16runinnial.

The Berwick Commission this week has been engaged in the examina- tion of witnesses ; the principal of whom have been Mr. Jeffrey, writer of Jedburgh, and Mr. Richard Hodgson, the defeated candidate at the last election. Mr. Hodgson was examined very closely as to a sum of 2001. -which he had drawn out of the bank througn the intervention of a

tenant, Mr. Henderson, and a land agent, Mr. Lowrie, and which had been handed to him in gold-

" He declared that he did not expend a farthing of it in bribery ; that he never gave M‘Gall a single shilling of it ; that he kept it in his pocket about an hour and a half, and then, finding 200 sovereigns rather a weighty af- fair to carry about, took the whole sum to his inn, the Salmon, where he locked it up in his black travelling bag. He did not take it out again until the evening, when he went home, taking the money with him. He then made a most extraordinary statement, to the effect that, hearing money was going on the other side, and knowing the place to be corrupt, he thought that he might lose votes did he not also appear to bribe ; that he purposely selected persons connected with him to get the money through, and made them insist on having the whole amount in gold to look the more suspicious ; that he wished to be supposed to bribe, but never meant really to do so, nor did be expend one farthing corruptly. He stuck to this assertion with much appaeent candour, and seemed quite surprised that the Commissioners should put a different construction on the transaction from the one he did himself. He was pressed in every way on the subject, and cross-examined by the Commissioners in succession, but he still main- tained that he saw nothing odd ; that it was a mere r use • but upon Mr. Lushington asking him whether his real object was to obtain votes by pre- tending to bribe his supporters, and then to "bilk" them, denied that that was his object. What his object was the Commissioners seemed to think anything but satisfactory, and conveyed their impressions to him in very plain terms. He was then asked to send certain checks, accounts, and papers, and this very curious examination terminated.

A grand Conservative banquet took place at Newton Abbott, Devon, on Wednesday, in honour of Lord Churston ; 700 ladies and gentleman as- sembled to do him honour by presenting to him a magnificent silver shield,

A " scene " of a painfully ludicrous character, took place at the Croydon Assizes on Friday week. Mr. Justice Blackburn was on the Bench dis- charging the Grand Jury with the old stereotyped compliment of "the thanks of the county ; " Mr. Evelyn, the High Sheriff suggested the pro- priety of his lordship thanking the gentlemen who had been summoned, but did not actually serve on the grand inquest. The Judge refused ; the Sheriff, therefore, attempted to do the office, but was stopped by the Judge, who at last fined the Sheriff 5001., which was recorded. Better thoughts prevailed ; the High Sheriff had forgotten that the Judge was his superior in court ; the Judge had forgotten the gentleman. After an appeal to the Lord Chief Justice, both Judge and gentleman, the fine was remitted, the High Sheriff apologizing, and Mr. Justice Blackburn declaring he "had no personal feeP- nig, but must protect the dignity of the Court.' [Why are Judges so fond of playing at fines ? Mr. Evelyn sent his cheque to the Judge„ when the latter offered to remit the fine, so that in his case it was an inellicient.pun- ishment. The "dignity of the Court" is in a very bad way, if a fine is re- quired to sustain it. True dignity is derived from the great magistrate whose bearing "magnifies the office."] " Observer" writes to the Times, to complain of the conduct of Mr. Jus- tice Keating to the Grand Jury of Dorset : he says—" The new Judges are systematically inclined to behave offensively to county magistrates. At the late Summer Assizes for Dorset, held at Dorchester on the 23d of last July, the hour appointed for meeting was nine o'clock, a. 14. It has always been the custom from time immemorial for the Grand Jury of Dorset to assemble in the grand jury-room, and as soon as the usher informed them of the Judges having arrived at the Court-house instantly to go into their box in the court. On the 23d of July, the Judges did not arrive at the Court-house until ten o'clock. The usher informed the magistrates of their arrival, and they instantly went into their box in the court ; but in the short passage between the grand jury-room and the court, the Judge, Mr. Justice Keat- ing, preceded by the High Sheriff, and followed by his usual officials, passed them on his way out of court. The astonished magistrates stood on one side to allow a free passage for the Judge, who appeared hurried and angry. On entering their box, the magistrates heard that the Judge had expressed himself as feeling much offended because the Grand Jury were not in at- tendance in the court awaiting his arrival, that he would therefore adjourn business until eleven o'clock, that the list of Grand Jurors should be called over at that hour, and he would fine every one not answering in the sum of 201. The magistrates of the county of Dorset, among whom are numbered some men of the highest rank and position, being thus snubbed by this new Judge, sat quietly in their box until eleven o'clock a. m., when the irate Judge entered the court. The usual proclamation having been made, &c., the Judge delivered his charge, and, on ending it, said he was glad to find that the cause of the postponement of that day's business arose from a mis- apprehension. He ought to have added that the misapprehension arose on his side."

