The Express.
London, England, 1848-01-17 00:00:00

PROVINCIAL.

THE OLDHAM LYCEUM'S ANNUAL SOIREE took
place on Thursday evening, in the Town-hall,Oldham, when
a large party amembled to tea, after which the president
called upon r number of gentlemen, who favoured the com-
pany wi•h addresses on the topics of which such institutions
are suggestive. It was stated that the institution was
flourishing, having now 260 members with a library of 1,600
volumes.

"RAIRIIREADTE 'SCAPES" BY RAIL AND STEAM.—
As the 5.45 p.m. train of the East Lanaubire Railway was
on its way to Manchester on Wednesday, in passing over the
embankment opposite Nuttul Hall, at Itanisbottum, the en-
gine came in contact with a cow that had strayed from an
atjoining field. The engineer attempted to stop the engine
to avoid it, and did succeed in materially checking the speed
of the train, but the engine knocked down the cow and
passed over its body, in doing which the train went off the
line and the engine and tender went down an embankment
of some 13 feet, and were upset. Fortunately the train of
carriages got detach, :d before the engine went down the em-
bankment, and no injury was sustained by the passengers.
The engine driver, John Wild, and the stoker also, by good
f.irtune, though thrown off, were not hurt. Wild has had
several dangerous collisions on the line of this kind, having
before run his engine over • sheep, and on another occasion
over a dog. He wu formerly a driver on the Manchester
and Leeds line, when his engine went off the rails down •
lofty embankment without upsetting and without his sus-
taining the least injury.

-----
TILE 'CONTEMPLATED DINNER to Lord Morpeth
and Mr. *Cobden, members for the West Riding, has been
postponed until the Easter recess.
THE LICENCE OF COUNSEL—At the Hull Sessions
last week, some extraordinary proceedings interrupted the
proper progress of business. The Eastern Counties Herald
thus refers to the affair " The proceedings in one of the
courts of justice in this town have, during the present week,
been interrupted in a meet unseemly manner by a fracas
which arose, and burst out repeatedly between one of the
learned counsel, who was defending a prisoner, and the re-
corder who was sitting as judge in the case. The rupture
was such as, at one time, threatened to suspend entirely the
business of the court. The spectators in the gallery, con-
sisting chiefly of the working climes, made such unequivocal
demonstrations of their feeling being altogether and very
strongly on the side of the prisonei'e counsel, that on one of
soar eacoosion• it WWI not until the recorder had threatened
to clear the whole court that order was restored. On another
occasion the learned counsel alluded to did not desist front
offering intenpersory remarks during the summing up of the
recorder, until that dignitary had intimated that unless
that interference ceased, he would be under the necessity
of exercising the power and authority with which he
was invested, to compel the silence of the barrister.
A female, named Ann Thompson, had been indicted for
stealing some jars, the property of another woman, named
Sarah Ann Tuxfurd ; and Mr. Dearsley, in the course of an
appeal to the jury, in behalf of the prisoner, had stigmatised
the prosecute-ix as a person who kept a brothel, and had at-
tempted to sedum the prisoner—that she had done so mare
than once—that she had failed in all her attempts to draw
the party at the bar from the paths of innocence, and that
she had got up this prosecution—not for any just cause, but
purely out of spite. These were the assertions of the counsel,
strongly made, but which from their nature did not admit
of witnesses being called to substantiate. They were, of
course, made on the solemn assertion of the prisoner. To
test their worth, the recorder recalled one of the wit-
news in the case, and experienced an active police.
man named Bentley, and asked him what had been
the general character of the prisoner prior to this
charge. Bentley replied that he knew the prisoner to be
kept by a man residing in the country, and that she was
living under an assumed name. Thompson was not her
real name, but that of the man who supported her.—Mr.
Deareley declared this to he unparalleled ! He never knew
en instance of a judge having called a witness before the
verdict, to damn the character of a prisoner.—A burst of
approbation arose from almost every part of the court,
but especially from the gallery.—The recorder threat-
ened to have the court cleared.—On order being re.tored,
Bentley was again recalled, and, in reply to Mr. Dearsley,
said, he did not know that the man in whose name
the prisoner went was a man to whom she bed been
married, and had separated from him on amount of
its being discovered that his former wife was living.—The
recorder, on addressing the jury upon this evidence, and
upon the interruption that had occurred, said, he never
would interfere with the rights of counsel. If the learned
counsel had not introduced an assertion into this case, he
would not have interfered. The only error which he bad
committed was in not stopping Mr. Dearsley sooner. He
did not interrupt that gentleman until he traduced the char
racier of the prosecutnx. Reference had been made to the
late recorder (Mr. Baines), and to the exemplary manner in
which that gentleman had discharged his judicial duties
upon that bench. He (the present recorder) had not long
occupied the office of judge, bat he would never sit in a
court of justice, and hear any counsel for the defence, in
defending his own client, casting imputations upon the
I prorecutor or prosecutrix. But, where such an imputation
had, perhaps hastily, and warmly, fallen from the lips of
counsel, he would feel it due to the prcsecutor to allow him
an opportunity of removing the aspersions. In this ease, if
the interruption had not occurred, he should have allowed
the counsel rot the prosecution not only to reply to the de-
fence, but also to call evidence, both that the prosecutrix,
Mn. Telford, dial not keep a brothel, and also that the pri-
soner had fallen from the rothsof morality.—ln asubrequent
trial Mr. Dearsley interrupted the recorder while summing
up. The recorder ordered the learned gentleman to sit
down three successive times, and ultimately threatened to
have him turned out of court.—Mr. Dearsley: If you would
nay I am out of order, I would sit down.—Recorder : You '
are out of order, sir.—Mr. Dear:sky then sat down.—On the
following day, similar interruptions having occurred, the
recorder, on putting into exercise his authority, became '
deeply affected—it is said, by some, even to tears—and de-
clared that he nad never witnessed such conduct on the part
of the bar to any judge, in the whole course of his experi-
ence, and told Mr. Dearsley that he could never more speak
to him, excepting purely upon matters of business."—The
flail Packet of Friday contains an address to the recorder,
Mr. Granger, from the mayor and magistrates present on
the bench during the sessions, who express their regret that
" Mr. Dearsley should, without the slightest cams', have in-
suited him;" their admiration of the "mild and gentlemanly
manner" in which he rebuked Mr. Dearsley for his " wanton
and unprovoked attack;" and their satisfaction with the
manner is which he has conducted the business at the
quarter sessions. A number of solicitors have also forwarded
to Mr. Granger an address, expressive of their sympathy
towards him in reference to the "painful and trying situa-
tion in which he was placed," during the sessions, sad of
their approval of his "temperate and forbearing conduct."

