'Ott lirobincts.
An agricultural meeting is reported this week at Maidstone; its object, the modified one of considering the depressed state of the country, and the means of speedy and permanent relief. The Earl of Stanhope pre- sided: Sir Edmund Filmes, M.P., and many large owners of property in the county, were present. The chairman took a position sometvhat new for the complaining agricultural interest. After portraying the distress— greater in his neighbourhood than he had seen for thirty years—and dis- carding such entirely inefficient relief as the repeal of the Hop-tax or the Malt-tax, he declared that they must and would have the restoration of protection to its fullest extent; in tones of thunder they must demand it. But if Parliament refused it, they would be entitled to ask an equitable adjustment of the Public Debt and taxation; "to have an entire and immediate repeal of the duty on sugar, &c., the produce of the British Colonies; upon tea, tobacco, and other articles con- sumed by the labouring classes; the repeal of all taxes bearing on land; the equalization of those rates of which the owners and occupiers of land bear an undue share; a revisal of the Tithe-commutation Act, which was now inappli- cable to the circumstances under which it was originally framed; every tenant holding under a lease should have permission to surrender it on giving six months' notice before any of the usual days of payment; that free trade be ex- tended to the occupiers of land, so that they might produce sugar and tobacco as well as those things which were consumed by the working classes." Mr. Elvey hoped this year's hop-duty, now postponed, would be remitted altogether; and was strongly of opinion that they ought to have a remis- sion of rents from their landlords. Protection resolutions were agreed to, and corresponding petitions to Parliament set on foot.
At a numerous county meeting in Cambridge, on Saturday, the High Sheriff presiding, some Free-trade partisans tried to uphold their views; but Protection petitions were agreed on by an "immense majority." - The Chairman of the East Kent Quarter Sessions, Mr. J. B. Wildman, in his charge to the Grand Jury at their last meeting, said that there was a subject he begged to mention, which had been to him a source of very considerable pain- " An idea had got abroad among some gentlemen that it was of no use to em- ploy the poor, but let them go to the union. This was done in order to show Government the distress to which the farming interest was reduced, and that the Government might be induced to adopt some measure of relief. He could not for a moment conceive that Government was blind to that distress; but any such means as those adopted for enforcing it on its attention would only bring rain on the farmers themselves. By such a course, they reduced all manly and inde- pendent feeling on the part of the labourer."
The Royal Shaksperian Club held its annual meeting at Stratford-on- Avon on Monday, the anniversary of Shakspere's birth. The report stated, that in order to complete the purchase of Shakspere's house, the title-deeds of the property had to be deposited for a loan of 4701.; for that sum the Committee are still liable, and till that sum be paid no steps can be taken as to the ultimate conservation of the property. A trustworthy person has been placed in temporary care of the house, to show it to visiters free of expense. The Committee hoped, that when the "discreditable position of a relic so essentially national" became known, the small amount neces- sary to release it wholly and to place it under the care of Government would speedily be supplied. The papers at the beginning of the week were teeming with voluminous accounts, of the execution of Rush the murderer, at Norwich Castle, on Saturday last; but the chief interest has passed. Rush asseverated his innocence to the last moment, and busied himself with trying to impress this idea on all who saw him. His beha- viour to two clergymen who visited him, at that respectful and afterwards the re- verse, appeared to be regulated by his hopes of convincing them. He asked the Chaplain to administer the sacrament to him; but it was refused. On the morning of the execution, his deportment was collected and decorous. To Calcraft, the hang- man, he said a few words on his being pinioned. On his way to the scaffold, he asked as a favour, that the drop might fall at the moment the last words of the benediction were pronounced. 'He was dressed in black; wore patent leather boots; and had his shirt-collar, which was scrupulously clean, turned over." "His step never faltered, and he regularly marched to his doom. On catching sight of the scaffold, he lifted his eyes to heaven, raised as far as he could his pinioned hands, and shook his head mournfully from side to side once or twice.. The pantomime was perfect, conveying almost as clearly as words a protest of innocence, combined with resignation to his fate." On the platform, observing that the hangman seemed to be hurried, he said, "Take your time—don't be in a hurry "; and he directed him as to the easy and effective adjustment of the rope. The signal was given for the falling of the drop a little before the words which he had mentioned. He died instantly, and without a single struggle ; "the ce- remony having been performed as will as practicable, and with fewer revolting circumstances than usual."
The number of persons assembled to witness the execution is estimated at twenty thousand—many from a great distance; and they behaved with less levity and disorder than is usual on such occasions. ,
Martha Price, a woman of Madresfield, who had attained her ninety-third year, has yet, it is suspected, come to an untimely end. There are strong grounds for supposing that she died from arsenic, administered by her son, a labourer, who- lived with her; the motive, the immediate possession of a sum of money. An inquiry is proceeding.
Merchant, a quarryman of Bristol, died on the 7th instant; was buried on the- 13th; and on the 15th his widow married a man twice her age. Suspicion arose ; the body of Merchant was disinterred ; and the viscera will be chemi- cally examined. The man died suddenly; his medical attendant thought the- cause of death was an acute disease of the stomach, and did not suspect foul play.
The Coroner's Jury that sat on the body of Miss Bowtell, at Cambridge, after hearing medical evidence as to the substance found in her stomach, have found a verdict that she died from the effects of arsenic, "but by whom administered there is no evidence to show."
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