The Brecon Reporter and South Wales General Advertiser

A MONSTER IN A HUMAN FORM! The New York correspondent of the Standard gives the following particulars of a frightful tragedy recently enacted in the state of New Jersey On the night of Feb. 25 the wife of a physician named Coriell was brutally murdered. Suspicion fell upon the one servant of the family, Bridget Durgan, whose conduct, both at the time of the discovery of the murder and afterwards, was of the most extraordinary character; it was Bridget, in fact, who alarmed the people residing in the vicinity of the Coriell house. She appeared at various doors at one o'clock in the morning, attired only in her under garments and bear- ing in her arms the child of the Coriells. She told a strange story of an assault committed by two men, whom she named, and begged that assistance be immediately extended to Mrs. Coriell. The house of the Coriells was at once visited. Doors and windows were discovered to be open. Smoke was issuing from one of the rooms; in this room the body of Mrs. Coriell was found. The unfortu- nate woman was quite dead. She had received 37 stabs from a knife. The neck was torn open as if by the teeth of a wild beast; the jugular vein had been bitten through. The shoulders were torn and mangled. The breasts were dread- fully lacerated. The legs and arms were covered with wounds on the back, following the spine, were 21 incisions, evidently made with the point of a knife. The body was covered with contusions- The assassin had fired a bed-the intention evidently being to burn the house. The walls and floor of the room were one smear of blood. In this coagu- lated gore a great number of feathers were sticking. The woman Durgan was arrested. She said that certain parties had done the deed. These persons were apprehended, but their inno- cence was easily shown. Durgan next pointed out two of the coroner's jury as the guilty parties. Her statement was not heeded; she was fully committed for trial as the real assassin. The evidence is wholly circumstantial, but it shows very clearly that to try Durgan has been to pay her a very great compliment. She is one of those wretches of whom the crowd say, Hanging is too good for them It is established that Durgan first attacked her mistress with a chair as a weapon. In this assault Mrs. Coriell was beaten almost to a jelly. When the chair had been reduced to splinters the assassin flew at her victim with teeth and nails. Masses of hair, with portions of the scalp attached, were pulled from Mrs. Coriell's head. The dress of the unfortu- nate woman was torn to ribbons the exposed portions of the person were terribly scratched and bitten. An hour elapsed, all d Durgan renewed the assault—this time with teeth and hands. The poor victim's neck was bitten open. Then Durgan hastened to the kitchen, seized a knife, and returned to finish her work. The dying Mrs. Coriell made one effort for self-defence. She snatched from the bed a feather pillow, with which she sought to ward off the stabs. But Durgan slashed and thrust, forced her victim to the floor, and there stabbed and cut until long after life had ebbed away. It has been shown that she tore with her teeth a large mass of flesh from the shoulder of the corpse. The crime was apparently objectless; the only ex- planation given is that Durgan had been warned to leave the house, and that she supposed that if she killed her mistress she would be retained in service to take care of the child. Durgan has been convicted the jury were absent from the court-room only fifteen minutes the convict will soon be sentenced to death. The case has excited unusual interest, not only in New Jersey but throughout the neighbouring-states.

