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THE GOSPORT DUEL.-The trial of Mr. Pym, for aiding and abetting Lieutenant Hawkey in the killing of Mr. Seton, in a duel near Gosport, in May last, (see the Chronicle for 1845, p. 71,) took place at Winchester. The immediate cause of the duel was a quarrel which occurred at a weekly ball, held on the 19th of last May, at an inn at Southsea; and the quarrel originated in the fact that Lieutenant Hawkey had been made aware that Mr. Seton had for some time past been making improper overtures to his wife. Mr. Seton gave the challenge; Lieutenant Hawkey asked Mr. Pym to act as his second; and the meeting took place on the afternoon of the 20th of May. Mr. Seton was wounded, but not mortally, it was believed, till it was discovered that a tumour, with а distinct pulsation, had formed in his groin. On the 31st an operation was performed by Mr. Liston, with the approval of all the medical attendants; but the patient died in sixty hours after.

Mr. Cockburn, for the defence, urged that the indictment was irregular. It ought to have set forth the full facts of the case. The wound inflicted by Lieutenant Hawkey might have been the primary cause of Mr. Seton's death, but it was not the proximate or immediate cause; there was something, not the act of the prisoner, supervening, which was the actual cause of death; and this intermediate or supervening cause did not appear upon the face of the indictment. Mr. Justice Erle was of opinion that the indictment was good. The person who gave the wound was responsible for the consequences of the medical treat

ment, provided that medical treatment was by men of competent skill. Thinking that to be the law, the medical treatment was to be considered as one of the ordinary consequences of the wound, and need not be stated in the indictment, which charged the act for which the prisoner was responsible, namely, the firing of the pistol-bullet into the body of Mr. Seton. Mr. Cockburn then proceeded with his address, adducing the usual arguments in extenuation of duelling; and then gave a minute narrative of Mr. Seton's overtures to Mrs. Hawkey, as detailed by the lady herself to her husband, and commented on the fact that the man who had attempted an irreparable injury was the challenger. The Jury would look at every fact that would make in favour of the accused; and even if Mr. Hawkey took aim at his antagonist in order to preserve his own life, it did not follow that Mr. Pym went to the field with the intention to do more than vindicate his friend's honour; and when they found this young man doing no more than thousands had done before him, they could not find him to have been actuated by wilful malice.

At the close of this address several witnesses were called, who spoke highly of Mr. Pym's cha

racter. Mrs. Hawkey's evidence was tendered, but refused.

Mr. Justice Erle, in summing up, stated the law of the case thusthat where a challenge was sent and accepted, if one party died by reason of a shot from the other, all who were present at the duel, the person who fired the shot and the second of either party, were in law guilty of the crime of murder. If the fact were established that

the prisoner at the bar, from any motive, consented to act as second in the duel, he had violated the law.

The Jury, after consulting a few minutes in the box, returned a verdict of Not guilty."

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6. INFANTICIDE. Northern Circuit, Durham. Margaret Stoker, aged 23, was placed at the bar, charged with the wilful. murder of her child, at Pittington Hale Garth, by drowning it. Ann Dixon. I live at Old Shotton, near Castle Eden. the 18th of November the prisoner brought a child to my house, and asked me to keep it till the next morning. I kept it from the Tuesday night till Sunday at noon. The prisoner came on Friday to see the child; we were giving it its breakfast. She gave it a very grievous look, and said she wished it might be dead against noon. I said, "you impertinent hussey, get out, or I'll hit you." She went away. On the Sunday I took the child to the house of Mr. Oxley, a farmer, who was her master. This was about twelve at noon. I left it with the prisoner. The prisoner came to my house about half-past two in the afternoon. I said it was a very cold day, and if she would give me the child I would wrap a shawl about it.

She gave me the child, and I folded a shawl about it. I gave it a little rum, cold water, and sugar. The prisoner said. Give it enough.' gave it no more. I gave the remainder to my own child. The prisoner left immediately after, and took the child with her.

Catherine Oxley.-I am the wife of Stephen Oxley. In November last the prisoner had been in our service four months. On Sunday, the 23rd, Mrs. Dixon brought

the child. She sat down a little, and the prisoner then took the child. The prisoner left about half-past two. She left our service that day. I asked her where she was going to. She said she had no place to go to.

Cross-examined.-I have known the prisoner six years. She was in our service four months. Her wages were 2s. 4d. per week. She applied frequently to the overseer. I found her meat and lodging. She lived in my house. I think she got relief from the overseers when she

applied. She got 1s. per week. She had 3s. per week to pay to the nurse for her child.

Jane Naisby. I live at Shotton Colliery. I remember Sunday, the 23rd of November. I was going from New Shotton to Old Shotton, between two and three o'clock. I met the prisoner. She had the child with her then. I asked her where she was going to with the child. She said she could not tell exactly. Her eyes rolled in her head when I saw her. She had a wild look. She looked at the child very hard. I know Charles Davison by sight. She swore the child to him before the magistrates. He is a pitman. He did neglect paying for the support of it.

