mentioned. We all went to bed about half-past 11. The following morning, about half-past 10, I found some clothes, a child's blanket, and some other wearing apparel. The prisoner requested me not to interfere with the things, saying that she would wash them herself. I told her I felt very bad" at looking at them, and I asked her if I did not look "very bad?" She replied, "No." My husband told me that John Bowen had seen the prisoner with the child in her arms between 6 and 7 o'clock on Tuesday evening, carrying a scuppett, and that the child was crying. After hearing that, I said to the prisoner, "Maria, you have not murdered the child, surely!" She said, "No, I have not murdered him, but I have buried him alive; and I dare say I shall be hung for it." I told her that if she would own where she had buried it she would not be hung. She then said to me, "I have buried him in Mr. Tacon's meadow by the side of the road, opposite some white gates." Immediately after she said this she ran out of my house, and I followed her and prevented her jumping into the pond. On her return to the house I asked her how she came to bury the child alive? She replied, "Oh, mother, it was the thoughts of Bowen that caused me to do the murder."

Abraham Moss, parish constable of Wingfield, deposed:-On Wednesday evening last Robert Browne came to my house and told me that a young woman had buried her child alive, and that he wanted me to go with him and the young woman (the mother of the child) to Mr. Tacon's meadow. I accordingly went with him to the house of Mr. Knight, and we took the prisoner with us. When I got into

Mr. Tacon's meadow, I said to the prisoner, "Where did you bury your child?" The prisoner replied, I did not bury it in Mr. Tacon's meadow, but in Mr. Harris's meadow." We then proceeded to Mr. Harris's meadow, when the prisoner showed me where she had buried her child. I removed the earth from the surface of the spot pointed out by the prisoner, at one corner of the meadow. The grave was from five to six inches deep. The body of the child lay upon its left side, and was slightly covered over with turf. I took the body of the child out of the grave, and handed it over to Robert Browne. The child had its night-clothes on, as he now has, with a belt round its body. There were no marks of violence upon the body. I asked the prisoner what she dug the grave with. She replied, "I dug it with an old scuppett. I then asked her where she obtained the scuppett. She said, "I took it out of a poor man's yard." I then asked what she did with the scuppett after she had dug the grave and put the child into it. She told me that she threw it into Mr. Harris's ditch, where I afterwards found it.

The jury returned a verdict of “Wilful murder" against Maria Clarke, the mother. She was tried at Ipswich for the murder, found

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Guilty," and sentenced to death; but this sentence was commuted to transportation. It appeared that she had formerly been insane; but the parties who could have given evidence of the fact had known her under the name of "Maria Shulver," and were not aware of her identity with "Maria Clarke;" and there seemed ground to suppose that her sufferings had again affected her mind. She died in

gaol before the commuted sentence could be carried into effect.

- A

CASE OF MISS TALBOT. case has recently been before the Lord Chancellor, to which the great public excitement caused by the " Papal Aggression," and the peculiar circumstances of the times, assigned much importance. The private affairs of an English family are not properly within the scope of this CHRONICLE; but from the great publicity given to this case it becomes one of the notabilia of the day. Miss Augusta Talbot is the daughter of the late John Henry Talbot, half-brother to the present Earl of Shrewsbury; she is 19 years of age, is a ward in Chancery, and is entitled to a fortune of 80,000l. After her father's death, her mother married the Hon. Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley. She resided with her mother until the death of that lady, in April, 1841; and was then transferred to the care and guardianship of the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury. In September, last year, the Earl and Countess placed the young lady (notwithstanding she was a ward of court) at the convent called the Lodge, situate at Taunton, in the county of Somerset; not as a visitor or pupil, but as a postulant, with the avowed object of allowing her to take the veil and become a nun. She would take the white veil in September next, the black veil in September, 1852; and would be entitled to her for tune in the following June, when, it was alleged, the whole would become at the disposal of the Roman Catholic Church. Mr. Grantley Berkeley, her step-father, now interfered, and presented a petition to Parliament, and subsequently a petition to the Lord Chancellor, making grave imputa

tions upon the guardians of their ward, and charging the spiritual advisers of the young lady with using most improper influence over her mind and conscience, with the purpose of forcing her to take the veil, and thus of acquiring to their Church her large fortune. The English public, already excited against the ambitious projects of the Court of Rome, viewed the proceedings thus exposed as another instance of the grasping and unscrupulous avidity of that Church. The maternal friends of Miss Talbot alleged that the young heiress's inclination to a convent life was the spontaneous promptings of a religious spirit. A controversy of a very unhappy nature arose upon the case. The result was that Miss Talbot was married, on the 22nd of July, to Lord Edward Fitzallan Howard, brother to the Duke of Norfolk.

