31 JANUARY 1852, Page 2

410 aittruiti iiA.

8emeral Amin e gentlemen in the liondangkoek Exchange have agreed to form a rifle club, on the principle of enabling members at their con. venience to practise rifle-stooling ; it being understood, that, although eath gentleman will suit the time of his attendance to his own con- venience, he will, as a member, be pledged to become expert in the me. tics.

Arrangements have been completed at the Government School of Mines in the Geological Museum, Jermyn Street, for the delivery of gratuitous lectures to the working classes, on each Monday evening from the 9th February to the 16th March.

The differences between the .Amalgamated Society of Engineer's Work- men and the Central Association of Employers have reached the further stage of a new declaration by the Executive of each of the parties. Ott Thursday, the Executive Council of the Workmen considered a set of re- commendations which the Executive Committee of the Employers have lately circulated privately and confidentially among their own members. The document seems to have come into" the hands of the workmen by treachery on the part of some employer;' incident eif the quarrel be- tween the men and their employers that is said to have occurred before. It recommended the formal adoption of a scheme of resolutions to this effect- 1. That no employer employ, in any capacity whatever, any workman who is a member of a union or society "which takes cognizance of or professes to control, or practises interference with the -regulations of any establishment, the hours or terms of labour, the contracts or agreements of employers or employed, or the qualification or terms of service.". 2, 3, 4, 5,6, 7, 8. That no employer receive any deputation; - but that every employer dismiss every workman joining in a deputation. Employers are " recommended " to be at all times open and accessible to any personal representation of his individual operatives; and are "solicited' as much as possible to avoid the delegation of contracts to others, [middlemen,] to take a more personal superintendence of control of engagements with their hands," and to sift complaints to the bottom. None should engage any workman till he have read, in presence of a witness, the rules of the es- tablishment, and also a declaration against joining unions and societies as above. Employers should stand by each other. The Executive Committee to prepare a plan for the establishment among the workmen. of "a new, sound, and legitimate benefit society."

The members of the Executive of the Workmen discussed this docu- ment indignantly, and prepared an answer embodying their opinions on it. Appealing to the body of employers themselves against these schemes of their Executive and calling on the public .for sympathy and support towards the workmen, the Executive of the Workmen tondude-

" For ourselves, our own minds are made up. So long as we have hearts to feel, brains to think, tongues to speak, we will cry aloud against this threatened infraction of all duty alike to God and man. So long as any legal means of resistance are left to us we will struggle against the treachery, the fabiehood, the despotism of the Employers' Association ,• and if those means at last should fail us, although that is a result beyond probability, scarcely within the bounds 0/ possibility, we, and thousands at our back, rather than *id an unconditional submission will be prepared to carry with us to other lands that skill and industry which we are not allowed freely -to exercise upon our native soil, and thus take from the arrogant heartless tyrants who now seek to lord it over us—to make their arbitrary wills the rule of our lives—the means of employing that wealth which they value more than the lives or wellbeing of thdh- fellow men."

The law-points of the action of Miller versus Alderman &lemons, M.P. for Greenwich, to recover three penalties of 5001. each for sitting and voting in the Rouse of Commons three thnes without having taken the oath of abju- ration in due form—with the concluding words "on the true faith of a Chris- tian"—were argued by Sergeant Channell for the plaintiff; and Sir Fitzroy Kelly for the defendant, in the Court of Exchequer at Westminster, on Mon- day and Wednesday. The Court has taken time to consider maturely its judgment on this important case. The slight indications of the judicial opinion, which escaped, showed Baron Martin to be rather favourable to the defendant, the Chief Baron Pollock less strongly on the same side, Baron Alderson for the plaintiff, Baran Parke impassable.

