Danby Seymour, Secretary to the Indian Board. Mr.
Villiers, Judge Advocate-General. Mr. W. Cowper,
Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department,
and Sir Robert Peel, Under-Secretary for the Colonies:
Mr. Peel, Under-Secretary in the War Department:
Mr. Keogh, Attorney-General for Ireland; Mr. J. D.
Fitzgerald, Q.C., Solicitor-General for Ireland.

NARRATIVE OF LAW AND CRIME.

An action tried in the Court of Queen's Bench on the
26th ult., illustrates the practice of Selling Presentations
to Livings. Messrs. Simpson, clerical agents,
sued Edward Augustus Lamb to recover damages for
refusing to sell the next presentation to the living of
West Hackney, for £3000, according to agreement. The
Reverend Josiah Rodwell applied to the Messrs.
Simpson, in consequence of an advertisement in the
Times in November last, respecting the sale of a living.
Mr. John Simpson demanded a fee of two guineas
before he gave any information. This being paid, he
said the living was West Hackney; the income £550 a
year with a house; the price £3000; commission to the
Messrs. Simpson 5 per cent. If everything had been
satisfactory, Mr. Rodwell would have purchased the
living. Mr. John Simpson showed that Mr. Lamb had
given him authority to obtain a purchaser for West
Hackney, but that Lamb continually delayed the completion
of the contract. It was shown, however, that Lamb
was not the owner of the advowson, but that in the
month of August preceding he had been negotiating for
the next presentation with the patron's solicitor, and
that it was valued, not at £3000 but £800 or £900. Mr.
Lamb's defence was, that he had not authorised Mr. Simpson
to sell the property, or said that he was the patron,
or that he would give possession in a given time. Lord
Campbell said the defendant's conduct was unaccountable:
it seemed as if he had some speculation on foot
with respect to the living; and it was clear that he had
instructed the Simpsons to look out for a purchaser in case
he became patron of the living. It would be for the
jury to say what remuneration the plaintiffs were
entitled to for their trouble. The jury gave £50 damages.

At the Central Criminal Court, on the 27th ult.,
William Alexander Morland, a youth of nineteen,
pleaded guilty to Uttering a Forged Bill of Exchange
for £300. The bill purported to be accepted by
Morland's employer, and made payable at Smith, Payne,
and Smith's: Morland presented it, and it not only
passed as genuine, but, the cashier paid him £500
instead of £300. Morland had got connected with some
bad women, and he speedily squandered part of his ill-
gotten cash upon them; but nearly £400 had been
recovered by the prosecutors, and they recommended
Morland to mercy.

On the 28th, Frederick Drew, a solicitor's clerk who
applied cancelled stamps to deeds in Chancery with a
view to Defraud the Revenue, was convicted. The
case was peculiar. Drew was defendant in a Chancery
suit; he was very poor; he was compelled to put in
certain documents, stamped; to save expense, or probably
as the only way to meet it, he took stamps from old
deeds and applied them to his papers. The jury
recommended him to mercy on account of his previous good
character, and because he had "the misfortune to be
defendant in a Chancery suit."

At Salisbury assizes, Henry Farstone pleaded guilty
to Stealing a Pollard. The theft was committed soon
after he had been liberated on a ticket-of-leave, and
while he had yet money in his possession given to him
when he left prison. Sentence, six years' penal
servitude.

Four soldiers of the Royal Artillery were convicted of
Shooting at and Wounding John Fowler at Devizes.
There was a row at a public-house between soldiers and
civilians; two soldiers were taken away by the police;
the other soldiers became still more riotous: first they
got their swords, with intent to use them on a mob, but
were prevented; then they obtained a carbine, and the
four prisoners repeatedly loaded it and fired at the
crowd—Fowler was wounded. The worst offender in
this outrage was sentenced to be transported for life,
and his companions for fourteen years each.

William Wright was convicted of the Murder of Ann
Collins, at Lydiard Tregoz. She had lived with him,
but left him for a time; on her return, he killed her,
and attempted to destroy himself. He was sentenced
to be hanged.

At Lincoln, Elizabeth Lownd, a girl of eighteen, was
tried for the Murder of her Illegitimate Infant. She
appears to have buried it alive—placed it on the ground,
and covered it with earth and sods. She was in great
distress when she committed the inhuman act. The
jury gave a verdict for the lesser offence of
"manslaughter,"  Sentence, fifteen years' transportation.

At Oxford Assizes, on the 5th instant, Dr. John Allen
Giles, curate of Bampton, was tried for Feloniously
making a False Entry of a Marriage. The whole
charge was fully made out. On the 3rd October, at six
o'clock in the morning, Dr. Giles married Richard Pratt
to Jane Green: there was no license, though he entered
in the register that there was; no banns had been
published; the parish-clerk was not present; Dr. Giles
wrote in the book that Charlotte Late, his servant,
witnessed the marriage, though she was not present. Pratt
was an apprentice, a young man nearly out of his time;
Jane Green was servant to Dr. Giles himself; Pratt had
been courting her, and she promised shortly to give
birth to a child. When this illegal marriage was
bruited about, Dr. Giles attempted to escape the
consequences by false statements, and he induced Charlotte
Late also to declare she was present at the ceremony.
After legal measures had been taken against him, he
managed to get the Pratts shipped off to Australia: but
this did not prevent their depositions before the
magistrates from being received as evidence on the trial. As
to Dr. Giles's motive for his extraordinary conduct,
nothing came to light during the trial to show that it
was other than a desire to oblige the young people by
secretly marrying them, to avoid exposure of the
woman's frailty. In his speech for the defence, Mr.
Clarkson urged that the prisoner had made an error as
to the date of the marriage, though he admitted that it
was an uncanonical one; and he pointed out that he
had no bad motive. He enlarged on the scholastic
abilities of Dr. Giles—a double first class man at Oxford
at the age of nineteen, afterwards Head Master of the
City of London School, and the author of many works.
Several clergymen and publishers gave the accused a
high character. Lord Campbell summed up; and the
jury returned a verdict of "Guilty," as regarded the
whole charge, but added a recommendation to mercy.
The prisoner then addressed the court at some length
in mitigation of punishment. He referred to his early
life, and his toilsome devotion to literature, which had
resulted in the publication of as many as a hundred and
twenty volumes. He had entered the Church, a vocation
for which he was entirely unfit, in obedience to the
wishes of his father; but he had been chiefly devoted to
literature; and he suggested that his devotion to his
studies had rendered him unfit for the common affairs
of life, to which circumstance he attributed the errors
which he had committed in connexion with this
transaction. He implored the court to deal mercifully with
him, and afford him an opportunity of redeeming his
character and becoming a useful member of society.
Lord Campbell said it was a most painful case. He
believed Dr. Giles had no immoral motives for his
original act; but he had flagrantly violated a law of
great importance; had got rid of witnesses; had
violated truth in his letters, and had called on his servant
to state a falsehood. The sentence was one year's
imprisonment.

At Carlisle assizes, Thomas Munroe, a miner, only
eighteen years of age, was convicted of the Murder of
Isaac Turner, at Lamplugh. Turner, an elderly man,
was in the employ of a mine-owner at Whitehaven;
part of his duty was to carry money to pits to pay the
men. Munroe appears to have waylaid him in the
fields when he had some £10 in his possession; and to
get this money he murdered Turner, by cutting his
throat. The assassin was recommended to mercy by the
jury, "on account of his previous good conduct." He
protested innocence. He was sentenced to die; Mr.