The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-06 00:00:00

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

NORTHERN CIRCUIT, DURHAM, March 4.
(Before Mr. Justice Mellor.)
George Wilkinson was charged with embezzling moneys
of the Friend-in-Need Life Insurance and Sick Fund
Friendly Society, at Bishop Auckland.
Mr. Campbell Foster and Mr. Trotter appeared for the
prosecution, and Mr. Meynell defended the prisoner.
It appeared that the prisoner was the agent of the society
in question, by which life insurances were afforded to poor
men, and entered into a contract with a man named Story,
whereby the latter insured his life for £l2 10s., and secured
to himself a payment of 10s. a week in case of illness, and
£5 in the case of fire. In return Story was to pay 2s. a
week, and it was these payments which the prisoner was
charged with embezzling. He was discovered in conse-
quence of Story falling ill and applying for his sick allow-
ance, when he was informed that it would not be paid in
consequence of his payments being in arrear. This led to
further inquiry and the apprehension of the prisoner.
He was found guilty, tut strongly recommended to mercy
by the jury, and
His Lordship sentenced him to six months' imprisonment.

MURDER.
Matthew Atkinson was placed at the bar charged with
the wilful murder of his wife Eleanor, at Winlaton, on the
18th of September.
Mr. Blackwell and Mr. Laycock were the counsel for the
prosecution, and Mr. Campbell Foster appeared for the de-
fence.

It appeared that the prisoner had been married about 12
years, that his wife, who was 43 years of age, was of some-
what intemperate habits, and that he himself was of an un-
bridled, ungovernable temper, and in the habit of using
threats and violence to his wife both when he was drunk
and sober, which terrified the neighbourhood. They had
gone to live at a place called the Spen, near to Winlaton a
few weeks before the day of the wife's death. On the 17th
of September the prisoner had gone, with his two nephews,
Matthew Swinbume and Thomas Layburne, to a shooting
match at Hopson Pit, where it is probable that they got a
good deal of drink, and they did not return home until
eleven o'clock at night. The prisoner rattled at the door
for a short time before it was opened by his wife, who was
dressed, but appeared as if she had just awakened from
sleep, and the prisoner asked her repeatedly where
she had been. She gave no direct answer, but said,
" Come, come, less than that may serve." When the pri-
soner, seeing that the fire was out and there was no supper
prepared, said, " I don't like this." The woman replied in
a conciliatory manner, saying, "Now, Mat, sit yourself
down," and the prisoner jumped up with the intention of
striking her, when she ran out, closing the door as she
went, and saying, "To the devil with you, Mat." Lay-
burne attempted to prevent the prisoner from following
her, but he saying "Let me gang, or it will be the worse
I for you," was allowed to pass, and he caught his wife at
the door of the house of a man called Anderson, and struck
her in the face. lie then dragged her back to the door of
their own house and pulled her in, she calling "Murder!'
and Layburne and Swinburne (both of them mere lads)
were perfectly terrified at the prisoner, and went away to
call the attention of the neighbours. A man named
Purvis lived only four doors from the prisoner, and he was
roused from his sleep by a woman to interfere with the pri-
soner, who was thrashing his wife. He looked out of the
window and heard the noise of blows coming from the
prisoner's, and a voice shouting "You , I'll kill you, I
will, by —!" and the deceased crying "Oh, dear !" and
" Murder !" The prisoner's character, however, was known
to be so ferocious and dangerous when he was under the
influence of drink that Purvis dared not go in to interfere
for the woman, especially as the prisoner was heard threat-
ening to kill dead on the spot any one who interfered with
him. It appeared that the prisoner continued beating his
wife for a full hour in this unmerciful manner, the blows
sounding as though given with the whole might of the
strike; and the man Purvis to listen to them, and then all
seemed quiet, and Purvis went to sleep. After about half
an hour more, and at half-past 12, the prisoner knocked at
Purvis's door and called out to him and his wife to get up,
for he had "finished her this time." They dressed and
went with the prisoner to his house, where they found the
deceased seated on the floor, and the prisoner then held her
head up with his hand. The woman was covered with
blood, and so was the floor, and there was a dish of bloody
water on the floor as though the prisoner had been washing
her face. He said, "She is done," and then Purvis and a
person called Hymers took him out of the house and down
the row. His hands and shirt sleeves were bloody, and he
said, " I know what I have done. lam quite willing to go
to the gallows. It is a bad job." Several other persons
were attracted by the sound of the beating, and were
actually at the prisoner's door while it was going on, and
talking with him, but they did not dare effectually to inter-
fere, although she called out " Oh, dear ! " several times,
and more than once " Oh, dear ! Matthew, lam not dead
yet," and the prisoner actually left the house for 20 minutes,
but was allowed to return to resume the acts of violence.
Some men in the course of the tragedy did venture to go in,
and even take the weapons he used, which were the tongs,
coal-rake, poker, and long brush, from him, and to tell him
he was making a bad job of it, but they again left him,
relying on his not resuming his violence. At last, however,
several were collected in the room together, and the poor
woman endeavoured to speak to them, but was unable, and
after giving one gasp she died. She was dreadfully beaten
on the head, face, and body, death having resulted from a
blow fracturing the frontal bone, and the fireirons were
covered with blood, and all of them were bent.
Mr. Foster's defence was an endeavour to induce the jury
to return a verdict of manslaughter on the ground of the
intense excitement the prisoner laboured under when in-
fluenced by drink or anger, and quoted some dicta of law
in
HsuisppoL rtdosfhhipispcooinntteedntoiuont
that ;butthey wore not applicable
to the circumstances of this case, and that to have one law
for drunken or angry and another for sober or utihet. people
trywou.lHdebehrsiueryerrseivvieewofedaltlhjeusetizsannede,oradnedr ing
in.tiisngcouonu-t
that the provocation, in order to relieve from murder,Pu mustm
be reasonable and must consist always of more than
words and gestures (unless the latter were most threaten-
ing, ing, whereas the poor woman in this case escaped and was
dragged back), left the jury to perform their task according
to their real belief, and not rejecting the cardinal rules of
law upon the subject of murder. His Lordship also com-
mented strongly upon the want of manliness of the neigh-
bours in permitting this outrage.
The jury retired for a short time only, and then returned
with a verdict of guilty, and the prisoner on being called
upon to say why sentence should not be passed upon him
said that his wife had led him a most unhappy life, and
that he was tired of it and wanted to die, and that he had
brought her home that night from another man's house,
and that had occurred seven times.
His Lordship then assumed the black cap, and address-
ing the prisoner, said that he had been convicted on evi-
dence which could leave no doubt of the wilful murder of
his wife. He said she had led him an unhappy life, but he
had beaten herh i,nhtihheemr ohasteksaagvatfien.manuneehar,
danfdodwohiteend she
s
escaped he rou „,
life,
3co m therefore,men ded
hima n d
to mustm prepare
e ther e p abr.; sto t u
sdie,e
h
days of life which remained to him in rea enepodauihlr idi s Lordshipnog; tt e thatfre
Throne of Grace from which no repentant sinner was ever
spurned. •
The prisoner, who was much affected, simply ' said'
" Thank you, my lord. lam prepared to die any time."

