Runcorn and Widnes Examiner. — 1872-03-30 (Runcorn, Cheshire, England)

BOLTON AT THE ASSIZES.  THE Bolton rioters who, the other day, broke up a peaceful political meeting in that town, and indiscriminately bludgeoned a consolerable number of the persons who took part in it, and who finally got to the length of actual homicide, have just had the benefit of a little friendly counsel from the Judge who presided over the hearing of the CBBO at the Manchester Assizes. The manuere of Bolton 'seem to be of a ralier wild and primitive character, and it appears as if, even at this time of day, the Aborigines of that extraor— dinary borough held to the old belief in the efficacy of a brickbat as an elegant form of persuasion in matters of political controversy. This certainly implies a strong attachment to the fashions of our muscular ancestors, and at a time when mechanical science exercises so much of its ingenuity in devising infallible methods for the instantaneous abridgment of human life, the briu kbat, and ita kindred articles of battery, strikes one as being almost as antiquated as those which might have been employed at the siege ot ; Jerusalem. We don't say that the Bolton Conservative who besieges a room full of people who have the misfortune to differ with him, and knocks them on the bead with such dexterous alacrity, and indeed provides employment for the coroner, in doing so—we say, we don't call him a Ravage. We don't think that he is even tattooed like poor Sir Roger, anil the climate is hardly propitious to the costume so much in favour with the children of nature. But if he does not run wild in woods, and paint himself blue in lieu of lees diaphonous raiment, his war whoop is perfect, and his appetite for the scalps of unsympathising politicians is as keen as that of his painted ancestor. Bolton must be a serene lotus eating region, " where it is always afternoon," and if it were not that clogs were occasionally worn, shod with trimmings of iron with which light sandal the wearer now and then kicks his wife or his neighbour to death, it would almost be as nice a place to live in as the Andaman island All is, however, is beside the question. Having, as we have seen, besieged their neighbours quietly assembled in public meeting, and half beaten some of them into what they would call a mummy," killing one of them outright, the matter came before a jury at the Manchester Assizes. We suppose that juries are very good things in their way, but nobody will contend that a jury is a perfect piece of judicial mechanism. We hear of the rights and the representation of minorities, but we see both in full swing every day in the jury box. If a rogue, or a fool, or a tyrant, happens to form one of a jury he is permitted to nullify all the intelligence, the fairness, and the sense of decency which may characterise the eleven gentlemen with whom he is accidentally associated. Well, in this trial of Bolton ruffianism the jury—or rather one of them—fortified no doubt by Serjeant Ballantine, conduced to the acquittal of the prisoners. Nobody, of course, will complain of the defence of Sergeantßallantine. It is the duty of a function ' of the Bar, when necessary, to make the worse appear the better leiteon, and if the preliminary hundreds of guineas had been offered to the great "claimants ' advocate, to have undertaken the prosecution of the Bolton rioters he would doubtless have done his best to secure their conviction. As it was " the obstinate juryman " really opened the door of the duck and set the prisoners free. Here is a triumph for the Conservative party in Lancashire, now in the full flush of preparation to receive the great leader wh use sympathy is always with "the most sacred of calc•es." The unsympathising Judge very unkindly hoped that '• the prisoners would not return to Bolton with the idea that they haul gained any triumph! " Why, if it is not a triumph, what is it? The Belton Tory will begin to think that it is of little use murdering his neighbour for the good of his party if his prowess is to be criticised in these most discouraging terms of magieterial ingratitude.  LORD EGERTON'S LAND