12 NOVEMBER 1842, Page 5

She ilirobintes. We have accounts of the Municipal Elections from

a few additional places. The list is necessarily imperfect, because in some cases the account is given in such a way as to convey no political information to the distant reader ; as when only the names of the Councillors are given, without stating their politics.

Barnstaple. The election leaves only two Tories in the Council. Bideford. There appears to be no change in the state of parties. .Bolton. The Conservatives have returned nine out of thirteen candidates. Bridgewater. The Council now consists of twenty-four Conservatives. Carlisle. Among the retiring Councillors, were two Tories, who were re- placed by two Liberals; leaving the Council thirty-nine Liberals and one Tory. Dartmouth. The Tories offered no opposition.

Lincoln. The Conservatives returned two out of three candidates; making their first inroad upon the hitherto exclusively Liberal corporation. Plymouth. The Tories gained one. South Molton. Three Liberals and one Tory were returned. Tiverton. The election leaves not a single Tory in the Council.

Much interest was excited in Staffordshire, on Tuesday, by a meeting of Magistrates in the Shire-hall, to consider the expediency of esta- blishing a police force under the County and District Constables Acts. Among the gentlemen present, were the Earl of Dartmouth, Viscount Sandon, M.P., the Hon. E. Littleton, Mr. E. Buller, M.P., Alderman Copeland, M.P., Mr. C. B. Adderley, M.P., Captain Powys, and about fifty other influential Magistrates. Petitions were presented from forty Magistrates in various parts of the county against a general Police force, and from three in favour of it. Lord Sandon presedfed the re- port of a Committee appointed at a previous meeting— The Committee recommended the appointment of a Chief Constable for the entire county, at a salary of 350/. and travelling-expences ; that the county should be divided into three districts, the particulars of the several divisions to be afterwards fixed. The first, the Pottery district, to have four Superin- tendents (three at 100i. and one at 130/. per annum) and sixty Constables ; the salaries 16s , 18s., and 20s. per week. The Wolverhampton or mining districts (containing Wedncsbury, Bilston, Sedgeley, West Bromwich, &c.) to have six Superintendents, at 1001. each, and ninety Constables, at the former- mentioned rate of wages. Thirdly, that for the remaining portion of the county, viz. the rural districts, twelve Superintendents should be appointed ; but that the Constables for these parts should be selected by the Magistrates in the several parishes, and remunerated according to the provisions of the Parochial Constables Act, commonly called Sir James Graham's Act, passed in the last session of Parliament ; these Constables to be under the direction of the Superintendents of the County Constabulary Force, and the salaries of the Superintendents to be 130!. each, including their horses. The expense was estimated at 3,5481. and 5,292/. for the Pottery and Wolverhampton districts respectively. The general opinion was in favour of a Police ; which it was considered the late riots had proved to be necessary. Alderman Copeland said, he believed that if there had been fifty Policemen in the Potteries no disturbance would have taken place. The most discussion was raised by the proposal to establish a Police in the rural districts ; but every part of the project was encoun- tered by amendments. Ultimately, the plan was agreed to, with the modification that there should only be eight instead of twelve Superin- tendents in the rural districts ; and a Committee was appointed to carry the plan into effect.

Sir Charles Shaw, in the recent controversy about the conduct of the Magistrates during the riots at Manchester, mentioned that Colonel Hogg, his secretary, had denied that an interview took place with two gentlemen on the 8th August : Colonel Hogg, in a letter to the Man- chester Guardian, now says that he called on the editor of that paper not to deny that an interview had taken place, but to correct some in- accuracies respecting it- " On the afternoon of Monday the 8th of August, (says the Colonel.) two gentlemen called at the Police-office to see Sir Charles Shaw : in his absence, they mentioned to me the state of the country in the neighbourhood of Ashton and Staleybridge ; and said, they had heard the rioters intended to come to Manchester. My reply was, that Sir Charles Shaw had received information of an outbreak at Ashton ; and that I had no doubt, if it was ascertained the mob were to visit Manchester, proper arrangements would be made to stop them. This information (and other reports which reached the office on the same afternoon) was communicated by me to Sir Charles Shaw, and must have escaped his memory in the events that followed."

The following is put forth as a correction of the statement respecting the results of the Stafford Commission-

" All the convicts sentenced to be transported without imprisonment have been removed to the York hulk at Gosport, 52 in number. Not one has had his sentence of transportation commuted to six months' imprisonment. There are not any left in the prism for transportation for seven years, except two, who have received sentence of six months' imprisonment for another crime, and are afterwards to be transported. There is not any foundation for pre- suming that any transports will be sent to the Model Prison at Pentonville. Not any of the convicts have left families of eight children,—as the following list will clearly show : wife and five children, 3; wife and four children, 5; wife and three children, 3; wife and two children, 6; wife and one child, 8; wife and not any children, 1; single men, 26; total, 52."

The Cheltenham Magistrates resumed, on Friday, the hearing of the charge preferred by Mr. Augustus Newton, barrister, son-in-law of the late Admiral Sir R. Ricketts, against Lady Ricketts, Mr. Straford a solicitor, Mr. Wright a surgeon, and Messrs. Buckman and Cousins clerks to Mr. Straford, of conspiring to fore the signature of Sir R. Ricketts to a document purporting to be his last will and testament, with intent to defraud the prosecutor and bis wife, Letitia Frances, daughter of the deceased, of the share of the deceased's estate, amounting to 60,0001., to which they would have been entitled, had be died intes- tate, on the 18th August last. The question was, whether eW. Admiral

did nor did not cut off his daughter with a shilling, leaving his property to others : and a good deal of evidence was adduced to show that in his latter days he was imbecile in body and mind. On the other hand, it came out that be and Lady Ricketts were so displeased with the mar- riage of Mr. and Mrs. Newton, that a servant a‘ never saw him so much distressed." On Wednesday, the Magistrates abruptly dismissed the case.

A guilty conscience has discovered a series of crimes. Frances Ben- nett, a woman living at.Ruardean Hill, in the Forest of Dean, being ill, sent for the Reverend Henry Formby, the Curate of the place, and told him that she had successively killed six children which she had had by a man named Yapp. As the first five were born, they were drowned, and buried beneath the floor of a brewhouse ; the last lived for two days; but being sickly, she poisoned it. The Police searched the brew- house, and dug up the six skeletons ; and an inquest was held on the skeletons on Tuesday but • Bennett, who had recovered, now denied her story. The Curate and her sister, however, deposed too distinctly to her confessions when ill for her to retract ; and she and Yapp were detained in custody ; the inquest being adjourned. One, which seems to have been the chief source of solicitude when Bennett was ill, was the desire to have the six bodies removed from the barn and buried in a churchyard.