India.

S INGAPORE . —AVe regret to learn from a letter from Singapore , that R- W " . Bro . J . C . Smith , Deputy Provincial Grand Master , lias been compelled by ill-health to resign active connection with the Craft . The following letter was addressed to him by R . AV . Bro . W « H . Read , Provincial Grand Master , on the 30 th April . After a career of thirty-seven years in the Craft , such an actnowledgmenfi of his worth must be cheering and grateful . Bro Read was initiated by Bro . Smithwhen lodge ZetlandNo .

. , , 748 , was first opened . "To Right AVorshipful Brother J . C . Smith , Deputy Provincial Grand Master , Singapore . "Dear Sir and Brother , —I have received with great concern your letter of the 28 th instant , because it informs me that , owin" to the debilitated state of your health , you find yourself obliged to relinquish all further connection -with the Craft . hesitate to of the office of

" I should accept your z-esignation Deputy Provincial Grand Master , had your wishes on the subject been less strongly expressed ; 'but with the probability of my absence from the province at no distant time , and the physical impossibility on your part to perforin the important duties of the position you wish to relinquish , I should be wanting in my duty to the Craft did I notas 1 do most unwillinglyaccept it .

, , " I need not assure you that I view with deep and sincere regret your retirement from among us ; I shall never forget the personal and official kindness you have always shown to me during my Masonic career ; and I feel sure that the same feeling pervades the Brethren of both lodges . Should returning health permit you again to visit us , which I most since 2 -ely trust it will , reception among us will ever be such as to prove the hih

yonr g estimation in which you are held , and how truly your efforts to promote the prosperity of the Craft are appreciated . "Believe me , clear Sir and R . AA . Bro ., yours very sincerely and fraternally , ( Signed ) " AV . H , READ , P . G . M ., E . A . "Singapore , 30 th April , 1 S 62 . "

The Week.

THE WEEK .

THE COURT . —The Queen has returned from Balmoral , and on Holiday will sail for Antwerp . letters from Berlin mention that the royal family of Prussia are preparing to receive Prince Alfred , who is expected to visit the King at Babelsborg ; that the infant daughter of the Crown Princess is to be baptised in presence of Queen A ictorin , the Prince of \ A ales standing godfather ; and the Queen is to stay as the guest of her

brotherin-law for four weeks . It is pretty plainly stated that the marriage of the Prince of AA ales will take place in the spring of next year . The choice of his Royal Highness has fallen upon the Princess Alexandrina of Denmark—a royal lady who is spoken of as " in every way worthy of her destiny . " No alteration appears to have been made in the arrangement that the

Prince of Wales shall remain on the Continent over tho 9 th of November , when his Royal Highness will attain his majority . The first of the many projected monuments to the memory of the Prince Consort was commenced on Friday tho 22 ntl , when the Queen performed the melancholy office of laying the first of a heap of stones , or " cairn , " that is to be raised on

fie summit of Craig Lnurigon , near Balmoral . The Pritiee of Wales and the other members of the Royal family in the Highlands accompanied their royal mother on this sadly touching ceremony . AVe need hardly remind our readers that a great stone heap is one of the oldest forms of commemor . iting the death of a great chief , and that it prevailed in Scotland longer ,

perhaps , than anywhere else . GENERAL HOSTE NEWS . —Tho usual summer diseases begin to wake their mark on the health of the metropolitan population . I « e deaths from diarrhoea have nearly doubled since the begin .-lu ng of the present month . The total number of deaths during the week was 1254 , which is still below the ten years' corrected average ; hut if the deaths from the cholera which raged about

The Week.

this season in 1854 were deducted , the number would then be 60 above the average . The births were 1 S 50 , which is 38 above the corrected average of the last ten years . It is stated that the vacant primacy has been filled up by the appointment of the Rev . M . G . Beresford , lord Bishop of Kilmore , to the archiepiscopa * see . It is added that the bishopric of ICilmore has been conferred on the Very Rev . H . Versehoyle , Dean of Ferris . Mr .

Roupell , whose extraordinary confession of his crime has been tho subject of much comment , stands committed to take his trial at the September sessions of the Central Criminal Court , aiid is now lodged in Horsemonger-lane Gaol , Southwark . He is committed on his own confession ; hut there is some doubt whether , if he plead Not Guilty , that confession will he received

as evidence against him ; and it would be difficult to procure other evidence , as we believe the parties whose signatures are said to be forged are all dead . The protracted examination of Constance AVilson , the woman accused of carrying on a wholesale system of poisoning , has been brought to a close , she being committed for trial on two separate charges of causing the deaths

of Mrs . Mary Soames and Mrs . Ann Atkinson . A melancholy case of poisoning hy mistake has heen elicited at a coroner ' s inquest . A woman went to a chemist ' s shop for a dose of salts for her husband , and was served hy mistake with a packet of oxalic acid . The packet was labelled " poison" very conspicuously ; but unfortunately neither husband nor wife was able to read . The

poison was , therefore , ' administered , and in ten minutes the man was a corpse . The jury iu their verdict censured the carelessness which could admit of a packet labelled " iioison " being given away in a chemist's shop , where the shopmen , at any rate , if not their customers , are expected to be able to read . At the Central Criminal Court , a man named Osbourn pleaded guilty to a charge of having unlawfully apijropriated stock ,

standing in the Bank , of England , of which he was trustee , to his own use . It was urged , in extenuation of punishment , that his head was affected , but Mr . Justice Williams sentenced him to three years' penal servitude . George Wilkin , a young fellow who forged a cheque on the Bank of Ireland in Dublin , by which he got a draft on the Bank of England for £ 2 , 000 , was brought up at the Mansion House , when application was

made that he should be handed over to the Dublin authorities to be dealt with by them , and it was ordered that this should be done . A man calling himself John lee was brought up at the Town Hall , Brighton , ou Tuesday , charged with uttering forged Sank of England notes . Several forged notes have been passed in Brighton , printed upon the paper which was stolen

from the mills of Messrs . Portal and Co ., and it is sworn that Lee changed one at least of these at a jeweller ' s shop . The notes passed have all false endorsements , lee protested bis innocence , but he was remanded for further examination . George Gardiner , the murderer of his fellow-servant , Sarah Kirby , at Ontliill Farm , near Redditch , on the 23 rd of April ,

was executed at Warwick on Tuesday . Richard Burke , who was convicted at the last Clonmel assizes for having poisoned his wife by the administrations of strychnine , was executed on Monday . The culprit appeared to be very contrite , but he made no public confession of his guilt . On Tuesday the trial of the prisoners charged with the murder of Police Constable

Jump was brought to a conclusion . The result was the conviction of AVard and Burke on the capital charge , and of Johnson for harbouring them with a guilty knowledge ; but Hipwell was acquitted . In the cases of AVarcIe and Burke , the jury added to their verdict a recommendation to mercy ; but the Judge , in passing sentence of death upon them , said he saw but little chance of the recommendation being attended to . Johnson was sentenced to IS months' imprisonment . At the