Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 1. No 1, June 1850

The two Overland Mails from India which arrived during the month brought news that there had been some fighting in the newly acquired territories. On the 2d of February a body of Affredies, inhabitants of the Kohat hills, about a thousand strong, attacked the camp of a party of British sappers, employed in making a road in a pass between Peshawur and Kohat. Twelve of the latter were killed, six wounded, and the camp was plundered. To avenge this massacre a strong force under Colonel Bradshaw, Sir Charles Napier himself, with Sir John Campbell, accompanying him, marched from Peshawur an the 9th. The mountaineers made a stand in every pass and defile; but although the troops destroyed six villages and killed a great number of the enemy, they were obliged to return to Peshawur on the 11th without having accomplished their object. On the 14th February another force was sent to regain the passes and to keep them open for a larger armament.

Accounts from Egypt to the 6th, state that the Pacha, who had been residing at his new palace in the Desert, had returned to Cairo. The proximity of his residence has drawn his attention to the Improvement of the Overland Route; and he has said that means must be adopted to reduce the period of traveling between the ships in the Mediterranean and Red Sea to 60 or 65 hours, instead of 80 or 85 hours. He has sent a small landing steamer to ply in Suez harbor; and he is causing the work of Macadamizing the Desert road to be proceeded with vigorously. An agreement has been made with contractors to enlarge the station-houses on the Desert, so as to admit of the necessary stabling accommodation for eight or ten relays of horses, instead of four or five, by which means 50 or 60 persons will be moved across in one train, instead of, as at present, half that number. Mules, again, are to be substituted for baggage camels in the transport of the Indian luggage and cargoes, with the view to a reduction of the time consumed in this operation between Suez and Cairo, from 36 to 24 hours. It is easy to perceive the benefits which will be derived from these measures.

Mr. P. Colquohon sends to the Athenæum, the following extract of a letter from Baron de Rennenkampff, the Chief Chamberlain of H.R.H. the Grand Duke of Oldenburg, and President of the Museum of Antiquities at Oldenburg, which is almost entirely indebted to that gentleman for its collection – narrating an important discovery of Roman silver coins:

"A most interesting circumstance, the particulars of which have much occupied my attention, has occurred here lately. Some poor day laborers in the neighborhood of the small town of Jever, on the border of Marsch and Gest, found, in a circle of a few feet, at a depth of from 7 to 8 feet, a heap of small Roman coins, of fine silver, being 5000 pieces of Roman denarii. The half of them immediately fell into the hands of a Jew of Altona, at a very inconsiderable price. The greatest portion of the remainder were dispersed before I gained intelligence of it, and I only succeeded in collecting some 500 pieces for the Grand Duke's collection, who permitted me to remunerate the discoverers with four times the value of the metal. The coins date between the years 69 and 170 after Christ while the oldest which have hitherto been discovered on the European Continent, in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, &c., date from 170 or 180. Each piece bears the effigy of one of the Emperors of the time, the reverse is adorned with the impression of some occurrence (a woman lying down with a chariot wheel, and beneath it the legend via Trajaceæ, a trophy, and on the escutcheon Dacia capta, &c.), and these are so various that pairs have only been found in a few cases. The discovery is so much the more wonderful, as, historically, no trace can be found of the Romans having penetrated so far down as Jever."

The French Minister of the Interior has decided on postponing the Exhibition of Painting in Paris this year until November. The comparative absence from the capital during the fine season of strangers and of rich amateurs likely to be purchasers of pictures, is the motive for this change in the period of opening the Salon.

The French papers state that the submarine electric telegraph between Dover and Calais is to be opened to the public on the 4th of May, the anniversary of the proclamation of the French Republic by the Constituent Assembly.

The Indian Mail brings copies of a new journal published in China on the first day of the present year, and called the Pekin Monitor. It is written in Chinese, and carefully printed, on fine paper. The first number contains an ordinance of the emperor, Toa-kouang, forbidding the emigration of his subjects to California or the State of Costa Rica.

