Learned gentlemen interested in the High
Court of Procrastination, members of the
Prolongation Board, and all branches of the
How-not-to-do-it Office, let us beg you to take warning
by the fate of Mr. Percival, and remember
that while some great inventors die calmly of
hope deterred, there may be rasher and more
violent natures who from time to time may
resort to more desperate measures, and wreak
on some of you the wrongs entailed by an
obstructive system. Justice delayed becomes
injustice. Every inventor who dies of official
neglect retards by his death the progress of
our national civilisation.

Bellingham suffered on the 18th of May.

When he entered the yard he walked firmly,
and looking up calmly, observed, "Ah, it rains
heavily!" He firmly and uniformly refused to
express any contrition for his crime, or for Mr.
Percival's fate; but he lamented the pain he
had given Mrs. Percival and her children; he
as steadily denied having any accomplice, when
questioned on these points by the sheriffs. In
answer to the clergyman, Bellingham said:

"I thank God for having enabled me to
meet my fate with so much fortitude and
resignation."

He remarked to the hangman:

"Do everything properly, that I may not
suffer more than is necessary."

To another he said:

"Draw the cord tighter, I don't wish to have
the power of offering resistance."

He ascended the scaffold with a cheerful
countenance and a calm air, looked about him
rapidly, but with no air of triumph or
display. He at first objected to the cap being
put over his face, but afterwards acquiesced.
As the clock struck eight, and while the prisoner
and the clergyman were still praying, the
supporters of the internal square of the
scaffold were struck away, and Bellingham
dropped.

The revenge had been achieved, the penalty
for the crime had been paid; and now, leaving
the assassin unpitied and unwept on the dismal
table of the hospital dissecting-room, let us
pass to the honoured grave of the honest
statesman. Perhaps the House of Commons,
acting for the nation, received with enthusiasm
the Prince's message recommending a
parliamentary provision for the widow and children
of the late Premier. On the 12th, Lord Castlereagh
moved a resolution, which was carried by
a large majority, that an annuity of two
thousand pounds should be granted to Mrs.
Percival, and a sum of fifty thousand pounds
should be vested in trustees for the benefit of
her twelve children. On the 14th, three
hundred members of parliament, dressed in
mourning, carried up the address in answer to the
Regent's message.

During the proceedings relative to the generous
grant, the influential members (Canning,
&c.), in their laudable deire to express their
sorrow for the murdered Premier, claimed for
him the highest honours due to political genius.
It was not then the time to show that Spencer
Percival, though a useful and amiable man, was
indisputably nothing more than a third-rate
statesman.

           KÄTCHEN'S CAPRICES.

     IN TEN CHAPTERS. CHAPTER III.

KÄTCHEN, on reaching home, ran into her
own room, and, having fastened the door,
relieved her mortified feelings by giving loose to
a copious flow of tears. They were childlike
tears; an April shower which fell easily, and
gave place to sunshine, without leaving any
stormy ground-swell behind them, as a fit of
weeping will do in more passionate natures.
She had made many high resolves that she
would not, by any persuasion, give her company
to the smokers in the kitchen. She would stay
up there by herself, and be miserable without
quite knowing why. But as the afternoon
wore on, she repented of her resolution, and at
last, about supper-time— that is to say, between
four and five o'clock— she put her head outside
the door to listen to what was going on. She
heard her fathers rich bass voice rolling out
short disjointed sentences between pauses that,
she knew, were delightfully occupied by
smoking; and then she heard a ringing laugh
that made her heart beat a little quicker, and,
after a farewell glance at the green mirror, she
stole down-stairs quietly, and went into the
kitchen with an assumption of perfect indifference
to the presence ot any one there. Besides
her father and Fritz, there was another man
seated at the table, smoking a long pipe, which
Kätchen at once perceived to be a real
meerschaum. The stranger was a singularly ugly
man, with flat blunt features and a short bull
neck; but he looked good humoured withal,
and intelligent. He was dressed in a frock-coat
and trousers, instead of the peasant costume worn
by the usual frequenters of the Golden Lamb.
There was no one else there, for the one stout
.serving-maid who, with Kätchen, performed all
the in-door work of the house, had leave on
Sunday evenings to visit her friends. So Josef
Kester and his two guests had the spacious
kitchen all to themselves. A little table was
drawn up close to one of the open windows,
whence a sweet scent from the woodbine came
in with the pure air, but was speedily choked
and stifled by the heavy clouds of tobacco-smoke
that almost hid the smokers from view.
Each man had before him a great glass tankard
of foaming amber beer. No one noticed
Kätchen at first, and she went and sat down
at another window furthest removed from that
where the men were, and, pushing back the
lattice, leant her elbows on the sill and looked
out at the lake. Presently she felt that some
one was standing very close to her, but she
would not turn round; and then Fritz's voice
said in her ear, "My Kätchen, won't you speak
to me?"

"Your Kätchen, indeed! Not quite. And
besides— "  Here Kätchen gave a pretty toss
of her head in the direction of the stranger.

"Oh, you needn't mind him," said simple