'Tbe Ittrobtntts.

The election of a Member for Cambridge, in the room of Sir Alexan- der Cray Grant, commenced on Saturday, with the nomination of Mr. Fitzroy Kelly, the Conservative candidate, and Mr. Richard Foster, the Liberal. In his address to the electors, Mr. Kelly alluded to a former charge of bribery upon which he had been unseated, eight or nine years ago. The Committee which had decided against him, he said, was composed of nine direct political enemies and two political friends. Three individuals unconnected with each other, and coming together upon no system, distributed sums of money, amounting throughout the whole election to something under 401. They were construed to be agents of the sitting Members, and they were unseated. The Law- officers of the Crown, however, declared that the Members were not in- culpated. Mr. Kelly rested strongly on the fact, that Mr. Foster, as a Dissenter and a supporter of the late Ministry, was an opponent of the Church ; and he closed a longish speech repeating his political senti- ments, by declaring himself a friend of the venerated institutions of the land, of landlords and tenants, of agricultural labourers, of artisans, and of all classes. Mr. Foster denied his opposition to the Church ; and stated, that though net a Wesleyan, he had all his life supported the Wesleyan Missionary Society. Advocacy of Free Trade and an at- tack on the Income-tax were prominent points in his speech. The show of hands was in favour of Mr. Kelly ; and a poll was demanded for Mr. Foster.

At the close of the poll, on Monday, the numbers were for Kelly, 714 ; Foster, 681 ; majority, 33.

Mr. Thomas Berry Cusack Smith, the Attorney-General for Ireland, was elected Member for Ripon, on Saturday, in the room of Mr. C. J. Pemberton, without opposition. In his brief address to the electors, Mr. Smith alluded to the Corn-laws ; avowing himself an advocate of protection for the farmer, and demanding a further trial of the present Corn-law ; but, he said, he was not pledged to it.

The Anti-Corn-law League have had a deputation, consisting of Co- lonel Thompson and Mr. R. R. R. Moore, on a tour in the South of En- gland. On the 14th, they met 2,500 persons at Cheltenham ; the Earl of Ducie being the chairman. On the 16th, they held a meeting in the Public Rooms at Broadmead, Bristol, which was very numerously attended ; Mr. F. H. F. Berkeley, M.P., arriving from London expressly to at- tend it. Afterwards there was a working-class meeting at the same place. On Monday, they had a great Free-trade meeting in Southamp- ton; where they were joined by Mr. Cobden. They have also had meetings at Tiverton, Barnstaple, and Exeter. At these meetings, Colonel Thompson, good-humouredly noticing an attack upon him by Lord Brougham, explained that he did not laugh at assassination, as Lord Brougham implied, but at Sir Robert Peel's pre- tence that Mr. Cobden instigated assassination.

At Southampton, an address was presented to Mr. Cobden from Lymington. The Earl of Ducie explained at Stroud the circumstances which led him to be an advocate of total and immediate repeal of the Corn-laws ; declaring that he came there " to identify himself with the League as a body"-

' You will remember, at the election of 1832,1 was held up to the execration of the agricultural interest, and was posted on every wall and barn-door as the farmers' enemy. To tell the truth, at that time I had thought very little about the repeal of the Corn-laws ; but, finding myself accused of holding these opi- nions, and held up to public odium for so doing, I naturally began to inquire- what the great crime was of which I was accused, and looked into the subject for myself. I read the arguments for and against it; and, gentlemen, the result of my inquiries was, that I very soon became the advocate of a fixed duty.. Having got so far, I soon came, by a parity of reasoning, to believe that if a fixed duty was good free trade must be much better."