THE COMMISSARIAT OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. The Select Committee appointed to control the arrangements of the kitchens and refreshment rooms, m the department of the Serjea-nt-at-Arms attending the House, have agreed to the following report That they are of opinion that the present dining-rooms are inadequate for the requirements of the members, and they desire to impress upon the House the necessity of Increasing the accommodation as soon as possible. That during the present Session, up to the end of May, 6,412 dinners have been served to members; on several evenings upwards of 200 members have dined; and many evenings upwards of 200 members have dined; and many others who had intended to dine have been compelled, from want of room, tO go elsewhere. That your Committees have frequently reported that the accommodation is in- sufficient, and have had plans suggested to them for en- larging the dining-rooms and offices, which have also been reported to the House. That Mr. Barry has now suggested a new plan for improving the accommodation-viz., by con- verting the present conference and adjoining committee rooms into a large dining-room for both Houses of Parlia- ment, in lieu of their present separate dining-rooms which could be used for tea-rooms, or for other purposes; and they are of opinion that this plan is preferable to any yet pro- duced before your committees, and, from inquiries they have made, they have reason to believe that such an ar- rangement would give general satisfaction. That the com- mittee have requested Mr. Barry to place a plan of the pro- posed improvements in the library for the inspection of members. _————.———

AN INVOLUNTARY PROSELYTE. A correspondent of the Manzoumei Efkiar writes from the Dardanelles The Christian population of this town has been a good deal excited by an incident which I think deserves to be made public. Some time ago an Armenian re- sident here, named Hadji Toumas, engaged a certain Mehemet Effendi to give lessons in Turkish to one of his sons, who is about fifteen years of age. The teacher seems to have taken a great fancy to his pupil, and en- deavoured to persuade him to become a Mussulman by promising him his (Mehemet Effendi's) daughter in marriage. But the boy resisted these proposals, and de- clared himself determined to remain a Christian. One day, however, Mehemet Effendi plied the youngster with a quantity of raid, and when he had become tipsy and fallen asleep, caused him to be circumcised by one of his servants, named Dervish Ali. The young Armenian, awakened by the pain, cried bitterly, although Mehemet sought to soothehimby an assurance that the operation was a formality which in no way involved his renunciation of Christianity, and after- wards he carried him off to Lampsacus. The affair got wind at once, and the family immediately appealed to the local authorities, who sent a batch of zaptiehs to compel Mehemet Effendi to restore the boy. The matter was then brought before the Medjliss, and as the boy repeated before them his resolve to re- main a Christian, his alleged conversion to Islamism was declared null and void. A memorial has been addressed to the Armenian Patriarch on the subject, and it is generally hoped here that Mehemet Effendi and his servant may not escape punishment.

A SAD OCCURRENCE. The Berlin correspondent of the Standard, writing on June 12th, narrates the following sad event The day before yesterday was unfortunately signalised by a sad and bloody drama a lieutenant of artillery, twenty years of age, intentionally shot his landlord dead. Lieutenant Yon Scheve, a pupil of the Artillery and Pioneers' School at Berlin, occupied a furnished apartment in the dwelling of a shoemaker of the name of Scoffert, in the Charlotten-strasse. As with his former landlord in the Kransen-strasse, he soon got into quarrels and disputes with Seiffert, in consequence of his receiving daily visits from a young girl, thus exciting scandal in the house. In the afternoon of the day before yesterday the girl was with him again. Scoffert, who had just come home, was exhorted by his wife to put a stop to these visits; he accordingly rushed into the lieutenant's room, where, besides the officer and the girl, he found the lieu- tenant's brother, a pupil of the military school, a lad 14 years old. Seiffert requested the lieutenant to dismiss the girl; a violent altercation followed the officer asked the shoemaker to leave the room, threatening to shoot him unless he took his departure but, not believing the menaces to be seriously meant. he refused to withdraw. And then the officer took down a pistol suspended at the wall and fired a shot at Seiffert, who a few moments afterwards was a corpse. The report of the pistol was heard in the other parts of the house, as well as in the street, and soon a large crowd of people filled the street. The police were informed of the crime, and on their arrival they found the lieutenant locked in his room, refusing to open the door, and declaring that he would surrender only to military authority. Meanwhile the multitude in the street were not to be dispersed, for they were eager to see the culprit arrested. His apprehension was finally effected at eight o'clock in the evening, when he was conveyed in a close coach to the military prison in the Linden-strasse. The murdered man had fought during the whole campaign against Austria.

THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN. The Mimorial Diplomatique has the following:—"In political circles the removal of the Emperor Maximilian to the city of Mexico is considered as a fresh proof that the Republicans will respect his life. It is supposed that the unfortunate sovereign will be conducted from the capital to Vera Cruz, whence he may be embarked for the United States or for Europe. The Juarist Government has asked for a ransom, but we are not aware that any negotiations respecting the sum have been opened. That question is besides quite a secondary one, in presence of the interest which Austria and France must feel that the Emperor Maxi- milian's life should be spared."—The same journal says The Liberte believes that the projected journey of the Emperor Francis Joseph to Paris has become very problematical, in consequence of the events which have recently occurred in Mexico. There is no doubt that his Apostolic Majesty takes the warmest interest in his august brother, and that he will make every effort to rescue him from the rancour of the Juarist party; but at the present moment it is almost certain that Maximilian will return in safety to Europe, owing to the pressing intervention of the Court of the Tuile- ries. At the Austrian Embassy in Paris, which must have the best information about the journey in ques- tion, the preparations for the receptions of the Emperor have not been suspended for a single moment."