OXFORD CIRCUIT—OxFont., March 4.
NISI PRIUS COURT.
(Before Mr. Baron Pigott.)
William Albert Simms was indicted for stabbing with
intent to murder Joseph Sykes, at Chipping Norton, on the
27th of October last.
Mr. A. S. Hill was for the prosecution ; Mr. T. S. Prit-
chard defended the prisoner.
The case for the prosecution was that the prosecutor,

who was in the employ of a Mr. Lynes, a miller near
Chipping Norton, had been sent in to Chipping Norton in
the afternoon to fetch some yeast, and had spent about two
hours and a half there in two publichouses ; that on his
return home, having been dismissed by his master, he was
carrying his things away in his box and was sitting on it
by the side of the road, when the prisoner came up the
road whistling, suddanly rushed upon him, and stabbed
him three times in front and three times in the back with
a sort of short walking-stick, with a pointed dagger at the
end. It was a dark night, and though the prosecutor was
the attacked party he did not cry out, but the prisoner
shouted "Murder" more than once. Assistance appeared,
but the prosecutor got into the ditch on the side of the
road, and so concealed himself, and as soon as the new
corner and the prisoner had gone away he got his box and
went over a hedge to the stable of his master (Mr. Lynes)
where he passed the night. The next morning he
told the postman, who was the first person he appeared to,
have seen, that marks of blood and a pain in his side were
to be accounted for by the fact that he had had a bad fall
the night before from a ladder, and later in the same day
he gave information to the police of what had taken place.
The prisoner's case was that he had been having tea with
his father, and afterwards started to return to Chipping
Norton with him and a young brother, who left him at his
father's stable, after which he went on his road alone ; that
after parting with his father for five minutes he was sud-
denly attacked by the prosecutor, and in self-defence he
used the dagger-stick which he had with him ; and that
when assistance came he searched in every direction for
the man who had attacked him, but was unable to find
him, and he supposed he had run away. It appeared, how-
ever, that he had no wound upon him. He despatched
friends to Chipping Norton to try and discover his assail-
ant, and before the prosecutor laid his complaint he in-
formed the police. It appeared that the prisoner was a
travelling agent of the Friend-in-Need Society, and had
had the dagger-stick made in order to protect him at night
from dogs and men in his rounds to collect moneys for the
society. He had met with an accident some time back
which rendered his nerves weak. The prosecutor was
stated to have been drunk on the night in question; and it
was alleged that he was unable to give an account of what
took place. The prisoner was sober, and bore a very good
character.

His Lordship left it to the jury to say whether they
thought that the prisoner acted under the impression,
which proved unfounded, that the prosecutor intended to
attack him, and whether he used violence inadequate to
the occasion.

The jury found the prisoner guilty of unlawfully
wounding.

His Lordship said it appeared to him that the prisoner
had not the evil intention in his mind imputed to him by
the indictment, but that, misled by a morbid imagination
that the prosecutor had the design to attack him, he had
used violence entirely unjustifiable. The sentence was six
calendar months' imprisoment, with hard labour.

WESTERN CIRCUIT—WINCHESTER, March 4.
MEADEN V. REES--MEADEN V. HADEN.
In these special jury cases, which were tried at Devizes
the name of the junior counsel for the defendant in each
case should have been "Mr. Edlin" instead of "Mr.
Kingdom."

CROWN COURT.
(Before Mr. Baron Channell.)
THE B=IMT MURDER.