The earthquake which visited Liverpool on Friday morning, about one o'clock, extended over a considerable tract of the adjoining country. The shock was distinctly felt at Manchester about the same time; but it was more generally observed in the suburbs than in the centre of the town—probably because the persons most likely to use their obser- vation in such a case do not much live in the town. It was also remarked, that those persons who were up and in motion did not notice the oscillation so much as those who were still and lying down. A sensation of heat and oppressive closeness had been perceived for some hours before. In some instances, the people who were waked in the houses got up in alarm, dressed themselves, and walked in the streets till daylight. A gentleman at Smedley Lane felt the floor of a room vibrate ; and next morning he found the dust in a heap in the centre of the room, as if it had drifted together. Some of the incidents were ludicrous. A person at Kersall Moor, says the Manchester Guardian, " awaking, and finding himself shaking very much, concluded that it was an attack of ague, and took physic to ward off what he supposed was the approach of the disorder!" " At Suspension Bridge, a lady, terrified from an apprehension that thieves were in the house, opened the window and called the police. A policeman, who was near, assured her that she need feel no alarm as to thieves, as it was ' only an earthquake.' "

At Preston, the visitation was rather more startling-

" Its approach was intimated by an unnatural buzzing noise, gradually in- creasing louder and louder until the moment when the subterranean convulsion passed a given point ; and then the sound, and the effects produced on the instant, became very alarming—windows and doors rattling, nay, the very houses ap- parently staggering to their foundations. The watchmen of the town and the public officers on night duty describe the sensations which it excited as awfully appalling; the ground appearing to them to be sinking under them, and them- selves feeling as though they were descending to a great depth. The bells rang in several houses."

At Lancaster, says the Lancaster Guardian, several smart shocks- continued for about fifty seconds. The fetters hung in the gateway- tower of the castle clanked against each other with great violence.

The concussion was also perceived throughout Lancashire, at Car- lisle and other places in Cumberland, in Westmoreland, Yorkshire, and Cheshire.

At Fleetwood on Wyre, an earthquake was felt at eleven p. m. on the Thursday ; but it was so slight as to attract little attention. The shock about fifty minutes past midnight, which came with a sound like subterranean thunder, was so violent that many persons left their- houses in alarm. The sea rose to an unusual height ' • and the Prince of Wales steamer, which was on the voyage from Belfast to Fleetwood at the time, encountered a suddenly boisterous sea ; for which the master could not account, as the shock was not otherwise felt on board.

The Isle of Man was shaken ; and people in steamers off the island felt the grinding sensation under the vessels which is so often observed, as if they had run aground. [The motion was slightly perceptible even in Ireland and Scotland; the Belfast Northern Whig mentions several cases in which peasons- felt the shock, and the Edinburgh Weekly Journal contains a notice of the phmnomenon at Dumfries.] At Derby Assizes, on Monday, John West, aged twenty-five, was charged with the utterance of seditious language. He had several times addressed large assemblies of potters and miners on the borders of Staffordshire ; and on the 18th September, at Swadlincole, he de- livered a long discourse on a text taken from the second of chapter Peter, the fourth and three succeeding verses; in the course of which he used the following expressions-

" We are told to unite together to oppose the abominable laws which atop- our rights by class legislation." " We must be alive and active, for as long as we sleep quiet we shall not get our rights from the aristocracy." " We must combine together to open the locks of the prison-doors, and liberate those of our brethren who are confined for asking for our rights." " We have no right to be content with the abominable laws which are entailed upon us."

Mr. West did not deny that he was a Chartist ; but much stronger language, he said, had been used in high places : and his object was, if the poor did not go to church, to carry the word of God to them. Chief Justice Tindal, who was an honour to the land as well as an ornament to the Bench, had wisely said that people might by excite- ment be carried beyond the proper bounds of discretion. He thought every fair chance should be given to a party, and that it was not right to have certain sentences picked out of a long discourse for the purpose of founding a charge upon them.

Baron Alderson said, that nothing was more unfair than to take de- tached portions of a discourse. For example, suppose a man said he had heard such a one say, " There is no God "—that would be very bad : but suppose another had come forward and said, " Yes, that was so ; but he prefixed the words, ' The fool has said in his heart' "- which would make all the difference. The Jury acquitted tIr prisoner ; the Judge remarking that it was a very proper verdict.

