less than £236,296 11s. 3d. has been paid since 1845 to
the 25th November last, as salary and compensation;
and they are to have considerable annuities if they cease
to hold the office, and after their death compensations
for seven years are to be granted.

A shocking case of Murder and Suicide occurred at
Cheadley, in Staffordshire, on the 11th instant. Stephen
Walker, a young farmer, courted Fanny Walker, the
daughter of a publican. He was unsteady in his habits,
and therefore the girl was sent away from home for a
time. After her return, Stephen went to the house,
but was not allowed to see her. He went away angry,
and returned with a gun in his hand. Fanny came down
stairs and entered into conversation with him. On her
objecting to his course of life, he snatched up the gun,
and pointing it at her, said, "I will now show you what
I want." The mother screamed, and got between them,
pushed him out of the passage into the road, and bolted
the door. He ran to the window, and thrust the muzzle
of the gun through one of the panes; the mother took
hold of it, exclaiming, "Don't shoot Fanny; shoot me!"
—and urging her daughter to run out of the room. The
poor girl ran, but in her trepidation she could not
unfasten the door. Just as she was passing out of the
room, Stephen discharged the gun, and the contents
lodged in her left side, just below the breast, killing her
instantly. The murderer ran away into the fields,
reloaded his gun, and shot himself through the head,
dead on the spot. A coroner's jury have ascribed the
murder and suicide to temporary insanity.

At the Central Criminal Court, on the l5th, Felix
M'Gee was tried for Shooting Michael Collins. There
was a disagreement among the members of a Temperance
Society at Westminster; M'Gee took possession of a
room belonging to the society, locked the door, and,
armed with two pistols and a cutlass, declared no one
should enter. His brother members forced open the
door; M'Gee presented a pistol, but it missed fire; the
second he discharged, and lodged some fifty shots in
Collins's abdomen. When arrested, M'Gee had reloaded
the pistol. Collins was in danger for some time. The
jury convicted on a count charging an intent to do
grievous bodily harm. The intemperate teetotaler was
sentenced to be transported for ten years.

Four boys were indicted under "Lord Campbell's
Act" for a felony, as having done an act tending to
Endanger the Lives of Passengers on the Great Western
Raihway. On several occasions a gate had been removed
at an occupation-crossing at Southall; cattle might in
consequence have strayed on to the line, and perilled
the safety of trains. The place was watched, and the
prisoners at the bar were seen to take the gate down
and lay it in a field. Baron Platt stopped the case, as
he did not think the offence came within the provisions
of the act:—the boys had put the gate into a field, not
upon the rails; if a cow had strayed upon the line and
a disaster resulted, the cow, not the boys, would have
been the cause of the mischief. Mr. Clarkson said he
expected this objection; but a magistrate had committed
the prisoners, and the company felt bound to prosecute.
The judge remarked that the boys richly deserved the
imprisonment they had suffered: though they escaped
under this act of parliament, they must not think that
they were not amenable under some other law.

A dreadful Murder was committed at Hull in the night
of the 21st. The body of a respectable young man named
Maplethorpe, a clerk in the house of Messrs. Thomas and
Co., merchants, was found lying on the edge of a ditch
adjoining a piece of waste ground near his father's
residence. Marks of a scuffle on the pavement, and the
dragging of a body across the road, were perceivable,
showing that the poor youth had been attacked within a
few feet of his own threshold. The external appearances
of the body indicated that death had been occasioned by
suffocation, no marks of violence being observed, but
some scratches, as of human nails, upon each cheek. A
gold watch which the deceased carried had been torn
from his waistcoat pocket, and his money to the amount
of about £11 had also been taken from his person.
Two men, named John Snape and James Smith,
were apprehended on suspicion and brought before
the magistrates, by whom, after an examination, they
have been remanded.

NARRATIVE OF ACCIDENT AND
DISASTER.

A WHOLE party of British missionaries have Perished
by Starvation in Patagonia. They left this country in
the autumn of 1850, and landed at Picton Island,
Tierra del Fuego, on the 6th December following.
Rumours that they had perished by the hands of the
natives reached this country many months since; and
Captain Moorshead, of her Majesty's ship Dido, was
instructed to ascertain their fate on his way to the Pacific
station. The party consisted of Commander Gardiner
of the Royal Navy, superintendent; Mr. Maidment,
catechist; John Erwin, carpenter; John Badcock, John
Bryant, and John Pearce, Cornish fishermen; and they
went out in the bark Ocean Queen, under the auspices
of the Patagonian Missionary Society. Captain Moorshead,
of the Dido, arrived at Picton Island, in search
of them, on the 19th January last. For some time no
traces of the missionaries were found; but just as the
explorers were about to reëmbark, some writing was
espied on a rock across a river, which proved to be the
words, "Go to Spaniard Harbour;" and other rocks
were marked with similar words. Hastening to Spaniard
Harbour, they saw on the beach a boat turned upside
down; and on coming near to it, they found two dead
bodies, which were identified by scattered books and
papers near them, as those of Captain Gardiner and Mr.
Maidment. On one of the papers was written legibly,
but without date—

"If you will walk along the beach for a mile and a half, you
will find us in the other boat, hauled up in the mouth of a river
at the head of the harbour, on the south side. Delay not; we
are starving."

Hurrying to the point indicated, they found the wreck
of a second boat, and the remains of two more bodies,
which they suppose to have been those of Mr. Williams,
surgeon, and John Pearce, Cornish fisherman, other
members of the expedition. The papers showed that
all the others had died of starvation before these
survivors, and had been buried by them, near to where the
survivors were found. The tale of their sufferings was
told in the diary of Captain Gardiner, the superintendent,
kept by him with tolerable regularity till near the hour
of his death—the last words of it being scarcely legible
from the weakness of the hand which wrote them. A
few extracts show the nature of their trials, and the
pure religious spirit with which they were encountered.
Their provisions seem to have failed through being
shortened by wreck or injury of their boats, and from
the first their boats were the only shelter to them from
the severe climate and the inhospitable natives whom
they went out to convert. The place of refuge, Picton
Island, seems to have been a desert spot, presenting the
sole recommendation of rocky caverns, which could be
made available for shelter against the storms. The first
extracts are compiled by Captain Moorshead, from the
papers found on the beach and in the caverns:—

"April 23. They have provisions enough to last for two
months, but some are very low; and, a fox pilfering from them,
they kill him by putting apiece of pork opposite the muzzle of a
gun attached by a string to the trigger; and, as they can only
issue pork three times a week, they dine off this fox, and salt the
remainder: altogether they appear to have been very frugal
with their supplies. I find a notice of five large fish caught,
and an account kept of the number of ducks shot, as, their
powder having been left on board the ship, and a flask and a half
being all they have, they keep it for emergencies.

"July 4. Having been seven weeks on short allowance, and
latterly even this having been curtailed, the party are utterly
helpless. Everything found in the shape of food is cooked and
eaten—a penguin, a shag, a half-devoured fish washed upon the
shore, and even the salted fox, washed out of the cavern, is
thrown up again on the beach and used for food. Captain
Gardiner writes—'We have now remaining half a duck, about
one pound of salt pork, the same quantity of damaged tea, a very
little rice (a pint), two cakes of chocolate, four pints of peas, to
which I may add six mice. The mention of this last item in our
list of provisions may startle some of our friends, should it ever
reach their ears; but, circumstanced as we are, we partake of
them with a relish, and have already eaten several of them.
They are very tender, and taste like rabbit.'

"July 22. They are reduced to living on mussels, and feel the
want of food; and sometimes the cravings of hunger is
distressing to them. Captain Gardiner writes—'After living on