The Sun.
London, England, 1857-03-11 00:00:00

MhTEOPOLITAN BOABD OF' IVORKS.

A special meeting of the Metropolitan Board of Works
was held yesterday in the Council Chamber, Guildhall—
Mr. J, Thwaitcs in the chair.

IMPORTANT REGULATIONS AS TO THE FORMATION OF
NEW STREETS IN THE METROPOLIS.
The Board was ,-p,cialiy
considering the byelaws convened for the purpose of
to be 1 rid down which are to I
regulate the formation of new streets in the metro-
pol:s.
The following byelaws were agreed to :--
" 1. Six weeks at least before auy new street shall be
laid out written notice shall be given to the Metropolitan
Board of Works, at their office, No. 1, Greek-street, Soho,
in the county of Middlesex, by the person or persons in-
tending to lay out such new streets, stating the proposed
level and width thereof, and accompanied by a plan of the
ground, showing the local situation of the same.
" 2. Forty feet, at the least, shall be the width of every
new street intended for carriage traffic ; 20 feet, at the
least, shall he the width of every new street intended only
for foot traffic ; 20 feet, at the least., shall be the width of
every new mews; provided that the said width, re-
spectively, shall be construed to mean the width of the
carriage and footway only, exclusive of any gardens, fore-
courts, open areas, or other spaces in front of the houses or
buildings erected or intended to be erected in any street or
mews.
"3. Every new street and every new mews shall, unless
the Metropolitan Board of Works otherwise consent in
writing, have, at the least, two entrances of the full width
of such street or mows and be open from the ground
upward.
"4. The measurement of the width of every street shall
be taken at a right angle to the course thereof half on
either side, from the centre or crown of the roadway to the
external wall or front of the intended houses or buildings
on each side thereof ; but where fore-courts or other spaces
are intended to be left in front of the houses or buildings,
then the width of the street, m already defined, shall be
measured from the centre line up to the fence, railing, or
boundary dividing or intended to divide such fore-courts,
gardens, or spaces from the public way.
" 5. The carriageway of every new street must curve or
fall from the centre or crown thereof at the rate of throe.
eighths of an inch, at the least, for every foot of breadth.
" 6. In every new street the curb to each footpath must
not be loss than six nor more than eight inches in height
above the channel of roadway, except in the case of cross-
ings paved or formed for the use of foot passengers ; and
the slope of every footpath must be half an inch to every
foot of width if the footpath be unpaved, or not less than
a quarter of an inch to every foot of width if the footpath
be paved.
"7. In these bylaws the word street' shall be inter-
preted to apply to and include any highway (except the
carriageway of any turnpike road), and any road, lane,
footway, square, court, alloy, or passage, whether a tho-
roughfare or not, and a part of any such highway, road,
lane, footway, square, court, alley, or passage."
The further consideration of other bylaws was ad-
' journed for a fortnight.
Some uninteresting formal business as to the order of
; proceeding in the Board having been disposed of,
The Board adjourned.

[ADVERTISELIENT.]—Jane Hallett, of Whiity Head
near Netherbury, Dorset, suffered for many years from
a bad leg. From the knee to the apcle it had severa
wounds, so that she was unable to stand or move about
the house. She tried a variety of means and applica-
tions, but without obtaining a cure. By the blessing of
God and using only thres pots of Poor Man's Friend,
anrd. takingl o e rtst' ah Poe obr oll'xleasuoji Friend,pills, she
forlvas
woundsperfectly
dc ure(
Dr. i
erup-
tions of every description, is sold in pots, is. lAd. and
2s. 93. each. His Pilulin Antiscrophulm, for all im.
purities of the blood, is sold in box.,3s, ls. 2.3. 93.,
4s. Gd., lls , and 22:4. each, by all medicine vendors
throughout the United Kingdom and colonies.

Much activity is v;sible in Portsmouth Dockyard
early and late just now, workmen being employed
from 5 o'clock in the mo!ning until 10 at night in
getting ready the steamships Transit, Assistance,
and Sidon, for the embarka-ion of the troops men-
tioned iu The Sun of • Mondly as under orders for
China. A large and able body of m-n ft om the ordi-
nary flagship St. Vincent., Osps. Elliott- and the
Blenheim, 60, Capt the Hon. F. T. Pelham, C. 8.,
are rigging and fitting out tt•ese sail s. The Sid,)n
has topgallantinasts pointed, and it nearly ready
for the pendant. The • Transit has I e-n already
commissioned by Commander Ennis Chrmbers. A
squadron of steam gunboats are also orclete l to I c
Equipped to accompany the larger ve:solFt,. which

will convoy them out. It has been iunoute I als,-)
that two blockships (60-gun screw two-deckers)
will form part of the China reinforcements.
His Royal Highness .he Gener..l Comniinlinz-
in-Cnief wilt hold a levee at 1 o'clock on Saturd.y
next.

