gave the prisoner into custody. The prisoner had before this caught my attention, as appearing anxious to see Her Majesty." The Colonel went on to say, that the utmost distance from the carriage when Francis fired was seven feet. The pistol was fired just as the carriage was passing. The cortège had been going at the rate of eleven miles an hour; but the Colonel had given instructions at this spot to go faster, and the postillions were driving as fast as the horses could go, and he should say at the rate of twelve or thirteen miles an hour. The Queen was sitting on the backseat of the carriage, on the side nearest to the prisoner. The pistol seemed to the witness to be pointed in the direct line of Her Majesty; he heard the report, and saw the smoke and fire emitted from the pistol. A policeman stood within three yards of Francis; the Colonel exclaimed, "Secure him!" which was done; and he galloped on and resumed his post at the Queen's side.

Henry Allen, a private in the Scots' Fusileer Guards, said that he was twelve or fifteen paces behind the carriage. He had seen the prisoner leaning on the pump just before; and as the carriage came up he saw him step forward and present a pistol at the carriage: he heard the report and saw the flash. He had been in the army eighteen months, and had experience in firing with ball and blank cartridge; and he should say that the pistol was loaded with ball-it makes a sharper sound than a blank cartridge.

Here Colonel Arbuthnot was recalled and examined by the bench as to the sound of the report. He said:

"The report was sharp and loud, VOL. LXXXIV.

but I did not hear the whiz of a ball, in consequence of the noise of the carriage and eight horses. My opinion is that the pistol was loaded with something more than the powder and wadding, from the sharpness and loudness of the report. That is a mere matter of opinion. I do not think that powder only would have made such a sound: a blank-cartridge is a mere evaporation of powder, This was the report of a pistol well rammed down and charged.

Mr. Patrick Fitzgerald, who had served in the Spanish and Portuguese armies, stated that he seized Francis on the left as the policeman seized him on the right. Just as the carriage came up, he saw the prisoner raise his right arm, point a arm, point a pistol at the open part of the carriage, and fire: he saw the flash and heard the report.

Colonel Wylde, Equerry to Prince Albert, corroborated Colonel Arbuthnot's statement. He stated that the Queen always sits on the same, the right side of the carriage. He stopped his horse when Francis fired, and alighted; saw him in custody, and ordered him to be taken to the Palace Lodge.

William Trounce, a police-constable of the A division, had seen Francis loitering about for half an hour before the occurrence. He observed that as he looked at him, Francis went behind a tree. Trounce was not more than one yard from the prisoner when he heard the report of a pistol: he looked round and saw Francis in the act of presenting it. He seized him at

once.

Other evidence related to the previous movements of the prisoner. George Pearson, a wood-engraver, I

saw him present the pistol at the Queen on the Sunday, as she was returning from the Chapel Royal: he exclaimed, "They may take me if they like I don't care-I was a fool I did not shoot her!" Joseph Robert Street, shopman to Mr. Ravener, a pawnbroker in Tothillstreet, sold to the prisoner the pistol that had been produced in court, on the 27th May, for 3s. He paid for it with three fourpenny pieces, a sixpence, and the rest in copper. Richard Pritchard, an oilman in Lower Eaton-street, Pimlico, sold him a flint on the same day. Thomas Gould, of York-street, Westminster, sold him a halfpenny-worth of gunpowder on the 27th; and Anne Briggs sold him an ounce on the 30th, in Brewer-street; he paid twopence for it without asking the price. Cecilia Forster, said that Francis had had half a bed in her house, 106, Great Tichfield-street, for 3s. a week; he left her lodging on the 27th May; having been out of work for some time before.

William Gore, one of the Queen's grooms, who had been summoned but not examined by the counsel for the Crown, was cross-examined by Mr. Clarkson; he said that he was riding six or seven yards behind Colonel Arbuthnot. The pistol was discharged between them; and it seemed to him to be pointed at the hind-wheel of the carriage.

For the defence, Mr. Clarkson commented on the evidence with a view to prove it inconclusive of the charge. He expressed some indignation, that he should have been supposed capable of suggesting that the pistol had been fired as a mere feu-de-joie was not the case disgusting and abhorrent enough without that? Francis's

previous distress, and his courting detection after the attempt, would prove his intent. Had the pistol been loaded with any destructive missile, it was impossible that it could have been discharged without injuring the Queen, Colonel Arbuthnot, or his horse. Two years ago the morbid feeling and vanity of another person had induced him to commit the desperate act of firing two loaded pistols; he had been taken care of and provided for; and was it impossible that the prisoner, in the distressed state in which he was proved to be, unable to pay his lodging, with only a penny in his pocket, should have committed the act in the hope of being provided for in a similar manner? He relied on the clemency and mercy of the jury.

