prove the fact by witnesses if the magistrate would
adjourn the inquiry. A remand of the case was therefore
accorded, Usher was liberated on bail, and Falkner
ordered to be in attendance on the day appointed for the
second hearing. Falkner, however, failed to appear.
From that period, notwithstanding the officers, as well
as Usher himself, were in search of him, he was not
heard anything of until the 22nd of the month, when
he was discovered living at Ivy Cottage, Camberwell,
where it was said he was residing on account of his
health. The police set a watch upon the movements of
his wife, and on Saturday night, the 3rd of July,
followed her in a chaise to the cottage at Camberwell.
Having traced her to this cottage, the two officers
entered it, and found Falkner, his wife and family, and
a Jew, at supper. Falkner, on being told that he was
to consider himself in custody, and that it was their
intention to convey him to the station, requested that
they would permit him to go there in his own chaise.
This request the officers assented to, and as the one
was conducting him out of the cottage by the front
door Falkner managed to give him the slip; and
then, when the other tried to intercept him, he was
attacked by Mrs. Falkner and the Jew, whereupon
Falkner effected his escape. Mrs. Falkner and the Jew
were subsequently committed to Kingston gaol for this
assault, the latter for a fortnight and the wife for a month.
Falkner contrived to evade the vigilance of the police
until the 15th of September, on which day he gave
notice, through his attorney, that it was his intention to
surrender and meet the charge. Before that act of
surrender, however, had been accomplished, he was
apprehended by a sergeant of police when walking in
Holborn. When he was brought before the magistrate,
he stated that he had purchased the foil in question of
a person of the name of Jackson, and that he had paid as
much as 6½d. a pound for it. He then called upon Jackson
to corroborate his statement. That person refused to do
anything of the sort, or even to be sworn; but a man of
the name of Bright having been then called up, he
declared that he had been a witness to the sale of the
foil by Jackson, and to the purchase of it by Falkner.
This witness added, that this transaction had taken
place in the open shop of Falkner, whither the foil had
been taken by Jackson. With reference to Jackson, the
chief points against him were, his having stated that he
knew the person from whom he had received the foil,
and that it could not be identified, as the goods were in
an unfinished state; and then the fact of his having
refused to give up the name of that individual. The
stolen property was unquestionably identified as
belonging to the prosecutors, and it was proved that its
value in its present unfinished state was not less than
1s. 1d. per lb. Falkner's counsel admitted that his
client had been guilty of egregious folly in telling a
wilful untruth, by at first denying that he had sold the
foil to Usher, and then in keeping out of the way; but
he submitted that his conduct subsequently was an
ample atonement for those acts of foolishness. At the
time that Falkner had effected his escape from the
officers he had been for some period in very ill health,
and therefore it was by no means improbable but that
his subsequent concealment had been the result of fear
and timidity. When that feeling, however, had
subsided, the prisoner had come forward like an honest
man to meet the charge, and had not merely challenged
Jackson to tell the truth, but had brought forward
evidence to corroborate his own statement upon the
subject. The jury acquitted both prisoners of the charge
of theft, but found Jackson guilty of receiving the foil,
knowing it to have been stolen. The judge said the
case ought to be a warning not to purchase unfinished
goods. With regard to Jackson, he said that the court
would, in all cases where receivers were convicted, visit
them with transportation, for the receivers were the
great abettors of crime and produced more than one-half
of the thefts which were committed. The sentence on
the prisoner was, transportation for ten years.

At the Middlesex Sessions, on the 27th, Charles Moss
was indicted for having Stolen articles, value £8, the
Property of the Great Western Railway Company. It
appeared that a Mrs. Francis arrived at the Paddington
terminus of the Great Western Railway by the half-past
8 train on the evening of the 27th of September, and the
prisoner's wife and children arrived also by the same
train. The prisoner was in attendance with a horse and
cart, to convey his family home, and having placed in
the cart some luggage they had brought with them, he
went to the barrier where the passenger's luggage was
placed, and took therefrom a large bundle containing a
quantity of bedding, as set forth in the indictment, and
went away with it. In consequence of information
received, an officer in the company's service went in search
of the prisoner, and on making a search at his lodgings,
he found the bedding, which was identified as that taken
from the barrier and belonging to Mrs. Francis. The
prisoner said he took the bundle in mistake for one his
wife had brought with her; but the evidence of two of
the railway porters showed that no similar articles were
left at the station; and the various statements made by
the prisoner relative to it were not true. The defence
was that the prisoner took the property without any
felonious intent, but purely in mistake, believing that it
had been brought by his wife. The learned judge
in his summing up of the case remarked that the
company would not allow passengers to take care of their
own luggage; they pretended to take care of it for
them; but they did not provide a sufficient number
of officers to ensure its safety. Passengers were, of
all others, the persons most likely to take care
of their luggage, but if the company was determined
that they should not, they might at least take
the best means of taking care of it themselves. The
railway companies on the continent were amongst those
who did not think that passengers ought to be entrusted
with their own property, but it was well taken care of;
and so certain was luggage on those railways of reaching
its destination, that he thought the next time he travelled
on the continent, he should have himself made up
into a parcel and directed to the place he wished to
reach, because it would then, with their arrangements, be
next to impossible for him to get any where but to the
right place. (A laugh.) The Great Western's arrangements
for passengers' luggage were very ineffective, and
required alteration and amendment. He then
recapitulated the evidence, and left the jury to say whether
the evidence satisfied them that the prisoner took the
articles in mistake, or that at the time he took the
bundle he had a felonious intent. The foreman of the
jury said they had great doubt in the matter, and gave
the prisoner the benefit of it, by finding him not guilty.

NARRATIVE OF ACCIDENT AND
DISASTER.

A grave-digger named Smith, met his death at
Edinburgh on the 25th of September, by being Buried Alive.
He had left his house to dig a grave in a neighbouring
church-yard; but, as he did not return, his wife
became alarmed, and, having obtained the company of
the beadle of the church, proceeded to the place of
interment, where, after a search, they were horrified at
discovering a hand projecting from a mass of earth
which had fallen into the grave where the poor man
had been at work. Assistance was immediately
procured, and the body of the unfortunate gravedigger
exhumed from the receptacle which he had excavated.
The body was still warm, but, though attempts were
made to restore animation, they proved fruitless, life
being quite extinct.

The ship " Hindostan," of Whitby, a fine vessel of
554 tons burden, has been Wrecked on her passage from
Portsmouth across the Atlantic. She encountered a
heavy gale on the 25th of August, which continued
with great force for several days. On the 27th, the crew
discovered she had sprung an extensive leak, which
soon rendered her completely unmanageable; this was
in lat. 45·47, long. 54·36, the water increasing fast, and
the ship settling down by the head. The launch having
been got out, only six men and the mate could be
prevailed upon to got into her, the others, to the number
of nine, remaining on board, and while the boat was
following in the vessel's wake, the main-mast suddenly
fell, when the ship lurched and went to the bottom.