appointed for each county in the state, who are now
performing their labours. The population of California,
it is estimated, will probably reach 350,000 before the
1st of January next. The number of French people in
California is estimated at 22,000. In San Francisco
they are numerous enough to sustain a tri–weekly
newspaper of fair proportions in the French language.

By the latest intelligence from Mexico it appears that
that country was in a state of increasing disorder,
apparently betokening approaching dissolution. The
courier of the British legation reached Vera Cruz from
the interior on the morning of the 1th of August, and,
in addition to the risings in the state of Vera Cruz and
Sonora, brings the intelligence that a revolution had
taken place in the state of Guadalafara, which would
probably be followed in other states.

The accounts from the Sandwich Islands mention the
arrival of a Swedish vessel, named the Sarmiento, with
a great number of passengers, from Panama to San
Francisco, which had put in there from want of provisions.
A fearful tragedy had been enacted on board
during the voyage.—On the 21st of May a young man
named Woolfork, about nineteen years of age, from
Kentucky, shot a German named Johnson through the
heart. The origin of the affair was a dispute about a tin
cup, of which Woolfork had two and the German none.
In the hasty altercation the handle was wrenched off,
when Woolfork drew his revolver and shot Johnson
dead. A scene of the greatest excitement ensued. The
murderer was seized—114 voted that he should be hung,
32 against it, and the remainder neutral. A judge was
appointed; a jury of twelve empanneled; the prisoner
found guilty of murder, and sentenced to be hung
within one hour. During the interval between the
sentence and execution, the dead body of the murdered
German was brought on deck, the preparation made,
and after allowing the condemned man a quarter of an
hour over his time, he was run up the yard arm, where
life soon became extinct. He was then cut adrift, fell
upon his face into the sea, and continued to float until
left out of sight by the vessel.—On the 25th of May,
water was sold for 1 dol. per bottle by those of the
passengers who required less than some of their fellows.
From the 19th of June to the 3rd of July, the passengers
had no bread. There were eleven women and
two children on board, one of each of whom died before
reaching San Bias. Six others died on board besides
the murderer and murdered.

NARRATIVE OF LITERATURE AND ART.

OUR next narrative will have to record the
recommencement of the publishing season. In the present
we have but to gather up such occasional publications,
very few of them possessing much interest or value, as
have been thinly scattered over the past month.

The Memoirs of the Baroness d'Oberkirch, an Alsatian
woman of rank in attendance on the French court in
the last days of the old French monarchy, gives a very
genuine picture of society in Paris on the very eve of
the General Overthrow, which is; chiefly remarkable for
its unconscious delineation of the utter ignorance and
indifference which preceded the catastrophe. The
Battle of Leipsic is a clear and simple narrative of the
terrible fight which shook to its foundations the power
of Napoleon, written by the Chaplain–General of the
forces, who possesses in greater perfection perhaps than
any other living writer the power of simplifying and
rendering clear to the most unpractised mind the
complicated details of war. His narrative of Leipsic is
as good as that of Waterloo. Annette is a story of which
the interest hinges on the romantic episode of La Vendée
in the first French revolution, and which possesses
another not indifferent attraction in a memoir of its
author, by Mr. Justice Talfourd, who contributes to the
better illustration of a question which has lately been
much discussed, namely, the claims and rewards of
authorship, not only many judicious and forcible remarks
of his own, but two original and most kind–hearted
letters by Sir Walter Scott.

Dr. M'Gillivray's History of British Birds has been
completed by the publication of its fourth and fifth
volumes but a few days before the death of its admirable
writer, whose loss every lover of natural history will have
reason to lament. Two clever books of travel have appeared,
which derive their value less from practised writing than
from fresh and lively observation: Mr. Sullivan's
Rambles and Scrambles in North and South America,
and Lieutenant March's Walk across the French
Frontier into Spain. A translation of a French
huguenot's history of the persecutions of the Waldenses
has been published with the title of The Israel of the
Alps; and an excellent translation of Jerrmanu's
very lively Pictures from St. Petersburg has been given
in the Messrs. Longman's Traveller's Library. The
last book we have to mention in this department is
perhaps one of the most original and curious of all the
illustrations of foreign character and usage which have
been contributed to our literature. It is an account of
the Ceremonial Usages of the Chinese eleven hundred
and twenty–one years before Christ, translated from the
original Chinese by Mr. Raymond Gingell.

What few books with any title to attention remain to
complete this brief summary have also reached us from
abroad. Mr. Theodore Parker's Discourse of Matters Pertaining
to Religion is the offering of an eloquent American
writer and thinker to rationalistic views in theology,
urged with a moral purpose and design of the very big
and purest order. M. Victor Hugo has issued
contemporaneously in London (the publishers of Belgium having
been ordered to close their doors against him) the original,
and a translation, of his terrible diatribe against M. Louis
Bonaparte, Napoleon le Petit. It is an assault of the
most bitter personality, but too full of thought as well
as bitterness, and above all too well–grounded, not to
produce enduring effects. M. V. Schœlcher has also
made public, but in French only, his account of the
Bonaparte usurpation, under the title of Histoire des
Crimes du Deux Décembre. M. Schœlcher being
much less of a philosopher than Victor Hugo, and much
more of a political enthusiast even than the poet and
academician, his book wants the eloquence and purpose
of his fellow exile's, but its facts are not less damning,
nor less likely to sink into the hearts and minds of
honest, truth–loving, conscientious men.

The lease of Her Majesty's Theatre is about to become
the property of a Joint Stock Company, which is now in
course of formation. A prospectus has been issued,
with the names of the Duke of Leinster, the Marquis of
Clanricarde, Frederick Mildred, Esq., and B. Oliviera,
Esq., M.P., as trustees; and the Marquis of Clanricarde,
the Earl of Harrington, Major–General the Honourable
H. F. C. Cavendish, Sir John Bayley, Bart., and C.
Barry Baldwin, Esq., as committeemen. It is stated
that a large proportion of the shares have already been
subscribed. It is proposed to create 40,000 shares, of £5
each, by which £200,000 may be raised, a portion of
which will be devoted to the purchase of the lease of
the theatre and concert room, ecc.; the remainder,
estimated at £75,000, to constitute the capital for
carrying out the lyrical objects of the association. The
affairs of the company will be conducted by a managing
director to be appointed by the committee, who, it is
understood, will be Mr. Lumley.

There have been three great provincial Music–meetings
during this month; the Birmingham Festival,
which has been the most successful that has taken place
since the opening of the New Hall in 1834; the
meeting of the three choirs of Hereford, Worcester, and
Gloucester, held this year at Hereford; and the Norwich
Festival.