would nevertheless appear to be a doubtful mercy to clear our streets and garrets of distressed women by means of partial emigration subscriptions, with no attendant precaution against an immediate supply of still larger numbers to run the same course of wretchedness. The enormous preponderance of the female over the male population in London is attributable to those tempting opportunities of employ ment existing in a great city, which lure so many girls to London with utter inability to resist its snares, with the laxity of morals that is more or less the result of country breeding, and with no pleasing memory connected with the squalid homes they have left to aid in keeping them within the ways of virtue. Such remedies do but film the ulcerous place, leaving the more grievous malady to fester unseen. What has been the growth of the neglect of centuries cannot be removed by the activity of a few earnest months or years. The people must be educated, and their homes improved. More appalling even than the cuses which reveal depths of bodily destitution, are those which now and then disclose the more startling depths of mental ignorance and neglect concealed beneath our hollow shows of civilisation. On the proposed swearing at Guildhall of a crossing-sweeper lad of fourteen, to witness an assault, we had not many days ago one of these appalling revelations. The boy looked so amazed on taking "the Book," that the worthy Alderman was moved to question him on his moral condition; whereupon it appeared that he did not know what an oath was, that he did not know what a New Testament was, that he could not read, that he had never said his prayers, that he did not know what prayers were, that he did not know what God was, that though he had heard of the Devil he did not know him, and that in fact all he knew was how to sweep the crossing; while manifestly prominent among the things he did not know, was how to speak other than the truth. The latter was not the inference, however, of the worthy magistrate; he did not recognise the excellent soil, only barren because no seed had been sown there; but straightway, after lamenting over the deplorable ignorance of the unfortunate child, he rejected his evidence peremptorily as that of a creature who knew nothing whatever of the obligation to tell the truth. Now, admitting to its fullest extent the brutal and lamentable ignorance which knew nothing out of the world or in the world except to sweep the crossing, it is also clear that the ignorance extended equally to the arts of subter fuge, dissimulation, and false pretences; and that this boy's evidence was refused by the magistrate simply because he did not know how to feign that he did know. Against himself, or rather against society to which the shame belongs, he had borne true testimony; and therefore his testimony in regard to others was to be excluded. The magistrate is not to be blamed; the magisterial decision was strictly in accordance with the practice of English jurisprudence: but it is surely high time to fling down such ridiculous barriers of custom and prejudice, stumbling-blocks to truth as they must always be; and, taking whatever evidence is proffered, quantum valeat, leave the judge and jury to discover the precise amount of value. Another, and very different kind of examination, going on almost concurrently in one of the superior courts (that of a witness in a trial for forgery), elicited a series of facts as little credible, and quite as disgraceful. Imagine a young gentleman, bearing her Majesty's commission, ordering diamond rings one day, and taking the diamonds out of their settings and exchanging them for money the next. Conceive the same creditor being paid (with, of course, enormous deduction), by what he had himself supplied not many days before. Imagine one creditor supplying the jewellery one month, by which another creditor was paid the next month. Fancy a grown young man, of three or four and twenty, gravely deposing, in a court of justice, that it was his habit to take rubies and diamonds out of their settings "partly to amuse himself by weighing them, and partly to see how they looked out of their settings," protesting at the same time, that of what became of the settings he knew nothing. The trial ended in a verdict of forgery; the victim forged upon being this ingenuous youth; and one cannot help marvelling much that the task of swindling such a gentleman should have involved anything so troublesome or dangerous as forgery. Mischief is too precious a thing to be wasted, as Jonathan Wild remarks; and never does forgery appear to have been so thrown away as upon Lieutenant Clements. It was only to ask and have. It was an ordinary thing for him to be satisfied with 250%. in exchange for a bill for 500l.; and while almost all his dealings were by means of jewellery, he gravely assured the Court, that he knew nothing whatever of its value. Moreover, his memory, under examination, never amounted to more than an "impression." The crossing-sweeper boy knew everything of what he did not know, while the lieutenant of dragoons knew nothing of what he did know. The one had used his opportunities to, at least, the