THE QUEEN V. GEORGE BLOOMFIE.LD.

Mr. Baron Channell said that an application had been
made to him yesterday to postpone this trial. He had had
some doubts whether he could interfere in this stage of the

proceedings without calling upon the prisoner to appear and
plead. The affidavit stated that the prisoner was not in a
state of mind to understand the proceedings, therefore he
ought to be brought into court that the jury might have
the opportunity of trying that question; but the affidavit
went on further to state that the prisoner was so ill that he
could not come to the court without danger to his life. Upon
that ground, therefore, he considered it to be his duty to
postpone the trial, and he directed that the recognizances
should be enlarged to the next assizes.
George Kenvary, Stephen Wallis, James Crouch, and
James Collins were indicted for shooting at George Kitcher,
with intent to kill or to do grevious bodily harm, or to re-
sist their lawful apprehension, at Beaulieu, on tho 19th of

January.
Mr. Prideaux was counsel for the prosecution, and Mr.

Poulden for the prisoners.
Mr. Prideaux, in opening the case, said that the case the
jury had to investigate was a very serious one indeed. It
was only by the mercy of God that the poor man Kitcher,
whose injury they were inquiring into, was not killed ; and
with the exception of one crime there was not a more im-
portant inquiry—one requiring the greatest care and anxiety
on the part of judge, jury, and counsel. He mentioned this
not because he had the slightest doubt that they would most
carefully and anxiously investigate the matter, but because
it was his duty to assure them that it was the great desire
on the part of the prosecution that they should give to
every part of the case every fair and reasonable doubt, while
they at the same time firmly and fearlessly discharged their
duty to the Crown. Tho real prosecutor in the ease was his
Grace the Duke of Buccleuch ; the injured man was one of
his keepers. The prisoners at the bar resided at Beaulieu.
They would find that on the morning of Thursday, 19th of
January, a keeper named Kitcher was out with a watcher
named Bound ; that while they were out together they
heard a gun fired, apparently in Longmead-row ; they went
towards that spot, and as they were going they heard
another report of a gun coming from a copse. They went
towards the copse, and five men came out of it, four of
whom were armed with guns. Kitcher went up towards
them ; the men stopped, and the two who happened to be
nearest to him turned round and pointed their guns at him ;
the taller of the tip desired him to stand back, and the
other called out anrsaid they had some of his birds, and
they would have more whenever they wanted them, and
would not be taken by such keepers as they were. Kitcher
desired them to put down their guns, and if they wished to
fight to fight like men, and it was due to the two men to
say that they did put down their guns, and the five men
went on together. They stopped again, and the same two
men turned round and pointed their guns at Kitcher again.
They then went on again, and followed by Kitcher, until
they came into a turnip-field, when, Kitcher having gained
upon them, they again stopped. They then again turned
and pointed their guns. Again they started and Kitcher
followed them until they made another stand. The two
same men faced round, and the tall man, who had a walk-
ing-stick gun, called to the other, " Let me have your gun,
and I'll shoot him." The other replied. " I'll shoot him my-
self," and immediately the gun was fired, and the shot en-
tered the chest of Kitcher over his heart, inflicting a very
severe wound, and it was a great mercy that he was not
killed on the spot ; he staggered back a few yards and fell
into the hedge. He was taken up by Bound, and removed to
Newland's farm-house, and there attended by a surgeon.
There were in all five men, four of whom were the four
prisoners, and a young man named Dunkerson. That
an attempt was made to do grievious bodily harm—he was
afraid to kill Kitcher—there could be no doubt, that the two
1
men had that intent was abundantly clear when they saw
the men had been acting in concert. If one stopped, all did
so ; if one went on, all accompanied him. They all went on
together; all were near enoughto see what took place. (The
evidence did not carry this out.) No one interfered to pre-
vent
had
atvholeinenng
Theym iothdu
rt: ssn
jaeic
wouldgg
uhgt
noihetf
identifyo,
bonr
eurottrs oiKs
resist
probablyosi
ono
ehhu ewenorkkhfhweeas
rettosohpu
ihofee
narod,dptebt
ewivbunlloeeit
neomhtnahte
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theya
shnwt
eehhchtaodeotar t
ae
shdtaohet
alli
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otathpooraunhl:dett
man.howcotheasmmy
times stood forward. It was then thought right to permit
Dunkerson's deposition to be taken, that he might be called
before them as a witness. With regard to the part Dunker-
son took in the transaction, it would be their duty to watch
his evidence with the greatest care and attention. In point
of strict lawn jury might take the uncorroborated testimony
of an accomplice, but in practice that course was felt to be
so dangerous that judges told juries that they should not act
upon the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice unless
the facts appeared to be of such a description that, testing
the evidence of the accomplice by the fact, the jury could
feel satisfied not only that he wastelling the truth, but that
he named the right persons, therefore it would be one of
their duties to consider the corroborative evidence which
would be called before them, to test the evidence of Dun-
kerson by the light thrown upon it by the corroborative
evidence, and then to say whether they were reasonably
satisfied that the four prisoners were acting and concerned
in the same transaction. Dunkerson would state that
about 11 o'clock on the night in question he and the four
prisoners were all at a beershop kept by a Mrs. Wallis ;
that they were together, and four of them were armed with
guns; that they all went out together for the purpose of
killing game ; that they went through several fields and
killed two pheasants ; they fired their guns several times ;
they were disturbed by the keepers, and that that took
place which he had already detailed to them. There
seemed to be some doubt whether he would tell them who
was the man who fired the gun. (lie swore he did not
know.) lie was afraid he knew ; but while a witness
under such circumstances did not hesitate to tell the broad
facts of the case, he would sometimes make it a point not
only to screen himself from the most serious part of the
charge, but to screen his
accomplices.
However that
might be, they would find from him that neither Crouch
nor Collins was the man who fired ; he thought he should
show by other evidence that Kenyard was the man who
fired the gun, and that the walking-stick gun was carried
by Wallis, who took an active part with Kenyard. If they
should be of opinion that all four had a common design to
resist the keeper, it was immaterial who fired
-the gun ; but
if they should fairly think that the evidence did not con-
clusively show that the men had a common design, then it
would be necessary to ascertain who the two men were
who took the most active part. He should bring confirma-
tory evidence of the account of the accomplice. First, as
to the manner in which they were dressed ; that all had caps
on(Dunkerson said in his evidence that two had hats); that
they all had monkey-jackets on. The second piece of con-
firmatory evidence would relate to Collins, Crouch, and Ken-
yard. He should show that they were searched. Collins and
Crouch had pheasant feathers in their pockets, and Ken-
yardwh watchedt
e
withh
had guncaps in his pocket, and a loaded gun in his
house.greTathecanree—xtthheeaeod mop!
avriisoolei ofe shouldfootmarks
b eit

