lat Vinniurro.

The speech of Sir James Graham at Carlisle, last week, indicated his geeeral political position, as much as it served for a local recommendation of himself to the constituency which now invites him to return and be their representative in Parliament. Sir James dealt especially with Par- liamentary Reform and Free-trade.

He condemned the plan of Reform lately tendered in Parliament. He holds that you must not group small boroughs together, adding littleness to littleness, corruption to corruption ; but disfranchise what is small and cor- rupt, with a view of distributing a fairer quota to larger populations and more worthy constituencies. In the redistribution, he would have respect to numbers in some degree; but he thinks that the power of returning Mem- bers might be, with great advantage, conferred on certain bodies of high in- telligence, learning, science, and great acquirements, who do not directly send representatives to Parliament.

To the ballot he frankly said he could not pledge himself: he does not like the secrecy and the hypocrisy which it might generate. But we have got the abuses of intimidation and bribery to meet : intimidation is confined to the smaller constituencies, it does not reach the larger ones; and bribery also is mainly confined to the smaller constituencies. He thinks the ques- tion one of the most important in politics: he objects at present to the ballot, till all other means of meeting bribery and intimidation have faile,d. How- ever, he is not so blind that practical experience may not convince him of his error: for indeed, had he not to confess that on other great subjects he had formed erroneous opinions ?

With this frank reference to his conversion, along with the late Sir Ro- bert Peel, to Free-trade, he transferred himself to that subject. It was in this part that he was so effective to the electors of Carlisle. He drew a gra- phic turf illustration to show the tactics of the Protectionist Ministry—one oupplied to him by Lord John Russell, as a proof of their returning kindli- ness and friendship. There was going to be a great race—the Carlisle people love a race. There were to be two prizes—the county cup and the city plate ; and two horses were to run—one he would name The Screw, the ether The Artful Dodger. Screw was "the Corn-law," the Dodger was "Compeasation to Agriculture " ; and the owner of both horses was Lord Long- dale. Now it is a rule at the Jockey Club that you must " declare " which .of your two horses you mean to win with—Lord Lonadale and the Earl of Derby are both great jockies; and that rule is laid down for the purpose of preventing frauds. But SirJames had a strong notion that both these horses would be tried: Screw would go in for the county cup, and The Artful for the city plate. In the county they would go in for the plate with the Dod- ger, and in the City of Carlisle Mr. Hodgson would ride the Screw. But there would be a good horse against him, "Bonny Blue," [the local colour of the Liberals,' who had won before ; and Sir James was almost ready to make a bet that he named the winning horse. [The allegory was worked out with great spirit and humour, and the men of Carlisle were delighted by it beyond measure.]

At the beginning of his speech Sir James stated how he had come to be invited to stand with Mr. Ferguson, and how Mr. Howard, the sitting Member, had retired in order to unite all portions of the Liberal party, and secure the returning of two Free-traders. The people sympathized warmly with Sir James's expressions of gratitude to Mr. Howard ; and we believe that the happy consequence of his public-spirit will be the return of both Sir James Graham and his Liberal coadjutor Mr. Ferguson.

Mr. George Frederick Young has issued an address to his constituents at Scarborough, some passages of which have excited the attention of journalists.

"If the altered position of the Government justifies rational hopes on the part of the friends of protection to British interests, it at the same time de- mands at their hands the exercise of qualities which may still severely, try their patience and forbearance. The injuries inflicted by years of vicious and unjust legislation cannot be even mitigated in a moment, and never, perhaps, can be effectually remedied. But time must, at all events, be af- forded to the most friendly Administration to frame and mature practical measures suited to the present political emergency We ask no mos nopoly ; we covet no prohibition; we are not the advocates of any Utopian and impracticable reactionary policy ; we seek not the reenactment of the repealed Corn-laws, or even the restoration of the old Navigation-laws; we demand only a prudent revision and amendment of the present cruel and ruinous system. We have no wish to make bread dear to the poor man by excluding the productions of foreign soils. What we desire is, to give him cheap and abundant food by extending and improving the cultivation of the British soil, thus increasing the employment of the British labourer, instead of throwing the land of our native country out of cultivation, and driving our fellow-countrymen into poverty and exile by the substitution of cheap foreign for cheap boine-grown corn. We desire to see our Colonial posses- sions restored to prosperity, that they may become willing aud valuable cus- tomers to our home manufacturers, which foreigners will never willingly per- manently remain."

The present Assizes have exhibited a bad eminence in the number of casea of murder. At Monmouth, on Saturday, two more capital conviotions took place. Abel Evans and Eliza Dare were found guilty of the murder of their female infant ; hut the woman was strongly reaommanded to mercy. The Judge promised to forward the recommendation to the Home Moe, but held Out no hopes of mercy : he sentenced both to be hanged.