Isabella Davison, landlady of the Bird and Bush, deposed to the prisoner coming to her house, in a wretched condition, and said that a woman had put her child in the "beck," and that she got the body out. The prisoner said she was beat" with the child. She said she put it into the beck. It was another time, in the same afternoon, she said so. I said if she had brought it into my house I would have given it a meal of meat and a night's lodging. She

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said she had done it for the best, and it had turned out for the worst. I asked if the child cried when she tossed it in. She said she did not stop to hear. She seemed much distressed, and cried bitterly. She told me she had nothing to keep it on; that she had tried all the parishes, and they would give her nothing; that they would not let her into the poorhouse, and her mother would not take her home.

D. McEwan produced a statement made by the prisoner before the coroner, as follows:-"I was coming home from my place and going to my father's, and I was going over a beck, and I was very much in trouble, and I did not know what I was to do with the child. I had no ways to take the child to. I put it into the beck, and I went to my father, and he asked me where the child was, and I could not tell him. He said I must go back and seek it; so I came away at seven o'clock in the morning to seek it. I came along by the burn-side, and I saw my child lying in the burn, and I could not take it out myself, so I went to this person and asked her to take it out for me; and she took it out of the beck, and I fetched it into the stable. I went before magistrates, and, all things wanting to go into the poorhouse, they would not let me go; and I could get nothing to keep it on. I was fairly banished to do this. I only wish to say this further. I was in a great deal of trouble when I did this. I had no place to put my head in; I had been knocked about from dog to devil, and nothing to pay for a night's lodging. I was paying 2s. a week for the bairn, and had only 2s. 4d. a week for myself."

Mc Ewan cross-examined. I searched the prisoner, and found one halfpenny and a thimble. When before the coroner, after the inquest, she asked to see her child's body. She said, "My canny, canny bairn, - my canny, canny bairn, what made me do this to you? Many a weary foot we've wandered." She embraced and kissed it. I had some difficulty in getting her away from the body. She said her stepmother would not admit her.

Mr. Wilkins, who was almost overcome by his feelings, said that some humane individuals in that city, prompted by kindly and Christian feeling, had instructed the gentleman on his right and himself to defend this poor girl in her trouble and desolation. He could not dispute that this child met its death by the hands of the prisoner at the bar. That was beyond all controversy. Let them look around, therefore, for something that might tend to exculpate her, and to vindicate their common nature. There was no instinct so universal as the love of offspring. It was the strongest implanted in the human heart by the hand of God. Let them look about them for something that would vindicate our nature, something that should justify this instinct; for in cases of this description we were rather called on to strive to prove parties innocent than to dwell on facts which would tend to criminate them. It had often been said that the body was a fit emblem of the mind. À man might possess the strength of Hercules, but it was possible by placing upon that man a burden greater than he could bear to reduce him to helplessness. So was it with the mind: the man who

upon the Coroner's inquisition with the murder of her infant child, Ann Butcher.

Mr. Hodges stated the case for the Crown. The prisoner had been an inmate of the Cricklade and Wootton Bassett workhouse, and in the month of December she was delivered of a child in the workhouse. In January the prisoner wished to leave, and gave notice accordingly, which, according to the regulations of the workhouse, expired in three hours. At the expiration of that time she was about to leave the house, and it was with the greatest pain and grief he had to tell the jury that from some circumstance or other the poor little child was stripped of the clothes it had worn in the workhouse, and was allowed to leave that house naked, and without any covering except a shawl, which belonged to its mother, and a pair of socks. The child was then in perfect health. The mother left the house, taking with her the infant. In the course of a short time afterwards the infant was found dead and naked in a stream of water. Whether the child might have died from its exposure to the weather or from natural causes, or whether it had perished by being thrown into the water by its mother while yet alive, was the question which the jury were now called upon to decide.

Jane Cook. I am a nurse in the Cricklade Union. The prisoner was there in December, 1845, and was delivered of a child, which was baptized" Ann." On the 9th of January the prisoner gave notice to leave the workhouse. When she came to go out I told the mistress she had no clothes to put on her baby. The mistress said she had better stop till she had sent to her

aunt for some clothes, and she asked the prisoner how it was she had not brought any clothes, as she knew the rules of the house, that if clothes were not brought in, there were none allowed. The prisoner said, she would not stop, but would go immediately. I took the union clothes off the baby, and it was then naked. I wrapped it up in a shawl and put some socks on its feet and a handkerchief round its head. The shawl belonged to the prisoner. The matron was present, and again asked her to stop after I had stripped the child, and I told her so myself. The prisoner, however, left the house about 11 o'clock in the morning. It was a mildish morning; not so cold as it is sometimes. I afterwards saw the dead body of a child. It was the prisoner's child. the prisoner's child. The child had no clothes but those belonging to the workhouse; and it is the custom of the house to take away the clothes from children when they are taken out of the house, even though they had no other clothes, and were left naked.

Charles Brown. - I live at Minety. On Friday the 9th of January, I was going along that road shortly before two o'clock. I met the prisoner walking. She had an umbrella and a little bundle. I rode on about a mile and was going over a little bridge, I saw something in the water which appeared like an infant. I returned back and went to Mary Ann Langley's cottage. She returned with me and brought a rake; we went to the water, and she drew out the body of an infant. The water crossed the road. The body was not quite in the middle of the stream, which was three or four yards wide.

Henry Dixon, a surgeon, examined the body of the child. I