The jury returned a verdict of guilty with intent to resist
their lawful apprehension, but they recommended Crouch
and Collins to mercy.

The Judge then sentenced Kenyard and Wallis to be
kept in penal servitude for seven years, and Crouch and
Collins to five years' penal servitude.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE " SATURDAY REVIEW" ON PRURIENT PRO-
TESTANTISM.—It is surprising how keenly a large
audience of fervent British Christians is attracted

by the prospect of a little decorous naughtiness. If
the Pope could be persuaded to abolish all the
nunneries and convents in Europe, the staunch Pro-
testant professors of Exeter Hall and St. James's
Hall would be deprived of a source of the most sin-
cere pleasure. , To hear of the dark misdoings of
nuns and their confessors, with the proud conscious-
ness that you are looking down on them from the
loftiest possible moral elevation, must be a genuine
treat of the very choicest kind. There is about the
" disclosures," which are always a great feature on
such occasions, a pleasing suggestiveness, a prurient
reticence, which imparts a charm that even the most
improper of French novels cannot rival. In fact, a
French novel is very tame fun compared with a
thoroughly good oratorical raid against nunneries.
The novel must be read more or less in solitude,

and the incidents, after all, are not always so very
improper. In a great meeting one has all the plea-
sure and excitement of companionship. The snig-
gering of everybody around one over indecorous
inuendos has a wonderfully delightful effect. Then
inuendo is so much more pleasant than the detailed
statement of a novelist, and gives so much more
employment to the imagination. And a peculiarly
indescribable gratification is occasioned in the youth-
ful or female mind by hearing solemn fathers of
families and clergymen talk on naughty subjects.
It is always refreshing to find that our loftiest men-
tors are still beings of flesh and blood like ourselves.
The instructors themselves rather enjoy their tem-
porary release from the gravity and propriety of
private life. They share the prevailing excitement,
and the novelty of finding ,themselves making un-
seemly allusions and discussing unsavoury topics
before ladies is as tickling to them as to their lis-
teners. Altogether, the scene of a great anti-con-
vent demonstration is so truly pleasing to so many
kinds of people that the only wonder is that the
thing is not more frequent. At all events we ean-
not be surprised that the most is made of any for-
tunate opportunity which presents itself. The
pother about convents which has been raised and
kept up in the columns of a penny sensation news-
paper could not reasonably be expected to subside
until the faithful had made it an occasion for one of
in St. James's Hall was all that could be desired.
these naughty merrymakings. The recent meeting

