and Goodall, who was found sitting on a sofa, was
secured by a neighbour. The murdered child was a
little girl, one year and a half old. On searching the
prisoner's pockets two razors, £14, and a quart bottle
with some liquor in it, supposed to be poison, were
found.

George Cowell and ten other persons were brought up
for trial at the Liverpool Assizes under an indictment
for Unlawfully Conspiring to Intimidate and Obstruct
certain Workpeople at Preston, preventing them from
accepting employment. Application was made by the
counsel for the defendants for time to prepare their
defence. The Attorney-General for the County Palatine
opposed the application, on the ground that the great
importance of the case required a speedy decision.
Mr. Justice Cresswell agreed that the trial ought to
take place as soon as possible; but as many persons
would not think the trial satisfactory if it were hurried
on, and the defendants had not had much time to
prepare for defence, he ordered the trial to be postponed
till the next Assizes.

At the same Assizes, William Caitcheou, late cashier
of the North-Western Railway Company at Liverpool,
was tried for Embezzling the moneys of the company.
Part of the money he seems to have applied to his own
use—he said he had lent it to a friend; part he had
sent to Gaolen, the auditor of the company in London.
On this indictment he was found guilty. He was then
indicted along with Gaolen. Gaolen pleaded guilty,
and the prosecutors did not press the case against
Caitcheou. Gaolen had a salary of £600; he had
entered into large speculations, was unsuccessful, and
the two prisoners together had misappropriated £10,000
of the company's funds: Caitcheou had a salary of £150,
and he seems to have been led into wrong-doing by his
superior officer Gaolen. Mr. Justice Cresswell sentenced
Gaolen to be transported for fourteen years, and
Caitcheou to four years' penal servitude.

At the Bodmin Assizes, James Holman was tried for
the Murder of his Wife, at Crowan. Two lives were
sacrificed, for the unfortunate woman was far advanced
in pregnancy. One night Holman ran to some neighbours
and said his wife had been murdered; her body was
found lying, face downwards, on the hearth—the face
among the ashes; the front of the head had been beaten
in by repeated blows. After a time, when he had been
taken into custody on suspicion, Holman said he found
his wife drunk; she threw a billhook at him; he pushed
her, and she fell on a " brandis " or trivet, which caused
her death. A hatchet was lying near, and some blood
got upon it; he feared this might get him into trouble,
and he threw it down a well: this statement was made
after the hatchet had been discovered. The victim was
a sober and industrious woman. Holman was supposed
to have killed her with the hatchet. He had foretold
her early death, and proposed to marry her sister when
it happened. His counsel pleaded for a verdict of
manslaughter only; but the jury pronounced the crime a
murder. The judge passed sentence of death, without
hope of mercy.

At Norwich Assizes, Peter Ashcroft and John Latham
were tried for Manslaughter, by Causing a Fatal
Collision on the Norfolk Railway, in January last.
The trial arose out of the disaster near Harling station,
where six lives were sacrificed. The line had been
blocked up by snow: the down-line between Harling
and Thetford was clear; Mr. Howard, inspector of
permanent way, left orders that Briggs should pilot all
trains both ways on the down line: Mr. Ashcroft,
general superintendent, and Mr. Latham, an inspector
of permanent way, arrived from Norwich with a train
of labourers; Briggs told them his orders; they, as they
believed the up line was obstructed with snow, said
they would proceed on that line to clear away the
drift. While their train was going at a good rate, it
encountered one on the same rails under Mr. Howard's
care, the up-line having been cleared sooner than was
expected: the collision ensued. At the close of the
case for the prosecution, the Chief Baron intimated that
the worst offender was not in the dock—Howard. He
commented in very strong terms on what he could not
but deem an apparent mockery of justice on the part of
those who, in order to obtain for themselves the
character of enforcing railway regularity, and punishing
offenders against it, had selected two men at the bar as
their victims, but had omitted to include Howard,
who, whatever might be said of the conduct of Ashcroft
and Latham, ought most indubitably to have stood at
the bar to answer for the deaths of the persons killed
on this occasion, either alone or in conjunction with
Ashcroft and Latham. Whether the prisoners at the
bar ought to have been placed there at all, was for the
jury to say; but he could not help observing that they
were on their proper line, and that, relying on the
strict adherence of Howard both to his own orders and
to the general rules of the company, it did not seem to
him that they ought to be made responsible for the
lamentable consequences which had ensued from a
course of conduct on the part of that officer which was
so totally unjustifiable in him and unexpected by them.
The prosecuting counsel said, after such an opinion had
been given by the judge, he was prepared to withdraw
from the prosecution; but he urged in Mr. Howard's
behalf, that he had been placed in great difficulty, and
that he had believed the up-line was closed by snow.
Without hearing counsel for the defence, the jury gave
a verdict of "Not guilty;" which was received with a
burst of applause. A verdict of acquittal was taken
with regard to several other indictments against the
two officials.

Early on Sunday morning, the 16th inst., the house of
a man named Fisher, at Millhouse, near Sheffield, was
Blown up by an Infernal Machine. Fisher is a scythe-
maker, and lives in a very secluded place. He and his
wife were alarmed, about one o'clock on Sunday morning,
by an explosion which was afterwards found to have
greatly shattered the house. The roof had been lifted
bodily, the ceilings of two rooms brought down, the
window of the back bed-room blown out, and the door
carried away with the stanchions. The "infernal
machine" was a tin can, filled with gunpowder, the lid
fastened down, and a fuse inserted in it. A ladder was
found reared against the wall, near the back bed-room
window, and by its aid some one had reached the window,
broken a pane, and then thrown the machine into the
room. A similar attempt was made the same morning at
another house, but the damage done was not so serious.
The refusal of the persons occupying the houses to join
a trades' union is the conjectured cause of these diabolical
outrages.

At the Kingston Assizes, four days were occupied
with the trial of a case respecting the validity of the
Will of the late Duchess of Manchester. The following
were the circumstances: the duchess was the daughter
of General Bernard Sparrow and Lady Olivia Sparrow.
The marriage was solemnised in October, 1822. The
duke—then Lord Mandeville—was heir apparent to the
family estate of Kimbolton, in the counties of Huntingdon
and Bedford. The duchess had the absolute title
to two estates in the north of Ireland of the clear value
of £14,000 a-year, and by her marriage settlement
a life interest in these was given to the duke. The
duchess, however, retained the absolute right of
disposal over this property in any way she pleased at
her death. Four children were born of the marriage
—the present Lord Mandeville, Lord Robert Montagu,
Lord Frederick Montagu, and Lady Olivia Montagu,
now by marriage Lady Ossulston. In the year 1843 the
duchess made a will, by which her property was
disposed among her own children, according to the
scheme usual in such cases, to the sons and their issues
successively, with remainder over to the daughter in
default of those. After the period named, it appears
that two of the sons, Lords Robert and Frederick, gave
their mother serious cause of anxiety. In the summer
of 1848 the duke and duchess were at Tunbridge Wells
with their daughter, and the duchess was in a very
precarious state of health. They were then joined by
Dr. Verity, an old medical attendant of the family.
The duchess afterwards went to London and to her
mother's house at Brampton, where she became worse,
and expressed an earnest wish to be removed to
Kimbolton Castle. At this place she arrived on the
30th of September, and died two months afterwards, on
the 30th of November. It was during this time that
the transaction occurred which gave rise to the suit.