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in consequence of public distress in 1831, which, however, was of very slight duration, the funds have continued steadily to advance, and during the year 1845 reached 100g, fluctuating during the twelve months from 94% to 100%.

FEBRUARY.

with some hesitation, returned a verdict for Mr. Maddox.

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THE ELECTRIC GIRL.-Among the numerous impostures by which this vaunted intellectual age has been duped, that of the Electric Girl has had an extraordinary though brief success. It was affirmed that a physician of the little town of La Perrière, in Normandy, had brought to Paris a young girl who was stated to present extraordinary electro-magnetic phenomena. Mademoiselle Cotti made all bodies that approached her, and with which she was put into communication by means of a conductor, or by the mere end of one of her garments, experience a movement of repulsion that displaced and sometimes even violently subverted them. At the same time, she herself experienced an instantaneous and irresistible attraction towards the objects that fly from her. The electricity manifested itself by what may be called fits and starts, fading at intervals. It seemed to partake of the nature of some nervous diseases, and to be attended by an appearance of much agitation; though the girl's health was generally good. M. Arago witnessed several of the phenomena, and has reported them to the Academy of Sciences at Paris; which thought it worth while to appoint a committee to investigate them.

3. THEATRICAL ENGAGEMENTS. -In the Court of Exchequer, Miss Grant, a singer, sued Mr. Maddox, the proprietor and manager of the Princess's Theatre in Oxford Street, for 941. as balance of salary. The case turned upon the meaning to be attached to the terms of an agreement. A written contract had been drawn up, stipulating that the engagement was to continue for three " years, and that the salary was to be 51. per week for the first " year," 61. for the second, and 77. for the third. The salary was regularly paid while the theatre was open; but when it closed for the season, Mr. Maddox, refused to pay anything during the recess; alleging that an engagement for three "years meant simply an engagement for three seasons. Miss Grant was willing to accept this construction, provided Mr. Maddox would pay the increased salary of 61. per week for the second season, and 71. for the third season; but Mr. Maddox refused. The sum sued for consisted of the unpaid arrears. For the defence, evidence was adduced to show that the understanding in theatrical life is that an engagement for a year at a weekly salary only entitles a performer to be paid during such part of the year as the theatre is open. The Lord Chief Baron indicated an opinion favourFIRE AT NEWCASTLE.-A able to the defence: and the Jury, very destructive fire occurred at

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The result may very readily be imagined: after having imposed upon many whose scientific acquirements should have protected them from such deception, as well as a vast crowd of the ignorant, a rigid investigation rendered the successful performance of the tricks impracticable, and loaded her dupes with ridicule.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, at the locomotive-engine manufactory of Messrs. Hawthorn. About four o'clock, Mosscrop, a joiner, was admitted by the watchman of the establishment, to finish some work. The man was provided with a lantern, with which he went into the joiner's shop; soon afterwards, the shop was on fire; and though the alarm was immediately given, and engines and other assistance were quickly obtained, a large pile of buildings was utterly destroyed in an hour. The conflagration was augmented for a time by the burning of the gas, which was turned on; the pipes having melted, and the stop-cock being out of reach. An immense number of models, portions of locomotives, seven engines in an advanced state, three finished, and a corresponding number of ten-, ders, were consumed or rendered worthless. The damage was then estimated at something between 16,000l. and 20,000l. Messrs. Hawthorn were partially insured. After the fire had been got under a search was made for Mosscrop: he was found at his house. He was taken before the magistrates, apparently to be charged with wilfully causing the fire; but the evidence only pointed to him as the probable cause by some carelessness with his lantern, and he was liberated; the magistrates considering that the evidence was insufficient to prove a felonious in

tent.

5. THE OVERLAND MAIL.-The public were thrown into a state of great excitement and exultation by the receipt of intelligence from India, announcing in one breath two great victories. The following summary of the contents of the overland mail was given by the Times, which by great expense and

exertion expressed the news viá Trieste, many days in advance of the regular mail via Marseilles.