The inuendos were most racy. The excitement was
intense, and the eloquence superb. It need scarcely
be said that that " there was a large attendance of
ladies." But for ladies the entertainment would have
lost three-fourths of its zest. A mere assemblage
of men talking about the mysteries of the convent
would have been an extremely tame affair. The
great speech of the evening would not have been
nearly so pointed had it not been delivered before a
large number of the sex which a preposterously ex-
aggerated propriety commonly debars from all
opportunities of hearing how much of a certain sort
of wickedness goes on in the world. The orator
whose masterly effort contributed so largely to the
triumphant success of the demonstration is a divine
of some denomination, and this fact was doubtless
a comfort to some of the audience who might have
thought his line of argument rather prurient if he
had been a coarse layman. Besides being a divine
and an orator, Mr. Hobart Seymour has been a
traveller, and in fact a man of the world. He told
his hearers that he had once been to Madeira, where
he met a priest, in whose company, with some other
young men, he visited a well-known convent. The
large attendance of ladies pricked up their ears, but
to no purpose. All that he and his companions said
and did on the occasion " he was not going to tell
them ; in fact, he could not tell a mixed assembly."
Great laughter, and one or two solemn nods of
approbation, followed this practical joke on the
general curiosity. However, "he would say this,
that some of the poor girls in that convent implored
them with fearful earnestness to come to them at
night and assist them to escape, promising to go to
the ends of the earth with them on any condition or
in any capacity whatsoever." This terrific picture
of despair and abandonment had about it the right
ring of a genuine polemical anecdote, and the indig-
nant but tickled audience cried " Shame" with
vigorous unanimity. The notion of Mr. Seymour
going to the convent "at night," the " fearful
earnestness " and the "latent unseemliness of any
condition or any capacity whatsoever," were all
touchesindicative of the true artist. That
German rationalist whom the Morning
howAdver-
tiserwskith a
number the pooofrgirls
got ayoung
justly holds up to the pity and contempt of
readersits
eban emoifg
suchht indeeda
scene a
men, and even whether it was not as well that they
ted should stop in the convent as roam over the world
with Mr. Hobart Seymour in the vague and rather
polygamousway
intrudedtheyproposed. But no demon of
G er m aunp
on rationalism
theenchanted
eaudience. h i his
Thedespicable
only
m. criti-
cismster -
ruption to the harmony of the evening occurred
when Mr. Seymour declared, that whence a poor
girl was immured in a convent, " the cry of insulted
innocence, the shriek of outraged virtue," could
never more be heard. The candid reporter tells us
that " this was too much" for a Roman Catholic at
the end of the room, "who made such a noise that
he had to be removed by the police." What very
strange behaviour on the part of the Roman Catho-
lic ! Perhaps the poor benighted being at the end
of the room had a sister or a daughter in a convent;
and if so, he ought to have been very much obliged
to the kind Christian gentleman who reminded him
of her insulted and outraged virtue. If the Roman
Catholics were to hold a large public meeting for
the purpose of pointing out some defect in orga-
nisation of a Protestant community, the British
public would doubtless listen to the eloquent invec-
tives with a patience and composure very different
the turbulence of the person for whom Mr. Seymour's
elegant and moderate language was " too much."
After the unreasonable Roman Catholic had been
removed by the policeman, Mr. Seymour got slightly
dull and statistical for a time, but he soon recovered
the appropriate tone. He proceeded to give what
the reporter calls a " lively description" of the in-
terviews he had seen between young monks and nuns
"at twilight in Italy." Why at twilight ? "He
suggested nothing against the propriety of these
young people"—nothing, much as one might have
thought it. But " the young people" ought to have
been allowed to consecrate an honest affection by
an honest marriage, and " had he a scourge of scor-
pions he would drive from the land the Church
which would enact any laws to prevent it." The
imagination of the audience was so excited by this
graphic picture of Mr. Seymour chasing his adver-
saries with a scourge of scorpions, that they "broke
out into loud and protracted cheering, waving of
hats and handkerchiefs for some minutes." The
philosophic looker-on would see inthis edifying spec-
tacle a conclusive refutation of the wicked calumny
that the most characteristic feature of Exeter Hall
Protestantism is its intolerance ; it can only be re-
gretted that a timeserving Legislature does not hasten
to entrust the power to scourge the Roman Catholics
to such temperate and high-minded persons as Mr.
Seymour, and those who greeted his Christian aspi-
rations with loud cheers. After this ferocious out-
burst he again returned to the amusing aspect of
the matter. Not only were the nuns not permitted
to marry, but they were permitted to cho.)se a con-
fessor. " Some nuns selected square confessors,
some selected round ones"—a statement which must
have had some meaning, because the audience are
reported to have laughed at it. When a nun got a
round or square confessor to her taste, her confes-
sions took an hour, or even more. "It was not for
him to say what took place on those occasions ;" but
the pure-minded audience guessed what he meant,
and went on laughing heartily. " Were he not ad-
dressing a mixed assembly he could relate some
fearful facts." After all this scruple was a little
superfluous. A fearful fact or two might have
helped to tame the imaginative efforts which the
orator's disgusting insinuations were no doubt suc-
cessful in begetting. Another speaker said he could
quote cases " of gratified lust and secret cruelty,"
but, like Mr. Seymour, he contented himself with a
few suggestive hints. A third, with immense gusto,
read the preamble of the Act of Parliament for the

exactly meant to describe. But it would be very
chimerical to suppose that any of the persons pre-
sent knew anything whatever about monasticism.
The chairmanovho probably gets his ecclesiastical
history from the Times, evidently supposed that the
first monk was St. Bernard. Mr. Colquhoun, in
fact, was only surpassed by Mr. Seymour in
zeal and energy. He considered that as we
had put down Thuggee, and infanticide, and the
sacrifices to Juggernaut in India, although they
were religious practices, so we should show no
mercy to convents. "He grieved to say, there were
many ladies who had gone into those places from pious
" motives, and who were leading holy and upright
lives." One is a little puzzled at first to understand
how the fact of leading a holy and upright life, or of
being actuated by pious motives, can be a matter
for grief. But do doubt the chairman meant that,
just as the Madeira nuns would have been better off
in officiating, "on any condition and in any capa-
city whatsoever," to Mr. Seymour then in leading
the conventual life, so these ladies ought to be com-
pelled by law, or a scourge of scorpions, to give up
their holiness and uprightness, and to come to St.
James's Hall to see what real enlightenment and
purity and Christian charity could effect. Perhaps
as, according to the chairman's own admission,
many of them do lead holy lives, they would have
been rather astonished at Mr. Seymour's account of
the cry of insulted innocence and the shriek of out-
raged virtue, and of the choice between round and
square confessors. Of course, a meeting of this kind
could not separate without calling itself a friend of
civil and religious liberty. Having bellowed, and
waved hats and handkerchiefs, in applause of a
desire to extirpate the Roman Catholic Church be-
cause it holds a certain view about celibacy, these
people naturally congratulated themselves on their
keen appreciation of the inestimable worth of a re-
ligious liberty tempered by scourges of scorpions.
They see nothing inconsistent with civil and religious
liberty in the formation of a great political confe-
deracy for the purpose of rejecting every candidate
at the approaching elections who will not bind him-
self to vote for a measure interfering with the