The Commander-in-Chief bas appointed Lieut.-
Col.. Crofton, late Commandant of V:e Osnasnli
Horse Artillery, to the command of the R.4yal Ar-
tillery iu Nortli.Britsin ; and he wid relieve Col.
Wards on the Ist -of April.
The 84th (York and Lancaster) Regithent having
been ordered to
.proceed to China, direefons have
-been received at the depot of that corps (ChaV.am)
for the whole of the officers belong-kg to that regi-
ment, now in this country, to join their regiment
immediately. The service companies of. the 81th
are at Ran goon. •
The Dolphin brigantine, limit - Webber, left.
Spit head yesterday afternoon for Chatham, to be
paid off.' She brought home from the Coast of
Africa squadron the following odic rs Mr. Henry,
surgeon of her Majesty's steamer Proinetheus ; Mt.
Kirkham, second master, of her Majesty's steamer
Myrmidon ; Mr. Spears, paymaster of her Ma-
jesty's steamer Childers ; Mr. Clark, engineer, of
the Myrmidon ; Mr.. Erskine' engur-erg of her
Majesty's steamer Firefly ; and Mr. Good;11, of Vie
War Department; also 17 invalid-4 whom she
landed at Portsmouth. The Dolphin has been
very healthy during the whole time of her commis-
sion, and has not lost a hand from sickne?s of any
kind.
The screw sloop Plumper, 11, Captain Richards,
received her crew yesterday at Port-nriu.th, and
has gone to Spithead to await further orders.
The Dauntless, 34, Captain Ryder, will bo paid
off at Portsmouth on Friday next. •
• The Nimrod, 6, new screw despatch vessel, Com-
mander Dew, returned to Portsmouth yesterday
after a cruise in the Channel. She goes to China.
The screw steam-ship ColossuQ, 8.), Captain
Thomas L. Thompson,, sailed from Plymouth on
Monday for Lisbon. •
The 26, from- Portland, arrived at Ply-
mouth on Monday. _ _

Instructions have been received at Woolwich
from the Commander-in-Chief ordering four com-
panies of the Royal Artillery to bl held ill readi-
ness for immediate embark& on after the a-rival of
the next mail from China, due about the 16th inst.
The companies thus under orders are—Captain
Scudamore Longden's No. 5 of the 13th battalion,
Captain s.iddleton'a No. 6 of the 13th bast dion,
Captain Knox's No. 4 of the 9th battalion, and
Brevet-Major Barstow's No. 6 of the 10th batta-
lion. Orders have been issued to employ extra
hands in the- clothing department, s 9 as to distri-
bute to the troops under orders for foreign service
the new uniforms intended for tile f rthcoming
year, and to admit of the old tunes being con-
verted into fatigue jackets for service. Captain
Frederick Hugh Chancellor's company, No. 1 of
the 14th battalion, are ordered to proem I to Shoe-
buryness, on Tuesday next, to relieve Major Knox's
company, under orders for Chin t. The remaining
three companies are stationed at head quarters,
Woelwich. A garrison order has been promulgated
at Woolwich, commanding the officers and men in-
discriminately to, permit the growth of the mon-
.,(cwrie on the upper ltp, extending within two
inch.!s of the whisker on either side of the face, and
no portion of the beard to be retained either on or
under the chin.

Lieut.-Colonal John Henry Lefroy, Royal Ar-
tillery, 4th battalion, at Woolwich, has been ap-
pointed inspector of military schools, in the pile°
of the Rev. G. R. Gleig, M.A., Chaplain-General
to the War Department.
The destruction of the old seamen's hospital
Dreadnought is progressing rapidly at Woolwich.
Yesterday morning Mr. Sicilian, the dockyard
auctioneer, held his first sale by auction of the old
timbers, which met with ready purchaaers, 85 lots
being speedily brought to the hammer, and rea-
lising the sum of 3801. The shipwright department
have calculated the value of copper to be got from
the demolished vessel will exceed 2,0001. _ _

