in the various household duties, management of
infants, &c. In addition to the ordinary operations of
ragged schools, fallen females have been restored to
society, vagrants reclaimed, and young criminals
reformed and placed in situations, or sent out as emigrants.
The schools were placed in a neighbourhood where the
need of such operations was keenly felt. In connection
with the institution there was a dispensary, which had
been most beneficial to the neighbourhood. Upwards
of 8000 prescriptions had been made up for the poor.
The year's receipts had been £106 16s. 4d., which were
slightly exceeded by the expenditure. The chairman
urged the necessity of increased efforts in aid of ragged
schools, and concluded by a warm appeal on behalf of
the institution, on whose behalf they had met.

The Working of the Irish Incumbered Estates Act is
shown by a summary of its proceedings just published,
compiled up to the 11th instant. The number of
estates sold has been 1,622; the number of lots, 8,024;
the number of conveyances executed, 4,961; the number
of matters in which the owners were bankrupts or
insolvents previous to the presentation of the petition,
319; the number of cases which had been pending
in the Court of Chancery before being brought into the
Incumbered Estates Court, 1,186. Of the purchases,
6,675 were Irish, and 220 English, Scotch, or foreign;
and the number of acres purchased by these latter were
550,000, at a rate of purchase amounting to £2,271,010.
The gross proceeds of all the sales were £15,239,570;
and the gross amount of money yet distributed in cash
or stock, or of credits allowed to incumbrancers who
were purchasers, was £12,760,665; leaving a balance of
about two millions and a half for funds allocated in
trust, or provisional credits not yet made absolute,
or cash and stock yet standing to the credit of the
Commissioners in the Bank of Ireland. The public are
looking out with some anxiety to the period when this
court, to which Ireland may well be said to owe its
regeneration, will be annexed, or its powers transferred
to the Court of Chancery; and it has afforded very
general satisfaction to find that the Commissioners of
Inquiry have, in their report, recommended that when
that annexation or transfer shall take place, the
officers who have been trained into such an efficient
performance of their duties in the Incumbered Estates
Court shall still be retained in the public service.

The opening of the New Metropolitan Cattle-Market
in Copenhagen Fields took place on the 13th inst., under
the immediate auspices of Prince Albert. In replying
to the address of the lord mayor and corporation, his
royal highness said:—"I have been much pleased by the
opportunity which your kind invitation has afforded me,
of seeing and admiring the great work which you this
day open to the public; a work which not only deserves
all admiration in itself, on account of the excellence of
the arrangements and the magnificence of the design,
but which will, I trust, be found eminently conducive
to the comfort and health of the city of London. That
its success will be commensurate with the spirit in which
it has been undertaken and carried out, I cannot doubt.
A certain dislocation of habits and interests must
inevitably attend the removal of the great city market
from the site it has occupied for so many centuries, and
this may possibly retard for the moment the fullest
development of the undertaking; but any opposition
arising from such causes will soon cease, and the farmers
will doubtless soon learn to appreciate the boon thus
conferred upon them by the London corporation, in the
increased facility which will be afforded to them for the
transaction of their business, and the comparative
security with which they will be enabled to bring up
and display their valuable stock in the great
metropolitan cattle-market."

The annual meeting of the patrons and supporters of
the Mesmeric Infirmary was held at Willis's Rooms on
the 8th instant, and was very numerously attended.
Dr. Elliotson read the report, which after congratulating
the friends of mesmerism on the advance which
it was making in public estimation, proceeded to
mention that, during the course of the past year, 247
patients had been attended to at the Infirmary, of whom
43 had been on the books at the commencement of the
year, and the other 204 had been since admitted. Of
these 69 had been cured, 9 nearly cured, 49 improved,
71 had discontinued attendance, and 41 were still under
treatment. The cures last year exceeded by 27 the
number of those achieved in the previous year, and it
was to be remarked that the patients had almost all
been treated in vain at the public hospitals, or by
private practitioners, before having recourse to
mesmerism, and that those who had discontinued attendance
had gone to the infirmary under the impression that
their cure was to be immediate. Among the cases
cured were some of St. Vitus' dance, of neuralgia, of
chronic asthma, of chlorosis, of amenorrhœa, of
contractions of the limbs, of dropsy, of scrofulous diseases
of the skin, and of inflammation of the brain.

The members of the Royal Literary Fund Society
met on the 16th to consider the report of a committee
appointed some time ago to inquire into the propriety of
applying for a new charter extending the scope and
objects of the corporation. This report recommends
that the Society should be enabled to grant revocable
annuities, and loans to distressed men of letters; that
the Council should be remodelled; that evening meetings
and conversazioni should be held in the rooms of the
Society, and a library of reference established: and that
hereafter, if the experiment succeed, it should be
developed into a hall or college for the honour of
literature and the service of literary men. For these
purposes a new charter is necessary. Mr. Dickens
moved the adoption of the report, and Mr. Forster
seconded the motion. A letter was read from the
Marquis of Lansdowne, President of the Society,
intimating that if the proposals of the report were
persisted in, he should resign. Mr. Monckton Milnes,
seconded by Mr. Pollock, moved an amendment on
Mr. Dickens' motion, to the effect that as the proposed
changes would involve an entire alteration in the nature
and intentions of the Society, and as the Society's
means are inadequate for the attainment of those
purposes, the meeting would not recommend the
application for a new charter to carry them into effect.
Mr. Dilke, Mr. Dickens, and Sir Edward Lytton
advocated the recommendations of the report; while
they were opposed by Lord Stanley and the Bishop of
Oxford. With regard to the suggestions respecting
loans and annuities,—to adopt which, it was contended,
no alteration of the charter was required,—Mr. Bond
Cabbell, the chairman, said the committee would give
them their most serious consideration. The
amendment was carried, without a formal division.

The thirty-eighth anniversary of the Royal Caledonian
Asylum was celebrated at the Freemasons' Tavern on
20th inst.; the Duke of Buccleuch in the chair. Eleven
children of Scottish soldiers who have died in the
Crimea were introduced by Sir John Maxwell. The
sum collected after dinner was £1500.

The Eighth Annual Report of the Irish Poor-Law
Commissioners is of a very cheering character. In
every one of the great provinces, the demand for labour
and the wages of labour have risen considerably on the
rate of last year. The demand is described as
"unprecedentedly great, and "as steady and increasing."
"Money-wages are more generally paid than formerly"
in Munster. The improved circumstances of the poor
in Connaught "are apparent from their clothing."
"It is thus attested (says the Report), that universally
throughout Ireland a more continuous state of employment
of agricultural labour prevails; and that wages of
Is. per day are given, where formerly the rate was 4d.,
6d. or 8d.; while in most parts of the country a man's
wages reach 1s. 6d., 2s., or 2s. 6d. per day at certain
seasons of the year. We believe that to these facts
another important element of an improved condition
may be added. We allude to the greatly increased
demand for the labour of females and young persons of
both sexes; which materially assists in rendering the
income of an average family more proportioned to their
physical wants than it was formerly, notwithstanding
the present very high price of the necessaries of life.
In the period of six years, from 1849 to 1854, both years
inclusive, we have ascertained that considerably more
than 200,000 persons of both sexes have left the
workhouses of Ireland, and have not returned to those
asylums."