charged with carting and removing several cart loads of
bricks belonging to the railway company, and depositing
them on the premises of the father; and after an
examination before the magistrate, they were sentenced, the
father to undergo an imprisonment with hard labour for
eighteen months, and the son to six months' and hard
labour. The son's imprisonment expired on the 8th,
whereupon he immediately returned to the inn kept by
his father, and resumed his avocation of waiting upon
the customers as usual, and whilst so doing on the
12th one of them incautiously made use of the expression,
"How about the bricks!" which appeared to have
such an effect upon the mind of the young man, that he
immediately repaired to a shed at the back part of the
building, and hung himself. He continued hanging,
until his family, missing him, made a search, when he
was found. He was immediately cut down, and medical
assistance promptly procured, but life had been extinct
for some time.

The Worship Street Court was crowded on the 13th
by a large number of persons, amongst whom were
many well dressed women, anxious to be present at the
adjourned hearing of a summons against William
Calcraft, the public executioner, issued by the parish
officers of the Witham Union, in Essex, for Refusing
to Support his aged Mother, an inmate of that
workhouse. Not making his appearance at the hour
appointed, the magistrates directed a warrant to be issued
for the apprehension of the defendant, but he shortly
after entered the court; and his mother, Sarah Calcraft,
who was compelled by her infirmities to be seated
during the examination, was then called, and stated
that she was seventy-four years of age, and having
become totally destitute, was constrained to throw herself
upon the parish. She had previously addressed three
letters to the defendant, requesting assistance, but had
not received anything from him, and he had not even
answered one of her communications, although in
circumstances to support her, as in addition to the
salary he received from the corporation, he carried on
the trade of a boot and shoemaker.—The magistrate
asked the defendant if he had any reasonable grounds to
assign for refusing to contribute to his mother's
maintenance?—Defendant: Well, I should be very happy
to support her if it was in my power, but it is not; and
as to what she says about the profits I derive from my
shoemaking business, I can assure you that I have not
earned a penny at that for a great number of weeks. I
admit that I receive a guinea a-week from the City;
but that is all we have to live upon; and when you
deduct out of that 4s. 6d. for rent and the cost of a
Sunday's dinner, you will find that there is not much
left.—Magistrate: Well, you are clearly liable for the
support of your mother, and I feel it my duty to make
an order upon you for the sum of 3s. per week.—
Defendant; Ah, but you'll never get it from me. I can't
pay it; and if you do, I must run in debt, I suppose.—
The magistrate continued: I shall make an order upon
you for the sum of 3s. per week for your mother's
support, together with the costs attendant upon the present
proceedings.—Defendant: Oh, very well; you may
make your order if you like, but it's out of my power.
—The order was about to be made, when the defendant
turned round sharply upon the relieving officer, and
said, "Well, now, suppose I took my mother to keep
myself, what would you allow me for her? Come,
that's the point. Certainly, if you allow me something
for her, I may be able to get on perhaps.—The officer
expressed his belief that the mother would prefer being
in the union.—The mother: Oh dear, yes; I should not
be alive a week in London, whereas I should be safe in
the country if they even left me upon the common. I
prefer being in the workhouse, for I am very
comfortable there.—The defendant thereupon leant over to
his mother, expressing his willingness to take care of
her, and, with apparent feeling, told her that he was
very sorry she should have to come there; and, upon
the order being made, and one of the officers coming
forward to raise her out of the chair, the defendant
pushed him aside, and gently raising her, with his arm
round her waist, supported her out of the court.

At Stafford Assizes, on the 16th, Benjamin Griffiths
was tried for bigamy. He was married to his first wife
in 1840. She confessed that she had committed adultery
with her husband's nephew. He thereupon refused to
live with her, took away his three children, placed them
with a person whom he employed to take care of them,
and went to America. He returned in 1847; and
married a second wife, his first being then alive and chargeable
to the parish. The overseers applied to him to
maintain her, and summoned him before the magistrates
for not doing so; but the magistrates upon hearing the
case dismissed the summons against him, and thereupon
the parish authorities instituted the present prosecution.
Mr. Baron Piatt told the jury, that it was a shameful
prosecution, and was evidently only instituted by the
parish authorities as a kind of screw to compel an honest
hard-working man to support a prostitute wife.
However, a breach of the law had clearly been committed,
and the jury must therefore find the prisoner guilty.
The jury thereupon returned a verdict of "Guilty,"
with the observation that they thought it "a very hard
case." Mr. Baron Platt—"Everybody must think so:
it is a shameful perversion of the law. Prisoner, you
are fined one shilling, and discharged; and the parish
must pay for the prosecution." The prisoner paid the
fine, and left the dock.

At the village of Clayton-on-the-heights, near Halifax,
on the 16th, a young man named Abraham Jessop Shot
his Wife, to whom he had only recently been married,
and afterwards Blew out his own Brains. Both were
about twenty-five years of age, and though married but
a few months, were living apart in consequence of
domestic differences arising from Jessop's habits of
intoxication. Jessop had latterly desired a reconciliation, but
failing, sought an interview on the 16th, with a view to
putting a period to all future strife, by murdering his
wife, and afterwards destroying himself. After taking
several glasses of ardent spirits at a public house to keep
up his courage, he entered the house where his wife
resided, and found her in the presence of her mother
and sister. He asked her to accompany him to the door
for a private conversation, but she declined. He
attempted to induce her to listen to him in another
room. This she also refused, and he then took from
one of his coat pockets a pistol, and discharged it with
the muzzle almost close to her person. The ball took
effect in the left breast, but missed the heart. Before
any attempt at interference could be made, he drew a
second pistol, and placing the muzzle under his right
ear, discharged the contents through his head. The
unfortunate wife ran to the door, and sank upon the
causeway in a state of insensibility. She was afterwards
carried to bed, and surgical aid being procured
and the wounds staunched, she still survives. It is
feared, however, that the ball has passed through a
portion of the lungs, and that she cannot ultimately
recover. The wound which Jessop inflicted on himself
was mortal. He fell upon the floor, and expired, his
skull being fearfully shattered.

A double Murder was perpetrated on the 17th, at
Juniper Green, a village about five miles from
Edinburgh. Dr. Wilson, a medical practitioner, resided
with his aged mother in the village, a servant they
employed sleeping at another house. A man named
Pearson, who has been subject to fits of insanity, and
had been confined in a lunatic asylum for four years,
went last Sunday night to Dr. Wilson's for medicine;
the servant left him in the house—departing in some
apprehension from the strange conduct of the man.
Early next morning. Dr. Wilson and his mother were
found dead, and horribly mangled, on the floor of the
lower apartments. Pearson was found upstairs in Mrs.
Wilson's bed, naked, and fast asleep. When awakened,
one of his exclamations was, "Here I am; quite clean,
you see!" He had burnt his clothes; some remnants
of which, his watch, and other articles, were found in a
grate. His whole manner indicated insanity: he had
recently had fits of madness; sometimes he was friendly
towards Dr. Wilson, and sometimes the reverse. Dr.
Wilson was a vigorous middle-aged man; his mother
was eighty-six years old.

At Exeter Assizes, on the 20th, Thomas King was
found guilty of Attempting to Murder his aged Father
and his housekeeper, with the object of effecting a
robbery. On the 12th of February, he had gone to his