The Sun.
London, England, 1851-10-20 00:00:00

THE SUN,

RESIGNATION OF MR. JUSTICE

PATTESOii.

The Hon. Mr.- Justice- Patteson presided, on
Thursday, at the annual dinner of the Awliscombe,
Buckerel, and Feniton Agricultural Association, at
Feniton, about twelve miles from Exeter, near which
place the Learned Judge's country residence is
situated.
In reply to the toast, " Success, Long Life, and
Prosperity to the President of the Day," the Hon. and
Learned Gentleman said his' excellent friend, Mr.
Drewe, had spoken of him in his judicial capacity in
a manner in which he could not at all coincide. He
had done his duty, he believed, as well as he had been
able during the twenty-one years he had been a judge,
and he had always endeavoured during that time to
deal justly between man and man, and between the
Crown and men, as far as the matters brought before
him enabled him to do so.—(Cheers.) Being fond
of his profession he had felt that he should be only
too glad to exert himself for some years yet to come
if it had pleased God to spare his life; but it had
pleased Him to eftlict him with an infirmity, which
had been coming on for many years, but had so
increased of late that it had now arrived at
such a point that there was a doubt—and a doubt was
quite sufficient in such a case—whether the due ad-
ministration of justice, where he was called on to
preside, might not be perilled. Now, they must
agree with him that the due administration of justice
ought not to be perilled at all, and therefore it was
that, upon the advice of his friends, who were better
able to judge than himself, he found the time was
come when, so far as regarded the hearing of cases
and the examination of witnesses, he could no longer
do his duty in a perfectly satisfactory manner. He
did not mean to may that he had ever been perfect in
performing his duty as judge. He meant to say he
could no longer do his duty in such a manner as he
ought. Therefore it was that, before the next circuit
came, when it would be his duty to preside in one of
the courts, he had determined to tender his resignation
to her Majesty—not because having served 21 years,
15 being the allotted time, he felt at liberty to retire,
but because, by the advice of ',those better able to
judge than himself, I* :11544. .thOirete was come
when he ought no /unger continue in a
situation involving the performance of most
important duties, to the proper discharge of which
his infirmity was a great obstacle. He had always
felt that he ought not to yield to that infirmity
and at once retire and take a pension from the
country, but if the administration of justice was to
be in any degree perilled by his remaining, however
anxious and desirous be might be to remain, he should
not shrink from retiring and taking that pension to
which for some years he had been entitled. Under
these circumstances he should not sit upon the bench
after next February. The consequence would be he
should spend more of his time in the country than
he had hitherto. The same infirmity which drove
him from the bench also prevented his rendering
much service to the country. Neverless, so far as
his infirmity allowed, he would render any service
in any shape or way it might come before him,
and he trusted in God to enable him to hit upon
something to employ his time profitably to his
country and to himself, and conducive to his eternal
good—(Cheers.) It was not his will, but the will
of the Almighty that he must retire.—(Renewed
cheers.) In conclusion, the Learned Judge thanked
the company for the kind manner in which they had
drunk his health.

A WHOLESALE MURDERESS.—BURY ST. EDMUND'S,
SATURDAY.—This town and neighbourhood have been
thrown into a state of great excitement in consequence of a
young person, moving in the better station of lite, who re-
sided with her uncle, a person of great respectability, at
Crawford, near Bury, having been committed for trial for
two distinct murders, the victims being her own illegitimate
children. From the facts which transpired before the magis-
trates and coroner, it appears that the prisoner ( Maria
Stuart) was suspected of having given birth to a child, and
a police-constable apprehended her on a charge of concealing
the birth. On her road to the station she confessed that the
child was buried behind the lodge at her uncle's house.
Search was made and the body of a female child discovered.
On being examined by Mr. Image, a surgeon at Bury, that
gentleman. gave it as his opinion, that the child had not only
been born alive, but that it bad sucked. Whilst the pri-
soner was in the station-house she made a voluntary con
fession, in which she admitted the following facts : —That
she was delivered of the child on the 24th of September, that
she murdered it on the following day, and kept it in her bed
till the 6th inst., when she buried it at the lodge, and that
she had murdered one child before. She then indicated the
spot where she had disposed of the body, and where upon a
search being made, its remains were found. She was fully
committed by the magistrates to take her trial at the next
assizes.

THE RECENT ILLUMINATION AT MANCHESTER.
—The consumption of gas on Friday night week by the
people of Manchester in their illumination was 2,316,000
cubic feet, and the cost, at 4s. Gd. per thousand feet, more
than 5201.

