manslaughter of Charles Cannon. The grand jury had
ignored the bill, and the gentlemen were arraigned on
the coroner's inquisition. Cannon was a porter at
Farnham; he heard a train approaching, and evidently
thought it was one that stopped at the station; but it
was a survey train, containing Mr. Scott and Mr. Beattie.
Cannon tried to cross the line, but before he could
mount a low wall on the further side the train struck
him. The railway from Ash to Alton is merely a single
line; it was permitted to be opened by the government
inspector on the understanding that not more than one
engine should be upon it at the same moment. But on
the evening when Cannon was killed there was a
passenger-train closely following the survey-train. No
notice had been sent forward that the survey-train was
coming; and the passenger-train would have stopped
short of the spot where Cannon was killed. The
conclusion which the coroner's jury had drawn from these
facts was, that Mr. Scott and Mr. Beattie, for whose use
the survey-train proceeded from Guildford before the
passenger-train, were answerable for the death of the
porter. The Chief Baron intimated that he did not
consider that the accused were responsible for matters
which were not under their personal control; in his
opinion, a railway chairman or director who engaged a
special train was in exactly the same position as an
ordinary traveller; he might reasonably suppose that all
that was necessary to be done would be done by the
persons in the employ of the railway, upon whom that
duty devolved; and he would not be responsible unless
it was shown that he had done some personal act or
given some directions which led to the accident. The
counsel for the prosecution said that it would be useless
for him to call witnesses if the judge ruled thus upon
the point of law. The Chief Baron then addressed the
jury at some length. He said—"I intend to state
distinctly the grounds on which it appears to me that
that which the learned counsel opened to you cannot be
made a crime. It is very true, as is stated, that one of
these defendants is the Chairman of the Board in
London, and the other of them, as is said, is the
Superintendent of the Traffic Department in London: but
when these gentlemen are remote, as we may call it,
from the scene of their usual seat of business, that is,
from London, I think it is a great deal too much to
make it a matter either of presumption—certainly it is
not legal presumption (I think it ought to be proved
from evidence)—of any negligence on their part that
this accident occurred; and I think if they, at Guildford,
twenty or thirty miles from London, ordered a special
train, they were just as little responsible as any entire
stranger. It appears to me to be hardly justice to
expect that the chairman, because he is chairman, and
the superintendent of the traffic, (if the other defendant
is so,) should be personally acquainted with the starting
of every train—with the times at which it stops at this
place, and where it stops, and with all the details ot the
railway from one end of it to the other. If these
gentlemen could be made responsible, on this sort of
evidence, for an accident which occurred between
Guildford and Ash, or wherever the place was, the
persons connected with a railway to Edinburgh, or persons
connected with an entire system of travelling from
London to Paris, or from London to much more remote
places—if the extension of railways should open
conveniences to more distant parts of the globe in one
journey—would be also responsible. How monstrous
it would be to make a man, because he is the chairman
of a board in London, responsible for any accident that
may happen at Edinburgh, or it were the means of
making a criminal inquiry necessary on such a matter,
and the party responsible for an accident happening
some hundred miles off on the other side of the Channel!
A man who orders a special train at a particular station
expects that he is there merely as a passenger; expects
those whose duty it is to take care that the traffic is
there safely carried on, and that due attention be paid
to the manner in which arrangements are made for the
starting and the safe travelling of the special train.
These are matters which are conducted by men of
business; and, as I understood from the counsel, there
is no mode of bringing home to either of these gentlemen
any personal knowledge upon the subject of any individual
carelessness. But the argument seems to be this—
because you as the chairman, because you were connected
with the concern in London, you ought to have known
everything about the station at Guildford, and to have
taken care that everything was safe. I must say that it
appears to me that the two persons in question who at
Guildford order this special train would have no more
to do with the arrangements than a mere stranger."
The jury returned a verdict of "Not guilty."

At the Kingston Assizes a case of Seduction was tried,
in which the plaintive was Mr. Atkinson, solicitor, of
Peterborough; the defendant, Mr. Barry Baldwin,
formerly member for Totnes. The allegations were, that
Mr. Baldwin had taken advantage of a friendly intimacy
with the family of Mr. Atkinson to seduce his wife.
The evidence for the prosecution showed Mr. Baldwin
was about sixty-five years of age, the lady under forty;
that they lived together in the same house at Ramsgate,
where Mrs. Atkinson was staying for the benefit of her
health, with the consent of Mr. Atkinson, who had not
the least suspicion of the intentions of Mr. Baldwin.
Something, however, excited his attention; and when
he was called away to Totnes on the election business
of Mr. Baldwin, he left orders that all letters addressed
to Mrs. Atkinson, in the handwriting of Mr. Baldwin,
should be forwarded to him. One letter was intercepted;
it led to inquiries; and the landlady and servants of the
boarding-house at Ramsgate supplied direct evidence of
improper intimacy. The defence was, that Mr. Atkinson
had exposed his wife to temptation, and in other ways
had behaved in a disgusting manner. The jury found a
verdict for the plaintiff; damages 40s.

The case of Constant Derra de Monroda versus
Dawson and others, known as the "Von Beck Affair,"
has been again tried at the Warwick Assizes. The trial
rose out of the arrest of the soi-disant Baroness Von
Beck and Constant Derra, at Birmingham, in 1851, on
the charge of obtaining money under false pretences.
The "Baroness" died in prison, and Derra was
discharged. He brought an action against Mr. Dawson
and three other gentlemen, and was defeated on
technical grounds. In the present case the technicalities
were surmounted, and the same evidence was tendered
as before. The legal question was, who made the
charge? Mr. Justice Maule thought it was clear that
Mr. Dawson and the other defendants did make the
charge. Then, was it made maliciously? That might
be inferred from the absence of a reasonable or probable
cause. For instance, if persons made a charge, not for
the purpose of having an offender tried, but to make
the charge public, or for the purpose of vindicating
their characters, that was an improper motive. Upon
the question of damages, the Judge said, the suffering
of the plaintiff would have to be mainly considered, and
the condition of the defendants. If "they were very
poor, very ignorant, or very stupid, that might be ground
for mitigating damages." The jury found for the
plaintiff; damages £800.

In the Insolvent Debtors' Court, on the 3rd inst,
judgment was given in the case of Richard Dunn, the
Irish barrister, so notorious for his pertinacious endeavours
to extort money from Miss Burdett Coutts. Mr.
Commissioner Law stated the proceedings that had
taken place from the commencement of the annoyance
by the insolvent of Miss Burdett Coutts in 1838 to the
present time. In 1811 the insolvent was in custody for
the costs of an action brought by him against Mr.
Alexander, a friend of Miss Coutts, for an alleged false
imprisonment arising out of his annnoyance of that
lady at Harrogate, and remained 31/2 years in custody
before he attempted to obtain his discharge. During
that time it was that the insolvent received the absurd
stanzas upon which he pretended to have authority to
draw upon Coutts's bank for any amount; which he did
by drawing a cheque for £100,000, first coolly giving
the partners notice that they might be prepared, as he
had no desire to take them by surprise or crush them.
Upon payment of the cheque being refused, he
proceeded under the Bankruptcy Act against the firm, and
made an affidavit of the debt being due, for which he
was indicted and found guilty of perjury before Lord
Denman in February 1847, who sentenced him to eighteen
months' imprisonment, and to find securities to