It is stated in the Berliner Allgemeine Kirchen Zeitung, that the Jews have obtained a firman from the Porte, granting them permission to build a temple on Mount Zion. The projected edifice is, it is said, to equal Solomon's Temple in magnificence.

The creation of a university for New South Wales is a striking expression of the rapid development of the history of a colony founded, in times comparatively recent, with the worst materials of civilization grafted on the lowest forms of barbarism existing on the earth. The new institution is to be at Sydney; and a sum of £30,000 has been, it is said, voted for the building and £5000 for its fittings-up. It will contain at first chairs of the Classical Languages, Mathematics, Chemistry, Natural History, Natural Philosophy, Mechanics, Physiology, and the Medical Sciences; and professorships of History, Philosophy, and Political Economy are to be hereafter added. There is to be no faculty of Theology – and no religious tests.

The late Dr. Potts, inventor of the hydraulic pile-driving process, and other mechanical inventions, expired at his house in Buckingham-street, Strand, on the 23d ultimo. Dr. Potts belonged originally to the medical profession; but by inclination, even from school-boy days, and while a class-fellow with the present Premier and the Duke of Bedford, he appears to have devoted himself to mechanical and engineering pursuits. His name, however, will be most closely associated for the future with the ingenious process for driving piles.

It is said that "among the agriculturists of Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, and Herefordshire," there is a grand scheme of emigration afloat, which projects the purchase of a million acres of land in one of the Western States of America.

Some of the paper slips dropped by the telegraphing balloons, sent up experimentally by the Admiralty at Whitehall, have been returned by post from Hamburg and Altona, a distance of 450 miles direct.

Box tunnel, London, which is 3192 yards in length, was an object of some interest on Tuesday, the 9th of April, as on that morning at twenty-five minutes past five the sun shone through it. The only other periods that such an event occurs are on the 3d and 4th of September.

An oak tree, forty feet high, with three tons of soil on its roots, has been transplanted at Graisley, near Wolverhampton. The tree was mounted on a timber-carriage, and, with its branches lashed to prevent damage to windows, passed through the streets, a singular but beautiful sight.

The Plymouth Town-Council are about to lay down a quantity of glass pipes, jointed with gutta percha, as an experiment, for the conveyance of water.

The French, Belgian, and Prussian governments appointed a commission in 1848 to draw up the base of an arrangement for an international railway communication; the commission is about to commence its sittings in Paris.

The Russian Geographical Society has decided upon exploring that portion of the Northern Ural which lies between Mount Kwognar and the pass of Koppol; an extent of 2000 wersts, which has not yet been explored by the Ural expedition. The expedition will consist of only three persons – a geognort, who also determines the altitude, a geographer, and one assistant. A great number of attendants, interpreters, workpeople, and rein-deer sledges, have already been engaged. The expedition will set out immediately, and it is hoped will complete the investigation by September.

It is said that nothing indicates the social and moral condition of any community more accurately or impressively than its Records of Crime. The following instances, selected from English journals of the month, will not, therefore, be without interest and instruction.

On the 2d, Thomas Denny was tried at Kingston-on-Thames, for Murdering his Child. He was a farm-servant, and so poor that he lived in a hay-loft on his master's premises, with his reputed wife. In August a child was born, and died immediately. Suspicions arose, and an investigation took place, which led to the prisoner's commitment, charged with murdering the infant. On the trial the prisoner's son, an intelligent boy of eight years old, told the following graphic story of his father's guilt: "We all," he said, "lived together in the hay-loft at Ewell. When mother had a baby, I went to my father and told him to come home directly. When we got back my father took up the baby in his arms. He then took up an awl. [Here the child became much affected, and cried bitterly, and it was some time before he could proceed with his testimony. At length he went on.] My father took up the awl, and killed the baby with it. He stuck the awl into its throat. The baby cried, and my father took the child to its mother, and asked her if he should make a coffin for it. Before he said this, he asked her if she would help to kill it, and gave her the awl. She tried to kill it also. My father gave her the child and the awl, and she did the same to it that he had done. I was very much frightened at what I saw, and ran away, and when I came back I found mother in bed." The woman (Eliza Tarrant) had been charged as an accomplice, but the bill against her was ignored by the grand jury. On the trial she was called as a witness; to which the prisoner's counsel objected, she being a presumed participator in the crime. The woman, however, was called, and partly corroborated her son's testimony; but denied that she took any share in killing her offspring. The prisoner was convicted, and Mr. Justice Maule passed sentence of death, informing him that there was no hope of respite. Subsequently, however, the objections of the prisoner's counsel proved more valid than the judge supposed, for the secretary of state thought proper to commute the sentence. The unfortunate man received the respite with heartfelt gratitude. Since his conviction he appeared to be overcome with grief at his awful position.

