DELICATE INVESTIGATION.
" IF it's murder mention it," says Billy Lackaday ; and such has been the substance of the inquiry urged against Mr. PHILLIPS for some weeks past. The Magistrates of Bow Street have at last dismissed the affair, one of them having read the whole of . a mass of papers tendered to throw light on it, and another having only read a. part of them, and refraining from embarrassing his judgment with the statement of the
party principally concerned. The surprise and grief of the Magistrates that this affair should have
excited feelings of asperity, are especially characteristic. It really is most unaccountable that one gentleman should feel angry at a mere suspicion of having destroyed his wife ; and that some other gentleman should have been excited by the idea that a criminal was escaping pu- nishment! That people should entertain ill will towards each other, and quarrel about a mere question of murder, is inexplicable to the Bow Street mind. On dismissing the affair, Mr. HALLS emphatically
urged,
"All I say is, for God's sake let all the ill-feelings which have been engen- dered die away, and all animosity cease."
After such a trivial discussion, nothing surely can be more easy. The following makes a pleasing episode in the affair. That two Ma- gistrates cannot be in one story even on a point of civility, is suffi- ciently droll.
Mr. CHURCHILL complained to Sir Richard Birnie, that there had been a want of courtesy on the part of the Magistrates towards him, who, as a bar- rister, he conceived, should have been invited upon the Bench, as upon the former occasion.
Sir RICHARD BIRNIE said, that there was not sufficient room far all the gen- tlemen on the Bench; and, therefore, he had determined that all parties should be in the front ; and there would be no show of partiality. Mr. HALLS said, that if Mr. Churchill had handed up his card, he should have - been admitted to the Bench. •
So true it is that "Two of a trade can never agree."
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