• •
PARDON OP AN INNOCENT CONVICT.—The Hull
Packet says " Thomas Drerery is pardoned! On Saturday
last Mr. Sidebottom, of this town, the solicitor to whose
humane and disinterested ex.rtiona this result is almost en-
tirely owing, received the following letter from the Home-
office :

To Edward Sidebottom, Esq., solicitor, }loll.—WhitebaU, Jan. S.—
Sir,—Secretary Sir George Grey baring carefully considered your
application on behalf of Thomas Merely, 1 hare the aatisfactsin to
acquamt. you that under all the circumstances of the case he has felt
warranted in advising her Majesty to grant the prisoner a free par-
don.—l am, Itc., S. M. nimbler&
Drewery was tried and convicted of bone-stealing two years
ago, and is now in Van Diemen's Land. His innocence was
e.tablished by a prisoner named Webster confessing himself
malty of the robbery for which Drewery was suffering the
penalty. Since the announcement of the free pardon to
Drewery several letters have been received on the subject
The following is an extract from one addressed by Mr.
Baines to Mr. Sidebottom, on the Bth inst. ' Most sin-
cerely
do I congratulate the friends of this poor mar; upon
the result of your very able, zealous, and disinterested efforts
in his behalf. I think you will do well to have the letters
inserted in the Hull papers, from which it will probably go
the round of the press. This seems a mere act of justice to
Drewery's character.' Mr. Baines also writes to Mr. Side
bottom on the 12th, stating that he had made inquiry at the
Home-office, and there learnt that the pardon was already
prepared, and would be sent that day to the Colonial-office,
whence it would be despatched to Van Diemen's Land by
the first vessel, and recommending Mrs. brewery, if she
wished to go out along with her children, to send up a me.
morial to Sir George Grey, praying the government would
enable her to do so free of expense."

PETERBOROUGl3:=Rucllsurprise has been occa-
sioned here by the apprehension of Mr. Thomas Crane, the
postmaster, on a charge of stealing a Bank of England note
for 101., from a letter passing through his office. After two
examinations before the magistrates he has been fully com-
mitted for trial.
KENT.

