Vronium

A very large meeting of the freeholders and electors of South Northumberland was convened by the High Sheriff; and held on " the Seal," outside the town of Hexham, on Tuesday, to consider the choice of Membens for the next Parliament. Regular hustings had been erected; the High Sheriff presided, and the leading gentry took part in the pro- ceedings. After speeches and formal nominations, Mr. Beaumont and Mr. G. Ridley, the Liberal candidates, were approved. of by a great ma- jority of the meeting ; Mr. Liddell, the Derbyite candidate, only obtained the voices of about one-fourth of those present.

The anniversary of the Queen's coronation, on Monday, was celebrated. at Southampton by a general holyday : thousands of people went on ex- cursions to London, to the New Forest, and to the Isle of Wight ; there were matches at cricket and shooting ; five hundred persons came on a visit from Dorchester ; and a large number of "Foresters," a widely- ramified benefit society, walked in procession, and then dined together, the Mayor and the Members for the town being among their guests. It is remarked—" These holydays are not infrequent in the South of Eng- land; and the unanimity which prevails amongst all classes of employers in consenting to such relaxations from labour is remarkable, and highly to he commended."

The yearly festival of the Harrow Speeches, on Thursday last week, was distinguished by the attendance of an unusual concourse of ecclesi- astical dignitaries, Peers, and Peeresses. Among the speeches, a Latin prose translation from Lord Brougham's ever-memorable speech on Legal Reform, which gained the Gregory medal for Master Wilson, and was greatly applauded, is an indication of the unexpected recesses in the social organization to which the spirit of Law Reform has penetrated.

The Stour Valley Railway was opened on Thursday. It intersects the moat populous part of the mineral and manufacturing district of South Staffordshire. Only first and third class carriages are employed ; the highest fare is little more than a penny a mile.

The Irish and English labouring population of Stockport, jealous of each other on religious and social grounds, came into furious collision on Tuesday, with disastrous consequences.

The feud is of some standing, but the present outbreak seems to have arisen out of the Royal proclamation against Roman Catholic processions, or out of the proceedings consequent on it. It has been the custom of the Ro- man Catholics of Stockport, who number nearly one-fourth of the fifty thousand inhabitants, to have a procession of the children of their charity- schools at this season of the year,—not a party or sectarian demonstration, but a display of the results of the educational zeal of the Roman Catholics. When the Royal proclamation appeared, the lower classes of Pro- testants hailed it as a sectarian triumph, and boasted that they would see the proclamation enforced in the case of the "young red-necked scho- lars "—as they term the Roman Catholic children. The Romaniats held that the meeting of scholars was not a procession of the sort interdicted, and they published their resolve to make their demonstration as usual. There was high excitement on the subject, and it is said that the authorities thought of preventing the school-gathering : but when the day came, (Sun- dey last,) the Protestants seemed less belligerent, and the schools were allowed to make their procession without interruption. There was a studious avoidance of any sort of Catholic insignia, and the priests appeared in their plain attire.

On Monday, a few casual fights, such as commonly °emir at Stockport on the Monday afternoon, took an international and religious character. Luglish- men and Irishmen happened to be engaged, and the seconders of the com- batants got into conflicts, which the Police stopped with difficulty. But the night passed tranquilly, and no evil was expected on Tuesday. On Tuesday evening, the fights were renewed very suddenly in several places at once ; and they were so fierce, and so many combatants engaged in them, that the Police could not repress them.

As some anxiety had been felt during the middle of the day by the Roman Catholic priests, and warnings had been given by them to the Mayor, some preparation was made to increase the small Police force, consisting of only ten men, by a staff of assistant constables. With these Mr. Sadler, the chief constable, who was popular, sallied out to controlling-points ; but by the time in the evening that he got all his men into action, the various detached fights had merged in a general battle between the Roman Catholic and Protestant lowest orders. The Protestants gained the upper hand, and drove their opponents first into their houses, and then again out of them and out of the town ; and then they proceeded to wreck the houses, and the Roman Catholic chapels. By great efforts, very bravely and skil- fully persevered in, Mr. Sadler managed to hold the chief bodies of the riot- ers in check till the Mayor and Magistrates had assembled and sworn in some hundreds of special constables, and entered into cooperation with him. The civil power had just gained the upper hand, when a body of the mili- tary also turned out, and completed their victory. The night was occupied in arresting a vest number of those who bad fought on either side. The serious nature of the struggle, is well shown by the description of the emits beheld next morning. The first attack on persons, on Tueeday " , was i made by the Irish; it would seem that this ended in an assault on St. Peter's Protestant School ; and that it was in retaliation for this last outrage that the English turned the fight into an attach on the bowies and ehapela of the Catholics. The Afanehoter auardion describes some of the scenes.

"St. Peter's Protestant School does not appear to have suffered much, but a good many squares of glass have been smashed; and so there have in Mr. Graham's house. Din the houses Of the Irish Catholics in Rock Row are a wreck. There is an ale- house occupied by a man named Robert Reynolds, opposite Rock Row ; and we were told there were eight men in this place when the nolcommenced, and the rioters broke in the windows with bricks, smashed the furnitffre to atoms, and actually at- tempted to set the house on fire. The inmates escaped in the utmost trepidation, one of them, a youth, leaping from a back window twenty feet high. The rioters next took the houses in Rock Row. The first was occupied by a man named Shaugh- nessy; and the windows and frames and doors are entirely gone, and there is not an article of furniture left."

The other houses of the row were similarly wrecked in succession.

