+ ~ -
 
Please report pronunciation problems here. Select and sample other voices. Options Pause Play
 
Report an Error
Go!
 
Go!
 
TOC
 

This sum the captain declined to pay, but offered the
half, which was refused. Kelly commenced proceedings
at law against his landlord for the recovery of his
claim; which, as he alleged, so enraged tlie latter that
he distrained Kelly's crops for the rent due the 1st of
November, and the produce of the distress was sold on
the 18th ult., Captain Magan being himself the
purchaser. The corn was removed to the premises of
Kelly's under-tenant, Green, who, it appears, is in
Captain Magan's interest. So far, all went on smoothly.
But Kelly, having paid the rent of the whole farm,
including Green's portion, imagined that his turn had
now come to play the tenant-right landlord. Accordingly
he distrained the corn which had formerly been
his own properly, and which he now found on Green's
land. As if in anticipation of some such proceeding
Captain Magan came in person from Cloneral, his
residence in the King's County, attended by a large
number of his own retainers, with horses and carts, to
remove the property, whereupon Kelly raised his faction
in the neighliourhood to defend his "rights." Upwards
of 500 men assembled on both sides. At first the fight
was carried on by each party's thrashing each other with
the sheaves of the disputed corn, till they fought knee-
deep in grain. Sticks and stones succeeded; and, after
a prolonged battle, Captain Magan withdrew his forces,
leaving a man named Moylan, who belonged to Kelly's
faction, dead on the field, one of his own men being badly
wounded in the head by a blow of a stone. Moylan's
instant death was caused by the shaft of a cart, which
struck him on the breast. He has left a wife and five
children. Subsequently Captain Magan effected a
seizure.

In the suit brought by the York and North Midland
Railway Company against Mr. George Hudson for
£54,000, the Master of the Rolls gave judgment on the
3rd inst. in favour of the Company; Mr. Hudson being
required to pay £20,000 into court by the 11th of next
month, and the remainder by the 15th of April. Among
the sums involved in tliis amount was one of £6300,
which Mr. Hudson had stated in his answer to have
been distributed by him in the shape of shares to certain
persons of influence connected with the landed interest
and Parliament for their support to the line; and
another of £3120, which had been paid by him to the
Corporation of York fnr legal expenses incurred by them
in favour of tlie undertaking. With regard to the
circumstances attending the first of these cases, Mr. Hudson
rested his inability to furnish an explanation of them on
the ground that the shares in question had been distributed
under a pledge of secrecy, and that he
consequently could not in honour divulge publicly the names
of the persons who had accepted them, although he would
have been willing to do so to the Master of the Rolls in
private. The Court, however, could take no cognizance
of that offer, and held Mr. Hudson accountable, at the
same time condemning the transaction as alike wrong
on the part of the giver and the receivers. With
respect to the sum paid to the Corporation of York, the
Court had no doubt that Mr. Hudson had bonâ fide paid
the money; but, as he had no authority to do so, they
decided that he must refund it, although the requirement
seemed rather oppressive. As to the conduct of
the corporation in lending itself to the objects out of
which the payment arose, the Court thought it
unnecessary to express an opininn.

At Liverpool Assizes, Thomas Moore was tried for the
Murder of two little Boys, the children of a woman with
whom he lived. The evidence showed that one morning
he took the children out; the three were seen going
towards a particular part of a canal: in the afternoon
Moore entered a house to dry his clothes; he said he had
got wet by slipping into a river while helping a woman to
get a can of water. When he returned home at night
he inquired for the children, saying he had sent a message
by them respecting his dinner, which he wished to be
sent to him, and that he had given the eldest one an
umbrella. Search was made for the children. At last
the bodies were found in the canal near whirh Moore
had been seen; the water was drained off, and the
umbrella was found sticking in the mud. A number of
circumstances cast suspicion on Moore. The children
were entered in burial-clubs for £19 4s.; but the mother
had done this, and the grandfather received the money.
There was no direct evidence that Moore murdered the
children. His counsel enlarged upon this, and urged
that there was no motive for so heinous a crime: the
children, on their way home with the message and the
umbrella, had doubtless been playing on the canal-bank
and had fallen in. Baron Aiderson thought there was
an absence of motive and a lack of evidence. The jury
pronounced a verdict of "Not guilty."

At the same assizes the grand jury made the following
presentment on the subject of Burial Clubs:—"The
grand jury are unwilling to separate without recording
their unanimous opinion that the interference of tlie
legislature is imperatively called for to put a stop to the
present system of money payments by burial societies.
From the cases brought before them at the present
assizes, as well as from past experience, the grand jury
have no doubt that the system operates as a direct
incentive to murder, and that many of their fellow-beings
are year after year hurried into eternity by those most
closely united to them by the ties of nature and of blood,
if not of affection, for the sake of the few pounds to
which, by the rules of the societies as at present constituted,
the survivors are entitled. The continuance of
such a state of things is too fearful to contemplate, and
as a simple remedy suggests itself, without impairing the
usefulness of sick and benefit societies, the scope and
subject of which are admitted to be both humane and
beneficial, the grand jury would respectfully but earnestly
request that the attention of the proper authorities may
at once be directed to this painful object. The misdirection
of these funds, the alarming increase in crimes of
violence, accompanied by the barbarous use of the knife
the lamentable prevalence of strikes among the working
classes, arising from the ill-understood relations of work
people and their employers, and leading inevitably to
breaches of the peace and other calamitous results, have
forcibly impressed upon the minds of the grand jury the
great importance of extending the means of imparting
education to all classes of the community, for it is their
unanimous opinion that no solid foundation for any
abiding and salutary change in the habits and pursuits
of the poorer classes in this country can be hoped for,
unless such change is based upon the education and
training of the young; that the charge for the education
of this class ought not to be allowed to rest, to so large
an extent as it now does, upon the benevolent exertions
of the wise and good; that there is a duty, and a
pecuniary responsibility, as regards education, and that
this responsibility is one which the legislature ought
no longer to shun. W. BROWN, Foreman."—Baron
Aiderson, said:—" I think you have done a very great
service by bringing this presentment before the court.
I will take care that it shall be forwarded to the Home
Secretary."

An investigation has taken place before Mr. Wakley, the
coroner, respecting the Death of James Walsh, an Infant
two months old. The child's parents were inmates of
Marylebone workhouse in the early part of the year; and
left it at their own request. Walsh is a marble polisher,
but he is paralysed, and cannot follow his trade. His
wife appears almost imbecile. She was confined on the
26th September. The couple were then in great distress;
they received out-door relief, but quite inadequate for
their support. Afterwards they became houseless. They
applied to be admitted into the workhouse, but were
refused, though the out-door relief was continued. One
night they were on the workhouse steps for hours, but
the porter did not admit them, or inform the master that
they were there. On another occasion, they walked the
streets nearly all night. At five o'clock in the evening
of the 22d November, the infant died in the mother's
arms, in the street, near St. Giles's church. She had
covered it up as warmly as she could with ragged
garments, and hugged it close to her body to shield it
further from the weatherindeed, she seems to have
been fatally over-careful of the child. Mr. Joseph, a
surgeon, had seen the child some days before; it was
then plump and healthy: from a post-mortem examination,
he thought that death had been caused by congestion
of the lungs from breathing impure air; he presumed
the poor mother had caused this suffocation in endeavouring
to keep the child warm while wandering in the