Cht Vroniutto.
The appointment of Mr. Crowder to the bench has caused a vacancy in the representation of Liskeard. Three candidates are in the field,—Mr. R. W. Grey, private Secretary to Lord Palmerston; Captain Reede; and Mr. John Trelawny. Mr. Grey takes Lord John Russell as his model; but objects to proceeding with the Reform Bill, on the ground that he cannot concur in the minority elause, and that the people [of Liakeatd do not care a farthing about Reform.
The Honourable K Calthorpe, son of Lord Calthorpe, has offered him- self as a candidate for the city of Lichfield, vacant by the:succession of Viscount Anson to the title and peerage of Lichfield.
Mr. Pease, one of the deputation of "Friends" who recently went on a peaceful mission to St. Petersburg, gave the people of Darhngton the benefits of his experience, in the shape of a lecture at the Mechanics' In.. stitution, last week. Mr. Pease simply gave a sketch of his travels; dilating on the grandeur of the Czar's palace, and the kindness of his reception of the deputation ; telling his audience that he was sure the Czar is a temperate and kind man, wofully calumniated by the free press of England. With singular and naïve consistency, the admirer of the Czar told his hearers how every night the horrors of the slaughter at Sinope were represented on the boards of a theatre, under the auspices of the kind and temperate Nicholas !
Affairs at Preston are getting into a more angry state. On Sunday there was a "camp meeting" at Droylsden; and "the people of Lanca- shire, Cheshire, and Derbyshire," resolved "never to cease agitation" till the Preston workers have got their ten per cent. On Monday morning there was to have been a meeting in a field at the outskirts of Preston, lent by an innkeeper ; but when some thousands had assembled, Cowell announced that there could be no meeting—the innkeeper had been re- luctantly compelled to revoke his offer. Cowell complained of the owners of property refusing the operatives the opportunity of meeting. He warned the people to mind what they said and did, for there were police- men about in plain clothes to entrap them. Ho understood that the au- thorities were trying to get up a charge of conspiracy against him and others.
On Saturday the Magistrates had met with closed doors. Some of the new hands were examined. It was rumoured that the delegates were to be charged with removing workpeople imported by the masters. Late on Monday night, Cowell, Grimshaw, and Waddington, were arrested. Subsequently six more delegates or committee-men were apprehended. The charge is conspiracy—conspiring to send back workpeople brought by the manufacturers from Manchester. After an examination on Tues- day, they were liberated on bail.
On Wednesday, Cowell, Grimshaw, and five others, were committed for trial at the Liverpool Assizes; but were admitted to bail.
The manufacturers in the Staffordshire Potteries have resolved, in con- sequence of the increased cost of the materials they employ, to raise the price of china and porcelain from 16 to 20 per cent, both for home con- snmption and for export.
The dispute between the North country seamen and the shipowners continues ; but the owners are now getting the best of it : from the clos- ing of the Black Sea and the Baltic to commerce, they get non-union men at a lower price.
In delivering his charge to the Grand Jury of Birmingham, at the Ge- neral Sessions held on the 14th instant, Mr. Recorder Hill treated of an important subject—the "connexion between disease and crime." He showed by statistics, quoted from a pamphlet by Dr. Southwood Smith, that by the introduction of better sanitary arrangements into the dwell- ings of the working classes, the proportionate duration of life has been increased, and the morality of the people improved. Disease and vice, in fact, garrison the same unwholesome quarters of our towns.
At Exeter Assizes, Wiles, a farmer living near Ashburton, was the de- fendant in a breach of promise case. He promised to marry Miss White, a young woman of humble station ; he seduced her, and proposed that an abortion should be procured ; then he refused to marry her. She had a child. Willes is a man of fifty, bald, and asthmatic : his counsel contended that the loss of such a husband was of no great moment. The Jury, how- ever, gave 4001. damages. A number of boys and girls were tried for participating in the "food riots" at Exeter. They were all convicted. Mr. _Baron Martin sentenced one to imprisonment for nine months, and five others for six months ; but respited judgment on the rest—if they behaved well they would hear no more ibont the matter.
At Derby, Kent, a railway-guard, and Cawood and Smeeton, engine-drivers, were tried for the manslaughter of Michael Parkes. The statement was, that by their negligence they caused the fatal collision near Ambergate, on the 4th October : after assisting a disabled engine, they returned with the locomotive under their charge towards Ambergate, on the wrong line, and thus came into contact with a third engine which had been despatched to assist. They were found guilty. Rent was sentenced to imprisonment for eighteen months, and the others for twelve months, with hard labour.
There has been another bloody tragedy at Birmingham. Samuel Speak, a . youth of twenty, has killed his mother, a widow, and then destroyed himself. He was a gun-engraver ; he was never considered "over sharp" in his in- . tellect ; latterly his mind had been depressed by slackness of work, and the fear that his mother would come to want. He borrowed a pistol, out some lead into slugs, and loaded it. Yesterday week he breakfasted with his mother and some relations ; nothing seemed peculiarly amiss with him. ' When he and his mother were alone he fired the pistol at her, the charge entered her brain, and she fell dead. The matricide ran up-stairs, reloaded the pistol, and, before any of the persons who had been alarmed by the first report went to seek him, he discharged several of the leaden slugs into his temple. He must have died on the instant.
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