Cht Vrinuntro.
The reelection of Sir John Itomilly at Devonport, Sir Alexander Cock- burn at Southampton' and Mr. Page Wood at Oxford, were unopposed— all well received, and easily able to dispose of any little jealousies excited by their official promotion.
The Rochdale branch of the Reform Association has requested Mr. John Bright to stand for his native town, on the retirement of Mr. Shar- man Crawford.
The Roman Catholic priesthood of Manchester and Salford have se- ceded as a body from any promotion of the plan made public by the Reverend C. Richson, and embodied in the prospectus of the Manchester and Salford Municipal Education Association, on the ground that Roman Catholics are not to be treated equally with Protestants in the considera- tion paid to their views on Scripture, &c.
The non-resident Assistants of Dulwich College have succeeded against the resident Master and Fellows of the College in the election of the new Warden. Fortune favoured their nominee, Mr. Richard William Allen, in the casting of lots. There is now a prospect that a considerable ex- tension of the educational advantages of the College may be effected.
The Royal Agricultural Society has definitively resolved to hold its annual exhibition of stock in Windsor Home Park.
The trial of Levi Harwood, with his cousin Samuel Harwood, and James Jones, for the murder of the Reverend George Edward Holiest, at Frimley, in September last, occupied the Judge of Assize at Kingston during Monday and Tuesday. The case against the prisoners was deemed insufficient with- out the evidence of Hiram Smith, the approver ; and the chief interest of the trial lay in the point, on which no doubt is felt, that this man actually fired the shot by which Mr. Holiest lost his life. It will be recollected that Mrs. Holiest was awakened before her husband, by the entrance of the bur- glars, and that she got out of bed first. The men wore masks, but they spoke frequently, so that she could recognize their voices. At the trial Mrs. Holiest swore to her firm belief that Levi Harwood was the man who pushed her against the wall, and used threats against her life to make her keep quiet; and that Hiram Smith was the man who threatened Mr. Holiest when he awoke, struggled with him, and ultimately shot him with the pis- tol. A large portion of the time occupied by the trial was taken up by evi- dence which was possibly put in with the intention of better judg- ing if its effect on the Jury would be sufficient to insure a conviction without the use of Smith's evidence as approver. The chain of cir- cumstances was strong, but not demonstrative, and it was deemed ne- cessary to place Smith in the box ; and so he has probably escaped, under the promise of the Queen's pardon as the price of his revelations. His evidence was given with the air of a man wrongfully accused, and anxious to forward the ends of justice from wholly unselfish motives. He ascribed the deadly shot to Levi Harwood. The bearing of the prisoners, and of Smith during the proceedings of the second day of trial, is thus sketched by the reporter ef the Times. "The prisoners on first presenting themselves in the dock looked as fresh and confident as they dui yesterday. They listened to the evidence adduced against them with much composure ; and even the full effect of Mrs. Hollington's testimony [describing an overheard confession of guilt between two of the prisoners hardly appeared to be appreciated by them. When their counsel, one a ter another, addressed the Jury on their behalf, they leant forward over the front of the dock, and paid the most earnest attention to all that was said. One singular instance of the intent- ness with which, though ignorant men, they watched the proceetliugs may be mentioned. At the commencement of the trial, all the witnekses for the prosecution, except those under examination, were ordered to withdraw. Notwithstanding that order, Mr. Holiest, brother to the deceased elettApiti,A.S presented himself in court. Levi Harwood at once went to the Govamor of the gaol and pointed him out. Mr. Holiest, observing the movement of the prisoner, at once prudently retired. The interest and evident satisfaction with which the accused listened to the defences made on their behalf by their counsel were changed into a different but not less impetuous channel when the learned Judge proceeded to sum up the evidence on the whole case. As under that calm and deliberate review of all the circumstances each saw his chances with the Jury reduced to their exact limits, a great and obvious alteration took place in their appearance and bearing. Jones, upon whom the evidence bore strongest, [the penny token was found in his possession,] though his animal courage did not desert him, exhibited through his coarse, sullen, and hardened features, the distinct traces of extraordinary emotion. His com- plexion deepened into a dull bronze hue, and his face was suffused with per- spiration, the result of mental anxiety. Levi Harwood was not less moved, though he showed it in a different manner. He moved restlessly about in the dock, never remaining for more than a minute in the same position. His eyes rolled wildly from the bench to the bar-table and the Jury ; and though his cheek did not blanch, his features appeared to shrink up and become at- tenuated under the violence of his sufferings. Samuel, his cousin, seemed more at his ease than any of the prisoners, partly from the peculiar stolidity of his disposition ; but even his countenance was flushed with emotion when the Jury returned their verdict [which acquitted him]. By far, however, tho most remarkable characteristic of this day's proceedings, was not what place in the dock, but in a small box near it, where Hiram Smith sat alone, listening to the evidence against his accomplices in crime, and seeing the last links in the chain of proof against them supplied. He was calm enough while this was going. forward ; but when the counsel for the prisoners rose, and one after the other denounced him as a self-convicted murderer and a perjured witness, he fairly quailed under their attacks. His face was over- spread with a deathlike pallor, and his whole appearance was that of a man suffering the most intense anguish." The case was summed up at elaborate length by Baron Parke. The Jury retired for nearly two hours to consider their verdict. They found Levi Harwood and James Jones "guilty " ; Samuel Harwood "not guilty " ; and they declared themselves unanimously of opinion that neither Levi liarwood nor James Jones fired the shot which caused Mr. Hollest's death. On bein asked if he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be pas upon him, Levi Harwood, his body stretched forward over the dock, said- " I am as innocent of the murder of which I stand indicted as any man in this court : I am as innocent as this man, (pointing to some person who stood near,) or even as your Lordship, both of the burglary and of the mur- der." Jones also said—" I am innocent of the charge against me : I am quite innocent." Levi Harwood, again speaking, and shaking his head ear- nestly, said—" The Jury have not looked strictly into this matter."
Baron Parke explained to the convicts, that though neither of them fired the shot, they had both intended to fire in case of resistance, and were there- fore rightly found guilty of the murder. He sentenced them to be hanged; and with great emotion besought them to repent before they die.
Samuel Harwood, on being discharged from custody, was at once arrested on the charge of being concerned in a burglary committed in Sussex; the chief evidence in which case will, it is said, be given by an approver. Hiram Smith remains in custody awaiting her Majesty's pleasure with regard to him.
At Kingston Assizes, on Saturday, Roberts and Dowe were tried for burglary. These are the men who, with a third not captured, broke into the West Sur- rey Bank at Epsom, were disturbed by a neighbour of the Bank, and hasten- ed away with a small booty, but were stopped and seized in the outskirts of the town, by a Policeman who thought they had a "suspicious appearance." They were convicted, and sentenced to twenty years' transportation.
James Newsom, a young man of two-and-twenty, assistant to Mr. Wright, a druggist at Sheffield, has committed suicide by swallowing prussic acid. He obtained a bottle of the poison from the shop, had poured a quantity into a glass, and had drunk it while in bed: the draught he took was so large that he could have had barely time to lie down before he was dead. He left two letters, one for his employer and the other for an aunt, in which he expressed his intention to destroy himself, declaring that he was constantly haunted by a " phantom " : he feared he should never be a credit to himself or his relatives : it appears he had frequently made mistakes in business from what was considered absence of mind. He begged that Mr. and Mrs. Wright would forgive any trouble he had caused them. The unhappy young man appears to have had some disagreement with his family : his father is a clergyman. The Coroner's Jury gave a verdict of" Temporary insanity."
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