A Tale of Misery was revealed on the 3d to Mr. à Beckett, the magistrate Of Southwark police court. He received a letter from a gentleman who stated that as he was walking home one evening, his attention was attracted to a young woman. She was evidently following an immoral career; but her appearance and demeanor interesting him he spoke to her. She candidly acknowledged, that having been deserted by her parents, she was leading an abandoned life to obtain food for her three sisters, all younger than herself. Her father had been in decent circumstances, but that unfortunately her mother was addicted to drink, and owing to this infirmity their parents had separated, and abandoned them. The writer concluded by hoping that the magistrate would cause an inquiry to be made. Mr. à Beckett directed an officer of the court to investigate into this case. On the 4th, the officer called at the abode of the young woman, in a wretched street, at a time when such a visit could not have been expected. He found Mary Ann Bannister, the girl alluded to, and her three sisters, of the respective ages of eight, eleven, and fourteen, in deep distress. The eldest was washing some clothing for her sisters. There was no food of any description in the place. Altogether the case was a very distressing one, and although accustomed to scenes of misery, in the course of his duties, yet this was one of the most lamentable the officer had met with. The publication of the case had the effect of inducing several benevolent individuals to transmit donations to Mr. à Beckett for these destitute girls, to the amount, as he stated on a subsequent day, of above £25. He added that it was in contemplation to enable the girls to emigrate to South Australia, and that meanwhile they had been admitted into the workhouse of St. George's parish, where they would be kept till a passage was procured for them to the colony. More than one person had offered to take Mary Ann Bannister into domestic service; but emigration for the whole four was thought more advisable.

A female named Lewis, who resided at Bassalleg, left her home on the 3d to go to Newport, about three miles distant, to make purchases. She never returned. A search was made by her son and husband, who is a cripple, and on the night of the following day they discovered her murdered in a wood at no very great distance from the village, so frightfully mangled as to leave no doubt that she had been waylaid and brutally murdered. The head was shockingly disfigured, battered by some heavy instrument, and the clothes were saturated with blood. For some days the perpetrators escaped detection, but eventually Murphy and Sullivan, two young Irishmen, were arrested at Cheltenham, on suspicion. Wearing apparel, covered with blood, and a number of trifling articles were found on them. They were sent off to Newport, where it was found they had been engaged in an atrocious outrage in Gloucestershire, on an old man whom they had assailed and robbed on the road near Purby; his skull was fractured; and his life was considered to be in imminent peril. Both prisoners were fully committed to the county jail at Monmouth to take their trial for willful murder.

A Dreadful Murder has been discovered in the neighborhood of Frome, in Somersetshire. On the 3d, a young man named Thomas George, the son of a laborer residing near that town, left his father's house about eight in the evening, and never returned. Next morning, his father went in search of him, and found his body in a farmer's barn; he had been apparently dead for some hours, and there were deep wounds in his head and throat. A man named Henry Hallier, who had been seen in company with the deceased, the night he disappeared, close to the barn where his body was found, was apprehended on the 18th on suspicion, and committed to the county jail.

An act of Unparalleled Atrocity was committed during the Easter week in the Isle of Man. Two poor men named Craine and Gill went to a hill-side to procure a bundle of heather to make brooms. The proprietor of the premises observed them, and remarked that he would quickly make them remove their quarters. He at once set fire to the dry furze and heather, directly under the hilly place where the poor men were engaged. The fire spread furiously, and it was only by rolling himself down the brow of the hill, and falling over the edge of a precipice into the river underneath, that Gill escaped. His unfortunate companion, who was a pensioner, aged 80 years, and quite a cripple, was left in his helpless state a prey to the flames. After they had subsided, Gill went in search of Craine, whom he found burned to a cinder. The proprietor of the heath has been apprehended.

