As to the distribution of these disasters over the year, 115 occurred in January; 139 in February; 136 in March; 126 in April; 32 in May; 27 in June; 34 in July; 52 in August; 86 in September; 343 in October; 170 in November; 156 in December. As to the localities of their occurrence, 621 were on the east coast: 136 on the south coast; 466 on the west coast of England. On the Irish coast, 99 -a considerable decrease from the number in the previous year, when there were 168. On the Scilly Islands, the number fell from 14 to 3. The number of casualties on the north coasts and the northern islands of Scotland differs very slightly from the number in the previous year: there were 60 in 1858, and 55 in 1859. The most fatal of the rocks and shoals that beset our coasts are -the Goodwin Sands, 7 wrecks; Hasborough Sands, 14 wrecks; Holme Sands, 12 wrecks; the Kentish Knock, 5 wrecks; the Long Sands, 8 wrecks; Seroby Sands, 5 wrecks. The geographical distribution of these disasters is brought home forcibly by a "Wreck Chart," which exhibits by distinguishing marks every casualty on the spot where it occurred. The first feeling of astonishment and terror got over, it will immediately occur that by far the greater number are attributable to preventible causes. This is especially applicable to the " 'collisions," which can very rarely take place without great carelessness on the part of at least one of the commanders, but more generally of both. The total number of collisions was 349; of these those involving total loss was 58-partial loss 291. 116 happened in daylight, between 6 A.M. and 6 P.M. Amid these records of woe and disaster, it is consolatory to reflect that much energy has been shown in adopting means for saving life. The number of life-boats established on our coasts is 158-an increase of 9-and these have all been kept up in a state of efficiency, and have rendered valuable services; and new stations for mortar and rocket apparatus have been provided. By the courage and self-devotion of the crews of the life-boats, 291 persons were rescued from certain death; by the rocket apparatus and assistance from shore, 260. By luggers, coast-guard boats, and small craft, 1009 persons were rescued; by ships and steam-boats, 766; and by individual exertion, 6. To the Report is appended a most valuable memorandum of Rear-Admiral FitzRoy, chief of the Meteorological Department, relative to the gales of October and November. This eminent and scientific observer has deduced from numerous data that the great storm of October 25-26 was a complete horizontal cyclone, which travelled bodily northward, with an area of sweep 300 miles in diameter, and that its influence affected only the breadth of our own island, and the coast of France, exclusive of the west of Ireland. The cyclone travelled northward at the rate of twenty miles an hour; the velocity of the eddy near the centre (where there was a void or lull) near 80 miles an hour. The veering and direction of the rotatory current was very varying. The storm of November 1 was of much the same character. Some phenomena have been remarked, which will serve to guide an accurate and practised observer as to the point whence the cyclone comes, and so to enable him to steer out of it. From these observations, Adm. FitzRoy derives some practical applications of singular interest and value. First, it seems established by observation that, in the northern hemisphere, when the mariner faces the wind, the centre of the storm is on his right hand, in the southern hemisphere it is on his left. Second, it is not only possible, but perfectly feasible, to give warning, by means of the electric telegraph, of the prevalence and probable course of a storm, many hours in advance of its travel. That all storms, if not absolutely cyclones, are more or less curvilinear, and that strong gales are the most curved in their progress, and much stronger towards the centre, and weaker as their curves increase in diameter; and that storms are comparatively limited in extent or area. These valuable suggestions have already borne. fruit, inasmuch as the state of the weather at the ports along our coasts and at the large inland towns is daily and systematically telegraphed to London. STORMS AND SHIPWRECKS.-The disastrous year 1860 was ushered in by a severe gale, which commenced on the 30th December, and committed great damage. The gale was accompanied by thunder, lightning, and hail. In the southwest the wind blew a hurricane. The Sir Henry Pottinger, with a cargo of silver ore, and other valuable freight, insured for 40,000l., was wrecked in Carmarthen Bay; and an American ship, of 2000 tons, laden with cotton, near Barmouth. The centre of the storm appears to have passed over Calne, Wiltshire, where it operated like a tropical tornado. It formed for itself a path of six miles in length, with a breadth of from 100 to 150 yards. Within this spacewhich included a part of Bowood Park-it levelled every obstacle. Large trees were snapped off or uprooted-some were torn up out of the earth and lodged upon adjoining trees-one fine elm was uprooted and reversed, its limbs being forced into the earth, and the trunk and roots raised high in air: straw and hay-ricks