sin Vrobintts.

On the day of nomination for North Hampshire, an opponent to Mr. Melville Portal confronted him, in the person of Mr. William Shaw, well known among agriculturists as the editor of the Mark Lane Express, and as a strenuous advocate of the tenant-farmers interest. Sir John Pollen proposed, and Mr. William Lutley Selater seconded Mr. Portal; Mr. Rawlins of Whitchurch, a County Magistrate, and Mr. Pile of Tufton, tenant-farmer of nearly a whole parish, proposed Mr. Shaw. Mr. R. Andrews, the Radical coach-builder of Southampton, proposed Timothy Falvey, ids townsman, editor of the Hants Independent, for the extreme Li- berals—as a peg for a speech: there being no seconder. The speeches of Mr. Portal and Mr. Shaw differed little except in the more explicit avowals of the latter on behalf of tenant-farmers. Mr. Portal seemed to be the heartier Protectionist,, and Mr. Shaw the more experienced man: it seemed to be a contest prompted by the slight put on the independent farming in- terest by the county magnates, who wore accused of " arranging " the matter without thinking of the constituency,. The show of hands was considerably in favour of Mr. Shaw, and a poll was demanded for Mr. Portal.

The election on Tuesday and Wednesday was maintained with unex- pected spirit on the part of the revolted tenant-farmer party; but their preparations and organization were incomplete, and Mr. Portal was re- turned. The numbers at the close of the poll were 1,199 for Portal, and 868 for Shaw.

The tenant-farmers of Wiltshire held a large meeting at Devizes yester- day week, to discuss measures for restoring agricultural prosperity. The High Sheriff presided; and Mr. Sidney Herbert, M.P., Mr. Sotheron, M.P., Mr. Neeld, M.P., and Mr. Heneage, M.P., made speeches after the reso- lutions had been passed. The meeting was about equally attended by the friends and opponents of free trade; and the speaking was frequently inter- rupted by the rudeness of the mob, who shouted, scrambled, and pum- melled each other, with undiminished activity for nearly six hours under a most inclement sky. Some farm-labourers made speeches; and bearded the numerous gentlemen speakers who preceded them; moving amend- ments, calling for economical reforms, repeal of the Malt and Hop taxes, abolition of the Game-laws, and reduction of rents. After much opposition, Mr. Sidney Herbert obtained a lengthened and attentive hearing. He insisted that the distress in the West of England was not attributable to fo- reign competition, but to a bad harvest; for in Scotland the farmers had made their farms answer so well, since the establishment of free trade, that they had lately taken new leases at an increased rant. The Corn-laws were caused by the war, which so increased the demand for the produce of the laud, that after it ceased the Corn-laws were necessary to keep up prices and the rent of .and. But

the land has no longer a claim for such a law, " and a large reduction of rents must inevitably take place." (Cheers.)

Mr. Sotheron and Mr. Neeld also thought that rents ought to be much reduced; and all joined with Mr. Heneage in assenting to the repeal of the Malt and Hop taxes, if a substitute could be found.

The Sussex Express of Saturday announces the receipt of intelligence through Mr. C. H. Frewen, M.P., that the Government have resolved on postponing the time for payment of the Hop-duty, from May until after the next hop-picking is over.

A correspondent of the Morning Post states that the hands in several of the largest spinning-establishments at Staleybridge struck work on Wed- nesday, in opposition to the system of working " shifts," an evasive form of relays.

A public meeting was held in Manchester Town-hall on Thursday week to debate the propriety of petitioning Parliament in favour of the Lan- cashire Public Schools system of secular education. The meeting was very crowded ; it lasted five hours, and during some part of that time presented a scene of the greatest confusion. Theoriginal motion, which was moved by Mr. T. Bayley and seconded by Mr. A. Watkin, pledged the meeting to support the secular education scheme. The Reverend C. Stowell moved an amendment, praying that Parliament would " sanction no system of education of which the Christian religion is not the basis." Mr. Stowell supported his amendment by the familiar religious arguments against the "godless schemes" of the secular educationists; "which would have no other effect than, in the characteristic words of the Duke of Wellington, to ` generate a set of clever devils.'" He would rather have Saul the persecutor than Galileo the type of modern Liberalism. The Reverend Mr. Osborne se- conded and supported Mr. Stowell's amendment. The Reverend W. M'Kerrow, Mr. P. Rylands, and Mr. J. Watts, supported the original motion. Mr. G. Hadfield stated, that when the resolution and amendment had been put to the vote, he should move another amendment in favour of totally volun- tary education and the non-interference of Government. When the chair- man put the question to the vote, the show of hands on both sides was so nearly equal that he declined expressing an opinion from it. The movers and seconders of the resolution and amendment having agreed to abide by his judgment, the audience were requested to arrange themselves on differ- ent sides of the room for the amendment and for the original motion. The amendment was then declared carried. Thanks were voted to the Mayor; and the meeting immediately broke up, without waiting to settle who should present the amended petition to Parliament, or to bear Mr. Had- field propose his amendment.

