For a time all was comparatively quiet. At 12 o'clock
some of the ringleaders were attempting to agitate the
matter, when the sheriff very properly arrested one of
them as an example. At this time the excitement ran
very high, and another attempt was made to rescue the
prisoner. Every good and law-abiding citizen in town
was called on by the sheriff to form a posse comitatus to
assist him in preserving the peace. The prisoner was
confined in one of the upper rooms of Craycroft's
magnificent saloon, and about 1 o'clock a rush was made up
the stairs, at which time a revolver was fired, the ball
striking Mr. Thaddeus Purdy, a valuable and good
citizen, and district attorney for this district; it entered
the back of his head, the wound causing almost instant
death. The excitement was now at its height, and
hundreds of revolvers were drawn, the lives of citizens
being in imminent danger. A deep-seated gloom
seemed to rest over all the old Downievilleans at this
lamentable crisis, as Mr. Purdy was a man of high and
noble qualities, respected by all who knew him in his
private and professional character. It was at 3 o'clock
currently reported in town that a large reinforcement
was on the way from Forest city and Oregon creek, all
armed, to seize the prisoner from the sheriff, even if it
lost them their lives. This augmented the excitement
materially, and an order was issued by a justice of the
peace to stop the sale of all spirituous liquors and wines,
which was most strictly obeyed. After this the excitement
cooled down. On the 13th of September a fight
took place in Sacramento between Dr. G. M. Duval,
and Dr. S. J. Downs, with six shooters, in which the
former was almost instantly killed. They had placarded
each other during yesterday, and on sight this morning
fought. Dr. Downes was standing in a drug store on
J-street, between Second and Third, when Dr. Duval
advanced, and told him to leave the house and come
into the street. This was declined, whereupon Duval
fired and missed. Several shots were then exchanged,
one of which took effect in Duval's heart, causing
almost instant death. An encounter had also taken
place in San Francisco between W. W. Mason,
Democratic member of the Assembly, and H. C. Eardner;
ten shots were exchanged, and both received flesh
wounds in the leg.

Advices from New York are to the 15th instant. The
political intelligence is unimportant. A New York
paper thus describes the present state of parties:
"Tumult and discord seem to be the order of the day
among all parties, clans, and cliques. The Democrats,
the Whigs, and the Abolitionists are split up, and writhing
from intense commotions; and now, in order to keep
up with the spirit of the times, the Woman's Right
party have not only quarrelled among themselves in
convention, but have taken a step in advance of their
political contemporaries, and had a fight. According to
our report of the proceedings, a most terrific war of
words took place prior to the adjournment of the
convention last Saturday, on the subject of Christianity,
between the Rev. Antoinette Brown, Lloyd Garrison,
and others. Miss Brown defended the Bible, and Mr.
Garrison opposed it. The body dissolved in a grand row,
and when Mr. Garrison reached the street his nose was
pulled by a Mr. Nevins, as a reward for the uncourteous
language he had made use of in the course of the debate.
The speeches, the scenes, and the incidents that have
occurred in this gathering of the strongminded are
unparalleled for their comicality and spiciness in the history
of all conventions which have hitherto been held this
season."

NARRATIVE OF LITERATURE AND ART.

The winter "season" of publishing is not yet
commenced, and such new books as the last month has
contributed to our libraries have still been scant and
desultory. The best may first be named. Sir Harry
Verney has published a selection from the Journals and
Correspondence of General Sir Harry Calvert, his father,
which has an interest singularly pertinent to the present
time in its illustrations of the treachery and bad faith of
our Austrian alliance during the disastrous campaigns
in Flanders and Holland, on the breaking out of the first
French revolution. The Rev. Mr. Mitford, the
accomplished editor and biographer of Gray, has been
permitted to collect into a volume the Correspondence
of Gray and Mason, which became lately the property
of Mr. Penn, and from which partial extracts only had
been used by Mason in preparing the life of his friend.
This volume contributes to our language some specimens
of familiar letter-writing which may rank among the
most charming in the world. Sir William Napier has
given to the public the last literary production of his
lamented brother, Sir Charles Napier, on Defects Civil
and Military of the Indian Government, in which the
departed hero speaks without reserve of the ignorance
and mismanagement of the "Company," and of his own
sufferings and wrongs. An Ethnological Library has
been begun, of which the first volume is a treatise by
Mr. G. W. Earl on The Native Races of the Indian
Archipelago. Mr. Leigh Hunt has put forth, in a
small duodecimo, a new form of individual and family
worship which he entitles The Religion of the Heart.
The Hakluyt Society has added to its very interesting
issue of works of early discovery and travel, Gonzalez
de Mendoza's History of the Kingdom of China. Mr.
Denis Florence M'Carthy has translated, in the original
metres, the Dramas of Calderon. Mr. Ruskin has
completed, in a third volume, his elaborate dissertation
on the Stones of Venice. And Mr. Thackeray has
commenced his new monthly work, The Newcomes.

The other books of the past month possess fewer
claims to attention than these, but some are not without
interest. Mr. Croker has reprinted from the
Quarterly Review, with additions, and some curious
woodcuts, his valuable historical sketch of The Guiillotine.
Mr. A. G. Finlaison has made public his computation
of the New Government Succession Duty Tables.
Mr. James Mather has written a dissertation on The
Coal Mines, their dangers and means of safety. A
Memoir of the Equinoctial Storms of 1850, comprising
an enquiry into the extent to which the rotatory
theory may be applied, has been drawn up by Mr. F.
P. B. Martin. Mrs. Charles Clacy has "written on the
spot" A Lady's Visit to the Gold Mines of Australia in
1852-3. Mr. Bentley has inaugurated his enterprise for
reducing the price of novels, by the issue of Margaret,
or Prejudice at Home and its Victims, in two volumes,
of the usual size, for seven instead of twenty-one
shillings. Another new novel called Alderman Ralph,
also in two volumes, has been published at an equally
cheap rate by Mr. Routledge. In Messrs. Chapman
and Hall's Library of Railway Reading has appeared a
"Honved's" Sketches of the Hungarian Emigration
into Turkey. A volume of Coleridge's Notes, Theological,
Political, and Miscellaneous has been issued with much
new matter by his son, Derwent Coleridge. Mr. James
Payn has published a new volume of Poems. Mr.
Hope has described (for the Messrs. Longman's Travellers'
Library) the Chase in Brittany. Mr. George
Gilfillan has edited the Poetical Works of George
Herbert, as part of a general library edition of the
British Poets. A Manual of French Cookery for the
Unlearned has been put forth in a small and useful
volume. A second volume of Mr. Carruthers's edition of
Pope, an edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales with a
new text and notes by Mr. Wright, and the Adventures
of an Oxford Freshman, have appeared in Mr. Cooke's
Illustrated Libraries. In Mr. Bohn's Libraries we have
had a new edition of Adam Smith's Moral Sentiments,
a careful translation of the Chronicles of Odericus Vitalis,
and an account by Mr. G. H. Lewes of Comte's
Philosophy of the Sciences. Finally, Mr. Charles MacFarlane
has oracularly pronounced (though with perhaps more of
the contortions than the inspiration of a sibyl) the Doom
of Turkey.