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The first Custom-house built in London was in 1559, 225 years ago; it was burnt down in 1718, and rebuilt the same year; and it was on Saturday, the 12th of February, again totally consumed by fire The first Custom-house, therefore, stood 159 years; the second, which was burnt on Saturday, stood 96 years.

14. About a fortnight ago, Mr. Thomas Lang, a respectable blan

that an orphan girl whom Miss Kelly had brought up in her service, with another whom she was also about to provide for in the same manner, perished in the flames. Miss Kelly, by her shrieks, endeavoured to awaken them, for it was impossible for her to reach the chamber in which they slept. The colonel, at the moment, was carried to Mr. Lingham's in Beer-lane, and the injuries he has received make it dangerous to re-ket manufacturer, of Littletown, 'move him for the present; this, deposited in a drawer of his desk added to a severe asthmatic com- two bills of exchange, of the value plaint which he caught in the re- -of upwards of seventy pounds. On treat under sir John Moore, and Tuesday last, Mrs. Lang having which was much increased by the occasion to refer to the bills, went Walcheren fever, renders his re- to the drawer, but to her great covery very doubtful. Miss Kelly consternation no bills were to be and her family have lost every found. Every article in the desk part of their property that was in was turned over, and the search the house. Nothing was insured.

The fire, according to the report of the firemen, would have been got under very soon, but the explosion of the gunpowder having struck terror into the men who worked the engines, they fled and left the flames for some time to rage uncontrolled. This powder was for the use of the volunteer corps, and did not, it is now said, amount to a larger quantity than ten or twelve pounds; but the assertion that there were as many barrels, threw an instant panic on all around, and throughout the neighbourhood. Certain, how ever, it is, that had not this explosion taken place, the fire would not have spread. As it is, there is great consolation in knowing that many of the important papers of office have been recovered; and several chests of valuables, with the principal records, have been saved. No delay will take place in the progress of business. VOL. LVI.

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continued until, midnight without effect, and resumed the next morning with no better suc

cess.

When all hopes of finding the lost property had vanished, a neighbour came in, and having heard the story of the loss, removed the desk, and on the back part of it, a small aperture was discovered. On continuing the search a similar hole was found in the floor, and upon removing three flags, a mouse's nest was discovered, in which were the lost notes, almost reduced to their original rags, and which the mouse, with great ingenuity, had converted into a very comfortable lining for its nest; but fortunately the bills, though torn into minute pieces, retained sufficient of the writing to ascertain their identity.

The remains of Mrs. Wright, late Prioress of the Nunnery at Lanherne, were interred in Maw gan church; on which occasion a procession of the nups of that institution

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titution took place, in the follow ng order :

Eight females, dressed in white, with

long white veils.

The coffin, carried by eight Nuns, in the full dress of their order, and wearing long black veils. Twelve Nuns, with lighted tapers,

chaunting a funeral dirge. The nuns accompanied the remains of their late superior no further than the church-yard; when the corpse was borne to the grave by the ladies who had preceded it, the nuns returning immediately to the Nunnery. A considerable num ́ber of spectators assembled to wit'ness the novel exhibition.

20. An action was lately tried in the Court of Session, Edinburgh, brought by John Cooper, schoolmaster of the parish of Dalmeny, against the Rev. J. Greig, minister of the same. The libel stated, that "the defendant hav. ing conceived causeless ill-will against the prosecutor, did, on Sunday, March 17, 1811, read from the pulpit of the parish church of Dalmeny, in the hearing of the congregation, a written paper, containing many false and scandalous charges against the prosecutor, concluding with a declaration that he was no longer the schoolmaster of the parish, and that the office was vacant. The court having declared the libel proved, the prosecutor said he had brought the action to clear his character, and had no desire to make it a source of personal emolument, and therefore out of motives of compassion to the defendant and his family, did not wish for pecuniary reparation. The court, in pronouncing judgment, declared the libel to be malicious and unprovoked; the censure therein

contained unjust and unfounded; out of the due course of ecclesiastical discipline, and therefore highly illegal; that they would have awarded damages to a large amount; but in consideration of the request of the prosecutor himself, they modified the damages to twenty two guineas, with full costs. The expenses were afterwards taxed at 407 pounds, for which a decree was pronounced against the defendant.