An agent of M. Pauvene, who prufesses by che-
mical ingredients to convert iron into st3el, paid a
visit to Woolwich dockyard yesterday morning,
under the sanction of the Lords Commissioners of
the Admiralty, and is about to make arrangements
to demonstrate the advantage of his invention,
which he has secured by patent. The transmutation
of the metal is to be effected in the short space of
five hours, and will consist of three classes—
namely, ordinary, cast, and shear steel.
On Monday evening 264 volunteers arlived at
the Provisional Battalion Chathani, con -iqting of
46 men from the 14th to the 35th Regiment, 45
from the 28th to the 61st Reg:ment, 70 from the
39th to the 64th Regiment, 60 from the 47th to
the 81st and 84th Regiments, and 43 from the 65th
to the 78th Highlandeis and 83d Regiment.
The following appointments were m tde yester-
day at the Admiralty :
Lieut. W. H. Phipps, to the Himalaya ; Lieut.
H. A. Reilly, to the ransit ; Deut. J. Burgess,
to the Ajax ; Lieut. W. E. Stone (additional), to
the Victory ; F. S. Vandermeulin, G. R. Donkin,
A. Jephson, R. 0. B. Fitzroy, mid4hipmeo, to the
Sanspareil ; B. Shattock and C. E. Pearce, mid-
shipmen, to the Calcutta, for disposal ; G. J. W.
Prowse, naval cadet, to the Victory, for disposal ;
J. T. N. Bremner, surgeon, to the Himalaya ; J.
Barclay, surgeon, to the Transit ; J. B. Patterson,
surgeon, to the Amphitrite ; F. Piercy, acting as-
sistant-surgeon, to the Transit ; W. H. Lloyd and
W P. J. Purcell, acting assistant-surgeons, to, the
Calcutta ; H. Harkan, assistant-surgeon, to Green-
wich Hospital; and C. Ke3nan, assistant-surg,eo
to the Eiinburgh.

NEOICSSITY FOR TkIENNIAL

PARL Allf BN

(From the Daily News.)
Seven years is the sixth part of the average dura-
Von of human life in England. Defer() a min can
become an elector he must have eArapleted his 21,4
year. On an average, then, no elector can calcu-
late upon exercising his right of suffrage more than
three times in his life under a sy6teni of Septennial
Parliaments.
In the course of leas than seven years Louis
Philippe was driven from his throne, the republic
which succeeded him overturned by the coup d'etat,
and Napoleon 111., as a principal party to the war
against Russia, recognised as one of the arbiters of
the destinies of Europe.
Seven years is necessarily an important part of
the life of the individual ; it may be an important
part of the life of a nation—of a sys:em of nations.
. These facts ought to be present to the mind of
every elector when be gives his vote at the impend-
ing general election. Ho and his fellow-electors
are, in fact, entrusting the fortunes of the country
to some 600 individuals forseven years—for a period
of a length that has ore now proved sufficient to
uproot a dynasty, and change the whole character
of a national government. A bare majority of that
six hundred, by actin(); steadily in concert, may bid
defiance to every wish either of the Crown or the
people, to put an end to their lease of delegated
power. For seven long years they may with.im-
punity uphold a corrupt or oppressivo Administra-
tion, and legislate for the exclusive advantage of
their caste, their families, and themselves.
It is madness in any people to tempt the virtue
of a small number of their fellow-citizens by invest-
ing them' ;Yith such powers to promote selfish
sinister interests for such a kngtbened period.
Mischief may be dond in the lapse of seven pars
that can never be undone. The people may be
goaded to madness by the pers..'stence of a faction
in misgovernment and iniquitous legislation,
civil commotion provoked before ti before oh our •)est
and most venerated institutions OlaY crumble
away.
The first Septennial Parliament was at one 3 the
consequence and the instrument of a coup ~etat*
A parliament voted the prolongation of its owl ex-
istence in order to give security to that dyiasi;
whose right to the crown rests exclusively upon a
parliamentary title. The importance of the object
to be attained, no one at this Lime of day will deny.
Whether such an extreme geasure required to be
resorted to for its attainmeo, or whether under any
circumstances it be aP,tvable 'to do evil that good
questioned. But •
may come, may i° it is drtain
that the ef.4- things which was ll
a .eged to remit •

By reducing- the duration of Parliaments to three
years, the risk of the abuse of Parliamentary power_
would-be materially dimin.ishe'l. Thera are severtl
reasons for fixing upon three years as the term t
be substituted for seven. The legal durati,n of
Parliament at the time when it w•ts extended by a
goodcou dpeotaptetowho
geven ars was three years. Many
are starthd at the idea of a more
frequent recurrence of general elections would coin-
pound for three years. Thee is some weight in
ho'h of these reasons, but there is far more weight
in a third which. we are now about to sttte. The
danger of anqual Portilmenti is that so ft-, quest a
recurrence efrelec-Fou sruggles would wea-y and
disgust the greater part of the public, and that
elections would consequently become mere matt.m-s
of form, or would be left to the management of a
few interested busybodies. Three years wou'd
give any body of men comparatively few opportu-
nities of doing lasting 411ischief, and would suffi-
ciently reveal the character of dishorEst membersto
insure their di-m'ssal.