extent of his means; the other had thrown away everything, means, opportunities, and friends. If the evidence of the one was rejected utterly, should the evidence of the other have been implicitly received? One final word must be given to a case of too frequent occurrence, and too vital importance to large classes of unprotected and unfriended people, not to deserve active sympathy. A melancholy catastrophe of fire at sea has re-opened the question often discussed as to the proper equipment of emigration ships. There can be no question that the Caleb Grimshaw was neither provided nor commanded as she ought to have been, and that such boats as she had, at the best quite insufficient for a service of real danger, were in no condition for use at the time of the accident. Some compulsory means should be found of furnishing every such ship with boats fit to carry large numbers in the heaviest sea, and of making it part of the daily duty of seamen (proverbially negligent in such matters) to keep them always in a state for launching and for instant use. NARRATIVE OF POLITICS. THE Irish residents in Manchester and Salford held a property, and restrictions on its devise to lives not in being; registry of property; reduction of the enormous charges for stamps for the sale and purchase of land; security of tenure for the practical cultivators of the soil; abolition of the Established Church in Ireland; extension of the suffrage; and reinforcement of the representation in the Imperial Parliament. He exhorted the intelli gent and upright men of Ireland to come forth from their isolation, and claim the aid of the English people in forcing upon the government proper measures for their country. "I look," he said, "to the opening of parliament with intense interest. We are ignorant of what the government is about to do-of what Lord 62 4 John Russell will undertake, Lord John Russell has A number of Protectionist Meetings have been held The this month; and at many of them, the object for which they were called, has been entirely defeated. following have been most remarkable: The Salisbury meeting, on the 4th, was interrupted by the endeavours of a strong Free-trade party to prevent the passing of the resolutions. Lord Nelson, the chairman, being much interrupted by exclamations of "Lower your rents!" threatened to have the interrupters ejected. Much fighting and rioting ensued, in the midst of which, Lord Nelson ventured to assume that the resolutions were carried. The Protectionists met an unexpected defeat at a public meeting of the working classes, convened at Stepney, on the 7th, in favour of Protection, and "against the present unfair and ruinous system of competition." The meeting was got up by the National Association for the Organisation of Trades. Mr. George Frederick Young presided; and was supported by Mr. Oastler, Mr. Paul Foskett, and other members of the great Central Protection Society. Mr. Samuel Kydd and Mr. Alexander Campbell represented the Protectionist Chartists; and Mr. Clarke, a working man, represented the Chartists who approve the political economy of the Free Traders. Mr. Campbell, after stating that the meeting originated entirely with the delegates of the London trades, a body which had for its object the social and political improvement of the working classes, moved a resolution importing that it was the first duty of the government and legislature to adopt measures for employing and protecting the industrious population; and supported it by a Protectionist speech. Mr. Clarke moved a direct amendment to the resolution, which, he said, with all its talk about protection said nothing about the greatest of all protection-the protection of the vote: his amendment embraced greater freedom of trade, reduction of A stormy debate taxation, and parliamentary reform. ensued, the violence of which was heightened by the appearance of Mr. Richard Oastler, who tried in vain to obtain a hearing. Mr. Clarke moved that the chairman do leave the chair, as having lost the confidence of the meeting; and the motion was carried. A Mr. Hackman was voted into the chair; but Mr. Young refused to quit his place. A taproom chair was supplied, and was "taken" by the new functionary; Mr. Clarke's resolution was triumphantly carried; the meeting was dissolved, and the mass of it departed. When they were gone, Mr. Young and some few faithful adherents attempted to carry on the proceedings in the Protectionist sense. Nothing more, however, was done than the passing of votes of thanks to Mr. Oastler and Mr. Young; who, with their few supporters, finally dispersed, amidst the hootings of the workmen that remained. [JANUARY. Lord St. Vincent moved that Lord Talbot take the The Buckinghamshire Protectionists had a meeting A Protectionist Meeting at Stafford on the 10th, became the scene of a Violent Disturbance. The farmers mustered 400 strong, the townspeople more numerous. stamping of feet and hurraing. Lord Radnor attempted to recal the meeting to its business, but he was not coolly said that "if they liked to decide without hearing, allowed to utter half-a-dozen connected sentences. He they might;" and proceeded to read his free-trade