the postponement of the consideration of the report,
from the committee of privileges and the committee of
gravamina, until next session. This occasioned a
discussion, in which some members insisted on the
necessity of proceeding at once. The church-rate
question also came up, and a schedule of gravamina on
the subject was ordered to be referred to the committee
of Gravamina; but the announcement of the appointment
of a joint committee on the subject by the upper
house caused it to stand over. The reports adopted by
the upper house were read by the prolocutor. At the
termination of the business, convocation was prorogued
until Thursday the 24th August.

NARRATIVE OF LAW AND CRIME.

A FLAGRANT case of Libel was tried on the 24th of June
in the Court of Common Pleas. The plaintiff was Mr.
Lefroy, a solicitor; the defendant was Mr. Cridland, a
gentleman living on landed property and a magistrate of
Somersetshire. He was divorced à mensâ et thoro from
his wife, at her suit. While Mrs. Cridland was living
at Taunton with her brother-in-law and sister, Mr. and
Mrs. Upham, letters were received from Mr. Cridland
of an offensive nature; and one of them, containing the
libel in question, enclosed in an envelope addressed to
Mr. Upham, Mrs. Cridland handed to Mr. Upham
unopened. He, by her direction, opened it, and read it as
follows:—"Madam: So you have pawned my knives
and forks, barometer, clock, and God knows what else,
to keep your prostitute sister, who has been as common
to me as yourself. Don't tell such lies as that I left you
destitute: you had money in your box, and made use of
my credit, and tried to run into debt all you could. You
never had a rag to your back till I gave you one; and as
to your destitution, I have no doubt you made a living
by taking charity. If it had not been for me you would
have died in a workhouse long since, unless you had
done as your sister has to get a living. I shall go to all
the pawnbrokers in Brompton and at the West-end to
see if I can find where you have pledged these things;
and if I can't find them, I shall advertise for them in the
Times, in which your name will appear, when I shall
get them, unless you have made use of a false name, such
as 'Mrs. Charity.' You need not refer me to your
solicitor, Mr. Lefroy; for the sneaking brute can't look
me in the face without looking as if he had been guilty
of some dirty transaction. By the by, how did you pay
him his costs? Did he take it out in kind from you and
your sister?" Mr. Upham proved the receipt and reading
of the letter, constituting the publication of the libel,
and the sending it to Mr. Lefroy; hence these proceedings.
Mr. Lefroy deposed that he had been solicitor to
Mrs. Cridland in obtaining her divorce. He had declared
he would send the letter to the Chairman of the
Somersetshire Quarter-Sessions, and had said that a man
like Mr. Cridland was not fit to sit with gentlemen.
The defence sought to be established by Mr. Serjeant
Byles was that the letter was a privileged communication;
and Mr. Lefroy's threat was described by him as
an attempt to extort money. In summing up, the Lord
Chief Justice said, the question of publication was for
him, and he thought there was sufficient evidence. It
was not a confidential communication, or, as it was put
by the defendant's counsel, confided to maternal
discretion; but a low, vulgar, and disgusting letter, written
by a man to a woman from whom he was divorced while
they were living apart. As to the sanctity of domestic
life, it strained one's powers of countenance to hear such
topics in such a case addressed to gentlemen of common
sense. As to the damages, no one, looking at this letter,
could help concurring in opinion with the plaintiff, that
a man who could write such a letter to a woman from
whom he was divorced was not fit for the society of
gentlemen. It is not pretended that the charges are
true; they are admitted to be false. [His lordship, after
reading extracts from the letter, continued.] It was
scarcely possible to restrain one's indignation in reading
it, and the man who could write so must be a disgusting
brute. His counsel says the action is to extort money—
that because the libel is foul and unfit for publication,
in the exercise of discretion the action ought not to have
been brought: so that the baser the charge, the less are
the grounds upon which the person attacked is to have
redress; and it is also said, because the consequences
may be serious to other persons, you must put up with
the libel rather than expose those persons. The jury
must say what damages the plaintiff is entitled to.—
After deliberating for a few minutes, the jury found a
verdict for the plaintiff—damages, £1000.

A schoolmistress at Brighton has been committed to
prison for Ill-treating a Child. On the 1st inst., the
Brighton magistrates investigated a charge of aggravated
assault, preferred under Mr. Fitzroy's act, against
Mrs. Emma Smythe, who keeps a school for children,
and who, as alleged, had cruelly ill-treated a little girl
three years old, named Browne. The evidence went to
show that the little girl had offended the governess by
dirty habits in bed. The governess rubbed the dirty
blankets on the child's face, and made her lips bleed.
By the orders of the governess, the child was then
placed naked in a coal-cellar for some time, with very
little food, and on a succeeding day, having repeated the
offence, the child was placed naked in the washhouse
and Mrs. Smythe poured four pails of water over her
until her breath seemed stopped. It was also stated that
Mrs. Smythe had beaten the child very severely. The
magistrates ordered her to be imprisoned for two months.

An extraordinary case of attempted Abduction has
occurred in Tipperary. For some time Miss E.
Arbuthnot, daughter of the late Mr. George Arbuthnot,
of Elderslie in Surrey, has been on a visit to her sister,
the wife of Captain Gough, son of Lord Gough, at
Rathronan house, two miles from Clonmel. She is an
heiress possessing £50,000, and of course had many
suitors. Among them was Mr. Carden of Barnane, a
justice of the peace, and a deputy-lieutenant of the
county. On the 2nd inst., Mrs. Gough and her sister
were present at Rathronan church; and Mr. Carden,
apparently absorbed in his devotions, was there also.
But during the service, a groom leading two horses, a
carriage and pair of thoroughbreds, and five or six men,
arrived outside. The ladies had driven to church in an
outside car; but as rain fell slightly, the coachman
drove home to fetch a covered car. As soon as Mrs.
Gough's car appeared, one of Carden's band stopped it:
Carden attempted to seize Miss Arbuthnot, but her
screams rapidly drew a number of defenders to the
rescue. Carden and his band were armed with revolvers
and bludgeons, but no shot was fired. A conflict,
however, ensued; the defenders freely using sticks and
stones; and while Carden held Miss Arbuthnot,
M'Grath, one of the rescuers, struck him down with a
stone. The assault having failed, Carden's men covered
his retreat to his carriage, and the whole party dashed
off. As soon as the ladies were driven to Rathronan
house, and assistance obtained from the nearest police
station, a pursuit began, and was continued for twenty
miles. Not far from Farney Castle, the flying carriage
was overtaken and overturned into a ditch by the
police; and Carden and his men were carried prisoners
to Cashel. One of the carriage-horses, an animal of
great value, dropped down dead immediately after the
capture. The magistrates committed Carden with his
associates on the charge of attempting the forcible
abduction of Miss Arbuthnot; and he was sent to
Clonmel prison. An application for his liberation on
bail has been refused.

At York Assizes two men, named Smith and Burkinshaw,
were charged with Attempting to Murder Patrick
Shandley, a Manchester Superintendent of Police.
Shandley, it appears, arrested them at Manchester, and
was directed to convey them to Sheffield by railway.
On the journey, one of the most unparalleled single
combats on record took place. The two robbers slipped
off their handcuffs, set upon the officer, beat and kicked
him, and tried to throw him out of the carriage. Smith
at length jumped out, leaving Burkinshaw in the grasp
of the constable. The robber threatened to murder
Shandley if he did not let him go. "You shall, before
I let you go," replied the officer; and so the strife
continued, Shandley crying out for aid. The guard of the
train heard him, and at last succeeded in signalling the
driver to stop the train. When he reached the carriage,
the intrepid Shandley, nearly insensible, still firmly