Cbt VruniutrE.
The Queen inspected the regiments of the Foreign Legion now at Shorncliffe on Thursday. Accompanied by Prince Albert, and travelling by the South-Eastern Railway, she arrived at Folkestone at twelve o'clock, and, escorted by the Rent Mounted Rifles, drove thence to the cliff overlooking Sandgate, where the camp is formed. Here she was received by the Duke of Cambridge, Lord Hardinge, General Wetherell, Lord Panmure, and Mr. Peel. The regiments, some 3500 strong, had rapidly formed in line. They were composed of the German Light In- fantry, the Rifles, the Swiss Regiment from Dover, and 500 recruits from Heligoland—a fine, strong-built, hardy-looking, well-disciplined body of men. On arriving at the flagstaff, her Majesty was received by a general salute. She then inspected the whole line.
Returned to the flagstaff; the Queen and Prince alighted, and the march past immediately commenced. The Rifles, in their dark green uniform, defiled first in open columns of companies; then, in the same order, and in the new uniform of our line, the German Light Infantry, the Recruits, and the Swiss. The ,Jatter step out like our men, -while the Germans point the toe and tread with the heel more formally. As they passed it was curious to see the eyes of each company intently fixed upon the Queen, instead of looking straight forward, as is rigidly required in the English. service. They marched with great steadiness and with a certain practised air, which showed at once that the bulk of them were old soldiers. The Idfnie has been served out to them, and in all points of equipment and pay they are placed on exactly the same footing as our own troops. It is said that they are highly delighted with the service and with -the treatment which they receive."
After the review, Baron Stutterheim, Colonel Woolridge, and The other officers, were presented to the Queen; and, crossing the parade-ground, her Majesty and the other guests inspected one of the huts, and partook of luncheon in the messroom of the German Light Infantry. The troops loudly cheered as the Queen departed for Osborne.
Mr. Matthew Baines, Member for Leeds, notifies to his constituents that he has resigned the office of President of the Poor-law Board. "The recent state of my health has forced upon me the conviction that I can no longer hope to perform, in a manner satisfactory to my own mind, the laborious and highly responsible duties of President of the Poor-law Board, in conjunction with those other numerous and important duties which necessarily devolve upon the Parliamentary Representative of a borough like Leeds. Under this conviction I have thought it right to place the re- signation of my office in the hands'of the Prime Minister, and I now retain it only till the end of the present session. My most grateful thanks are due to you for your past indulgence; and I entertain a confident hope that I may be able, when unconnected with office, to devote myself with increased zeal and assiduity to my duties as your representative in the House of Com- mons."
Mr. Lindsay, Member for Tynemouth, is alarmed by a rival. Captain Linskill, a cousin of Mr. Ralph Grey M.P., has issued an address announcing himself as a candidate at the next election. He comes for- ward as a Liberal-Conservative. Mr, Lindsay appeals to the electors to withhold their pledges, and promises some extraordinary disclosures of the way in which he has been dealt with.
Notwithstanding the high price of provisions, pauperism has greatly diminished in the whole of South Wales, and there is a gradual decrease in the amount of crime.
There were a series of trials at the Warwick Assizes, yesterday week, re- specting the cases of cruelty in the Birmingham Gaol, which attracted so much attention in 1853. Lieutenant Austin, R.N., late Governor of the gaol in succession to Captain Maconochie, was first indicted alone for ille- gally assaulting Andrews, a prisoner. This charge was fully made out. Andrews was a lad. He was said to have been guilty of irregular conduct, and given to making a great noise ; and as a punishment Lieutenant Austin ordered him to be placed in the "jacket," a very rigorous strait-waistcoat, and strapped to the wall ; he was also ordered to perform 10,000 revolutions of the crank daily, and deprived of any food except bread and water if he did not complete the task. -Sometimes water was thrown over prisoners when in the jacket and it was supposed they were "shamming fainting or something of that sort." Andrews came in for his share of the water. Competent witnesses, as Mr. Sherwin, the Gaol Chaplain, deposed that he was of a mild disposition ; always pained and anxious ; and that he com- plained of ,being too weakly for the heavy crank labour, and "appeared so too." One morning he was found hanging in his cell. The Judgesaid that
the use of the strait-waistcoat, the collar, and water, were clearly illegal punishments. The Jury found Lieutenant Austin "Guilty." Austin, and Blount, the Surgeon, were then indicted for assaulting one Hunt, a person considered insane. The assault consisted of putting on the jacket and thrusting salt into the prisoner's mouth when he furiously yelled, strove to bite, and kicked at everybody. In this case the Jury acquitted the accused of unnecessary violence. In two other cases both Austin and Blount were found " Guilty " of omitting to make certain entries in the prison books.
At the same Assizes, Mr. Justice Willes tried a novel coining ease. One Roberts was charged with making dies for the purpose of coining Peruvian half-dollars: there was no doubt he intended to use the dies. The Judge said that altheughlt is penal to make dies of English coin, it is doubtful whether it is penal to have dies of foreign coin made in this country ; but if coin be struck from the dies there is no doubt about the matter—the act is penal. The Jury found that the prisoner intended to strike a few coins in this country, by way of experiment. The Judge held that to be a verdict of "Guilty" ; but as the matter is complicated, he reserved the case for the consideration of the Court of Criminal Appeal, and liberated Roberts on bail.