A Shot at his Sweetheart was fired by John Humble Sharpe, a young man of 21, who was tried for it at the Norfolk Circuit on the 9th. The accused, a young carpenter, had courted and had been accepted by the prosecutrix, Sarah Lingwood. She, however, listened to other vows; the lover grew jealous, and was at length rejected. In the night after he had received his dismissal, the family of the girl's uncle with whom she lived were alarmed by the report of a gun. On examining her bedroom it was discovered that a bullet had been fired through the window, had crossed the girl's bed, close to the bottom where she lay, grazed a dress that was lying on the bed-clothes, and struck a chest of drawers beyond. Suspicion having fallen on the prisoner, he was apprehended. The prisoner's counsel admitted the fact, but denied the intent. The prisoner had, he said, no desire to harm the girl, whom he tenderly loved, but only to alarm her and induce her to return to him. The jury, after long deliberation, acquitted the prisoner.

Several shocking instances of Agrarian Crime have been mentioned in the Irish papers. At Glasslough, in the county of Monaghan, a shot was fired into the bed-room window of Mr. John Robertson, land steward to C.P. Leslie, Esq., on the night of the 10th. Arthur O'Donnel, Esq., of Pickwick Cottage, in Clare, was murdered near his own house, on the night of the 11th. He was attacked by a party of men and killed with a hatchet. The supposition was that this deed was committed by recipients of relief whom Mr. O'Donnel was wont to strike off the lists at the weekly revision by the board of the Kilrush union, of which he was one. A man was arrested on strong suspicion. There was another murder in Clare. The herdsman of Mr. Scanlon, of Fortune in that county, went out to look after some sheep, the property of his master, when he was attacked by some persons who had been lurking about the wood, and his throat cut.

Two evidences of the Low Price of Labor were brought before the magistrates. One at Bow-street on the 10th, when W. Gronnow, a journeyman shoemaker, was charged with pawning eight pairs of ladies' shoes intrusted to him for making up. He pleaded extreme distress, and said he intended to redeem the shoes that week. The prisoner's employer owned that the man was entitled to no more than 4s. 8d. for making and preparing the eight pairs of shoes. "Why," said the magistrate, "that price is only sevenpence a pair for the workman. I am not surprised to hear of so many persons pawning their employers' property, when they are paid so badly." The prisoner was fined 2s. and ordered to pay the money he had received upon the shoes within fourteen days; in default, to be imprisoned fourteen days. Being unable to pay the money, he was locked up.

On the previous day a man named Savage, a slop shirt seller, was summoned at Guildhall for 9d., the balance due to Mrs. Wallis for making three cotton shirts. When delivered, Savage found fault with them, and deferred payment. Eventually 1s. 3d. was paid instead of 2s. The alderman said he was surprised at any tradesman who only paid 8d. for making a shirt, deducting 3d. from so small a remuneration; it was disgraceful. He then ordered the money to be paid, with expenses.

Alexander Levey, a goldsmith, was tried at the Central Criminal Court on the 10th, for the Murder of his Wife. They were a quarrelsome pair: one day, while the husband, with a knife in his hand, was cooking a sweetbread, the wife came in, and, in answer to his inquiry where she had been, said she had been to a magistrate for a warrant against him. On this, with a violent exclamation, he stabbed her in the throat; she ran out of the house, while he continued eating with the knife with which he stabbed her, saying, however, he hoped she was not much hurt. She died in consequence of the wound. The defense was, that the blow had been given in the heat of passion, and the prisoner was found guilty of manslaughter only. He was sentenced to fifteen years' transportation.

