The speaking was enlivened by Colonel Sibthorp's
denunciations of that confounded building called the
Crystal Palace, which is doomed to fall to rise no more;
and of the robbing and ravishing foreigners, for whom
alone it has been erected.

A letter published by the Roman Catholic journal,
the Tablet, and said to have been addressed by the
Earl of Clarendon to the Earl of Shrewsbury, when the
latter nobleman was at Rome in December last, has
been reprinted in the principal newspapers, and is
regarded as genuine. It appears to form part of a
correspondence arising out of the Earl of Shrewsbury's
conferences with the Pope. The following are among
its most remarkable passages:—

"Dublin, Dec. 2nd, 1850.

"My dear Lord,—I am sincerely obliged to you for your letters
of November the 12th and 15th, and I know not whether most to
admire your accurate knowledge of all the affairs of Ireland, or
the eminent tact and judgment you have displayed in the
conferences with the Holy Father and the Cardinals, of which you
have the goodness to send me so complete and so interesting a
report. I take the liberty of making some observations on what
was said in those conferences, and I hope that you will permit
me to express them with all frankness, because I cannot write
about the ignorance, or something worse, which prevails in
Rome regarding this country, without candidly declaring my
judgment as to its causes, and the deplorable consequences
which must attend it. The Pope has shown the extent of the
deceit which has been practised upon him. All good men in
Ireland, of whatever creed or politics, are agreed in reverencing
Dr. Murray as the beau idéal of a Christian pastor; and yet
your Lordship found his Holiness irritated against him alone.
All agree in considering Dr. M'Hale as an ill-disposed
demagogue, who does nothing but afford an example of all that a
bishop ought not to do; and yet, when your Lordship blamed
him, you were told that you had a strange animosity against
the Irish. * * *  *  I may be permitted to ask what we
ought to think of the government of the Pope, who, in violation
of the rules for the nomination of bishops, sent here a man like
Dr. Cullen, whose only object has been to destroy the colleges
established by the legislature and maintained by the state, and
to extinguish the national schools, in which 500,000 of the
poorest classes are educated, without an attempt to provide for
the deficiency of establishments of these two kinds, and thus
leave the middle and poorest class in brutal ignorance, without
troubling himself about the consequences that would follow?
Dr. Cullen, moreover, published a synodical address, in which
he did not stop at condemning the colleges, but sought to set
class against class, and to represent every poor man as a martyr
and every rich man as a tyrant. There is more rank communism
in that address than could be chemically distilled from M. De
Véricour's whole book. It cannot be alleged that all this
opposition arises from religious zeal; because, at this moment,
Dr. M'Hale and others would induce the students to leave the
colleges where their faith and morals are protected, and to go
to Trinity College in Dublin, a place eminently Protestant,
where there are no guarantees for faith, and where there is
every temptation to apostacy. Mr. Lucas, editor of the Tablet,
—one of the most virulent and most offensive newspapers in
Europe—is in constant communication with Dr. Cullen, and is
moreover the chief instigator, as his paper is the organ, of the
Tenant League, the object of which is to abolish the rights of
property, and to shake to its very foundation everything on
which society depends. He is ably assisted in this work of
regeneration by the priests, who, with this end in view, have
fraternised with the Presbyterian clergy. But not a word of
counsel or reprimand has been uttered by the Primate; on the
contrary, his journal applauds, and the editor acts in the
League with Mr. Duffy of the Nation, who would have been at
this hour a deported felon if one of the jury had not perjured
himself. It is very true that the Pope ordered the clergy not to
meddle in politics. This he did in 1847, in the same rescript in
which he condemned the colleges. The second part was received
with reverence, as hostile to the government; and the first was
obeyed by the clergy rushing headlong into the revolutionary
movement of 1848, when nothing saved them, except their
belief in the impartiality of the government; in which they
were quite right, because, if the legal evidence of their guilt
had been as strong as its moral certainty, several of them would
have now been along with their friends in exile in Van Diemen's
Land.''

