The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1859-11-29 00:00:00

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ANSCITY•TAX PRORECUTIONS ix EDINBCBGEL—The
defences to the action on the part of tLe clergy of the
Established Church against Mr. Brydone have been
given in, and are now in the hands of the agents for
the ministers. A lady named Mils Mary Anne Simp-
son, against whom a decree in absence was obtained on
the 4th of September, has gime claimed the advantage
of the same grounds of defence as those taken op by Mr.
Rrydone. She had been served with • " charge "
which contains a threat of poinding and imprisonment.
Unable to pay the large into contained in the decree,
she paid an instalment, and cravaldelay for the balance.
In reply she received a letter from the agent granting
her request, provided she agreed to sign an enclosed
promissory note for upwards of £25. This she was
neither able nor willing to do, and, following the advice
of her friends, she put her case into the bands of Mr.
Robertson, the solicitor who had so ably brought for-
ward Mr. Brydone's defence. An application was made
to the sheriff to postpone the execution of the decree
till that gentleman's case was settled, and as a necessary
preliminary to this proceeding the expenses of the
action. amounting to CI 91. MI., were consigned to the
Sheriff-Clerk. On the 17th inst. Sheriff Arkley pro-
nounced the following interloeuter :—'The Sheriff-
Substitute, in respect that • similar action, 'Aitken v.
Bydone,' is at present depending in this Court, of con-
sent sista procedure hoc statu in this action until the
incur of said action." In accordance with this decision,
every decree and summons for non-payment, and, indeed,
the whole collection of the rate, may be postponed till
the settlement of Mr. Itrydone's case. During the early
part of this week the Crown authorities, who have been
recently examining the charge against Mr. Hunter and
his workmen for deforcing the officers while attempting
to arrest the former for arrears of the annuity-tax, bor-
rowed the pipers in the came of " Aitkin against !try-
done," in order, apparently, to see whether the claim
for which the warrant was issued was • legal one. The
collector of the annuity.rate far the Canongate has this
week taken legal steps against the inhabitants who are in
arrears. Twelve summonses usrs lulled yesterday; and
it is said that one of the councillors representing the
Eighth Ward is among the number.—Scuismoic of
Saturday week.

DEATH OF PROFESSOR C RORGE WILSON. The
public of Scotland, and particularly the city of Edin-
burgh, have sustained a sad and serious loft in the death
of Dr. George Wilson, the first Professor of Technology
in the University of Edinburgh and Regius Keeper of
the Industrial Alnaeum. Dr. Wilson was in the active
discharge of his duties up to Friday week, but a renewed
attack of inflammation of the lunge, from which he had
previously suffered, rapidly undermined his very deli-
cate constitution, to which he had throughout life given
too little respfte from zealous labour, and he expired on
Tuesday evening in calm consciousness of his end and in
firm reliance on a happy transition. He had scarcely
done more than reach the middle term of life, and it
might be said lie was only on the threshhold of Pze task
to which he had devoted his life. In 114.53 he was ap•
pointed to the joint offices above referred to, and it was
at that period that the long-delayed project of esta•
blishing an industrial museum for Scotland in Edinburgh
was first seriously contemplated by Government. Five
or six years have since been spent in settling and un-
settling the plans, and in Parliamentary battles for the
supplier, but last session the first instalment as passed
for the erection of the building (the site having been
purchased several years ago), and Dr. Wilson only lived
to see the first active steps taken for the erection of the
museum, which he had devoted the whole interval since
his appointment to push forward, and to collect the
materials which should make it as complete an expositor
as possible of the industrial arts and sciences of civil-
ized nations. Dr. Wilson was a most accomplished
chymist ; he was profoundly versed in all the physical
sciences; he was an elegant scholar, and a graceful and
imaginative lecturer and writer. As a man he was es.
teemed and beloved by all who knew him for his
catholicity of spirit, his benevolence of disposition, and
his uprightness and integrity of character. It will be
impossible, we fear, adequately to supply the vacancies
his death occasions in the chair of technology and
keepership of the museum. for which position he was
niost eminently fitted by his habits and studies, and
for which he had, on more than one occasion, sacrifixed
much higher worldly prospects.