• French engineers find the highest point of the Panama route stands 130–140 metres above sea level — far more than the 11–12 metres previously claimed — complicating rival plans for a Nicaragua canal only 26 kilometres long.
• Algerian insurgent leader Bou-Maza narrowly escaped capture when his exhausted horse gave out; his brother and several horsemen were killed by Captain Fleury's spahis, and his entire camp retinue was seized by Colonel d'Allonville's cavalry.

• Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are to arrive in Antwerp on 6 September, where the banks of the Scheldt and the tower of Notre-Dame will be illuminated and fireworks discharged on the water before she departs at dawn on her yacht.
• Prince Albert paid 150 pounds sterling for the coat Nelson wore when he received his mortal wound at Trafalgar — a sum the paper calls modest compared to the 22,000 pounds once paid for the coat Charles XII wore at the Battle of Poltava.

• A band of fifty to sixty armed draft-evaders raided four homes near Pontivy, forcing one man to dig his own grave before robbing him of 300–400 francs, and threatening all victims with death should they report the attack.

• At the Grand Prix de Sculpture competition, eight students depicted Theseus finding his father's sword; critic Delécluze singles out M. Guillaume's figure as the strongest entry, though he faults it for grace more suited to a Bacchus than a hero.

Music

• A benefit concert at the Hôtel-de-Ville for victims of the Monville factory disaster will feature six unpublished compositions by Félicien David alongside a full performance of his celebrated ode-symphony Le Désert.