Ctt Vrianintrg.
The borough of Harwich has filled the vacancy made by the promotion of Sir 5.ohn Hobhouse to the House of Peers with a Protectionist Member of Parliament. The candidates were Mr. Robert Wigram Crawford, a London merchant of Free-trade and generally Liberal principles, and Mr. Henry Joseph Prinsep, "a wealthy nabob from India," a Director of the East India Company, a Protectionist and Conservative. At the no- mination, on Tuesday, the show of hands was in favour of Mn Prinsep; and the election on Wednesday gave that gentleman his return by a ma- jority proportioned to the infinitesimal constituency. The numbers were —for Prinsep 135, for Crawford 130 ; majority for Prinsep 5.
The apprehensions of a dissolution of Parliament which were lately raised by political complications have elicited declarations by some sit- ting Members. Mr. Bennett of South Wilts informed his constituents, by letter, that when a dissolution of Parliament shall take place, he will not again solicit the honour which he has enjoyed upwards of thirty-two years. Mr. W. H. Stanton would retire from the representation of Stroud. On the other hand, Mr. C. A. Moody contradicted rumours afloat, with the declaration that he had "no intention to desert" his constituents in West Somerset. In East Kent, Mr. Plumptre and Sir Edward Dering have been simultaneously in the field as canvassers ; the latter reminding the former of a pledge not again to offer himself, which the former denies that he is bound by.
The trial at Swansea, last week, of Charles Henry Acherly, a retired Lieutenant in the Navy, was a most singular investigation. The prisoner is the same person who is well known in London, as Captain Acherly," for his attendance and demonstrative conduct at all sorts of meetings : he is a man of position—a magistrate for Woroesterehire—and of education, but an enthusiast of the most singularly ill-balanced mind. He stood indicted for causing, by quack treatment, the death of Matthew Tingle, a collier, who had been scorched in a mining explosion at Aberdare. On the 12th Decem- ber, the prisoner came to the house of Tingle, and stated that he was a "doctor from Lancashire," who had orders from the owner of the mine to treat the safforing collier medically. Tingle was then in the dangerous stage which follows extensive scorching that has removed the skin off a large portion of the body; but the regular doctor of the mining-works considered that he "had a chance." The prisoner ordered all the plasters to be removed, so as to expose the raw surface to the air ; he placed a lamp of peculiar construc- tion under the man's nose, to make him breathe hot air, and had his limbs smartly agitated by attendants. The collier died in a few hours afterwards ; and Dr. Davies swore to his belief that this treatment, especially the expo- sure of the wounds and the agitation of the limbs, decelerated the death, though he could net be sure that the patient would otherwise have lived. The counsel for the Crown admitted that the prisoner's motive was good ; but urged, that by acting with "ignorance, or gross negligence, or miscon- duct," he had, through accelerating the death, been guilty of manslaughter. The prisoner conducted his own defence: at his side was a lamp of his own "invention," and before him was a pile of antique folios and quartos. He spoke with fluency, and in an effective manner, for an hour and a half; and grounded his defence on the most ludicrous mixture of the ex- ploded physical dogmata of the alchemists and schoolraen of the ante-Baco- nian times, with misinterpreted modern science and Biblical lore. He started from the time-worn axiom that "Nature abhors a vacuum" ; the amusing anatomical specialty that there is "a circulation of air between the periosteum and the bones " ; and the droll assumption that by means of his lamp he can "remove the atmospheric tonnage" from the human surface. These points he worked up with quotations from his old authors and from the Bible, and with some remarks of really striking sense, into an extra- ordinary web of defence. At the time when the Colleges were re- moved from Cricklade to Oxford, [by Alfred the Great,] there was a putrefaction in literature" ; and even now "the treatment of disease goes on rules laid down prior to the Reformation." In Aristotle's first book—" Of Vacuity "—the Stagyrite says, "there is voidness"; on that foundation the prisoner would stand or fall. Holding up a feather, he referred to the common physiological tenet that some birds have the power of lessening their specific gravity by exhausting the quill part of their feathers of the air-in them ; and then he deelared, that putting the feather down Tingle's throat, he contributed to lighten the circulation of
air between the periosteum and his bones. The Bible says, in Psalm cii. verse 5, "By reason of my groaning"—" that, (the groaning,) is the same thing with the rattles in Matthew Tingle's throat." Towards the end of his ex- traordinary effusion, the prisoner referred with tact to subjects which would influence a Welsh jury,—his opposition to the introduction of Rural Police ; his magistracy ; his temperate life, the life of an inventive genius ; and above all, to his descent from Prince Llewellyn and Owen Tudor. The Jury gave an hour's deliberation to their verdict, and then found the prisoner "Not guilty "; whereupon the spectators in court shouted applause.
Sarah Chesham, of odious fame in connexion with the poisoning cases at Clavering, in Ease; was tried at Chelrasfoed on Thursday, for an attempt to murder her husband by poison. The reader will remember that this woman has been already tried for poisoning her children, and charged with other poisonings, but escaped justice and that May the woman who was hanged in 1849 for poisoning her husband, confessed before her execution that Ches- il= was her teacher and instigator to that crime. The immediate cause of the death of Chesham's husband was inflammation of the lunge; but Pro- fessor Taylor of Guy's Hospital extracted arsenic from the viscera, in such uniform and equally diffused quantities as left no doubt in his mind that minute doses of the poison had been constantly given to the deceased with intent to take his life. He also discovered arsenic in equable but weak mixture with the mass of a quantity of rice-flour which was taken from Glieslmm. It seems that Professor Taylor had in his evidence at the former trial very fully explained the slow fatality of small doses of arsenic repeatedly administered ; so the prisoner was well instructed on this point. A multitude of most incriminating remarks which the prisoner herself had made were put in evidence by witnesses, who established that Chesham was regarded with fear in her village as a "professed poisoner." The Jury, with very little deliberation, found a verdict of " Guilty." Lord Campbell pro- nouneed sentence of death. The Judge was so oppressed by emotion as to be for some moments unable to speak the sentence: the doomed criminal walked from the dock with a firm step and unmoved air.
