leaving Venice, my son was again exposed to annoyance at
the railway station—his ticket was taken from him, and
all his luggage vexatiously examined, by which he was
detained beyond the departure of the train, so that he
not only lost his time, but his money also. he was in
like manner exposed to great annoyance at Milan
afterwards."

A great Eruption of Mount Etna took place on the
night of the 20th of August, and has continued to the
latest accounts. It is of a more alarming character than
any similar occurrence for half a century. The town of
Zaffarana is said to bo in considerable danger from the
approach of one of the floods of lava. Great damage had
already been done to the vineyards and chestnut woods
on the slope of the mountain, and it was feared that the
damage would still be very considerable, even should Zaffarana
escape. This town and Ballo, a suburb thereof,
have been deserted by the inhabitants, and several
houses higher up than it have been already destroyed.
Catania has been visited by heavy showers of black
ashes from the mountain, which sometimes made it
nearly invisible, but the inhabitants were warned by the
continuous heavy explosions that it was still in a very
active state.

The Milan Gazette of the 14th publishes a notification
by Count Strasoldo, Imperial Lieutenant of Lombardy,
announcing that this year the two universites of Pavia
and Padua will be opened without restriction as they
were before the events of 1818. Pupils may be received
in the lyceums of the Lombardo–Venetian provinces,
without any restriction respecting their legal domicile.
Any person wishing to be received as a student at one
of the universities must produce a regular passport, a
declaration from his provincial delegation attesting his
good behaviour, both in a moral and political point of
view, and a declaration from his parents, binding themselves
to maintain him at the university during the year.
Moreover, if the provincial delegation of Pavia or Padua
respectively require it, he must produce a satisfactory
person, domiciled in either of the two towns, as the
case may be, to be surety for his good behaviour. The
private study of theology, medicine, pharmacy, and
mathematics is prohibited; but the study of law and
political science may be taught privately as well as
publicly, on condition that no private teacher shall have
more than four pupils at a time, or employ more than
six hours a day in his vocation.

The Milan Gazette of the 16th gives an account of
a terrible inundation which has laid waste all the tract
of country between Milan and the Lago Maggiore. On
the 9th, about midnight, the torrents from the mountains
swelled the Arno and the Strona to such an extent that
the waters broke down the dams, and rushed with
fearful rapidity in the direction of Gallarate, a commercial
town of 4000 inhabitants, which they soon
reached, washed away walls and out–houses, penetrated
into the cellars, shops, and ground floors, and inundated
every part of the town. By extraordinary exertions on
the part of the male population no human lives were
lost; but horses, cattle, and a multitude of the smaller
domestic animals were drowned. Four new bridges
built over the mountain stream of the Arno were carried
off, as was also an old and solid one on the Strona,
which had resisted many a fearful inundation before.
The damage done to property of every kind is immense,
but has not yet been ascertained. The only inundation
upon record in that district, equal to this in violence
and extent, occurred on 24th July, 1732.

There have been Extensive Inundations in Switzerland
and the Upper Rhine. The waters of the Rhine,
and the affluents of the Leman suddenly rose to a
fearful height in consequence of the heavy rains in
Switzerland and Alsace. Many parts of the country
have been laid under water, and great damage has been
done in the fields and in the towns. From Strasburg,
Lausanne, Basle, Geneva, Yverdun, and other places
there are accounts of disasters by the ravages of the
waters. The Duchess of Orleans was placed in a
situation of imminent peril. On the 17th the duchess,
accompanied by her two sons and several persons of her
suite, was going from Lausanne to Berne, but, on
arriving at Moudon, she learned that the bridge at
Courtilles had been carried away by a flood on the
previous night; and she was thus compelled to return
and take the route of Romont, Fribourg, &c. In the
afternoon her carriage, owing to the imprudence of the
coachman, fell into a wide ditch full of water at the
entrance of the village of Promasens, and was turned
upside down. The duchess had her collar bone broken,
and the other travellers have escaped with some bruises.

The Dutch Chambers were closed on the 18th by the
Minister of the Interior. The speech congratulated the
States General upon the settlement of the budget, the
reform of the fiscal system, the regulation of the
commercial and maritime relations of the country with
various foreign states, and the extension of the means of
internal communication. On behalf of the King, the
minister expressed his satisfaction with the results of
the session, and thanked the chamber for its zealous
attachment to the interests of the kingdom.

An English lady has just been released from prison at
Florence, after two months of solitary confinement, for
having contracted marriage with a Tuscan officer, in the
manner termed matrimonio di sorpresa, which may he
considered equivalent to a Gretna Green match in
England. The parties being much attached to each
other, although family obstacles prevented their regular
marriage, they resolved to adopt the plan above
mentioned, which consists in the couple presenting themselves
before the curate of the parish, and stating to him
in the presence of two witnesses that they are man and
wife. This forms a valid marriage, according to the law
of the church of Rome. The lady, being a Roman
catholic, sent to the curato to inform him that she wished
to confess, and requested him to mention the hour that
would suit him to hear her. At the hour named she
repaired to the confessional, and had fully engaged the
priest's attention, when her lover, attended by two
witnesses, suddenly presented himself—the lady arose
and gave him her hand, the fatal words were pronounced,
the witnesses attested, and the curate became the
unwilling instrument of a  marriage by surprise." But
although the marriage contracted in this manner is
perfectly valid, it is punishable in Tuscany as a civil
misdemeanour, so that the law condemns what the church
sanctions. The officer was first confined in a military
fortress, deprived of his rank, and dismissed the service,
and then sent to expiate his offence, in a civil point of
view, by two months' solitary confinement in the Muratte
cellular prisons, and his wife had to undergo a similar
term in another prison. Another instance of this kind
occurred a short time before. The priest was sent for as
if to attend a dying person; but one of the witnesses
getting alarmed before the curate arrived, went downstairs
and warned his reverence that a snare was prepared
for him. The curate, very indignant, sent for a
couple of gendarmes, and with them presented himself
to arrest the culpable parties; the other witness got out
of an upper window, and escaped over the tiles; but the
bridegroom, nothing daunted by the priest and his posse
comitalus, and resolved not to miss his marriage for
want of witnesses, addressed the curate in the usual
formula, "This is my wife," said he, "and this is my
husband," responded the lady; "and these two gentlemen,"
resumed the bridegroom, pointing to the two
astounded gendarmes, "are witnesses!" The priest
was done, and the 'marriage was valid.—The ceremony
of crowning the picture of the Madonna under the title
of the Santissima Annunziata, took place on the morning
of the 8th, amidst an immense concourse of holiday
people, and under a beautiful sky.—In a tract just
published, wherein a vast number of most astounding
miracles are circumstantially related as having been
worked by the picture in question, it is stated that the
face of the Holy Virgin, as it now appears on the wall of
the chapel, was supernaturally depicted by a celestial
hand, whilst the painter at work on the fresco was
asleep, in the year 1252.

The cholera continues to rage in Poland. A Prussian
journal gives the following account from Warsaw, on the