The Solicitor-general replied; contending that though there was no direct proof of the pistol's having been loaded, the jury could come to no other conclusion; and whatever Francis's motive, he must have had a criminal design.

Chief Justice Tindal summed up. He told the jury that, if they were satisfied that the pistol was loaded with a bullet, that would be proof of the criminal design; or even if it was loaded only with wadding, but fired so close to the Queen as to do her severe bodily harm, an overt act of high treason would be made out.

The jury retired at twenty minutes to four o'clock. They returned into court at five minutes past five; and the foreman stated that they found the prisoner

Guilty" on the second and third counts; not that the pistol was loaded with a bullet, but that it was loaded with some destructive substance besides the wadding and powder,

When he heard that statement, Francis turned very pale. Being asked what he had to say why sentence should not be pronounced upon him, he made no reply. Chief Justice Tindal, after a brief address to the prisoner, pronounced the following sentence.

"That you, John Francis, be taken from hence to the place from whence you came, that you be drawn from thence on a hurdle to the place of execution, and that you be hanged by the neck until you be dead; that your head be afterwards severed from your body, and that your body be divided into four quarters, to be disposed of in such manner as to her Majesty shall seem fit. And the Lord have mercy on your soul!"

At the conclusion of the sentence the prisoner fell fainting into the arms of the gaolers; and he was led away sobbing piteously, He was however not executed, but transported for life.

23. COURT OF COMMON PLEAS -SITTINGS AT WESTMINSTER MACREADY v. HARMER AND AN OTHER.This was an action for a libel. Mr. Platt and Mr. Gray conducted the plaintiff's case; and Sir T. Wilde, Mr. Thesiger, and Mr. G. W. Cooke, appeared as counsel for the defendants.

The plaintiff is the eminent tragedian, and the lessee of Drury lane Theatre, and the defendants are the proprietors of the newspaper called the Weekly Dispatch, in which paper, under the date of January 2nd, in the present year, appeared the article which led to the present action. When Mr, Macready announced to the public, in the beginning of October, last year, that he had entered upon a lease of Drury-lane Theatre, he adverted among other contemplated

reforms in the management of the undertaking, to the purposes to which the saloons and lobbies of the London theatres had been too frequently appropriated, and declared his intention of enforcing regulations, which would not only secure the respectable frequenters of the theatre from annoyance, but would restore to them an agreeable resort for promenading and refreshment without danger of offence to propriety or delicacy. This promise had been fulfilled to the utmost of the lessee's ability. On the 2nd of January, however, in an article headed "Drury-lane” the Dispatch found fault with the plaintiff's arrangements for this purpose, and, after contrasting in terms of praise the mode in which Madame Vestris had at Coventgarden contrived matters so that

modest females were thoroughly removed from even the sight of the impure," went on to say, that Mr. Macready, "under the pretence of virtue," had made it ten times worse than ever. The article went on as follows:-"Mr. Macready may be able to exclude from the saloons the hosts of children and filthy women that are dressed finely for the night and purpose, which he packs into a focus of enticement-a condensed animal market; but how can he exclude the hundreds of women in London whose vocation is as base but not so palpable, and the hundreds of ladies, the 'friends' of gentlemen who dispense with marriage, and who for 5s. have an unobstructable right to enter the saloon, and to sit down by the side of the wives and daughters, the sisters and mothers, of persons of respectability?" Some remarks followed upon the style of decoration adopted in the theatre, which

was characterised as "meretricious" and the writer then launched into a violent tirade against the company and the manager, describing the company as "the poorest, without exception, ever collected," and saying of Mr. Macready himself, "In the coarser sorts of melodrama he is unrivalled, but in tragedy and comedy he bruinizes everything. He is always Bruin, the growling curmudgeon, or soreheaded bear." The article, which was about a column long, in small type, proceeded to caution the public against "the fulsome praises poured out on Mr. Macready by the press," and went on to say, "If a journal puffs Mr. Macready, he gives it his advertisement, and favours the editor with his box admissions; if a journal criticises him honestly, and consequently not favourably, he cuts off such supplies." It was stated by counsel, that while the plaintiff was the lessee of Covent-garden Theatre the Dispatch had the privilege of free admissions, but subsequently that privilege was withdrawn, and it was suggested that this circumstance might account for the insertion of the article of which the plaintiff complained.

