stance's manner on the morning of the murder which was at all unusual?" She answered, "No, sir; excepting the grief which was exhibited by all the other members of the family." And Constance herself, being examined on a subsequent occasion, said, "He was a merry, good-tempered boy, fond of romping. I have played with him often, and had done so that day. He appeared to be fond of me, and I was fond of him."

Notwithstanding the utter emptiness of the evidence, the magistrates only discharged the accused on her father entering into recognizances of 200l., for her appearance, if called upon.

By this indiscretion, the exertions of the detectives, so far from having tended to the discovery of the criminals, had rather diminished the chance of success; for in forming the theory that Miss Constance was the guilty person they had complied with the public opinion, and, by so doing, had directed investigation from the real track; while the clearance of that unfortunate young lady, removing the suspicions against her brother also, checked further exertion by the fear lest suspicion directed against any other person should prove equally groundless.

These repeated failures also seemed to cast an imputation upon the capacity of the magistrates and the acuteness of the police, and the public opinion of the neighbourhood was greatly excited. The magistrates of Bath presented a memorial to the Home Secretary, praying him to grant a special commission for the investigation f the crime, as the ordinary means entirely failed. Sir George vis refused, saying, that to su

persede the established courts of justice, which are governed by wellknown and carefully-defined rules, and to establish in their stead, by the royal authority, a commission exercising a new and arbitrary power of examination, unknown to the English law, would be highly unconstitutional. "The rules," said this judicious reply, "which govern our ordinary courts are intended, not only for the detection of guilt, but also for the protection of innocence from unjust accusations; and when the crime is of so grievous a nature as to excite a strong feeling of horror and indignation in the public mind, a strict adherence to those rules is absolutely necessary for the fair and impartial administration of justice." The Home Secretary, however, intimated to the Wiltshire magistrates his desire that the investigation should be diligently pursued, and the duty was committed to Mr. Slack, a local attorney of skill. Nothing of any remarkable value was elicited. The chief grievance expressed by the coroner's jury was, that every individual of the family and household had not been subjected to legal examination; and this cry, now that all other measures had failed, was taken up by the public. The general opinion, which had so severely and causelessly fallen against Constance and William Kent, was now with much more show of probability directed against Mr. Kent and the nursemaid. The legal advisers of Mr. Kent, and probably Mr. Kent himself, felt that it was impossible that he could longer refuse the public demand, without implying that he, or some of his family, had great reason to fear the result. On the fresh evidence obtained, and for the purpose of ex

amining Mr. Kent and his family, Elizabeth Gough was again arrested on a warrant and placed at the bar. Mr. Saunders, instructed by Mr. Slack, appeared on behalf of the Crown. This, the third legal investigation, certainly did nothing to clear up the mystery; on the contrary, many statements and supposed facts produced on the previous occasions were now withdrawn, or explained, or contradicted; while, on the other hand, a plentiful crop of errors, rumours, and vague statements, sprung up. The facts, as they have been already stated, are such as stood the test of inquiry. The more noticeable points of the present examination, not before stated, were these the flannel found in the privy, with congealed blood upon it, had been tried on the cook and the housemaid, neither of whom it fitted; but on being tried on the nursemaid did fit. But it was admitted that this article was of the very commonest pattern, such as any woman might cut out for herself from an old petticoat, and would fit any woman of the nursemaid's width; and, in deed, did fit the person who tried it on her. The inference from the undisturbed state of the bed. clothes on the child's cot, notwithstanding that the blanket had been withdrawn, was much weakened by an uncertainty whether the nursemaid had represented the arrangement as being the identical and untouched disposition of the articles as she found them, or as being arranged to show the condition in which she found them; implying that she had, on missing the child, touched or altered the then condition of the clothes, and had afterwards re-arranged them in illustra

The gardener admitted that

a person might pass from the drawing-room window to the privy without attracting the dog's notice, and that the dog was more usually at the other end of the yard.