THE SHEFFIELD TRADES' UNION COMMISSION. Consequent upon the Sheffield Trades Union Commission, which has been instrumental in placing before the public the remarkable results of the Union," The Times has the fol- lowing:- The Sheffield Commission brings to light a state of things all the more formidable, because indignantly denied by the commonalty of the town, because actually thrust upon the ordeal of a public inquiry, and because, even now, to be seen only through a mass of contradic- tion. It is evident that we have been doing great in- justice to Ireland and to its land system in speaking of that as the only place where there prevailed a class code at sanguinary variance with the laws of the State, and where a population could be accomplices in crime. Sheffield, at least, disputes the distinction. It has long had an ill name for outrages of a peculiarly villainous character, involving not only cruel maiming and disfigurement, but as often as not the possible destruction of innocent families. By the time unifor- mity and rapid succession had established a sort of prescription, we were coolly requested to believe that these crimes were the casual freaks of private malice, or more probably still the acts of the alleged victims themselves, done to obtain sympathy and to throw odium on supposed foes. When the British public failed to see the probability of these suggestions, it was civilly requested to remember that there are" roughs" everywhere, that no organisation can prevent their entrance, much less their co-opera- tion, and that there always are people who will take the law into their own hands, whatever Parliaments, or Trades' Unions, may say to the contrary. But, whatever the value of these arguments, the matter was past logic, for a frightful moral disorder had broken out at Sheffield, and it had to be stopped as a man would take the promptest measures to stop the Cattle Plague in his farm. So a Special Commission was appointed, and is doing its work with vigour and keenness. The witnesses, though from the very class which challenged inquiry, and expected from it a Government certificate to their character, show unac- countable embarrassment. They are blinded by sun- light. Concert as they will, they are found out at once, and compelled to make a clean breast of it. The result cannot, be pleasant to the Sheffield employers, and has its significance for all other employers in this country. There are skilled artisans, sawgrinders and others. Like all other purely manual crafts, these are apt to be beaten down by competition, by new modes, by in- creased skill, and by machinery. The men must have bad times, and bad times, too, that threaten never to become good again. They form societies for mutual aid; and upon these societies, simple axd necessary enough in t4- first instance, they or the clever men they choose for officers, engraft all kinds of rules for the purpose of keeping up prices, protracting jobs, ex- cluding intruders, ousting irregulars, and maintaining things as they are, with the turn always in favour of the men. All this we need not now discuss, and there are writers who call us downright "Philistines," for holding that the employers olight to have a voice in these matters. The Sheffield Sawgrinders have not been able to bring all their employers under orders some are refractory, and have rules of their own others have set up machinery for economised labour; and from the evidence before us it is clear that the Union has been in difficulties, that fair means have hitherto failed, and that if the Union was shy of foul means, it must give up the game. It is evident that the Union was losing its power and in- fluence, and unable to maintain its own protective code against the ordinary rules of trade, unless it would strain a point and do a strong thing or two. The particular outrages just now under inquiry are an attempt to blow up an engine, chimney and all, and the mixing gunpowder with a grinder's emery almost to the destruction of his face and head. These, our readers are aware, are by no means the worst acts of the kind in the now notorious Sheffield calen- dar. Who did these things? A witness, who had been detected in perjury, having falsely sworn that he had not seen the Secretary of the Union just before giving his evidence, makes ample revelations under threat of prosecution. It is proper to add that his own evidence thereupon shows him thoroughly unprincipled, reckless, and treacherous, and quite as ready to inform against the Union as to do any deed of violence it might put into his hands. He says that he and a con- federate received three pint cans full of powder from the Secretary of the Union to mix with the emery in the trough of an "outcast "-that is, a non-unionist; that he and his confederate cheated the worthy Secretary by selling two cans and a hall to a pigeon-shooter, but that with the remaining half-pint they disabled the out- cast from his work for three weeks. It was probably their dishonesty, not the Secretary's mercy, that saved the poor fellow's life. The witness had boosted of the deed, and the Secretary had taken alarm; the witness had been compelled, under terror of his life, to sign a retractation of his boast; but upon finding