debtors, nor shall I ever cease to regret the harsh treatment
which such debtors receive under the law of
bankruptcy; and, on the other hand, I think that those
creditors who, influenced by a desire to get an increased
dividend from contributions of debtors' friends, or by
enabling knaves to renew business at the expense of a
new body of creditors not cognisant of their past
knaveries, consent to hide away their misconduct under
the cloak of compositions, are traitors to their own class,
and deserve public reprobation. With these opinions,
I feel it a matter of duty publicly to thank Messrs.
Travers and Son and Messrs. Conway and Co., for
forcing this matter into a public court of justice; and,
however painful it may be to pronounce so severe a
judgment, I must refuse the certificate altogether, and,
as a necessary consequence, refuse protection.
Personally, however, I shall certainly regret it if the
application of a creditor should compel me to give the
necessary certificate to authorise arrest. The Code Napoleon,
I believe, forbids the arrest of a debtor after he is
seventy years of age; and, although perhaps I ought
not, while administering the law, to express any wish
that it were otherwise than it is, I hope I shall be
excused if I say that I wish that such was the law of
England also." Afterwards, on the application of the
bankrupt, protection was granted for three weeks, to
enable him to give notice of appeal should he be so
advised.

A Case of Affiliation was heard before the magistrates
of Dewsbury, on the 15th. The defendant was the Rev.
Stephen Matthews, the incumbent of Hanging Heaton,
near Dewsbury, the alleged father of an illegitimate
child bom in May last, by Mary Hellewell, a young girl
of sixteen, who was engaged as a paid teacher in the
school connected with the church at Hanging Heaton.
The rev. defendant is a man verging upon sixty years of
age, and has for many years held the incumbency of
Hanging Heaton. The case was first heard at the Dewsbury
Court House, on the 25th of August, when the
justices declined to make an order of maintenance upon
the defendant, on the ground that the evidence of the
mother of the child was not corroborated in the way
required by the act of Parliament. The decision gave
great dissatisfaction in the neighbourhood, where the
case has excited considerable attention; and the friends
of the girl are determined to have a re-hearing. The
court-house was crowded to suffocation during the whole
day, the hearing occupying till nearly ten o'clock at
night. The magistrates who heard the case, had both
been present at the former hearing. The evidence went
to show that the rev. defendant had seduced the girl,
and that a criminal intercourse had continued for two
years. The magistrates retired for half an hour; and,
on their return into court, still declined to make an order
upon Mr. Matthews. The solicitor who supported the
application, said that he should not again trouble the
magistrates with the case, but should, if he had the
opportunity, take it before another tribunal.

At the Clerkenwell Police Court on the 17th, two
young women, sisters, who gave their names Sarah and
Rebecca Sharp, applied for assistance under very melancholy
circumstances. They were servants from Thrapston,
Northamptonshire, and their masters granted them a
holiday, in order to come to London to see the Great
Exhibition. They left Thrapston, accompanied by their
sister, Anna Smith, a married woman, and her infant
child, seven months old. On their arrival in London
they took lodgings at a house in Besborough-street, St.
Pancras, and retired to rest, with a view to attend the
Exhibition on the following day. At 2 o'clock in the
morning, they were awoke out of their sleep by an alarm
of Fire, when they found the lower part of the house in
flames, and they were nearly suffocated with smoke. The
two girls made their escape, leaving behind them their
money and everything belonging to them. Anna Smith,
their sister, who with her infant slept in an apartment
in the upper part of the house, found it impossible to
make her escape through the flames and dense smoke,
and, making her appearance at the window, she was
urged to throw her infant out to the people below, and
it was saved. The unfortunate mother then precipitated
herself from the window, and although the spectators
endeavoured to save her, she fell with great force, and
injured herself so severely that she was conveyed to the
hospital in Gray's-inn road, where she lay in a very
precarious state. They had lost everything they had,
and were destitute, with the exception of what they
wore on their persons, which were the benevolent gifts
of the inhabitants of the locality in which the calamity
occurred, and their object in making the application, was
to solicit some aid to enable them to return home. It
was found, on inquiry, that the representations made
were correct, and some assistance was given them.

At the opening of the session of the Central Criminal
Court, on the 15th, the Recorder, in his address to the
grand jury, referred to the unusually small calendar.
The reduction he ascribed partly to the prosperous
condition of the people, and partly to an alteration of the
law. The Central Criminal Court Act of 1834 took
away from the Quarter-sessions of Middlesex and
Westminster the jurisdiction in certain cases of felony, which
it formerly possessed. The result was, that the Central
Criminal Court was overwhelmed with business, which
it vainly attempted to clear off by evening sittings; and
the country was put to great expense by the detention
of witnesses for many days at the court. By the recent
act of Parliament, the ancient jurisdiction of the
Middlesex Sessions was restored; and compound felonies
—as burglaries and stealing in dwelling-houses—could
now be tried there, to the relief of the Central Criminal
Court and the Grand Jurors.

Henry Dimsdale was called upon to surrender and
take his trial upon a charge of Misdemeanour. It
will be remembered that he is one of the persons who
stand charged with assaulting Mr. Jarman, the managing
clerk to Mr. Humphreys, the solicitor, by pelting him
with eggs upon his return from the Oaks race. The
case has been adjourned over two sessions. A further
postponement of the trial was now applied for, on the
ground that Mr. Dimsdale, who is in custody upon civil
process, was in such an ill state of health as to render it
dangerous for him to undergo the excitement of a trial.
The matter was ordered to stand over, to admit of an
affidavit being taken as to the state of the prisoner's
health. Subsequently, on the 18th, an arrangement was
made that the case should be postponed, so that Mr.
Dimsdale, and the other parties implicated, who had
agreed to be forthcoming, should all be tried together. It
was further intimated that it was the intention of the
defendant to apply for a writ of certiorari to have the cause
tried before one of the Judges of Westminster.

On the 16th the grand jury brought in true bills against
a Serjeant of Metropolitan Police, and some of the officers
of the South Eastern Ralway, upon the prosecution of
Lord Ranelagh, for Assaults and Perjury. The bail having
been fixed, the Recorder said there were cross indictments,
and the others had been removed to the Queen's
Bench, and he supposed it was very probable that these
indictments would also be removed.

On the 17th, Joseph Brown, a Hampstead letter-
carrier, was convicted of Stealing a Letter containing
Money. His counsel urged in mitigation that he received
only 13s. a week salary. Mr. Baron Martin said, that
had nothing to do with the case; Brown was not
obliged to accept the post if the pay was not enough:
the poor were generally the sufferers by these robberies.
Sentence transportation for ten years.

On the 18th, Charles Whicher, green-grocer, was tried
for Stealing, and John Saward, a draper in the Commercial
Road East, for Feloniously Receiving a case of
merinos and mousseline-de-laine, the property of the
South-western railway, to whom it had been intrusted
for conveyance from Southampton to London, for
Messrs. Candy. It appeared from the evidence,
especially from that of William Pamplin, the man who was
connected with the gold-dust robbery, that the theft
was effected in this way: William Winter was foreman
at Nine Elms goods-dépôt; he has absconded; he took
advantage of his position to cover the box with a new
cloth, having a direction for "Mr. Noon, Earl Street,
Finsbury"—Pamplin's lodgings. Winter was in
connexion with Whicher; Pamplin allowed the box to come
to his place. The three sold the property and divided
the proceeds. Mr. Saward was the purchaser. He
met the others at a public-house, and agreed to give
£56 for the goods; he paid the money by instalments;