At a meeting of East India proprietors, on Wednesday, a
grant of 5,000/. to the estate (virtually to the creditors) of Mr. William Fraser, was confirmed ; after Sir Charles Forbes had declared his strong dis- approbation of the resolution, and the manner in which it had been carried.
In reply to a question by Mr. Marriott, Sir James Lushington, the Chairman, said that there were private accounts, but no official informa- tion, of the death of Sir Robert Grant, at Bombay. [Sir Robert, it is said, died suddenly, from an attack of apoplexy.]
After a sharp contest of three days, the parishioners of St. George the Martyr, Southwark, have decided to grant a three.halfpenny, instead of a twopenny church-rate, and not to build a house for the . Rector. The rate was carried by a vote of 392 to 3.53; and the refusal to build the Rector's house by 3.57 to 288. At the Middlesex Sessions, on Friday last, John Scott was put to to the bar, on a charge of embezzling money belonging to the parish of St. James, Clerkenwell, of which he was treasurer. From a statement made by Mr. Bodkin, counsel for the prosecution, it ap- peared, that although the prisoner had absconded, and a reward of 300/. had been offered for his apprehension, the parish.officers had compro- mised the case, upon receiving security for repayment of the 'sums taken by the prisoner. No evidence was offered, and Scott was therefore acquitted. The liforning Herald animadverted in very in- dignant, but not unjustifiable language, on the scandalous arrangement by which in this case a delinquent escaped and justice was defeated. The Herald's remarks provoked Sergeant Adams ; who, on Saturday, defended the conduct of the Court, declaring that in the absence of evidence he could only direct an acquittal. [Technically, the Sergeant was right ; and the case furnishes an additional instance to the thou- sands of previous proofs that in England money will purchase immu- nity for crime. The affair was very openly managed ; for Mr. Bod- kin, in the fullest confidence that he had nothing discreditable to state, gave a candid account of the manner in which the misdemeanour ( Sergeant Adams was careful to observe that it was not afe/ony) had been compounded.] A Coroner's Jury, summoned for the purpose of investigating the circumstances causing the death of Mary Ann Strong, in the Grove Place Lunatic Asylum, returned a verdict on Saturday, that her de- cease was "accelerated by the ill-treatment she experienced from two of the nurses" in the Asylum.
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