At the same Assizes, Samuel Bonsai!, William Bland; and John Hulme, were charged with the murder of Miss Martha Goddard, at Stanley, on the 30th September last. Miss Goddard was a maiden lady, upwards of seventy years of age, who lived with her sister Sarah, in a large house called Stanley Hall, about six miles from Derby. They were the daughters of a clergyman, and possessed of considerable pro- perty, but of very eccentric habits ; living in their mansion without any other inmate, occupying separate rooms, taking their meals apart, and rarely having any communication with each other. They were supposed to have hordes of money in the house. The men appear to

have got into the house by taking the slates off the roof of a coal-cellar. Miss Sarah came to the door of the cellar armed with a poker ; but they knocked her down and drove up stairs. Miss Martha was in bed ; but she got up, and stood in the middle of the room. They were not satis- fied with the money she gave ; all seem to have beaten her, and she died of her hurts next morning ; never speaking after the attack. They carried away two sovereigns and some silver, and some portable articles in a bag. In a lane they met a farmer, who challenged them as poachers ; and Bonsall wanted to kill him ; but Bland said, they had done enough for that night. Bland appears to have been refused an equal share of the money, and he made a confession, in which he ac- cused Hulme of the murder. Bonsall, who confessed to some fellow prisoners, also accused Hulme. Hulme, on the other hand, talking to an apprentice in his trade of chimney-sweeper, accused Bland and Bonsall. One of the witnesses stated, that Stanley Hall bad been robbed three:times within a very short period. Evidence was given that Miss Sarah Goddard was not in a fit state of mind to appear at the trial. The prisoners were found guilty by the Jury, and sentenced to death.

At York Assizes, on 'Monday, :Felix Booth was tried on an indict- ment for felony, in having preferred a foul charge against Sir Felix Booth, with a view to extort money. The prisoner was the cousin and godson of the prosecutor ; from whom he had received a series of benefits. In 1835, Sir Felix Booth gave him employment in one of his distil- leries; but he was discharged for intemperance : afterwards Sir Felix allowed him to reside at a farm at Catsworth in Huntingdon ; his duty being, to return a weekly account of work done at the farm ; and his remuneration was board and lodging for himself and wife, and the profits of the poultry-yard. His own misconduct caused him to be dismissed in 1839; when Sir Felix advanced him 2901. to set up as a grocer in Somerstown. He continued his demands for assistance ; but it ceased, and in 1840 he hinted at the charge which formed the subject of the prosecution. He included in it a Mr. bIarr, a young man in whom Sir Felix Booth took an interest, and who now proves to be the baronet's son. In 1841, he brought an action to recover payment for work done at the farm ; but he did not proceed:with it. The defence was, that the prisoner believed himself to have a bona fide claim on his cousin, and that the letters urged that claim, but did not present the alternative of paying a sum of money to quash the charge ; therefore it was not an in- dictable offence. The objection was set aside ; and the Jury returned a verdict of " Guilty." On Thursday, he was sentenced to twenty years' transportation.

A most extraordinary charge of the same kind was the subject of a trial at Stafford, on Saturday. Henry William Grove, the prisoner, the son of a respectable grocer at Lymington, had left home in his youth to indulge a desire for religious employment ; and he succes- sively filled the situation of lay assistant to the Pastoral Aid Society at Birmingham, whence he was dismissed for misconduct, and at Burslem. At Burslem he circulated many hundreds of letters, imputing the of- fence in question to himself and the nephew of Mr. Alcock, a gentle- man of some influence in the neighbourhood; his object being, ap- parently, to connect his own name with that of the young gentleman, so as to bring about a consultation with the uncle, and consequently an introduction to the family. The letters were traced to him by means of the paper on which they were written ; and after, denying his guilt for some time, he eventually confessed it. The defence was insanity ; the prisoner having suffered from epilepsy. The Jury, however, convicted him. On Thursday he was sentenced by Mr. Justice Wightman to twelve months' imprisonment.