'ir Vtuniurto.
Colonel Boyle has issued an address to the electors of Frome, announ- cing his proximate departure to the head-quarters of his regiment in the East. Should his stay abroad be protracted beyond the opening of the next session, he promises that the continuance of his connexion with his constituents shall rest entirely with them.
The Royal Agricultural Society has held its show this week at Lincoln ; opening the show-yard on Tuesday. The stock exhibited is described as unsurpassed by any previous exhibition. The entries of cattle, horses, sheep, and pigs, amounted to 739, and of poultry to 295. The horses and sheep are especially mentioned as excellent. In implements the show is quite up to the average, if not beyond it. The weather has been splen- did; and old Lincoln was profusely decked out with flags and triumphal arches.
The usual dinner took place on Wednesday ; the Earl of Chichester in the chair : Mr. Pusey, the President of the year, was unfortunately pre- vented by illness in his family from occupying that post. Speeches were delivered by the Chairman, the Peruvian Minister, M. Yvart, a French- man, sent over by the Emperor, the Earl of Carlisle, the Earl of Yar- borough, the Earl of Harrowby, Mr. Miles M.P. and Colonel Sibthorp. Lord Carlisle made an apropos reference to his F:astern travels. Although the people of the East, he said, had shown considerable military prowess, yet their farming processes and implements did not exhibit much resemblance to those which were to be seen in the show-yards of Lincoln, and he believed they had undergone very little change since the days of the poet Homer. But he felt that they ought not to despond on that account; for it did happen to him, in a very extensive farm, brought into cultivation by a most enlightened and excellent English Consul, Mr. Calvert, with his own eyes to see on the classic plain of Troy implements inscribed with the re- spective names of Garrett of Saxmundham and Croskill of Beverley. He
believed that this was the real solution of the Eastern question, of which they heard BO much ; and that neither our fleets, however well manned, nor
our armies, however valorous, nor our diplomatists, however skilful, could do so much as the plough, the spade and the draining-tile, to revive ex- hausted provinces and to recruit a failing population.
The Society will meet next year at "merry Carlisle," where they are promised a genuine Border welcome.
Oldham has produced a diminutive but respectable exhibition after the pattern of the Crystal Palace of 1851, so far as the articles exhibited go. It was opened on Monday. The Earl of Wilton, the Bishop of Manches- ter, and other local notables, walked in procession to the Working Men's Hall, the Exhibition building; and there, after the singing of the Hun- dredth Psalm by a full choir, the Earl of Wilton delivered an inaugural address. Some of the articles in the collection have been contributed by the Queen and Prince Albert.
There is a movement among the gunmaking operatives of Birmingham to organize all the workmen in the trade into one society, not with a view to "strikes," but in the hope of obtaining a machinery which shall pre. vent strikes and lock-outs.
The operative sailmakers of Liverpool have struck, in consequence of the masters attempting to depart from an agreement made some years age respecting the number of apprentices to each shop.
There have been further failures in the worsted trade of Bradford : six houses in all have stopped payment.
Some remarkable eases have been triad at the Summer Assizes.
At York Assizes, four men, Burkinehaw, Gould, Smith, and Lomax, were tried for a garotte robbery at Sheffield' and Smith only was acquitted. Smith and Burkinsbaw were then accused of attempting to murder Petrick Shandley, a Manchester Superintendent of Police. Shandley, it appftm arrested them at Manchester, and was directed to convey them to Sheffield by railway. On this journey, one of the most unparalleled single combats on record took place. The two robbers slipped off their handcuffs, set open the officer, beat and kicked him, and tried to throw him out of the carriage. Smith at length jumped out, leaving Burkinshaw in the grasp of the con- stable. The robber threatened to murder Shandley if he did not let him go. "You shall, before I let you go," replied the officer ; and so the strife continued, Shandley crying out for aid. The guard of the train heard him, and at last succeeded in signalling the driver to stop the traiu. When he reached the carriage, the intrepid Shandley, nearly insensible, still firmly grasped his prisoner. Smith, it turned out, was arrested soon after alighting ins field. It was argued that Smith had not attempted murder, and he WU acquitted ; but sentence of death was recorded against his brutal comrade.
