News Items.

The Seventh Annual Examination of the children of the Hebrew Sunday School of Philadelphia, took place as usual on the Sunday after Purim, the 30th of March last, at the Synagogue Mikveh Israel, in Cherry Street. There have been about one hundred and thirty children under instruction during the past year, and the examination amply proved that the labour of the teachers had not been in vain. This institution has again met with the approbation of the parents and friends of the scholars, and we learn that the donations received on the occasion amounted to one hundred and forty-two dollars. The school continues as heretofore under the superintendence of its first founder, who, we trust, will long be spared to us, to aid in the good work in which she has so effectively embarked. One evidence of the good results arising from the course of instruction pursued, may be found in the fact, that several who are now teachers, were scholars in this school, and have acquired their ability to impart instruction from the instruction they themselves received.

Grisons, Switzerland.—The Federal Gazette contains a letter from Coire, Canton of the Grisons, which reports as follows: On the 24th of December, all the Israelites residing in the city were called before the judge of instruction, who declared to them that they must quit the canton immediately, by order of a decree of the lesser council, founded upon a law of the grand council, stating that the Israelites shall not, henceforward, carry on business in the canton, and that no license for this purpose shall be granted them any more. The Israelites immediately addressed a petition to the government, to withdraw the order which was levelled against them. The lesser council answered that there had been no opportunity to take their request into consideration.

England.—It seems at length the intention of the British government to remove partially the civil disabilities under which the Jews labour. When first we saw it announced in the papers that Sir Robert Peel meant to introduce a bill for the relief of the Jews, we had hoped that it was a measure equalizing Jews and Christians all over England; but the present measure is not only partial in its details but inoperative in Scotland and Ireland. Probably at a future day more concessions will be granted, till the foul blot of intolerance will be quite wiped out from the statute book. We quote from the Voice of Jacob of March 14.

“Her Majesty’s government, with a view to render the anomaly of the position in which conscientious Jews, elected by their fellow-citizens to municipal offices, have hitherto been placed, have themselves originated a bill in Parliament, of which the following is a copy. It was introduced on Friday night last, by the highest legal dignitary in the realm, and read a second time on Monday night.

A Bill intituled an Act, for the Relief of Persons of the Jewish Religion elected to Municipal Offices.

“Whereas the declaration prescribed by an act of the ninth year of the reign of King George the Fourth, intituled ‘an act for repealing so much of several acts as imposes the necessity of receiving the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper as a qualification for certain offices and employments,’ on admission into office in municipal corporations, cannot conscientiously be made and subscribed by persons of the Jewish religion:

Be it therefore enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that, instead of the declaration required to be made and subscribed by the said recited act, every person of the Jewish religion be permitted to make and subscribe the following declaration within one calendar month next before or upon his admission into the office of Mayor, Alderman, Recorder, Bailiff, Town Clerk, Councillor, or any other municipal office in any city, town corporate, borough, or cinque port, within England and Wales, or the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed:

“ ‘I. A. B., being a person professing the Jewish religion, having conscientious scruples against subscribing the declaration contained in an act passed in the ninth year of the reign of King George the Fourth, intituled “an act for repealing so much of several acts as imposes the necessity of receiving the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper as a qualification for certain offices and employments,” do solemnly, sincerely, and and truly declare, that I will not exercise any power or authority of influence which I may possess by virtue of the office of —— to weaken or injure the Protestant Church as it is by law established in England, nor to disturb the said church, or the bishops and clergy of the said church, in the possession of any right or privileges to which such church or the said bishops and clergy may be by law entitled.’ ”

“II. And be it enacted, that such declaration shall be of the same force and effect as if the person making it had made and subscribed the declaration aforesaid contained in the said act of the ninth year of the reign of King George the Fourth.”

Erratum.—In the list of the officers of the Richmond Publication Society, we omitted the name of Henry Hyman, Treasurer, and the name of the Recording Secretary should be T. K. Lyons.