Vtuttiurts.

A project has been set on foot to erect a Crystal Palace for Birming- ham and the Midland Counties, at Sutton Coldfield. At a meeting held at Birmingham on Monday, Mr. Samuel Beale, Deputy-Chairman of the Midland Railway, described the project. Ile proposes that a grant of 200 acres should be made by the Corporation of Sutton Coldfield, who have a public park of 2000 acres, on condition that the Birmingham Town-Council build a Crystal Palace in the park for the behoof of the public. On condition of this being done, Mr. Beale engaged to provide the people of Sutton Coldfield with a railway, which they much desire. The meeting received and approved of the plan, and appointed a com- mittee to carry it out.

The annual meeting of the Aramological Association opened its ses- sion at Rochester on Monday. Mr. Bernal, for so many years Member for Rochester, and President of the Association, took the chair. Kent seemed likely to afford much matter for archmological research and specu- lation. After the delivery of an inaugural address from the chair, and the reading of various papers, the Society visited the fine old castle at Rochester.

The three hundredth anniversary of the Tunbridge School, founded in 1553 by Sir Andrew Judd, was celebrated by the visit of the Governors of the Company of Skinners on Wednesday. The Archbishop of Canterbury was among the guests. The scholars testified their regard for Dr. Weldon, the Head Master, by presenting him with a magnificent epergne.

There is a considerable ferment among the seamen of the North-east ports. The Tyne mariners have met and passed resolutions fixing the number of men and boys which coal. ships shall carry according to their capacity ; and they purpose to enforce this by refusing to serve in ships under-manned. The crews of several vessels have in consequence refused to continue their service ; and the active spirits are attempting to induce all the seamen to be unanimous in the matter. Some shipowners have already assented to the terms; and it is generally felt that what the men ask is not unreasonable.

The mariners of South Shields and Hartlepool have met to condemn the twenty-ninth clause of the Merchant Shipping Bill : if the clause pass the Lords, the seamen declare that they will protect themselves by refusing to sail in ships where more than one-fourth the crew are foreigners : -United States seamen they will consider British. The men loudly cheered the resolution containing this.

The carpenters and joiners of Nottingham have informed their em- ployers that they will resist an attempt "to bring mortice-machines into practice, as well as the introduction of mouldings and other work prepared by steam," to the destruction of a great portion of manual labour : the workmen will not fix any work prepared by steam, except floor-boards. Labour is scarce, and the employers have been obliged to succumb on this point.

It is not often that an English clergyman has recourse to the shillelagh for a redress of grievances. The Reverend Mr. Fisher, Vicar of Abbotskers- well, is an exception. He quarrelled with a Mr. William Creed, a land- owner, and Vice-Chairman of the Board of Guardians, respecting the school teaching : Mr. Creed wrote a letter ; Mr. Fisher took no notice of it, and, apparently, it involved some charge against his veracity. Mr. Creed met Mr. Fisher in the street, and asked him if he had received the letter ; and in reply to a question from Mr. Fisher, said that he should say in court that Mr. Fisher was a liar, unless he explained. Thereupon Mr. Fisher thrashed Mr. Creed, and gave him "one, two, three," on the head with his fists, in regular pugilistic fashion; Mr. Creed clinging to a tree. An action was brought and tried at Exeter. Damages 300/.

Two notable "breach of promise" cases are reported this week; both tried at York Assizes.

In one, Miss Tweddle was the plaintiff, and Mr. John Ramshay the de- fendant. Mr. Ramshay is steward to Lord Carlisle at Naworth; he is a gen- tleman of high standing and large property—over 2000/. a year : he is about forty-five years of age. Miss Tweddle is the daughter of a farmer on the Naworth estate ; her age is twenty-five; rust her counsel described her as the equal of Mr. Ramshay in education, and fitted to adorn the house of a gentleman as his wife. In 1848 Mr. Ramshay announced himself as the ad- mirer of the young lady; she pointed out to him the disparity of age and station between them; but he persisted in pressing his suit. Be made pub- lic in divers ways that Miss Twaddle was to become his wife. But in 1850 his love cooled, and he deserted her : his excuse was, that he had engaged himself to another lady previously to 1848! But in 1852 he married a third lady—Miss Lacy, to whom he had been long engaged. The damages were laid at 50001. The counsel for the defence had no evidence to offer ; but he tried to prejudice the plaintiff's case by descanting on the long interval which elapsed before the action was brought, the "threatening" nature of a letter from a clergymen urging Mr. Ramshay to give the young woman a money compensation, and the conduct of plaintiff's aunt in manceuvering to " in- veigle " Mr. Ramshay into a contract. The Jury, after considering for a quarter of an hour, gave 3000/. damages. Miss Halstead, a milliner, daughter of an ironfounder at Bradford, twenty- nine years of age, was promised marriage by Mr. Todd. The gentleman is nearly sixty, and has two sons and a daughter ; he has retired from business on a competency. This ancient swain seduced Miss Halstead; when she was about to become a mother Mr. Todd repudiated his promise to marry her.— he was "too old to marry " ; he would "consider of it." His counsel urged that the young woman had lost nothing by not marrying a man old enough to be her father ; it was "a joke" when he said he would marry her. The Jury fined the old gentleman 400/. for his unseemly joke.

