in force since the 23rd of June last are cancelled, and
that the regulations previously in force are reverted to.
These regulations are as follow:—"All post offices in
England and Wales will be closed to the public on
Sunday, from ten A.M. for the remainder of the day;
except in those cases where the delivery commences
between nine and ten A.M., when the office must continue
open for one hour after the letter-carriers are
despatched; and except also in those cases where the
delivery commences later than ten A.M., when the office,
having been closed at ten A.M., must be re-opened for
one hour after the despatch of the letter-carriers. No
inland letters will be received on the Sunday, except
such as are prepaid by stamps or are unpaid; for the
deposit of which the letter-box will be open as usual
throughout the day. Until the closing of the office at
ten A.M., or during the subsequent hour after the despatch
of the letter-carriers, foreign letters may be prepaid,
postage stamps may be obtained, and letters may
be registered on payment of the usual registration-fee:
strangers, renters of private boxes, and those who reside
beyond the limits of the letter-carriers' deliveries, may
also, while the office is open, obtain their letters at the
office window. Except at the times above-mentioned,
no letters or newspapers can be delivered from the
office on the Sunday." In consequence of the excellent
arrangements to carry into effect the new regulation
which came into operation on the 1st instant, for a
delivery of letters and newspapers on Sunday mornings
before church-time, it appears that this was accomplished
to the greatest satisfaction of the inhabitants in
every district. According to the accounts from the chief
commercial cities, the deliveries were generally completed
by about nine o'clock, or ten at the latest, without
any trouble, thus affording the letter-carriers the remainder
of the day to attend any place of worship they
might think proper.

The new Friendly Societies' Act contains an important
clause, suggested by the shocking murders committed
to obtain sums of money insured in burial-clubs.
It is as follows:—"That in all societies established
under the provisions of this act, or of any act relating to
friendly societies, it shall not be lawful for the trustees
or other officers of such societies to assure a sum of
money to be paid on the death of a child, whether a
member of such society or not, under the age of ten
years, excepting the actual expenses, not exceeding 3l.
in case of each child, to be paid to the undertaker or
person by whom the burial is conducted, and whose receipt
alone shall be sufficient discharge to the society;
nor to pay any sum of money which may have been
insured and become payable on the death of any member
thereof, or of the husband, wife, or child, of any
member, unless the party applying for the same shall
produce and deliver to the oificer a certificate, signed by
a physician, surgeon, apothecary, or coroner, in the form
annexed in the schedule of this act." The form is to
the effect, that death was not occasioned by criminal
conduct, and that the party had not been deprived of
life by means of any person beneficially interested in
obtaining burial money from any society. Such certificate,
where it is possible to obtain one, must be delivered,
or the officer paying the money will be liable to
a penalty of 10l. on conviction before a magistrate, one-half
of which is to go to the informer.

Cheap pleasure Excursions by Railway are becoming
more and more common. On Sunday, the15th, three
thousand persons went by the Great Western from
Paddington to Bath and Bristol. On the preceding
Sunday there was an excursion train from Bristol and
other places to Windsor—about a thousand persons
were conveyed. This novel Sunday excursion system
for the Great Western Railway has roused a great
opposition from the clergy of Bath and Bristol; who,
headed by the bishop in the Bristol case, have sent
remonsterances to the company against the "profanation
of the Lord's Day." A deputation from the clergy of
Bath, who waited on the mayor upon the subject, spoke
of the demoralising effect produced by these excursions,
and of scenes of riot and disorderly conduct in the
streets by an influx of persons having no regard for the
sacredness of the Sabbath, with the temptation held out
to townsmen to join in these misdoings.

The Westmoreland and Cumberland Agricultural
Society had its annual Exhibition of Stock at Carlisle on
the 18th inst. After the ploughing matches and other
proceedings the members of the Society dined together,
the Earl of Carlisle occupying the chair. Among the
company were the Bishop of Carlisle, Sir James
Graham, M.P., Colonel Lowther, M.P., the Dean
of Carlisle, Mr. P. H. Howard, M.P., the Hon.
C. Howard, M.P., the Hon. Mr. Gage, Mr. Marshall,
M.P., Captain Graham, the High Sheriff of the
county, the Rev. Canons Gipps, Percy, Goodenough,
&c. The noble chairman in giving "Success to the
Cumberland and Westmoreland Agricultural Society,"
prefaced the toast by an able and pleasant address. He
contrasted the old border days with the times in which
we live. The time, he said, was not so many hundred
years back when the gates of Naworth Castle, as of
many other similar strongholds in the country, were
only open for men clad in mail or doublets of proof, who
perhaps did not wholly abstain from plunder, and who
went abroad with a resolution to share what they could
take in addition to the produce of the soil. It was not
so much that they were intent on careful husbandry or
the best manuring, but their thoughts were rather
turned to those fat beeves which he would not presume
to say they "robbed," but which they "recovered"
from their neighbours across the border. Well, they
had changed their system since then. There were some
who fancied that they still admired those days of yore.
He certainly loved their pictorial associations, but he
thought upon the whole that we had a much better time
of it in the present day. We tilled our lands in safety;
we had no "warder on the wall," or "beacon on the
hill" to give us assurance that our flocks were not to be
carried off wholesale, and that our shepherds might go
to sleep in safety. Nay more, we could cross the
Scottish border, and make our recognisances across the
Solway; we might stretch our videttes as far as Eskdale
and Liddesdale, not to burn the beeves or to harry the
stackyards, but to examine, it might be sometimes to
imitate, those processes of agriculture for which our
Scottish brethren had obtained such just celebrity. This
seemed to him to be the especial advantage of societies
and meetings like the present—that our knowledge might
not be confined to what this man might earn in our own
parish, or what took place in the next parish, or the
next ward, or the next county, but what occurred in the
kingdom at large; what invention had been tried and
tested elsewhere; what improvements had been put to
the actual test of successful operation; what implements
had obtained the prize in other districts; what are
the best modes of rearing and fattening stock; what
pedigrees had been most successful in introducing symmetry
of limb and plenty of meat; to show you, in short,
how far you ought to rest contented with your present pratice,
and what you ought to strain at imitating elsewhere.
The noble Earl proceeded to say that the great lesson
inculcated by the times in which we live was, the necessity
of exertion, and of applying judgment and industry
to all the processes of agriculture; and that the effects
of this lesson was apparent in the improved farming of
Cumberland. Independently of having some drawbacks
and some difficulties peculiar to their climate and their
soil with which they had to struggle, and which he was
sure told advantageously for the pith and nerve of their
stout northern character, there were other circumstances
in their condition which ought to inspire them with
good confidence in themselves, for it appeared, in one of
the most recent accounts put forth by the Poor Law
Commissioners in Cumberland (and he believed that
Westmoreland was in nearly the same position), that
the poor rates were of a lower proportionate amount
than those of any other county in England. They made
also an advantageous appearance in all the sanitary
statements that had been put forth, and exhibited a very
low comparative amount of mortality. Would they not,
then, buoyed up by the just reputation of their united
counties for the beauties of their natural scenery—for
the crystal expanse of their lakes—and for the majestic
coronet of their mountains and the sinewy strength of
their yeomen, consent to wrestle with the difficulties of
their soil as well as they wrestled with one another; and
for their bright lasses, whom it was superfluous in him