A man named John Hicks, a cooper, was charged before
Mr. Woolrych with threatening a Pole's life, under circumstances showing a curious brutality. Hicks had engaged to extract a rat's teeth with his own, and had succeeded, but been bitten by the rat in the process, and his tongue so poisoned by the bite that, in the hyperbolic language of the Pole, it was "larger than his mouth." A collection was made at the fac- tory in which both parties worked, in consideration of the gallantry of this brutal amateur dentist ; but the proprietor viewing the matter otherwise, stopped the collection, the Polo being. charged with interfering to prevent it. On this Hicks threatened the Pole's life. The defendant said he had had to pay Si. for thecure of his tongue, and that he had offered to figl, t the Pole if, instead of being a Pole, he could be an English- man. Hicks should enlist under Mouravieff, when he would beeble to revenge himself on the Poles, and, doubtless, receive good employment in his refined branch of trade, in extracting the teeth of human beings, whose bite would not reison, and on whom, therefore, the cruelty would, be rendered more gratifying, by the absence of all risk fur himself.
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