19. BOILER EXPLOSION AT JOHNSTONE.-Another accident, similar to that at Stockport, occurred about five miles from the scene of the colliery explosion at Nitshill on the 15th. The disaster happened at the Lillybank Flax Mill, Johnstone, about three miles from Paisley. The mill was situated on the bank of the Cart, and employed from 150 to 180 workers. The enginehouse is about 30 or 40 feet to the west of the mill, and the furnace faced the works.

At 6 o'clock in the evening the workers left as usual, with the exception of six lads, from seventeen to twenty years of age, who went forward to the furnace to warm themselves, while the fireman was engaged at his work. While doing so, and as one of the partners of the firm was entering the gate of the works, a dreadful explosion took place. It was im

mediately ascertained that the boiler had burst with tremendous force, knocking down the arched brickwork over the engine-house, and scattering in all directions the poor fellows who were standing in its vicinity. The force of the explosion carried the burning coals from the furnace through the windows of the second flat of the mill opposite, and from the combustible nature of the flax and other materials in the building, it instantly caught fire, and in a very short space of time the flames were issuing from every window in the edifice, which was almost destroyed before the flames could be extinguished.

Assistance was immediately procured, and some of the sufferers were extricated from under the wreck, and others were picked up at a considerable distance from where they had been standing. In all, the number was found to be seven, only two of whom presented any signs of life, and these were so severely scalded and mutilated that they died in a few hours, without being able to communicate anything regarding the

occurrence.

22. ARSON. Cambridge. George Whittaker and Thomas Whittaker were indicted the former with having feloniously set fire to a certain dwelling-house in this borough, and the latter with having feloniously incited the former to commit the said felony.

The prisoners are father and son, the elder being 63 years old, and the younger 30. Up to the day of the fire in question, which took place on the 22nd of November last, they occupied premises in Sidney Street, consisting of two houses, one in the rear of the other, separated by a yard, the VOL. XCIII.

larger and higher of the two fronting the street, the smaller having a frontage towards a garden occupied with other premises by a medical gentleman. The business carried on in the front premises was such as is usual in the case of dealers in curiosities-jewels, pictures, books, engravings, musical instruments, and articles appealing to the taste or fancy. On the morning of the 22nd of November, about half-past 5 o'clock, a man passing the house of the prisoners saw a light shining from the shop through the fanlights. About a quarter of an hour afterwards there was an alarm of fire, and the elder prisoner was found by a passenger kicking with great violence at the shop door: he said that his house was on fire; that he was unable to get into the shop the other way; that he had been knocked down by an explosion of gas as he had gone into the shop with a lighted candle, and that he had roused his next-door neighbour. The explosion had not been heard, and the fanlights were not broken. The man kicked with him, but could not force in the door, and then went to another door, which he burst open. The shop was then fully on fire the flames had reached the ceiling, but had not burnt through it. The face of the elder prisoner was at that time such as in no way to strike those who spoke to him; neither was his gait in any way affected. When the alarm of fire reached the house of the owner of the garden, he got up, and perceived that the fire was passing from the back of the first floor of the front house to the first floor of the house in the rear, and that the wife of the elder prisoner was at the staircase window of the lastD