AN ATTORNEY CONVICTED OF FELONY.--At the
recent quarter-sessions for Hereford, on Saturday, Mr. John
Sparrow Taylor, an attorney, was indicted for stealing two
goslings, of the value of ss, at Kingston, in September last.
It seems that the two birds were missed from the fleck, and
they were found in the prisoner's possession—one was dead
and the other alive. The prisoner denied stealing them, but
said that he had a Newfoundland dog, and that the brute
killed the bird. His address to the jury occupied several
hours. He was found guilty, and sentenced to be imprisoned
for three calendar months, with hard labour. The case ex-
cited great interest.
DEATH OF THREE CHILDREN BY SUFFOCATION.—
A melancholy occurrence took place at Copford, about four
miles from Chelmsford, on Tuesday last, in the death of
three children of Thomas Nice, a farm labourer, one of the
number having, in the temporary absence of his mother, set
fire to the straw covering of a heap of potatoes in the room,
which, though it did not blaze, emitted a large quantity of
smoke, and so caused their suffocation. The bodies, when
viewed by the jury, were lying upon the bed in their night-
clothes. They were all very fine children, and bore so little
the appearance of death, that they might readily have been
supposed to be only asleep.
DEATH FROM THE KICK OF A HORSE..--019 Satur-
day an inquest was held by Mr. Payne, at SL Bartholomew's
Hospital, on the body of a man named Rogers, who was in
the employ of Messrs. Reid, the brewers, in Liquorpond-
street. He was in the act of cleaning a horse, when the
animal kicked out and struck him on the thigh, one of the
bones of which was fractured by the violence. He was
taken to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and he ultimately
Sank and expired. The jury returned a verdict of " Acci-
dental Death."
BALLOONING EXTRAORDINARY IN PARIS.—M.
Brunel, an aeronaut, made an ascension on Sunday last from
the Park of Rambouillet, in a balloon of 180 cubic metres,
and filled with pure hydrogen gas. From some difficulties
attendant on the inflation the operation, which commenced
at six o'clock in the morning, was not completed at a late
hour in the afternoon. M. Brunel, finding that the gas
which had entered the balloon would not give it power
enough to take up the car and the usual appendages, and
determined not any longer to disappoint the spectators, who
had assembled in great numbers, removed the car and °laced
a plank across the hoop, on which he seated himself, having
first thrown off his coat and even taken the money out of
pockets in order to render himself the lighter. On giving
the signal to " let go" the balloon rose into the air with the
rapidity of an arrow, and in a few minutes had attained an
height of about 2,000 metres. The witnesses of this perilous
ascension raised a cry of terror, but their anxiety was soon
relieved by seeing M. Brunel descend in safety.

Viscount and Viscountess Melbourne are staying
at Brocket Hall, Herts. His Lordship, who has for some
years suffered severely from gout, has lately improved in
health.
MARILIAGH IN HIGH LIFE.--On Saturday, by
special licence, at Blenheim Palace, his Grace the Duke of
Marlborough was married to Miss Jane Frances Clinton
Stewart, youngest daughter of the Hon. Edwardamndssand
Lady
Katherine Stewart, and niece to the Earl of woy
March.
How TO PAY A LAWYER.—An old lawyer of the
city of New York tells a good joke about one of his clients. A
fellow had been arraigned before the police for stealing a set
of silver spoons. The articles were found upon the culprit,
and there was no use in attempting to deny the charge.
Lawyer G— was applied to by the prisoner as counsel, and
seeing no escape for his client except on the plea of insanity
or idiotcy, he instructed the fellow to put on as silly a look as
possible, and when any question was put to him, to utter in
a drawling manner the word " spoons." If successful, the
fee was to be twenty dollars. The court proceeded to trial ;
the charge was read, and the question put to the prisoner,
Guilty or not guilty ?" "Spoons," ejaculated the culprit.
The court put several questions to him, but" spoons,spoons,"
was all the answer that it could elicit. " The fellow is a
ool," said the judge; "let him go about his business." The
prisoner left the room, and the lawyer followed in his wake,
and when they got intosaythineg, ha,l,lictohwe, cmouyngseololdorfetlilpoil)ve,dthhaist
client on the shoulder,
twenty dollars." The rogue looked the lawyer full in the
face, and putting on a grotesque and silly expression, and
winking with his eyes, exclaimed " Spoons," and them made
tracks.
TnE OMNIBUSES.—NOW, we suppose, it will be the
‘.l3qople,s.turn to deal with the multitude of omnibuses called
into Ation during the last six months. Short-distance
prices appear to be a desideratum, as well as a return to the
old threepenny half-distances and Bank fourpenny fares.
These, we dare say, will satisfy the middle classes, who would
daily and constantly fill the 'buses for short lifts at say 2d.,
while they retain even 3d. in their pockets. There is w ant ed,
too, in the metropolis what Liverpool has already got—a
working class omnibus at still cheaper fares, for certain dis-
tances even so low as a penny; though it must be admitted
that if these are to traffic throughout the whole length and
breadth of the metropolis the fare for the whole distance
must be higher—say 3d., half the middle-class price. The
penny omnibuses at Liverpool are literally besieged by the
working classes, and taken by storm, and the demand for
more is about to be supplied by a new and superior kind of
vehicle. It whatever way it may be managed, there is
likely to be a reform in the omnibus ranks in the metropolis,
and a reform is needed in the vehicle no less than in the fare.
Let the Parisian omnibus, even, be simply imitated, and the
pa
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take not, from Glasgow, will do. Would not iron ones be
lighter to draw than those we have, even though they were
la-ger ?—Builder.

ONE OF THE OLDEN TlME.—There is now living
in the parish of North Creake, in this county, a female
named Martha Johnson, who on the 21st of September last,
completed her hundredth year. She was born at Cley next
the sea, in 1751; her maiden name was Farnsby, the
daughter of a respectable merchant of that place. This ex-
traordinary individual, who has been thirty years a widow,
has lived to see her descendants to the fourth generation,
numbering twelve children, forty-eight grandchildren,
seventy-nine great-grandchildren,and four great-great-grand-
children, in all, 143 ! She has consequently lived during the
reigns of five sovereigns, namely', George IL, George
George IV., William IV., and our present Queen. She is,
moreover, in the enjoyment of good health, with her facul-
ties unimpaired, particularly her eyesight and meraory,-
11rorfQ/4 Vironick,