Sir T. Wilde addressed the jury for the defence, contending that the article in question had not passed the boundary of legitimate criticism, and that if the jury should find a verdict for the plaintiff, there was not a bad actor, or a bad singer, who would not bring an action for damages when a critic refused to flatter him.

Lord Chief Justice Tindal, in summing up the evidence, told the jury that the topics upon which the writer of the article had touched were undoubtedly all open to discussion. Actors might be called

in some sense public property, and the author of a critique in a public journal might, if he chose, express his dissent from any particular arrangement adopted by the lessee of a theatre, employing either abstract reasoning, or, if the bent of his genius so inclined him, wit and humour, or even satire, for that purpose. There was, however, one limit within which he must keep; he was not to be allowed to make public criticism merely a cloak for private maliciousness. If the jury thought, that the writer had taken up the part of a public censor more as a mask than as a real character, then they would find their verdict for the plaintiff, with such damages as they thought reasonable; but if, on the other hand, they considered that the article did not exceed the bounds of full, free, and fair discussion, it would be their duty to find for the defendants.

The jury retired, but, after a lapse of a few minutes, came again into court, and found for the plaintiff-damages, 51.

24. HALF-FARTHING COINAGE -FROM THE LONDON GAZETTE— BY THE QUEEN-A PROCLAMATION.-Victoria, R.—Whereas we have thought fit to order that certain pieces of copper money should be coined, which shall be called "half-farthings," every such piece having for the obverse impression our effigy, with the inscription, "Victoria D. G. Britanniar. Regina F. D.," and for the reverse the words "half-farthing," with the date of the year, surmounted by the Royal Crown, and below, the united emblem of the rose, thistle, and shamrock; and whereas pieces of the copper money of the description aforesaid have been coined at our Mint, and will be

coined there; we have therefore, with the advice of our Privy Council, thought fit to issue this proclamation, and we do hereby declare, ordain, and command, that all pieces of copper money, so coined and to be coined as aforesaid, shall be current and lawful money of the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and shall pass and be received as current and lawful money of the said kingdom, every such half-farthing piece as of the value of half a farthing of like lawful money; provided that no person shall be obliged to take more of such pieces in any one payment than shall be of the value of sixpence.

JULY.

2. EXTRAORDINARY CASE.-An investigation was entered into before Mr. Wakley and a respectable jury, at the Volunteer Tavern, Upper Baker-street, Portman

square, on view of the body of Mr. E. Farrell, aged sixty, a gentleman of independent fortune, who died from the effects of starvation, under the very extraordinary and peculiar circumstances subjoined. From the evidence adduced it appeared, that the deceased had resided for some months past at No. 31, Upper Baker-street, and possessed extensive landed property in the south of Ireland. He was a gentleman of the most eccentric habits, and for the last two months had persisted in diminishing gradually the quantity of his food until it was wholly insufficient to sustain life. He became dreadfully low and ill in consequence, but refused at the same time to receive any medical advice. Ultimately he refused to

take even the smallest quantity of nourishment, and two days before his death locked himself in his room, where he remained, and refused admission to any one for upwards of twenty four hours, when the door was forced open. Dr. Walsh, of George-street, Portmansquare, was immediately sent for, and found the deceased lying on the floor, in a state of frightful emaciation and exhaustion. Dr Quain was subsequently sent for, and in conjunction with Dr. Walsh used every means to restore him. Under their treatment he rallied, and was enabled to give an account of his connexions and affairs. He subsequently, however, had a relapse, and died. Upwards of 100%. in cash was found in the deceased's apartment. The coroner having remarked on the very extraordinary nature of the case, the jury ultimately returned a verdict "that the deceased died from want of food." EXPLOSION OF A LETTER.— As one of the clerks of the Postoffice, Leeds, was in the act of stamping a letter, some detonating powder, or other combustible material, that was inside the letter, and immediately below the surface on which the clerk struck the stamp, exploded. Though there was little or no report, there was a bright flash of light, followed by a vapour that had a strong sulphurous smell. Beyond having a small hole burnt in it, the letter apparently received no damage. It had been received from London by that morning's mail, and was addressed to a lady residing near Otley. Whatever object the party who had placed the dangerous ingredient in the letter might have in view, very serious results might have been the consequence. As great force is generally used in

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