amendment. Mr. Philip Pusey, member for the county, found audience only to state that the repeal of the corn resolutions. laws had brought prices much lower than statesmen and Parliamentary Reform Movement was held in the had expected; and that he was prepared to advocate in parliament a return to a moderate duty. Greater quietness at length prevailed, and the Protectionists were allowed to go through the form of passing their Another Violent Meeting was that of the West Kent Protectionists at Penenden Heath, on the 24th. A Protectionist resolution was moved by Lord Stanhope, and a free-trade one by Mr. Beacon. After much noise the resolutions were put to the meeting. The show of hands appeared equal, but was declared favourable to the Protectionists; and great uproar then arising, the Sheriff soon after dissolved the meeting, almost before a resolution in compliment to himself had been moved. The crowd pelted the mounted farmers with mud, and dispersed with cheers for free trade. Our County Hall, at Aylesbury, on the 9th, to receive Mr. Cobden, who, in his late speech at Leeds, had challenged the Protectionists to meet him in the Buckinghamshire stronghold, to discuss the question of Protection and Free Trade. Mr. Cobden, having been introduced to the meeting, by whom he was received with loud cheers, addressed them in a powerful and comprehensive speech. He began by maintaining that, by every test that can proclaim the prosperity or adversity of a nation, we stand better now without the corn-laws than we did when we had them. What were the tests of a nation's prosperity? A declining or improving revenue was one test. revenue was better now than it was under the corn-laws. Our exports and imports were better than they were under the corn-laws. Then on the question of pauperism, and he would not shrink from that test even in an Other large meetings, however, have been unanimous agricultural district, he had the statistics of many unions in their Support of Protection. This was the case with in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire; and he warned the meeting of the Leicestershire and Rutlandshire the Protectionists that in the case of pauperism, even farmers at Waltham, and the meeting of Protectionists the Aylesbury districts stood more favourably now with at Northampton. At the first the Marquis of Granby bread at a moderate price, than they did in 1847, when and Lord John Manners were speakers; and the Earl of prices were high, and the loaf was nearly double its Wilton, Viscount Newport, M.P., Lord C. Manners, present rate. Then take the condition of wages, which M.P.; Mr. Frewen, M.P., were present: at the second, is a test of the state of the mass of the people. What the Earl of Southampton, the Duke of Grafton, Sir were the people earning now, compared with what they Henry Dryden, Sir Charles Knightley, M.P., Earl Pom-earned in 1847, when the Protectionists were so well fret, Mr. Maunsel, M.P., Mr. Stafford, M.P., and Cap- satisfied with the high prices? As a rule, throughout tain Vyse, M.P. the country more money was being earned now in every branch of business than was earned in 1847, and the working-people were getting the comforts and necessaries of life, in many cases, at two-thirds (and in some cases at less) of the prices of 1847. It had been said that if we had free trade in corn, the gold would all be drained out of the country, because we could not bring in five million quarters of grain without draining away our gold, as the foreigner would not take anything but our gold in exchange for his corn. Now, between thirty and forty millions of foreign corn had been brought into this country within four years, and the Bank of England was never so encumbered with gold as it is now. He repeated, that in every branch of business the rate of wages was improved. He made no exception of any of the trades in that district, not even trades employing women, and instanced the condition of the straw-plaiters and the pillow-lace makers, who were both of them getting more employment. Mr. Cobden proceeded to illustrate his views as to the relation between landlord and tenant, by reference to his management of his own small estate in Sussex. He was interrupted by cries of "How did you get it?"-"I am indebted for it," he answered, "I am proud to say, to the bounty of my countrymen. It was the scene of my birth and my infancy; it was the property of my ancestors; and it is by the munificence of my countrymen that this small estate, which had been alienated by my father from necessity, has again come into my hands, and enabled me to light up afresh the hearth of my father, where I spent my childhood. And I say there is no warrior duke, who owns a vast domain by the vote of the Imperial Parliament, who holds his property by a more honourable title than I possess mine.' When the vehement cheers produced by these words had subsided, Mr. Cobden described the course he adopted when he visited the property after it came into his possession. This was in 1848, when prices ranged high in this country; but he, never expecting that those prices would continue, thought it the proper time for every man having an interest in