The trial of James Blomfield Rush before Mr. Baron Rolfe at the Norwich Assizes, was prolonged to the sixth day; it terminated only on Wednesday. evening. This immense prolongation was mainly owing to the prisoner's mode of examining the many witnesses for the prosecution; which it is impossible for us to do more than characterize. A number of circumstances were extracted by hint which might perhaps, if judiciously displayed, have operated in his favour; but, as Baron Rolfe observed, in bringing out unimportant points of minute contradic- tion, he made the witnesses confirm and corroborate themselves and each other in a thousand other points more important. Rush replied to this remark, that he had not the least fear of the truth: he had been counselled by his attorney to abstain, but he desired to have only the facts, as God Almighty knew. He spoke in a singularly peremptory manner on all occasions; telling the Judge he ought not to say this or that, and saying "put that down," as points came out which he thought should appear on the judicial notes.

The evidence of Emily Sandford did not finally close till late on Saturday. Throughout, the manifest object of Rush was to exert a strong personal influence over her, in order to bend her evidence in his favour. Before she was sworn on the Friday, he rose from his seat, and, calling upon the particular notice of the Judge, appealing also to a Higher Power, he declared that he was innocent, and that he was in every way quite willing that she should speak the truth. He had never been angry with her for contradicting her first evidence, and he only wanted her now to speak the truth. His cross-examination included a number of lead- ing questions; with other questions intended to influence her mind by recalling the past, by alarming her with allusions to inconsistencies in her evidence, by suggesting new interpretations, and the like. The effect of this examination upon the witness was often painful, and even on the first day it drove her further than the prisoner intended. Answering his question, Miss Sandford said—" You have been amiable to me ever since I knew you. . . . You promised that, after my confinement, you would be a kind father to the child, but all connexion would cease between us. You had promised me marriage; but I do not remember your saying your reason for breaking that promise was that I should not have a house full of children." The witness here burst into tears; and the Judge here inter- fered to say that all this was irrelevant, and he would not allow the prisoner to wound the feelings of the witness unnecessarily.

The Witness (hysterically) —" Did you not promise mamma that I should go to France ?" Prisoner—" No; I never went to see your mamma."

Witness—" Did you not ? You did." Prisoner—" Good God ! No such thing." Witness—" You wished me to go with a gentleman of the name of James." Prisoner—" Was not that name proposed as a mere blind, to hide your position in my house ?" Witness (in tears)—" All that is false."

Prisoner—" Never mind, then ; God Almighty is judge between us."

On the second day, the goading of his questions made her turn round com- pletely with a sort of defiance. For example—

The Prisoner—. Now. I ask you, upon your oath, was not your statement before the Coroner's Jury about your signature altogether false ?" Witness (with energy)—" No, It was not false ; and you know it was not false."

The Prisoner—" Did I ever ask you to sign a paper which had Mr. Jenny's name to it ?" Witness—" I asked you where I was to sign my name, and you said, ' After that name.'"

Such direct contradictions occurred frequently. The Judge repeatedly inter- rupted the prisoner in his course of examination, and even among the spectators in the court it provoked a hostile feeling.

His defence was commenced on Tuesday; when he made a speech of nearly nine hours' duration in comment on the evidence. He spoke so low and indistinctly, from fatigue, and from embarrassment and sentiment,—tears sometimes stopping him,—that no two reports agree in what he said. His strictures were consis- tently framed, and not ineffective. He endeavoured to explain away inculpatory points or establish those that were exculpatory. Thus he elicited that the mort- gage-deed did not give an absolute power to enter on the land if the money were not paid at the time stated by counsel—namely, just before the murder; as there was a clause in the deed which required previous formalities in which Bush him- self had to take part, and which had not been gone through: that the straw spread between Potash farm and Stanfield Hall had been spread there for weeks, and was originally spread by his son's orders; it was chiefly bean stubble for pigs to forage on: that the witnesses were some of them very uncertain at their first exami- nation as to his identity, and were manifestly led to it by what they heard or pre- conceived: that the times and places specified were inconsistent, or proved that more than one person took part in the murders, and rendered it impossible that he shou'd be one of those persons: that the evidence of some witnesses was dis-

the witness Emily Sandford—whom he had loved as tenderly and faithfully as a the feel there are none" husband—by telling her that he had always meant to get rid of her at some con- venient time. On Wednesday Rush closed his remarks on the Crown case, and set forth his own case. This was founded on the facts related in the following letter, written, he said, by him to his solicitor, but not duly transmitted by the prison authorities.

