Ebe likobintes.
Birmingham election ended on Saturday (as was stated in our latest edition last week) with Mr. Spooner at the bead of the poll, after a sharp contest. Mr. Spooner took the lead from the first hour, and at two o'clock was 500 ahead of Mr. Scholefield. After that hour, the Liberals made a rally for Mr. Scholefield, and gradually diminished Mr. Spooner's majority, but could not obtain the lead. The numbers, as officially declared on Monday by the returning-officer, were—Spooner, 2,095 ; Scholefield, 1,735 ; Sturge, 346. The Conservatives were in great glee at having outnumbered the aggregate force of both sections of the Liberals. Mr. Spooner, in addressing the electors on Monday, said he went to Parliament not to serve any party, or truckle to any Ministry : he would uphold the present Government when he con- scientiously could, but he should act independently. Mr. Sturge also addressed the electors, with his usual self-complacency. The Birmingham Jostrisal attributes the return of Mr. Spooner entirely to division and apathy in the Liberal party, and not to any re- action in favour of Toryism. The people of Birmingham, it observes,
are as determined as ever, "if properly led and united, to keep down that party to whose past misrule all the miseries of the country are to be attributed."
At the Suffolk Sessions, on the 11th, the Earl of Euston proposed to petition Parliament to authorize, in some mode or other, an assessment upon game. He made the proposition on two grounds—first, because he was quite sure that if the Bench did not take up the subject, there were others who would very shortly do so ; and secondly, because he thought it was much more to the honour and credit of the Bench of Ma- gistrates to lead in a matter of that sort than to follow. The motion was not seconded; and no observation being made on the proposition, the subject dropped.
At Buckingham Assizes, on Friday week, an action was tried in which Mr. Abel Smith, M.P. for Hertfordshire, claimed to recover damages from a yearly tenant of a farm at Wendover for bad husbandry. It appeared from the evidence that Wendover is badly preeminent for its husbandry ; and the verdict was given for the defendant, not because he was free from the charge of bad cultivation, but because his practice of growing a succession of white crops had been pursued by other farmers in the neighbourhood. Mr. Justice Williams told the Jury, that in these cases the custom of the neighbourhood constitutes the law between a landlord and tenant.
An action for breach of promise of marriage was tried at Oxford Assizes on Tuesday. The plaintiff, named Bench, who is about thirty- five years of age, lives with her brother-in-law and sister, who are inn- keepers at Burford ; and the defendant, Merrick, is a retired innkeeper. It was proved on behalf of the defendant, that the plaintiff had a child at the time the offer was made, of which he had then no knowledge. The Jury gave a verdict in his favour.
At Oxford, on Tuesday, Richard Elliott was tried for stealing a banker's parcel containing 1,500 sovereigns, which was sent on the 18th March from Coutts's to the Oxford Old Bank by the Defiance coach. After a lengthy investigation, the prisoner was acquitted.
Henry Capel, a surgeon, was tried at Winchester on Friday week, for killing his infant daughter. The prisoner struck his wife with a small poplar stick, which broke, and a piece flying off, struck the baby on the temple, and caused its death. He was acquitted.
An action for breach of promise of marriage was tried at Chelmsford, on Wednesday, in which a teacher, Miss Mary Anne Spaull, was the plaintiff, and Stephen Foster, a farmer, the defendant. A verdict was given against Foster, with 4001. damages. At these Assizes, on the same day, a boy nine years old was found guilty of setting fire to a barn at Ramsay. The urchin, apparently, com- mitted the offence in mere wantonness.
On Friday, John Hardy, eleven years of age, was convicted of firing a stack of straw at Steeple Bumpstead. When taken into custody, he said that his master had beaten him, and he had committed the act to revenge himself. At Huntingdon, on Wednesday, Samuel Baxter, a boy ten years old, was convicted of setting fire to some straw-stacks at Hemingford Ab- bots. He was recommended to mercy by the prosecutor, on the ground of the absence of any evil motive for the act : but Baron Alderson sen- tenced him to fifteen years' transportatiou ; promising, however, to re- .commend his case to favourable consideration in the proper quarter.
Five Irishmen were tried at York, on Thursday and yesterday, for the murder of Benjamin Gott, at Bradford. Gott was one of a band of musicians, who had been playing in an Orange procession, on whom an attack was made at night on their return home, by a mob of Irishmen ; and Gott was so severely beaten that he died two days after. A ver- viet of " Manslaughter" was returned against all the prisoners.
At Northampton Assizes, on Wednesday, Peter M'Donald was found guilty, and sentenced to be transported for life, for the violation and robbery of Silvia Ann Hatley, on the 4th of June last, in a lonely part of the road between Shenley and Towcester.
At the Worcestershire Quarter-sessions, last week, a man aged ninety-six, and in his second childhood, was charged with injuring four hop-bines, the property of a Mr. Samuel Roe, of Great Malvern. The poor old man when lifted into the dock thought he was in a church ; his son informed the Court of his imbecility, and that he had escaped from those appointed to watch him and wandered into the hop-yard : yet the Magistrates ordered this case of " wilful and malicious" damage to proceed! The Jury, however, were so soon convinced of the pri- soner's feeble state of mind, that the disgraceful proceedings speedily terminated in a verdict of " Not Guilty."
A distressing accident happened at Dover on Monday afternoon, by the upsetting of a pleasure-boat in the bay. Mrs. Bennett, of Southwark, two of her daughters, and Mr. Henry Rawlings, her nephew, were in the boat, with the two men who navigated it ; and only Mrs. Bennett and the boatmen were saved.
An extensive fire broke out at Salford last week, on the premises of Messrs. Wilson and Company, engineers and screw and bolt manufac- turers. No water could be obtained for some time, and the fire ex- tended to Messrs. Lavins's sizing-works. Both buildings were de- stroyed, and a. number of cottages were injured. Messrs. Wilson and Messrs. Lavins are insured for 8,500L; bat it is supposed this will not cover the loss.
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