"The publicity which has been given to our former negotiations upon this subject, and the large appropriation which may be required to effect the purpose, render it expedient, before making another attempt to renew the negotiation, that I should lay the whole subject before Congress. This is especially necessary, as it may become indispensable to success that I should be intrusted with the means of making an advance to the Spanish Government immediately after the signing of the treaty, without awaiting the ratification of it by the Senate. I am encouraged to make this suggestion by the example of Mr. Jefferson, previous to the purchase of Louisiana from France, and by that of Mr. Polk, in view of the acquisition of territory from Mexico. I refer the whole subject to Congress, and commend it to their careful consideration. "I repeat the recommendation made in my Message of December last in favour of an appropriation to be paid to the Spanish Government for the purpose of distribution among the claimants in the Amistad case.' President Polk first made a similar recommendation in December, 1847, and it was repeated by my immediate predecessor in December, 1853. I entertain no doubt that indemnity is fairly due to these claimants under our treaty with Spain of the 27th of October, 1795; and, while demanding justice, we ought to do justice. An appropriation promptly made for this purpose could not fail to exert a favourable influence on our negotiations with Spain." CHRONICLE. JANUARY, 1858. THE WEATHER.-The winter terioration in the public health ; nomena requiring special record. The year commenced with cold weather; but after the 7th the temperature presented continued oscillations between 4° in excess and 4° in defect of the average. February, on the other hand, was steadily cold; and the low temperature continued to the middle of March, the average deficiency amounting to 8°. The quantity of rain which fell during the quarter was rather below than above the average; the barometer stood remarkably high during January, and bigher than usual during the whole quarter. The localities at which the thermometer fell to the lowest point were Lampeter, 12° 8'; Oxford, 13°; Gloucester, 14°; Manchester, 15°; while at Liverpool it did not fall below 26° 6'; at the Royal Observatory, 20° 9'; Helston, 29°; Torquay, 25°. The highest temperature was at Bicester, 76°; while at Scarborough the highest was 55° 5'; at Liverpool, 58° 4′. At Helston 7.4 inches of rain fell, at Lampeter 5.3, at Oxford 3.3, at Gloucester 16, at Manchester 3.7. This condition of the atmosphere would not seem to imply any deVOL. C. were unfavourable. The deaths were 125,902, whereas in the corresponding quarter of 1857 they were but 108,527. This excess of mortality is the more remarkable when it is stated that the price of provisions had been continually falling. Wheat, which was 72s. 4d. a quarter in 1856, and 56s. 10d. in 1857, was now 46s. 5d.; meat was d. a pound (wholesale) lower. Potatoes maintained the same high price as in 1857, or, taking all kinds, were somewhat higher. A disease of a new name has become recognised, and has exerted its worst virulence in the eastern counties. From having first been noticed at Boulogne, it was at first called "the Boulogne sore throat;" it has now received the medical name of diphtheria. It is probably, like Asiatic cholera, a more intense form of an old disease, and is attributed by the physicians of France, where the disease has proved very fatal, to the diffusion of putrid effluvia over the fauces. The report of the Registrar General says: "Every Englishman admires the works of art, the picture galleries, the houses, the furniture, B mit them to its flood of tidal waters." HORRORS OF THE SLAVE TRADE -Probably no tale of the worst days of this accursed traffic excels in horrors the narrative of an officer of H.M.S. Sappho. The Sappho, while cruising on the west coast of Africa, chased a large ship of suspicious appearance, which she drove on shore on to a reef of rocks. The crew escaped, leaving the American colours flying. the cultivated personal tastes which surround him on every side in Paris, or on a small scale in Boulogne; he admires some of these objects every day, others every week; but has every day to give up his admiration at the door of that inscrutable cabinet, where the light of French refinement never comes; where his throat is assailed by the poisonous distillations that engender disease, and explode, if you count well the victims, with much more fatal consequences than "Then we all beheld a dreadful gunpowder, or even than fulminat- scene: the slaves forced their way ing quicksilver. That men should from below, jumped overboard, and lock up jewels in cabinets, keep soon disappeared in the rollers; it their larders full of delicacies, or was terrible to see them. Our stock their cellars with wine, is officers and men, regardless of natural; but it is a singular ab- their own lives, pulled through the surdity in civilised men to attempt surf to leeward of the ship, but to hoard for years this volatile her heavy lurching for some time