bhp Vrauturtz.
A public meeting to promote the principles of the Peace Congress was held at Wrexham, in Denbighshire, on Tuesday evening. A couple of thousand persons manifested a warm interest in the subject, and listened with gratification to speeches by Mr. Sturge, Mr. Richards, and Mr. Cob- den. The last charmed his hearers by avowing himself half a Welshman— his better half. He declaimed on the cowardice of those who, like Sir Francis Head, are in a panic about the safety of London; and insisted on the unconditional economy of his ten millions sterling.
The feeling of the Provincial laity on the subject of the Papal rescripts is finding expression in municipal proceedings and public meetings. The Town-Council of Liverpool has voted an address to the. Queen, and one to Lord John Russell. A public meeting at York, and a county meeting at Bedford called and presided over by the High-Sherift have passed reso- lutions expressing indignation, and trusting that the Queen will effectu- ally repel encroachments on her supremacy.
The case against Mr. Johnstone, the Brentwtood clergyman, has come to an end, but in a very unsatisfactory manner. Mary Anne Doe and her family were at length discovered in London, and captured by the Police. When Mrs. Doe saw her daughter in custody, she ran towards her, grasped her hand, and exclaimed—" Now, mind, my child, you tell the gentleman it was all wrong which you told them before : and if they ask you how you came to tell such a tale, say you wasn't in your right mind, and you didn't know what you said." The girl turned out an apt pupil. On Thursday morning, Mr. Johnstone appeared before the Brentwood Magistrates : the girl had not then been taken, and the proceedings were adjourned ; but before the Bench separated, news came by telegraph that Doe had been found. In the afternoon, she was produced, and the case proceeded. When the other witnesses were ordered out of court that the girl might be questioned, her mother held up her finger to the daughter in a threatening manner. Mary Anne Doe's former deposition was read, and she declared it was untrue—she did not know what she was after when she made it. Mr. Johnstone had not touched her—she believed he had not, but she fainted away in the kitchen ; she had been ill all night before. In a word, Mary Anne utterly denied all her former statements against the defendant. Mr. Tower, a Magistrate, expressed his opinion that the complainant had been most disgracefully tutored. The Chairman said, they had two depositions before them—one sworn in de- fendant's absence ; the other made in his presence, and entirely rebutting the other. The case must therefore be dismissed. The Bench subsequently directed that a bill of indictment for perjury should be prepared against the girl.
Eliza Smalley, a girl of seventeen, has murdered her mistress, at Stow in Lincolnshire, and endangered her master's life, by putting a solution of arsenic in the coffee they took for breakfast. Solutions of arsenic and mer- cury were used at the farm to soak wheat. A portion of the arsenical solu- tion was in an iron pot, accessible to the girl. Mr. and Mrs. Page were taken ill after breakfasting, and Mrs. Page died before surgical aid could be brought to bear : her husband was saved. The girl confessed her guilt. At the in- quest, Cheney, a constable, stated that she voluntarily said to him, her breast heaving violently—"Lest Saturday my mistress said I had killed a fowl : I told her I had not : yesterday morning I took some mercury [arsenic] from an iron pot that stood against the back-door, and put it into the coffee-pot: I did not think it would have killed her; I only thought it would have made her badly." " When I asked her where the pot was," continued the,constable, "she went and showed it me. I held out no induce- ment to her. She confessed freely and voluntarily." The Coroner cautioning her that what she said would be written down, asked Smalley—" Is this what you told Mr. Cheney ; and is it the truth ?" Prisoner (hanging down her head)—" Yes, sir." Coroner—"How old are you ?" Prisoner—" I am seventeen years of age, and have lived here ever since last May-day. I have no reason to complain either of my master or mistress. The pot stood at the back-door for two days. I took the poison out of the pot with a gill mug ; I took it away and put it in the dairy after having washed it. When I put the poison in the coffee-pot, I was in the kitchen. I put in a gillfull, and the coffee was boiled afterwards for a few minutes. My master and mistress got their breakfasts immediately after the coffee boiled. I saw both of them, after they had done their breakfast. I was with my mistress when she died. I nave never been either to church or chapel since I have lived here, but I used to go to church before I came here. I never had a Bible, but I could read a htle in it if I had one. I know the Commandments, and I perfectly remember the sixth ; it is, ' Thou shalt do no murder.' I cannot write." The verdict was " Wilful murder " against Eliza Smalley.
Warren, the man charged with fraudulently obtaining letters from the post-office, and Hannah Leonard, a woman connected with him, were re- examined by the Leeds Magistrates on Saturday. In addition to the affair of the bill for 7441. stolen by Warren, a number of other cases were investigated. Warren had obtained letters containing a post-office order for N., and a rail- way dividend-warrant for 61. 9s. 6d., winch were intended for Titley and Co., of Leeds ; the money for each was obtained by forging signatures. A letter addressed to Mr. Thomas Craven, a corn-factor, was got by some one from the post-office ; it contained three railway dividend-warrants—more than 30/. together; and they were cashed at the bank, Mr. Craven's signa- ture having been forged. A check for 50/. was sent from Keighley to Leeds, addressed to Messrs. Ward, solicitors ; the letter was surreptitiously ob- tained, a signature forged on the back of the check, and the money got from the bank. A watch found on the prisoner was identified by Mr. Parker, the keeper of a coffeehouse, from whose premises it was stolen. On Monday, more evidence was taken. The Magistrates considered the testimony with respect to the 7441. bill, the 501. check, and the post-office order, sufficiently strong to warrant the committal of Warren for trial on the charges arising out of them. But with respect to other cases, he was again remanded. The woman was discharged.
