"ishus" indeed appears to render as important
service to the Norwegian fisheries as it does to
the Scotch.

All this is only a sample of the treasures
contained in the Boulogne Exhibition, which is a
great success. Its object has been to enable
fishermen to compare foreign methods and
customs with their own, and to derive instruction
from the comparison. Printed accounts,
reports, journals, reach maritime people slowly,
and make but a slight impression when they do
attract their notice. Minds uninfluenced by
the clearest descriptions, will be convinced by
the sight of things themselves and their
practical results. In this light the Boulogne
collection supplies a complete course of public
teaching, addressing itself to every class — to
scientific experimenters— pisciculturists and
oyster-growers— as well as to unlettered sailors,
and fishermen bound by the trammels of
routine. Its importance is still further increased
by its concerning the interests of merchants,
shipowners, and capitalists in general, not to
mention the nursing of future navies and the
feeding of future generations.

             OLD STORIES RE-TOLD.

   THE ASSASSINATION OE MR. PERCIVAL.

THE session of the year in which Wellington
took Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo, and in
which Napoleon retreated from Moscow, was
an eventful one from its very commencement.

In the afternoon of May 19, 1812, the lobby
of the House of Commons was full of noisy politicians,
discussing the recent grant of one
hundred thousand pounds a year to the new Regent,
the probabilities of a war with America, the
extravagance of the new Park to which the
Prince had given his name, the outrages of the
Luddites,the prospects of Lord Castlereagh
succeeding the Marquis Wellesley as Secretary
for Foreign Affairs, and the more than likelihood
of Wellington again retiring to the
Portuguese frontier. Old politicians were lamenting
the deaths of Pitt and Fox (1805-6); grievance-mongers
were button-holding impatient M.P.s;
place-hunting constituents were seeking their
victims with the pertinacity of harriers that have
lost their hare; men with claims, real or imaginary,
on government (one among them
especially brooding, soured, and malignant), were
watching the opening doors. Through the
crowd, unnoticed but by habitues of the House,
passed Mr. Dundas, Viscount Palmerston, the
Earl of Liverpool, Lord Mulgrave, aud other
members of the cabinet; but the prepossessing,
courteous Premier had either not appeared or
was hidden by the crowd round the door. That
shrewd, hard-working, adroit man would soon
be there, if he had not already come, and his
followers and partisans were waiting, eager for
his coming, and ardent for the debate, in which
the Premier would calmly oppose the Catholic
claims, or resist any more extended prosecution
of the Peninsular war.

A slight murmur, at about a quarter past
five, at last announced the long-expected
minister. At that very moment the sharp ringing
report of a pistol at the entrance of the lobby
startled every one, both in the hall and in the
adjacent committee-rooms. There arose a cry of
"Murder— murder!"

"Shut the doors, prevent any one escaping."
Then a person, with his hand pressing his
left breast, rushed from the cluster of members
standing round the entrance, staggered towards
the door of the House, groaned faintly, and fell
forwards on his face. Mr. Smith, member for
Norwich, was the first to approach him. Thinking
it some one in a fit, he walked round the fallen
man, not at first recognising his person, or knowing
that he was wounded; but finding he did not
stir, he instantly stooped to assist him, and on
raising his head was horrified to discover that it
was the Premier. Requesting the assistance of
a bystander, the two men instantly raised Mr.
Percival, carried him between them into the
room of the Speaker's secretary, and set him on
a table resting in their arms. He was already
not only speechless, but senseless, and blood
was oozing fast from his mouth.

They felt his heart. In a few minutes the
pulsation grew fainter. In ten minutes he was
dead.

Mr. Lynn, a surgeon of Great George-street,
instantly came and examined the body. He
found a pistol-bullet had struck the Premier on
the left side, just over the fourth rib. It had
penetrated three inches, and passed obliquely
towards the heart, causing almost instant
death:

The moment Mr. Percival fell, several voices
had called out:

"That is the fellow."
"That is the man who fired the pistol."
The assassin was sitting, in a state of great
agitation, on a bench by the fireplace, with one
or two persons to the right of him. General
Gascoyne, M.P. for Liverpool, with a soldier's
promptitude, instantly sprang on him and
clutching him by the breast of his coat and his
neck, took the still smoking pistol from him,
and told him that it was impossible that he could
escape.

The murderer replied:
"I am the person who shot Mr. Percival,
and I surrender myself."

Mr. J. Hume, member for Weymouth,
also seized him, and took from his pocket a
second pistol, ready primed and loaded with
ball. Mr. Burgess, a solicitor of Mayfair, also
helped to arrest the man, and to take him into
the body of the house and give him into the
custody of the messengers. The murderer's
agitation had by this time entirely subsided. He
seemed quite sane, grew perfectly calm, and
commented on some slight inaccuracy in Mr.
Burgess's statement. .

General Gascoyne instantly recognised the
assassin as John Bellingham, a man who had
been a merchant in Liverpool. Three weeks
before he had called on the general and requested
his assistance in pressing his claims on parliament
for redress for an unjust imprisonment