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"But although passports and the allotment of taxes are placed under special regulations which cannot be infringed, you will be careful that in pursuance of his Majesty's desire, no assessments or taxes be exacted from the Protestants for permits of marriage and for registrations-that every necessary assistance and facility be afforded them for their current affairs-that no interference whatever be permitted in their temporal or spiritual concerns on the part of the Patriarch, Monks or Priests of other sects, but that they be enabled to exercise the profession of their creed in security; and that they be not molested one iota, either in that respect or in any other way whatever." Signed

RESCHID, (Grand Vizier.)

QUARTERLY CHRONICLE.

JANUARY, 1848.

Jan. 1st. The College for Orphans, for which Mr. Girard appropriated so large a part of his immense fortune, went into operation this day.

Orphans are admitted into this college between the ages of six and ten. They are, between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, to be bound to some suitable person in Pennsylvania, in some one of the occupations of agriculture, navigation, the arts, mechanical trades, or manufactures, for a term not exceeding their minority.

It is understood that the fund now at the disposal of the trustees is sufficient for the support of 500 orphans, and that this sum will be steadily increasing.

2d. The steamboat Blue Bird blew up on the Ohio river, at 6 o'clock on Sunday morning, during a severe snow storm, with a tremendous explosion, reducing to a perfect wreck the cabin over the boilers. The hull sunk immediately, leaving a portion of the cabin afloat, to which the surviving passengers retreated for security. Before they were relieved, the cabin floated eight miles down the river. Of the seventy persons on board, about one-third are supposed to have perished. The defective character of the boiler, which had been in use nine years, was the cause of the explosion.

The report of the Commissioners of the General Land Office, submitted to Congress, shows that, during the year 1846, 2,273,730 acres of the public lands were sold, for the sum of $2,904,637; and in the first, second, and third quarters of the year 1847, 1,839,024 acres have been sold for the sum of $2,366,352.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE.-The Vice President appointed Thomas Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, Regent, in the place of Mr. Senator Cass, who resigned. Mr. Winthrop, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, reappointed Mr. Hibbard, of Alabama, and appointed Mr. Marsh, of Vermont, and Mr. McCleland, of Michigan, to fill the places of Mr. Owen, of Indiana, and Mr. Hough, of New York, who, ceasing to be members, could not be reappointed.

FIRES AND DEATHS IN NEW YORK.-During the past year there were 264 fires. Eight persons were burnt to death, and five or six others injured.

There were 4,121 deaths, being 742 small-pox the number of deaths was 18.

more than in 1846. Of In 1846, it was 90.

4th. The President ordered a Court of Inquiry for the purpose of investigating the charges against Gen. Pillow and Col. Duncan, preferred by Gen. Scott. After that investigation, the court is directed to inquire into the charges against Gen. Scott by Gen. Worth. The charges against Gen. Worth, submitted by the commanding general, have been dismissed by the President.

The court was directed to assemble at Perote, and to consist of Gen. Towson, Paymaster-General, as President, and Gen. Cushing and Gen. Butler, of Louisiana.

The cominand of the army devolved on Gen. Butler, of Kentucky.

10th. At Franconia, New Hampshire, the spirit in the thermometer stood at 39° below zero; and the mercury congealed in the bulb; so that, could the mercury have resisted the cold, according to observed differences between that and the spirit, the former would have stood at 45° below zero.

13th. Mr. Justice Wayne this day delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court in the case of Mrs. Gaines.

The decree of the Circuit Court of Louisiana, which had decided the case against Mrs. Gaines, was reversed, and the cause remanded to the same court, with directions that a decree shall be made, declaring that a lawful marriage was contracted in Philadelphia, between Daniel Clark and Zuline Carriere, and that Myra Clark, now Myra Gaines, is the lawful and only child of that marriage. That the said Myra is the forced heir of her father, and is entitled to four-fifths of his estate after the excessive donation in the will is reduced to the disposable quantum which the father could legally give to others; that the property described in the answer of Charles Patterson, was a part of the estate of Daniel Clark at the time of his death; that it was illegally sold by those who had no right or authority to make sale of it; that the titles given by them to the

purchaser, and by the purchaser to the defendant, Charles Patterson, including those given by the buyer from the first purchaser to Charles Patterson, are void, and that the said property is liable as a part of the estate of Daniel Clark to the legal claim of the forced heir, and that the defendant, Charles Patterson, shall surrender the same as shall be directed by the mandate of this court, amongst other things to be done in the premises.

This suit has been pending fifteen years, and the amount of property involved in the decision is estimated at fifteen millions of dollars.

The scene in court on the delivery of the decree of the court, was a thrilling one, and quite unusual before that dignified tribunal. Messrs. Clay, Webster, Jones, (the last was Mrs. Gaines' principal counsel,) and other distinguished members of the bar, were present, besides many ladies, who had come to share her feelings on the occasion, from all of whom a tide of congratulations poured in upon their victorious friend. No time was lost in telegraphing the news to General Gaines, then at New York.

14th. The steamboat Yalebushe, Capt. Scott, loaded with cotton, on her trip from Red River to New Orleans, was burnt to the water's edge, by which terrible disaster about thirty-five lives were lost.