The Harwich Election Committee have decided that
the election was altogether void, and a new writ for the
borough has been ordered.

At Aylesbury, Mr. Ferrand has been entertained by
the Protectionist Electors who adhere to his peculiar
views. His speech was characteristic; towards its close
he exclaimed,—"Who fears a rebellion? God would
defend the right. Let the free-traders hoist their
standard of rebellion tomorrow, the spirit of England
would destroy them in a month. Bright would be
hanged at Manchester, Cobden at Leeds, and Sir James
Graham at Carlisle. A new reform bill is talked of:
he warned the government that the revolution which
sweeps away the Protectionists would sweep the Duke of
Bedford out of Woburn Abbey; would, in all probability,
sweep the crown from her Majesty's head; and would,
if he were not cautious, sweep Lord John Russell's head
from his shoulders."

In a Convocation holden at Oxford on the 21st, it was
resolved, by 249 to 105, to affix the university seal to a
petition praying the Queen to revoke the university
commission, or to allow the university to be heard
against that commission by counsel.

NARRATIVE OF LAW AND CRIME.

A decision of the Exchequer Chamber has settled a
point of law respecting the Reception of Evidence. A
person named Hill, an attendant in one of the London
lunatic asylums, was lately convicted of causing the
death of a pauper by violent treatment. The conviction
had depended on the evidence of a pauper lunatic,
subject to insane delusions as to spirits; who affirmed
even at the trial that the spirits were then trying to
make him think that the violence he witnessed had
happened on another day than the correct one; but
who in other respects was highly intelligent and moral,
and gave to the judge an excellent explanation of the
moral obligation of an oath. It had been objected at
the trial, that a person non compos mentis is never
admissible as a witness: but Justice Coleridge had
admitted the evidence, and reserved the point for grave
argument before the Exchequer Chamber. That court
now held that Mr. Justice Coleridge was right: the
rule being, that the admissibility of the evidence rests
with the judge, and then the effect and weight of the
evidence rests with the jury. The wisest of men (it was
observed) have been subject to delusions; Socrates
believed that a demon haunted him; Martin Luther,
that he had been in actual conflict with the devil;
Dr. Johnson, that he had heard his mother call him
after her death. It would be impossible to reject testimony
solely on the ground that the witness had delusions
unconnected with the subject-matter of his evidence
at the trial. The conviction was affirmed.

It is stated that an arrangement has been made
between the parties to the suit of Metairie v. Wiseman
and others, concerning the property bequeathed by the
late M. Carré to the Roman Catholic priest Holdstock.
By the arrangement the principal portion of M. Carré's
property goes to his next of kin. instead of to the Romish
Church.

At Ryde Petty Sessions, Mr. Brown, minister of the
Wesleyan Chapel in Nelson Street, and his wife, were
fined £5. each, for Inhumanly Treating a poor serving-
maid in their employ, aged fourteen. The parties had
great difficulty in evading the fury of a large mob, who
made an attack on the house in which they lived; and
they were only saved from severe maltreatment by the
presence of a numerous body of the police.

A poor Polish Refugee appeared at the Marlborough
Street Police Office on the 30th, representing his frightful
state of destitution and begging relief. He said he had
taken refuge in France, with a passport visé for Lyons,
about a fortnight ago. As soon as he reached Lyons he
was placed in the custody of a gendarme, taken to
Boulogne, and from thence compelled to go to England.
The magistrate sent a message on the subject of the
man's case to the Polish Society; and the secretary, who
immediately made his appearance, said that this was an
exceedingly common case. For some time past it had
been the open practice of the French authorities to
clear their country of idle, profligate, or criminal
foreigners by sending them to England. He believed
that not fewer than 800 doubtful characters had been,
within a limited period, sent to this country. This
practice would account for the appearance of the applicant
here, who, though with a passport to Lyons, was
compelled when he got to that city to leave it and
to embark at Boulogne for England. The French
government had doubtless found out that the applicant
was without visible means of subsistence, and had, in