persons with whom it rested to purify towns and cities,
and to prevent or remove the causes of disease, have not
been sufficiently active in regard to such matters. Lord
Palmerston would therefore suggest, that the best course
which the people of this country can pursue to deserve
that the further progress of the cholera should be stayed,
will be to employ the interval that will elapse between
the present time and the beginning of next spring in
planning and executing measures by which those
portions of their towns and cities which are inhabited by
the poorest classes, and which, from the nature of things,
must most need purification and improvement, may be
freed from those causes and sources of contagion which,
if allowed to remain, will infallibly breed pestilence, and
be fruitful in death, in spite of all the prayers and fastings
of an united but inactive nation. When man has done
his utmost for his own safety, then is the time to invoke
the blessing of Heaven to give effect to his exertions."

A commission, appointed to inquire into the Municipal
Affairs and Condition of the City of London,
commenced its proceedings on the 1st. instant, and has
continued its sittings during the month. A great mass of
evidence has been taken; the witnesses consisting of
members of the Corporation, and a number of the most
eminent merchants, bankers, and others carrying on
business in the City of London. The investigation has
not yet come to a close.

An exposure of the condition of a Neglected
Workhouse School has taken place at Nottingham. At a
recent meeting of the Nottingham Board of Guardians
the condition of the boys' school being called in question,
the boys were sent for and ordered to march in single
file round the room. This was done, and every member
of the board appeared to be struck with the disgraceful
figure which they cut. The schoolmaster admitted that
it was his duty to see the children washed, but could
give no explanation of the dirty appearance of his crew.
The outer clothes of the lads were dirty and out of
repair; one or two had the scrofula so badly that they
ought to have been in the hospital; several had no
neckerchiefs; the pinafores generally were dirty and in
tatters, and the shirts but little better, one or two of
the boys saying they had not had a clean shirt since
Sunday week, and combed themselves once a week.
The chairman, with the concurrence of the board, all of
whom were actuated with a very proper feeling for the
poor lads, ordered some neckerchiefs to be provided, and
shirts to be made, so that they could be changed at least
once a week. A school committee was also appointed.

PERSONAL NARRATIVE.

The Queen commenced the winter series of theatrical
entertainments at Windsor Castle, on the 10th inst.,
with Shakspeare's play of "Henry V." Her Majesty
had invited a distinguished party to witness the play.

Prince Albert, accompanied by the Duke of Brabant,
visited the University of Cambridge on the 22nd inst.
Attended by the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Whewell, and
Professor Sedgwick, the royal party made the tour of
the different colleges, examining the libraries, halls, and
principal objects at each of them. There was a great
assemblage in the Senate House, in Trinity College,
when the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws was
conferred upon the Duke of Brabant with the customary
solemnities, and amid the acclamations of the under-
graduates in the galleries.

A meeting, convened by the Lord Mayor, was held in
the Mansion House on the 7th inst., to consider the
propriety of erecting some memorial of the Great
Exhibition in connexion with a Testimonial to Prince
Albert. The Bishop of Oxford moved the first resolution
—setting forth, "that the Exhibition of 1851 was an event
of the greatest importance to the nations of the world,"
and "a new starting-point for the future progress of
productive industry." "If it were," said the bishop,
"as it has by great misapprehension been misunderstood
to be, a part of your proposal to-day—if we were met to
propose to erect a statue or other memorial in honour of
those domestic and personal virtues which now, young
comparatively as he is, have been unobtrusively exhibited
by his royal highness for many years before the not
unobservant eye of a great people—though, perhaps, no
man values such an exhibition of virtue more than I do,
yet I should not have been here to-day. I agree that,
however, deserving such marks of the confidence and
gratitude of a nation may be, they best await the
termination of a life, and would be premature in its course.
But I know that nothing of the sort is intended; you
propose to fix, by a standing memorial, the recollection
of the great success of the Exhibition of 1851. Now I
think there are abundant reasons why such a movement
should be made at this time rather than later, and why
such a movement should be made at all. I think, if
made at all, it should be made now rather than later;
because it is the natural course of things that facts,
however important in themselves, should by degrees pass from
the recollection of man as events flow on, and should,
being seen from a distance, lose in estimation their proper
magnitude. It is in the very nature of things solid, that
instead of being borne along the surface of the stream of
time, they should sink gradually down beneath its waters.
With regard, therefore, to this great fact—and a great
fact I hold it to have been—if any memorial is to be
raised at all, it ought to be raised whilst yet the memory
of its greatness holds its true place in the memory of
those who witnessed it."  Mr. Deputy Bennoch read some
letters out of more than a thousand received by Lord
Mayor Challis. Among them were one from Lord
Aberdeen, enclosing £50.; and one from Lord Campbell,
enclosing £10. There were also letters requesting their
names to be put down as subscribers—from the Duke of
Norfolk, £100.; the Marquis of Breadalbane, £50.; the
Duke of Sutherland, £50.; the Duke of Argyll, £30.;
the Duke of Bedford, £50; Earl Spencer, £50.; Lord
Ashburton, £50.; the Marquis of Westminster, £50.;
Lord John Russell, £50.; Mr. William Beckett, of Leeds,
£100.; and others. The resolution to raise a monument
in which a statue of Prince Albert "should be a principal
feature," was moved by the Provost of Eton, and seconded
by Mr. Samuel Morley. The other speakers were Mr.
Alderman Wire, Mr. Dakin, Mr. Tite, Mr. S. C. Hall,
Mr. John Wood, and Mr. Scott Russell. The Lord
Mayor announced that there were 600 subscribers; and
that the promised subscriptions amounted to nearly £5000.

Lieutenant Cresswell, the First Navigator who has
effected the North-west Passage, has received due honour
from his own towns-folks of Lynn.  A public meeting
in the Guildhall, at which an address of the corporation
and inhabitants was presented to him, was followed by
a dinner, at which Sir Edward Parry, Lord Stanley,
Lord Calthorpe, Mr. Bagge, M.P., and other eminent
persons were present. A most interesting speech was
made by Sir Edward Parry. He was enthusiastic in
praise of Captain M'Clure—"I'll say there never has
been an instance in which so magnificent a navigation
was performed in a single season as that performed by
Captain M'Clure and his officers. There is nothing in
Arctic discovery to be compared to that one summer's
discovery in 1853.  It is between nine hundred and a
thousand miles from Point Barrow, which we consider
any ship may reach in these days—we don't think so
much of getting a little into the ice as we formerly did;
but from Point Barrow to Cape Parry, in which our
friend struck off in the Investigator to Baring Island,
and then upwards to the Bay of Mercy, where the
Investigator is, I am afraid, still confined, is from nine
hundred to a thousand miles. I assure you, from the
experience I have had of the navigation of those seas, it
is a most marvellous navigation to accomplish. I believe
no man can tell more of the difficulties of it than I can;
and I repeat that there has been nothing in the whole
course of Arctic discovery equal to that which Captain
M'Clure and his companions accomplished."  Respecting
Sir John Franklin, Sir Edward showed that he does not
quite give him up for lost:—"I have thought about it
as much as anybody, and I can form only one idea as to
the probable fate of Sir John Franklin. I don't agree
with Mr. Cresswell about the probability of both ships
having gone down, though nothing has been seen of
them. Though it is true that nothing might be seen of
the ships, I don't think that the seamen would have all
gone. I think that there is that stuff and stamina in
one hundred and twenty Englishmen, that somehow or
other they would have maintained themselves as well as