In December last, the shop of Mr. Cohen, a jeweller at Newcastle, was robbed of a large amount of property. Not a single article has been re- covered. At the Summer Assizes, John Bell was sentenced to transportation for a burglary ; since his conviction he has made some revelations with re- spect to the robbery at Mr. Cohen's. Mr. Simeon Joel, a bullion-dealer at Newcastle, has been arrested, and was examined on Thursday sennight. Nothing suspicious was found on his premises. The Police proved that no- tice was given of the robbery to Mr. Joel the day after it had been com- mitted, to put him on his guard in buying goods. Matilda Bell, wife of the convict, stated that her husband came home one Friday night (the burglary was commited on a Friday) with a number of gold and silver spectacles and eye-glasses. Bell took some of the glasses out of the rims, and left the house with them. He returned with two earthen pots, in which he melted the gold and silver rims. Next day he took the bullion and the pots in a basket to Mr. Joel's shop ; his wife waited without. Bell gave her 21. and the empty basket when he came from Joel's. Some months afterwards, when Bell was in custody, he told her to go to Mr. Joel for a sovereign which was owing to him ; Mr. Joel told her he did not know her husband, and did not owe him anything. Hence Bell's revelations implicating Joel. The Police have found a number of eye-glasses buried in Bell's yard ; and on the pre- mises other things taken from Mr. Cohen's were discovered. Mr. Joel was remanded.
Eight hundred miners at Brymbo Colliery have struck for an advance of surpenee a day in their wages. Some wilful damage has been done. The strike is expected to spread in the district.
Nine men have been killed and many others severely burnt by an explo- sion of fire-damp in a coal-mine at Haydock in Lancashire. Four poniea were also found dead. Thirteen lives were lost in the same pit by an explo- sion in 1845. At the inquest, it appeared that the system of supervision in the mine was very defective. The underlooker said there was great difficulty in preventing the men from working with unprotected candles ; he ascribed the explosion to their negligence. But miners stated that they had never been interdicted the use of candles, and that the undcrlooker did not visit the mine for intervals of a fortnight together. The disaster seems to have originated in the opening of an •old working, from which, in neglect of the usual means to exclude the gas, the foul air bad entered the workings, and become inflamed at a candle. Gunpowder was used to blast coal. The under- looker admitted that several days might have passed without his going over the mine. The Coroner thought it was usual to inspect coal-mines every morning before the men entered to work. Mr. Tremenheeret the Govern- ment Inspector, was present; he questioned the witnesses, assisting to elicit information on the defective management of the colliery, and made some observations before the Jury gave their verdict. Their finding was " Acci- dental death." The owner of the mine, Mr. Evans, was then sent for, and the Coroner addressed him on the matter, and advised an improved system..
Houghton Pit, near Newbottle in Durham, the property of the Earl of Durham, has been the scene of a deeper tragedy. The colliery is said to have been considered in a good general condition. On Monday, while one hundred omeredurla miners were in the workings, a very violent explosion of fire-damp
; many of the people were blown to pieces or destroyed by the flames, but the great majority were in a safe spot. They occupied a position where the air was respirable, while they were hemmed in on all sides by the fatal choke-damp. Some who attempted to gain the shaft perished by suffo- cation, and others with difficulty regained their refuge. Here one hundred and twenty persons remained for hours in utter darkness, and momentarily expecting to be suffocated by the foul air. Fortunately, a communication was at length opened, and all the living miners were got to the shaft. It was found that no fewer than twenty-six men and boys had been killed.
Two more of the men who were burnt by the explosion of gunpowder at the Lisburne lead-mines have died from their hurts.
A fatal explosion of naphtha has occurred at the Roman Catholic school and reading-room at Seacombe in Cheshire. Mr. Johnson, the schoolmaster, was filling a lamp from a can of the liquid, six of the boys standing around, one holding a lighted candle; Mr. Johnson poured too much naphtha into the lamp, and it ran over, caught fire at the candle, and then the whole quantity exploded with a report like that of a cannon. Mr. Johnson and the boys were enveloped in flames, and were all much burnt ; one boy died next day, and others were thought to be in danger. The people in the reading- room above were so much alarmed by the explosion that several of them jumped from the window.
A policeman who attended a gate at a level crossing near the Northampton station has been killed by a night-train while his attention was directed to a train on the other line. The engine-driver was unconscious of the accident; and when informed of it, at the end of his journey, he fainted.
Elizabeth Lawrence, a woman eighty-seven years old, an inmate of the Fishmonger Almshouses at Bray in Berkshire, has been found burnt to death, only a portion of her skull remaining uncalcined. She appears to have fallen against the grate in a fit. The mantelpiece and a large beam were burnt through ; so that the whole pile of buildings had been endangered.
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