Vruniurial.
Lord William Graham was, on Saturday, elected Member for Hereford- shire, without opposition. He is a warm supporter of Lord Derby.
Meetings have been held to promote the Reform movement in general or some particular parts of it, such as the ballot, at Huddersfield, Brad. ford, and Horsham. Mr. Bright's views are pretty generally accepted at these meetings.
A large public meeting at Birmingham, held on Wednesday, has de- clared that the Excise-duty on paper is untenable, and ought to be re- pealed.
At the Accrington Courthouse, on Thursday, Messrs.Watson Brothers, of Church, were fined 2/. with costs, in each of twenty cases, for allow- ing young persons to work after six o'clock in the evening. The number of cases was much smaller than might have been taken, as the mill was found to be in full operation at a quarter past six.—.1fanehester Guardian.
James Atkinson murdered Mary Jane Smile at Hampsthwaite, near Darley, in August last. He courted the girl ; she refused to have him on account of his violent temper, and lie one Sunday killed her iii a lane. There was no doubt of the fact, Atkinson confessed it the next morning to his brother ; and afterwards described the crime in a written statement. For this he was tried at the York Assizes. The defence was that Atkinson was an imbecile, a cretin. The disease was in the family. His brother was an idiot ; his aunts were lunatics • his father's brother was a furious lunatic ; his grandmother had brought lunacy into the family. The malady was traceable to eyenmiore remote generations, and there were six or seven lunatics in the family1 in every generation—in the prisoner's own genera- tion, in his father's, in his grandfather's and even in his great grandfather's On Monday last Mr. W. Walton, a man who has hitherto held respect- able position in society at Worcester, was committed for trial charged with embezzling monies of the Worcester Distillery Company to a considerable extent. The prisoner had been employed as traveller and collector, at 150/. a-year, and a guinea a-day expenses up to last September, when he ab- sconded, and deficiencies to the amount of about 2001. were then discovered. All trace of him woe lost until a detective procured a photographic likeness of the missing man, and, procuring a number of copies, they were trans- mitted to the various police-stations in the country, the result being that he eatas discovered in lodgings at Douglas, in the Isle of Man, where he was ap- prehended, brought back to Worcester, and on Monday last fully committed for trial. He had been missing just three months. The body of a Tyne pilot, John Halcrow, has been picked up on the shore of Westgate bay, Kent. The wounds he had received gitle rise to theses- pittion that he had been murdered and cast into the sea. It seems he left Tyne on board the Zemke, a vessel lost in the Newcombe Sands on the 7th October. There is a good deal of mystery in the case. generation. This was an rted b evidences_ Persons who had lerTn ,fluldhia de krifesi- ia,44,dtesr -91 ii.ean gn " ell 11111ra 111'..' ,fltilitilii,d) etiltal. ifigili fibalifili :lihrlaiird,..i4er ,4,4p0.4 4iiod top .3, 3c.., e. ,ory d Itiltilitin 'net' ' llty 4 ciw-kvoyu4 4 i.04iify ; `Mid he 'Was eraCred
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fl .: At ftlielianw, Attizatsf: John Taylor Whit worth' was . tried for the murder cif 4slississeetheark, ,Sallyteliare, ,tit Throuphain St John's; Whitwortftthad courted the girl for two or three years. One .nigbt. she accompanied him 4rfinsisgr,,rmister4s.hostie 9/1ohia: waysheined fte Lieturned with•litr titoat `tut, and she soon died. The Reverend Willimnsaftwaresv,iftitedlhet.104.1ser deathbed, as a magistrate, not as a clergyman. „He told her her life was in Stanger! MilIsiskedluIr tessttkllie Ittith'' sSlid simile na'rbeljf,- S'inff he Oleo subtsinistertellan 'Oath, and be' questlioh-s,ntststins4 a stirts,mtent, irate her. Nhisd Kid theeguilt of murder upon WhiCworth, -and it was earitlairated by witnesses; but the.prisoner'd mama ubjected!tlint the statement was not Isp.antatt_keou4ly suade under belief of iin Deeding d4.ili. Baron Watson 'Over- ruled the objection. ",,The Jury returned a verdict of guilty, and sentence of tlealli Walt fpantied upon the prisoner. • os•Mstfisi 'tainting AissiStss3lary Nowell was sentenced to detith for drowning ' 'sill,ggitliffaleisellila.,-"The girl had been seduced by one Francis, l'i tiltet'ef,;" Stfter'bri• child was bora she soie;iit help fron; tim ; he refused teplieb"hqt''nn*:: "The :girl wandered away from his shop penniless and Etaittti2Vettitt:: 'In' her Staternent before the Magistrates she said she had waited until midnight in the hope of seeing. Francis. " I was destitute of a farthing, and I walked about to see If I could see him. I liege frowned on me ahih Ilia ti+.11 I by. LlgtflkneWpitlitd?filli'n. It drove me to do saw no tidings of him. , The teniptfon was very great to lead me to do what I did ; what I never thought...Or Before. went on her for ode, went inside a field, .tilled14.:i9v 711Y Tri`ajd4F.11-ft', iTittilli 'tre'-rttf 4; Cf!I stitri T'ollett11441t‘..7Te.