21. A letter from Heligoland mentions that the intense frost there had, as in England, been preceded by thick fogs and heavy falls of snow. The latter was ten and twelve feet deep. The frost, which had lasted six weeks, had on the Sth every appearance of continuance. There had been scarcely any arrivals on the island, which was unusually gloomy. Few people ventured out. Within doors they were apprehensive of the house being blown down, and without of being blown away or buried in the snow. Even the visits of neighbours were not unattended with hazard; for if lengthened to a few hours, the doorways became blocked up, and return for that night impossible, unless the party chose to walk out of a one pair of stairs window, and proceed upon broad planks previously laid upon the surface of the

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year; the damage sustained will be very great, both in the banks and on the lands, as many thousand acres are inundated. For several days in the week before last the water in the river at Wisbech rose rapidly, until, on Saturday, the river was eight feet higher than its ordinary level. The greatest exertions were necessary to save the bridge, and buildings on the banks, from being carried away by the masses of floating ice. On Sunday the waters had greatly abated. The ice-boat, with 18 horses, and a great number of men, was incessantly at work on Friday and Saturday; and to their exertions it is owing that a great deal of mischief did not occur. A part of the old wooden bridge over the river Trent, at Markham, near Newark, gave way early on Sunday se'nnight, soon after the Worksop and Manchester waggon heavily loaded, had passed over: this old bridge has been deemed a nuisance on the great north road, for years past.

Never, perhaps, was greater agitation produced in the metropolis by any foreign news, than was yesterday occasioned by a fraud of the most impudent and nefarious description. An express arrived from Dover, communicating information, that an officer, apparently of the French staff, had landed early in the morning at that port from France, who announced in the most positive terms, the death of Buonaparte, whether in battle, or by assassination, or otherwise, the persons at Dover could not lean; but they stated, that the French officer had proceeded on his way to London, with dispatches for government

on the subject. This statement, probable in itself, and attended with so many circumstances of plausibility as to the mode of its conveyance, easily obtained belief. The Stock-Exchange was instantly in a bustle. Omnium, which opened at 27, rapidly rose to 33. Vast sums were sold in the course of the day, not less, it is supposed, in all, than half a million but at length the non-arrival of the pretended French officer began to throw discredit on the tale. Omnium gradually declined, and finally closed at 28. The evening passed away without any commu nication whatever to government; and it is therefore evident, that the whole was a most infamous piece of swindling.

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Further Particulars of the Fraud practised on the Stock Exchange. The persons at Dover, who were first concerned in transmitting the false intelligence to London, and who, of course, feel it incumbent on them to exonerate themselves from the charge of participating in so infamous a transaction, have put forth the following statement:-They say, that in the middle of Sunday night, a person, dressed as an officer, walked from the beach of Dover towards the town, and meeting with a watchman, enquired of him the way to the Ship Inn, to procure a postchaise and horses for town. The pretended officer was a tall dark man, dressed in scarlet and gold, with a large star on his breast, the coat turned up with green, and he wore a large sword by his side. He feigned to be much fatigued, and his beard was very long. The Collector of the Customs was much-displeased that he was not C 2

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called from his bed to examine the officer. Before the impostor proceeded on his journey he addressed a letter to Admiral Foley, to the purport, that he had ordered his boat's crew to France, and requested the politeness of the admiral, in case they should be intercepted by any of the British cruisers, that the men might be properly treated, and sent to France without loss of time. To this epistle he subscribed the name of Colonel De Burgh. No boat, however, was seen; and it is to be presumed he was not landed from any, but that his clothes had been purposely made wet, to induce a belief that it was from the spray of the sea. For every thing he had, and even at the turnpikes, he offered Napoleons for change. How near he approached town in an officer's garb, does not appear. The fellow, whoever he may be, was supposed to have entered Dover on Sunday morning, by the road leading from town. Such a person, with a companion, was met in a postchaise and four. A landlord of one of the inns at Rochester, was seen in the company of the suspected person; and he will be required to give some account of his companion. Besides the principal plot acted at Dover, there was a sort of under one, connected with it; the scene of which lay at Northfleet. This was deemed expedient, it would seem, in case the Dover scheme should miscarry. About five o'clock on the Monday morning a party arrived at Northfleet in a six-oared cutter. They called up a Mr. Sandon, to request that he would accompany two of them to town, who represented themselves to be messen