About quarter past nine o'clock at night, when the greater part of the passengers, numbering about a hundred, including the deck passengers, had retired, the alarm of fire was given. The boat was then in the middle of the stream, and about eighteen miles below Donaldsonville. All were instantly aroused, and as the doors of the ladies' cabin were thrown open, the dense volume of steam rushing aft from the clerk's office, near which the fire originated, almost produced suffocation.

The boat was immediately rounded to and headed to the shore, and as she struck the bank, a general rush was made for the landing, when many persons were drowned in their attempts to get on shore. As the boat approached the shore, some of the passengers, with great presence of mind, seized the end of the cable, and leaping on shore, made it fast to a tree on the bank, but those on board neglecting to make the cable fast there, the boat swung out into the stream again, the engines still going, and in a few seconds was beyond the reach of those ashore. She afterwards drifted down the stream about two miles, when, striking the shore, she was made fast. Several of those who leaped overboard were saved.

15th. John Sergeant, Esq., to whose umpirage the United States Government on one side, and the State of New Jersey on the other, submitted the right to the Pea Patch Island in the Delaware, de

cided the right to be in the United States, by virtue of the cession of the State of Delaware. The case was elaborately argued by counsel, in one of the court rooms of the State House in Philadelphia.

The award is as follows:

Award. Under and by virtue of the within agreement and submission, having heard the parties by their counsel, their proofs and allegations, and duly and deliberately considered the whole matter, and weighed the evidence and arguments on both sides, I do hereby award that the title to the Pea Patch Island is in the United States.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this fifteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-eight, at the city of Washington.

JOHN SERGEANT, [SEAL.]

Witness-John Wm. Wallace, John M. Clayton, W. L. Dayton. The title having been thus settled, the United States will immediately finish the important fortifications commenced on the island.

The report of Professor Bache on the coast survey shows that the progress of that work for the last year has extended into the following eighteen States on the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico:-Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. The estimates for the next year will provide for work in every State on the coast of the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. One of the discoveries of the last year was that of a new shoal in the channel east of the "Bass Rip," near the island of Nantucket, and of a shoal southeast from Great Point light, near the same island, dangers before unknown, and to be carefully avoided by navigators, and in the discovery of a depth of water in the channel at the entrance of Mobile bay of 20 feet. The first discoveries are important to the foreign, West India and coasting trade; and the latter, not only to Mobile, but to the southwest generally.

From the Report of the Secretary of State to the House of Representatives, it appears that the whole number of passengers who arrived in the United States from foreign countries, during the year 1847, was 239,480.

18th. The annual meeting of the Colonization Society took place at the capitol in Washington, this evening. Mr. Clay presided, and addressed the society in a speech which was loudly applauded. He explained the original purpose of the society, which was to show the practicability of colonizing such of the African race as were in the United States, and of their capacity for self-government. He traced the progress of the colony of Liberia up to the present period, when they had formed a constitutional republic, and had become an inde

pendent state. (They have since expressed a desire to be annexed to the United States.)

Mr. Clay was re-elected President of the Society for the ensuing year. The receipts of the society last year were $32,134; but, $40,000 were required. It has engaged to send out 800 emigrants during the present year.

24th. Horace Wells, dentist in New York, said to be the first who used ether in dentistry, was committed to prison for throwing vitriol on the dresses of certain street girls, on Friday evening, 21st. On Monday morning, the jailer, on opening his prison door, found him dead, sitting on his bunk, with his head resting on one corner of his cell, his right leg hanging over the side of the bunk, and the left lying straight on the mattress. Between his legs, on the mattress, lay an empty vial labeled "Pure Chloroform," a razor, and a penknife. The razor was fixed to a slip of wood running from the back of the blade along the handle, and fastened by a piece of wire and some threads drawn from the sacking of his mattress.

It seems, by a paper written by him a short time before his death, that, under the influence of the ether, which he was in the habit of taking, and the use of which in allaying pain he claims to have discovered, he rushed into the street and committed the act for which he was imprisoned; and in a fit of mortification for the disgrace he had incurred, and probably of the peculiar intoxication to which he was accustomed, he committed suicide.

He formerly lived at Hartford, in Connecticut, where his wife and child still are. Last year he went to Paris to establish his claim as the originator of the use of ether.

Before this occurrence, his character was said to be irreproachable, and several respectable physicians, to whom he was known, say that, on the ether and chloroform practice, he was perfectly insane.

The Congress of Venezuela exhibited this day a scene of violence and bloodshed, which seems to show that with the name and the forms of a republic, everything in that country bends to the brute law of physical force. The disgraceful occurrence alluded to, is thus excused in a letter published in one of the papers.

CARACCAS, 26th Jan., 1848.

For several years past there have been two parties in this country, contending for ascendency and power. In 1846, one of these parties, the oligarchy, succeeded in gaining the elections for president, and appointed one of the chiefs of the war of independence, Gen. Jose Tadeo Monagas. A faction, having been formed in the Congress by a few of the most turbulent and restless spirits, then succeeded in drawing over a majority to support their plans in the chambers of representatives, for the deposal of the president and the

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