made a statement justifying the conduct of Mr. Gooch,
imputing to the men an intention to overbear the
company's authorities by preconcerted combination, and
accusing them of attempting by various devices to impede
the working of the engines by the new men. The
general, if not unanimous sense of the meeting, was in
favour of the conduct of Mr. Gooch. Immediately after
the meeting, about thirty of the late engine-drivers,
who had attended it, held a meeting in the neighbourhood
in order to canvass Mr. Betts's statement. They
indignantly denied the charge of obstructing the working
of the engines by their successors, and resolved that
details properly vouched should be forwarded to Mr.
Betts in support of their case.

A Dinner was given by the Fishmongers' Company to
her Majesty's ministers on the 1st instant. The leading
members of the cabinet were prevented from attending,
and the principal speaker was Lord Brougham, who
gave the company some old reminiscences:—"Whether
it has come to pass that you are better than in former
years—as good as you were in 1820—I know not; but I
care a great deal. I hope you are better—I hope that
you are now as I remember you in 1820. Now, I put
this case to you. If you now applaud what I am going
to say, you will be as in 1820; if not, you are corrupted
with Court influence. I was made a Fishmonger in
1820—I glory in the reason why I was made one. Don't
be ashamed of your good deeds; don't look back with
shame upon the brightest period of your history; be not
courtiers because your friends are in office; don't be
ashamed of what you did in favour of an oppressed
queen against an aggressive king and his minions of
ministers. . . . Ah, I see; you are far from having
the same feeling you had in 1820. Honours corrupt
manners—that is an old proverb; being in power is a
dangerous thing to public virtue." The latter part of
this effusion produced much laughter.

A return has been printed by order of the House of
Commons, of the number of persons, male and female,
tried in the United Kingdom for Murder by Poison,
from the year 1839 to 1849, both inclusive. The number
of persons so tried in England and Wales during the
ten years was 154, viz., 69 males, and 85 females; the
number of convictions on either charge was 66. The
number of trials, male and female, in 1839, was 13, and
the convictions 4; and in 1849 they were respectively
14 and 5. In Scotland the trials for murder by poison,
since 1839, have been only 9, 2 males and 7 females;
the convictions were 3. The trials for attempts to
murder were 6, 3 males and 3 females; convictions 4.
In Ireland the trials amounted to 56; 25 males and 31
females, and the convictions were 13. In 1839 there
occurred only one conviction in Ireland for murder by
poisoning; in 1841 there were 5 convictions against 10
persons accused. In 1849 the number of indictments
was 13, 7 males and 6 females, and the convictions 3.

NARRATIVE OF LAW AND CRIME.

William Ross, a youth of nineteen, was tried at the
York Assizes, on the 20th of July, for the Murder of his
Wife by poison. He had quarrelled violently with his
wife's relations, and had vowed vengeance against all
the family; and, on the 16th of May last, he bought
five ounces of arsenic at Ashton-under-Lyne. Mrs. Ross
was entered in two burial clubs: from one, a penny club,
£4 would be paid at her death; from the other, a club
at the mill where she worked, £6 6s. On the 17th of
May, Ross quarrelled with his wife, and was heard to
say to her, "Thou's worth more dead than quick;"
On the 28th of May, the wife was taken very ill with
the symptoms of poisoning, and she died on the 30th.
The prisoner would not let a doctor be fetched, but
said he would go himself; then he reported that
the doctor was not at home, but that he had left a
message for him—the fact was, Ross never went to
him. He removed his wife from one room to
another, and cleared away all traces of the matters he
had thrown off her stomach. Immediately after her
death, he sent to inquire about the burial-club money.
He had talked of going to America if his wife died.
When arrested, he made varying statements. A post-
mortem examination showed a large quantity of arsenic
in the viscera. The jury soon found a verdict of Guilty.
The prisoner exclaimed, "Not guilty, my Lord! not
guilty, my Lord!" The judge told him that his
protestations of innocence were useless; his guilt had been
but too clearly proved—"all who have heard the evidence
in the case must have in their minds the conviction that
yours was the hand which administered the fatal draught,
and I am as much persuaded of the fact as if I had seen
it with my own eyes." The prisoner paid the greatest
attention to the judge, and again loudly exclaimed, with
extended arms, "I am not guilty, my Lord! I am not
guilty of the crime!" In consequence of circumstances
which seemed to throw doubts on his guilt, petitions
were presented praying for further inquiry, and a week's
reprieve of execution was granted for that purpose. But
the result was not favourable; and the criminal was
executed at York on the 17th.

At the same Assizes, on the 26th of July, William
Chadwick, a potter, was tried for the Murder of Samuel
Tunnicliffe. The prisoner had married the grand-niece
of Tunnicliffe, who was a hale old man of 70, possessed
of some freehold property. The couple persuaded the
old man to come and live with them. Chadwick
employed a neighbouring attorney to prepare a deed of gift
of the old man's property in favour of him and his wife.
He bought sugar of lead, saying it was to cure his
mother's bad leg, though he had no mother; he
afterwards bought arsenic, and he and his wife went together
into a shop and bought croton oil and linseed oil. The
old man was taken ill; and a neighbour summoned to
his bed-side, found him dead with a pen in his hand and
the deed of gift before him. At the inquest Chadwick
made a statement in which he charged his wife with the
act of poisoning the old man admitting his knowledge
of them. At the trial the jury found him guilty as
accessory before the fact, and recommended him to
mercy. The judge demanded upon what ground? The
foreman said that they considered there was some
conspiracy with the wife, the wife getting the poison with
the husband's assistance and administering it with his
knowledge. His Lordship told them that they must
find him guilty of murder if they thought he advised
the giving of poison. They brought in a verdict of
Guilty accordingly; and the judge passed sentence of
death. His execution was fixed for the l7th; but he
received a reprieve during pleasure.

A distressing Suicide was committed on the 29th of
July, at Shipston-on-Stowe, by a lady named Elizabeth
Rees, who had lately opened a seminary for young
ladies with excellent recommendations. On the morning
of the above day, a servant, going into an out-house,
discovered her hanging, and quite dead. An inquest
was held on her body, when it appeared that she had
lost a considerable sum of money by unfortunate railway
investments; and this, with some disappointments in
regard to the opening of the school, had doubtless
impelled her to commit the awful act. It also appeared
that her friends had, in the course of Friday or Saturday,
posted a letter addressed to her and calculated to ease
her mind regarding her future prospects. This letter,
however, owing to the stoppage of postal communication
on Sunday, did not arrive in Shipston until late on
Monday. Its timely arrival might have saved her life.
The jury found a verdict of Temporary Insanity.

In the House of Lords, on the 30th of July, Lord
Brougham gave judgment in the case of Paterson v
Paterson, appealed from the Court of Session in
Scotland. It was a suit of separation à mensû et thoro, at
the instance of a wife against her husband. A young
man named Paterson, in possession of a good estate being
in difficulties, applied to a Mr. Russell for assistance,
offering, at the same time, his hand to Mr. Russell's
daughter. Mr. Russell lent Mr. Paterson £2000, and
Mr. Paterson married the young lady. The marriage,
almost from the outset, was unhappy. The husband
treated his wife with coldness and neglect, making no
complaint of her conduct, but blaming himself to her
family for their unhappiness; attributing it "exclusively
to his fixed and unconquerable depression of spirits, and
consequently, to the neglect of those attentions which a
wife has an undoubted right to expect from the man to
whom she is united." This candid view of his own