Zbe Vrobinces.
We understand that Lord Campbell, the Chancellor of the Dntchy of Lancaster, has conferred the appointment of the Vice-Chancellorship of the County Palatine, which office is in his gift and vacant by the demise of Mr. Twiss, upon Mr. Wood, Q.C., one of the Members for the City of Oxford.—Daik News.
In the pariah-church of Fen Ditton, near Cambridge, Edward Smith, a gar- dener and fiddler, did penance last Sunday, under sentence of Sir Herbert Jenner Fast in the Ecclesiastical Court, for slandering Mrs. Martha Jones, the Rector's wife, by accusing her of adultery. The ceremony was made the occasion of scandalous outrages by an irreverent assemblage of " bargees " and persons of bad character, who collected from all neighbouring parts and tumultuously occupied a large part of the church. Men climbed up the columns of the building and sat on the capitals, and a number bestrode the screen. The Rector and his slandered wife occupied the Rector's pew. " Mr. Small, the officiating clergyman," says the account in the Times, "was greeted with a shout, 'Speak up, old boy! accompa- nied by a chorus of laughter. The sermon was interrupted by the breaking of windows by the mob outside the church, by catcalls, whistling, and other unseemly noises, and a dog-fight within the building divided the attention of the congrega-
tion with the ceremony of the once. The arrival of Smith, the fiddler, was at length announced by a tremen' 'us uproar, which put an end to the sermon. He was received with three hearty cheers and the most discordant applause of his friends, many of whom were smoking tobacco, &c.; the press was so great that he was obliged to be lifted into the Churchwardens' pew. He waved over his head the paper containing his recantation, and was welcomed with 'one cheer more '; after which, a broom, hassocks, pieces of the pews, &c., were thrown in all directions, aimed at the head of Mr. Smell. It was of mute impossible to hear a word of the recantation. Mr. Small was struck with a hassock. Smith, at the conclusion of the business, was carried on the shoulders of several of the mob to the Plough public-house, where he addressed his admirers in a short speech; and the day was concluded by smoking and drinking. The Rector and his wife were followed to the rectory by a mob of people hissing and hooting, and some of the windows of the rectory were broken with stones."
Thomas Davies, a.small farmer at Cefinhyddlanissa, in the parish of Llanewog, Cardiganshire;- as killed his child, his wife, and. himself. In bed with his wife, on 'Tuesday week, he suddenly seized a reizor and nearly cut off his infant's head; he then gashed his wife's throat and face; as she struggled, he divided the arteries of her arm, and plunged the razor into her bowels. Rushing from the room, he threw himself into the Tivy stream; but it was too shallow to drown him; so he returned for his razor, cut his own throat, and ripped up his own bowels. The child died immediately; the mother ran the distance of a field and laid herself down in a ditch; she was there found alive, and she survived till Wednesday morning, notwithstanding the extraordinary nature of her wounds. The maniac himself died on Tuesday evening.
Mr. Richard Nicholson, the brother-in-law of Mr. George Hudson, M.P., and one of the directors of the York and North Midland Railway, has been found drowned in the Ouse, at Clifton, where he resided, near York. Two watermen saw the corpse in the water on Tuesday night; they got it out, conveyed it to a tavern, and surgeons immediately attended; bat life was gone. The surgeons stated at the inquest, that the body appeared to have been in the river for half an hoar. On the Tuesday night, Mr. Nicholson was seen walking on the banks: he seemed to be moody, and to shun observation. His servant stated that Mr. Nicholson had not been so cheerful as usual for the preceding week or so. This verdict was returned—" That the deceased was found drowned, and that there is not satisfactory evidence to show how he got into the water."
Mr. Edward Hayman, a sizar of Clare College, Cambridge, a young man of great attainments and promise, has cat his throat, while in a deranged state of mind. He suffered from religions melancholy and delusions, and told his brother and his friends that "God" bad deserted him"; though his conduct seems to have been exemplary. The verdict of the Coroner's Jury was " Temporary insanity."
Harris, the man who married the widow of the poisoned Merchant, at Bath, is in his seventy-second year. He has had three previous wires; the last died sad- denly in February last; and the investigation now going on has raised suspicions that she was murdered. It is remembered that her last illness exhibited symp- toms of poisoning, and that Harris was totally indifferent at her death. On Sa- turday last, the body was exhumed by the Coroner's order, and the viscera were submitted to Mr. Herapath for chemical examination. Harris and the woman Merchant had been on very familiar terms some time before the death of Mer- chant's husband.
The inquest on the woman terminated on Thursday. The surgeons stated that there were traces of inflammation in the intestines, but no proof of the cause: it was suggested that coculas indicas might have been administered to the deceased. The Jury could only return a verdict that the woman died from an inflammation, the origin of which there was no evidence to show.
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