A case was tried at the Carlisle Assizes, on Monday, which exhibited an extraordinary degree of cleverness in defrauding a bank, and yet not enough to prevent the discovery of the criminal. The prisoner was Edward Stewart Wilson aged thirty-four, who was charged with forging and uttering a check
Wilson, 6391. 12a. 8d. on the Cumberlaud and Carlisle Bank. The prisoner was formerly clerk to Mr. Mounsey, a solicitor at Carlisle, and had thus an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the signature of Messrs. Hodgson, another law firm. These _gentlemen have an account at the bank. On Sa- turday the 3d February, the bank received a letter from the "Reverend Thomas Sanderson, Langford Vicarage, near Lancaster," enclosing another purporting to be written by Messrs. Hodgson to the clergyman, containing an account of the sale of some property, and an order on the bank in Mr. Sanderson's favour for 5391. 128. 8d. The clergyman wrote to the bank that he had applied too late at the office on Friday afternoon - he was obliged to leave for his parish; would the bank forward him a check for the money ? The bank was deceived, and sent a check on Mulkey's, in London. Wilson had written to the postmaster at Langford, requesting that a letter missent there for the Reverend Mr. Sanderson might be forwarded to Carlisle. By this means he got the check. He then hastened to Langford, and posted a letter to the bank in acknowledgment of the check, thus preventing suspi- cion. He then went to London, and obtained cash for the check. He re- ceived a bank-note for 5001., and four five-pound notes. The 5001. note was changed for sovereigns at the Bank of England, no doubt by Wilson. So far the rogue was safe. But with the five-pound notes he took some watches and chains out of pledge at Luxmoore's, in St. Martin's Lane; the shopman indorsed the notes "Wilson," and he knew the prisoner. It happened that some considerable time elapsed before Means. Hodgson discovered that a pheck for 5301. had been paid on their account. In the meanwhile, Wilson had taken his plunder to the Isle of Man, bought a house there, and was living in it with his mother. The Police were set to work ; the five-pound notes had not been returned to the Bank of England ; they were "stopped." When presented they were traced to Luxmoore's; thence to Wilson; and step by step the whole fraud was made clear. Mr. liounsey and a clerk proved that the letters_purporting to be written by "Mr. Sanderson" were in Wilson's writing. He was convicted, and sentenced to be transported for twenty years. The Carlisle Bank will recover some of the plunder—besides the house he had bought, Wilson had 2101. in an Isle of Man bank when he was captured.
The inquiry Into the poisoning case at Great Burden increases in interest as it proceeds. At an examination of Mr. Joseph Smith Wooler before the Darlington Magistrates, on Monday, evidence was given very adverse to the prisoner. Dr. Richardson, an analytical chemist, deposed that he had de- tected arsenic in portions of the viscera. The Reverend Mr. Simpson gave evidence showing that Mr. Wooler had exhibited little feeling when his wife was at the point of death. A fortnight before that event Mr. Wooler asked Mr. Simpson to have Dirs. Wooler publicly prayed for in the church. Che- inists were called to prove that the medicines made up for /Ire. Wooler con- tained no arsenic. After the lady's death, when reports of foul, play were circulated, Mr. Wooler told Mr. Abbott, a druggist, that he was a broken- hearted husband" ; Mr. Abbott made the significant reply, that "he did not think so." Mr. Fotheringill, a surgeon, lent Mr. Wooler an enema syringe, to administer medicaments to Mrs. Woolen After her death it was returned, wrapped in paper, "with Mr. Wooler's thanks." Mr. Fotheringill found that the tube was stopped up.. After suspicions had been excited, the surgeon carefully removed the matter 111 the tube, cut up the tube itself, and submitted the whole to tests for arsenic—be obtained traces of that poison. Anne Taylor., servant to the prisoner, was an unwilling witness. When her master administered medicines to Mrs. Wooler the patient vomited—not so, when Dr. Jackson gave the medicine. Mr. Wooler directed her to wash out the syringe after it was used. He had a store of medicines which were kept locked-up from the servants. "When Mrs. Wooler became ill on the 1st of May she took some soup at dinner. Mr. Wooler did not take any soup. He did not like soup. Witness gathered up all the medicine-bottles when the medical certificate arrived stating that Mrs. Wooler had died of poison." After a good deal of hesitation, the witness said that she could not tall why she gathered the bottles up and put them into her box. Has been talked to by Mr. William Wooler with regard to the poisoning of Mrs. Wooler. In answer to the Bench, she said that she could not tell who it was told her to put the bottles into her box. The Chairman—" She appears to be totally oblivious of everything on one side of the subject, and to have a very dis- tinct knowledge of everything that has happened on the other." The in- quiry was adjourned till the result of Professor Taylor's analysis could be known.
Fatal accidents have recently occurred in unusual numbers. At Bristol two young men were making fireworks—the gunpowder exploded and set them on fire : one is dead, the other lies hopelessly burned. At Gwennap, in Cornwall, two young women have been killed, and eight wounded, by an explosion in a patent fuse manufactory. MSS Oxley was sitting under a cliff at Bridlington Quay—a quantity of chalk fell from above and killed her. Lieutenant ROSS, of the Wellesley, his wife, child, and two sailors, were upset in a squall on the Medway. The Lieutenant and his wife clung to the boat and escaped ; the sailors and the child perished. Miss Fitz- patrick, of Birkenhead, was walking on the verge of a precipice at Llan- dudno, in North Wales ; the earth gave way, she fell a great depth, and WRS killed.
Two children and a young man have perished in a fire at a public-house at Altrinchatn, in Cheshire. When the fire was discovered, Mr. Cooper, the landlord, safely leapt from a window into the street, got a ladder, and rescued his wife and five of his children ; he could not find his other chil- dren; people soothed him by expressing a belief that they had been removed in the confusion : but when the fire was got under the corpses of the little boys and that of the man servant were found in the ruins.
Previous page