The evidence of the surgeon upon this occasion came to a dif ferent conclusion from that which he had stated when examined before. He said: "The cut in the throat divided two large arteries. At the time, my impression was that the throat was not cut in the place where the body was found, because I saw no jets of blood on the person of the child. If the heart was beating when the throat was cut the blood would have come out from the arteries in jets. It has since occurred to me, that probably circulation was stopped by pressure on the mouth before the cut was made. In that case life might have been almost extinguished, but not quite, before the throat was cut. The heart might cease to beat a few moments before death took place. I have no doubt that the stab in the side was done after death. My impression is, though I cannot say positively, that the child was first suffocated by pressure on the mouth, and then stabbed in the side. I think the wound in the chest had nothing to do with the death, but I cannot say positively whether the child was dead when the first wound was inflicted in the throat. The suffocation might not have been carried to the extent of producing death. I was not originally of opinion that the child was suffocated in the first instance, but subsequent reflection has brought me to that conclusion." Since, however, this gentleman stated, on his first examination, "I found all the internal organs of the body completely drained of blood," it does

not seem, first, that that complete exhaustion could be a consequence of a few pulsations of the heart of a child already all but dead from suffocation; or that, if it could be, then that the quantity of blood found on the floor of the privy and on the body was at all equal to the quantity circulating in the body of a large healthy child four years old. At the subsequent informal inquiry before Mr. Saunders, Mr. Stapleton, who had assisted Mr. Parsons at the post mortem examination, stated it to be his opinion that death had resulted instantly from the cutting of the child's throat, and that he saw no marks of suffocation.

The statement made by Mr. Kent of the circumstances immediately connected with the missing of the child have already been given. He now made further statements as to his proceedings on leaving the house to give notice to the police. His proceedings had been commented on as though he had avoided the readiest means of giving the alarm. But it now appeared, that immediately after leaving the house he met Morgan, the parish-constable, told him of the loss of the child, and asked him to go for the local policeman. Another policeman lived about halfway to Trowbridge. Mr. Kent called upon him, and, seeing his wife, asked her to tell her husband. He also told Mrs. Hall, the turnpike-keeper, at Southwick, and sent his son William to Urch, the Somersetshire policeman, and to fetch the surgeon, Mr. Parsons. He was next examined as to a most singular transaction. On the night of Saturday (the night following the murder) it was arranged-for what purpose does not appear

two policemen should pass the

night in the house. Mr. Kent admitted them after the rest of the family had gone to bed-after 11 o'clock. He put them into the kitchen, supplied them with refreshments, and then, without their knowledge, locked them in. These vigilant detectives did not discover the fact until past 2 o'clock, when they made so much noise at the door that Mr. Kent came and unlocked it. One of them left, and the other he let out of the house about half-past 5 o'clock. It does not appear that Mr. Kent had gone to bed that night. He offered no intelligible explanation of his conduct.

Thus far, however strange the circumstances might appear, the evidence had been entirely consistent; but this examination produced a very noticeable inconsistency. Mr. Kent said that he knew before he went to Trowbridge that there was a blanket missing, and that he had mentioned the fact to the turnpike-keeper at Southwick; and said that he had never denied that he had been told of the missing blanket. Mrs. Kent also stated, "When I told Mr. Kent of this, he got up immediately, and went off in a carriage to inform the police. Before he left, I was aware that a blanket had been taken away with the child." How she became aware of it does not appear. The fact, however, is fixed by the evidence of Mrs. Hall, the turnpike-keeper, who said that on the morning of the 30th June, she let a gentleman pass through the gate, who inquired where the policeman lived, and said "his child had been carried off in a blanket." Now the nursemaid, upon all occasions-on her first examination before the coroner, in her evidence when Constance Kent was charged, and subse

So far, however, from eliciting any explanation of the mystery, it served only to confound and render more obscure the few facts already known; in fact, suspicions, rumours, anonymous letters, assertions and contradictions, were ad

that the nurse, when she missed the child, had touched or removed the clothes upon the cot, and so became aware that the blanket was gone, and had mentioned the fact to Mr. or Mrs. Kent; but had, in the terror and distraction of so terrible a morning, confused the order of time. Or perhaps Mrs. Kent, when she hurried into the nursery, had herself discovered that the blanket was gone.

Upon this occasion all but the two youngest of Mr. Kent's family were examined.

It appears that so far from the nurse-maid having shown any de sire to avoid the sight of the corpse, as had been reported against her, she had frequently entered the room in which it was laid-out to kiss her dead charge, and assisted to place it in the coffin.

