5 AUGUST 1837, Page 11

About thirty rioters at the late election in the Potteries

have been secured, and lodged in Stafford Gaol. They were mostly non.electors of Hanky and Lane End ; and had secured themselves in the new Churchyard at Shelton, and broke the grave-stones for stones to throw

at the Yeomanry Cavalry, which stones diffment women picked up in their aprons and sent back again to them.

A party of Lord Portman's labourers were cutting weeds in the river Stour, near Blandford, on Tuesday sennight ; when one of them, named Bull, stuck in the mud, in which he was rapidly sinking. None of the party could swim ; but two men, Allen and Elford, declared they would not let their companion die without an effort to save him ; and immediately waded into the mud to assist him ; but from the water and mud together being beyond their depth, they also rapidly sunk. Their companions went to their assistance, and gave the alarm to others near the spot ; but some time elapsed before the bodies were found and brought to the shore, when life was extinct in all three. Two of the unfortunate men have left wives and large families.— Dorset County Chronicle.

At a numerous meeting of gentlemen connected with the counties of Northumberland and Durham and the town of Newcastle, held at the Newcastle Assembly Rooms on Friday, it was resolved that imme- diate steps be taken to carry into effect measures for the formation of a railway between Newcastle and Edinburgh, and Glasgow, by the Midland Line of Road.

A few days since, a new rick of bay, belonging to Mr. Thorueley, of Green Hill, near Stockport, was set fire to by an incendiary, and entirely consumed, as well as part of an old stack.

Twenty-eight men and boys, and as many horses, were drowned on Monday, by an irruption of water into a cool-mine near Whitehaven.

Mr. Boswell Meredith, a respectable aged farmer, residing near Nantwich, was called out of bed, on the 18th of last month, by a man, who stated that some of Mr. Meredith's cows had wandered into a potato-field and were doing damage. The old man imme- diately rose, not suspecting any evil design, and went out of his house into a lane adjoining ; where be was brutally attacked by three men, and received injuries from which he died in a few days afterwards. Circumstances soon afterwards arose attaching suspicion to two brothers of the name of Steel, who resided near the Potteries, but whose father lived near Mr. Meredith's house. A communication was forthwith made to a police-officer, who issued bills describing the persons of John and George Steel, labourers, and offering a reward of

2001. on their apprehension and conviction. After considerable exer- tions to discover the suspected murderers, but without success, George

Steel, unable to suffer the pangs of a guilty conscience any longer, went to Nantwitch, where he surrendered himself into the hands of justice, making a full confession of his participation in the bloody deed, and implicating his brother John and a man named Benjamin Webb in the same offence. The two last-named men were immediately appre- hended in the Potteries. The Steels are unmarried; Webb has a wife and three children.