gbe atletropolis.
peal of the Malt-tax does net seem to prosper. The Protection of Agriculture have declared their opi- s inexpedient ; inasmuch as it involves an aggressive at the formation of the Society, and as there is a respect to a substitute for the tax. The Central .W=1:ortliitat7ior :Central:SOdet tion tliat4he policy net Oen Itifferenee Committee for the Repeal of the Matt-tax, "Mob now boasts of numbering two hundred members, "leading agriculturists from all parts of the king- derik,".met calienday; when the ciroular letter of the Protection Society was read. It was observed that the letter was only signed by the Secretary of the Society, leas unanthenticated by the Committee, and was therefore of so weight; •eatt it was, understood that steps would be taken at the next meeting of the various provinciel Protection Societies to obtain their con- sent to a portion of their funds being placed at the disposal_of the Com- mittee appointed to agitate for a repeal of the Malt-tax.
The Society of Arts held their first meeting this year, at their house in John Street, Adelphi, on Wednesday; Dr. &get, Vice-President, in the chair. Several new members were admitted by ballot, and some papers were read. Among the papers, was one on an atmospheric railway, in- vented by Mr. J. Pilbrow, a civil engineer; which is thus described— A pipe or tube is laid in the earth' mid-way between the rails, and secured to wooden sleepers, at intervals of about thirty feet, and fixed to boxes cast on to the tube on each side: in each box works a vertical spindle or axis, to which are fixed two small cog-wheels or pinions, the one being inside the box and the other out- side. A diaphragm or piston works within the tube, as in the original atmospheric railway tube: but to the piston is attached a rack; so that when the piston is moved by the exhaustion of the tube in front of the piston, the rack is moved with it; and that, acting on two or more of the lower or under pinions, causes the upper pinions to revolve at the same time and with the same velocity. A second rack, of the same leiTth as that within the tube, is attached to the first carriage: and, as the upper pinions revolve, the rack, and consequently the carriage to which it is attached, move with it. Thus the longitudinal valve required in Samuda's railway is dispensed with.
The annual dinner of the Caledonian Society took place at the London Tavern, on Wednesday. Mr. James Wylie presided; and about a hundred and thiity gentlemen, many of them in full'. Highland costume, sat down to table.
The forty-fifth annual meeting of the Commercial Travellers Society was held at their offices in Ludgate Hill, on Monday; Sir Chapman Marshall, the Presi- dent, in the chair. The funds of the Society are in a flourishing condition. In the year ending on the 1st October last, the number of applicants for aid was 13 members, 9 widows, and 3 children ; the total number on the fund at that time was 190 persons. The expenditure in 1844 was 1,738/.; the receipts, 2,8381. the funded capital is 22,5471. The usual routine business having been transaCted, with thanks to the officers of the Society, the meeting separated.
The sixteenth annual meeting of subscribers to the Butchers Charitable Insti- tution was held at the Freemasons Tavern Great Queen Street, on Wednesday; Mr. William Giblett in the chair. The report stated, that the charity was in a flourishing condition, and that five additional pensioners had been elected in October last, making in the whole 110 pensioners. During the past year the Committee have invested in the Public I unds the sum of 6001.; which has in- creased the stock of the charity to the sum of 8,9121. The officers of the Society were duly elected, and the usual thanks were voted.
During the last two or three days, between two and three hundred sail have arrived in the river Thames. The vessels had been kept back in the Channel by the late strong Easterly winds. Their arrival has been the means of putting into employment a vast number of labourers in the several docks, who lately have endured much privation from the want of work.
At the Central Criminal Court, on Wednesday, Hobson, the postmaster of Walthamstow, was found guilty of stealing the postage of a letter to India; and was sentenced to one year's imprisonment, the Jury having recommended him to mercy.
John Green was convicted of coining, with the aid of the electrotype; and sen- tenced to be transported. His little daughter was acquitted.
On Thursday, Peter Watkins, a druggist, was indicted for the manslaughter of William Watts, by serving him with tartaric acid in place of tasteless salts, as related last week. It was proved that Watkins sold the tartaric acid in mistake and on that ground he was acquitted; the Jury, however, declaring that the shop- bottles bottles ought to have their contents plainly marked on them.
At the Southwark Police-office, on Monday, Lord Hnntingtower charged a Mr. Duckett with obtaining from him a bill of exchange accepted by Duckett, under threats of violence: his Lordship required that Mr. Duckett should be bound over to keep the peace towards him. A full investigation of the matter,. on Wednes- day, dissipated the fear that Lord Iluntingtower incurred any serious danger; and it appeared that he had accepted an indemnity from Mr. Duckett for giving up the bill. Mr. Duckett was merely bound in his own recognizances not to nee threatening language to the complainant.
John Workman, a boy thirteen years old, has been committed for trial, from Clerkenwell Police-office, for picking a gentleman's pocket as he came out of church on Sunday night. A Police Sergeant said, there was a gang of stash youthful depredators, who attended churches dressed in an "innocent style, in the company of older thieves, to rob the congregations.
One Sinops Kent has sent a letter to Messrs. Prescott and Company, the bankers, threatening that their bank shall be fired unless they give him 100/. The man voluntarily gave himself up to a Policeman, avowing what he had done; and, having been examined at the Man.sionhouse on Wednesday, he was remanded, that a surgeon might examine him as to his sanity.