" A man told me, about two o'clock on Friday the 24th November, that be and a lawyer were coming to Potash to speak to me that night about eight o'clock, about taking possession of Stanfield Hall, as they bad done a few years before, and that he would like to hear once more what I thought of the matter. I told them that they had better not come to me, because, from the way in which Mr. Jenny and I had been living, If they were seen coming to me, and did not succeed in their attempt, that I would be sure to be suspected. He said, We don't intend to be seen. I said,' If you will come Into the garden I will come out and speak to you. About eight o'clock, I went out to see if any one was standing about ; and ending a man In the orchard, we went into a field where some stacks were, and stood under the stacks. He asked me what I thought of the plan of taking possession. I told him I thought it a very dangerous one ; that It could not be done without plenty of help, and that even then I did not think it would succeed. He said he did not think so ; that he had seven or eight others who had made up their minds to be there that night and see what could be done. I said, ' You will do something that will be spoken of, as you did when you were there be- fore and took possession.' He said, 'Nonsense ; no one would have dispossessed us if you had not been against us at that time ; and I am sure the soldiers will not dare to interfere.' I said, • Well, you know best, but I think differently.' He said, `I have not the least fear, as we do not intend to use violence : if we caa manage so that the servants shall he kept from giving alarm, everything will be right by morning.' He then said, • It is getting near the time when we are to meet ; will you show us the way across the grounds ?' I said, ' I have no objection to do that.'

[The Judge—" What day was this ?" Prisoner—"Friday, my Lord."]

" The man then went down the road across the Hall. I folioed hint at a little dis- tance, and went as near the Hall as I durst, to see if they made any attempt. I wan- dered about for two hours ; but I heard nothing of them. I never heard anything more till Tuesday the 2dth of November ; when the man who was named Joe came again to ask if I would go to the Hall with him that evening; and he said that if once they could get in they would keep the Hall better than they had done before. I told him I would not, and that after what I said on Friday he ought not to expect that I would ; and .that one reason why I was then living at Potash was, to prevent my son getting himself into trouble, as the poor men had done before. He said, whether I would or no they had made up their minds to do it, either that evening or next morning : that some thought it would be beat to make the attempt In the morning, but that he and seven others, besides the lawyer, thought it would be better and safer to come in the evening; for it would be done better by seven men in the evening than by seventy or eighty in the morning, and there would not be half such a hubbub made in getting there. I said, he knew best. I went once to the Hall in the evening, and saw some men walking about the lawn. They had not wholly made up their minds bow to proceed. I went back after waiting about three hours. As I returned I met the man. I said to him, • Your coming at night is not right, and that you will find out when it is too late.' He said, `If we take possession this evening, I and the lawyer will call upon you and lot you know how we fared.' I advised him not to attempt it that night. I said, • If you do, I shall hear of It in the morning ; but be ruled by me, and if you do anything, wait till the morning.' He then left me. I had some preposses- sions of fear at this time, although I did not think that anything serious would take place. I left Potash again about eight or half-past eight o'clock, and I had some thoughts of going over again to the Hall ; but on coming along the road I made up my mind not to go near it. I walked along the farm to the side of the fence which se- parates it from Stanfield farm. I waited there about five minutes, and thought I would go back ; when I distinctly heard the report of a gun or pistol in a direct line with the Hall, and soon after I heard two more shots, though not so loud. I was struck with amazement, as the man said to me, that if they took tire-Arms it would only be to intimidate, and not to use them. I heard the tell ring; and I came back to Potash as quick as I could, and went through the garden into the house."

He believed " Joe " was a parcel-porter in Norwich, and he had seen another of the men, "Dick" leading gentlemen's horses there: but "-the lawyer " he had never seen except on these two nights. He concluded by calling on the Jury, as they trusted in God, as they loved their own children, to consider the circum- stances, to divest their minds of prejudice, and to ponder the contradictions of the evidence. His speech occupied in all fifteen hours—the longest time, it is said, known to have been occupied in a similar manner.

