of certain descriptions. A resolution was passed for the
appointment of a committee to prepare an address
praying that the Queen will refuse to entertain any
proposition from the United States Government for any
modification or alteration of the treaty of 1818, unless
such a proposition embraces the full and entire question
of reciprocal intercourse in commerce and navigation,
upon terms that will be just and reasonable; and that,
before any treaty affecting the fisheries is agreed upon,
her Majesty will afford her subjects in the provinces an
opportunity of becoming acquainted with the terms
proposed in said treaty, and of laying their case at the
foot of the throne.

Accounts from Quebec to the 14th December state
that the cholera, after killing 144 persons, had left the
city. The stock of timber was unusually large, owing
to the impossibility of obtaining vessels to transport it
to the English market.

Montreal papers of the 18th say, that Mr. Logan, a
local geologist, had just returned from Sherbroke,
reporting large gold placers in that locality. This is
the second gold-discovery in Canada. The other is said
to be on the Chaudière.

The intelligence from the West Indies relates chiefly
to the mortality from yellow fever, which is described as
frightful. Colonel O'Brien, the deputy adjutant-general,
has died at Barbadoes, after three days' illness. The
garrison at Barbadoes was healthy. Her Majesty's ship
Scorpion left St. Thomas on the 19th ult., for Santa
Cruz, with a very heavy sick list. At St. Thomas's,
where the fever had raged greatly, it was diminishing,
owing to the regular breezes which had set in. Many
of the ships were moored outside the harbour, for
change of air, and others had lost their commanders,
and had not sufficient men to put to sea. It is believed
that the unhealthiness of St. Thomas arises from its
being a great coal depot. A great quantity of rain has
saturated the coal, and the action of the heat on this wet
mass has caused, it is supposed, the evolution of a gas,
which, with the malaria of yellow fever pervading the
atmosphere, has caused the great mortality amongst the
homeward-bound West India packets which touch at
the above-named island. Among the casualties abroad
is the death by drowning of Mr. Rowlat, acting chief
officer of the Derwent. He fell overboard in the dark
while leaving Barbadoes. His appointment as chief
officer was on its way out when he fell overboard.

In British Guiana a large meeting was held at
Georgetown on the 22nd December; and resolutions
were passed strongly condemning the "continued and
increasing irregularity in the performance by the Royal
Mail Steam-packet Company of the postal service
between the colony and Great Britain." They state
that repeated attempts have been made to obtain
remedial measures, without success; that the cause of
the irregularities lies in the absence of Transatlantic or
Intercolonial steamers of sufficient power; and they
pray that the penalties for the repeated breaches of
contract may be enforced by the Admiralty. A
committee was appointed to draw up a memorial to the
Lords of the Admiralty.

PROGRESS OF EMIGRATION AND COLONISATION.

Mr. William Howitt has written a letter to a contemporary,
Cautioning of Emigrants to Australia against taking
out Bank of England Notes. This letter is dated Port
Phillip, Sept. 20; and in it he says. Bank of England
notes "are utterly refused here, even by the bankers,
except at a discount of 20 per cent. Numbers of persons
are coming out daily. There are a thousand arriving at
this port per diem, and not ten men out of each thousand
are aware of this fact. In the ship in which I came—
the Kent—there were numbers struck with consternation
at the news. Some lost from £40 to £100 by their
Bank of England notes; almost every one something,
more or less. Whoever brings Bank of England paper
will assuredly and inevitably be mulcted of one fifth of
his money. I speak from actual experience."

Mrs. Chisholm delivered an address on Australian
Emigration to a numerous meeting at the Mechanics
Institution, Greenwich, on the 4th. As usual it was
full of interesting information and advice. She
mentioned, that the majority of those who came to her
for information with regard to emigration were about
50 years of age, and were probably led to do so by a
dread of the workhouse. The emigration which was
now going on, though large, was of a trivial character
compared to what might be expected to take place
during the present year. Many of its features too, were
of a melancholy character, and it became all who had
any influence to endeavour to mitigate the evils. Of the
married men who were emigrating, at least 60 per cent.,
she believed, were leaving their wives and children in
this country, in the hope that they would be able to
remit money to pay for their passage, and whether
emigration should become respectable or not, whether it
should become moral or not, depended greatly on the
means which such men had of carrying out their wishes.
The last mail which arrived brought money from her
husband, who was in Melbourne, and who had no clerk
or other person to assist him, to the amount of £2,374,
composed entirely of remittances from working men.
One man sent £60 for three sisters; another £42 for his
two children; the balance, after paying for their passage,
about £10 to be given to the children's grandfather and
grandmother for their care of the children; £110 was
sent by a young man for his parents and all the family;
another sent £50 to bring two brothers; £182 was sent
by a young man who was married and had a family, and
who had been in the colony two years, to take his parents
from America. After mentioning several similar
instances, she observed that it was thus proved that the
English as well as the Irish were willing to remit money
to pay for the passage of their relatives and friends,
and all they wanted now was a safe and convenient mode
of remittance. She recommended that intending gold-
diggers should form themselves into parties here, instead
of forming connexions in the colonies; such a party, she
said, fifty in number, was now preparing to emigrate.
But the extensive emigration was producing great
destitution among the families left behind. Husbands were
leaving their wives and children, young men were
leaving their sisters and aged parents, and these were
distributed over twenty-eight parishes. There was no
desertion in the ordinary sense—the object was the
benefit of all concerned. Still there must be many
difficulties on both sides. The voyage of the diggers would
occupy perhaps four months, and under the most
favourable circumstances five months must elapse before
they would be at work. Gold being a marketable article,
they might then assist their families at once if they could
only send it home through a Post Office order; but
having no such convenience, they must wait till they had
accumulated enough to make it worth their while to go
to Melbourne to sell it; and before any could reach
England their families might be on the parish. To her
own knowledge there were 11,000 husbands at the
diggings already, and it was frightful to think what
their families might endure. She strongly objected to
the sending of young girls to the colonies as charity girls,
and advised parents who were sending out their sons to
give them very little money indeed; a small tent and a
month's provision would be better than a £10 note. She
had received a very interesting order for an iron schoolroom
for the diggings. A schoolroom for little children
would tell on the moral character of the colonists, and
many might be led by it to perform their duty to those
who were left behind, as well as those who were there.
On returning to the colony, in August next, it was her
intention to take with her at least 500 respectable females.
She was already filling up her list; all would pay for
their passage; and she was determined to do nothing to
pauperise the character of female emigrants. £5 was
the sum which she considered it necessary for every
female to have on arriving; and all she required was
power to see the money properly applied in each case
until a situation had been obtained. Ignorant women
would not be so useful as those who had some degree of
education; and it was perfectly useless for any one to go
who was not prepared to make puddings and to wash
her own clothes. She had just received information
that the colony of New South Wales, approving of her
plans, had voted the sum of £10,000 for the purpose of