A most extraordinary suicide took place at Clifton last week. Mr. George Hayes Hinchcliffe, one of the Coroners for Staffordshire, who married on Wednesday week a lady of most respectable family in West Bromwich, arrived with his bride at the Queen's Hotel, Clifton, on their trip for the honeymoon. Nothing strange was observed in the manner of the bride- groom until he went to his wife's chamber some time after she had retired for the night, and shortly afterwards reappeared and requested to be pro- vided with another bedroom. The house being full, Mr. Hinchcliffe was told that he could not be accommodated, and he then left the Queen's and proceeded to the Sedan-chair Tavern, on the Broad Quay, where he slept for the night. His wife, alarmed at his strange behaviour, telegraphed for her brother, Mr. Fereday, of West Bromwich, who arrived in the course of the following day, and Mr. Hinchcliffe was sought out and prevailed on to return to his wife. He dined with her and her brother the same evening, but again left the Queen's, and there is reason to believe that he wandered about all night. On Saturday he took lodgings for the night at the house of Mr. Price, grocer, of Thomas Street, and there committed suicide by throwing himself into the street. The Jury found a verdict of Temporary Insanity.

At Lancaster, Mr. Ayerst sued his late master, Mr. Postlethwaite, an attorney, for a wrongful dismissal. Mr. Postlethwaite's answer was that his late managing clerk had refused to make entries in the day-book, from which bills of costs were to be drawn. Evidence was given that this was within the scope of a managing clerk's duty, and a verdict was found for the defendant.

At the Lancaster Assizes, on Monday, Charles Hart and Edward Cabbin were tried for the manslaughter of Hugh Ainscough, an old man, at whom they threw clods of earth at Writington, on the 2d of May last. They pushed him down, and heaped earth upon him, until his body was covered with 10 hundredweight of earth, leaving his head and feet out ; his hat, filled with filth, was put over his face. Next morning a farm servant found. the old man dead, covered with earth, and his mouth and nostrils stopped up with filth. Sentence—three years' penal servitude.

At Monmouth on Saturday, Stowell Powell, a farmer., was convicted of stealing forty sheep from Walter Lewis. The sheep were identified curiously by a witness, who said he could not write, but who produced a book contain- ing drawings of the manner in which the ears of the sheep were cut. Sen- tence ; seven years penal servitude.

John Went was found guilty of pretending to be a bailiff of the Hereford- shire County Court, by using forms so altered as to make them appear an execution ham the Court, upon which be obtained 31. 48. Mr. Justice Bytes said he would. not pass a light sentence; he would discharge the pri- soner on his recognizanoes, to appear when called upon. The prisoner had paid over the money to the party.to whom it was really due. The indefatigable litigant, Miss Rosanna Fray, appeared as plaintiff against her former attorney, Mr. Voules, asking for damages against 'him for having compromised an action brought by her through him against the Earl and Countess of Zetland. The action was part heard at Guildford on Monday, but adjourned on the application of defendant's counsel in consequence of Mr. Voules' illness.

At Guildford, on Wednesday, Charles Rawson, " who presented a wild and haggard appearance," was charged with setting fire to a stack of hay. Rawson bad attempted suicide that morning before his removal from Horse- monger Lane to Guildford. He pleaded guilty, but Mr. Justice Blackburn ruled that an inquiry should first be made as to his mental condition. Mr. Keene, the Governor, and Mr. Maynard, the turnkey of the prison, gave evi- dence which raised more than doubts of the prisoner's sanity ; he- was, therefore, ordered to be detained during her Majesty's pleasure.

