Vruniutial.
The provincial press furnishes no political news this week beyond the report of a Liberal meeting at Liverpool in favour of a comprehensive Reform Bill: a five-pound franchise in boroughs, ten-pound in counties ; the ballot ; equal representation ; no bands at elections, and the making of travelling expenses illegal. The oddest and most novel suggestion is this-
" That the expenditure of the country be annually submitted to the House of Commons by a committee, to be styled the Finance Committee, the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer being its chairman and organ."
A. murder has been committed at Stoke Abbott, near Beaminster, and a house fired with a view to conceal the first crime. Sarah Ann Guppy, a young woman, small in stature, rather deformed, and of exemplary character, was left alone in the house in the afternoon. A neighbour heard a scream ; and presently a young fellow, James Seale, whose character is not good, was seen to leave the place ; his finger was cut and bleeding; there was blood on his clothes : he endeavoured to account to a woman for these suspicious appearances. Soon after, it was discovered that the house where Guppy lived was on fire. The neighbours hastened to the place, got out the young woman, and extinguished the flames : Guppy's throat had been cut—she was dead. Seale was arrested. Every circumstance pointed to him as the murderer and the raiser of the fire. 'The poor young woman who had been killed had expressed her fears of him, as he used to hang about the house—she thought he contemplated robbery. The Coroner's Jury pronounced a verdict of" Wilful murder" against him.
Mrs. Studd, wife of a baker at Ipswich, has been murdered, it is assumed by Ebenezer Cherrington, though he was not seen in the act. Mrs. Studcl, mother of a family, and advanced in years, is said to have been on too fa- miliar terms with Cherrington, a young man, who had formerly worked for her husband. At length she repulsed him, and threatened to have him ex- pelled from the house, where he occasionally staid, by a policeman. One night, excited by drink, he followed the woman and her daughter to a bed- room, put his back against the door, and threatened mother and daughter for hours. „Later in the morning., during the daughter's temporary absence, he appears to have struck Mrs. Studd on the head with a poker : she was found dying. A Coroner's Jury have pronounced a verdict of "Wilful murder" against Cherrington.
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