himself at liberty, he had written a letter withdrawing this retractation, and this letter the Secretary was most unwilling to produce. The man's evidence is full of incoherencies and downright follies; indeed it shows hardly the wit and sense necessary for invention but it shows also just the instrument that might be used and repudiated for such a crime. The next witness is described as most unwilling. He begins by alleging that a long statement he had made was a fabrication from beginning to end; he then tardily confesses to the practice of rattening" —that is, making away with the tools of non- unionists and then, finding himself getting into diffi- culties, shuts up altogether. He was, however, removed in custody, and will have to explain how it was he had stated that he received money from the Secretary of the Union for the purchase of 281b. of gunpowder, that he dropped it with a string and a fuze under the shaft of a hostile firm, and waited on a bridge to see the result, which was rather dis- appointing. He will also have to explain how it was that on this statement being read in court, and the reader coming to the words, '"It was a very cold bitter night, and I had to run up and down to keep my feet warm," he exclaimed, "Ah! it wur, and all! and could only give confused answers when challenged with the evident confession. The whole story is a mass of wilful contradiction, varying according to the motive, or the occasion, and accidental coincidences just such as we might expect to find on approaching such a den of iniquity as it is plain there must be in Sheffield, whether this be it or not. The Secretary, if he wishes to defend himself from the rather serious charge of supplying money and gun- powder to ruffians on the books of his Society for the purpose of blowing up workshops, dwelling-houses, and men at their work for the abstraction of tools, and for all sorts of mischief to persons and property, will have to meet a good deal of evidence which the world will think serious, though certainly not un- exceptionable. It is, however, the only class of evi- dence usually to be obtained against a conspiracy. If, for example, a hundred men combine to make a tumult in the streets, in the train of a Militia regiment or a Reform demonstration, the combination could only be proved by getting hold of some of the fellows themselves who were disappointed in their share of the booty. The conspirator is always paid in his own coin by the informer, the malcontent, or simply the fool; for it requires not only a certain amount of wicked- ness, but also some degree of talent to be a good conspira- tor. The evidence in this case is of that very common sort which requires to be sifted, and which cannot be taken simply on the word of the witness. It must be taken as a mass of random statement, casual ad- missions, and accidental corroboration, lying before us, we cannot quite say how. How comes it here ? The only account of the matter is a certain hypothesis, and no hypothesis is more probable than that the fellows are really telling the substantial truth, from whatever reasons, and that Sheffield possesses, among its other institutions, an office, with books, lists, and subscriptions, where any fellow can upon application get gunpowder, or money to buy it, to blow up his neighbour's house or his head off his shoulders, or, at least, bury his tools or make a trifle by their appro- priation and sale. If this is the general order of things at Sheffield; if other trades have their Unions which take similar liberties with law and with life, even Londoners may prefer the more open violence occa- sionally suffered in their streets.

THE LATE ATTEMPT ON THE LIFE OF THE CZAR. The following depositions of the assassin, Bere- gowski, have been officially promulgated at St. Petersburg:— My name is Anthony Beregowski. I was born at Ruteskki, Volhynia, and am twenty years old. I am a me- chanic. I left Russia in consequence of the last insurrec- tion, and went to Paris, where I have lived for two years. My family has been banished to the interior provinces of Russia since that insurrection. I confess to having fired at the Czar on his return from the review. Since my very in- fancy I have meditated this blow, and the deliverance of my country. My determination to shoot him in Paris dates from two weeks back. I did not communicate it to any one, but went alone to the review. I bought the pistol on the Boule- vard Sebastopol the day before the attempt, between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, and paid 9f. for it. I had saved a little money from my earnings, and also pawned an overcoat for 8f. On the day of the deed I rose at seven o'clock and recast my balls, as I thought those I had bought were too small. I had no intercourse with any one that morning. When the balls were ready I went out to break- fast, and then proceeded to the Champs Elyes. Not having shot at the Czar on his way to the parade, as I intended, I determined to carry out my resolve when he came back. So when the Imperial carriage drove past me I fired. I should have done it three days previously at the Opera if I had had a pistol with me. I observed the Emperor closely at that time to make sure of his identity.

