14th.—Petition presented from the Hon. Craven Fitzhardinge
Berkeley.—Debate on second reading of Ecclesiastical Titles
Bill commenced and adjourned.

17th.—Mr. Baillie's Ceylon Motion postponed.—Ecclesiastical
Titles Bill; debate on second reading.

18th.—Adjourned debate on ditto.

19th.—Hops Bill thrown out on second reading.—Sunday
Trading Bill read a second time and referred to a select
committee.—Expenses of Prosecutions Bill, Apprentices and
Servants Bill, a New Vice-Chancellor Bill, passed through
committee.

20th.—Ecclesiastical Titles Bill; adjourned debate.
—Consolidated Fund Bill read a second time.

21st.—Ecclesiastical Titles Bill; adjourned debate.

25th.—Ditto, division, second reading, earned.

Much agitation prevails in Ireland on the Papal
Aggression question. Twenty-one out of twenty-eight
of the Irish Roman Catholic Prelates assembled in
Dublin on the 25th ult., to consider the course they
shall take in reference to the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill.
They agreed to the drafts of addresses to the Queen, to
the House of Commons, and to the Roman Catholic
people of Ireland. The conference was continued next
day, and it was understood that the four Roman Catholic
Archbishops were then commissioned to cross the Irish
sea and "seek the privilege of presenting the addresses
to the Queen at the foot of the Throne."

The following protest against the Ecclesiastical
Titles Bill has been signed by eighty-eight members of
the Irish Roman Catholic bar; the signatures including
two Queen's Serjeants, Hawley and O'Brien, several
Assistant Barristers, and others holding appointments
under the Crown.

"We, the undersigned Roman Catholic members of
the Irish bar, feel bound publicly to declare our sense of
the impolicy and injustice of the bill now before Parliament
respecting ecclesiastical titles.

"We take this step with reluctance, because we are
unwilling to act on public questions as a separate class
in the community in respect either of our professional
position or our religious belief; but on this occasion we
fear that silence on our part might be construed into
acquiescence.

"We view the proposed measure retrogressive and
penal in its character, an infringement upon religious
liberty, an unwarrantable interference with the discipline
of our Church, and a departure from the policy recently
pursued by the Legislature in facilitating the voluntary
endowment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and clergy
of this country.

"We object to this measure because, by subjecting
our religion to special legislation of a vexatious character,
it will place the Roman Catholic people of Ireland in a
position of inferiority to their fellow subjects.

"We object to the measure because it will create new
difficulties in the administration of charitable and
religious trusts connected with the Roman Catholic
Church, unduly control the free disposition of property,
interfere with and endanger settlements made upon the
faith of existing laws, and in its results be productive of
great embarrassment and irritation.

"Finally, we object to the measure because it has
been conceived and framed in a spirit of hostility to the
Roman Catholic religion, and because it is calculated to
revive animosities which have been so baneful to our
country, and which in latter years had been rapidly
subsiding."

Meetings on the subject have been held in all parts of
the Roman Catholic provinces.

The Romish Archbishop of Tuam has addressed a
letter to Lord John Russell on the subject of the
Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. "His Grace" spurns every idea of
concession or compromise. The following passages of
this epistle are specimens of the tone of the whole:
—"You now, forsooth, condescend to bring in your penal
bill in a more mitigated form. No mitigation short of
its utter rejection will satisfy the Catholic people of
Ireland. We are conscious of no crime, our allegiance
to our beloved Sovereign is beyond reproach or impeachment.
Why, then, threaten us with a bill of pains and
penalties under any form? There are laws of higher
and holier obligation than those which are enacted by
men; and your lordship must be aware how powerless
must be all enactments that may clash with the
paramount obligations of the laws of God. The history of all
the persecutions of the church, from the days of Nero to
that now meditated, is nought but the unhallowed
efforts of men to substitute arbitrary and unjust enactments
for the inviolable obligation of the Divine laws."

"The truly heathenish ignorance and brutal vices into
which that portion of the English population is sunk
who have no instructors but those who have broken off
all communication with the apostolic see, is a lamentable
commentary on the folly as well as error of mere
national or secular churches. What wonder that they
should become worse than heathens, when their high
priests tell them that the great sacrament of baptism,
by which sinful man passes from the state of heathenism
into God's church, is not necessary to salvation!! The.
eyes of all are turned now to Parliament, watching to
see whether their members are at their posts, though,
like the Roman senator of old, they should be carried
thither on their couches. No apology can henceforth
plead with the people if those members do not exert
themselves in stopping the present penal enactment.
Opposition—stern, persevering opposition—to your
hateful measure, in season and out of season, is the
paramount duty of every Irish member of Parliament,
as well as opposition to every other measure you propose,
until you abandon the bill which in an evil hour you
proposed, or until once more you abandon the helm."

A large and influential meeting of the inhabitants of
Glasgow assembled in the City Hall on the 19th, and
passed resolutions against the Papal Aggression in
England. It was resolved to petition Parliament to
withdraw from the Church of Rome the national
encouragement she now receives from the public funds
and otherwise; to place all convents and nunneries, and
similar establishments of the Roman Catholic Church,
under regular public inspection; to amend the laws of
mortmain, and generally repress the aggressive spirit of
Popery. Mr. Henry Dunlop, of Craigton, presided; and
the movers of the resolutions were Dr. Macleod, of the
Established Church; Baillie Playfair; Dr. Buchanan,
of the Free Church; Mr. J. Henderson, of Park; Dr.
King, of the United Presbyterians; Sir James Campbell;
Dr. Bates, of the Reformed Presbyterians; Baillie
M'Dowall, and Dr. Smith.

At a meeting of the Electors of Lincoln, held on the
7th, resolutions were adopted pledging the meeting to
support Sir Bulwer Lytton at the next election; and a
committee was appointed.

It is stated that the following reductions have been
made in the expenses of the Diplomatic Service, to take
effect from the 6th of April next. There are to be in
future but two British Ministers abroad with the rank
of Ambassador, namely at Paris and Constantinople,
The Paris embassy is reduced from £10,000 to £8000 a
year. The Madrid mission is reduced from £6000 a year
and £550 for house-rent, to £5000 a year, and £700 house-rent.
The Vienna mission is reduced from £9000 a year
and £900 house-rent, to £5000 a year and good house-rent.
The Secretary of Legation of Vienna to have £550,
instead of £900, hitherto paid to the Secretary of the
Embassy.

NARRATIVE OF LAW AND CRIME.

At the Northampton Assizes, on tho 1st, James
Watkins, a private in the 15th Regiment of Foot, was
charged with Setting Fire to a Military Prison at
Weedon, near Northampton. He had been sentenced
by a court-martial to two years' imprisonment, and
attempted to destroy himself by setting fire to his cell,
but his cries betrayed the attempt and his own imminent
peril. Baron Alderson sentenced the prisoner,
who avowed that he had intentionally flred his cell, to
ten years' transportation.

At the Clare Assizes an old man named Quinlivan
was found guilty of the Murder of a poor woman, who
had been left the sum of two shillings by her husband
to support her during his absence in search of work.
The prisoner, who was a neighbour, was aware of this
circumstance, and, it appears, committed the crime for
the sake of that wretched amount.