NARRATIVE OF LAW AND CRIME.

AN important Will Cause has been tried in the Jury
Court at Glasgow, in which property of the value of
£300,000 was involved. The wills in dispute were those
of the late Mr. Adam Gilmour, a merchant of Glasgow,
who was the architect of his own fortunes, and by his
exertions and integrity had amassed an enormous
fortune in business there, from which he retired shortly
before his death, taking a very large capital. By a
testamentary disposition made in 1833, he bequeathed
the bulk of his fortune to his nephew and heir-at-law,
Mr. Adam Gilmour, jun., merchant, the plaintiff in this
suit. In 1848, shortly before his death, the testator
executed another deed, making the former deed null,
and settling his property on another nephew, Mr. Adam
Gilmour, of Portnor, the defendant in this suit. The
validity of that disposition was now questioned, and the
jury were now called upon to decide—first, whether the
testator was in a weak mind and easily imposed upon
when he executed it; second, if that deed of 1848 was
obtained by fraud, &c. Twenty-two witnesses were
examined; after which the plaintiff declined to proceed
further with the contest, declaring that he had been
actuated by a desire to ascertain the facts, and his
honourable feeling dictated the course now of consenting
to a verdict for the defendant. The counsel for the
defendant bore testimony to the high character and
principle which had dictated that step, and the Judge, Lord
Robertson, also testified to the high feelings of justice
which had dictated such a surrender of the contest,
remarking that there were higher considerations in this
life than the mere attainment of money. The jury gave
a verdict for the defendant on the fourth day of
the trial.

An atrocious Double Murder has been committed
near Aberdeen. A widow named Ross occupied a
cottage on a farm; and with her lived a little grandson,
six years old. Two persons who were passing at night
heard groans from the house, and saw a man quit it
carrying a bundle. They informed a constable, and the
house was entered. The woman and child lay dead on
the floor; the woman's skull had been battered in, and
the child had been killed by a blow on the breast; the
murders appeared to have been committed by the "heel
of a carpenter's common axe." Suspicion fell on Donald
Christie, a pensioner, who had been working on the
farm, and who had been permitted by the widow to
cook his food in her cottage. He was tracked and
arrested: there was blood on his clothing, and this and
other suspicious circumstances led to his committal.
Mrs. Ross obtained a living by feeding swine; she had
recently sold some: doubtless the motive of the murderer
was to seize this money; to obtain it he killed the
woman, and then destroyed the child, who might be a
witness against him.

Mr. Robert Jack Watts, who describes himself as an
attorney living in Furnival's Inn, Charles Perry, and a
youth named Grinsell, have been charged before the
Lambeth Magistrate with Obtaining Money by means
of Fraudulent Checks. Watts got £15 10s. from Mr.
Corbett, a publican at Walworth, upon a check drawn
by Watts on the London and County Bank; Mr. Corbett
having been induced to cash the check at the request of
Mr. Gillies, a neighbouring baker; who, again, had
desired the publican to give the money on the strength
of a false message by young Grinsell, that his father, a
respectable man, wished to have it. After getting the
cash, the three prisoners had a feast at a tavern, which
ended in the locking up of Watts and Perry for
drunkenness. The check was worthless—Watts had no
account at the bank. In another case, Watts got goods
and change from a law-stationer by means of a similar
fraudulent check. Perry said he had formerly been
clerk to Watts, and he professed ignorance of the fraud.
Grinsell protested that the only wrong he did was giving
his father's name without authority. All three were
remanded, but Perry and Grinsell were admitted
to bail.

Garotte Robberies are becoming very frequent at
Leeds. Two men have been committed for trial for a
most desperate outrage of that kind. Mr. Hartley, a
young merchant, was attacked by two men at midnight,
at Hunslet Moor, a lonely place in the vicinity of the
town; though he resisted gallantly, he was held by the
throat, beaten, kicked, bitten in the hand, and eventually
overpowered; when the ruffians rifled his pockets,
and ran away. Mr. Hartley's trousers were actually
torn to ribands in the efforts of the robbers to get at his
pockets.

Mr. Saville Morton, the Paris correspondent of the
Daily News, has lost his life by the hand of a brother-
Journalist, Mr. Bower of the Morning Advertiser. The
circumstances attending this lamentable event are
given by the last-mentioned paper, from the information
of the unfortunate survivor. Mr. Bower resided,
with his wife and children, in the Rue de Seze; Mr.
Morton, who was unmarried, lived in the same quarter,
and the gentlemen were on intimate terms. Some
months ago, Mr. Morton's attentions to Mrs. Bower
having excited some suspicions in her husband's mind,
he forbade Mr. Morton his house; but they were reconciled,
and their former intercourse was renewed. Mrs.
Bower, the mother of four children, was lately confined,
and her suffering brought on fits of mental derangement.
In her delirium—which was so violent as to threaten to
terminate fatally every hour for several days—she
expressed so vehement a wish to see Mr. Morton that the
physicians advised Mr. Bower, whatever his private
feelings might be on the subject, to allow her to have
her own way, thinking that Mr. Morton's presence
might have the effect of subduing the extreme violence
of her manner. Mr. Bower, under the circumstances,
acquiesced in the wishes of the physician, and Mr.
Morton came to his house, entered the apartment of Mrs.
Bower, and remained by her bedside, with a few brief
intervals, several days and nights; Mrs. Bower being
all this time in a state of dreadful delirium, would
receive no attentions nor nursing from any one but Mr.
Morton, except in occasional intervals, when she became
somewhat more calm. During one of the brief periods
of Mr. Morton's absence, Mrs. Bower stated that her
last child, born four weeks previously, was not Mr.
Bower's but Mr. Morton's. On Mr. Bower's remarking
that he ascribed the statement to the illness under which
she was labouring, and did not place any faith in it,
Mrs. Bower reiterated the assertion with increased
emphasis, and said that, as a dying woman, it was true.
Mr. Bower observed that, if he could believe it, either
Mr. Morton or himself should, in less than an hour, be
a dead man. She again energetically declared that the
child was Mr. Morton's, not Mr. Bower's, and appealed
to the housemaid who happened to be present, whether
it was not true that Mr. Morton had slept in the house
several nights during Mr. Bower's absence from Paris,
about nine months previously. The housemaid said
that such was the fact. Mr. Bower then retired into
the dining-room, where arrangements had been made
for a hurried meal, when unfortunately, while Mr.
Bower's brain, according to his own statement, was
maddened by what he had heard, Mr. Morton entered
the room. Mr. Bower immediately put the question to
him whether the horrible averment of his wife was true.
Mr. Morton made no reply—neither admitted nor
denied the charge, but that instant rushed out of the
room. Mr. Bower snatched up a knife which was lying
on the table, and rushed after Mr. Morton, overtaking
him as he had reached the fourth or fifth stair, and
making a deep wound in the neck, which cut the
jugular vein. Mr. Morton fell that instant, and never
spoke a word, or even uttered a groan. Mr. Bower,
acting on the advice of a relative who was in the house
at the time, hurriedly put on an overcoat which was
lying beside him, and, through the aid of a female
servant, escaped by a back passage. The police were
instantly on the alert, but their pursuit was unsuccessful,
and he reached England. It is stated that the Procureur
of the Republic, after reviewing the circumstances
attending the death of Mr. Morton, has come to the
resolution not to take any steps against Mr. Bower, unless
the family of Mr. Morton should meddle in the affair.
The grounds upon which he has come to the resolution
are said to be, that he feels convinced that no French
jury would convict a man who had received the|
provocation Mr. Bower received, and who suddenly slew his
adversary while under the influence of that provocation.