The house was immediately visited, and presented a
horrible spectacle. Mr. Wickham lay weltering in his
blood, his head literally hewn to pieces. His wife, who
was but 35 years of age, was dead, her brains being
knocked out, and scattered about the room. A
negro boy, about 15 years old, who was living
in the family, was also fearfully injured. After
the girls had escaped, Bain went up stairs in search
of them, and finding they had fled he jumped out of one
of the windows, and took to the woods, breaking away
from one or two parties who tried to arrest him. At
daylight many citizens started in pursuit, the cries of
Mrs. Wickham, heard by the servant-girls, having given
the clue as to who was the assassin. A reward of 1,000
dollars was offered for his arrest, and the people
mustered in pursuit to the number of several hundreds,
armed with pistols and guns, and formed themselves
into squads of twenty-five and thirty, for the purpose of
scouring the woods and swamps. After a long search,
they found Bain covered up by some brushwood,
apparently insensible. At first he was thought to be dead,
a wound being visible in his throat. He was picked up
from his hiding-place, conveyed to the road, and laid
under a tree, where an officer had to stand guard over
him with a loaded revolver, to prevent the excited
people carrying Lynch law into effect. He appeared to
have been worn out with fatigue. In his pockets were
found a single-barrel pistol, loaded with small shot, a
pocket-knife, and a razor-case, from which it is
supposed he took the razor to kill himself, and, after
inflicting the wound, threw it away. At last advices,
the coloured boy was yet breathing, although no hope
was entertained of his recovery. The impression seems
to be, that Bain's intentions were to take the lives of all
in the house, and then set fire to the premises, and
thereby destroy the evidence of his guilt.

NARRATIVE OF LITERATURE AND ART

The new books of the past month have been neither
numerous nor important; but among them have been
one or two interesting contributions to biography, and
some few works illustrating the war, of a more sterling
character than had before appeared.

Transcaucasia, the translation of a series of sketches
of the nations and races between the Black Sea and the
Caspian, which appears in this country before it is
published in its original German, is by far the cleverest and
most interesting of the productions of its writer, the
Baron Von Haxthausen, Another translation from the
German, the Baron Von Moltke's Russians in Bulgaria
and Rumelia in 1828 and 1829, has made the English
public acquainted with the most remarkable account
ever written of those campaigns on the Danube which
ended in the "unfortunate" treaty of Adrianople. Mr.
George Finlay has published another section of his
history under the title of The Byzantine and Greek
Empires from 1057 to 1453. M. Van de Velde's very
elaborate Narrative of a Journey through Syria and
Palestine in 1851 and '52 has been translated under his
own superintendence. With the title of England and
Russia Dr. Hamel has compiled a history of the
commercial intercourse between the two nations. The
Russian of Lermontoff has supplied a sketch of A Hero
of Our own Times, who has been anything but a hero
to the Emperor Nicholas. And Mrs. Austin has collected
a number of her most attractive sketches of German
life, which she entitles Germany from 1760 to 1814.

Charles the Second in the Channel Islands is a
contribution to biography and history, by Doctor S. Elliot
Hoskins. Memoirs of Celebrated Characters is a collection
of brief memoirs of celebrities of every country and
every age, ancient or modern, by M. De Lamartine.
Memorials of the Life of Amelia Opie is a volume of
letters and recollections, very pleasingly illustrating its
subject, by Cecilia Lucy Brightwell. Memoirs of J. J.
Gurney is a more detailed biographical work, consisting
of large selections from the journal and correspondence
of this distinguished member of the Society of Friends,
made by Mr. Joseph Bevan Braithwaite. My Friends and
Acquaintance is a collection of recollections and letters
relating to celebrated people who have been known to
Mr. P. G. Patmore. Selections Grave and Gay from the
Works of Thomas De Quincey is another volume added to
a work, which, when complete, will have a singular
autobiographical interest. The Life of Cardinal Richelieu,
by Mr. Robson, is an intelligent little compilation for
one of the cheap series issued by Messrs. Routledge.
The Life of Marguerite d'Angouléme is a somewhat
careful account, with plentiful quotation from manuscript
authorities of the celebrated sister of Francis I, the
Queen of Navarre, by Martha Walker Freer.

To turn to books of a miscellaneous kind, the most
important have been—A volume on the Sanitary
Condition of the City of London by its officer of health, Mr.
Simon; the completion of Mr. Cunningham's edition of
Goldsmith's Works in Mr. Murray's series of British
Classics; Sir Roderick Murchison's Siluria, being the
history of the oldest known rocks containing organic
remains, with a brief sketch of the distribution of gold
over the earth; a translation of Calvin's Treatise on
Relics; a volume by Dr. James Wilson on the Principles
and Practice of the Water Cure; a thoughtful treatise
on Miracles and Science, by Mr. Edward Strachey; a
third edition of the History of the Propagation of
Christianity among the Heathen, in three octavo
volumes, containing notices of all the Christian missions
since the Reformation, brought down to the present
day, by Dr. Brown; a volume on The Microscope, by
Mr. Jabez Hogg; new editions, for the pocket, of the
Works of Mackintosh and Sydney Smith, uniform with
those of Macaulay; a new edition, with an interesting
Introduction by Mr. Vaux of the British Museum, of
Sir Francis Drake's World Encompassed, issued by the
Hakluyt Society; a translation by Miss Winkworth of a
remarkable German treatise attributed to Luther, Theologia
Germanica, with prefatory notices by Mr. Kingsley and
the Chevalier Bunsen; the Aquarium, a treatise on
marine creatures and plants by Mr. Gosse; a volume by
Mr. Bruce Norton on the Condition and Requirements
of the Presidency of Madras; an original and elaborate
History of India under the two first Sovereigns of the
House of Taimur, by the late Mr. William Erskine,
Sir James Mackintosh's son-in-law; four lectures by
Mr. Kingsley on Alexandria and her Schools; a volume,
by the Rev. Mr. Maurice, of Lectures on the Ecclesiastical
History of the First and Second Centuries; the opening
volume of the Collected Works of Dugald Stewart,
edited by Sir William Hamilton: a little volume,
pleasingly written, and printed in the old manner, on
the Last of the Old Squires; a tragedy on Robespierre,
in rhymed verse, by Mr. Henry Bliss, Q.C.; two
volumes of selections, by Miss Poulter, from religious
writers ancient and modern, entitled A Treasury
of Pearls of Great Price; and sixteen small guides
and handbooks, many of them by distinguished writers,
descriptive of the Contents and Courts of the Palace
and Park at Sydenham, being the first instalment of the
Crystal Palace Library.

In fiction and verse there have been published, a
translation of Homer's Iliad by Mr. Barter; Clytia, by
Mr. G. Gerard; Songs of the Present, a small volume
dedicated to subjects exclusively modern; Hide and
Seek, a novel by Mr. Wilkie Collins; Katherine Ashton,
a novel by the author of 'Amy Herbert;' Ambrose the
Sculptor, an autobiography of artist life; The Flitch of
Bacon, a tale by Mr. Ainsworth; Magdalen Hepburn, a
story of the Scottish Reformation by the author of the
'Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland'; Tilbury Nogo, a
collection of passages in the life of "an unsuccessful
man," by the author of 'Digby Grand;' Jerningham, a
story in two volumes; Clara Morison, a tale of South
Australia during the gold fever; and a new edition of
Poems by Matthew Arnold.