" Down Bridge Street, is a row of houses three stories high in front and two be- hind, the houses being built with their backs to the hill-side. The first is John O'Donoghue's. The entrance to the backs is a confined court called Jacob's Ladder Yard ; by getting on a wall in this yard the mob succeeded in removing a quantity of bricks, and entered an upper room of O'Donoghue's house, in which a Mrs. Ann Bradley was lying, having only a week before been confined of a child. Disregard- ing the woman's weak and sick condition, the ruffians broke and destroyed every- thing in the house : they even destroyed the roof over her head, allowing the d6bns to fall upon her. The husband seized one of his children and escaped from one of the windows. The furniture was destroyed and the house gutted : when our cor- respondent visited it yesterday, the poor woman Bradley had been removed to a wretched coal-hole, which was the only inhabitable part of the building. " It was while demolishing the windows and furniture of these houses that the signal was given by one of the leaders of the mob, ' To the Catholic chapels I ' Im- mediately a considerable portion of the mob rushed off to Edgeley Chapel, half a mile distant ; and, forcing an entrance, they broke the altars, and carried out the furniture and pews, and heaped them in a pile before the house of the priest, who lives close by-the Reverend Randolph Frith. The mob completely destroyed every- thing in the chapel, and then attacked Mr. Frith's house. They carried the furniture of his house out of doors, and, heaping it on that of the chapel, lighted it for a bonfire. An organ worth 4001. was broken to atoms, and the chapel and minister's house were reduced to a wreck. There is nothing left but the bare walls.

" The Catholic chapel of St. Michael, in the Park, Stockport, was attacked a little before eleven o'clock at night. The mob first assailed it from the back, which is in Nelson Street, by breaking and destroying the large East window over the altar. The rioters soon afterwards went round to the doors in Ring Street and Prince's Street, and, having demolished these and all the windows, entered the chapel itself. Here they destroyed everything. The altars, with candlesticks, images of our Saviour, the Virgin Mary, St. Patrick, St. Peter, and St. Joseph, were broken to atoms. The pews were torn i up from the floor and broken into mere strips of wood, and cast

re out of doors. There a large gallery at the West end ; the pews and gallery were torn up, and nothing but the floor remains. The organ was broken to frag- ments."

The list of seriously wounded comprises sixty-seven persons, named : every one of these had received, among his hurts, from one to eight " cuts on the head." One man, named Moran, was killed outright. Next day, Wednesday, there were several renewals of the combats; but the authorities had now ample force of constables and military (additional foot soldiers and cavalry having been brought from Manchester) to repress the disturbances as soon as they arose ; and in the evening, when apprehen- sion was most felt, order was maintained perfectly.

The

Magistrates were engaged all Wednesday in examining the persons charged. ' -three were held in custody as identified rioters; and eighty- one more were 'berated only on their recognizances to keep the peace and appear again when required,

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At the foyer Quarter-Sessions, on Friday, William Bennett Sothers, alias the Honourable William O'Brien Fitzgerald, was tried for obtaining various sums of money to the extent of 8701. from a gentleman named Payn, a so- licitor at Dover, under fraudulent pretences. The case excited very great interest. The prisoner bad the appearance of a foreigner. His wife claimed the title of Lady Emily Fitzgerald; and represented that she was the widow of Count Eltz; that her mother was related to the ninth Duke of Norfolk ; that her name was Lady Ann Isabella Howard ; and that her father was Ge- neral William O'Brien Fitzgerald, of the Guards. It was proved at the trial that the prisoner was formerly a member of the Stock Exchange. Some four or five years ago, Mr. Payn the prosecutor was residing with his chil- dren at Eyethonie and while there he became acquainted with the prisoner and his wife. In the course of last August he received a letter from them, stating that both were confined in a prison at Pau, in the South of France, at the base of the Pyrenees ; that they had fallen into an awful predicament, from the negligence of their agent, who had failed to remit them 3000/. ; that they had the misfortune to lose 1800 francs on theirjourney; and that about 400/. would set them right. Mr. Payn proceeded to the Continent, and found them prisoners, as they had de- scribed, in the prison of Pau. He took instructions from them there as to their family connexions. They stated that " Lady Emily " was the daugh- ter of Lieutenant-General Sir William O'Brien Fitzgerald, formerly of the Guards, &c., and that they were known to the Earl of Carlisle and the Duke of Sutherland. The Sutherland children, she said, visited at her mother's ; but, in consequence of her marriage not being sanctioned by her parents, the friendly intercourse with the Sutherland family had fallen off. "Lady Emily" added, that her husband's mother was the Princess Castaglioru. They had been confined in prison more than twelve months, having . been denounced as swindlers. Finding they were suffering great misery, Mr. Payn paid 450/. for their debts, and 240/. as security to the Court of Appeal for their appearance when required. He pleaded for them at the Court of Appeal and obtained their liberty. He then brought them to Dover, supported them, and ultimately lent them 40/. to go to the North of England to see some relations, who would repay him. They went away, and nothing more was heard about them. Their representations about being connected with high families and their agent were discovered to be untrue, and in the course of some seven or eight months they were appre- hended at Barnard Castle, near Durham. In the prisoner's box was a letter, dated July 1850, from the Earl Powis to "Lady Emily," which had contain- ed 1001. sent to their relief. The Earl of Carlisle gave evidence that his family were unacquainted with the prisoner or his wife, and that their repre- sentation of being related to the Norfolk family was perfectly false. The Jury found the prisoner guilty, and he was sentenced to transportation for seven years. He professed innocence, and said he could have put some questions to Lord Carlisle, which would have readily acquitted him of false representations, but he refrained from doing so for the sake of "Lady Emily's." family.