the drunken and dissipated habits of his wife, who had
broken up her home several times, and was an habitual
drunkard. His earnings as a cooper had for some time
averaged £1 18s. per week, sufficient to support his wife
and children in respectability, but owing to the continual
drunken and disorderly habits of his wife he had been
completely ruined, his children were grossly neglected,
and he had no place fit to call a home. She had
repeatedly stripped her children, and sold or pawned their
wearing apparel in order to procure liquor. She had
repeatedly threatened to kill him, and had taken up
knives and other dangerous weapons, and had more than
once done him very serious injury. She had been drunk
almost daily for three years, a nuisance and a terror to
the people in the neighbourhood in which she lived, a
curse to her children and himself, and devoid of all feeling
or shame. On Saturday night she was mad drunk,
and after creating a great disturbance took up a knife and
attempted to stab him, and when that was taken from
her she took up a poker and threatened to dash his brains
out with that. She then set to and wildly destroyed
nearly every thing in the place, and then stripped
herself of all the clothing she had on. She was about to
run into the street in a state of nudity, when she was
brought back by a young man in his employ, and by a
police-constable, who advised that her hands and feet
should be tied, which was done, and she remained in
that state till the police-sergeant took her away. The
prisoner, who appeared overcome with grief, said he did
not know what to do; the misery he had endured was
indescribable; and if something was not done to restrain
his wife, she and his children would be involved in utter
ruin, and a violent and dreadful death at the hands of
his wife would be his doom. He then handed to the
magistrate a large quantity of pawnbrokers' duplicates
relating to every description of property which his wife
had pawned. This tale of woe was fully substantiated,
when the magistrate discharged Mr. Crawley, and
granted a warrant against the wife, who was
immediately taken into custody on the complaint of her
husband. The result was that she was ordered to find
bail and be of good behaviour, especially to her husband,
for three calendar months. The decision, which is
tantamount to a sentence of three months' imprisonment,
was received with a murmur of applause.

At the Central Criminal Court on the 26th inst.,
William Mason, a respectable-looking man, described as
a sailor, pleaded guilty to two indictments charging him
with Uttering Forged Bank of England Notes. It
appeared that the prisoner had been for a considerable time
engaged in transactions of this description, and that he
was the associate of very bad characters. In 1849, and
again in 1851, he was convicted of passing counterfeit
money, and upon the present occasion he was proved to
have got rid of two forged £10 notes and three £5 notes,
in the space of eight days. The prisoner, who appeared
to be a cripple and walked upon crutches, entreated the
court to deal mercifully with him. He declared that he
had always viewed crime with "high disgust," and he
had only been driven to the commission of these offences
by the grievance of poverty and affliction. Mr. Justice
Cresswell said it was impossible under the circumstances
to place any reliance upon the expression of the disgust
at crime made by the prisoner; and although in some
cases be might perhaps, taking into consideration the
condition of the prisoner, have felt himself justified in
availing himself of the provisions of a recent act of
parliament and pass sentence of penal servitude instead of
transportation, yet in the present instance, taking into
consideration the previous character of the prisoner, and
the very serious nature of the offence, and the misery
that in many instances resulted from it, he felt bound as
a warning to others to pass a sentence that would act as
an example to others. He then sentenced the prisoner
to be transported for twenty years.

On the same day, a young woman named Elizabeth
Hawkins, a widow, was indicted for Stealing seven
spoons, a silver mug, six gold studs, and other goods,
and six sovereigns, the property of Jason Willshire.
The prisoner pleaded guilty, and the facts deposed to,
in answer to the court, disclosed a very bad case. The
prosecutor is a farmer at Hayes, Middlesex, and prisoner
was his servant. On the evening of the 18th of October,
the prosecutor and his wife went out, leaving the
prisoner alone in the house, and upon his return got in
the back way, no one coming to let them in. Supposing
the prisoner had gone to bed he took no notice of the
matter, but upon getting up in the morning he found
that the prisoner had left the house, and that a large
quantity of property, besides that named in the indictment,
was missing. He instantly applied to the police,
who ascertained that in less than half an hour after her
master had gone out she had packed up the property,
and went to a fly driver in the neighbourhood and hired
a fly, into which she placed two boxes, and was driven
to the Drayton Station on the Great Western Railway,
where she took a ticket to Windsor, and from the
Windsor Station she was traced to the Star and Garter,
where the constable found the boxes which had been
taken from the prosecutor's, and upon searching them
found all the things excepting the ring, the spoons, and
the money. Shortly after this, the prisoner came in,
and being taken in charge, was asked where the money
was, and whether she had given it to Archibald Maclean.
She said "No, no," and begged prosecutor to forgive her
and not take the soldier in charge. When she got to
the station she said she had given the money to the soldier
Maclean, who is a private in the Scotch Fusilier Guards.
They then went to the barracks and saw Maclean, and
asked him if he had received any money that day
from a female, and he said "No;" but Sergeant-Major
Macdonaldson handed to them six sovereigns and some
silver, which they had found in Maclean's quarters.
When the prisoner was taken she had a basket on her
arm, in which was found the silver mug, and the rest of
the property was traced to a pawnbroker's in Windsor.
The Common Serjeant said the case was a very bad one,
and he sentenced her to four years' penal servitude.

The grand jury on the 26th returned a Bill not found
against Mr. Abraham for Manslaughter, arising out of
the late fatal accident in the Strand. This will not put
an end to the proceedings in this court, as defendant
will have to be arraigned and a verdict taken upon the
finding of the coroner's jury.

An account has been received of the Recovery of a
Large Sum by English Detectives in America.—About
four months ago, Joseph Price absconded from the
service of his employer, Mr. Jones, a silk merchant in
Raven-row, Spitalfields, taking with him a large sum in
gold and notes. The thief contrived to elude every
attempt that was made to effect his capture; but a
suspicion being entertained that he had gone to America
information was despatched to the chief of the New
York police. The case was placed in the hands of
a young officer named Field, who had been employed
some years before in the detective department at
Scotland-yard; and who, in company with another officer,
at last succeeded in tracing the fugitive to a place called
Geneva, in the state of Albany. By dint of considerable
address and some threats, he succeeded in extorting
from Price no less than £1800 in gold and notes, and a
bank-book on the Moorfields Bank for £150. On his
way back to New York his comrade demanded
possession of all the money, which Field refused to give up
without a proper receipt. A quarrel ensued, which
resulted in his giving Field into custody upon an
affidavit made at the police court, that he (Field) was
about leaving the country with the money. Field,
however, met with the greatest courtesy from Judge Stewart,
who at once admitted him to bail on his own
recognisances; and he has since deposited the whole of the
recovered money in the hands of Mr. Edwards, the
British Consul.

NARRATIVE OF ACCIDENT AND
DISASTER.

A FRIGHTFUL accident occurred at Gibraltar on the 17th
of September, by the Explosion of a Powder Magazine
used by the 30th Regiment, situated at the furthermost
or south end of the rock at Windmill-hill. The disaster
was not fully accounted for, but it was stated that a
tobacco-pipe was found near the spot, thus indicating
that the accident may have arisen, as is often the case.