named house calling for help. He ran down to his stables, and got a ladder to help her; but when he came back she was gone. On passing to his stables he had not noticed that any furniture was in his garden; but furniture of the prisoners' was afterwards found there, and between a portion of it and the ground a board had been carefully laid. The two houses were rapidly consumed. As the floors gave way the interior of the blazing apartments was exposed to view, but articles of furniture were not seen to fall through, nor, indeed, was anything else. After the fire was reduced to a mass of burning embers, the elder prisoner was seen walking very lame, and with his face very black. He attributed the lameness to weakness caused by an accident on a former occasion, and apt to recur after unusual exertion. The blackness of his face he ascribed to the explosion of the gas, and the escape of the gas which had exploded, he suggested, might have been occasioned by an injury done to the pipe by the removal of some articles of furniture in the course of the three previous days. The witnesses, however, declared that the blackness appeared to be of a greasy and sooty kind; that it did not extend to the hands or the shirt of the elder prisoner; and that neither his hair, whiskers, nor eyebrows were singed; nor was he in any way burnt. The son and the daughter had not slept in the house on the night before. In the month of June last year the landlord of the house distrained for the sum of 1157., the rent due; the necessary money was advanced, and the prisoners, with a friend named Taylor, gave a bill for it, which was paid before maturity,

but after the fire. To secure Taylor, the goods in the show-room, now shown to be worth 3007. at the least, of which more than onethird was the value of jewels, were assigned. But it was agreed that they should remain on the premises locked up, and that the sheriff's officer who executed the distress warrant should keep the key. This was done, and at the time of the fire the key of that room, which when locked up was full of cabinets, pictures, Polynesian war implements, and the like, was in the officer's possession. The younger prisoner, who was the master of the house, was insured in the West of England Insurance Office for 1110l.; and he made a claim of 8331.-for stock, 8001.; for furniture, 33l. The result of the inquiries which had been set on foot in the meantime was, that the younger prisoner had been discommuned by the University for, as was alleged, having sued an undergraduate; that since the discommuning the trade of the prisoners had almost almost entirely fallen away; that large sales of books had been made for the prisoners by auctioneers in Cambridge; that a considerable removal of articles belonging to the prisoners had taken place from time to time after June last, and within a few days next before the fire; that the prisoners had avowed their intention of removing their goods a month before quarter-day, in order to deprive the landlord of his remedy for rent against those goods; that they had uttered threats of vengeance against their landlord, whom they knew not to be insured; and that on examining the ashes of the fire such appearances were not found as ought to have been manifested by them

if they had been in part produced by the combustion of jewellery and the other articles shown to have been at one time, and by the prisoners alleged to have been at the time of the fire, on the premises.

Mr. Prendergast elaborately dissected the evidence in behalf of the prisoners. A multitude of witnesses were called, who proved that the prisoners had removed the furniture openly; and that the prisoner's statement might be correct as to the combustion being occasioned by the gas. It was also proved that, the day before, there were 2000 or 3000 volumes of books, which were sworn as worth 2001., and that the usual quantity of pictures was there the day before the fire up to the evening at 8 o'clock; that a great quantity of pieces of picture frames, picture rings, bookbinders' stamps, and brass and iron ornaments, quantities of wood that burnt like coals, quantities of burnt books, which served the country people for lighting fires for a week, and hard wood that burnt better and longer than coals, were found among the ruins; and that some goods were seen to tumble through the floors.

The jury returned a verdict of "Guilty," and the prisoners were sentenced to be transported for life.

tion himself and sublet the rest to various persons. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, when most of the rooms were in full working order, a round high-pressure boiler, of about 30-horse power, which worked the machinery, driven by a 25horse engine, exploded with a loud report, and rising from its bed, carried away the end wall of the premises, a portion of the plates being projected against the front of a house in North Street, which it very much damaged. Instantly the whole of the buildings forming the various tenancies were in ruins, either shaken by the concussion, or their supports carried away by the explosion, so that with one exception they fell to the ground, involving those at work in them in the ruins. When the smoke cleared away, and the dust had subsided, nothing remained but a heap of rubbish on the site of the larger portion of the structures. The streets adjacent were covered with bricks, slates, and pieces of machinery, and the complete character of the wreck was soon apparent. Fortunately the premises did not take fire; and the most strenuous exertions were made to clear away the wreck. On the following day eight persons were found dead; seven very seriously hurt, some of them, it was feared, mortally. One of the unfortunates who was killed, and one wounded, were persons who were passing along the street at the moment when the explosion took place.

26. SALE OF THE SCOTT COPYRIGHTS.-The stock and copyrights of the life and works of Sir Walter Scott, were offered for sale to "the trade" at the London Coffee House. By the conditions of sale the st was to be taken at the valua 10,1097. 38. The biddings