Inquiries had been made into the previous conduct of the young woman, and it was found to have been excellent. While detained in the house of a policeman under surveillance, her behaviour was decorous, her statements frank and consistent, and the questions of her guardians answered without impatience; nor did she at any time seem to avoid the subject of the murder as dangerous.

These proceedings ended in the accused being again discharged.

A fourth inquiry, of a very anomalous and irregular character, was instituted under the direction of a single magistrate, Mr. Saunders.

such confusion of the judgment, that if there was anything of truth, it became impossible to discriminate it from the false.

Thus, by the failure of all these investigations, regular and irregular, the Road murder remains inexplicable. Although the circle of suspicion is strangely narrowed, we are in the dark on every point. We cannot even conceive to ourselves either the motive, or the manner, or any circumstances of the crime, without violence to probability or reason. It is as hard to presume innocence as guilt, and guilt as innocence. Although the nursemaid, from whose chamber the child was taken, would naturally be the first object of suspicion, yet so little did any other fact seem to point to her as the murderess, that the public fury alighted first upon two persons who slept in two other rooms upon another floor; and the practised skill of a London detective selected one of these as the criminal. These facts show that there is no impossibility, nor even very great improbability, in the supposition that some person may have entered the nurse's room while she was asleep and carried off the child, without disturbing her. When inquiry is turned towards the father, the motives for his not committing murder are infinitely stronger than any discoverable inducements to commit it. If the suggestion be considered, that the crime originated in

the nurse's having been discovered by the child to have admitted a paramour to her bed, the probability that that visitor was a stranger to the house is very nearly as great as that he was an inmate; in one material point greater, inasmuch as no vestige of blood or any other indicia of the crime were found on the persons or clothes of any of the inmates, or on any instrument within the precincts; whereas a stranger, in withdrawing, would remove with him all these marks of guilt.

30. THE BELVIDERE COLLECTION

OF PICTURES.-Twenty-one first-class pictures, a portion of the celebrated Belvidere collection, have been sold by auction. As all of these were of the very highest art, all the greatest patrons of art in England and on the Continent were present, either by themselves or by their agents. The competition was animated, and the prices realized in many cases enormous. The following were the most eminent examples:-David Teniers' Interior of the Archduke Leopold's Picture Gallery at Brussels," 400 gs.; Interior of the Artist's Painting-room," by the same, 440 gs. Murillo's famous Immaculate Conception," was put up at 5000 gs., and advanced by biddings of 500 gs. each until it reached 9000 gs., at which price it was knocked down to Mr. Graves, of Pall Mall." Snyders and his Wife," by Vandyck, 1000 gs.; a hunting scene by Weeninx, 740 gs.; a famous work of Rubens,

66

The Family of Don Balthazar," put up at 1000 gs. was sold, after a spirited contest, for 7500 gs. Nor did the English School sink into insignificance in competition

the greatest of the old mas

ters. Cooke's noble picture, "The Goodwin Sands," produced 739 gs. The twenty-one pictures produced together the enormous sum of 22,575.

On the same occasion, some remarkable works, belonging to the late Rev. S. Colby, were sold. A pair of portraits of Mr. Ellison and his wife, by Rembrandt, masterpieces of life painting, produced 1800 gs.; and two paintings by Boucher 1250 gs.

Twenty-five pictures were disposed of at this sale in about an hour and a half, for the aggregate sum of 25,8871.

STATE OF IRELAND.-Although the physical and with it the moral condition of Ireland has unquestionably improved, yet the annals of the year have been marked by terrible bloodshed. Many of these outrages may be traced to the secret Ribbon tribunal, but the greater part are due to private revenge, or those unpremeditated outbreaks which occur in every community. At the Cork assizes, Mr. Justice Christian, in passing sentence on three prisoners, said," The peasantry of this part of the country use towards each other deadly weapons with a ferocity such as is not to be surpassed by what takes place amongst the most savage tribes inhabiting any portion of the earth." These persons escaped conviction for murder, but the manslaughters they had committed deserved, one four, and the others eight years' penal servitude. On the other hand, a "Correspondent" says, that after the assizes he is able to state that "the Irish judges had not, within the present century, discharged a circuit so free from charges of murder, homicide, or other very serious