The month has been distinguished by an unusual number of steamboat explosions, railroad casualties, crimes and accidents of various sorts. The steamer _Brilliant_, on her way up the Mississippi from New Orleans, on the 28th of September, while near Bayou Sara, burst her boiler, killing fifteen or twenty persons, wounding as many more, and making a complete wreck of the vessel. A brig on Lake Erie, having left Buffalo for Chicago, sprung a leak on the 30th of September, and sunk within an hour. About twenty persons were drowned, only one of those on board escaping. All but he got into the longboat, which capsized; he fastened himself to the foremast of the brig, which left him, as the vessel touched bottom, about four feet out of water. He remained there two days when he was rescued by a passing steamer. A very severe storm swept over the northeast coast of British America on the 5th of October, doing immense injury to the fishing vessels, nearly a hundred of them being driven ashore. About three hundred persons are supposed to have perished in the wrecks, and great numbers of dead bodies had been drifted ashore. The steamer _James Jackson_, while near Shawneetown, in Illinois, on the 21st of September, burst her boiler, killing and wounding thirty-five persons, and tearing the boat to pieces. The scene on board at the time of the explosion is described as having been heart-rending. A duel was fought at Vienna, S.C. on the 27th of September, in which Mr. Smyth, one of the editors of the Augusta Constitutionalist, was wounded by a ball through the thigh from the pistol of his antagonist, Dr. Thomas of Augusta. The meeting grew out of a newspaper controversy, Smyth taking offense at an article in the Chronicle of which Thomas avowed himself the author.--Another duel, with a still more serious result took place in Brownsville, Texas, on the 8th. The parties were Mr. W.H. Harrison and Mr. W.G. Clarke, who met in the street with five-barreled pistols. Clarke fell at the second fire, receiving his antagonist's ball near the heart.--Mr. W. Laughlin, an alderman in the city of New Orleans, and a very respectable and influential citizen, was killed by William Silk, another alderman, on the 29th of September: the affray grew out of political differences. The great Railroad Conspiracy trials at Detroit terminated on the 25th of September, by a verdict of guilty against twelve of the prisoners and acquitting the rest. Two of them were sentenced to the State Prison for ten years, six for eight years, and four for five years. Father MATHEW has returned from his visit to the Western States, and has been spending a few weeks in New York. Some of the most influential gentlemen of New York city have appealed to the public for contributions to form a fund of twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars for his aid: it is seconded by a very strong letter from Mr. CLAY. Father Mathew is soon to leave the United States for Ireland.