Lord Campbell, and that therefore indispensable
witnesses were not now in court. Lord Campbell denied
that he had indefinitely postponed the trial: he had
merely declined to fix a day, and had left it to take its
course in the trial paper. Ultimately, verdicts of acquittal
were taken in both cases, because no evidence
could be offered.

At the Thames Police Court, on the 28th June,
Mrs. Acock, wife of a timber-merchant at Stepney, was
fined 5s. for an Assault on Catherine Tiernay, her
servant. On the following day, Mr. Acock accused the
girl of stealing four gold pins. Mr. Acock asserted
that the girl had secreted a little box containing the
pins in her clothes-box; the girl's solicitor endeavoured
to show that this was a conspiracy to ruin her, to
revenge the fine for assault and a threatened summons
from the County Court for wages. A policeman was
called in to search the prisoner's box; the contents
were turned out; when they were nearly all returned,
Mr. Acock picked the pin-box off the floor, and accused
Catherine Tiernay of stealing it. The policeman gave
very unsatisfactory evidence with regard to this box.
It was wrapped in a piece of paper, and he first said
that Mr. Acock had declared it was a box containing
pins "before the paper was removed;" subsequently he
retracted this, and said Mr. Acock made the remark
"after" the paper was removed. Mrs. Mary Ann Curd
stated that Mrs. Acock, after she was fined, exclaimed
to the prisoner, "I'll have you before to-morrow! I
have not done with you yet; I'll have you up hard and
fast!" Mrs. Curd went with the girl for her box.
Mrs. Acock was abusive. When she talked of searching
the box, the girl said a policeman should be sent
for. The box was emptied of its contents, and the
things turned over four times; and while they were
putting the things in the box, Mrs. Acock stooped down
and picked up, or pretended to pick up, something.
The witness had emptied the prisoner's box, and shaken
it, and turned it upside down, and was certain the red
case did not fall out of it. The magistrate decided,
with such conflicting evidence before him, to send the
case to a jury; but he offered to take bail—one surety
for £20. A gentleman who had heard the investigation,
though quite unacquainted with the prisoner, kindly
gave bail for the amount.

An investigation into an Assault on Storey, a detective
policeman, by a number of stockbrokers' clerks
was concluded at the Mansion House on the 3rd inst.
Storey had tried to force his way into the Stock
Exchange to arrest a delinquent; the clerks made a
great uproar, hustled him, and prevented him from
effecting his object; even an application to the Secretary
did not obtain him civil treatment. The answer on
the part of the clerks was, that the hustling was only a
"lark"; and that Storey had entered unceremoniously,
and used gross language. Storey's solicitor offered to
abandon the charges if an apology were made; and the
clerks consented. Alderman Wire intimated that they
were wise in taking advantage of the offer; and he
expressed a hope that in future such violent practices
would be discontinued at the Stock Exchange.

A Riot broke out at Stockport on the evening of
Tuesday, the 29th June, between the Irish Catholic and
the English Protestant working people. On the previous
Sunday the usual annual procession took place of the
Roman Catholic scholars connected with the three
chapels in Stockport. The procession was headed by
the priests, but there were no banners, the priests did
not wear canonical vestments; and the school-girls
only wore white frocks with little crosses hung round
their necks by ribands. Everything passed quietly for
the time; but in the course of Monday several fights
took place, apparently arising out of disputes about
the procession. Nothing serious took place, however,
till Tuesday evening, when a number of English
and Irish assembled in Hillgate, and began fighting
with sticks and other weapons. On learning this,
Mr. Sadler, the chief constable, at the head of a small
body of police, proceeded to the spot; and, after
violent resistance, dispersed the rioters, some of whom
were captured and conveyed to the police-station.
Comparative peace being restored, information of the
state of the town was sent to the magistrates, the military
were called in, and a number of special constables
sworn, by which time a considerable mob had assembled.
The Riot Act was immediately read, and the
mob speedily dispersed. The civil and military authorities
and force then proceeded to Edgeley, where they
found the large Catholic chapel completely sacked and
gutted, and the priest's house nearly in the same
condition. The rioters here had brought the furniture,
&c, out of the chapel and the residence, piled it in the
road, and set fire to it. The mob had dispersed before
their arrival, and they only found groups of persons
standing quietly by the heaps of blazing materials.
While the authorities were there, a messenger arrived
with information, that the mob had proceeded to St.
Michael's Roman Catholic chapel in the park; had
broken the windows; were destroying the furniture,
&c.; and that some of the rioters had attempted to
force open a large iron safe, supposed to contain various
articles of silver used in the services of the chapel.
Some portions of a patera, a pyx-cover, &c., all of
silver, were picked up inside the chapel, and Mr. Sadler
took possession of them, as well as of various books of
prayers which were lying strewn about. The police
arrived in time to apprehend several men, many of
whom were severely wounded, and from four o'clock
in the morning till noon four medical men were more or
less engaged in dressing their wounds and hurts. After
the police had dispersed the mob in Hillgate, the Irish,
in a tolerably compact body, retreated towards Rock
Row, the lower end of which opens upon St. Peter's
Square. At the corner of Rock Row and the square
stands a large house, the residence of Mr. Graham,
surgeon, who has in some way incurred the hatred of
the Roman Catholics. They assailed this house with
volleys of stones and brickbats, smashed most of the
lower windows, and the servant-man received a severe
wound in the forehead from a stone. In this attack the
next house, belonging to Mr. White's factory, also
suffered considerable injury in the lower windows. The
mob then turned their attack upon the Sunday school
connected with St. James's Church, which stands
opposite to Mr. Graham's house, on the other side of the
square, and they had broken some of the windows in
the building, when they were overtaken by the English,
who attacked and drove them up Rock Row, and then
seem to have proceeded in retaliation to Edgeley; gutted
the Roman Catholic chapel and priest's house there;
and thence to St. Michael's Catholic chapel, in the
park, which they also sacked, as already stated. Here
the more serious outrages to property seem to have
been stayed, but fights between small bodies of both
factions continued for some hours afterwards. Between
eleven and twelve o'clock a party of police succeeded
in capturing a young Irishman, named Moran, about
24 years of age, who was said to have wounded three
or four men with a pitchfork. When apprehended,
however, he had received a severe fracture of the skull
and other injuries; and, as he was evidently dying, he
was removed from the other prisoners, and placed in a
room below the Court-house, where he expired about a
quarter before two o'clock on Wednesday morning. It
was after midnight before the disturbance was quelled.
The Stockport Court-house presented a strange scene
on Wednesday morning. During the night it had been
converted into a prison hospital, and at one end were
placed about 108 ruffianly looking fellows, upwards of
sixty of whom were suffering from wounds received in
the riot, or in their encounters with the police when
taken into custody. One with a dislocated shoulder
was yelling under the manipulation of a surgeon, and
another was shrieking under the pain of handling a
dislocated ankle. Others were writhing, moaning, and
bleeding, while the surgeons moved to and fro among
them, dressing their wounds. Thirty-three prisoners
were identified as having taken part in the riot, and a
great number were discharged on their own recognizances
to keep the peace, the total number apprehended
being 114. The disturbances were renewed on the
Wednesday night, notwithstanding the precautions
taken to preserve the peace. Several houses in different
parts of the town, belonging to Irish Roman Catholics,
were attacked, the furniture destroyed, and the inmates
beaten unmercifully. It is remarkable that during