and among the company were Mr. Spooner, Mr.
Newdegate, Lord Lewisham, the Honourahle Mr.
Jervis, and Mr. George Frederick Young. Ahout
nine o'clock, Mr. Newdegate rose to propose the chairman's
health. He had no sooner done so than an
enormous paving-stone was thrown through the windows
into the middle of the hall, and immediately volleys of
large stones were thrown at the hall-windows, till every
window and every chandelier was smashed. The
company had made a hasty flight into the lobbies, where
they armed themselves with chair-legs, pokers, knives,
and all such weapons as were within reach, and to the
number of three hundred made a sally into the street.
A hand-to-hand fight took place; many persons were
seriously injured; and the protectionists and their friends
took refuge in the King's Arms Inn, every window of
which was broken to atoms. As the daring of the
populace increased, it was deemed expedient to swear in
special constables. This was, however, unsuccessful at
first: when the constables made a sally from the hotel,
the populace drove them back, and the most savage
beating took place on both sides. For two hours the
town was in possession of the mob; and amongst the
acts of daring committed was the taking of the farmers'
vehicles from the inn-yards and casting them over the
bridge into the river. Towards midnight the populace
cleared off, and the constables paraded the streets.
About a dozen persons were taken into custody. At
one o'clock on the following morning, the disturbance
had so far subsided that the order for the military was
countermanded. At noon on that day, however,
matters looked so threatening that a detachment of
dragoons was obtained from Birmigham; and in the
evening all was again quiet. Not more than twenty of
the Peel tenantry were present at the dinner.

A case of Murder Long Concealed has come to light
near Kilkenny. Mary Fleming, a widow, informed the
police that one night between the 25th December 1847,
and 1st January 1848, she chanced to pass the door of
John Walsh, at Castlegannon; she turned for the
purpose of going in, but drew back in terror upon beholding
the body of Walsh's brother-in-law, Thomas Ball, a cow-
jobber, lying dead and covered with blood on the floor,
and Walsh and his daughter making ready to remove it
by the back-door. She contrived to get away without
being observed; and upon reaching home, informed her
husband of what she had beheld. He strictly enjoined
her never to divulge the circumstance; and during his
life she kept the pledge. Ball had been suddenly
missed at the time referred to by the woman Fleming,
but it was supposed that he had gone to America: he
had a large sum of money in his possession. Walsh and
his daughter have been arrested. Search was made at
their house in Castlegannon, and a skeleton was found
buried in the earth a few yards from the back-door. A
coroner's inquest has returned this verdict:—"That the
said deceased was discovered dead in an old yard, late
in the occupation of John Walsh, on the lands of
Knockmoylan; that said deceased's skull was extensively
fractured on both temples, with a blunt or some such
weapon, feloniously and of malice aforethought, by him
the said John Walsh, late of Castlegannon, aided and
assisted therein by a person or persons unknown; and
that the said murder appears to have been perpetrated
on or about the close of the year 1847."

A most Melancholy Suicide has been committed by
Mary Rebecca Pratt, the young wife of a tradesman
at Hammersmith. Mrs. Pratt was but twenty-two,
and had been married only ten weeks; she was handsome
and accomplished. Her husband went out to
market very early on the morning of Friday the 6th.
At half past six that morning, Mrs. Pratt rang for her
maid, and was assisted to dress in a red silk dress,
instead of her usual morning one. She left her house
shortly afterwards. In the afternoon of that day, some
boys at Kingston saw her throw herself into the river
from the opposite bank: a boat put off, and she was
recovered from the middle of the stream; but the
immersion was fatal, for after three quarters of an hour's
exertion at restoration it was found that the poor woman
was dead. In her pocket were found a little silver
money, and a letter addressed to her husband: this
letter was read at the Coroner's inquest—

                                        "Kingston, Friday.
"James,—For the last time I address.you. May God forgive
you, as I do, for the wicked accusations you have brought
against me. When I took an oath to you last night, it was
quite true, and all I said afterwards a lie, prompted by the fear
of being murdered. May every wife do her duty as well as I
have done, even though she has a drunken husband. Good bye!
I never expect to meet you again.
                        "Your broken-hearted wife, MARY R. PRATT"

Mr. Nutt, a licensed victualler of Gracechurch-street,
attended at the inquest, and put in evidence a letter
addressed by Mrs. Pratt to himself as her former
guardian; it came to him by post and bore the Kingston
post-mark of Friday.

