According to the report of the chief of the police in
New York, there were more than 10,000 persons
arrested for misdemeanours and felonies in that city
during the past three months, where there are also 4267
licensed drinking-houses, and 718 unlicensed ditto!

There are at present seventeen lines of submarine
telegraph at work in the United States under the
Hudson, Harlem, Connecticut, and Delaware rivers.

The number of immigrants who arrived in New York
during the month of October, amounted to upwards of
36,000.

At Queensborough, North Carolina, a man named
M'Bride was lately sentenced to receive twenty lashes
and to be exposed in the pillory—because he was an
abolitionist.

Near Victoria, Texas, the Indians have committed
several murders of late, and carried off two daughters of
Mr. Thomas, who were fearfully outraged, and
afterwards found nearly dead in the woods.

An instance of summaiy justice by Lynch Law has
taken place at Georgetown, in California. A man,
named Devine, had taken to gambling, and as he was
in the habit of losing his money, his wife hid all that
came into her possession. One day, having lost all his
money, he demanded the money she had hid. She
refused to deliver it if he intended to use it in gambling,
whereupon Devine threatened to kill her. As he seized
his gun, she blew out the candle and fled into another
room. He, however, discharged it at her. The contents
passed through the door, and killed her. An enraged
crowd, several hundred strong, assembled forthwith, set
Devine on a horse, and rode him off to a tree. Here
they made him kneel upon the horse's back, put the
rope around his neck, and drove the horse off, leaving
him hanging from the branch of the tree.

A terrible steamboat disaster occurred at San
Francisco on the 29th of October, by which a number of
lives were destroyed, variously estimated at from
seventy-five to a hundred. This was caused by the
explosion of the boiler of the steamer Sagamore, which
took place just as she was leaving her wharf for Stockton.
A large number of passengers were on board. Human
bodies and masses of timber were at once scattered in
every direction. The boat was a complete wreck, and
from her fragments were taken the dead and dying,
mutilated in the most shocking manner. The master of
the boat was blown a distance of fifty feet into the water.
He escaped with his life, but not without considerable
injury. The cause of this dreadful waste of human life
has not been ascertained.

An attempt was made on the life of General Belza,
President of Bolivia, on the 6th of September, while
walking with Colonel Laguna, President of the Senate,
Don Augustine Morales, and others, when a student
named Sotomayer fired a pistol, which wounded Belza in
the face. As he fell, another pistol was fired by Morales,
but the ball only slightly grazed him. Some slight
attempt at a revolution appears subsequently to have
been made, but without success. The President of the
Senate was implicated in the conspiracy, condemned to
be shot, and executed on the 13th of September. Morales
and Sotomayer have also been condemned to death.

NARRATIVE OF LITERATURE AND ART.

'THE question of a possibility of English copyright in books by foreign writers has again been raised in the
courts, and a decision pronounced in the very teeth of that which was last recorded. Vice-Chancellor
Knight Bruce has declared that the object of the Act of Anne must have been to promote literature in
general. The Court of Exchequer has declared that the object of the Act could only have been to protect
the rights of British authors exclusively. Between these two decisions a Court of Error will shortly have
to pronounce, when there surely can be little doubt that the strict construction of the Copyright Act
will be adhered to, and the decision of the Exchequer affirmed. In such case it will be hardly possible to
avoid the necessity of fresh legislation on the subject, and it is desirable that the opportunity should not
be lost of placing the entire law affecting an author's rights in England on a more satisfactoiy basis than it
rests upon at present.

There have been few books of the higher class among
the publications of the past month. The most
prominent have been an excellent translation of Eckermann's
Conversations with Goethe; a treatise on the diffusion
of Christianity in Ceylon, by Sir James Emerson
Tennent, with the opportune and valuable moral that
general education is the only sound basis or preparative
for intelligent religion; a somewhat elaborate dissertation
on the Dynamical Theory of the Earth, by Mr. Tucker
Ritchie; a republication of Disraeli's Commentaries on
the Reign of Charles the First, revised by the author,
with a preface by his son; and a volume of
Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes,
curiously illustrative of the philosopher's life and
history.

But Christmas has brought its usual supply (though
somewhat less abundant than in former years) of pictorial
volumes, and gift-books adapted to the season. The
most rich in point of engravings is Mr. Alaric Watts's
Lyrics of the Heart, which comes nearer to the graphic
wealth of the Stothard and Turner illustrations of
Rogers's poems, than any book which has been published
recently. Another pretty present is Christmas with the
Poets, with woodcuts by Mr. Birket Foster. Another is
Winged Thoughts, being aseries of illuminated pictures of
birds, by Mr. Owen Jones. The author of "Mary Barton"
has given us The Moorland Cottage, Mr. Thackeray The
Kickleburys on the Rhine, and Mr. Leigh Hunt a volume
of Table-Talk, to promote the good feeling and mirth of
the season; Mr. Richard Doyle, with the same praise-
worthy purpose, has illustrated afresh the Story of Jack
and the Giants, with very marvellous and peculiar
knowledge of the wonders of nursery and fairy land;
and Mr. Ruskin has had the help of the same ingenious
pencil in setting forth a not less marvellous or
delightful Legend of the King of the Golden River.

To enumerate the mere titles of the pamphlets which
have been suggested by the Papal Aggression, would
more than fill the whole of the present sheet. But we
must not omit to record that Doctor Pusey has come
forward with a Letter, vindicating the practice of
confession, asserting that whenever it is freely sought he
administers it, that he has done this most extensively,
and that he looks upon the popularity of the practice,
since he moved in it, as the manifest work of God.

The tales called Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey
have been republished, with a preface by the author of
"Jane Eyre," in which she avows herself a woman, states
that the names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, were
assumed by three sisters, daughters of a clergyman in
Yorkshire, and that of these she is now herself the only
survivor. The brief narrative of the early ambition
and premature death of Ellis and Acton Bell is a very
sad one.

The month has produced no dramatic novelty, the
theatres being occupied with preparations for their
Christmas entertainments, produced as usual on "boxing
night" the 26th, and consisting of burlesque
extravaganzas and pantomimes.

Mr. Bartley, after appearing in his old character of
Falstaff before the Queen at Windsor, has repeated it
several times at the Princess's Theatre.

The "Grand National Concerts" at Her Majesty^s
Theatre have been brought to a close, after having, it
is understood, been attended with considerable pecuniary
loss to the body of amateurs by whom they were
carried on.