watch. Alderman Humphery—I suppose you were there
to see the man hung? Were there many persons there?
Witness: Yes, sir, a great many.  Alderman Humphery:
Did you miss your watch before the execution or
afterwards?  Witness: The condemned man was just coming
on the scaffold, and before he was hung I saw the
prisoner moving from my side. I followed him; but
perceiving me behind him, he ran up St. Clement's Inn-
yards, in Old Bailey, and threw himself on some matting.
The watch produced by the officer is mine. It is
engraved with my own name.  Prisoner: I did not throw
myself down, I fell down.  Alderman Humphery:
There is one thing very clear. The awful sight of a man
being hung has no fear for you. William Gardiner saw
the prisoner, on reaching the top of Clement's Inn yard,
throw himself on some sacks and drop something down
the iron grating. The witness went below and found
the watch produced.  Prisoner: I never took the watch.
Alderman Humphery: You came out to witness the
execution of a fellow creature, but it does not appear to
have done you any good, for your intention in being
there was to pick pockets evidently. It is quite clear
that you committed a highway robbery, and that too
under the gallows, an offence that was punished at one
time with death. It is too serious a case for me to deal
with summarily, and I shall therefore commit you for
trial.

At the Thames Police Court on the 23rd, Richard
Thomas Clement Gray, a well-dressed middle-aged
man, lately trading as an ale and porter merchant in
the Minories, was committed for Bigamy. He had
married on the 5th of August, 1840, a very respectably-
connected woman, at the parish-church of Alton,
Hants. He had had two children by this marriage,
one of whom was dead, and he had been separated from
his wife six years. During that period he had become
acquainted with a Mrs. Adams, the widow of a tradesman
residing at 53, Great Prescott-street, Whitechapel;
and on the 20th of August he married Mary Bagnall
Adams, her daughter, at the registrar's office, Stepney.
Mrs. Adams swore that when the prisoner proposed to
her daughter, four months ago, she was not aware that
his wife was alive. His son had been under her (Mrs.
Adam's) care for four months. Miss Adams, who
appeared to be deeply affected at the sight of the first
wife, admitted that the prisoner had told her that his
first wife was alive, but he said he was separated from
her. Witness therefore thought her own marriage was
valid. On cross-examination she also admitted that
twelve months ago she visited the prisoner in the
Queen's Bench prison, and cohabited with him there
before he had proposed marriage to her. The witness's
evidence was given in a very confused manner, and she
manifested an evident desire to screen the prisoner.
The prisoner, when arrested by Sergeant Foay, said he
was an injured man, for both Mrs. and Miss Adams
knew that his wife was alive before he was married the
second time. The magistrate consented to accept
substantial bail, but the prisoner not being prepared with
sureties to the amount specified was committed to
Newgate.

A case which may serve as a Caution to Captains of
Emigrant Ships occurred at the Liverpool Police Court
on the 21st inst. Captain Schomberg, R.N., government
emigration agent at Liverpool, appeared to prefer a series
of charges against Captain R. D. Robertson, of the
Guiding Star, for infringements of several sections of
the Passengers Act. That vessel sailed from the Mersey
on the 27th October, for New York, with a large
number of passengers, and on the 29th, when off Cape
Clear, she was disabled in a gale. They then put into
Belfast with sickness on board, and finally put back to
Liverpool. The offences alleged by the passengers were,
that proper arrangements were not made for the proper
cooking of the provisions on board, the removing of the
bulk-head, which separated the single male from the
female and married passengers, and also the removal of
the hospital and water-closets. Several of the passengers
having proved these charges, it was urged in defence
that the first charge was not one of wilful neglect, but
was owing to the confusion on board after the ship was
disabled, that the removal of the bulk-head and
water-closets was done at the suggestion of the surgeon, the
former for the purpose of giving free ventilation, which
was prevented by the German emigrants continually
hanging wet linen upon it; and the latter owing to the
filthy state in which they were kept, and that at a time
when cholera was raging on board. The surgeon stated
that had they not put into Belfast, there would not have
been twenty living on their arrival at New York. The
charge of removing the hospital was withdrawn, and a
fine inflicted of £5. for each of the others.

The American papers relate an act of Cruelty to a
Slave as horrible as anything in Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Mr. Henry Birdsong, a planter in Sussex County,
Virginia, so cruelly whipped and beat one of his
negroes that he died in a few hours. Mr. B. had given
orders to his negroes that they were to report themselves
to him at his dwelling every night at an early hour.
One night they failed to do so, and upon one of his boys
coming into the house to get his (Birdsong's) shoes to
clean, he was called to account for his disobedience.
Mr. B. being unusually rigorous and severe with his
servants generally, the boy expected a whipping, and
ran out of the house to escape. Mr. B. followed him
closely, and calling a ferocious dog (of the bull species)
started the animal in pursuit of the fugitive also. The
dog soon overtook and bit him very seriously, before he
was taken off. Mr. B. then tied the boy, and whipped
and beat him so, that he died in a few hours. These
facts coming to the knowledge of the coroner, a jury
was summoned, and an inquest held, which resulted
in the finding of a verdict that deceased came to his
death by sundry blows, inflicted by his master, Henry
Birdsong. A warrant was issued for the arrest of
Birdsong, which was executed on Thursday. The
accused was immediately conveyed to the county gaol
and secured.

At the Worship Street Police Court on the 12th,
Jane and Lncretia Ireton, described as "two ladies of
property," and owners of twenty-four dwelling-houses
in Dunk-street, Mile-end New Town, were summoned
for having suffered them to be in such a filthy and
unwholesome condition as to be seriously Detrimental to
the Health of the Inhabitants. It was stated that the
prosecution was founded upon a formal report from the
Whitechapel Union's medical officer. No steps whatever
had been taken to render the houses more habitable,
although the abominable condition of the premises had
been specially referred in the Registrar-General's report,
and denounced in the strongest terms at various inquests
which had been held before the coroner of the district.
Nearly all the cases of cholera with which the district
had been afflicted, had occurred in that street. The
magistrate said that he would not allow of a moment's
delay in a case in which the health and lives of the
community were so seriously affected, but should issue an
imperative order for the suppression of the nuisance
within forty-eight hours, which would empower the
parish authorities, unless it were properly attended to,
to adopt the necessary measures for carrying it into
effect at the expense of the defendants.

NARRATIVE OF ACCIDENT AND
DISASTER.

A SHOCKING Accident occurred on the Manchester,
Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway on the night of the
28th ult., to a man named Oldham. The locomotive
depot is about a mile west of the Sheffield station, a
tunnel, 120 yards long, intervening. The men
employed at the depot are allowed to traverse this tunnel
in proceeding to and from their work, though there are
no lights in it, except one at the east end. About eight
o'clock in the evening, Oldham went to his supper and
passed safely through this tunnel. About twenty
minutes to nine he was seen by the pointsman to
re-enter on his return, and a few minutes after two trains,
one from Manchester, and the express to Manchester,
passed through the tunnel. They experienced no
obstruction, nor were any indications of the fatality
observable. At nine o'clock the driver of a locomotive
was passing cautiously through the up line and observed
by the light of the engine fire the body of a man lying
partially across the down line. It was a frightful