17.—Mr. E. E. Benest, City Surveyor, tendered his resignation to the Norwich Town Council, after eight years’ service. He was succeeded, on March 14th, by Mr. Thomas D. Barry. 20.—Lord Sondes was presented by his Norfolk tenantry with a piece of plate, of the value of 140 gs., as a birthday gift and as a testimony of the esteem in which he was held by them as a landlord and nobleman. FEBRUARY. 7.—A fire occurred on the premises of Mr. W. C. Aberdein, pastry cook, Dove Street, Norwich. The outbreak itself was not of a serious character, but in a room upon the adjoining premises of Mr. Cubitt, ironmonger, was stored upwards of 400 lbs. of gunpowder, which was safely removed in wet blankets. The circumstance caused much sensation, and the practicability of establishing a public powder magazine was discussed by the magistrates. 20.—Died at King’s Lynn, Mr. J. F. Reddie, many years organist at St. Margaret’s church, in that town. 24.—A petition against the return of Sir Edmund Lacon and Sir H. Stracey, as members of Parliament for Great Yarmouth, in April, 1859, commenced before a Special Committee of the House of Commons. The petitioners, Mr. Joseph Bayly, surgeon, and Mr. Robert Pilgrim, linen draper, alleged bribery, undue influence, treating, and intimidation. On March 1st the Committee declared the members to have been duly elected, and were of opinion that one of the witnesses, Henry Fayerman, had been guilty of wilful and corrupt perjury. The members were received with great enthusiasm on their return to Yarmouth, and were entertained at a public dinner, given at the Theatre, on April 12th. At the Westminster Police Court, on June 11th, Fayerman was committed for trial on the charge of perjury, but at the Old Bailey, on July 12th, the jury gave a verdict of acquittal. 28.—A terrible gale raged throughout the country. At Norwich, between ten o’clock and noon, the thermometer rose from 36 degrees to 47 degrees; at two o’clock it registered 45 degrees. The wind blew from the west, veering occasionally to the north and to W.N.W., but during the height of the gale it blew west by north. Great damage was done to buildings, trees were uprooted, and “locomotion was extremely difficult and laborious, and, indeed, quite out of the question to those of the fair sex whose fashionable expanded dresses, assuming the properties of parachutes, compelled them to undertake a species of aerial voyage for a distance of a few yards, or exposed them to the still more unpleasant predicament of having their parachute garments inverted.” There were many disasters along the coast, and several lives were lost. MARCH.