James Callaghan, a well-dressed young man. was
charged on the 21st at the Southwark Police Court
with Blacking the eyes and otherwise ill-using Julia
Love, a young woman residing in Bermondsey. The
complainant, whose face was much disfigured, stated
that she became acquainted with the prisoner about
Christmas last, by his living near the railway, and an
intimacy sprang up between them shortly afterwards,
which resulted in her being introduced to his family as
his future wife. She was in the habit of walking out
with him every Sunday, and nothing had previously
happened to destroy their happiness until the previous
evening, when she was near her own house. He then
suddenly sprang upon her in a lonely part of the Maze,
and would have murdered her had not a police-constable
come to her assistance, and rescued her from his raving
violence. She was stunned by the repeated blows on
her face, and in the struggle to elude his grasp her
clothes were much torn. The Magistrate asked her
what reason she could assign for his sudden violence of
conduct? Had he ever assaulted her? She replied
that she could not account for his violence, as they
never had an angry word before. She supposed he was
jealous of her. The Magistrate:—What reason had he
to be jealous of you? The girl said that the only reason
she could assign for his jealous conduct was her being
in company with a cousin on Sunday last. On
Thursday morning she received the following letter
from him:—

"Faithless Julia,—You, like all your sex, is a base deceiver,
and breaker of a man's heart. I don't believe that the man you
went to the Exhibition with is your cousin no more than I am;
and I am fully confirmed in that from some conversation I had
with a police-constable yesterday. I am determined to do for
you, so that you shan't have an opportunity of deceiving
anybody else, so you had better look out. This from your
broken-hearted sweetheart, JAMES CALLAGHAN."

Witness was exceedingly surprised when she received
that letter, but, believing that he could not be in
earnest, she took very little notice of it, neither did she
think that he ever intended to carry his foolish threats
into execution. In answer to the charge, the prisoner
said that he was extremely sorry for what he had done.
He was certainly inclined to be jealous, and, hearing
from a police-constable that the complainant had been
out all day with a man, he lost all command of his
reason. The young woman said that she was quite
willing to forgive him for the injury committed on her
person, but she could not exactly forgive him for the
injury inflicted on her mind. She would therefore,
with the magistrate's consent, withdraw the charge;
but she could not think of continuing to keep company
with him until he got rid of his jealous temper. The
prisoner was bound over to keep the peace, and
discharged.

An extraordinary case of Murder has taken place in
Belgium, the Count and Countess de Bocarmé have been
tried at Mons, on the charge of having poisoned the
Countess's brother Gustave Fougnies, in order to obtain
his fortune. The Count, whose affairs were much
embarrassed, invited his brother-in-law to dinner. Gustave
dined in company with the Count and Countess, and
died immediately after dinner, while they were both
present. It was proved, by the appearance of the body
and other circumstances, that a corrosive fluid had been
forcibly poured down his throat. On the trial the
Count endeavoured to represent the circumstance as
accidental, while his wife charged him with the deliberate
murder of her brother, admitting her own previous
knowledge of her husband's intention, but denying any
participation in the deed. After a protracted trial,
which terminated on the 21st inst., the Count was
convicted, and condemned to death; while the Countess
was acquitted.

NARRATIVE OF ACCIDENT AND
DISASTER.

THE inquest on the two persons killed on the Midland
Counties Railway, at Clay Cross, on the 20th ult. (see
Household Narrative for May), has found unanimously
that the deaths were caused by the reckless speed at
which Stretton, the engine-driver, was driving the
engine of the luggage train which ran into the passenger
train before it, and has returned a verdict of
manslaughter against him. The jury add the following
censure: "The jury cannot sufficiently condemn the
practice of allowing a luggage-train to start five minutes
after a passenger-train without sufficient measures being
taken to insure the former keeping its relative distance
from the other, as marked in the time tables. The jury
consider the officials guilty of great negligence in not
placing a break behind the last carriage of the
passenger-train on the night the accident occurred. It is also
their opinion that a proper person ought to be on duty
at the semaphore of the Clay Cross station, to attend to
the night signals as well as those of the day, and
strongly reprobate the neglect of the precaution. The
jury consider the practice highly improper of allowing
the passenger-trains to stop at stations not named in the
time-tables."

A fatal Railway Accident took place on the 6th, on
the Brighton and Lewes line. A short train, which
left Brighton for Lewes at twelve o'clock, ran off the
line at about two miles from Lewes, dragging two
carriages with it through the side of a bridge wall, and fell
down an embankment. Mrs. Chatfield, an aged lady,
her daughter, a young gentleman named Langhorne,
and the stoker, were killed on the spot; Jackson, the
engine-driver, died two days afterwards. An inquest
commenced on the day after the accident on tbe bodies
of the persons then dead. From Mr. W. Balchin, the
station-master at Brighton, the jury learned that in this
train the tender had preceded the engine, and thus the
train had been deprived of the protection given by the
powerful iron guard with which the engine is armed,
and which might have thrown off the sleeper which was
found after the accident. Mr. Balchin stated that the
time allowed between the arrival and starting of trains
at the Brighton station is not always enough to allow
the engines and tenders to be reversed and placed engine
foremost before the trains. In the course of the inquiry
it came to be suspected that the sleeper might have been
placed across the line by a boy of ten years old, the son
of a labourer named Boakes, whose cottage is at the foot
of the embankment. The boy was examined; but being
questioned as to his knowledge of the nature of an
oath, he could not answer, but only cried. The coroner
therefore would not take his oath. At the following
sitting, he was again questioned on the same subject,
and, his answers seeming more satisfactory, his evidence
was taken, with the caution that he should not criminate
himself. He denied having gone upon the line;
and there being no other evidence on this point, the
jury returned the following verdict: "We find that the
deaths of the deceased were caused by the train running
off the rails, and passing over the Newmarket archway;
that a broken sleeper was found on the spot after the
accident, but by what means it came there does not
appear to the jury; that in this instance the tender
preceded the engine, and that the train passed down the
Falmer incline at a greater rate than directed by the
company; and the jury are of opinion that such
practices are dangerous, and that had the engine been placed
first, or the tender been provided with iron guards, the
probability of safety would have been much increased;
that the jury express their regret that so much
connected with this accident should have been moved before
their inspection, by which they were prevented from so
complete an examination as otherwise might have been
afforded." At an inquest subsequently held on the body
of Jackson, the driver, the jury delivered the following
verdict:—"The jurors find that Samuel Jackson died
from injuries occasioned by the train passing off the line
near the archway leading to Newmarket hill on the
Lewes and Brighton railway, caused by a wooden
sleeper having been wilfully, feloniously, and
maliciously placed across the outer rail on the northern side
of the down line, by some person or persons unknown.
The jury cannot separate without calling on the directors
to discontinue the practice as far as possible of running
the tender before the engine, as there is a possibility
that had the engine been first, the guards might have
removed the obstruction, and in so doing have prevented
the accident. The jurors also hope that the company