the land to prepare for the coming competition by the foreigner. He gave orders that every hedgerow tree on that estate should be cut down and removed, and authorised them to remove every fence on the estate. That portion which required draining, he had immediately drained at his own cost. His land, lying in the very midst of that of the largest Protectionist landholders, and who as a matter of course were great game-preservers, had been infested particularly with hares and rabbits; and he authorised the tenants on the land to kill all the hares and rabbits, and empower any one else to kill them also. At that time, continued Mr. Cobden, prices ranged high, and they had ranged high during the greater part of the year, and nothing was settled about rent. But in the course There have been a number of Protectionist Meetings, also, in Ireland. The "Great National Meeting" of Protectionists was held on the 17th at the Rotunda in Dublin. The chair was to have been taken at eleven o'clock; but owing to the thinness of the attendance, it was fully an hour later. The Marquis of Downshire then took his seat, and even at that time the round room was not one quarter full. There was, however, a fair sprinkling of the nobility and gentry present. The Earl of Roden was greeted with immense cheers, accompanied by "Kentish fires." The movers and seconders of the resolutions were the Earl of Glengall, Mr. MacCarthy, Mr. Butt, Q.C., the Marquis of Westmeath, the Earl of Shannon, the Hon. Mr. Preston, Mr. James Martin, Lord Clements, Col. Dunn, M.P., Earl of Mayo, Mr. J. Ennis, the Marquis of Drogheda, Colonel Chatterton, M.P., the Earl of Bandon, Mr. T. M. Redmond, the Hon. Colonel Verner, and others. In the County of Down, Mr. Sharman Crawford moved an amendment on the Protectionist resolution, and carried it. Lord Downshire and the Protectionists retired from the meeting, but the High Sheriff would not dissolve it; and at the end of the proceedings Mr. Sharman Crawford was voted into the chair, in order to thank the High Sheriff for his impartial and manly conduct.-In Limerick, Cork, Cavan, Meath, and Wexford, amendments on Protectionist resolutions have been carried by large majorities. Lord Wharncliffe has declined to join the Protectionist Movement. The requisition for a meeting at York to consider the best means of obtaining the enactment of a fixed duty on grain, having been submitted for his signature, he sent an answer, which has been published, stating that he can in no degree concur in that proposal. He gives it as his firm opinion that there is nothing in the present prospects of agriculture to justify such an application to parliament; and he sees circumstances in the commercial history of the past few years which, with the present ill-defined and exaggerated alarm, account for the temporary extreme depression of agricultural prices. He treats, moreover, the idea of the restoration of the corn-laws as a mere delusion, the propagation of which is pernicious to the true interests of industry.-Lord Yarborough, who was a zealous Protectionist before the repeal of the corn-law, has also declined to join in carrying on the contest. He has refused to sign a requisition for a Protectionist county meeting, advising that the experiment of freetrade should have a further trial under ordinary seasons and circumstances, and thinking that the attempt to re-impose protective duties would end in failure, after convulsing the country and sowing the seeds of mutual animosity among the industrious classes. A Great Meeting, in connexion with The Financial " of the last year (he continued) I received a letter from allow it? I'm insulted. Here is the flag of the Charter. one of my tenants, in which he said, "When I took my Liberty or death!" Some confusion took place, and farm from your predecessor, it was upon the calculation Mr. O'Connor, after addressing a few words to the of wheat being 66s. a quarter, but it is now little more angry gentleman beside him, and having appealed to than 40s., and I should like to have a new arrangement his good sense not to make a disturbance, quickly anwith regard to the terms.' I wrote to him in reply-nounced that he must vacate the chair, as he had eight "The proposition you make is reasonable, and we will miles to go. He then left the room, and his example have a new bargain. I am willing to enter upon it on was followed by a majority of those present. the principle of estimating the future price of wheat at 40s.; but whilst I am willing to take all the advantage of low prices, I must have the benefit of good cultivation; therefore we must estimate the produce of the land to be such as can be grown by a good farmer upon that quality of land." Now, I say, from that very moment-from the instant I had made that proposition to this farmer-I was not under the slightest anxiety; for I knew there would not be the least difficulty in his carrying on the farm just the same under free trade as under protection. From that moment the farmers upon my small estate no longer felt themselves interested in the question of free trade or protection; the labourers felt they had just as good a prospect of employment as they had