were torn to pieces, and scattered cottages were unroofed and thrown down; a heavy four-wheeled waggon was thrown or forced over a high hedge. Heavy lumps of ice fell, which killed in their descent numerous birds, hares, and rabbits. The passage of the tornado lasted not more than five minutes. Its boundaries were sharply defined: without its limits the trees were little injured; in some instances one-half a cottage thatch and a corner of the building were swept away, and the remainder left. In Blackland Park, the seat of Mr. Marshall Hall, the force of the tornado was specially exhibited. Hundreds of trees were thrown down-trees eight and ten feet in circumference were snapped like matchwood; others, especially heavy-topped firs, were blown out of the plantation across the road into an adjoining field. Hundreds of persons have since visited the scene of devastation. During the gale of the 1st January, the Arethusa, of Glasgow, with a valuable cargo of tobacco, &c., was wrecked near Wrexford, and many other disasters were reported. In the month, 206 vessels were wrecked or damaged by collisions on the British coasts; the number of lives lost, 53; but no fewer than 389 persons were rescued. Accounts from Gibraltar state that a gale of almost unprecedented violence raged there on the 7th and 8th inst., when a great number of merchant vessels were wrecked there and along the coast of Spain. The Spanish squadron, on the coast of Morocco, suffered very severely. Two war-steamers were wrecked, and a fleet of armed feluccas, or gun-boats, driven ashore; the rest of the squadron, including several steamers, were driven from their anchors. The 1. RAILWAY DISASTERS.-A serious collision, by which many passengers were injured and much property destroyed, occurred late in the evening of the 1st January, near Forest Gate Junction of the Eastern Counties' Railway. 6.30 train left Barking for London somewhat behind its time, and was passing the junction with the main line at the moment when the Norwich up-train-proceeding in the same direction-came up. The engine-driver of the Barking train pushed on, probably hoping to pass on before the other train, when the engine of the latter struck his last carriage in a slanting direction, shivering it to pieces. Most providentially there was not a single passenger in this carriage. The carriage next preceding it, and which was full of passengers, was thrown off the rails, dragged some distance along the permanent way, until it came in contact with a telegraph post, by which it was overturned onto an embankment. The coupling was broken by the shock, and the rest of the train rushed on uninjured, except by the momentary check. The case was different with the Norwich train, which, be ing the striking body, was much injured by the sudden arrest of its vis motus. The engine, on the collision with the Barking carriage, sprung round and shot across the permanent way, where it buried itself in the embankment; the tender was disconnected and thrown across the rails, and the break-carriage was thrown off the rails and hurled to the abutment of the bridge, where it was turned up onto its end and crushed into a second class carriage. Eleven persons, in both trains, received injuries more or less severe; and the driver and guard of the Norwich train were much hurt. On Friday, the 27th January, a number of labourers were employed on the works of the London and Chatham and Dover line; they were excavating a cutting through Beaksbourne hill, at a depth of 45 feet. The heavy rains had loosened the soil of the banks, and a large land-slip took place, which overwhelmed three of the men. So large was the mass of fallen earth, that the readiest way of rescuing the men was thought to be by sinking a shaft. It was not until the following Sunday night that the workmen found the corpses. On the 13th February, on the Ramsgate line, the lines being partly blocked with snow, a passenger train and an engine were allowed to meet on the same line. Fortunately three only of the passengers received injuries. On the 18th February, about 1.30 A. M., the mail train from Edinburgh to London came into collision with a train of empty coal waggons near Wigan. The engine crushed three of the waggons and was then itself forced off the line and fell onto its side. Some of the passenger carriages were damaged; but fortunately there were not more than half-a-dozen travellers and none were materially injured. The pointsman's thigh was broken, four Post-office guards, and a guard of the train, were hurt somewhat severely. On the same day a passenger train ran off the main line through the facing points into a siding near Plymouth, and came into collision with an engine. Three of the passengers and three of the railway servants received injuries. On the 27th February a passenger train, on the Edinburgh and Glasgow railway, overtook and came into collision with a goods train near Greenhill junction, and seven passengers received injuries from the shock. 4. FRAUDULENT ATTORNEYS.