to come before Parliament during the present session, now began to produce its inevitable fruits, and the fortunate (?) holders of scrip became aware of the awful liabilities they had incurred. The effects upon the money market and upon trade were very depressing, and the public organs were earnestly engaged in discussing the means of meeting and avoiding the peril. The following extract from the city article of the Times will convey a good impression of the general feeling

“The chief matter which is regarded at this time as a cloud over the money market is the lodgment of the 10 per cent. on railway capital with the AccountantGeneral, which, according to the standing order, must be made within

seven days from the assembling of Parliament, and consequently is due on the 29th of this month, less than three weeks distant. When the abstraction of millions at one time from the circulation is the point at issue, this is a very short time for preparation, and yet it may be asserted, on the best authority, that as yet no arrangement for the purpose is made, the officers of the Crown declining to sanction any deviation from the mode direeted by the Act of making these payments. In vain has it been urged to them, and to the presiding officer of the deposits, the Accountant-General himself, that this era of railway enterprise forms a special case, in which, if some special interference does not take place, a disturbance of the circulation will ensue which must affect not only the parties immediately concerned, but the whole of the banking and trading community. The assurance that this absorption of the currency will be but temporary, that only a few days need elapse before the reinvestment of the funds, on the application of the parties to whom they belong, will take place, does not help the present holders of the deposits out of their dilemma, who allege that the abstraction of such large sums for a few days, or even for a single day, will do great mischief. Still the Government will yield nothing, and the Bank, which has not, indeed, sufficient power for such a purpose, will not interfere.

"The directors and committees of the various railway companies might possibly give some help over the difficulty, but an appeal to them is not likely to be more successful than to the government officers. It has been urged upon them that they might anticipate the period prescribed by law, and

begin at once to pay in their deposits, following up that step by an application in due form for their investment; but they contend in reply, that they see no reason why they should lose a day's interest agreed to be paid on these large sums, and that the kind of investment they should select for them so as to avoid risk is a great puzzle to them; that they would rather in fact have the money untouched at their disposal for subsequent operations. They profess to have nothing to do with the possible pressure on the money market; they have lodged their funds in hands where they expect it to be forthcoming when wanted, and look only to the fulfilment of that engagement.

"There are many versions current, but still nothing like certainty, of the sum these railway payments will amount to. Some, who are in a good position to form conjectures, consider that they take a low estimate in fixing 10,000,0007.; but it is the opinion of the best practical bankers, that even one-half that amount could not be locked up for a week with the Accountant-General, without leading to the greatest and most diffused inconvenience and pressure.'

RAILWAY SUBSCRIBERS.-A most voluminous and interesting return, prepared in conformity to an order of the House of Commons, has been issued in the form of a catalogue of upwards of 540 folio pages, consisting of an alphabetical and numerical list of the names of all persons in England, Ireland, and Scotland, who subscribed towards the railways of last session for sums less than 2,0001. The return is à curious collection of the names, addresses, and amount of interest of every invester in the lines before Parliament last session, to a less

extent than 2,000l. It defies all notions of analysis, and is a sort of stupendous postscript to the return recently issued of all subscribers to railways beyond 2,000l. Irrespectively of the many thousands who hold largely in established lines, the return includes upwards of twenty thousand subscribers to the lines and branches of last session alone, subscribing to the extent of 21,386,7031. 6s. 4d. Amongst the names are to be recognised many of the leading nobility, the largest manufacturing firms, and names familiar to most people as connected with the commerce and literature of the country. The juxtaposition of names and descriptions presents some remarkable contrasts; the same columns presenting a combination of peers and printers, vicars and vice-admirals, spinsters and half-pays, M.P.s, and specialpleaders, professors and cottonspinners, gentlemen's cooks and Q.C.s, attorneys' clerks and college-scouts, waiters at Lloyd's, relieving officers and excisemen, barristers and butchers, Catholic priests and coachmen, editors and engineers, dairymen and dyers, braziers, bankers, beer-sellers, and butlers, domestic servants, footmen, and mail-guards; with a multitude of other callings unrecorded in the Book of Trades.

Prince, to eminent legal authorities, whose opinion was entirely in favour of his Royal Highness's view. Upon this the parochial authorities presented a very humble address, admitting the nonliability of the farm, apologizing for the observations which had appeared in the public prints, and soliciting his Royal Highness's consideration to the hardships to which the parish is liable in consequence of the exemption of so considerable a property. To this address the following reply was received:

"Windsor Castle, Jan. 14.

"Sir, I am commanded by his Royal Highness Prince Albert to acknowledge the receipt of the memorial which you have forwarded to me from the parish officers of Windsor, and in reply to state, that when a claim was preferred for the payment of rates by the Prince on account of the Flemish Farm, and when the legal liability of the Prince was insisted upon by the vestry, his Royal Highness felt himself precluded from admitting such a claim without previous consultation with the highest legal authorities.

"His Royal Highness submitted the whole facts of the case to the Attorney and SolicitorGeneral of Her Majesty, and subsequently to Sir Thomas Wilde. Their opinion was, that his Royal Highness was not liable, in point of law, to the payment of rates, and that the admission by him of such liability might constitute a dangerous precedent, affecting the prerogatives of the crown.

"In the letter which I addressed to you on the 15th of December, I informed you that his