disapprobation at the negligence in attending to the
clock, upon the accuracy of which the lives of so many
people necessarily depended.

Sarah Barber, convicted at the Nottingham Assizes of
Poisoning her Husband, at Eastwood, on the 20th of
March last, has been respited during her Majesty's
pleasure. Circumstances tending to show that she was
an accessory only after the fact have led to this favourable
change in her behalf.

At Gloucester Assizes, on the l5th, Richard Kear,
James James, George Charles, Thomas Stephens, and
Thomas James, young colliers, all of them under the
age of twenty-four, were tried for Rape. Mary M'Carthy,
a poor Irishwoman, who was travelling across the
country in search of her brother, a railway labourer,
came late at night on the 29th July to a spot in the
forest of Dean, where the prisoners were assembled
round a fire lighted near the mouth of a coal-pit. She
was almost dead with hunger, thirst, and cold. The
prisoners pretended to take compassion on her, carried
her into a house, and there all joined in committing the
crime charged against each of them. They were all
found guilty. Baron Martin declared the case to be
about the most abominable that had ever been proved
in a court of justice against men. The first two prisoners
were sentenced to be transported for life; the other
three were sentenced to transportation for fifteen years.

At the Chester Assizes, a boy of ten years old was
tried on the charge of Placing pieces of Iron on the
Rails of the London and North-western Railway. He
pleaded guilty. He had artfully covered the iron with
hay, to deceive the policeman. It was stated that many
attempts of this kind have recently been made, requiring
the greatest vigilance to prevent disaster: sixteen extra
policemen have been placed on the line for this
purpose.

A collier, named William Loft, has committed Suicide
at a place near Oldham, by throwing himself headlong
down a coal-pit, 200 feet deep. It appeared, at the
inquest on his body, that he had a wife and family, and
lived on bad terms with the former, owing to
inequality of temper, and committed the act in a fit of
temporary insanity. The jury returned a verdict to that
effect.

At the Chester Assizes, on the l5th, a case occurred
remarkable for its unexpected result. Jonathan
Barcroft, a worker in a calico factory, was tried for the
Murder of his daughter, a child of eleven months old,
by means of poison; and for the murder of Ellen Mills,
another child nearly three years old, by the same means.
Briefly the facts were these. The daughter was a
sickly infant, one of several healthier children, and the
mother's time had been much taken up with nursing it.
It was proved that, six days before the child's death, the
prisoner had obtained some arsenic from a fellow-workman;
and that the death was occasioned by a violent
attack of sickness and vomiting, which came on after the
prisoner had given the child some porridge. A poor
woman named Mills went up with her children to the
house as soon as she heard of the child's illness, to give
what help she could to the distressed mother; and some
of the same porridge was given, accidentally, and not by
the prisoner, to Ellen Mills, "a very lively pretty looking
little girl." The prisoner was not then in the house.
His child died during the day, and Ellen Mills died that
night. Barcroft then applied to his burial society for
the allowance for the child's burial, which was refused
till he should have produced the certificate of death.
This he accordingly took means to obtain, but not from
the registrar of his own district (Cheshire), but from
that of the adjoining county (Derbyshire), to whom,
representing that his child had died of chin-cough, he
made also false affirmation as to the place of her death.
In the mean time an inquest was held on the child's
body. A country practitioner examined the stomach,
and gave it as his opinion that it contained no arsenic.
The inquest was adjourned and the body placed in the
grave. Two days after this the body of the child Ellen
Mills was found to contain arsenic beyond all doubt.
Barcroft was consequently arrested, and the inquest was
resumed; when, the body of his child being disinterred
and subjected to the tests applied in the case of Ellen
Mills, the same poison was detected in both bodies:
facts distinctly proved by the evidence of two intelligent
witnesses, both respectable members of the medical
profession. On this inquest Barcroft was committed for
trial; and, as he seemed in a state of dejection, a bailiff
of the county court was put to watch him in his cell.
This person, William Leigh, deposed that the prisoner
had not only confessed having obtained arsenic from the
man who was subsequently proved to have given it to
him, but that he had also tried to engage Leigh with a
bribe of two sovereigns, in an attempt to fix the guilt of
the murder on the father of the child Ellen Mills, by
inducing him to procure arsenic from the same man who
had given it to himself, for the purpose of putting it into
Mills's pocket. This witness gave his evidence clearly,
and was corroborated in essential points. But the
defence turned entirely on the non-credibility of his
evidence, and on the admission of one of the medical men
that the metal "antimony" might have produced not
dissimilar appearances to those resulting from the poison
"arsenic;" from which it was argued, that though
arsenic taken in the prisoner's house might have killed
Ellen Mills, it was not impossible but that antimony
might have killed the child of the prisoner. Mr. Justice
Talfourd summed up at great length, and unfavourably
for the prisoner. The Jury, after an absence of above
two hours, returned a verdict of "Not Guilty," to the
evident surprise of the learned Judge and of all present.
The effect of the announcement on the prisoner himself
was shown by his suddenly falling back in a fainting fit.

William Day, the young man who was convicted
under the Bishop of Oxford's act for the protection of
females, and sentenced to be imprisoned for a year (see
Household Narrative for May last, page 111), has been
Liberated after an incarceration of nearly two months:
inquiries have given every ground for supposing that
the girl Harriet Newman, who told so romantic a story,
had invented the whole tissue. She is now threatened
with a prosecution for perjury.

Andrew Maclean, a tailor, has been charged before
the Westminster magistrate with attempting to Hang
his Wife. A neighbour was called in by one of
Maclean's children; the woman was suspended to a
cupboard-door; she was black in the face. The wife
tried to shield her husband—he was too good a husband;
she would not speak against him. The Magistrate
compelled her to give evidence; and she told a most
preposterous story to make out that Maclean only hung
her for "a joke"! It was all her fault, by abusing the
man and driving him to drink. The magistrate was
more influenced by the probabilities of the case than by
the tale prompted by the poor woman's misplaced
affection, and committed Maclean for trial.

John Mickleburgh, a farmer in Suffolk, has been
committed for trial, for the Murder of a girl named Mary
Baker, his servant. He is a married man with three
children, but appears to have become violently attached
to the girl. On the 31st of July, a fair was held in the
village of Thrandstone, near which Mickleburgh lived,
and Mary Baker obtained leave to go to it, accompanied
by her sister, a married woman named French. They
were joined by a young man, named Boatman, who was
considered to be the girl's sweetheart, Mickleburgh
having learned where she had gone, also visited the
fair. He found her, followed her about, and seemed
highly incensed at her talking with Boatman. Wishing,
however, to conceal his feeling from Boatman, he invited
him with the girl into a booth, where he treated him to
brandy and water and wine, apparently with a view of
rendering him intoxicated, and so obtaining possession
of the girl. Boatman, however, resisted his entreaties,
and between six and seven o'clock left the booth in
company with Mary Baker. Before quitting, Mickleburgh
asked the girl what time her mistress expected
her home. She replied, "About half-past nine o'clock;"
and, after they had gone, Mrs. French followed them,
leaving her husband drinking with Mickleburgh. Some
time elapsing, and French not coming home, his wife
returned to the booth, where she waited until they came
out. Mickleburgh addressed her saying, "Tell Mary
to get home by nine o'clock. I will be in the meadow
just before nine, as I want to see her." He appeared
much excited, and she understood that if the girl did
not meet him he would be revenged. He parted with