At Warwick Assizes, on Friday week, six young men, all aged nineteen Years were charged with riot at Nuneaton on the 11th of July. The "strike" amongst the riband weavers intended to obtain payment by " the piece " instead of per deem, extends for fifteen miles round Coventry. Messrs. Townsend of Attleborough, cotton dyers, had theit premises entered by a mob of 600 or 700 persons, with the object of coercing a man named Mills into desisting from work. Witnesses were called to prove the participation of each of the six prisoners in the riot ; verdict Guilty ; sentence nine months imprisonment.

John Plimley Edwards, the absconding Birmingham bankrupt, who pleaded guilty of forgery, was sentenced to seven years penal servitude.

Mary Turner, who had been promised marriage by William White, and had lived with him as his wife for two or three months, but was deserted

for another, took the law into her own hands, and shot at her betrayer with a pistol, intending to kill him. Found Guilty, but recommended to mercy by the Jury, she was sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment.

Francis Price passing through Birmingham on his way to London being detained for the train, stepped into a public house where an harmonic meet-

ing was going on. There he saw a girl, Sarah Platt, with whom he fell

violently in love. Continuing to reside in Birmingham, he worked at his trade as a shoemaker, and became the lover of the girl. A quarrel arose,

he became jealous of the intentions of another, which he feared were dis- honourable, and seizing an occasion cut his sweetheart's throat. He was found Guilty of murder, and sentenced to death on Saturday.

Mr. White, an ironmonger at Honiton, sued one Kerslake at the Exeter Assizes for the seduction of his daughter. The girl went to the house of Kerslake to visit his wife. On the 17th of March, he drove the young girl out, and behaved indecently. On Lady-day, his wife being absent, he got Miss White into a room, locked the door, and effected her ruin. After- wards discovering she was enceinte, she told the defendant, who took her from her home to Crediton, where Kerslake visited her. By his direction, she wrote to her family that she was comfortably married, and begged them to make no inquiries. From place to place, she was taken by Kerslake and eventually to Tynernouth, where she was found by his wife who beat and ill-treated her : she gave birth to a child, but nearly lost her life. The de- fendant offered to set her up in a shop ; but, as he annexed a condition of being his mistress, she refused. Cast off by her friends, she called to her aid a quondam lover, a young man, named Tucker, who effected a reconciliation with her family. The defendant urged the careless way in which the girl must have been brought up, but the Jury assessed the damages at 1501.

John Wenmouth escaped singularly from justice, after being found guilty at Bodmin of the misdemeanour of feloniously breaking into a house with intent to steal. It proved that the indictment was drawn to meet the felony of " feloniously breaking, entering, and stealing," so the prisoner was found guilty of an offence with which he was not charged, and as he could not be proved guilty of that with which he was charged, judgment was arrested, and he was discharged. [But ought not the law to permit indictments to be drawn with counts both for the felony and misdemeanour

At Carlisle Assizes, on Saturday, Mr. Gibbons, a farmer, sued and re- covered from the Glasgow and South Western Railway Company 201., for

' damage occasioned to his crop of summer grass, occasioned by sparks and hot -cinders from an engine, the chimney of which was not properly guarded. The Embleton murder has terminated in the capital conviction of George Cass : he was sentenced to be hanged.

The Penrith murder ended in a verdict of Manslaughter against Thomas Sowerby, and a sentence of eighteen months' imprisonment.

The High Sheriff of Westmoreland, Mr. Benson Harrison, again dressed his javelin men in the costume of Charles II., at the present Assizes.

The Volunteers of Lancaster and the bar of the Northern Circuit ex- changed mutual conrtesies at the King's Arms Hotel, on Tuesday. The Volunteers out for drill were marching past the hotel where some sixty or seventy of the bar mesa were dining, it being " grand night." The mess contained not a few of the " Devil's own," and they rushed to the windows to cheer their brother Volunteers. The Volunteers sent back their band to play to the lawyers over their dessert, and " God save the Queen," at a late hour, wound up the proceedings of both parties, who were out at Lan- caster for practice.

The review of the Volunteers passed off at Edinburgh on Tuesday, under the most auspicious circumstances, 20,000 Volunteers and a quar- ter of a million of spectators shared in the joy of perhaps, the greatest day of Modern Athens.