OLD BAILEY.—Britket Calkin, the young woman accused of murder- ing,
by suffocation, a child named Margaret Duffey, on the 3d December last, was tried on Saturday. The facts elicited on the trial did not differ from what had been previously told on the Inquest and before the Police Magistrate. Calkin was seen with the deceased child in her arms at six o'clock in the evening; she was seen as late as eight o'clock with a child in her arms, but whether the same or another, was not now shown. About nine o'clock, a little girl, going into the privy in Hartshorn Court, Little Cheapside, trod on the child's leg, and gave the alarm of the murder, as it has been called. A boy, whose evidence was questioned at the Police-office, swore, that almost immediately after, two persons, a man and a woman, rushed out, and knocked him over, and put out a light that he had in his hand. When Calkin was taken up, she gave a false account of the manner in which her time had been passed from six to eight o'clock, when, it was proved, she was in her-lodgings. The prisoner's character was spoken to by several persons, and among them by mothers of families—she was described as particularly kind to chil- dren. The Jury acquitted her. Calkin is a good-looking young woman, about nineteen years of age. She behaved, during her long trial, with much firmness and propriety.
On Saturday also, Mr. Earle the pickled fish-monger, was tried for defrauding his intended clerk of 50/. He was found guilty, 'and the Recorder gave him to understand that he would be sent out of the country. The charge of stealing a gold chain from Mr. Woodhill, the Jury did not look on as made out; but seemed to imagine, that, under all the circumstances, it must be looked on as a business transaction. They accordingly acquitted him.
On Monday, Barrett, who was charged with various Post-office rob- beries, the particulars of which were detailed in noticing the Police- . office examination, was tried along with a boy named Kay, an accom- plice, for extracting bills of the value of 67/. from a letter addressed to Mr. Charles Dunderdale, Manchester. The bills were found on Kay, who was charged with receiving them. The evidence failed to show that they were stolen by Barrett ; and on this legal point both parties were acquitted : the bills were not proved to be stolen by Barrett, and Kay could not receive from Barrett what Barrett had not stolen. The next charge, which was similarly framed, respected two bills of $501., addressed to Mr. Caskell, Imperial Life Assurance Office, Falmouth. In this case the evidence against the principal was complete, and he was found guilty, while Kay was acquitted. The other charges were
not gone into. Robert Hughes, the blind organist, and his aged paremour, Mrs.
Elizabeth Worsley, were tried on Monday, for feloniously attenipting to shoot each other on the 22nd October last. Mr. Jacob Bentley, the friend of the man and the master of the woman, seeted the attempt at murder and suicide, as he bad done before tile !Vice Magistrate.
The only curiosity in the trial, was the evidence el' a surgeon, named Bloomfield, who has made same netable discoveries tonchieg the cies- ticity of human skulls, and the efficacy of percussion-lucks. On his cross-examination, Mr. Bloomfield said— If a pistol loaded with ball bad beei, discharged close to a per:,,a's 11, :Id, the ball
must either have ‘ through the 1,..ad, shatlelc,1 r o n ?el." Mr. Phillips—"Do you mean to say that a bell tired close against a Fer.a.,:.'s ear would rebound?"
Witness—" Such a thing has occurred."
Mr. Phillips—" Supposing the wound to tiet female yrisoner's car to have ITN, made by a ball, is it likely that the ball would have rebounded?" Witness—" It might ; for the pistols focal in the room bad not percusdoi:locks."
Mr. Phillips-- Percussion-locks have nothing to do w he rehoulaiing 0.,'t lie ball' Witness—"Percussiou.locks would give mcre Lave to the ctl, nid consegacidly lessen the chance of its rebounding."
From the nature of the wounds, it would appear, that in addition to the other particulars of the ridiculous and diemsting exhihition of this fellow, with his one eye stone blind and the other purblind, mid his paralytic adulteress, the shooting had been a mere farce, no balls having been used, and the wounds being inflicted, in all probability, very much to the surprise of the actors, by the wadding of the pistols. The Jury acquitted both, on the ground that the pistols were not loaded, as the indictment charged them to be, with ball.
Ewa. Ross OR Coota.—This miserable woman, who had teen con- victed on Friday of the murder of Mrs. Walsh, was hanged on Mon- day morning. She made no confession, but ea the culinary persiqed to the last moment in asserting her innocence. 1-let' real name, it would appear, was not Ross ; and great zei ! praiseworthy exertions were made by the persons in the prison to asaeoain what it was, but without effect ; Ross would not disgruce her tinnily' mid carried the secret with her. She is described in the penny-a-linebiegraphy of the Observer, as a woman of violent iK.ssions, given to swearing, thieving, drinking of gin, and cat-skinning. On what principles the Jury found this woman guilty and acquitted her husband, will be discovered when the principles of all things are laid open, and not till then. He was disebarged on Wednesday. The parish, it was stated on Tuesday, had no further evidence to offer. It was fortunate for the poor girl Calkin, that she was tried on Saturday. Although there seems very little doubt of her innocence, she would in all probability have been banged, had the trial taken place on Friday ; but the Jury thought one woman a. week was sufficient. It is curious, that in both trials, the principal evidence were boys about ten years of age. At the termination of the sessions, 17 persons received sentence of death; Barrett, for the Post-office robbery, was among the number. Three were condemned to banishment for life ; 14 for fourteen years; 55 for seven years. Shaughnessy, for manslaughter, was sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment and hard labour.
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