MEETING OF THE HOPPLANTERS OF KENT.—
On Thursday, at a meeting of the hop planters of East and
West Kent, held at the Star Hotel, Maidstone, to consider
the propriety of petitioning parliament for the repeal of the
excise duty on home-grown hops, a resolution was peeled
to the effect that the duty on British hops affecting, as it did,
one particular clam of agriculturists, was partial in its opera-
tion and oppressive in principle, and ought to be repealed.
It was likewise resolved that a memorial be presented to the
Lords of the Treasury by the members of the county, and
that the members for the several boroughs in the county be
requested to give it their 'support.
ANOTHER FIRE AT GRAVESEND.—A PRISONER
BUItNED TO DEATR.—A serious fire broke out yesterday
(Sunday) in the Market-place, at the back of the Town-
hall, Gravesend, which resulted in the " Lock-up " being
destroyed, and a prisoner burned to death. About half-
put four o'clock a constable was returning from duty to the
police-stains., which is adjacent to the lock-up house, when
he observed an intense light in the building. Learning
from the officer that there was a waterman named Rugby
confined in it on a charge of drunkenness, he, with
several ethers, attempted to rescue the unfortunate
man ; hut, on the door being opened, it was found impos-
sible, for the interior presented a complete furnace,
the flames subsequently breaking forth from the roof with
great violence. l'he corporation engines were got out, and
brought into immediate operation, and a plentilul supply of
water being obtained the fire was speedily got under. Soon
afterwards the remains of Bugby were discovered in the
ruins burned to a blackened cinder. The building stood by
itself, at the foot of the steps of the market place; it formerly
was us. d as the fire-station, or engine-home. How the Ste
was caused it is difficult to say ; it is supposed, however,
that in the course of the night Bugby had been smoking,
and had dropped some lighted tobacco us his straw bed, and
aiit it on fire. Information of the oecarresum was name-

diately fotwarcled to Mr. Carttar, the oorooer, who is en-
pettad to kAd an inquett on the body this day.

umersuiße.

COMMPiSIOS BY THE LOIII7LIEUTENANT.-11. P.
Coke, EN., ALP., to be deputy-lieutenant.
GLOCCESTEUSIIIRE.

EXTRAOSDINARVTAiiWI3DIAMV.—At the Chel-
tenham paliceeourt, on Saturday, a person who bad lately hai
troduced herself into fashionable circles as the Lady Ada
Alice Wyattville, was shamed with bigamy. It was roved
that prisoner was married on Nov. 8, 108, at Kensington,
Church, under the name of °curia Sarah Moore de Belle
Vue, daughter of Lucius Moore de Belle Vue, Marshal of
France, to Mr. Henry Wyatt, architect, the son of Mr. M.
C. Wyatt, the celebrated sculptor, of Dudley-trove House,
Harrow-road, London ; that after this mamege she went
with her husband to Boulogne-our-Mer, who soon after left
her, but &correspondence was still kept up between the parties'
It was also proved that in May last the prisoner was charged
at the Marlborough police office, London, with bigamy, by
marrying a person named Koller ; and on the 17th of De-
cember last the ceremony of matrimony was performed at
Cheltenham pariah church, between herself, under the
name of the Lady Ada Alice Wyattville, and Mr. Thomas
Hinckley, civil engineer, son of Mr. Arthur Hinckley, a
gentleman tesident in Cheltenham, her first husband being
alive at the time. At the marriage at Kensington the only
witnesses were a Mrs Hannah Murray, of Brampton (then
Mile Cully), and the parish clerk ; at the Cheltenham mar-
riage the only witnesses were a man named Edwin Potter,
and a daughter of an ostler at one of the principal hotels in
the town. The prisoner woo fully committed to take heir
trial at the next Gloucester assizes._

ISLE OF ILAN.
CONFESSION OF MURDER.—Within the lest few
days rumours have been rife that a mason residing in Doug-
las, and who was not expected to live, had scut for one of
the !Makers of the town for the purpose of making a con-
fession of murder, as he felt that he could not die without
revealing the secret. The murder was said to have takes
place some eleven years ago, and was perpetrated by three
partite, one of whom struck the unfortunate men with •
mason's hammer, and afterwards threw him into Douglas
harbour, where he was found the next morning with his
skull fractur, d, but which was supposed to have been occa-
sioned by a blow against a vessel at the time of his fall. The
man said to Be murdered was Robert Cannon, of the parish
of klarown, w►o was very well known throughout the island.