On the same day, Jane Kirtland was tried for the Manslaughter of her Husband. They lived at Shadwell, and were both addicted to drinking and quarreling, in both which they indulged. Kirtland having called his wife an opprobrious name she took up a chopper, and said that if he repeated the offensive expression, she would chop him. He immediately repeated it with a still more offensive addition, and at the same time thrust his fist, in her face, when she struck him on the elbow with the chopper, and inflicted a wound of which he died a few days afterward. The prisoner, when called upon for her defense, burst into tears, and said that her husband was constantly drunk, and that he was in the habit of going out all day, and leaving her and her children in a destitute state, and when he came home he would abuse her and insult her in every possible way. In a moment of anger she struck him with a chopper, but she had no intention to do him any serious injury. The jury found the prisoner Guilty, but recommended her to mercy on account of the provocation she had received. She was sentenced to be kept to hard labor in the House of Correction for six months.

A coroner's inquest was held in Southwark on the same day, respecting the death of Mrs. Mary Carpenter, an Eccentric Old Lady, of eighty-two. She had been left, by a woman who attended her, cooking a chop for her dinner; and soon afterward the neighbors were alarmed by smoke coming from the house. On breaking into her room on an upper floor, the place was found to be on fire. The flames were got under, but the old lady was burnt almost to a cinder. Mrs. Carpenter was a very singular person; she used at one time to wear dresses so that they did not reach down to her knees. Part of her leg was exposed, but the other was encased with milk-white stockings, tied up with scarlet garters, the ribbons extending to her feet, or flying about her person. In this extraordinary dress she would sally forth to market, followed by an immense crowd of men and children. For some years past she discontinued these perambulations, and lived entirely shut up in her house in Moss-alley, the windows of which she had bricked up, so that no light could enter from without. Though she had considerable freehold property, she had only an occasional female attendant, and would allow no other person, but the collector of her rents, to enter her preserve.

On the 12th, Mrs. Eleanor Dundas Percival, a lady of thirty-five, destroyed herself by poison at the Hope Coffee-house, in Fetter-lane, where she had taken temporary apartments. A Distressing History transpired at the inquest. She was the daughter of a Scotch clergyman, and lost the countenance of her family by marrying a Catholic, a captain in the navy; while her husband suffered the same penalty for marrying a Protestant. About a year ago he and their infant died in the West Indies; she afterward became governess in the family of Sir Colin Campbell, governor of Barbadoes; her health failing, she returned to England in October last, and had since been reduced to extreme distress. Having been turned out of a West-end hotel, and had her effects detained on account of her debt contracted there, she had been received into the apartments in Fetter-lane, partly through the compassion of a person who resided in the house. While there, she had written to Miss Burdett Coutts, and, a few days before her death, a gentleman had called on her from that benevolent lady, who paid up the rent she owed, amounting to £2 14s., and left her 10s. On the evening above-mentioned she went out, and returned with a phial in her hand containing morphia, which, it appeared, she swallowed on going to bed between five and six, as she was afterward found in a dying state, and the empty phial beside her. The verdict was temporary insanity.

Elias Lucas and Mary Reeder were executed at Cambridge on the 13th. Lucas was the husband of the female convict's sister, whom they had poisoned. Morbid curiosity had attracted from twenty to thirty thousand spectators. In the procession from the jail to the scaffold there was a great parade of county magistrates.

Louisa Hartley was charged at the Southwark Police Court, on the 16th, with an Attempt to poison her Father, who is a fellowship porter. On the previous morning she made the coffee for breakfast, on tasting it, it burnt Harley's mouth, and he charged the girl with having put poison in his cup, which she denied; he then tasted her coffee, and found it had no unpleasant flavor. His daughter then snatched away his cup, and threw the contents into a wash-hand basin. But in spite of her tears and protestations of innocence, he took the basin to Guy's Hospital, where it was found that the coffee must have contained vitriol. The girl, who was said to be of weak intellect, and stood sobbing at the bar, being questioned, only shook her head, and said she had nothing to say. At a subsequent hearing the magistrate decided that there was sufficient evidence for a committal.