before, and they likewise felt no longer interested in the question of protection. After disposing of the doctrines and projects put forth by Mr. Disraeli and other Protectionists, Mr. Cobden gave it as his advice to the tenant-farmers, that, on the subject of the corn-laws, they ought to meet together, exclusively as one community. Do not," he said, "let me be misunderstood. I am not going to be misrepresented in this matter. I do not say that upon other questions the small squire and the tenant-farmer ought to be separated, or that landowners and farmers should not go to the same church together, and that they should not meet as friends upon all other questions; but whenever they meet to talk upon the subject of protection and freetrade, tenant-farmers, and tenant-farmers only, ought to meet together. They ought to exclude every landlord from their counsels. Mind, I repeat it, it is only when they have to talk about the subject of protection, or when they have an interest totally distinct and opposite from that of the person who lets the land. They ought to exclude not only the great landed proprietor who lets the land to tenants, but they ought to exclude men whose predominant interest is that of the landlord, though they may be tenant-farmers to an inferior extent. The occupying tenant-farmer is the man who employs his capital in buying the raw material. The land is the raw material, loaned to him for that purpose by the owner of the soil; and the tenant-farmer, in this matter of protection, landlord and the small squire or the landagent. And until they meet together in a body in their several localities, totally distinct and apart from all other classes, they never will have a chance of arriving at a just appreciation of their own position and their difficulties, and they never will be able to combine together to obtain such terms and conditions as are necessary to enable them to carry on their business under the system of free trade." On the 18th a meeting, called by Mr. Cobden, was held in the London Tavern, in consequence of Messrs. Baring's advertisement for a Loan of 5,500,000l. to Russia, to complete the railway between St. Petersburg and Moscow. Mr. Charles Gilpin presided; and Mr. J. B. Smith, M.P., Mr. Joseph Sturge, and a number of dissenting ministers were on the platform; the body of the large room was crowded. Mr. Cobden moved a resolution, declaring that the real object of the loan was to replenish the Russian treasury, exhausted by the Hungarian war; and that to lend the money for such a purpose would be virtually to sanction the deeds of blood in Hungary, and tempt to future aggression and conquest. He supported this resolution at great length, depreciating the security of the loan, attacking the morality of the lenders of it, and defending the economical principles of his own course of action. The meeting was addressed by Mr. Sturge and others, and the resolution was carried with acclamations. A memorial on the subject of the Dolly's Brae Affair has been addressed by the Roman Catholics of Ulster to the Lord-Lieutenant. They set forth the facts of the case, and the subsequent course taken by government, and petition Lord Clarendon to take further steps to bring to justice all the wrongdoers in the transaction, They pray Lord Clarendon "to prove to the Catholic people of this empire, that creed is no distinction where justice is concerned, by superseding in the commission of the peace those Magistrates who, at a Petty Session held in Castlewellan on the 9th of October last, refused to take information against persons proved to have formed a portion of an avowedly illegal assembly."-A deputation of the Ulster Catholics waited on the LordLieutenant on the 17th, to present their memorial. He declared, in reply, that he was fully sensible how important it is that in the administration of justice distinetions of creed and party should be unknown, but said he did not feel that he could properly recommend to the Lord Chancellor the prayer for the dismissal of the Magistrates. The Magistrates were not personally implicated in the transactions impugned; they acted on their own judgment and responsibility in rejecting the informations; and they should not be removed merely because they declined to abide by the opinion of the law-officer of the Crown. NARRATIVE OF LAW AND CRIME. A RESPECTABLE-LOOKING Woman, who described herself as Mrs. Anna Maria Jones, a novel-writer, complained at Guildhall that another person had Assumed her Name The first Metropolitan Meeting of the National in applying for relief from the charity-box. Mrs. Jones Charter Association was held on the 14th at the London handed up a list of her works, which, she said, were Tavern. The principal speaker was Feargus O'Connor, well-known works of fiction. Sir P. Laurie, looking who said, among many other things, that he was against over the list, said: Did you write the whole of these?all descriptions of poor laws-he was for labour, and for She replied that she did. (They made 38 volumes.)— labour's rights. They were all made by God; they Sir P. Laurie said: But you are not the authoress of were all a devilish deal better-looking fellows than these "The Scottish Chiefs," for that is the work of Anna dukes. If the land were not tilled according to political Maria Porter.