The first telegram published at the Russian capital stated the assassin to be "apparently a Frenchman." The wildest suspicions were generated by this mistake. On the truth becoming known, public excitement sub- sided, but the disposition to charge the deed of one man upon the entire race to which he belongs was pretty general in the educated classes. The lower orders, being awe-struck, did not allow any marked demon- stration of sentiment to escape them. A solemn service was performed in St. Isaac's Cathedral and other churches, all well attended. The day after the arrival of the intelligence, the official Invalide gave unreserved utterance to the feel- ings aroused in the Government and people The whole population of this capital is engrossed by one thought, one feeling. The horror which filled all hearts on learning the sad news soon gave way to unbounded gratitude to Providence, who had so visibly guarded the precious life of the Czar. Whoever has seen the Russian people at such moments of loyal enthusiasm can estimate their love for our hereditary Monarch-a love which, arising out of the best traditions of our past, has been enhanced and deepened by so many recent benefits. Crowds congregated in the streets to listen to the melancholy reports. There was not a man among them but uncovered his head and devoutly crossed himself on hearing of the miraculous preservation of the Czar. Louder than noisy demonstrations could have done did these silent prayers testify to the warm and grateful emotions awakened in the subjects of the Czar Liberator. The criminal is a Pole from the province of Volhynia, and emigrated two years ago. In these few words enough is comprised to account for the enormity committed by him. His attempt is one of the fruits ripened in that colony of emigrants which has set itself the task of rendering Russia odious among the people of the earth, repeatedly infested Poland with its emissaries, and, alas, found but too many adherents there. Perhaps it will be urged that the Pole, Beregowski, has no accomplices among his compatriots. But so long as these Poles are lurking about everywhere in Europe, devoured by the one idea of destroying Russia, her people, and her Government, we shall make them one and all responsible for this nefarious action. We may admit that Berego wski did not play any prominent part among the exiles, but must assert, nevertheless, that the poisonous at- mosphere in which he lived, and which has already hatched so many conspiracies against Russia, had exercised its bane- ful influence also upon him. His Majesty the Emperor ar- rived in Paris almost simultaneously with the news of the amnesty he had so generously accorded to those implicated in the last insurrection. The Polish faction has, by the deed of Beregowski, answered the desire for reconciliation so often manifested in our midst. Only a fanaticism like the Polish could produce a fanatic like Beregowski. But all in- trigues of our enemies will only serve to swell the triumph of Russia. God, who so miraculously preserved the life of our Monarch, thereby affords us an indication that the Czar has chosen the right way, and that the protection of the Most High and the unfathomable attachment of his people will not fail him while he treads that path. The last sentence i3 aimed against the aristocratic party in the Government, who, disapproving the recent attempt to exterminate the Polish nobility as a class, have long recommended reconciliation with the subject race. Powerful as the aristocratic party now- a-days is on most other points, it is yet probable that its influence upon the affairs of Poland will be smaller than ever after this attentat. The Polish papers published in Austria and Prussia unite in condemning the act of the infatuated man. The Cracow Czas, the leading organ of Galicia, con- demns him unconditionally:— Having but too often had occasion to express an opinion upon designs aiming at the murder of crowned heads, we need not say now that we repudiate them, whatever the motive or whoever the perpetrator. From a religious and moral point of view it is a grievous crime to kill a King, while from a political aspect its atrocity is equally great. The assassination recently ventured on in Paris, a sinful act in itself, is, we regret to say, politically weighed, even a graver mistake than many similar enterprises of the kind. The perpetrator is a Pole, and the crime was committed on a hospitable soil. Blank despair alone, having no respect for God's laws, could thus forget the gratitude we owe to France. But Providence has graciously averted the blow. Let us thank God for this benevolent interference. No Pole as yet has soiled his hands with Royal blood. France will forgive the desperate deed. By permitting such crimes as these Providence does not resign its government of the world. It only punishes some, cautions others, and imparts wholesome instruction to all. It is with an aching heart that we indite these words. Does not Europe perceive the dreadful harvest which is being reaped from the seeds of in. justice —injustice inflicted upon an entire nation for nearly a century? Does not Europe notice the hate and distracted frenzy engendered in a nation whose millions of people are oppressed in their religion, robbed of their country, and dis- possessed of their worldly goods ? The same sentiment is more explicitly avowed by the Posen Dziennik :— We shall not engage in ar.