domestic regulations of religious communities. "If
a candidate hesitated on this point let us reject
him." " Let every man be in earnest about this
matter who respected his mother's memory." If
the desired object were ever so expedient, what
reasonable man could support in the hands of such
advocates—people who talk about that pprtion of
the " press of England which is not yet crushed by
Romish tyranny, nor debauched by Romish arts ?"
The whole proceedings are well worth a careful
notice. They show with peculiar force the shame-
less folly and wickedness which religious fanaticism
can develop in people who, in other matters, are
probably not wanting either in common-sense or
virtue.

THE " SPECTATOR" ON THE CYCLONE AT CAL-
CUTTA.—MOst people, we imagine, wondered a
little at the mention of 'the Bengal Cyclone in the
Queen's Speech, and fancied it a pardonable but
bizarre freak of Sir Charles Wood, whose perception
of political perspective is never very acute. The
papers received this week from India, however, fully
explain the paragraph. It is most unusual to men-
tion in a Royal Speech a tempest, or an explosion,
or any one of the calamities within the daily expe-
rience of mankind, but Sir Charles Wood had be-
fore him the official report on the Cyclone. This
document, so far from diminishing its importance,
as official narratives generally do, raises it to the
level of the great historic calamities, of events like
the destruction of Pompeii, the earthquake in Lis-
bon, or the catastrophe which in our time half deso-
lated Catania. The storm of the 4th October, be-
gotten apparently about the Andaman Islands,
rushed in a north-westerly direction along the coast
at a pace which rose to 27 miles an hour, struck
places as widely distant as Hidgellee and Calcutta
with undiminished fury, and from the sea to Pubna
and thence eastward to the Garrow Hills—say from
Southampton to Chester, and thence in a bold curve
to Lincoln—it left a broad track of desolation.
Behind it, or rather with it, travelled a storm wave
up from the Bay, often 30 feet high, which "swept
over the strongest embankments, flooding the crops
with salt water and carrying away entire villages."
Indeed, if the storm wavel had been sentient it
could not have chosen a better spot for its destruc-
tive play. Right through a spongy tract full of
people, and salt, and cattle, and brackish creeks,
covered with low close jungle, and full of shallow,
mud-lined sedgy marshes, the Hooghly cleaves for
it a road often miles wide past the Indian metro-
polis, past the railway centre, right away through
the riceland to the Ganges, and the broad
indigo-producing counties of the East. Its first tre- 1
mendous blow was levelled at Midnapore, the great
maritime county west of the Hooghly, bearing much
the relation to Calcutta that Kent bears to London,
and though the great dyke of Hidgellee stood the
shocks till the wave overflowed villages by the score.
The police report the deaths at 20,665, and " in the
track from Kedgeree to Kookrahuttee, a distance
of many miles, three-fourths of the population, with
their cattle and other property, may be said to have
perished." To realise such a catastrophe we must
imagine an English county crossed by a body of
water such as that which first poured out of the
Holmfirth reservoir, but salt, so that when the gale
is over the soil is still almost unfitted for cultivation
and there is no fresh water to drink. In Tumlook,
the salt mart of this district, " out of 1,400 houses
only 27 remained standing," the wind hitting harder
than the;wave. This was all on the west side of
the river,—below Calcutta on the opposite bank
and on the east the destruction was still greater.
In Saugor Island, a desolate, thinly-populated dis-'
trict of 28 square miles, inhabited chiefly by foresters
and tigers, with a few peasants, the storm wave
literally clove the country in two. The wave was
15 feet above the soil, and so terrible were its weight
and force, driven on as it was by the hurricane, that
" it cut a channel right across the island, severing
it into two halves," a sentence which reads rather
like the description of an event in geological history
than of any occurrence conceiveble in our oyvn day.
Imagine the Isle of Wight cloven in twain by a wave
which did its work at 27 miles an hour ! Fifteen
feet of water, some 90 yards broad, and 300 miles
deep, hurled on you at the speed of a passenger ex-
press train ! Rushing to form this channel, the
water swept away the embankments by which all
this low coast is protected, " utterly destroyed all
houses, huts, storehouses, and other buildings,
3,565 in number, drowned 7,000 cattle, and left
alive out of a population of 6,000 souls only
1,488." Those who escaped did so either by
climbing the large trees or by floating on the
roofs of their own house, which " were carried
inland on the mainland many miles," the wave
having force left to destroy one town at a distance
of eight miles from the channel. Wherever through-
out the Twenty-four Pergunnahs of the riverain
county on the Calcutta side the wave flowed, it left
poverty so deep that the missionaries found the
people, maddened with hunger, fatigue, and the im-
possibility of getting water, trying to eat grass ; and
the salt warehouses of Mr. Fraser, the largest Euro-
pean salt manufacturer, were broken open by the
people, " who," says the official reporter, had " been
driven also mad by hardship, and who wanted the
salt to mix with the kind of grass which they ate
eagerly." At Diamond Harbour, says the Superin-
tendent of Police—a European—within a circle of
six miles, " it is impossible to go 50 yards on the
road without seeing a dead human body," the popu-
lation having been overtaken by the water and
drowned while in a full flight along the road. In
Calcutta 90 miles from the sea, and nearly 29 miles
north of this point, 40,698 huts were swept away,
the habitations, that is, of 203,490 human beings ;
10 vessels sunk at once, and 145 driven on shore, of
which 97 were severely injured, and 36 totally lost.
The loss of life, however, was not great, the solid
English buildings protecting the town, and the
wave striking most heavily on the opposite side.
At Howrah, 1,978 persons are reported drowned,
12,762 cattle killed, and property estimated at
£600,000 swept away. From thence to Serampore
and Hooghly, a distance of 26 miles along the line
of railway, and probably more thickly populated
than any country district on earth, the homes of
the people were either cleared off or so injured that
it was necessary to replace them, and the very jungle
so battered that months afterwards the track of
the storm was as clear as the track of a horse
through barley. There is no doubt a possibility of
exaggeration in many of these figures, the estimate
of property in particular being made with a motive,
but it must be remembered that they are put
forward by a Government which had declared
many of the reports exaggerated, that the police
is controlled by Europeans, and that most of
the statements are the result of collated re-
ports from police, salt agents, private Europeans,
and the sufferers themselves. The extent
of the storm which was in full force over a district
121 miles long by about 19 wide, will of itself ac-
count for the magnitude of the figures, which are
again confirmed by the measures adopted by Go-
vernment. The whole population, men, women, and
children,were at once taken on the relief list in the
Indian mode,work on full wages being offered to all
who would accept it ; but, says the secretary, this
assistance " was necessarily inadequate to the wants
of such a population." A sum of £11,665 was ex-
pended by private persons in stores of food and
clothing, but up to January the Government was
compelled to feed all women and children, "no
work was procurable on the western side of the
river," and the people of the Saugor Island must for
some time to come continue to be fed on charity."