A man named William Bennison, a workman in an iron-foundry, has been committed to prison at Leith on suspicion of having Poisoned his Wife. The circumstances of the case are extraordinary. The scene of the murder is an old-fashioned tiled house in Leith. Bennison and his wife occupied the second floor of a house, in which also resides Alexander Milne, a cripple from his infancy, well known to the frequenters of Leith Walk, where he sits daily, in a small cart drawn by a dog. Mrs. Bennison, after, it is said, partaking of some gruel, became very ill, and died on Monday, the 22d inst. The dog which drew the cripple's cart died about the same time; suspicion was drawn upon the husband, and he was apprehended, and the dog's body conveyed to Surgeon's Hall for examination. Some weeks before, Bennison had purchased arsenic from a neighboring druggist, to kill rats, as he said. When suspected he called on the druggist, and requested him and his wife not to mention that he had purchased the arsenic. He even pressed for a written denial of the fact, adding that there might be arsenic found in his wife's stomach, but he did not put it there. On the Monday previous to her death it is said he enrolled her name in a benefit society, by which on her death he was entitled to a sum of £6. At the prisoner's examination before the sheriff, the report of the chemists pronounced the contents of the dog's stomach to have been metallic poison. The accused was eventually committed for trial. The deceased and her husband were members of the Wesleyan body, and bore an excellent character for piety. Bennison professed to be extremely zealous in behalf of religion, and was in the habit of administering its consolations to such as would accept of them. His "gifts" of extempore prayer are said to be extensive.

Two Men were shot at by a Gamekeeper lately in a wood belonging to Lord Wharncliffe, near Barnsley. The game on this estate is preserved by a solicitor, who resides near Wokefield, who employs Joseph Hunter as gamekeeper. Both the men were severely injured, and Cherry, one of them, sued Hunter as the author of the offense, in the Barnsley County Court, and the case was heard on the 19th instant. Cherry stated, that on the 23d February he went to see the Badsworth hounds meet at the village of Notton, and in coming down by the side of a wood he saw the defendant, who asked plaintiff and two others where the hounds were. Plaintiff told him they were in Notton-park. These men left Hunter, and walked down by the side of Noroyds-wood. They went through the wood, when one of the men who was with him began cutting some sticks. Plaintiff then saw Hunter, who was about twenty-five yards from them, coming toward them: the men began to run away, when plaintiff said to the other, "He's going to shoot us;" and before he had well delivered the words, he was shot in the arm and side, and could not run with the others. A surgeon proved that the wounds were severe and in a dangerous part of the body. The two men who were with the plaintiff corroborated his evidence. The judge said that defendant deserved to be sent to York for what he had done already. The damages might have been laid at £100 or £1000 had plaintiff been acting lawfully; but he thought plaintiff had acted with discretion in laying the damages at £10 for which he should give a verdict, and all the costs the law would allow.

An Affecting Case occurred at the Mansion House on the 23d. William Powers, a boy, was brought up on the charge of picking a gentleman's pocket of a handkerchief. A little boy, who had seen the theft, was witness against him. The prisoner made a feeble attempt to represent the witness as an accomplice; but he soon abandoned it, and said, with tears, that he "did not believe the other boy to be a thief at all." The alderman, moved by his manner, asked him if he had parents? He said he had, but they were miserably poor. "My father was, when I last saw him, six months ago, going into the workhouse. What was I to do? I was partly brought up to the tailoring business, but I can get nothing to do at that. I am able to job about, but still I am compelled to be idle. If I had work, wouldn't I work! I'd be glad to work hard for a living, instead of being obliged to thieve and tell lies for a bit of bread." Alderman Carden – If I send you for a month to Bridewell, and from thence into an industrial school, will you stick honestly to labor? The prisoner – Try me. You shall never see me here or in any other disgraceful situation again. Alderman Carden – I will try you. You shall go to Bridewell for a month, and to the School of Occupation afterward, where you will have an opportunity of reforming. The wretched boy expressed himself in terms of gratitude to the alderman, and went away, as seemed to be the general impression in the justice-room, for the purpose of commencing a new life.

