districts, in short, are now most flourishing. All the
mills are in full employment, and more mills are rising
on every side. Most of the cotton-mill owners are under
contracts; and persons having new or extra orders
cannot get them completed. Complaints have been heard
from more than one person of inability to get executed
the orders sent by their customers from abroad. In
almost all our markets—those of sugar, coffee, tallow,
wool, cotton, &c.—prices are rising, and the demand for
the raw materials of manufacture, and for articles of
consumption, is rapidly increasing. Amongst our shipping
there is great activity, and notwithstanding the
immense quantities of goods carried by rail,—or perhaps
we should say in consequence of the quantities brought
from the interior of various countries by this new
method of conveyance,—freights are rising, and there is
an increase in our navigation. To meet the various
exigencies of this rapid growth, several new chartered
banks are announced, new projects of railways are
brought forward, various new companies are forming,
and speculation is alert, active, and bold.

A court of investigation into the Administration of
City Charities was held on the 25th by the Lord Chief
Baron, with Aldermen Challis, Sidney, Lawrence, and
Wire. The clerk of the Leathersellers' Company was
called, and proved that the company had to administer
Robert Rogers' Charity, amounting to £200, and to pay
£4 a year to poor prisoners in the city. The company
had not done so. Since 1825 no payments had been
made to such prisoners, except on special application.
The charity was in Chancery. The company also
administered a charity called George Humble's Charity,
the interest of which was £8 a year. This charity was
also in the Court of Chancery. Since 1835 no part of
the interest arising from the charity had been paid to
poor prisoners (the objects of the charity), except in
1842, when £3 was paid to a freeman who had made a
special application. He had not been able to examine the
state of the accounts as between the company and the
charity, nor had they been made up since 1835. Monies
had been paid to the keepers of the prisons and particular
applicants, but he could not say how much. He had
not the books of the company with him. The company
was ready to pay up any arrears that might be due to
the charity. There was a charity administered by the
company called Garner's Charity. That charity was
also in Chancery. By a scheme made by the Master,
one-third of the annual proceeds was to go to poor
prisoners, but that had not been done. The recipients of
the third were widows, but he could not give their
names. The court thought this a very strange and
unsatisfactory statement, and passed on to the management
of the Mercers' Company, which appeared to be of
a much more favourable character.

A preliminary meeting of gentlemen connected with
the borough of Marylebone was held on the 25th at the
house of Mr. Oliveira, M.P., at the requisition of that
gentleman, the object being the establishment of a Free
Library in the Borough for the benefit of the working
classes, on a plan similar to those which have already
been so successfully opened in Manchester and Liverpool.
A number of resolutions were passed, calculated
for the accomplishment of the object; and before the
meeting separated Mr. Oliveira stated his intention of
presenting the library with five hundred volumes, an
intimation which was received with loud cheers.

PERSONAL NARRATIVE.

The Queen, Prince Albert, and the royal family, left
Balmoral on the 12th inst. for Windsor Castle. The
royal party went, by the way of Preston and Chester,
to Bangor, and visited the tubular bridge over the
Menai Straits. They then proceeded, by Shrewsbury,
Wolverhampton and Birmingham, to Windsor, where
they arrived on the 14th.

The Duchess of Kent arrived on the same day in
town from Abergeldie, after having staid for a short
time at Doncaster.

Lord Hardinge, commanding the army in chief, has
appointed the following officers as his aides-de-camp:
Colonel Lord Charles Wellesley, unattached; Lieut.-
Colonel Robert Blucher Wood, C.B., half-pay; Captain
Charles Earl of March, unattached; Captain Henry
Marquis of Worcester, 7th Hussars.

Lord Fitzroy Somerset has been appointed Master
General of the Ordnance; and Lord Combermere has
succeeded to the Duke of Wellington's offices of Constable
of the Tower and Lord Lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets.

The Earl of Derby was elected, on the 12th inst.,
Chancellor of the University of Oxford.

The Hon. Joseph Ingersoll, who has succeeded Mr.
Lawrence as ambassador from the United States, has
arrived in London. Mr. Ingersoll is a native of
Philadelphia, in which city he has resided all his life.
For many years he was a distinguished member of the
bar, and by his professional labours accumulated a large
fortune. He retired on his election to Congress several
years since, and after having served his constituents
with ability and zeal for two or three terms, he declined
a re-nomination.

Amongst recent emigrants to Australia are a son of
the Bishop of Exeter, who has gone out as a settler near
Melbourne; and the Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel's son,
who is gone out to practise at the Australian bar.

The Queen has granted a pension of £200 a year to
Mrs. Caroline Southey, "in consideration of her late
husband's eminent literary merits."

A pension of £75 a year has been granted to Miss
Louisa Stuart Costello, "in consideration of her merits
as an authoress, and her inability, from the state of her
health, to continue her exertions for a livelihood."

The Queen has granted a pension of £100 a year to
the widow of Mr. Pugin the architect. Mr. Pugin had
contributed greatly to the decoration of the New Palace
at Westminster.

Dr. Anderson, chemist to the Highland Society, has
been appointed by the Crown to the Chemical Chair in
Glasgow University.

Mr. Adolphus, the reporter of the Court of Queen's
Bench, and Solicitor-General for the County Palatine
of Lancaster, has been appointed to succeed Mr. Amos
as judge of the Marylebone County Court.

The Prince Albert, the small vessel dispatched in
May 1851, by Lady Franklin in search of her husband
and his party, has returned without any information
respecting the long lost adventurers. But it has
brought intelligence of considerable interest as to the
expedition which started at the same time under Sir
Edward Belcher. Substantially it confirms what Mr.
Penny asserted last year. His discoveries had made it
tolerably clear, that northward and northwest of the
Wellington Channel there exists a passage open when
Barrow's Straits are closed, leading into a climate
comparatively temperate, and fitted for the habitation of
man, and extending probably to the eastern shores of
Northern Asia. It now appears that some five days
before the arrival of the Prince Albert at Beechy Island
(where her commander received the despatches of Sir
Edward Belcher from which these particulars are
extracted) the squadron under the orders of that
commander had steamed up the channel to the point
indicated by Capt. Penny, and had not returned. Yet
the distance is short, and if no such passage had existed,
Sir Edward Belcher, on detecting the mistake, would
have returned to the rendezvous at Beechy Island. It
may be taken for granted, therefore, that the passage
does exist, and that Sir Edward Belcher has entered it.
The sanguine inference will of course be that Sir John
Franklin did the same before him. It is at least the
only hypothesis on which can be grounded the strong
belief still cherished by many that some at least of that
gallant company still survive to reward the expectation
of their anxious country.

According to a programme which has been published
in the newspapers, the funeral of the Duke of Wellington
will take place between the 17th and 19th of November.
The Duke's remains will rest at Walmer Castle till
four days before the funeral. When removed, they
will be taken to Chelsea Hospital, and there lie in state
three days. On the evening before the funeral, they
will be taken to the Horse Guards; and next day to
St. Paul's, by Charing Cross, the Strand, and Fleet
Street. Six regiments of infantry, eight squadrons of
cavalry, and seventeen guns, will take part in the