Rash called only a few witnesses upon minute points; chiefly explanatory of facts relating to distances and situation on the farm, or connected with the con- duct of the murderers; for be insisted that there were more than one in the house.

The reply of the Crown counsel was a brief and temperate criticism of the evi- dence.

Baron Rolfe occupied three hours in his summing up , which, inasmuch as it dismissed a large part of the minor group of facts, was favourable to the prisoner. He commented, however, with fatal perspicacity on the weakness of the defensive case. Recapitulating, he said—" Such, then, is the whole of the evidence before you ; and I will briefly call your attention to it in chronological order. If you believe Emily Sandford, the prisoner had forged a series of documents which were to relieve him from great pressure, which documents could not be enforced in the lifetime of Mr. Jermy senior and possibly not in that of his son. Two nights be- fore the fatal day upon which the mortgage was to be paid off, Mr. Jermy and his eon were murdered. There is nobody that we can hear of that had any mceive to commit the murder, but the prisoner. Two nights before the mortgage was due, he was murdered by somebody. The people in the Hall saw the man. He was seen by five people, by four of whom he was known, and by one he was not known. The four that knew him state their confident belief that that man was Rush, and that he was disguised. The one that did not know him described him as a low sort of man; which was quite consistent with the description of the prisoner's person. Upon that very night, at the very time of the murder, Rush was absent tram home. Before he left home, he said something was going on more than

ching, which excited the attention of Sandford. He returned to her half an

ur after the murder. He was dreadfully agitated that night; and certainly he said to Sandford in the night, that some inquiry would be made in the morning, and she was to say he had not been out more than ten minutes. He was taken in the morning; and the question is, whether he is the murderer. He gave no account of where he had lean in the night. He now says, that though not the murderer, he knew that a desperate attempt was going to be made to get pos- session of the Hall."

The prisoner—" Not desperate, my Lord."

The Judge—" Well, an attempt was to be made. He went round his own farm to hear what took place. Hearing a shot fired, and the alarm-bell ringing, he came back. This was the reason, he said, that he was agitated. He knew who the parties were that were making this attempt, but he did not know where to find them. This is his statement; but though he was taken the next morning, he never mentioned it publicly, until, for the first time, he stated it in court. He never gave the least hint of this story; which if he had done, would at once have been followed up, and it was not to be doubted but that some trace at least of the parties would have been found. In addition to this, there are oce or two little matters to which I will call your attention. It is quite clear, upon his own state- ment, that the dress in which he was that night has been made away. He says it was buried. He has not said anything about his butte. It is quite clear they have been made away; because in the house there were only five pair of boots, four of which are accounted for and the fifth is not. Do these circumstances, or do they not, convince you that this man is the murderer? If they do, the interests of public justice make it your imperative duty to say he is guilty. If they do not—and I wish I could point to any circumstance that would tend to lead me to such a conclusion—if by anything that has fallen from me, or from the prisoner, or from the suggestions of your own mind, you think it is a matter of uncertainty and doubt, you will then say he is not guilty. But I must at the same time say, it is not permitted to any body of men acting as jurors, to conjure up, or pretend

sue Jury retired to consider their verdict; but were absent only six or seven minutes. Then, being interrogated with the usual solemnities, they pronounced the verdict—" Guilty." Rush immediately seized, with a convulsive grasp, the sides of the dock with both hands, and attempted to speak; but his tongue apparently refused to per- form its office.

In passing sentence, Baron Rolfe addressed the convict with stern severity. " You commenced a system of fraud, by endeavouring to cheat your landlord; you followed that up by making the unfortunate girl whom you seduced an instru- ment by which you might commit the crime of forgery; and having done that, you terminated your guilty career by murdering the son and the grandson of your benefactor. More cannot be said. It unfortunately happens that great guilt, in imagination at least, is sometimes too nearly connected with something like hero- ism—with something that dazzles the mind. Fortunately, in your case, guilt is as loathsome as it is atrocious. No one who has witnessed your conduct during the trial, and who has beard the evidence which has been adduced againshyou, but must feel with me when I tell you that you must quit this world by an igno- minious death—an object of unmitigated abhorrence to every well-regulated mind. . . . In the mysterious dispensations of the Almighty there is not only much evil committed, but it is also often connected with something that looks like re- tribution. Perhaps there may be something impious in attempting to trace the course of development in the retribution of any particular crime, but one delights sometimes to make the investigation; and I cannot but remark, that if you had performed to that unfortunate girl the promise you made to her of making her your wife, the law, which seals the lips of a wife in any proceedings taken against her husband, would have prevented her from giving evidence in this case, and the most important witness against you would thus have been removed?'