"The advanced guard of the British army was attacked, on the evening of the 18th of December, by the Sikh troops. The enemy was repulsed, and driven back for upwards of three miles, with the loss of seventeen pieces of cannon. This affair occurred at Moodkee, a place about twenty-two miles to the north-east of Ferozepore. The next day the British troops advanced towards Ferozepore; and having opened a communication with Sir John Littler, who commanded at that post, and having been joined by the corps under that officer, attacked the enemy's intrenched position, at four o'clock in the afternoon of the 21st. The first line of intrenchments was carried; but the night was so dark that further operations were suspended. At daylight on the 22nd, the second line of intrenchments was attacked, and all the enemy's defences were, in a half an hour, taken in reverse, and the guns captured. On the afternoon of the 22nd the enemy advanced with their infantry, and hordes of camels carrying swivels, for the purpose of retaking the guns they had previously lost. All the attacks, however, which they made were repulsed; and after a cannonade which had no result, they withdrew, and retired to a place called Sultankhanwalla, about ten miles from Ferozepore, where they had still some heavy artillery. The British army would be joined by two battalions of Native infantry, which were not in the previous actions; and the enemy's position at Sultankhanwalla was to be attacked on the 24th. No accounts have been received of the specific loss

on either side, nor is the name of any officer mentioned. The captured guns amounted to sixtyfive counted, and there were some more in a village on the British right."

DREADFUL SHIPWRECK AND Loss OF LIFE.-Letters were this morning received at Lloyd's, announcing the loss of the emigrant ship Cataraqui, when nearly the whole of her passengers and crew, exceeding 400 persons, perished.

The Cataraqui, Captain C. W. Finlay, sailed from Liverpool on the 20th of April, with 369 emigrants and a crew of 46 souls. On the 3rd of August, at 7 o'clock in the evening, the ship was hove to, and continued lying to until 3 A.M. of the 4th. At half-past 4, it being quite dark and raining hard, blowing a fearful gale, and the sea running mountains high, the ship struck on a reef situate on the west coast of King's Island, at the entrance of Bass's Straits. Immediately after the ship struck she was sounded, and 4 feet of water was in the hold. The scene of confusion and misery that ensued at this awful period it is impossible to describe. All the passengers attempted to rush upon deck, and many succeeded in doing so, until the ladders were knocked down by the workings of the vessel, when the shrieks of men, women, and children from below calling on the watch on deck to assist them, were terrific. Up to the time the vessel began breaking up, it is supposed that between 200 and 300 were got on deck by the extraordinary exertions of the crew. At this time the sea was breaking over the ship on the larboard side, sweeping the decks, every sea taking away more or fewer of the passengers. The passengers below were now all

drowned, the ship being full of water, and the captain gave those on deck directions to cling to that part of the wreck then above water until daylight, hoping that the spars would be of some service in making a breakwater under the lee, and thus enable the survivors to get on shore in the morning. When day broke the stern of the vessel was washed in, and numerous dead bodies were floating around the ship, and some hanging upon the rocks. Several of the

passengers and crew (about 200 altogether) were still holding on to the vessel, the sea breaking over, and every wave washing some of them away. About 4 o'clock in the afternoon the vessel parted amidships, at the fore part of the main-rigging, when immediately between 70 and 100 unfortunates were launched into the tumultuous and remorseless waves. The survivors ran ridge lines along the side of the wreck to enable them to hold on. The remains of the upper deck then began to break up and wash away. A buoy was now made and floated towards the shore, but it could not be got nearer than 20 yards from the shore, owing to its getting entangled with the sea weed on the rocks, and there was no shore to catch it and secure it on the sand. The fury of the waves continued unabated, and about 5 o'clock the wreck parted by the forerigging, and so many souls were submerged in the water that only 70 survivors were left crowded on the forecastle, who were then lashed to the wreck. The sea continued breaking over them, the wind raging, and the rain heavy all night, and thus the poor creatures continued. Numbers died and fell overboard, or sank and

one on

were drowned at the places where they were lashed. When day broke the following morning, it was discovered that only about 30 were left alive. The sea was now making a clean breach into the forecastle, the deck of which was rapidly breaking up. About this time, whilst numbers were helplessly clinging to the bows and continued dropping off without the possibility of succour, the captain attempted to reach the shore, but was unable, and with some assistance regained the wreck. The lashings of the survivors were now undone, in order to give them the last chance of life. Mr. Thomas Guthrie, the chief mate, now on the spritsailyard, was washed out to the bowsprit. He saw the captain and second mate and steward clinging at the bows with about 18 or 20 dead bodies on the fragment of the wreck. Mr. Guthrie was now driven to a detached part of the wreck, but soon found it impossible to live with such a sea breaking over, and seizing a piece of plank under his arm, leaped into the water, and was carried over the reef, and got on shore. He found a passenger who had got ashore during the night; and one of the crew, John Robinson, plunged into the water when he saw the mate ashore, and partly swimming and partly diving, reached land. Five other seamen followed, and landed dreadfully exhausted. Almost immediately after the vessel totally disappeared. Thus out of 423 souls on board, only nine were saved.