The evil consequences of conferring upon mem-
bers of Parliament too long a lease of power must
be particularly obvious to the reflecting at the pre-
sent moment. A great proportion of the electors
se-'m Lent upon giving their votes for no other pur-
pose than to express; their predilection for ati ;men-,
vidual. Men of the most questionable character
and'principles will be allowed to slip in, on the sole
condition 'of pledging themselves to support Lord
Pahnerst in. In seven years the collection of loose
fish that may be brought together by this means
may ruin the country.
Tho preient duty of those who are convinced of
the necessity of shortening the duration of Parlia-
ments is obvious. They owe it to themselves and
their country to refuse their votes to anyand every
emendate who will not pledge himself to support a
bill for shortening the duration of the next and all
future Parliaments to three years. In every con-
stituency where there can be a contested election
the advocates of short Parliaments aro sufficiently
numerou to turn the scale. If they will only reso-
lutsly and distinctly insist upon this pledge, they
may rest assured that it will be taken.
We know the clatter that will be raised about our '
ears on the score of the immorality and inutility of
fledges. We are as little disposed as any of the
wranglers who will raise thi-t cavil, to attribute any
magical power to a pledge. We know that there are
gluttins of pledges, who will swallow them by the
dozen, and void them with equal facility. What we
mean by a pledge is a public, deliberate, unequivo-
cal promise by a man that he will do so and so. If
the electors are careful to select trustworthy men
—men who have characters to lose—they may rest
assured that mere sham-, if no better motive, will
make such men keep any explicit promises they
have made in public.

SPRING ASSIZES.

NORFOLK CIRCUIT.—AYLESBURY, March 10.

ALLEGED MURDER..

Maria Isabella Becket, aged 66, was indicted for
the wilful murder of Jane Bowden, on the 30th of

Mr. Wroth• was counsel for the prosmution ; Mr.
Power awl Mr. Mills appeared for the prisoner.

The prißoner is a re;Pectable-lookin-g old lady,
who at the time of the occurrence out of which th.s
charge arose was lodging at Wing with her son-in-
law, Mr, Bowden. Near to their house lived Mrs.
Bebket, the wife of the prisoner's son, and it ap-
peared that on the 30th of Dec. the old lady.paid
the latter a morning call. Mrs. Becket welcomed
her relative warmly, saying, " Oh, moiler you
have not been here since the alterations." To this
the prisoner, whose eyes glared wildly, replied with
a sad and solemn voice, "Yes, I am come, but not
on a pleasant errand, for I am come to kill Son.
1 mut do it for I am mad," and muttered some-
thing about her having been sent by the devil, who
had given her a razor ; the same time she pro-
duced a razor from her pocket, and seized Mrs.
Becket's arm. A scream and struggle ensued,
during whi It the old lady said, "Oh ! I must do
it ;" but'a second scream summoned to the aid of
Mrs. Becket, who was far advanced in pregnancy,
a neighbour, and by his assistance the maniac was
subdued and apparently pacified. After a while
she said she was better, and went away, saying she
could ko alone. Although Mrs. Becket Lad ob-
served indications of a failing intellect in her
mother-in-law since her husband's death two years
•ago, neither she nor her friend' accompanied the
prisoner. On her return home she found the de-,
ceased, a child only 10 weeks old, sleeping in a
cradle rocked by an elder sister five years old.
Mrs: Bowden was upstairs, and immediately after
the return of the prisoner she heard a shriek from
the girl, and on rushing down discovered to her
horror the old lady, with the babe on her lap, deli-
berately engaged in the act of cutting itsthroat with a
knife. The injuries inflicted on the child caused death
in a few minutes, as her distracted mother rushed
out of the house with it in her arms. When taxed
with the murder the old lady said, "I was forced to
kill the baby in order that it might go to heaven."
Both Mrs. Becket and Mr.?. Bowden agreed in at-
tributing this dreadful act to the impulses of in-
sanity, and described the conduct of the prisoner
for some time past as that of one labouring under
a delusion, struggling with invisible spirits as it
were, and whose intellect was failing. The medical
man who hid known her for several years spoke of
her as hypochondriacal at times, and deposed that,
in his opinion, the prisoner was of unsound mind
at the time in qued'on. She answered all his ques-
tions rationally enough, and had always taken to
the child more than to her other grandchildren.
On one occasion the prisoner said to Mrs. Bowden,
she wi-Ned some one would kill her if he would not
be hanged for it, and regretted that it was a sin
to kill °herself, and often expressed the feat; that
she should die in a workhouse, though her cir-
cums.ances were amply sufficient for one of her
class of life.
Mr. Power Navin g addressed the jury, raging
that his unfortunate client was entit'ed to an ac-
qui'tal on the ground of insanity.
The Chief Baron left it to them to say whether
they were satisfied by the evidence that the pri-
soner at the time she took away the life of her
grandchild was in a state of insanity, so as not to
render h-r criminally responsible for that horrible
act.
The jury at once returned a verdict of Not
Guilty en the ground of insanity.
TILE ALLEGED MURDER AT CHESIIAM.
The grand jury threw out the bill in this case,
which was expected to have occupied the entire
day to-morrow.