The disaster, when all is told, is less in reality than
that which fell upon the cotton workers of Lanca-
shire, but a calamity so terrible, and caused by the
powers of nature alone, takes a stronger hold on the
imagination than any gradual or customary loss. A
thousand persons die in Great Britain every day,
yet we register isolated deaths by accident, and
there is reason in the difference of our estimate. All
life is based upon the presumption that nature will
retain her habits,—will not, so to speak, declare
with her irresistible power war upon our designs.
Suppose we had reason to fear, or even to imagine,
that the Atlantic, rising 30 feet above its level, might
any day hurl itself on Liverpool, or that London
might be exposed to earthquake, or worse than all
that the Gulf Stream might deflect its course, where
would the motive to energy be found? The rush
of a wave such as that which on the 4th October
struck the bank of the Hooghly is a calamity of this
kind,—one which affects the imagination out of all
proportion to its result because so sudden, so capri-
cious, and so entirely beyond all human control.
Without cotton cotton-workers must starve,—that
sequence is visible, but that a village eight miles
from the river should be swept away in a secontl be-
cause of some atmospheric disturbance three hun-
dred miles off, that sequence is not visible, and it
is effects from causes beyond foresight which

the imagination dreads.
" THE LONDON REVIEW" ON THE BROTHERS
DAVENPORT.—Undeterred by their double defeat,
at Liverpool and at Huddersfield, and by their
ignominious avoidance of Leamington for fear of
being similarly discomfited there, the Brothers
Davenport have the boldness to talk of paying a
second visit to London. Perhaps, however, the fact
ought not to surprise us. Impudence is one of the
most important elements in the success of all who
practise on the credulity of mankind. It is as neces-
sary as courage to the soldier, as readiness and tacit

