News Items.

Philadelphia.—On the 27th of January another ball was given in aid of the newly established German Hebrew Ladies’ Benevolent Society. We understand that the net proceeds were about three hundred dollars.

New Orleans.—On the 15th of January, the day appointed by the Governor of Louisiana as one of general thanksgiving, the Israelites assembled in the German Synagogue. The day and opportunity were worthily embraced to form an auxiliary to our Publication Society; and, if the same zeal would but characterize other congregations, we should soon be able to found an institution which would call out Jewish talent, and regard it by pecuniary support and an approving public. Let the subject be agitated where as yet it has received but indifferent countenance.

The officers of the Auxiliary Society of New Orleans consist of J. L. Levy, President; Edward Leon, Vice President; A. Emanuel, Treasurer; and G. S. Goodman, Cor. and Rec. Secretary.

American Jewish Publication Society.—We beg to acknowledge the following receipts of money: From the Auxiliary Society in New Orleans, one hundred dollars; from the Auxiliary Society in Richmond, Va., sixty-three dollars; from Columbia, S. C., fourteen dollars; Mrs. R. Benjamin, of Beaufort, S. C., ten dollars, (donation); and from Miss P. Moïse, Superintendent of the Sunday School, K. K. B. E. Charleston, five dollars; besides several single subscriptions from New York, Yonkers, and Baltimore.

London.—We are requested to state that in addition to the public schools in London, mentioned in several late numbers by our correspondent. S. S., there is the Talmud Torah School, which contains twenty-one boys, who study the Bible, Hebrew, German, Rashi, the Mishnah, and Shulchan Aruch; they are apprenticed out at the age of fourteen; and many who had been educated there have held respectable situations.

New York.—We learn that the Elm Street congregation of New York have presented to one of their trustees, Mr. Leon M. Ritterband, a silver pitcher, as a testimonial of their high esteem in which they hold the services rendered the congregation by Mr. R.

Strange Contest.—There died lately of Berlin an Austrian baroness: being considered a Christian, an undertaker of that confession came to take the measure of the coffin, when the Jewish officer, whose province it is to superintend Jewish burials, made his unexpected appearance, and claimed the corpse as that of a Jewess. A letter having been found, in which the deceased declared that she had never renounced the religion of her forefathers, and that she wished to be buried according to the Jewish rites; the contest ended in favour of the Israelite.—V. of J.

Justice To Jewish Converts.—We read some time ago, in the Morning Chronicle, the following characteristic judicial decision in the affair of a Jewish convert. A Jew of Tripoli, who had become Mahometan, returned again to the religion of his fathers. The Bey applied to Constantinople as to punishment to be inflicted on the renegade. He was ordered to send the prisoner to Constantinople. Here, according to the practice of the Mahometans in similar cases, it was expected that death would be the punishment inflicted upon him. But the assembled Ulemas decided otherwise. The Jew was released, and even permitted publicly to profess his religion. What a progress of tolerance among the bigoted Mahometans.—Ib.

Constantinople.—A fire, which broke out at Constantinople on the 25th of last October, has consumed the greater part of the Jewish quarter, and destroyed several Synagogues. Distress, starvation, and misery of all kinds prevail among the unfortunate Jewish population.—Ib.