\y moral reflections upon thfl assassination of Kings. The subject is one of those that have assassination of Kings. The subject is one of those that have been treated usque ad naitseayi, and our own opinion upon it cannot be doubtful. Nor shall we account for the present attempt in the barbarous oppression of Poland on the part of the Muscovy, that oppression not being the worK of a single person, but rather of a hundred-headed hydra. | Leaving these two questions on one side, we are yet obliged to say that, from the Polish political point of view, the attempt is one of the worst calamities our cause has sustained, even in these latter years of uninterrupted misfortune. The cause of Poland had just begun to command public attention again. Even at the Sclavonion meeting in Moscow voices were heard pleading in our behalf in a tone different from that recently prevailing in Russia. In another ex- tremity of Europe, on the Seine, Polish sympathies were re- viving. With the exception of the Court, restrained by the ordinary considerations of etiquette, and some contemptible speculators, all Paris received the tyrant of Poland with the cry Vive la Pologne Each hour of the Czar's sojourn witnessed the increase of these demonstrations, repeated in every locality, in every corner of Paris. Unceasingly that cry reminded the Czar that there can be no understanding, between him and France while the claims of justice and Poland remain unsatisfied, and while that savage barbarism which is an offence to humanity does not cease to weign down the nation of Poland Already had the significant exhibitions in the Musee at Cluny, in front of the Opera, anff elsewhere, roused the ire and awakened the fears of the Muscovite papers. It seemed as though the Czar, tabooed W, French society and expelled from it on account of Poland would depart and hide his diminished head at Zarsko-SeNV there to ruminate upon the advantage of making his peaCr with the civilized world by doing justice to Poland. now comes this fatal shot, the offspring of such flagrant Sill and evident madness that we are almost tempted to ascriW it to some secret Muscovite agency, and frees the Czar from his embarrassed situation. The article goes on to hope that France will not saddle this guilt of a single individual upon PolaW* As little," it winds up, "as the attempts of tilo Pianoris and Orsinis on the life of Napoleon himself have prevented France from liberating Italy, as little., we trust, wr 1 Beregowski's undertaking deprive Poland of French sympathies."

A NEGRO PREACHER DESCRIBED BY MRS. STOWE. (I Mrs. Beecher Stowe, in a letter dated St. John's River, Florida, gives the following amusing incident of negro preaching:- We have been labouring a great part of this sanle afternoon to impart to one of these preachers-wha rejoices in the poetic name of Romeo—the knowledge of the alphabet, at which he has worked with a jolly stolidity of patience and perseverance, showing occa- sionally his great white teeth in a broad laugh at h^ own failures, and going at it again with patient good nature. Now he is on his high key, as we hear him through the window regularly intoning, in a musical bass voice, an incoherent string of religious words and phrases, which seem to have been picked up at camp* meetings and other such places, and which very often go on from one thing to another without even a con* nected assertion. I listened one night to a perforlul ance of this kind for some time, as we stood outside the cabin where it was going on. He said, "In the judgment day, my friends, when Gabriel will blow his trumpet, Hili will say to hiø, Blow cool and easy, Gabriel, cool and easy!' and 0, my friends, what shall we do in dat day, when de dead shall be a-risin' and de graves a-openin'? 0 111;1 mother, 0 my sisters, 0 my fader, what shall we do 1D dat day ? The idea of Gabriel blowing cool and easyj ( however, was one so consonant with the negro idea oc conducting business, that he could not let it go, but after wandering off to any subject whatever, suddenly you found yourself brought round again, and Gabriel t was exhorted to- blow cool aud easy. One thing if quite evident to us at this present meeting, that though Gabriel may blow cool and easy, Romeo will not, for he has been waxing louder and louder, and getting on from strength to strength as we write, till' one really wonders how long he. and his auditors can stand such a vocal pull. There—it is over now, and, all have launched off into a full tide of singing-sing- ing with body, soul, and lungs-with a regular rhythmical beat and tramp-impossible to any other race. They sing with every fibre, every muscle, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot. They have no intention of blowing cool and easy here.