At Norwich Assizes, last week, John Pitcher, a man of fifty-six, was tried for killing his mother. The investigation exhibited a shocking case of filial cruelty. Mrs. Pitcher was eighty-five years of age ; she owned three cot- tages at Swaffham ; she occupied one, her son John a second, and the third was let. John received the rent of the third ; but he retained the money for himself, keeping his aged mother VI ithout food and other necessaries of life A grandson allowed her two shillings a week; but even this her brutal son took from her ; and the poor old creature told her grandson to discon- tinue the payments. The grandson then took her food; and wished to re- move her to the house of her illegitimate son, who had offered to receive her : but John swore that he was master, and would remain master. The neighbours then sent a Policeman to see Mrs. Pitcher : unfed, unclothed, unwashed, the affectionate parent, to screen her son, declared that he was kind to her. The wretch abused and maltreated her as soon as the Policeman had gone! After this, the old woman was not seen by the neighbours, and the Policeman was again called in. On this occasion he found her lying in a filthy bed, nearly naked, and apparently dead from starvation, with the corner of her pillow stuffed into her mouth, as though she had, in her wretched cravings for food, sought to extract sustenance from the pillow- case. A further examination showed that she was alive, but incapable of muscular exertion, while, with a scarce audible voice, she muttered, "Give me food !" She was taken to the workhouse, and every means were adopted to save her life ; but she only survived eight days. The Chief Justice instructed the Jury, that if the prisoner had caused or accelerated the death of the old woman by his neglect and ill-treatment, he having taken possession of all her means, and therefore charged himself with her support, he was guilty of manslaughter. The Jury convicted him. The Chief Justice then sentenced him to be transported for life ; not in the expectation that any sentence would awaken better dispositions in him, but as a warning to others.

Mr. William Cook, a Town-Councillor of Ipswich, has been convicted of stealing gas, the property of the Ipswich Gas Company. A pipe had been clandestinely attached to the service-pipe before it entered the meter, and thus gas was consumed without payment. The defence set up was, that Farrow, the prisoner's servant, had inserted the pipe without his master's knowledge : the servant gave evidence to that effect. But the Jury did not be- lieve that this could have been done, or that the gas could afterwards have been consumed, without Cook's knowledge. Ile was found guilty, and sen- tenced to imprisonment for one year. The Judge had ordered Farrow to be taken into custody. The Grand Jury quickly returned a true bill against him for larceny. He was arraigned, pleaded guilty, and was Bent to prison for an equal term with his master.

At Shrewsbury, on Tuesday, Richard Crosse, formerly postmaster at Whit- church, pleaded guilty to stealing two letters, containing the one 1000/. and. the other 700/. He had also taken other money-letters. Sentence, three years' imprisonment for the first offence, and ten years' transportation for the second.

A third man, Robert Masennis, is now in custody for complicity in the violation and murder of the poor old woman at Barnet. The fourth sus- pected man is yet at large.

A gang of swindlers have been victimizing people in divers places in Devonshire. They take respectable lodgings, send out bank-notes to be changed, obtain possession of the coin, and decamp : the notes turn out to be forged. At Sidmouth, two false ten-pound notes were thus uttered.

A steeple.-chase rider has hanged himself at Weston, the night after he had lost a race though he rode the favourite horse : his chagrin at the defeat had been very manifest during the evening.

An attempt has been made to upset a train on the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway, near Deepcar. Some scoundrel not only placed a sleeper across the up-line, at night, but so secured it that a train coming in contact with it would not push it away. At one o'clock in the morning, a goods-train approached; fortunately, the driver saw the obstruction, and stopped his engine in time.

Mr. Smith, a furniture-broker of London, was found dead floating on the margin of the sea at Clevedon in Somerset. There were marks of wounds on the head : they might have been caused by a fall on the rocks before death, or by the body's having been dashed against the shore after death by drowning; or they might have been inflicted by a second person. The mat- ter was very mysterious, and the Jury returned a verdict of "Found drowned."