-At the Central Criminal Court, David Hughes, 50, described as a solicitor, was placed at the bar to plead to various indictments; the charge which was proceeded with being that of not surrendering to proceedings in bankruptcy, under the Bankruptcy Act. The case of this prisoner was another instance of those frightful social crimes which were exemplified in the cases of John Sadleir and the brothers Hall. David Hughes was a solicitor in very extensive practice, first in the Old Jewry, with a partner, and after 1851, in Gresham Street, singly. He was very extensively and confidentially employed by wealthy clients; but, so far at least as appeared by these proceedings, more as a prudent adviser in the investment of money-as a scrivener, in short-than in the ordinary course of an attorney's business. He was himself, to all appearance, an open and free-hearted man, who, having a large practice and a good position, could afford to keep a large establishment; and in fact it was shown that his domestic expenditure was at the rate of 4000l. a-year. In the year 1858 all this splendid respectability collapsed and laid open to view a hideous ruin. Mr. Hughes suddenly left the country and fled to Australia, with his wife and family. It was then discovered that this trusted adviser had for many years misappropriated the funds of his too-confident clients, entrusted to him for investment; and that he had habitually fabricated securities with the object of allaying suspicion and evading detection. It turned out that his liabilities-the bulk of them being tainted with fraud---amounted to no less than 170,0007.; only between 4000l. and 5000l. has since been realized for his creditors, and his assignees have the further comfort of being made parties to seven Chancery suits. This atrocious peculator was followed to his place of refuge, captured, and brought back, and was now placed at the bar to answer for his malpractices. A considerable number of the prisoner's victims gave evidence of the frauds he had committed upon them. The sums misappropriated varied greatly in amount; for the prisoner at least in the later pe riod of his career, when he had large defalcations to conceal by making/prompt payments of necessary sums-laid his hands on all that came into his net. The estate of a deceased lady was lessened 70001., the lowest amount named was 2507. Nor were the victims always of the confiding and unsuspicious class. Messrs. Currie, the bankers, were cheated of 2500l., and a London Alderman of a considerable sum. The prisoner, after two days' Another offender of this class was Evans, an attorney of Farnham, who made a very indiscriminate sweep of his clients. He had appropriated trust-money to the extent of 18,0001. in one case; he had "invested" 1981. for a poor labourer; 240l. for a jobbing carpenter; and numerous sums he had abstracted from many parties under many pretences. When he could keep up the game no longer he became bankrupt, as a "scrivener," for 33,000l., alleging unsuccessful building as the cause of his failure. The Commissioner refused his certificate, hinting that it was a proper case for a criminal court. 6. WRECK OF THE STEAMER "NORTHERNER." Advices have been received of the wreck of the Pacific MailCompany's Steamer Northerner, on the 6th January, on Cape Mendocino, between St. Francisco and Oregon. The ship had struck upon a rock and received so much damage that it was thought necesary to run her on shore. In landing, seventeen passengers and twenty-one of the crew were drowned; among the former was Mr. Blomfield, a son of the late Bishop of London. 8. DESTRUCTION OF ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH, DUBLIN.- At 10 A. M. the parish church of St. Andrew's, Dublin, better known as the Round Church, was observed to be on fire, and in less than two hours the roof fell in, and the whole interior was destroyed. The building had no pretensions to architectural beauty, but was a substantial and commodious pile. The fire was probably caused by the over-heating of flues. 10. AWFUL CATASTROPHE IN THE UNITED STATES. Although the Chronicle of the ANNUAL REGISTER contains the record of many harrowing catastrophes that have occurred during the century of its existence, it records none more terrible than that which is now reported from the United States. It may be doubted, indeed, whether in any country or in any age so many human beings have ever perished so terribly by an accident of ordinary life. War may produce parallel scenes of horror, but the annals of peace may be searched in vain for any calamity so appalling as the disaster at Lawrence. In the manufacturing settlement so called, and situate on the Merrimac river, in the State of Massachusetts, stood several mills, as large apparently as the most capacious structures of the same character at Manchester or Rochdale. One of these establishments, known as the Pemberton Mills, was founded some seven years ago, and gave employment to nearly 1000 operatives. The building is said to have been originally of bad construction; the foundations were imperfect, the walls were weak, and pierced by numerous apertures, which detracted still further from the strength of the fabric. As the weight of the machinery was added to that of the numerous work people engaged in the business, it will not be thought surprising that the mill should have fallen; but the ruin was rendered unspeakably hideous by the |