see if the landlord was in. Whilst I was there, the
prisoner came in and asked me to come to him. I did
not speak to him. He smiled and took up a gun, and
said he would shoot me. I thought he was joking, and
said 'Oh, don't.' I then turned my back, and had
hardly done so when the gun went off, and I felt a ball
penetrate my shoulder. I believe I was afterwards
taken to the infirmary. The prisoner appeared rather
tipsy."—When taken into custody the following morning,
at his lodgings, the prisoner denied all knowledge of
the affair. A surgeon pronounced the girl to be now
out of danger, but had been unable to extract the ball,
which was lodged in the dorsal muscles, near the spine.
The prisoner was committed to take his trial at the
assizes; the magistrates ordering him to find bail
himself in £100, and two resident securities in £50 each.
The prisoner's father offered bail, but was rejected.

In the Sheriffs' Court, on the 22nd inst., damages
were assessed in an action of Crim. Con. at the instance
of Major Rushbrooke against Captain Broke. The
damages were laid at £5,000. The plaintiff is a gentleman
of family, son of the late Col. Rushbrooke, of
Rushbrooke-hall, Sussex. On succeeding to his father's
estates, Major Rushbrooke took up his residence at
Rushbrooke-hall, and among his guests was the
defendant, his intimate friend. In last year, soon after the
captain's visit, Mrs. Rushbrooke went to visit her father
at the Goodwood races, leaving her husband in the
expectation that this visit would not extend to more than
ten days. During this time the plaintiff regularly
wrote to her. She left her father's house for the
purpose, it was presumed, of returning to her husband's
mansion, but return she did not. For some time it was
impossible to trace her; at length, however, it was
ascertained that she had gone abroad, and that at
Marseilles she and Capt. Broke were living together as man
and wife. The action was at once brought, and certain
parties went over to Marseilles and provided themselves
with evidence of the condition in which Captain Broke
and Mrs. Rushbrooke were living. The defendant did
not deny his guilt, but admitted having committed the
wrongs complained of by allowing judgment to go by
default. It was contended, in mitigation of damages,
that the plaintiff was a person of low and irregular
habits. His servants, brought forward as witnesses in
behalf, admitted, on cross-examination, that he
occasionally drank to excess, smoked pipes in the servants'
hall, encouraged dog-fanciers and prize-fighters in the
house, and occasionally had "tiffs" with his wife. But
they said he was humane, liberal, very kind to the poor,
and that his habits were generally those of a gentleman.
The lady's father, Mr. Evans, was examined for the
defence. He said that Mrs. Rushbrooke was very
much attached to her husband when they were married.
They used to visit at his house occasionally, and she
used occasionally to complain of Major Rushbrooke's
conduct. His habits were such that he (witness) could
not approve of. He was in the habit of drinking very
much, certainly more than a temperate man ought. He
drank of a morning, and frequented very low company.
This was the worst he had to say of him. He was
familiar and cordial in his manners; amiable and kind
to his tenants and to poor people, but his habits, in
witness's estimation, were not those of a gentleman, and
not becoming the husband of his daughter. The jury
assessed the damages at £3,000.

A daring Robbery was committed on the morning of
the 23rd inst., on the premises of Mr. Cutmore, silver-
smith, St Ann's-lane, St. Martin's-le-Grand, when
property to the amount of several hundred pounds was
carried off. The premises of Mr. Cutmore are adjoining
the burial-ground of St. Ann's Church, which
encompasses it on two sides. In the back wall of the house
opening to the churchyard is a small recess, four feet
square, in which Goddard, the gravedigger, keeps his
shovels, spades, and mattocks; the thieves contrived to
conceal themselves in this recess, and, having closed the
door, with great perseverance succeeded in cutting a
hole through a nine-inch wall that separates it from the
parlor behind the shop; the aperture was made about
fifteen inches by sixteen inches, of sufficient size to
admit a stout-built man with facility. After entering
they packed up every article of value, including about
120 gold and silver watches, about 1,000 ounces of plate,
and a large quantity of valuable jewellery, with which
they decamped by the same aperture as they entered.
Mr. Cutmore, who does not sleep on the premises, on
arriving in the morning to superintend the opening of
his shop, found the fastenings safe, but on entering
discovered he had nothing but bare walls to look at.
Information was given to the police, and a large reward
is offered for the apprehension of the thieves.

At Bow-street, on the 23rd inst., Robert Hale and
William Hale, father and son, appeared before the
magistrate, to answer a summons charging them with
having, in a house in their occupation, a Quantity of
Gunpowder, Greater than was Allowed by the Law.
Several witnesses were called, who spoke to the general
facts connected with the seizure, but who failed to prove
that the article called gunpowder was gunpowder at all.
The counsel for the defendants complained that the
premises of Mr. Hale, which were well known to the
government as a place for the manufacture of war-rockets,
he having supplied them with quantities of these articles,
being entered in such a surreptitious way by the police,
especially as he carried on his business not only without
any secresy, but in the most open manner. He stated
that the composition in question was purchased from
Messrs. Curtis and Hervey, who marked the barrels in
which it was contained "composition," in contradistinction
from gunpowder, and that he should be able to prove
that its manufacture differed in some important respects
from gunpowder. He then called Mr. Charles William
Curtis, of the firm of Curtis and Hervey, manufacturers
of gunpowder, who said Mr. Hale was a customer of
theirs. The material with which they supplied him
was a composition—they did not call it gunpowder, nor
did he think it was termed so by the trade. It only
went through the process of making gunpowder to some
extent. It had not gone through the granulating mill
—a process through which gunpowder always went.
They were in the habit of supplying the same
composition to firework-makers. It would not go off like
gunpowder; he did not think it would fire a gun, but he
had never tried that. Dr. Ure, the chemist, gave it as
his opinion that the composition was not gunpowder.
The magistrate deferred giving his decision.

NARRATIVE OF ACCIDENT AND
DISASTER.

The iron steamer Duke of Sutherland was Wrecked at,
the entrance of Aberdeen harbour, on the afternoon of
the 1st inst. She had just arrived from London; with
four cabin-passengers, twenty-one in the steerage, a
crew of twenty-seven, and a valuable cargo. There
was a heavy sea on the bar, and the fresh of the river
Dee was running into the harbour very strongly. The
granite pier, which extends about half a mile into the
sea, terminating in a shoeing which rounds off in a
ledge of boulder rocks, affords shelter from the north,
but with the wind as it was at that time tends to
increase the motion in the channel, and thus to run the
port was a most dangerous undertaking. The harbour-
master hoisted his flag at half-tide, which was the
signal that the steamer might come in, and as a sailing-
vessel of a low draught of water entered safely there
was no fear for the Duke's crossing the bar. But just
as the steamer crossed, the "fresh" took her on the
larboard bow, and threw her head northwards, so that
for a time she was steaming right on to the end of the
pier. Captain Howling, the master, seeing the danger
to which he was exposed, ordered the engines to be
backed, and this was done; but scarcely had the vessel
got stern way when a heavy sea struck her on the
quarter, and hove her right on to the rocks by the
breakwater of the pier. In ten minutes the water was
three feet deep in the engine room, and all hopes of
saving the ship was abandoned. The waves now made
a clean breach over her, and she lay broadside on, with
her bow to the south. One of the boats, containing
seven persons under the care of the mate, got safe to
land. The other boat was stove by a heavy sea, und
rendered useless. A lifeboat put off from the shore;
but she was damaged while alongside the wreck, and