At Abingdon .Assizes, on Saturday, a timber-merchant and an innkeeper pleaded guilty to a charge of refusing to assist a magistrate to disperse an unlawful assembly. A mob assembled at White Waltham to witness a prize- fight; Mr. Doyne, a magistrate, ordered it to disperse; his hat was pushed over his eyes, and he was hustled ; but numbers left the field when they found that a magistrate was present. The accused did not misbehave ac- tively, but they did not assist Mr. Doyne. The accused urged in defence, that they were not aware that the law commanded them to do so. They were sentenced to pay the nominal fine of a shilling each, the prosecution having been instituted to make the law on the matter known. Eight other prison- ers, fighters or attendants, were convicted of attending an unlawful assembly and assaulting Mr. Doyne. One of them was sentenced to be imprisoned four days ; the others were fined a shilling each and ordered to put in sure- ties to keep the peace.
Catherine Tilley was tried for forging and uttering a check for 207. She had been in the service of Mr. &Ines, a married farmer ; three days after leaving her situation she attempted to get the chock cashed. Mr. Somes de- clared that he had not written the cheek, had never given a blank cheek to any one, nor had authorized any ofie to fill up a check in whole or in part. The defence *as, that Mr. Somes had given the woman a Signed cheek, with authority to fill it up, in consideration of certain favours conceded to him by the prisoner. Mr. &mes, when cross-examined, refused to answer questions respecting his intimacy with the accused ; and some of his answers on the appearance of his check-book were not quite satisfactory. The verdict of Not guilty" was received with loud expressions of approbation by the people in court.
William Hurst was tried for shooting at his wife Hannah, with intent to murder her. The woman had left her husband and was living with another man. Hurst went to the inn at Daventry where they lodged, encoun- tered his wife, and fired a pistol at her, inflicting wounds which endan- gered life. The Jury found the prisoner guilty ; and sentence of death was recorded.
At Oxford Assizes, on Tuesday, John Lambourn, a middle-aged labourer, was tried for the murder of his wife. The woman was found dead in the garden of the cottage, her husband giving the first alarm ; death had been caused by a wound on the head, apparently inflicted with a pair of tongs which were found in the house. The couple had often quarrelled, and Lam- bourn had sometimes beaten his wife—a poor diseased creature ; he had often wished she was dead, and dropped suspicious expressions respecting her. On the other hand, there was no direct evidence against him, and no blood was found upon him, though that evidence of the murder had been scattered in all directions round the body. His counsel urged that robbers might have been the murderers. After deliberating for an hour, the Jury gave a verdict of acquittal.
At Durham Assizes, on Tuesday, Robert Thirkeld was tried for shooting at Joseph Langstaff with intent to murder him. Thirkeld was poaching ; Langstaff, a keeper, detected and followed him, and the prisoner fired at his pursuer. Langstaff held up his arm to protect his face, and this alone pro- bably saved his life. The Jury convicted the poacher of an assault only. Mr. Justice Cresswell sentenced him to be imprisoned for two years.
Ash, the man accused of the burglary and attempted murder at Windsor, has been committed for trial. Mr. Tucker recognized him as one of the ruffians ; and strong corroborative evidence of his complicity was produced.
Superintendent Farnham, of the Nottingham Constabulary, has been found on the road-side between Nottingham and Bramcote with a desperate wound on the back part of the head, apparently inflicted by a blunt weapon or a heavy stone. Though able to walk a little when set on his legs, he could give no intelligible account of what had happened; and he soon fell into a state of utter insensibility, from which it was feared he would not recover. The affair might have been accidental, by the officer falling from his horse ; but there appears to be reason to suspect foul play.
A child has been killed at Thornhill Lees, near Dewsbury, while attempt- ing to cross a tramway employed to convey coals to a canal. The train- way has a descent to the canal ; there is a level crossing at one place for the public, but no one to watch it or see that accidents do not occur : hence the little boy was killed by the descending waggons as he attempted to pass the rails. A Coroner's inquest has given a verdict of " Manslaughter " against Mr. Ingham, the owner of the colliery.
An old woman who conveyed milk in a cart was in the habit of passing a level crossing at Coffins Green, on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. On Monday morning, the gateman's wife allowed the woman to pass the gate ; while the cart was on the rails an express-train dashed into it, and the poor old woman and her horse were killed. A serious collision occurred on the York, Newcastle, and Berwick Railway, near the Darlington station, on Tuesday morning. A Parliamentary tram encountered a coal-engine, which, having been employed in shunting some waggons, was unfortunately advanchig on'thesame line of rails. The drivers could not stop their engines quickly enough to prevent a trash. Both loco- motives were thrown off the rails. Several passengers were badly hurt, but "it is hoped that none of the injuries will prove fatal."
A great destruction of agricultural produce, buildings, and other property, has occurred by a fire at the extensive farm-steading of liyland Ual4 near Colchester. There was a suspicion of incendiarism, and a labourer on the farm was arrested ; but the Magistrates found nothing to implicate him, and therefore liberated him. It seems that the labourers were in the habit of smoking about the farm, and the disaster might have originated from this dangerous practice.
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