A SKILFUL THIEF! • The Melbourne correspondent of The Times gives the following particulars of a remarkable robbery recently com- mitted by a clerk in the Oriental Bank A person named John Dixon, lately a clerk in the Oriental Bank, has just been tried and convicted on a charge of stealing 1,416 bills of exchange (representing about 2300,000) from the bank, under circumstances which ought to receive the serious attention of all per- sons interested either in banking or in mercantile busi- ness in these colonies. The stolen bills had been kept in a tin box, fastened by a Chubb lock, and the box itself was kept in a strong room protected by an iron- barred door within another door, also carefully locked. Triplicate keys, according to the evidence at the trial, were kept by three several superior officers of the bank. I It would make a long story to show by what artifices the prisoner contrived to get access to the box, but he did get about four minutes' access to it, and it is supposed that he, during this short time, succeeded in getting an impression of the lock, and so providing himself afterwards with a false key. A thou- sand pounds reward was offered by the manager for any information which would lead to the re- covery of the bills, and, as he soon arrived at the conclusion that they must have been abstracted by i some one in the bank, he, acting under legal advice, "caused it to be understood among the clerks of the establishment that provided these bills were returned intact, and that there were no forgeries to conceal, and provided that a confession were made, he would not take any steps against the person who had committed this act." In consequence of this intimation the pri- soner avowed himself the taker of the bills, gave in- formation as to where they were hidden, and after many days of extreme anxiety to all the innocent officers of the bank the bills were thus recovered. A further rather important discovery was, however, very soon afterwards made—viz., that the prisoner had pre- viously to the abstraction of the bills robbed the bank on different occasions to the extent of 118151., having falsified the books to prevent detection. Apprehend- ing, however, "that at the end of the month" (this is prisoner's statement to the manager) "these falsifi- cations would be discovered, and that having to face them, he had determined on getting the* upper hand of the manager, and had formed this idea of taking the bills." The accountant in the course of his evidence deposed as follows To the best of my recollection the statement he (prisoner) made was that he had a key made to the box, and that he opened it, and abstracted the bills, in the absence of the manager. He also stated that he took the bills out of the box in the afternoon and hid them, and that he came back in the evening when I was at work, and took them away, carry- ing one parcel to a friend at Richmond, and the other to his own house. I heard the prisoner state also that he had made irregular entries, and that on one occasion he had stolen 6001- without any entry being made in the books at all, the total amount being something like 1,8002. He said he took the bills in order to protect himself, or some expression like that. It is thus seen how larceny or the bills, added to embezzlement of the bank's moneys, was resorted to in the hope of escaping the meshes of the law. Great efforts were made to exclude the prisoner's confessions, on the ground of the manager having said he would not prosecute; but the Chief Justice overruled the objection, on the obvious ground that public justice cannot be ousted by any such private arrangements. In point of fact, the manager kept his word and did not prosecute, but the Crown proceeded of its own motion. Strange to say, Sir William Stawell sen- M tenced this cool artist in crime to only 18 months' imprisonment, for about the most aggravated and selfish robbery of its kind ever brought before our Court.

A SCOTCHMAN'S VIEW OF ADAM.—There must have been some curious specimens of Scottish humour brought out at the examinations or catechising by ministers of the flock before the administration of the communion. Thus, with reference to human nature before the fall, a man was asked, What kind of man was Adam?" "Ou, just like ither folk." The minister insisted on having a more special description of the first man, and pressed for more explanation. Weel," said the catechumen, "he was just like Joe Simson, the horse couper." "How so?" asked the minister. "Weel, naebody got onything by him, and Imony lost! .1.).1, .¡--