Several robberies of tobacco, wine, and spirits have taken place of late at the
London and St. Katherine's Docks, notwithstanding the many precautions which are supposed to be adopted to prevent plunder. A quantity of tobacco was stolen last week from a warehouse in the London Docks; and five men have been arrested as the robbers. From an examination at the Thames Police-office, it would appear that some of the thieves secreted themselves in the docks before the closing of the gates in the evening; and at midnight, having forced an e4- trance into a warehouse, they filled some sacks with tobacco, and dropped them from a window to their accomplices: who were waiting in a street that runs along the side of the docks. The thieves then descended the wall by means of two simple iron instruments contrived for the purpose: one is driven into the wall, and the other is hooked on to it; and thus a man can lower himself to the ground. In this case the thieves had only to descend sixteen feet. The pri- soners have been remanded. breath. Giving the bottle and glass in charge of Mrs. Ashler-, he went to the /Rough station; where he saw Mr. Tassel] enter one of the railway-carriages on its departure for London. Mr. Champneys told Mr. Favell, an officer at the station, to convey information to London by the electric-telegraph; which was done; and by that means Mr. Tawell was watched by the Police, until steps could be taken to arrest him in due form. On Friday, Mr. Champneys made a post ntortens ex- amination, by order of the Coroner. He found an old adhesion of the right lung, -which could not have caused death; and in other respects the body was healthy. Chemical tests detected the presence of prussic acid in the stomach, it had pro- bably been taken in the shape of a salt; the salts of that acid not having the pun- gent smell which characterizes the acid itself. He had every reason to believe that there was enough prussic acid to cause death. The liquid in the bottle, however, proved to be porter; and there was no trace of poison in that or in the • odass, or m a piece of bun that was found upon the table. Another glass, which had contained some frothy stuff, had been washed by Mrs. Ashlee, in order to give Mrs. Hart some water. This evidence was corroborated by that of Mr. Norblad, another surgeon. At half-past six on the Wednesday evening, Mrs. Hart bought a bottle of porter at the Windmill Hotel, and was seen running home in high spirits. She told a neighbour that she expected "a friend." About nine days previously, the same "Quaker-like" person called upon her and she then told Airs. Harding, her washerwoman, that he had only brought her one sovereign in- stead of thirteen, but that he would bring the rest next time. After retiring for a few minutes to deliberate, the Jury returned a verdict of "Wilful Murder against John Tawell, for poisoning Sarah Hart with prussic acid." The prisoner was committed to Aylesbury Gaol, to take his trial- at the next Assizes for the county of Bucks, and the witnesses were bound over to attend to give evidence. There is a report that Tawell was seen to drop a phial, which has been found and proved to have contained prussic acid, in a garden near Sarah Hart's house; and it is said that the Police are in possession of information on the subjcaa. An Inspector attended at the inquest, but the Coroner conferred with bins in private; and as yet the report rests only upon rumour. This is another sample of the newspaper-gossip on the matter. " The residence occupied by the deceased is very decently furnished, everything throughout the house having an extremely neat and cleanly appearance. It would appear that the unfortunate woman was extremely short of money at the time of her death; several pawnbrokers-duplicates of recent dates having been found among her papers, and her little bills (baker's, grocer's, &c.) due at the quarter, as well as her quarter's rent due at Christmas last, being unpaid. Hitherto she had always been most punctual in her payments. When her baker called to deliver her some bread between three and four o'clock on the afternoon of Wednesday, the day she was murdered, he observed she appeared extremely depressed in spirits. She then said to bins ` I expect the old gentlemanto come this evening to bring DIV my money, and I will settle your bill when you call on Friday '; and she re- marked, as if she had a foreboding of some misery which awaited her, I am very uncomfortable—very uncomfortable indeed: I don't know how it is, but I assure you I quite dread Ins coming.' Within three hours afterwards her life was de- stroyed?
Sense different accounts have appeared of Mr. Tawell's former career. He once belonged to the Society of Friends; but he was convicted of forgery for 1,0001. on Mr. Smith, a relation to one of the partners in the Uxbridge Bank, and was sen- tenced to twenty-one years' transportation; after which he was discarded by the Society. He was transported to Sydney. His good conduct while in the colony obtained for him a ticket-of-leave, after baying served seven years of his time. He then set up in business at Sydney as a chemist and druggist, and embarked gene rally in the shipping-trade; in which he was so exceedingly successful that in the course of a few years he had saved upwards of 20,000/. From New South Wales be returned five or six years ago, and settled at Berkhampstead. He had been married, but his wife died; and so did two sons, after his return; a daughter, now seventeen years of age, surviving. About four years ago he married a second lime, to a widow named Curibrth, a Qnakeress. She kept a school, but RaYe it up on her marriage. An infant was the fruit of that union. Mrs. Tawell learned of her husband's arrest through the papers, and at once came tip to London; whence she proceeded to Eton to see him. Sarah Hart had two children, a boy aged five, and a younger girl; and it is now supposed that Mr. Tawell is the father of both those children, divers stories to the contrary being disbelieved. He is about sixty years of age, but looks older, and his appearance is said to :be "not pleasing?' He still wears the Quaker garb, and to the last has persisted in attending the public meetings of the Societe, from which he could not be excluded. In Berichampstead he has been noted for his charitable munificence.
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