°14-TaFndr fl liefIll'imer att. outS" ''.9 I, e undre',,eit the "baby, and ailowed it to roll into the miters s I...'S I . • i , • . , s .• , . ...sT#01sesserts• no doubt of her guilt; the Jury refused to adopt tholuggene . ,g Alec coun.sel that-§he iwns!,insmio at the time she .voininittod the mar s j, Obey recommended her to mercy, a recommendation Mr. Justice Er16,444 e wini.hl.forwarel withreusli satistastrAP, ,
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.1.4 AA the 'Taunton tAasiactai iWilliam.Burgess has -.hem:Sentenced tq death for murdering his daughter Hanhah Maria Burgess s Illutt easeseaatutusuak Burgess, wes;a widoweedifiug in a village on, Esins-mr, •,(tnetlny in.Julythe gave out tt he intended ttstake hie, tlaughtostesher tAV(nt.at Pfttioek, . bm1 he:carried,. her away. The neighbours suspeetedhintof having unir4teredheas Seine tram of hoe burnt_drces -yore Cooed, ad- hard by an empty grave, Tlae,pbliee were liput after Burgess, who had left the district. Found at Swansea ilsa fit, ef remorse he coniesi,.ea the murder; accident revealed the Lorly ,of the child in the shaft of a disused mine. The evidence against him was clear, So wretched had-ho become with reflection on his crime that he attempted suicide. .. . • The Bradford .poisonine masse fanned another subjaet, of triat Charles Hodgson, chemist, was ., charged • with negligently selling arsenic,-.and thereby-causing the death of Elizabeth Mary Midgley. - [This was alit& child,, one among seventeen persons, who died from eating the poisoned lo- zenges4 The evidence adduced in this ease made no addition to the facts already published. One of the ingredients of lozenges manufactured at Bradford is a preparation of gypsum called " daff" or more mysteriously "terra alba." Neal, a confectioner, sent a man to Hodgson the chemist for twelve pounds of daft': Hodgson was unwell; at first he seemed not to know what "doff" was; then he said the man had better wait tint:111e could lento him personally. The man was angry and would not wait, and Hodgson then told his assistant Goddard, who did not know daff from arsenic, nor arsenic, when he saw it, that he would find the stuff in a tub in a corner of the garret. Goddard, much flurried, went to the garrett, mis- took the tub, and sold twelve pounds of arsenic. He was young and in- experienced. Baron Watson held that there was no evidence of "criminal negligence," and directed the jury to acquit the prisoner. . At the Sheffield Assizes Mr. Harrison, proprietor of three newspapers there published, brought an action against Mr. Pearce, proprietor of a rival journal, for libel. Mr. Harrison learned that he was eying his working compositors more than other proprietors in the North; they belonged to the Letter-press Printer's Society of Sheffield, and he found the restrictions of I the society vexatious to him in the conduct of his business; so he looked abroad for other hands," at his own time giving the society men notice to I quit his employ. Hefting obtained new printers on his own terms, freed I from the restrictions Of-the society; but the discharged printers and their associates did not submit to their own expulsion in contented quiet. The Society of Letter-press Printers issued a statement of the ease; the popula- tion of Sheffield comprises a large proportion of working men, and Mr. Harrison found the circulation of his papers so seriously affected that, as he said in court, "it is almost ruin to me." Against the consequences of the steps taken by the letter-press printers, Mr. Harrison brought this action for damages on the move of a "libel," consisting of the placard above men- tioned; the action being brought against Mr. Pearce, the proprietor of the 8kefteld Daily Telegraph, in whose columns it had been published. Mr. Pearce defended himself by justifying "libel" The placard is a long statement of the events we have'related, but it is not limited to a statement of the fade in question, and it was the transgression of that limit, by impu- tation on personal character and conduct, which formed the foundation of the charge of " libel." The Jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff with 5001. damages. But the Judge was asked to stay execution on the ground ,of misdirection and with reference to damages; the counsel for the defen- dant contending that to justify the damages the witness ought to have proved that all the damage arose from the posting of the placards.
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