HOME CIRCIIIT.—MAIDSTONE, MARCH 10.
CIVIL SIDE.
Before Mr. Justice Cresswell.)
HADLOW V. MARSH.

This was an action brought by the pla'ntiff to
recover damages from the defendant for the seduc-
tion of his daughter.
Mr. E. James, Q.C., and Mr. Rodwell were for
the plaintiff, and Mr. M. Chambers, Q.C., and
Mr. Horne for the defendant.
The plaintiff in this action, it appeared, was a
grocer at Herne-hill, near Canterbury, and the de-
fendant was stated to be a person of property re-
siding with his mother in the same neighbourhood,
at a short distance from the plaintiff The young
woman who was the unfortunate subject of the in-
quiry was about 28 years old, and the defendant
was stated to be considerably on the wrong side of
40. It appeared that the intimacy first commenced
between them about three years back, and that it
continued unt 1 the beginning of the last year,
when the plaintiff's daughter proved in the family-
way, and she gave birth to a child that was still
surviving, in the following month of June. The
defendant, it appeared, was then applied to, but he
the present
denied that there had been any improper intimacy
between him and the plaintiff's daughter,
as-
serted that the child was not bis, and and
action was the result. _

The daughter of the plaintiff, a very good-looking
young woman, was examined, and she detailed the
eireumsta,tices under which the intimacy arose be.
twcon her and the defendant. She was subjected
to a very severe cross-examination by Mr. Cham-
bers, and she stated in answer to questions put to
her by the learned counsel that the defendant first
accosted her as she was returning from church, and,
that she conversed with him for sometime, and
that an assignation was made betweeu them, and
the defendantb told her that when he " NyLan4.oterr,
her" he would wave his pocket-handkerchief
occasion
her window. She said that upon the
when this was done she did not intend t
defendant, but she happened accidentally. '
first meet the
to walk
s ether, and
' At a plantation:That belonged
tohialked together
occurred onsome
liT:ca....no out to meet her, and theNv
in the ni,
other °ma.
she s‘tid that .
—,ns, and on the
`.at.lows. The same
defendant sum° .
the
continued at overcom-
ingi.nte'-
her virtue. After this their , she met him
third time
eded in
nt were
thing
'Tab, and always took place iu

NEW SPAPE
-
rettgl- .
•
the dusk-Of the evehieg.
that she had walked ou. _ • c
other yaung men, wlanse .
and that „she had &se Die, alb with
another faentletnau of propert t a, .ueigha
bourhaocl ; but she --- aertE,sd nivst positively that
nothing improper t. - JalaCe Jt4,ith any of those
parties ; and that she hcrl a--:ot. 1;e-eta connected ima
properly with any other man than the defendant.
Mr. Chambers, in his address to the jury, eon•
tended that the action was a trumpery one, and
that the matter ought to have bean set led before a
n., and not have
Magistrate by an order ef affiliato
l) en made the subject an inquiry of thia-,kind.
As to the charge of seduction, he said it appeaa-e4
to him that if thete had been any seducer in the
case it was the yauna woman, and zaat the defen-
dant, who was arrived at a time of Ife which,
recdered him a very unlikely subje for au a attack
of this description.' I
Te admitted it was an 'infer-.
tuna'e hing for a father to have af, ward tighter,
but he said the jery were biund, not only for their
own protection, but for that of every one placed in
a similar situat:on. to the defendma, to tali) ca
not to give damagas fir seduction when no seduction
had in realty taken plac,
Mr. Justice Cresswell having summed up, ne
jury after a shirt defilar returned a verdict
for !hi plaiutiff—Dainlges, 40/.