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unexampled atrocities upon his miserable crew; and it is there briefly stated, that upon trial the prisoner was found "Not Guilty" on the ground of insanity. The trial took place at the Central Criminal Court, on the 5th and 6th February, on an indictment for the murder of William Henry Rambert. The facts deposed to in evidence were substantially the same as given in the Police Report.

Mr. Jervis addressed the jury for the prisoner, and commenced by observing, that the interval which had been afforded to him, by the kindness of the court and jury, to prepare the defence, had not at all tended to diminish the anxiety with which he now rose to address them on behalf of the prisoner at the bar, That anxiety was not occasioned by any fear that the jury would be, in any way, prejudiced by what they had heard out of the court-and he would take that opportunity of thanking the attorney-general for the very fair and impartial manner in which he had laid the case before the jury-but from the difficulty in which he was placed by the very extraordinary character of the occurrence which they were inquiring into. He had no anxiety which arose from a belief of the prisoner's guilt, for he assured the jury that, in his own opinion, whatever might be the character of the act committed by the prisoner, that it would be impossible for the jury, under the circumstances that had been detailed by the witnesses, to find the prisoner guilty of the offence imputed to him by the present indictment, namely, wilful murder, and in the terms of the law, of his malice aforethought, and he trusted he should be able to satisfy them that at the time the prisoner committed the act im

puted to him, he was not in such a state of mind or consciousness as would render him criminally responsible for his actions. He would pass over the discrepancies that appeared in the testimony of the different witnesses, because he agreed with the attorney-general, that under the exciting circumstances in which they were placed, it was impossible to expect that they should remember everything that occurred, and the fairest way would be to take a general view of the effect of their testimony. The learned counsel then said, that the main point upon which he rested the defence of the prisoner was, that his mind had become in such a state that when he killed the deceased he was not criminally responsible, and that it would be the duty of the jury to acquit him upon that ground. He wished them to understand that he did not mean to contend that the prisoner was in point of fact a madman without any lucid intervals, but that what had occurred on board the vessel had the effect of rendering him subject to paroxysms of madness, and that in one of those paroxysms he destroyed the deceased. The evidence for the prosecution clearly proved the prisoner's conduct to have been most extravagant and extraordinary; he appeared to have attacked the crew without any provocation, cutting them most cruelly, and acting altogether in a manner totally unaccountable. The witnesses had denied that any mutinous spirit existed on board the vessel; but whether there was an actual mutiny or not, he submitted that it was abundantly clear the crew were perfectly well satisfied that their conduct had been such as to subject them to punish

cap

ment; for otherwise, when the tain had behaved to them in such a violent and cruel manner, they would surely have complained to the captain of the other English vessel when he came on board, or at all events when they got to Fayal they would have made their complaint; but although Reason, the deceased, Cone, and Lee, the three men who had so shortly before been treated in such a cruel manner, were the very parties who rowed the captain ashore, it did not appear that they made a single word of complaint; and this he submitted could only arise from a fear, that if inquiry were instituted, it would have the effect of bringing punishment upon them for their own conduct. It was admitted, that up to a certain period, the conduct of the prisoner had been particularly kind to his crew, and there could not have been a greater proof of his kind feeling than the fact that, out of his own small allowance of water, he gave a portion to one of the crew who was sick, and this kindness continued until his reasoning powers were destroyed by the cause to which he should afterwards allude. The learned counsel then proceeded to read extracts from different works upon the subject of crime and insanity, contending that they bore out the conviction he had expressed, that the prisoner was not legally accountable for his actions. He should rely upon the circumstances of the case deposed to by the witnesses for the prosecution in support of that defence. What was the position of the prisoner? He was the captain of a vessel containing a valuable cargo, said to be worth 80,000l., with an unknown crew, whom he had very good reason to believe were in a

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