niece slept on the second floor, just over the room first
on fire; in one of the attic rooms slept her children, and
Ruth Lowe, a relative; in separate attics were the barman
and other servants. Mrs. Caunt and her niece
escaped down stairs; the fire had laid hold of the staircase
when the barman discovered it, so there was no
retreat from the attics except over the roof. He got
everybody on the tiles except Ruth Lowe and two of the
three children with her; these, as he could not see them
through the smoke in their room, he hoped had escaped
earlier, or by means of the fire-escape; but when the
fire was extinguished, their bodies were found in the
room—they had been suffocated by the smoke.

On the 17th two men were Killed in a Sewer at
Islington. The commissioners are driving a large tunnel-
sewer from Church Street to Cross Street, at a depth of
twenty-four feet, and under the tunnel containing the
New River, which is at a depth of twelve feet. A Mr.
Cox desired to make a drain into the new sewer, and
applied to the commissioners for authority, which they
refused him. Nevertheless, he set a man at work to
make the drain; this man, in the course of his operations
penetrated the tunnel of the New River; the
waters of the river burst into the sewer when six men
were there and carried away George Ellis and William
Bone, the others escaping with extreme difficulty. The
body of Ellis was recovered at the mouth of the great
sewer where it enters the Thames; that of Bone has not
been recovered.

Mr. Braidwood, the superintendent of the London
fire-engine establishment, has made his Annual Report,
from which it appears that the fires during the past
year have been 868—an increase of 30 beyond those of
the preceding year. The buildings totally destroyed or
considerably damaged were 247—nine less than the year
before; those slightly damaged 621—39 more than the
year before. The chimnies on fire were 79, the "calls
for assistance" were 1038, the "false alarms" 91. The
"fatal fires " were 17, and the number of lives lost 18.
Nearly a hundred houses were seriously damaged by
exploding fireworks.

The United States mail steam-ship Atlantic, which
left Liverpool for New York on the 28th of December,
has been Driven Back to Cork harbour. She met with
uninterrupted gales from the West, but sped her way
with power and safety till the 6th instant, when she
was equidistant from Cape Clear and New York—1400
miles from each; on that day her main shaft broke, and
her machinery became useless. She was put under
canvas, and tried to reach Bermuda; but the winds
continuing adverse, she turned home on the 11th, and
arrived in Queenstown harbour on the 22nd. The
Liverpool agents of the owners of the United States
mail-steamers, have chartered the British mail-steamer
the Cambria to proceed to Cork at the earliest possible
moment, and take on board the cargo, and such of the
passengers as choose, to carry them to New York.
From the arrangements of the mail service, and the
delay that must occur before the Cambria can join the
Atlantic and proceed on the voyage to Cork, coupled
with the fact that the disabled vessel did not sight a
single outward-bound vessel on the whole of her run
out and home, the news of her safety will not arrive in
America till a month after her expected arrival in New
York. Throughout the Union, therefore, there will
be almost a certain belief that she has been lost on the
voyage.

Two Fires, one of them very destructive, broke out in
London on the 27th. The large premises belonging to
Messrs. Bousfield and Sons', wholesale clothiers in
Houndsditch, (a firm who employed 1500 hands) were
almost entirely destroyed, with loss of property to the
amount of above £30,000. The cause of the fire has not
yet been discovered. The other fire was at the New
Houses of Parliament. It was discovered about two
o'clock in the afternoon, in a story of the clock-tower
on the side facing Westminster Bridge. For a time it
caused great alarm, but was soon extinguished without
any serious damage.

A singular accident happened lately at the Eddystone
Lighthouse. On the morning of the 13th of December,
James Dillon, who has been connected with this lighthouse
for the last 19 years, being about to leave his
situation to take another, a man named William
Graham, who had been engaged on the Breakwater,
was sent to relieve him. Graham had been landed at
the lighthouse, and Dillon had just entered the boat, in
which were two other men, to row to the yacht Trinity,
not far distant, when two very heavy seas, one coming
over the flat, and the other over the Sadler Rock,
careered towards one another; they met near the boat
with fearful violence, the sea boiled with agitation, the
boat was capsized, and the three poor fellows were left
struggling in the waves. Intelligence of the circumstance
was communicated by the men in the lighthouse
to the people on board the Trinity yacht, who came to
the rescue of the drowning men as soon as possible, and
picked up two of the sufferers; but before they arrived
at the scene of the disaster the men in the lighthouse
had succeeded in getting James Dillon out of the waves,
with which he had been buffeting a quarter of an hour:
he was nearly dead. This is the first time such an
accident has occurred since the erection of this
invaluable lighthouse; and what makes it still more
singular is, the fact that it was the last trip which
Dillon was to make to the shore from his old habitation.
He was placed on board the yacht, which was not able
to effect a landing until the 20th of December, when
Dillon was at last taken on shore and put under medical
treatment. He has since entirely recovered, and has
gone to Hasborough to enter on his new situation.

SOCIAL, SANITARY, AND MUNICIPAL
PROGRESS.

An important meeting, connected with the subject of
Education, has been held at Edinburgh. Dr. Gunn, an
eminent and successful teacher, had been recently
nominated by government to the office of inspector of
dissenting schools in Scotland. That appointment the
Free Church Election Committee thought proper to
veto. This extraordinary step against a respected
member of their own section of the Presbyterian Church
gave rise to a public dinner, given to him at the Waterloo
Rooms, and attended by the leading promoters of
education in Edinburgh, lay and clerical, and by many who
sympathise with them, some even from England.
Mr. Sheriff Gordon presided; and the whole proceedings
of the meeting were an emphatic expressing of
esteem for Dr. Gunn's character, and approbation of his
conduct.

The first soiree of the Printers' Dramatic Society
was held at Auderton's Hotel on Saturday evening, the
28th ult., and was attended by above seventy persons
(including a fair proportion of ladies), chiefly in
connexion with the printing profession. Mr. W. H. Wills,
who presided on the occasion, described the origin and
rise of the society, and explained its object to be to assist
the funds of the charitable institutions of the printing
trade from the proceeds of amateur dramatic performances.
To commemorate the success of the society, it
had been determined to hold this social meeting. The
party were entertained throughout the evening by the
vocal and dramatic efforts of a number of amateurs,
male and female, in a style which, in many instances,
would have done no discredit to regular professionals.
Some madrigals and glees were charmingly sung, and
altogether, the vocal department was most creditably
sustained. Several appropriate sentiments were given
during the proceedings, and a vote of thanks to the chair
closed a pleasant evening's entertainment.

The business of the Executive Committee of the
Great Exhibition was on the 30th of December formally
transferred from Palace Yard to the Building in Hyde
Park. Professor Cowper gave a lecture, in the building,
on the following day, when a great number of the
members of the Society of Arts assembled to inspect it.
He gave a most interesting account of its construction,
and conclusively demonstrated its perfect safety.—A
meeting of the council of appeal of the Metropolitan
Commissioners was held on the 21st inst. at the rooms of
the Society of Arts. Some preliminary discussion took
place as to certain points of arrangement of the objects in