essence, which bursts its chains, prevented their boarding; when and, like an unclean spirit, enters they succeeded, the scene was hornot only every apartment in the rifying,-the slaves still forcing house, but every channel of access their way up from the slave decks to the living chambers of the body, with loud yells, running to and leaving at times such traces of its fro, and continuing to throw thempassage as diphtheria in the throat. selves overboard. All attempts to The disease once generated wan- pacify them were useless; force ders abroad, and destroys life under was necessary to drive them below circumstances quite different from until preparations could be made those in which it was born: but im- for their safety. We were told by purity is always its natural ally. one of the slaves who could speak The Scotch threw these matters Portuguese, that they were told into the streets, and justly incurred the English would cut all their the censure of the fastidious. In throats. As soon as the boats London, and even in the country could be attended to, the cutter mansions of England, retreats still was backed under the stern and a exist which may rival the French rope thrown her; then three of magazines of impurity; but it has the slaves were permitted up at a of recent years been the practice time and lowered into the boat, the to throw the guano compounds of whale-boat conveying them through London with water into the sewers, the rollers to the large boat, and which, though not constructed for so on to the Sappho; this conthe reception of such matters, and tinued until 8 P.M. The surf inconsequently suffering their vola- creased, and it was impossible to tile principles to escape into the save more that night; 180 were streets, convey a portion of their rescued." A guard was left on elements to the Thames, and com- board. The next day, in spite of the rollers, and a fire of musketry from the beach, the English saved 200 more. Then, burning the ship, they sailed away. By another account it would seem that the 380 wretches rescued were part of 400 left on board: that 800 more had been thrown or driven into the sea by their inhuman masters, and that of these not one half reached the shore. DISASTROUS SHIPWRECKS.-Intelligence has been received of the loss at Sydney, on the 24th October, of the ship Catherine Adamson, one of the finest and swiftest vessels belonging to that port. The Catherine Adamson had sailed from Sydney on the 26th March, 1857, had run to England in sixty-eight days, and was now within twenty-five miles of her harbour on her return voyage, when the pilot ran her aground, and she speedily became a total wreck. The dreadful fate of the ship, crew, and passengers of the Dunbar, less than two months before, had kept the people of Sydney on the alert, and therefore assistance speedily arrived the steam-ship Williams in particular rendered great service. Some of the crew saved themselves by the life-boat; but this barque was unfortunately swamped, and the sea ran so high that the smaller boats could not live. As there at this time appeared no danger of the ship breaking up, the steamer ran into the harbour to bring up other life-boats; but when she returned, the ship had gone to pieces, and five passengers and fifteen of the crew were drowned. Intelligence was received, about the same time, of the wreck of the emigrant ship Windsor, while on her passage to Australia. The Windsor was of 750 tons. She sailed from Gravesend on the 6th November, with a valuable general cargo, thirty passengers, and a crew of about thirty men. She sighted the Cape de Verde Islands on the morning of the 1st December, and very soon after, while under full sail, struck on a reef of rocks. The passengers, who were mostly below asleep, hurried half clothed to the deck, the boats were successfully launched, and by the aid of a native boat reached the shore in safety. On their return one of them was upset, and the boatswain and a sailor drowned. The ship very speedily broke up, and her valuable cargo was drifted to the shore, where it became the spoil of the lucky islanders. 5. ACCIDENT ON THE CALEDONIAN RAILWAY-FIVE LABOURERS KILLED.-About 6 o'clock P.M. a lamentable accident occurred on the Caledonian Railway, at the branch line in course of construction between Gartcosh and Gartsherrie stations, whereby five persons were deprived of life. At the above hour about 100 of the navvies employed in the construction of the branch crossed over on to the main line on leaving off work, for the purpose of going home along it. They had not proceeded many yards, when their attention was attracted by the noise of a train of empty mineral waggons, which was proceeding up towards Coatbridge, in which direction the navvies were going. On observing the lights of the engine immediately behind. them, they crossed on to the down line to avoid accident. They had scarcely done so, however, when they perceived the Carlisle down goods train approaching in front of them, at the rate of about eighteen miles an hour. The greater part of them succeeded in getting out of the way by standing in the six-feet |