"My dear Mr. and Mrs. Nutt,—I have left my husband under
the most dreadful circumstances: he has accused me of being
seduced by my father when I was only seventeen years old, and
also allowing Mr. Nutt the same improper intercourse. Last
night he seized me by the hair, drew my head back, and held
his razor to my throat; he then jumped on me, and tried to
strangle me with his hands. I still persisted in my innocence
of such dreadful crimes; but feeling certain he would murder
me, I owned, although every word I spoke was a lie, that all was
quite true. I hope God will forgive me for being so wicked, and
saying what I knew was not right of my'dear father and Mr.
Nutt. I felt so helpless I did not know what to do; indeed, I
am almost out of my mind, and what I shall do with myself I do
not know. Accept my love and thanks for the very great
kindness I received from you. I got away from home whilst he
was at market. He left me in bed and I promised I would
remain there; but I could not. I am at Kingston. How long
I shall stay here I do not know. I write in such distress of
mind, I hope you will excuse all errors. With kindest love to
you both and the dear children, believe me to remain,
                "Yours most affectionately, MARY R. PRATT"

Mr. Nutt gave evidence that he had known Mrs. Pratt
from her childhood. A more worthy upright man than
her father never lived. For himself, he was attached
to the deceased as to his child, and had ever acted as a
parent to her since she lost her father. He gave her
away at her marriage; he had seen her with her husband
several times since, and had no notion but that they
were happy. The Coroner pointed out that the husband
was not the instrument of the wife's death; she had not
jumped out of window to avoid him, and her body bore
no marks of violence: she had left the house voluntarily.
The jury found that the suicide had been committed
under "temporary derangement."

In the Court of Queen's Bench, Lord Campbell has
pronounced the final decision of the full court on the
Claim of William Henry Barber to be re-admitted as
an attorney: the court held that, if not directly
cognizant of the fraud and forgery, he was wilfully blind;
and as his own misconduct had entailed the consequences
which followed, strict justice demanded that his
application be refused.

At the last Chester Assizes, Thomas Smith, J.
Feehan, James Haggarty, and Matthew Griffin, with
another prisoner, since discharged, were convicted of
a Riot at Birkenhead, and sentenced to twelve months'
imprisonment. A petition praying for a mitigation of
the sentence received 17,000 signatures in one day.
Upon consideration of the whole facts of the case, the
Queen has ordered the immediate discharge of the
prisoners.

In the case of Lewis Joel, convicted in January,
1850, of felony, for having uttered a forged acceptance
of Mr. John Marcus Clements, to a bill of exchange,
knowing the same to be forged, and sentenced by
Mr. Justice Talfourd to transportation, Sir George
Grey, the Home Secretary, has advised the Queen to
grant Mr. Joel her royal pardon, the result of two
verdicts in Ireland having established the fact, that
Mr. Clements acceptance was not forged.

At the recent election for the Isle of Wight, a Riot at
Ryde so terrified Mr. Cole, an agent for Captain
Hamond, the Protectionist candidate, that he fell dead.
It seems he was chased along several streets, pelted with
rotten eggs and turf, pulled by the hair, and knocked
down; he rushed into the house of Captain Christian,
to escape his persecutors, and dropped down. It was
stated at the inquest, that a post-mortem examination
showed marks of disease of the heart; the membranes
of the brain were congested with blood, and there was
an effusion of blood between the scalp and the skull;
but these things would not account for the death. The