At Dorchester, William Stockley was convicted of the manslaughter of his father. The father, being drunk, threatened his son's wife, and "squared at" the son ; for these offensive acts he was twice knocked down by the son, the second time his head struck the floor, and he died. The Jury recom- mended the prisoner to mercy, on the ground of the provocation ; but Mr, Justice Coleridge held that the prisoner should not have struck any man, much less his own father, when intoxicated. However, the sentence was only six months' imprisonment.
The Court-martial held at Windsor last week has attracted a great deal of attention and much comment. The charge investigated was preferred by Lieutenant Thomas Fergus Greer, against Lieutenant James Edward Perry, both officers of the Forty-sixth Foot. The part of the story told by Greer amounted to this. 'Very early on the morning of the 29th June, Greer had an altercation with Perry, and "pulled him about" ; and Perry struck Greer with a candlestick, without warning, and rendered him insensible: on his recovering, Perry again struck him on the head; he remembered no- thing more until he again recovered, and told Perry to send for a doctor. By cross-examination, Perry endeavoured to obtain admissions that Greer had repeatedly forced him to gamble ; dragged him about by the collar; called him a " swindler " and • a son of a bitch" ; and wide him toes for a bottle of wine "for Greer's woman." There was a witness to part of the scuffle. Rather Major, a dressmaker, the "friend" of. Greer, was present : it was between twelve and one o'clock : she heard Greer repeatedly urge Perry to play at cards and rouge et noir ; she heard him use offensive language; heard Perry order him out of his room; heard a scuffle, and, entering from Greer's room, saw Greer leaning over the wash-hand basin bleeding. In his written defence, Lieutenant Perry told his own story. He said he was alone in the world ; his father, an offioer, being on service in India. Having limited means, he determined to be "a quiet man," and thus became an object of reproach and ridicule. To show how he had been treated, he stated that time after time he had been dragged from his bed and compelled by the officers to go through the sword-exercise in a state of nudity. Appealing to his superiors, he got no redress. On the night in question, Greer forced him to toss and gamble, and when he lost cursed him. When Perry got up to leave the room, Greer dragged him back by his coat ; seized him under the arms and jammed him against the wall; struck him on the cheat and stomach. Perry told him to consider himself under arrest ; but Greer proceeded in his attack. Unable to bear this any longer' Pe snatched up a candlestick and struck Greer until he loosed his grasp. Pe statement, simply but ably written, was listened to with deep attention. The judgment of the Court will not be published until it be approved by the Commander-in-chief.
One of the most violent boiler-explosions that ever occurred took place at Roehdale early on Saturday morning, and was attended by a large loss of property and a most lamentable sacrifice of human life. 'I'he boiler at Mr. Williamson's calico-factory was a small one, of only eight or ten horse- power. On Friday night tne engineer got drunk, and was taken into cus- tody by the Police. In his absence, on Saturday morning, William Taylor, and Howarth, the manager of the mill, proceeded to get up steam ; and if the explosion occurred by any mismanagement on their part they paid dearly for it, for both perished. Soon after the workers bad all entered the mill— a one-story shed—the boiler was torn to pieties, with a frightful noise ; part of the factory was destroyed ; a neighbouring cottage was demolished ; a house was damaged ; and a shower of masses of iron, bricks, and other ar- ticles, descended for a long distance round. Across a road, a short distance off, was another cotton-mill, belonging to Mr. Bottomley. A "broadside" of bricks and iron entered the windows at one end of this mill, traversed the rooms, and shattered the machinery : a young woman was struck on the head by a brick, and killed ; near her was found the head of another young woman—the remainder of the poor creature was buried in the ruins of Wil- liamson's factory. When those ruins were removed, the corpses of six other men and women were found, and one young woman who was taken out alive died the same day. Besides these, thirteen of the workpeople sus- tained fractures, bruises, cuts, and other hurts, and the cases of several were pronounced dangerous. Mrs. Howarth, who occupied the cottage which was destroyed, was killed ; her father and two of her children were in bed at the time—bed and mattress and occupants were blown into a river which flows by the spot, and the old man and Lis grandchildren were seen floating ell the water—they were rescued unhurt.
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