SAIGFAY0.—This person, who is a well-known political agent of Don
Miguel, made a complaint at Bow Street, last night, through Mr. Phil- lips, the barrister, against an agent of Donna Maria, who, as he stated, had opened a packet addressed to him, and abstracted from it some papers of interest. Warrants were granted as of course. We may ex- peat some expose. The little King has been playing a curious, though a very silly game with the London press for a long time back. We hope the important papers contain the book of accounts. KEEPING OPEN Snor or: SUNDAY.—Twenty-six shopinen were sum- moned before the Union Hall Magistrates on Monday for this offence ; but the whole were discharged, the Magistrates being of opinion that the smallness of the fine could not possibly operate to put down the offence. Laving aside altogether the religious view of the question, the absurdity of working on the Sunday should be a sufficient check to the practice. If it were general, the only possible consequence would be a reduction of one part in seven of the labourer's wages. He who now receives I4d. would then receive 12d. a day ; he might get the same money, but he would work seventy hours in the week instead of sixty. As to the shop-. keepers, it is quite evident that they can sell no more during the week than its demands require, if they keep open shop night and day, and every night and day. The Sunday's sale only makes that a day of toil which God blessed as a day of rest, and which reason and nature, and the nicest calculations on the subject, have confirmed to be required for a healthy, a happy, or a lengthened existence. Every interest or fact is against these irregularities, but the interests of those who seek to ga- ther fortunes out of the wants of the labouring man, and to consolidate tyranny by means of his frailties and vices. POISONING.—One of our Sunday contemporaries has given an account of the death of a Mrs. Clarke, near Putney, from eating a piece of dumpling in which there was a quantity of arsenic. The account enters into a full, true, and particular narrative of the deceased, her manners and character, those of her husband, and of her two daughters ; the situa- tion of the house ; with an episode of the baker's boy, who brought two quarterns of flour instead of one, both in the same bag, one quer.. tern separated from the other by a string tied round the bag ; the pro- cess of making first a pudding with eggs, and then the dumpling; the whole detailed with a penny-a-line richness of style, at which we should have been glad to give our readers a laugh, had not the tale so minutely told, ended so tragically. It appears that the father, both daughters, and the mother, eat of the dumpling and pudding (it was a batter pud- ding) ; the father and the younger daughter sparingly, the eider daughter heartily, the mother plentifully. All four were soon after taken ill, and continued so in a proportionate degree to the quantity they had eaten. The old woman died during the night ; at least she was found dead in bed next morning. The rest of the family were relieved by severe vomiting. The making and eating of the fatal dumpling and pudding took place on Monday last week ; the facts connected with it, so far as we have noticed them, were made known at the inquest, which took place on Thursday. At the inquest, a post ?portent examina- tion of the body of the deceased Mrs. Clarke was ordered ; and the doctor gave it as his opinion that death had ensued in consequence of swallowing a quantity of mineral poison, but none of it was found in the stomach : the dumpling, which somewhat unaccountably the younger daughter had buried in the garden, "between the gooseberry-bushes," contained arsenic. The inquest adjourned from Thursday to Monday.
At the adjourned inquest, Mr. Shillitoe, the surgeon who had opened the body, and two other medical men, described the state of the stomach and intestines : in the part of the flour that remained, there was no
arsenic or other foreign matter'. Mr. Mullens' of Wandsworth, an apo- thecary, stated that Jane Clarke, the younger daughter, had wished to purchase from him on Saturday (the 19th) an ounce of calomel : he gave her, however, only twelve one-grain pills. Mr. Bennison, a che- mist of the same village, swore that he sold on the same day an ounce of
salts and an ounce of white arsenic to a female ; but he could not recol- lect either her dress, age, or appearance : his shop-boy, however, who was present at the time, recollected all the particulars, and identified Jane Clarke as the female to whom the poison was sold. Another che- mist, also of 'Wandsworth, swore to Jane Clarke's having wished to pur- chase the same medicines from him ; she said the arsenic was to kill
black beetles : he refused to give her the poison, but gave her the salts. A fourth made a similar -statement. It came out subsequently, that the
girl had attempted to drown herself in the Thames ; and her father
stated that he had that morning saved her from drowning herself in the 'water-butt. Her father was of opinion that she was insane : her deceased
mother had been for some time in a lunatic asylum. The eldest sister spoke to the fact of Jane having ate only a small bit of the dumpling, and none of the pudding. Jane was in the kitchen during the whole
time the pudding and dumpling were making; the elder sister was there also, with the exception of a .few minutes' absence. The Jury, after
about hall' an hour's deliberation, returned a verdict ore Wilful murders' against Jane Clarke, and she was immediately committed.
EARTHQUAKE AT DOVER....-.A letter from Dover of Thursday's date says," A violent trembling Of the earth was experienced here last even-
ing, about eight o'clock, which shook the houses and buildings from one end of the town, to the other ; a general alarm prevailed on the occasion, which, we learn, was not confined to this town, as the surrounding /ages were sensibly affected by the same circumstance. We have since learned that a convulsion was strongly felt at Margate, Ramsgate, and Deal ; at the latter place some individuals fainted from terror."
FIRE-DAMPEIGLITEEN LIVES LOST BY FIRE-DAMP.-011 Thursday morning, at the colliery of J. B. Hollingshead, Esq., at Pemberton, near Wigan, an explosion of fire-damp took place, and instantaneously termi.. nated the earthly existence of sixteen unfortunate persons—namely, twelve men, three women, and one girl. Seven others were severely wounded, two of the number having died in the course of the day ; and we fear there are apprehensions that more of the wounded are past re. covery. A similar explosion took place last year, when nine persons were killed.—Preston Pilot.
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