The Prisoner—" My Lord, that is one thing—" The Judge (unheeding)—" I can only again conjure you to devote the small portion of life which now remains to you to those questions which can alone in- terest you when now all human interests are with you at an end. 1 will add my earnest hope, that that right which alone remains to you—the right of entire se- clusion—may be guaranteed to you, and that neither morbid sensibility, nor the idle curiosity of the vulgar to pry into the secrets of a murderer's cell, may be permitted to raise a factitious interest in these matters, with which you are alone concerned." The Judge passed sentence of death. The prisoner, who had kept grasping the sides of the dock, again attempted to speak ; but he was immediately removed by the gaoler.

At Gloucester Assizes, on Tuesday, Sarah Harriet Thomas, aged nineteen, was tried for the murder of her mistress, Elizabeth Jeffries, at Bristol. The main points of the testimony in this case have been already noted. It came out, how- ever, that the deceased was of a violent temper: she continually quarrelled with her servants, and threatened to beat them; she was very argent in rousing them in the morning; the murder seems to have been committed about five o'clock in the morning, when a neighbour heard screams, but concluded that it was the maid who was uttering them because her mistress was piling her out of bed. On these things Mr. Sergeant Allen built op the defence. He did not deny that it was by Thomas's hand that the old lady died ; the story she had told of a former servant having been the murderer was all trumped up. But he urged that the crime was not premeditated: most probably Miss Jeffiies had assailed her maid, and beaten her; and then Thomas, in her exasperation, had turned upon her mis- tress and inflicted the fatal wounds: that would be manslaughter, not murder. Mr. Baron Platt's summing-up was adverse to this view. The Jury deliberated for half an hour, and then gave a verdict of " Guilty," with a recommendation to mercy on account of the culprit's youth. In passing sentence of death, the Judge said he saw no reason for concurring in the Jury's merciful recommendation. Except during her counsel's speech and the Judge's sentence, when she wept, the prisoner exhibited no emotion: during the absence of the Jury, she laughed heartily at the evidence in a horse-stealing case. Thomas is described as a good- looking girl, without any traits in her countenance denoting a criminal disposition.

At Chester Assizes, five days have been occupied in the trial of Charles Griffin, an attorney of Leamington, for the printing and selling of a libellous book or pamphlet entitled "Stoneleigh Abbey Thirty Years Ago,' with the object of ag- grieving and vilifying the present Lord Leigh, and causing it to be generally sus- pected that he had been guilty of divers murderous crimes. The defendant pleaded that the publication was founded on suspicions generally prevalent, and was for the public goad and the ends of justice; and be called a vast number of witnesses, who spoke to their own knowledge or to common reports of the facts narrated. Lord Leigh and a number of witnesses were called for the defence. Some of the latter were the very. men, in proper person, whom the libel alleged to have been the victims of the crimes committed at Stoneleigh Abbey ; and others were friends of persons alleged to have been murdered, but whom they had seen constantly for years after the alleged periods of their death. D. Daigley amused the Court by the emphasis with which he denied ever having been hanged in an apple-tree; and William Wood took his oath that he had never been killed at all. Jane Goode, a woman upwards of a hundred years old, and a resident at Stone- leigh for eighty years past, described how a murdered man was her lodger for years after his death by poison. Mr. Whitehurst—" Did you ever give him any poison in his food ?" f he witness (with surprise)—'• Oh no! mercy on you, never, Sir !" (Laughter.) The Jury found a verdict of "Guilty." The pri- soner was sentenced to be imprisoned for two years; and then to find bail in 1,0001. to be of good behaviour for five years.

In December last, Mr. Adderley, M.P., interfered as a Magistrate to prevent a prize-fight at Boddimore Heath ; when he and the constables were assailed by the ringleaders and the mob, Mr. Adderley behaving with great spirit and resolution. At the recent Coventry Assizes, a number of the rioters were tried for the out- rage. Two were convicted, one acquitted, and four pleadedguilty; whereupon they were liberated on their own recognizances; Clarke was sentenced to two months' imprisonment, with hard labour; and Lancaster was sent to gaol for one month. The resolute Magistrate was complimented by the Judge.

Milan, who was convicted of murdering an old man at Bethersden in Kent, was hanged at the County Gaol on Wednesday. He was only seventeen years old ; yet he seemed to die without regret.

George Howe, who was convicted of murdering his child at Yarm in Yorkshire, was executed on Saturday. He denied his guilt to the last, and died in a prayer- ful attitude.