On the 5th a pilot-boat brought into Cowes the master of the Lincoln, sailing from Boston for California. He had reached the latitude of 4° N. and longitude 25° W., and when at 10.30 p.m. of March 2, during a heavy shower of rain, and without any menacing appearance in the air, the ship was Struck with Lightning, which shivered the mainmast, and darted into the hold. On opening the scuttle, volumes of smoke were emitted, and finding it impossible to extinguish the fire, the crew endeavored to stifle it by closing every aperture. In this state they remained for nearly four days, with the fire burning in the hold, when they were relieved from their perilous situation by the providential appearance of the Maria Christina, and taken on board. Previous to leaving the ill-fated brig, the hatches were opened, when the flames burst forth, and in thirty minutes afterward the mainmast fell over the side. The unfortunate crew were most kindly treated by Captain Voss, the master of the Maria Christina, who did every thing in his power for their relief.

A Miss Downie met, on the 4th, with an Extraordinary Death at Traquair-on-the-Tweed. She had suffered, since childhood, from severe pains in the head and deafness; her health had been gradually declining for the last three years, and in August last she was seized with most painful inflammation in the left ear, accompanied by occasional bleedings also from the ear. On the 20th of March an ordinary-sized metallic pin was extracted from the left ear, which was enveloped in a firm substance with numerous fibres attached to it; several hard bodies, in shape resembling the grains of buckwheat, but of various colors, were also taken out of the right ear. The poor girl endured the most intense pain, which she bore with Christian fortitude till death terminated her sufferings. It is believed the pin must have lodged in the head for nearly twenty years, as she never recollected of having put one in her ear, but she had a distinct remembrance of having, when a child, had a pin in her mouth, which she thought she had swallowed.

The Poet Bowles. – The canon's absence of mind was very great, and when his coachman drove him into Bath he had to practice all kinds of cautions to keep him to time and place. The poet once left our office in company with a well-known antiquary of our neighborhood, since deceased, and who was as absent as Mr. Bowles himself. The servant of the latter came to our establishment to look for him, and, on learning that he had gone away with the gentleman to whom we have referred, the man exclaimed, in a tone of ludicrous distress, "What! those two wandered away together? then they'll never be found any more!" The act of composition was a slow and laborious operation with him. He altered and re-wrote his MS. until, sometimes, hardly anything remained of the original, excepting the general conception. When we add that his handwriting was one of the worst that ever man wrote – insomuch that frequently he could not read that which he had written the day before – we need not say that his printers had very tough work in getting his works into type. At the time when we printed for Mr. Bowles we had one compositor in our office (his death is recorded in our paper of to-day), who had a sort of knack in making out the poet's hieroglyphics, and he was once actually sent for by Mr Bowles into Wiltshire to copy some MS. written a year or two before, which the poet had himself vainly endeavored to decipher. —Bath Chronicle.

ARCHIBALD ALISON

Mr. Archibald Alison, author of the "History of Europe," is son of the author of the well-known "Essay on Taste." He holds the office of sheriff of Lanarkshire, and is much respected in the city of Glasgow, where his official duties compel him to reside. Though educated for the profession of the law, and daily administering justice as the principal local judge of a populous district, Mr. Alison's tastes are entirely literary. Besides the "History of Europe," in 20 volumes – a work which, we believe, originated in the pages of a "Scottish Annual Register," long since discontinued – Mr. Alison has written a "Life of Marlborough" and various economic and political pamphlets. He is also a frequent contributor to Blackwood's Magazine. It is, however, upon his "History of Europe" that his fame principally rests. If Mr. Alison be not the most successful of modern historians, we know not to whom, in preference to him, the palm can be conceded. His work is to be found in every library, and bids fair to rank hereafter as the most valuable production of the age in which he lived. This success is due, not only to the importance and interest of his theme, but to the skillful, eloquent, and generally correct manner in which he has treated it. He has, doubtless, been guilty of some errors of omission as well as of commission, as we have heard of a literary amateur, whose chief amusement for some years past, has been to make out a list of his mistakes; but, after all deductions of this kind, enough of merit remains in the work to entitle its author to a place in the highest rank of contemporary authors.

