withstanding the threats of an indignant crowd, until a
policeman interfered and rescued her. Her clothes
were torn and her body bruised in the scuffle: and when
she reached home she was obliged to betake herself to
bed and send for a surgeon. Her assailants, when
brought before the magistrate, did not attempt to deny
that the money she claimed was due, or that it had
been withheld from her for two months. They only
alleged that she had been "civilly requested" to call for
it on the Saturday, and had refused to quit the place.
The magistrate imposed a fine of £10 on each of the
delinquents—one half to be paid to the poor woman—
with three months of hard labour in the house of
correction in default of payment.

The village of Cudham, near Bromley in Kent, has
been the scene of a frightful Murder. Bagley, a
labourer, left his wife and very aged mother in his
cottage in the morning: on returning home in the
evening with his son, he found the door fastened:
when he had forced an entrance he discovered his wife
a corpse, and his mother insensible, both having been
been on the head with a pair of tongs. The cottage
had been plundered. Suspicion has fallen on two men,
who are in custody. One of them, Robert Paling, a
convicted burglar, was arrested near Bristol. He was
examined at Bromley on the 6th inst. The discovery of
the murder was related; and some witnesses expressed
their conviction that Paling was the man they saw
running away from the direction of Bagley's cottage
early on the morning of the murder. Bagley's son
identified some clothes found in Paling's possession
as his property. Paling showed great self-possession
and considerable acuteness in the cross-examination of
the witnesses. He was remanded, and has subsequently
been committed for trial. Old Mrs. Bagley is recovering,
and may be able to identify the assassin. The other
man in custody is Clarke, a native of Hayling Island.
He was seized at Havant. Nothing suspicious was
found on him.

A young man, son of Dr. Payne of Nottingham, has
committed Suicide in a singular way: while travelling
alone in a railway-carriage, between Nottingham and
Derby, he hanged himself, by a neckerchief, to the
ventilator over the door.

At the Preston Town-hall on the 4th inst., three
military officers, named A.G. Onslow, J. Conroy, and
Hopton S. Stewart, were fined 40s. and costs, and
severely reprimanded by the Bench for Smashing Street-
lamps by throwing rabbits against them. The
defendents, who, it is said, had been tippling freely,
pleaded guilty to the charge.

Mr. Mathew Wood, of the General Post-office, has
committed Suicide under very distressing circumstances.
He held a lucrative office in the mail department of the
Post-office; the head office became vacant; he was
allow six months' probation to ascertain his fitness for
the position, and soon became conscious that he was
not equal to the onerous duties. He grew desponding,
and hinted that is must be "success or prussic acid."
At the end of the period of probation he was informed
that he had not been appointed. He went home, and
swallowed an enormous quantity of prussic acid—a
poison which he had been using for photographic
purposes. The Coroner's inquest returned a verdict of
"Insanity."

On the morning of the 8th instant, a most singular act
of Suicide was committed by Mr. Hall, pawnbroker, of
Union street, Middlesex hospital. It appears that,
shortly after the shop was opened, one of the young
men having occasion to bring into requisition that
portion of a pawnbroker's premises known in common
parlance as "the spout," was astonished to find that some
pledges which had been thrown down for a customer,
who was waiting to take them out, did not reach their
destination at the bottom, and, on investigation, it was
discovered that the cause of the stoppage was the body
of the employer, who was found suspended in the centre
by the neck, from the cord employed in pulling up
parcels from the shop to the warehouse. Medical aid
was procured, but the deceased had ceased to exist. Mr.
Hall was of an exceedingly sedate and scientific turn of
mind, and no cause is assigned for his committal of the
deed.

A young man named Thomas Tutton was brought
before the magistrates of Bath on the 8th instant, on the
charge of Poisoning his Father. He had surrendered
himself to the police at Dublin. The witnesses were a
femae servant, Mr. Harries, the family medical attendant,
and a Dublin constable. The servant described
how Mr. Tutton senior had been seized with sickness
after taking beer and potatoes from the hands of his
son, and detailed circumstances of a suspicious nature.
Mr. Harries deposed that he had detected white arsenic
in the ejecta from Mr. Tutton's stomach, and on the
different utensils in which the fried potatoes had been
deposited. The Policeman stated that young Tutton
denied his crime; he had surrendered because of the
accusations in the newspapers. The prisoner cross-
examined the witnesses himself. He was remanded,
and has been committed for trial.

In the Bristol Bankruptcy Court, on the 10th instant,
judgement was given in the Case of Thomas Wright
Lawford. This bankrupt failed for nearly £60,000,
leaving behind assets furnishing to the creditors scarecely
more than a shilling in the pound. Her began life as
clerk in the office of his uncle, Mr. Edward Lawford,
late solicitor to the East India Company, now also a
bankrupt living abroad. For eight years the nephew
received a salary of £400 a year from his uncle. At the
termination of the period, Thomas Lawford went, on his
uncle's recommendation, to practise at Carmarthen.
Here his gains were small, and he tried his hand at
farming; becoming at the same time agent for Lord
Dynevor, and a tenant of his lands. For the agency he
had received £300 a-year from 1840 to 1849, yet in the
latter year he was £12,000 in debt. He had expended
money on the farms he rented without having any
lease; he had erected hot-houses to raise grapes for the
London market, had engaged in a speculation for
hatching chickens by steam, and even in an mining
concern in Prussia. Being insolvent to the extent of £12,000
he began to borrow, raising loans at one time amounting
in all to £80,000 from insurance companies, and other
loans to pay the costs and interest of the formert. The
cost of these loan transactions is set down at £25,000 in
five years. It appears that Mr. Edward Lawford, the
uncle, then reputed to be worth £18,000 a-year, took
part in the loans. On one occasion he asked his nephew
to appear as the borrower of a sum of money he wanted
"to complete the purchase of an estate in Kent," the
uncle figuring as the security. Subsequently Mr.
Edward Lawford effected loans in his nephew's name,
withoug consulting him, and all the money of the first
loans went through his hands. By him the £80,000 was
reduced to £44,000. The certificate was unopposed. The
officers of the court were of the opinion that Mr. Thomas
Lawford is a person whose intentions were honest, and
that his errors have been caused rather by an over-
sanguine temper and extreme infirmity of judgement than
by want of rectitude. The Court awarded a third-class
certificate, suspended for twelve months without
protection.

Three English directors of the Luxembourg Railway,
Mr. John Ashwell, Sir William Magnay, and Mr. John
Masterman, have been tried before the Tribunal of
Correctional Police at Brussels, on the charge of
Swindling the Shareholders. Mr. Ashwell alone
surrendered to be tried: the other gentlemen were tried
"by default." The alleged offences were misappropriating
thousands of shares and a sum of 35,750 francs
which had been intrusted to the accused for "secret
purposes,"—that is, to bribe people to support the
claims of the railway; these shares and money, it is
said, had been nearly all retained by the accused for
their own use, and they had received interest on the
shares; the cash and share were mentioned in the
books as disposed of for "purchases of land," or for
"engineering law expenses." In his defence, Mr.
Ashwell avowed that he had employed most of the
shares in bribes, retaining some for future use; he
mentioned some people he had bribed; he received the
interest for their behoof. The money he had partly
spent for the company; the balance he had returned to
the cashier. Lastly, he showed that all he had done
had been approved by the directors, and sanctioned by
the shareholders at their general meeting; also, that