At Bury St. Edmund's, last week, William Baldry, a farmer, aged fifty, was convicted of administering poison to his wife, with intent to murder her. The couple lived at Preston ; one day the wife was ill ; the husband gave her beer with sugar in it—and also with arsenic in it, which made her ill; on another occasion he put arsenic into her coffee. When the crime was discovered, Baldry pretended that he had merely given his wife two powdery which he had obtained at a surgeon's. He tried to bribe a medical man with a fat hog, and a policeman with money, to hush up the matter. The motive suggested for the crime was the refusal of the wife to give the pri- soner some money which her father had presented to her. Lord Carapbelj prououneed sentence of death, and held out no hope of Royal mercy.

At the same Assizes, George Norris, a young man of twentysthree, was tried for taking away Caroline Fairweather, a girl under sixteen, from the possession of her father. •Norris is the son of a gentleman livino at Deben- ham ; the girl, of considerable personal attractions and intelligence, the daughter of a man in more humble life. An attachment sprung up between the two, but the parents on both sides tried to break it off. Norris seized an opportunity to carry the girl to Ipswich, took her to a brothel, and kept her there till he was traced by his father. The girl declared thut there was some degree of duress in her journey to Ipswich, and that she was kept there in a sort of stupor by drugs administered by her seducer. For the prisoner, it was attempted to be shown that the girl was entirely a free agent in all that took place, and some strong facts were proved in this line. Lord Campbellpointed out to the Jury, that the question they had to consider was, not whether the girl was immodest or a consenting party, but whether the father consented • to her removal from his lawful owned), ; the conduct of the girl might, hews - ever, influence the sentence. The Jury quickly returned a verdict of" Guilty." In passing sentence, Lord Campbell indignantly refused credit to the evidence of the "creatures" who had been called to show that a " niodest girl" had suddenly lost all sense of shame. The prisoner had ruined her virtue, and now heaped injury on injury by attempting to blast her reputation. The Judge regretted that he could not award "hard labour" to the culprit, in . addition to the sentence of eighteen months' imprisonment.

At Liverpool Assizes, on Saturday, Richard Lomas was convicted of the manslaughter of his wife, at Manchester,—the sad result of intoxication and passion. For fourteen years he had lived on good terms with his spouse, and had never raised his hand against her even when she had occasionally been drinking ; one night he came home drunk ; a quarrel arose, he struck the woman on the head, and a small vessel was ruptured. The deceased was inclined to apoplexy. The repentant husband was sent to prison for a month.

Four bailiffs were-tried for the manslaughter of a man at Liverpool. They had been seizing a widow's goods under harsh circumstances; as they carried them away in a cart, deceased and others jeered. The four bailiffs imme- diately attacked him with an iron scoop and a spade-fork, kicked him, and then one stabbed him in the belly with an iron file. They were all convicted.

John Hambridge, or Freeman, ayoung man, has been tried at Gloucester for murdering his father. The prisoner was an illegitimate son. The old man was very good to him, and had made a will leaving him nearly all his property. John frequently behaved ill to his father, and one day, while in- toxicated, he shot him dead. This was the question for the Jury—was the shot accidental or wilful? The Judge favoured the former view. A verdict for manslaughter only was returned; and Hambridge was ordered to be im- prisoned for fourteen days.

Mr. William Hamlyn Pascoe, a surgeon or "village apothecary," as his counsel apologetically called him, of Cuthbert, near Truro, has been convicted at Bodmin of administering a drug to make bliss Catherine Nicholls have a miscarriage. The young woman was delivered of a dead child. The sentence was ten years' transportation ; the Judge remarking, that he did not think this was the culprit's first offence.

A verdict of manslaughter has been returned against a schoolmaster at Stockton, one of his pupils having died from tetanus, produced, according to the medical testimony, by a severe caning across the shoulders.

It may be recollected that three men—Shea, and two Nolans—were ar- rested for the murder of James Anderson at Widnes.% The Grand Jury at Liverpool have ignored the bill against the brothers Nolan ; and Shea lias been tried. The evidence was circumstantial, and the Jury were not satis- fied with it: verdict, " Not guilty."

Two days have been occupied at Liverpool Assizes in trying a case of cri- minal conversation. The plaintiff was Mr. Harding, a merchant of Did- bury, near Manchester ; the defendant, Mr. Middleton, a middle-apd clergy- man, incumbent of St. George's Fields, Manchester. Many witnesses were called to make out the case : of these some showed that the clergyman and the lady carried on a correspondence, frequently met, and so on ; while others deposed to conduct which left no doubt of the complete criminality of the pair—if you believed the witnesses. The Judge by no means favoured those witnesses in his summing-up. The Jury deliberated for six hours, and then returned a verdict for the defendant.

Mr. Philpotts, an attorney who was convicted of perjury at the Monmouth Assizes last year, and on whose behalf some legal points were reserved, has been committed to prison for twelve months, the objections having been over- ruled by the Court of Criminal Appeal.

A man named Marshall has been conspiring with his wife at Brighten to effect an extraordinary deception. The woman pretended that she had given birth to a monster—a dog had frightehed her : a surgeon arrived, but his services were not required; he was allowed to take away the birth. The man then complained of the surgeon to the Magistrates; amid then the whole deception, which was intended to impose on the benevolent and the curious, was made manifest. The woman had not been delivered, and was not preg- nant, and the body was decidedly that of a skinned puppy.