1829.] 
[ 221 J 
MONTHLY PROVINCIAL OCCURRENCES. 
NORTHUMBERLAND.—There are no less 
than five Associations for the Prosecutions of 
Felons advertised in the Wewcastle Ccurant, as 
having just held their annual meetings, viz. Ur- 
peth, Newbura, Witton Gilbert, Belsay, and Chir- 
ton ; the number of prisoners at the county guar- 
ter sessions does not appear to be near so nume- 
rous as in many other counties. 
There is a nest of resurrection men now prow- 
ling about all parts of the country. A corpse was 
lately taken up at Newcastle, and the grave so 
neatly made up, that no person could have dis- 
covered the robbery if the body had not heen 
seized at the coach office. 
DURHAM.—A skeleton was discovered a week 
or two back, in the kitchen of an old house, in 
‘Warren-street. Sunderland, about two feet below 
the floor, Much curiosity was excited by the cir- 
cumstance. 
We learn, from the bills of mortality for the 
city of Durham, that 252 baptisms, 56 marriages, 
and 257 burials have taken place in the year ; 
being a decrease of 5 in baptisms, and of 4 in mar- 
riages ; and an increase of 62 in burials. 
Bills of mortality, in the parochial chapelry of 
Barnardcastle, for 1818—baptisms, 175; mar- 
Tiages, 25; burials 104. 
A fine specimen of the red-coated diver (coly 
wubus stellatus, Lin.) was shot, on the 12th of 
January, on the river Wear, near Framwellgate- 
bridge, Durham. 
CUMBERLAND.—At a meeting held at the 
grand jury room, Carlisle, Jan. 10, of the sub- 
scribers fayourable to the Rail Road betwixt 
Newcastle and Carlisle, it was resolved, that ap- 
_plication be made to all the members of the Legis- 
ature, connected with this part of the county, 
‘soliciting their active support of the Bill about to 
be introduced into Parliament. About 100 share- 
holders have already paid, in Carlisle, their de- 
"posits, upon their shares, amounting to nearly 
£25,000, 
On Christmas day, there was, in the vicarge 
garden at Alston, a gentianella, in full flower. 
This was the more remarkable, when we con- 
wider, that Alston is the highest inhabited town 
in England, being 1,460 feet above the level of 
the sea. 
. YORKSHIRE.—The corporation of the Hull 
_ Trinity House have given notice that a light has 
been established by night at the entrance (between 
.the piers) of Bridlington harbour, and a red flag 
_by day, which will be hoisted when there shall be 
seven feet depth of water on the flood tide, and 
‘remain up till the tide shall have ebbed the same. 
‘The delegates from the different towuships in 
the parish of Halifax for negociating the business 
_of the Vicarial tithes, have arrived at the termi- 
. nation of their labours, the result of which is quite 
satisfactory to the parish. A bill will, in conse- 
quence, be introduced tn Parliament early in the 
next session, which, when passed to a law, will 
eure to the present, and all succeeding Vicars of 
Halifax, an incame of about £2,000 per annum! 
~~ 
An accurate census of the population of Halifax 
has just been completed, and the following is the 
‘result compared with different periods, beginning 
with that of 1574, « when,”*says Camden, “ there 
were more human beings than beasts ;’—1574, 
12,000—1811, 73,415—1821, 93,050—1828, 104,259. 
‘The ancient custom of tolling the Deyil’s pass- 
ing bell on Christmas eye, at Dewsbury, which 
has’been discontinued for some years, at the re- 
quest of the worthy Vicar, has this year been re- 
vived. The practice originated in the belief, that 
the Devil died when the Saviour of the world was 
born.—Leeds Mercury. 
The sixth annual general meeting of the Ship 
Owner’s Society was held at the Mansion Honse, 
Hull, Jan. 14, when it was unanimously resolved, 
‘“That this meeting, after another year's expe- 
rience, are more strongly convinced of the de- 
plorably depressed state of the shipping interest 
of the United Kingdom, and recommend to the 
Committee for the ensuing year, to pursue all 
such measures as they may deem advisable, in en- 
deayouring to procure some relief frum this de- 
pression.’’—The chairman stated that during the 
past year the entry into the port of Hull was 858 
British ships, being 105 less than 1827 ; and 640 
foreign ships, being 124 less than 1827. 
A few months ago a Roman Catholic Defence 
Society was instituted at York: several highly 
respectable gentlemen were named on the com- 
mittee, most of whom have since withdrawn, the 
society having been converted into one of offence, 
and not of defence, by the circulation of tracts of 
the most seditious tendency. 
A new sect of Christians has sprung up at 
Grassington, in Crayen. They call themselves 
Nazarene Canaites, who believe that no religious 
assemblies are lawful except they are held in a 
barn, as our Lord was born in one, 
A singular modification of the aurora borealis 
was observed in the vicinity of Hull, in the 
evening of the 26th of December. It wore the 
appearance of a broad belt of pale, but very vivid 
light, forming the segment of an immense circle. 
It was visible for nearly an hour. 
A swallow was seen flying in the streets of 
Hull, in the last week of December, a most un- 
usual occurrence, 
The branch bank of the Bank of England, at 
Hull, commenced its operations on the Ist. inst. 
The workmen who are employed in laying out 
the grounds round the museum, now erecting on 
the ancient site of St. Mary’s Abbey, York, for the 
Yorkshire Philosophical Society, on the 12th and 
13th of January, found seven statues, which had 
been laid at the bottom of the foundation of a 
wall, which wasten feet thiek, and six feet under- 
-ground, and which were in a very good state of 
- preservation. 
One*was a'statue of Moses, and 
four of the others were, most probably, the four 
evangelists. ‘I'wo of them are without heads. 
These statues aré) very well executed, and were 
originally embellished in all the splendour whieh 
painting and gilding could impart. Of course 
little of this now remains ; the number of years 
they haye been imbedded, having obliterated 