The commission of lunacy in the ease of Mrs. Catherine Cumming was con- cluded by Mr. Commissioner Barlow and his nineteen Special Jurymen on Sa- turday, the sixteenth day of the proceedings. The interest of the case has been by no means proportioned to its enormous length. The Foreman of the Jury, Captain Bague, promptly declined the offer of the Commissioner to have any lengthened summing-up. There had been so much repetition that the Jury knew all the material depositions "by heart." Commissioner Bar- low briefly explained the law and cleared away the difficulties of the ease by dismissing, to a great extent, the dicta of the "mad doctors," whom the indefatigable attornies on each side brought forward to give the results of their personal interviews with Mrs. Cumming, and the opinions they entertain on the general question of what is mad- ness, or insanity. Following the practical determinations of Lord Eldon, he stated, that there might be a commission of inquiry such as this when a patient exhibits only imbecility of such an amount as shall be tantamount to the common notion of insanity, or as al:kali incapacitate him from managing his affairs. This fact of ability or inability to manage the affairs, he indi- cated as the real point of inquiry : so the Jury should avoid dealing with definitions of insanity ; and they should form their opinion of the patient's ability to manage her affairs, solely from the history of her life. He sug- gested that the antipathy of the patient to her children migl25 have arisen naturally from their disobedience in reference to their marriages; and then it might afterwards have become so unnaturally great as it now is from the peculiar temperament and temper of the patient. Defective temperament and temper may embarrass and distort the particular conclusions of a mind not unsound in its general operations. The Jury would say to themselves, was the inveterate hatred of her children which Mrs. Cumming has dis- played of later years—accompanied by impressions with respect to their acts, some of which Mrs. Cumming herself with frankness and ingenuousness now admits to have been delusions—was this only such an aberration from her natural conduct as could be explained by the distinction suggested in refer- ence to temperament and temper, or in any other mode similar in principle ; or did it go to satisfy the Jury of the patient's insanity, imbecility, or ines- pacity to manage her affairs ? Were the facts in reference to the eatp, and the manner of life with which they were privileged, mere eccentrisicies, only more extravagant in degree than is witnessed elsewhere ta society with reference to favourite animals ; or were they, again, pros of such insanity, imbecility, or incapacity ? Mr. Barlow intimated his regret that Mrs. Cum- ming should have declined to give any but v-cry slender information as to the acts she has performed with reference to her property : it was plain, however, that her incommunicativeness was partly due to want of know- ledge, or to decayed memory—perhaps to the very incapacity to so deal with such matters which it was the object of the commission to inquire into. I will had been drawn up chiefly in favour of her present attorney., Mr. names; but she stated that that will has never been executed. The Jury miiht be sure, that if they considered the patient of unsound mind, she would not be sent to a lunatic asylum, but would have such arrangements inade for her comfort as are due to her station and are still within the reach of her remaining fortune. [It would seem that this fortune is landed pro- perty, bringing in about 5081. or 600/. a year.] The Jury retired for twenty-five minutes, and then returned with an una- nimous verdict, that Mrs. Cumming has been of unsound mind, and in- capable of managing herself and her property, from the 1st day of May 1846.

Her attorney, Mr. Haynes, has published the opinion of her three counsel, that the verdict is contrary to evidence, and should be appealed against; and announced that Mrs. Cumming will act on this opinion.

At Bow Street Police Office, on Monday, Charles Pickering, a young man, "teacher of languages," was charged with stealing prints from the Britisli Museum. Mr. John 011ivier, the bookseller of Pall Mall, intended to pub- lish a work on costume ; he applied to Pickering for assistance, and that per- son sent him an album containing prints taken from a work called "Lea Franeaie," which he said he had cutout of the numbers as they were pub- lished ; he had destroyed the letterpress. Mr. 011ivier went to the British Museum to see Mr. Panizzi the librarian, and took the album with him : as soon as Mr. Panizzi opened book, he exclaimed, that the prints had been stolen from the Museum. Pickering had obtained "Lea Francais" to read, and from that work prints tallying with those in the album had been taken. The French work was an expensive one,' the letterpress valuable ; and there- fore it was not likely the accused would have destroyed it had he purchased the numbers as he said. At the young man's lodging other prints were found; prints similar to them had been lost from the Museum books ; but all, with one exception, had been cut square when found at Pickering's • the jagged edge of the one not cut tallied with the place where a print had been torn from a book. Before the Magistrate, the prisoner repeated his state- ment about the destruction of the letterpress; he had considered it "futile." —Remanded.

Of late, the officials of the Eastern Counties Railway have noted the re- moval out of the axle-boxes of their carriages of the grease composition which is used to prevent friction : the other afternoon a.policeman discovered how it went.- At Stepney he detected two boys scraping the grease out of the boxes of the wheels of carriages and trucks which were in a siding : one of the boys Was seized, and in a bag which lie carried there were three pounds of grease : the boy said he could get fourpenee a pound for it. These rob- beries are attended with some danger to trains : if the carriages thus robbed of grease should happen to be sent off without the loss being detected, the friction might cause combustion. The Thames Police Magistrate sent the boy to prison for two months.

A fire broke out at three o'clock on Thursday morning at Mr. Werndly's, a house-painter, in Welbeck Street, which caused the death of an old man. The fire originated in the first floor ; Mr. and Mrs. Werndly and a female servant slept in the third floor ; the old man who lost his life, James Web- ster, was a sheriff's-officer, and had "taken possession-" on the previous evening ; he also slept on the third floor. The Werndlys and their servant escaped by a trap-door, and thought Webster was following ; but he was overpowered by the smoke : the body was subsequently found near a win- dow. The first intimation of the fire which the Wemdlys received was by their dog scratching on their faces with his paws : the faithful animal pe- rished.

Extensive damage was done by a lire which broke out at Mr. Foletti's looking-glass factory., in Banner Street, St. Luke's, about eight o'clock on

Monday morning. The fire i rapidly seized the upper part of the dwelling- house ; Mrs. Foletti happened to be n the second floor; her retreat was cut off by the flames, and she threw herself into the street. Her head struck the .pavement, and she was conveyed to the hospital in a bad state. A man who dropped from an upper window was more fortunate : a Policeman broke his fall, and he escaped with trifling bruises. Many surrounding buildings were more or less burnt.

A woman of eighty has been burnt to death at Whitechapel : she was found on the floor, which was in a blaze, probably caused by a live coal from the grate.

An old woman has been found boiled in a copper in Wapping Workhouse. She got into the copper while it contained cold water ; the -fire was subse- quently lighted beneath, and the old woman was not discovered till the water boiled. Apparently, she was not scalded to death. Possibly she may have contemplated having a warm bath, have fainted as the temperature rose to blood-heat, and so been drowned, before the temperature became pain- ful,