gers from France, to communi cate the death of Buonaparte, and the hoisting of the Bourbon standard in France. They were decorated with white cockades, and horses with laurels. They told Sandon that they would first proceed to the Lord Mayor, and as if with that intention, they took their route through the city. Their progress was greatly impeded by the mob, who stopped them at every short distance. Pretending to recollect themselves on a sudden, they said it might be deemed disrespectful by the government, if they did not first communicate with the ministers; and then, as if for that purpose, they ordered the post-boys to Downing-street. Before they reached this destination, however, they discharged the chaise, and got rid of their companion, supposing, no doubt, that their purpose had been already answered. It would seem almost impossible, that some of the individuals engaged in the different branches.of this nefarious transaction should not be discovered; more especially if a fact mentioned in an evening paper of yesterday be correct. It is there stated, that the pretended Col. De Burgh finding a difficulty, on some occasion, to get his Napoleons changed, produced an English Bank note, which was indorsed by a mercantile firm in London, with the date of 15 Feb. 1814.

28. The murder of Mr. Varney, an aged man, in his Soth year, who kept a chandler's shop in Newtownlongville, near Fenny Stratford, having been attended with the most wanton circumstances of aggravation, the gentlemen of that part of the country

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wrote up for a Bow-street officer to be sent down, to endeavour to detect the murderer, and Bishop was in consequence dispatched. He found it necessary to detain in custody a young man of the name of John Matthews, a journeyman carpenter, who had been suspected previous to his arrival. Matthews has undergone several examinations before the magistrates of that district, and on Monday he underwent a final examination at Wing, when it appeared that on the evening of the 21st of February, about twenty minutes before eight o'clock, Mr. Varney was alive and well in his shop, having served a boy with some candles from behind his counter. A short time after the clock struck eight, a man was passing by Mr. Varney's house, who observing his door open, and hearing some very distressing groans, he was induced to go into the Red Lion Inn, which is but a few yards distance from Mr. Varney's house, where he related what he had seen and heard, which induced a number of persons to go with him to the house. They found the shop door open, and Mr. Varney, most cruelly wounded, behind his counter. A surgeon was sent for, but the old man expired in about 20 minutes. The surgeon on examining him found that he had received severe wounds on his nose, under his eyes, on his temple, and on his skull, which appeared to have been given with a mallet or hammer; those on his nose appearing to have been given with the claw of a large hammer. It was also ascertained, that the house had been robbed, but to what amount could not be then ascertained. The mur

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der and robbery caused very considerable alarm in the village; but it was observed, that John Matthews did not appear to take the same interest in what had happened as the generality of the people did, which was the original ground of suspicion against him. It was proved that he was the last and only person who was seen near the deceased's house. Three witnesses said, they saw him close to the deceased's door, about eight o'clock, although he denied having been at the end of the village during that night. One of the witnesses stated, that he had no doubt Matthews was the man whom he saw close to the deceased's door, about eight o'clock, and that he called to him at the time, saying, Good night, Master Matthews," but received no answer, which he observed to a friend as being an extraordinary circumstance in Matthews's conduct, as he knew him extremely well. Another witness, who saw him close to the deceased's door, observed to a friend, that he had seen that fellow, who was to be married the following morning, meaning John Matthews, skulking about the door of the deceased, and had also seen him in the same situation on the Sunday night previous, and wondered what he could want there. Matthews denied being at the door of the deceased, but was not able to account for the last half hour of the time when the murder was committed. Under these circumstances, it was thought right by the inhabitants to stop his marriage on the following day, and accordingly when he was walking to the church with his intended wife, an industrious

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