The bust of Mr. Alison, of which we present an engraving, was executed in the year 1846, and presented in marble to Mr. Alison by a body of his private friends in Glasgow, as a testimonial of their friendship to him as an individual; of their esteem and respect for him in his public capacity, as one of their local judges; and of their admiration of his writings. It is considered a very excellent likeness.

THE CORN-LAW RHYMER

Ebenezer Elliott not only possessed poetical spirit, or the apparent faculty of producing poetry, but he produced poems beautiful in description, touching in incident and feeling, and kindly in sentiment, when he was kept away from that bugbear of his imagination a landed gentleman. A man of acres, or any upholder of the corn-laws, was to him what brimstone and blue flames are to a certain species of devotee, or the giant oppressor of enchanted innocence to a mad knight-errant. In a squire or a farmer he could see no humanity; the agriculturist was an incarnate devil, bent upon raising the price of bread, reducing wages, checking trade, keeping the poor wretched and dirty, and rejoicing when fever followed famine, to sweep them off by thousands to an untimely grave. According to his creed, there was no folly, no fault, no idleness, no improvidence in the poor. Their very crimes were brought upon them by the gentry class. The squires, assisted a little by kings, ministers, and farmers, were the true origin of evil in this world of England, whatever might be the cause of it elsewhere.

This rabid feeling was opposed to high poetical excellence. Temper and personal passion are fatal to art: "in the very torrent, tempest, and (I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you should acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness." It is also fatal to more than art: where a person looks with the vulgar eyes that Ebenezer Elliott used on many occasions, there can be neither truth nor justice. Even the satirist must observe a partial truth and a measure in expressing it, or he sinks down to the virulent lampooner.

Part of this violence must be placed to the natural disposition of the man, but part of it was owing to his narrow education; by which we mean, not so much book-learning or reading, of which he had probably enough, but provincial and possibly low associates. Something, perhaps, should be ascribed to a self-sufficiency rather morbid than proud; for we think Elliott had a liking to be "head of the company," and that he resented any want of public notice as an affront, even when the parties could not know that he was entitled to notice.

These defects of character operated very mischievously upon his works. The temper marred his political poems; though the people, their condition, vices, and virtues, is a theme that, properly sung, might stir the Anglo-Saxon race throughout the world and give immortality to a poet. The provincial mind affected the mass of Elliott's poems even where the subject was removed from his prejudices; for he had no habitual elevation or refinement of taste: it required a favorable theme or a happy moment to triumph over the deficiencies of nature and education. His self-sufficiency coupled with his provincialism seems to have prevented him from closely criticising his productions; so that he often published things that were prosaic as well as faulty in other respects.

The posthumous volumes before us naturally abound in the author's peculiarities; for the feelings of survivors are prone to err on the side of fullness, and the friends of the lately dead too often print indiscriminately. The consequence is, that the publication has an air of gatherings, and contains a variety of things that a critical stranger would wish away. It was proper, perhaps, to have given prose as a specimen of the author; and the review of his works by Southey, said to have been rejected by the Quarterly, is curious for its total disregard of the reviewer's own canons, since very little description is given of the poems, and not much of the characteristics of the poet. Much of the poetry in these volumes would have been better unpublished. Here and there we find a touching little piece, or a bit of power; but the greater part is not only unpoetical but trivial, or merely personal in the expression of feeling. There is, moreover, a savageness of tone toward the agricultural interest, even after the corn-laws were abolished, that looks as like malignity as honest anger. —London Spectator.

Madame Grandin, the widow of M. Victor Grandin, representative of the Seine Inférieure, who died about seven or eight months since, met with a melancholy end on the 6th, at her residence at Elbœuf. She was confined to her bed from illness, and the woman, who had been watching by her during the night, had left her but a short time, when the most piercing shrieks were heard to proceed from her room. Her brother ran in alarm to her assistance, but, unfortunately, he was too late, the poor lady had expired, having been burned in her bed. It is supposed that in reaching to take something from the table, her night-dress came in contact with the lamp, and thus communicated to the bed.

T. BABINGTON MACAULAY