to the lawyer, as reputation to a woman, or as a
clear majority to a statesman in office. A member
of Parliament may get on without brains, a clergy-
man will sometimes manage pretty well without
sanctity ; genius is not absolutely indispensable to
the literary man, nor a profound knowledge of the
laws of health and disease to the physician. But a
pretender to secret powers must be impudent, or he
is nothing. It was by the great gift of audacity
that the magicians, alchemists, and Rosicrucians of
the middle ages attained that grand pre-eminence
which sometimes led to fortune and honour, and
sometimes to the stake. It was by virtue of this
happy art, which in itself is nature, that Cagliostro,
Mesmer, and the other great experimentalisers on
popular belief in more recent times, became the
idols of fashion and the very gods of scepticism.
This is the power which, in conjunction with the
vast reserve of superstition inalienable from the
human mind, has enabled mesmerists, biologists,
spirit-rappers, table-turners, second-sight readers,
and the rest of the strange rabble of modern pot-
terers in occult science, to raise themselves from
their proper position of mountebanks to that of the
apostles of a new creed. The public may be scep-
tical as to tradition, but it has an unbounded faith
in living impudence. The cool, unblushing cheek,
the brazen forehead, the unshrinking eye,
the unfaltering voice, the nerve which can
face an angry audience with solemn
protestations of sincerity, and the .dogged
resolution which returns to the charge again and
again, even after detection is apparently complete—
these are the things which take the judgment of the
many by storm, and make the fortune of a charlatan
out of conditions which would be the ruin of other
men. Iteration alone is an immense help to success.
The look of confidence is infectious, like fear or the
scarlet fever. People " take" it by the mere agency
of contact. Theatrical managers have discovered
this secret of late years, and have converted many
a half-condemned piece into a great hit by simply
playing it until the public began to think it must be
something wonderful. The Brothers Davenport
have seemingly resolved to act upon the same prin-
ciple, and it is not altogether impossible that they
may meet with the same success. Yet it is a dan-
gerous game to play, and a disastrous ending is very
much in the nature of things. The issue is now
fairly before the Brothers, and they must take their
chance between a reputation as semi-supernatural
beings, combined with solid gain, and the infamy
of defeat, embittered by smashed cabinets and
breathless runs before the violence of exasperated
mobs. That the exposure of these American adven-
turers should have been reserved for two provincial
towns, after they had been performing with compa-
rative success in London for some months, is not
very flattering to the metropolis. It may perhaps
be urged, however, that even in the case of so egre-
gious a claim as that of the two young men and col-
leagues, the capital of the empire was bound to
make something like a grave examination of their
alleged supernatural power. The country towns—
even places of such importance as Liverpool and
Huddersfield—might express themselves in a
rough-and-ready way on the subject, as Bar-
clay and Perkins's draymen did with respect
to Marshal Haynau. But London, as a centre
of philosophers and men of science and learning,
might be supposed to lie under the necessity of
being more judicial and dispassionate. It must in-
vestigate, and analyze, and compare, and suspend
its judgment. Some advance, however, was cer-
tainly made in London towards the unmasking of
these pedlers in mystery. The Brothers Davenport
went into the country with a damaged reputation,
and with claims which, if not entirely upset, were
considerably shaken. It had been already shown
by Mr. Anderson and others that it is not a feat
beyond human dexterity to release oneself from a
manacle of ropes without the, help of other hands,
and to reassume the bonds in an equally unaided
way ; and, although the trick was more neatly and
expeditiously done by the Davenports than by any
of their rivals, the difference was only in degree.
The Brothers had resisted certain modes of tying,
and they and their friends had got out of temper at
being too closely pressed. Still, they had contrived
to hold their own pretty well, and they had gathered
about them a certain number of believers. At
Liverpool, however, the exposure was carried much
farther. Ira Davenport was so securely bound,
after a fashion communicated to two local gentlemen
by Mr. Sothern, the actor, that he was compelled
to summon Dr. Ferguson to release him by the
human agency of a knife. The same thing
happened again at Huddersfield ; and the Brothers
have since refused to appear at Leamington,
where they were to have given a seance on Tues-
day evening, because they had been previously in-
formed that the Liverpool and Huddersfield
gentlemen had instructed " the opposition " at
the Warwickshire watering place in the art of tying
the knot which had twice baffled the resources of the
young men. A more complete discomfiture cannot
beimagined, The allegation that the particular
mode of tying objected to hurt the wrists and im-
peded the circulation, was disproved at Huddersfield
by the testimony of two medical gentlemen ; and it
is pretty certain that the blood which flowed from
Ira Davenport's wrists at Liverpool was caused—
either intentionally or accidentally—by the knife of
Dr. Ferguson in releasing the bonds. But, even had
the operation been as cruel as it was said to be,
what occasion was there for seeking the assistance
of sublunary steel ? Why not have closed the doors
of the cabinet at once, and awaited the action of
ethereal fingers ? The spirits, it seems, are never
very long in coming. The phantom hands appear
at the aperture in a few seconds; the tambourine
and the trumpet are flung out into the room before
the audience have time to compare notes. Why,
then, this sudden scepticism on the part of the Da-
venports—this distrust of the powers which have so
often, according to their assertion, delivered them
from bonds of knotted cords, and which once, as a
blasphemous story in an American paper sets forth,
miraculously opened their prison doors, and escorted
them safely into the outer world? The believers in
this mysterious agency are fond of the argument
that, as the ways of spirits are unknown to us, we
cannot predicate anything of their mode of action ;
but it is certainly rather strange that they should
always require for their performances precisely those
conditions which are most favourable to human
trickery, and that what baffles the moral agent in-
variably confounds his supernatural masters.

DEATH OF A SURGEON FROM INHALING CHLORO-
FORM.—An inquest was held on Wednesday, at
Newcastle, upon the body of Christopher Coates Lynn.
Deceased was 26 years of age, and was in possession of a.
good practice as a surgeon. William Andrew I'Anson
said—l was called to see the deceased on Tuesday night.
He was then quite dead. When I went into the room I
found there was a strong smell of chloroform, more espe-
cially so when deceased was turned upon his side. He had
taken chloroform twice before to my knowledge, and was
insensible both times. He used to inhale it, but for what
purpose I am not aware. There was nothing else to ac-
count for death in the surrounding circumstances. I dOn't
believe that deceased took the chloroform with the idea of
committing suicide. The jury returned a verdict that
deceased had died from the effects of chloroform adminis-
tered by himself in error.
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