The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-08-01 00:00:00

Lain anb &lute.

THE bAnkruptcy of the Hon. Richard Bethel' hos
released him from his outlawry.
'GREkT JEWELLERY ROBBERY, —During Wednesday
night the premises of Mr. Frederick Cohen, watchmaker
and jeweller, Maidstone, were barglariously entered,
and property valusd at i„2,000 carried off. The robbery
In supposed to have been effected by London thieves,
and a large reward is offered for their capture.

IN THE Court of Arches on Wednesday morning the
case of the Bishop of Norwich r. the Rev. Mr. Burney,
• clergyman of his diocese, who is accused of improper
conduct towards the wife and daughter of another
'clergyman of the same diocese, was mentioned. The
case on its hearing is likely to excite intense interest,
not only in the diocese of Norwich, but through the
Church generally.

,Tive 1104 D MURDER, Salisbury, July 27.-orderB
hive bben received by the governor of the County Gaol
at Fisherton, for the immediate removal of Constanoe
Kent to the female convict prison at Brixton, Surrey,
previous to her being sent out to Frmmantle, Western
Australia. Since her condemnation and confinement in
the gaol at Fisherton, she has been treated by the
prison authorities as a criminal about to suffer death.
The information that her life would be spared produced
no visible emotion.

THE BALLINABLnIt WORKED:MR SCANDAL. —The
ease of Rimy Anne Duane, late schoolmistress of the
Ballinasloe Union Workhouse, charged with concealing
the birth of her child came on for trial at the Galway
i“sires. A bill had been sent up in which the late master
of the workhouse wan also charged, but the grand jury
threw it out as against him. The jury found a verdict of
guilty, socoinpanied with a very strong r.commendation
to mercy, and an expression of opinion that she was the
less guilty party. She was sentenced to six months' im-
prisonment.
Junin is CIVIL Cans. —The law reporter of the
Times on the Home Circuit tell the public a curious
fact. There is, he says, on this and all other circuits a
growing dislike among the public to the intervention of
juries in civil cases. Disputes of importance are scarcely
ever referred to them. In suits involving substantial
value the parties agree to refer the issues to the Court,
with "power to draw inferences from the facts," that
is, really to do • jury's work. This system seems to
involve a singularly satisfactory compromise, and ulti-
mately, no doubt, the practice will probably be to call
one in all applications for damages, such as actions for
breach of promise and against railways, and to leave
ordinary suits to the infinitely more impartial and pain.-
taking judge.

THE trial of Benge and Gallimore for manslaughter
on amount of the deaths arising from the tragedy at
Staplehurst took place at Maidstone on Wednesday.
Benge, it will be remembered, was the I,remazi of the
gang that took up the rails over which the tidal train
from Folkestone had to pass, and Ga'timer° was the
general inspector of that part of the line. The jury
acquitted Gallimore, but brought in a verdi,.t of guilty
against Benge. Sentence was deferred. On Thursday
Benge was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment.
The learned judge said he very much agreed with the
jury that being in command over a body of men em-
ployed in taking up the iron rails, on a line over which
express trains are constantly travelling, ought cot to be
entrusted to a mere ordinary laboorer who works with
his pickaxe and shovel at the same employment, and
hoped the railway company will take that into their
serious consideration.

SLANDERING A CLNEGYNAN.—A. few weeks ago a
clergyman named Howes brought an action against •
farmer for slander, the libel consisting in persistent
assertions that the rev, gentleman had been guilty of
impropriety with a young lady. At the last moment,
however, the jury having come to the decision which
was privately communicated to the plaintiff's counsel,
the action was withdrawn. This, of course, was tanta-
mount to • verdict for the defendant; and pnblio feeling
being very strongly expressed against the clergyman
amongst his own parishioners, be has written to the
Bishop of Oxford resigning his curacy. The Bishop,
though perfectly convinced of Mr. Howes's innocence,
applauded this .step as being likely to promote the
religious interests of the parish, and adds —"I: believe
that in snow sphere your real panty of life would be at
once appreciated, and that these foul suspicions, when
not exasperated by • new conflict, would in time die
wholly out. The Bishop of London, to whom I have
communicated the wh le case, is willing at once to re-
ceive you into his diocese, and my advice is that you at
once establish yourself there. My own conviction of
the correctness of thig course is not • little strengthened
by my finding that one of your closest friends agrees
with me concerning it."
ALLEGED rOISONING BY A SCIRGEON.—At Ashburton,
on Tuesday, Ch,.rles Gordon .Sprague, surgeon
was accused of having put atropine—a " cerebral
spinal poison"—into a rabbit-pie, with the
intention of murdering his wife, James Chalker, his
. father-in-law, and Sarah Chalker, his meither-in-law.
The evidence goes to show that these persons and a
servant in the house were made violently ill by a pie, that
they ell vomited, that atropine was found by Professor

Herapath in the pie, that Mr. Sprague had purchased on
the 2nd of June tee grains of atropine, and that he
would, by surviving his wife, father-in-law, and ,
mother-in-law, obtain a life interest is, certain
property. liet French, who had lived five
yea's as servant in the house, also depoaed that Mr.
Sprague bad said to her, " I wouldn't care if they were
all poisoned. If I were to poison them, I shouldn't be
took up nor hung, for I have been in an asylum." On
the other hand, Hrs. Chalker declares that this witness
told lies, and evidently does not believe or join in the
charge. The defendant is a young min, only 24 years
of age, and of a fair reputstion„,.who twee the examina-
tion without any -4j:tear/zee of apprehension, and him-
self cross-examined the medical witnesses to prove that
the meat was putrid. A contempiirary points out that
we have had a remarkable succession of medical poisoners;
Tawell, Palmer, Smethurst, and Pritchard were all in
the medical profession, and Sprague moat now be added
to the list.
THE MTSTFRIOUS DEATH OF A FRENOHWOMAN.—A
mystery which has occupied the attention of a coroner's
: jury in London for the lut three weeks in at length
elucidated. It seems that a young Frenchwoman,
named Marie Bullot, died about that time in a lodging.
house in St. John's Wood, and the medical evidence
proved that she had been pregnant, and had suc,umbed
to an attempt to procure abortion. The coroner and
jury used every means to discover the name and address
of a certain elderly gentleman who had visiied the de-
ceased prior to her death, and who had evinced a most
lively interest in her welfare. None of the witness's
who had seen him, however, knew his name; and the
inquiry had to be adjourned from time to time. On
Wednesday a woman was produoed, who stated that the

gentlemeo'had given her ;card, on' which was inscribed
"Francis Mowatt, Atheneum Club." Portlier conceal-
ment being useless, this gentleman immediately came
forward 84 • witness, and his account of the affair Watt
sufficiently romantic. He said that he and a mutual
friend had met the deceased in Paris • few years ago,
when she had bad a quarrel with her employer in re-
ference to some money. lie and his friend gave her 500
franca to get he 'out of the difficulty, and paid her
paas.ge out to Rio Janeiro. Subsequently be took
haigings for her in Portland-square. and a, her earnest
request some interval having claimed he took
lodgings for her a second time in St. John's Wood. He
had, however, told her he could do nothifig more for
her, as his friend was then dead. She teld'him that she
had been living with a French gentleman, by whore she
had been pregnant, but that a miscarriage had °enured
during her voaage to England. After hearing this
evidence, the jury returned a verdict that the deceased
had died froe the effects of abortion, but by whom pro-
duced they did not know.