-The applicant replied, that one work expediency instead of state necessity, the people would was called "The Scottish Chiefs," and the other "The be able to export corn. He proposed to alter that, and Scottish Chieftains.' She was not answerable for this to enact that every man who occupied land should have seeming piracy; for it was the bool seller's device, to a lease for ever, at a corn rent, and that the landlord which, perhaps, she weakly yielded. The taste of the should not be able to oust him. Whenever machinery public had so completely altered since she began novelwith a hop, step, and jump, came amongst them, and writing, at 19 years of age, that she could get nothing made paupers, he would provide that all such paupers by such labour now.-Sir P. Laurie said she was not the should be enabled to live out of the workhouse by their only literary character who was complaining of the entire own labour. He concluded by reciting some verses of his change in the public taste, and had been thereby reduced own composition, and his poetry as well as his prose was to straitened circumstances.-She said that was unhappily received with loud cheers. After the meeting had been her case. She could no longer support herself in comfort addressed in advocacy of the Charter by Mr. Reynolds, by her pen; and, to increase her distress, her husband, Mr. M'Grath, Mr. Vernon, Mr. Harney, and Mr. Kydd, to whom she had looked for support, had become of ima man with a red beard rushed to the platform shout-paired intellect.-Sir P. Laurie asked what her husband's ing, "I'm told to hold my tongue! Chartists, will you name was ?-She replied it was Lowndes, and that he had been in business for a long time as a dramatic book-that." This was declined, and the defendant went out. seller, but had failed, and that misfortune preyed upon his mind. Although she was in straitened circumstances, she was not reduced to beg charity at a police-office.-Sir P. Laurie said he had no doubt the newspapers would set her right with the public. Two smart young women, sisters, named Bridget and Julia Connolly, were charged at Croydon Sessions with slaughtering a Fat Wether on the lands of Mr. Fuller, farmer, Addiscomb, on Sunday morning, the 6th, and carrying away the carcass. As two police constables were going their rounds that morning, they met the girls, and, observing something bulky on their persons, they questioned them as to what they had about them. They said, nothing but their bed-things; but the officers, not satisfied with this, overhauled them, and found on each a half-carcass of mutton. They in consequence conveyed them to the station-house, and some time after they found the hide, head, and entrails of a sheep in a field belonging to Mr. Fuller. On comparing the mutton with the skin no doubt could remain they both belonged to one and the same animal; and as little doubt remained that the prisoners were its butchers, as a sharp claspknife was found on each, with a part of the fresh suet and fat attached to them. At the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, on Saturday the 5th, Andrew Forrest, a youth of eighteen, was tried for the Murder of a Gamekeeper, named Kirby, at Cambuslang. There was no doubt, from the youth's confession as well as other evidence, that he killed the man; the trial turned upon the question whether he did it wilfully. Forrest was out with a gun, intending to poach; on the road he encountered Kirby, who had two dogs in a leash, one a very fierce creature, a cross between a Newfoundland and a bull-dog. Some altercation ensued, and probably the savage dog seized Forrest's leg, for it was wounded by a dog; then the youth fired-as he said, at the dog; but the man was killed. The dog might have torn the prisoner after he had fired; or, on the contrary, the lad's story might be true. The Lord Justice Clerk summed up very favourably for the accused; severely censuring the gamekeeper's practice of leading about the savage dog. The Jury returned a verdict of "Not proven.' In the Bankruptcy Court, two Swindling Bill Transactions were exposed on Monday, the 7th, when William Thomas Ferris, professedly a builder and carpenter, applied for his certificate. He was opposed by Mr. Walter Lockhart Scott, the grandson of Sir Walter Scott, as creditor for more than 6007. of costs incurred in defending an action brought by Ferris on a bill of exchange fraudulently obtained. The bankrupt's name will be recollected as that of the plaintiff in actions against Mr. Scott and the Reverend Mr. Curzon, tried some eighteen months ago. Bills had been fraudulently obtained without the payment of consideration, and then Ferris had been used as the "respectable tradesman into whose hands the bills had come honestly for full consideration," to sue for the amount. Mr. Scott successfully defended the action against himself, and exposed the transactions of the gang of swindlers who obtained the bill from him. Commissioner Goulburn was convinced that Ferris had been art and part in the conspiracy from commencement to close; the