Widnes Examiner. — 1882-05-20 (Widnes, Cheshire, England)

MISCELLANEOUS.  We (Pall Hall Gazette) understand that Mr. John Morley will retire from the editorship of the Fort eight.y Review in  November next.  _ _ Two conflagrations, involving an aggregate of about £120,000 damage, took place on Saturday, one in a.brewery  at Wandsworth and the other in a tannjy. in Galashiels. It is feared that five fishing smacks sailing out of Lowestoft, and carrying 25 hands, were lost in the gale _ _  of the 29th ult., nothing- having been heard of them since  that time.  On Monday, direct access with Leicester was gained through the Tilton-on-the Hill extension of the Great Northern Rai way. The new line is eleven miles long, opens up a fertile agricultural- district, and will prove a valuable feeder to the trunk line.  George Battams, labourer, was committed for trial at Leighton Buzzard, on Saturday, on a charge of wilfully murdering his wife, whose head he hacked to pieces with a billhook. Medical evidence was called to prove that prisoner had been suffering from brain softening. A very numerously attended meeting was held in Hyde Park, on Sunday, in support of the claim of Mr. Bradlaugh, M.P., to take his seat in the House of Commons. It was estimated that 60,000 persons took part in the proceedings. James Nichol Fleming. formerly a director of the City of Glasgow Bank, was brought before the Sheriff in Glasgow ma Saturday afternoon, charged with the embezzlement of part of the funds of that bank, and was formally committed for trial on that charge. The amount in question is said to be nearly one million sterling. On Monday, Dr. Diplock held an inquest at Hammersmith on the bodies of Eliza Gardner and her three children, aged four years, two years, and three months respectively, all of whom were found with their throats cut last Friday. The jury fcund that the woman, whilst temporarily insane, had killed her children and committed  suicide. Mr. J. F. May, one of the Macclekield solicitors, sentenced on November 28, 1881, to nine months' imprisonment for bribery, was on Saturday discharged from Knatsford prison by order of Sir William Harcourt, on the ground of illhealth. Mr. Mair, the Liberal agent (Mr. May having acted for the Conservatives), who was sentenced for a similar term, remains in the prison. The Gazette announces the elevation of Mr. H. Hussey Vivian, M.P., Mr. A. Matheson, of Lockalsh (Ross) ; Mr. F. A. Milbank, M.P., Mr. M. A. Bass, M.P., Mr. J. W. Pease, M.P., Mr. C. E. Adams, of Blair Adam (Kinross); Mr. C. J. Freake, of Cromwell House, Kensington • Mr. John Bennet Lawes, of Rothamsted (Hert) ; and Air. Samuel Stephens Marling, of Kingstanley and Ticlenharn, Gloucestershire, to the dignity of the baronetcy. The execution of Osmond Otto Brand, skipper, for the murder of Wm. Pepper, the Hull fisherboy, on the high seas, has been fixed by the High Sheriff of Yorkshire to take place at Armley gaol, Leeds, on Tuesday, the 23rd inst. The culprit was unmoved when the date was communicated to him by Mr. Keene, the governor of the gaol. He has been visited by his wife and her sister. No efforts have yet been made to obtain a reprieve. Brand, it is stated, eats and sleeps well. Mr. Pennington, the legal adviser of the Conservative party at Bolton, said in a speech which he delivered last week that "if Joe Chamberlain had been stabbed in the park on Saturday night he would have met the just deserts of his own policy." Several persons took the trouble to bring these words under the notice of Mr. Chamberlain, who in acknowledging his correspondents' letters speaks of Mr. Pennington as a "peculiarly rabid variety of the genus Tory." -.