that was accomplished, it was found that four of the
crew had been washed overboard, the mate had one of
his arms broken, and one of the crew a leg broken,
besides several others severely injured. From the time
the vessel left Liverpool until she arrived in port, she
had to contend with continuous head winds. The
Lady Franklin left Liverpool on the 3rd of December,
and commenced her misfortunes on the 7th, when a
seaman, named George Rash, was washed from the
bowsprit and drowned. On the 17th of the same
month she shipped a tremendous sea, which stove the
starboard quarter boats, bulwarks, sky-lights, and
binnacle, and injured most of the men, some of them
severely. She also lost a suit of sails. At eight a.m.,
of the same day, two of the crew, named John Richardson
and John Hunterson, fell from the foretopsail
yard to the deck, and were picked up dead. The
Franklin, however, was not alone in her misfortunes,
as on the 28th she spoke the schooner Lile (probably a
British vessel), bound to Liverpool from Jamaica,
seventy days out, and without provisions, with which
Captain Osborn kindly supplied them; and on the 21st,
in lat. 44.30, Ion. 28.50, they spoke another schooner
(name unknown), bound to Cork, from Newfoundland,
the captain, mate, and part of the crew of which had
met a watery grave by being washed overboard. To
add to their misfortunes, they were without a navigator,
which want Captain Osborn was not able to supply,
or render them any assistance to help them on their
dreary way, more than giving them some instructions
how to steer.

Several Lives were Lost on the Ice in the Parks on
Sunday the 20th inst. Bills were posted in each park
warning the public of the danger. In spite, however, of
the precautions given, about 42,000 persons ventured on
the ice in the various parks, while the banks of the
respective rivers were so crowded that it was a work of
no little difficulty for any of the society's men to pass to
and fro to render assistance to the persons immersed.
On the canal which is called after Sir John Duckett,
and skirts the east side of Victoria Park, three persons
lost their lives. Between four and five o'clock two boys
were walking on the ice near Watson's lock, and were
heard to express their intention of trying how far it
would bear. They had scarcely passed the lock-house
when the ice gave way, and they fell into the water. A
man unknown, dressed in the garb of a butcher, went
from the bank on to the ice with the intention of rescuing
them, but the ice broke under him, and he was
immersed. A youth next made an attempt, and he also
met a similar fate. He was followed by another boy,
who put out a stick, in the act of doing which the ice
gave way by his weight, and he fell in the midst of the
four who were already in the water, and who were clinging
to each other. At the moment there was neither a
rope nor a drag with which to assist them, while on the
banks were the brothers of the two lads, who could with
difficulty be kept out of the water. Some persons tied
several silk handkerchiefs together, which were thrown
to the spot, by which and other means two were got out.
A man named Johnson, who lets boats on the canal,
brought up one of his boats, by which time, the drags
having been obtained from the City of Paris and the
lock-house, a search was made, and in about 15
minutes the bodies of the youths were found. One was
taken to the lock-house, where it was undressed and
placed on a sofa before the fire. The second youth was
conveyed to the City of Paris public-house. Surgeons,
who were soon in attendance, exhausted every resource
of their art on the two lads, but in vain; both were
beyond mortal aid. The body of the man was not
found.

Six seamen have Perished in a shocking manner on
the Great Hoyle Bank, off the Cheshire coast. They
had gone to examine a vessel which had been wrecked
upon the shoal on the previous Sunday. Reaching
the edge of the sand, which extended many miles in
circumference, the men had secured their boat by
fastening the painter round the boat-hook, which they
threw into the sand. Like those of the Goodwin,
they are hard and dry when the tide is out, in which
state of apparent security they found them on landing.
Having gone to the spot where the wreck lay, they
were about returning, when they were not a little
alarmed at observing the boat adrift, and the tide rapidly
covering the sand. One account states that some boat-
men, a considerable distance off, observed the unhappy
fellows rushing about, holding up handkerchiefs and
other things, in the hope of attracting attention. None
came, however, and in little more than an hour the
sea swept over the entire range of the bank, and the
poor fellows thus miserably perished.

The Arienis, an East Indiaman, has been Wrecked,
with the loss of twenty lives. She sailed from London
some years since, on a voyage for Bombay and China,
and from the period of her departure from Bombay,
nothing was heard of her until a few weeks ago, when
the attention of the underwriters was attracted to a
notice of a loss, in the Java paper, announcing that a
large ship, supposed to be the Arienis from England,
had been wrecked on the Eugans Islands, in lat 5.31 S.,
long. 102, 12 E., about sixty miles of Sumatra, on the
west coast, and that the whole of the crew (forty-four in
number) had perished by starvation, where they had
been exposed many months. Lloyd's agents at Singapore,
Messrs. Lindsey and Co., by the recent mail, have
sent additional information respecting the unhappy
catastrophe; but it is somewhat gratifying to state that
although a great many of the crew, including the master.
Captain Brown, his chief officer, Mr. Church, and others,
twenty in all, perished, the remainder of the ship's
company, twenty-four, were found alone on the island
by a merchant trading there for oil, who took them on
board his vessel, which has since arrived at Singapore.
The Arienis, it seems, struck on a sunken reef near the
coast, and floating on, went down in deep water.

A fatal Accident has taken place on the Great Western
Railway, attended with the death of one of the directors.
It happened on the morning of the 24th inst. An
express train, on its way to London, when traversing
the cutting at Ealing, went off the rails, and two of the
first-class carriages ran up the embankment and fell
over. In the second carriage were four of the directors,
one of whom, James Gibbs, Esq., of Clifton, was killed
on the spot, and another director. Dr. Pritchard Smith,
of Reading, was severely injured. The accident is
supposed to have originated in the breaking of one of the
"scroll irons" or "spring hangers" attached to the
near leading wheel of the front first-class carriage.

SOCIAL, SANITARY, AND MUNICIPAL
PROGRESS.

The Registrar-General's Quarterly Return of Births,
Marriages, and Deaths, affords important indications of
the state of the country. It contains the births and
deaths in England during the quarter ending 31st
December last; and the marriages during the quarter
ending 30th September last. The marriages and the
births, in nearly the same proportion, greatly exceed
the average number of the season; and the average of
the corresponding quarters of previous years is slightly
exceeded by the deaths. The registration of the year
1852 is completed, for the births and deaths, by the
present return. The births were 616,251 in 1851, and
6 4,171 in 1852. The deaths 395,933 in 1851, and
407,937 in 1852. The average annual rate of birth is
3·282 per cent., or nearly 1 in 30. In 1852 it rose to
3·472 per cent., or 1 in 29. The average annual rate of
death is 2·242 per cent. (rather less than 1 in 45); in
1852 it was 2·269, or slightly above the average (1 in
44 nearly.)

76,582 persons were Married in the quarter ending
September, 1852, giving a considerable excess on the
numbers (74,310) married in the corresponding quarter
of the previous year. The number of marriages was
38,291, while in the summer quarters of 1840-3 the
number of marriages never exceeded 29,397, and in 1842
fell so low as 27,288; in the summer of 1844 there was
a sudden increase, and in the summer of 1845 the
marriages were 35,003; in 1847-8 the numbers fell back to
32,439, and rose slowly until the summer of 1849; in
each of the three succeeding summers (1850-2) the