certificate was therefore refused. The Mr. Tawney waited a short time, thinking he would go away: he then went towards his gig, which had been waiting for him; and he observed the defendant standing with the heavy hunting-whip in his hand. As he was about to get into his gig, Harvey attacked him behind, beat him on the back and shoulders, and tried to beat him on the head, but the prosecutor held up his hands and warded off the blows. Mr. Banks, one of the partners, came up and laid hold of the defendant, and said to him, "Good God! Harvey, are you mad?" but the defendant threw him away from him, and continued his violence. Mr. Tawney had just succeeded in getting into the gig, when the defendant struck him on the back of the head; the blow stunned him for a moment, and his horse ran off, but was soon stopped by some cabmen in the King's Road. When this assault took place, Harvey well knew that his victim was suffering from a disease of the heart. As the prosecutor was about to leave the witness-box, he fell senseless. Two surgeons immediately attended him. Mr. Ballantine, who appeared for the prisoner, was unable to offer any defence. The Recorder briefly addressed the Jury, and they immediately gave a verdict of "Guilty." Recorder said he would not pass sentence at present on Harvey for his aggravated assault: if Mr. Tawney should die, he would have to meet a more serious charge. This had hardly been said when the surgeons announced that Mr. Tawney had died, as he lay on the floor of the witness-box. The Recorder ordered Harvey to be detained. An inquest was held on the body of Mr. Tawney, on Thursday. The evidence showed the ill health that he had suffered for years; his medical attendant stated that he had warned the deceased's relatives that he would die suddenly. Death had been caused by congestion of the brain, resulting from a disease of the heart. Several witnesses described the altercation between Mr. Tawney and Harvey. The Jury returned a verdict, that James Dodsley Tawney died from congestion of blood on the brain, produced by disease of the heart; and that he had been cruelly and brutally assaulted by Harvey. Sentence of imprisonment for twelve months was passed on Harvey, by the Recorder, on the 11th. He regretted that the result of the medical inquiry respecting the immediate cause of Mr. Tawney's death would prevent Harvey's trial for a more serious offence. A boy named George Ruby, who appeared about 14 years of age, was put in the witness-box at Guildhall, on the 8th, to Give Evidence in a Case of Assault on a police-officer, when the following dialogue took place:Alderman Humphery: Well, do you know what you are about? Do you know what an oath is? Boy: No. Alderman: Can you read? Boy: No. Alderman: Do you ever say your prayers? Boy: No; never. Alderman: Do you know what prayers are? Boy: No. Alderman: Do you know what God is? Boy: No. Alderman: Do you know what the devil is? Boy: I've heard of the devil, but I don't know him. Alderman: What do you know? Boy: I knows how to sweep the crossings. Alderman: And that's all? Boy: That's all. I sweeps a crossing. The Alderman said that in all his experience he had never met with anything like the deplorable ignorance of the poor unfortunate child in the witness-box. An appalling case of Sudden Death occurred at the At the Hereford City Sessions on the 8th, the ReCentral Criminal Court on Monday, the 7th, during the corder, in his Charge to the Grand Jury, said, it appeared trial of Samuel Grieves Harvey, a tall, powerful man, to him a very serious circumstance that there should be for an assault on James Dodsley Tawney. Mr. Tawney at the present sessions a greater number of prisoners by was a slender, diminutive attorney; Harvey was a stout one-half than at any previous sessions since he had had horse-dealer: the two frequently met each other at the honour of sitting as recorder. He was further sorry Messrs. Osborn and Co.'s stables in Gray's Inn Lane. to say that some of the offences charged were of a very Mr. Tawney had, on behalf of clients, taken legal serious description. He had compared the present measures against Harvey-sued him for debts, and calendar with the calendars at other sessions for boroughs. opposed his discharge in the Insolvent Court; and At the last Maidstone Sessions, a few days ago, where Harvey had been much exasperated. The two meeting the population amounted to at least 20,000, the number at Osborn's, Harvey charged Mr. Tawney with getting of prisoners was five only. At Dover, where the jurisup the opposition, and wanted to know who were the diction comprehended, not only the large town of Dover opposing creditors. The solicitor declined to tell him. but much of the adjacent district, and also Margate, The defendant went out, and returned in a short time there were only eight prisoners for trial. At Canterwith two hunting-whips, one of them loaded at the end bury, situated on the great highway to the Continent, with iron, and the other a plane cane one. The defen- and a large thoroughfare for people of all descriptions, dant offered Mr. Tawney the latter; saying, "Take | with a population of 20,000, the number of prisoners for |