and appointed his brother to be her guardian, and executor of his will. The lady was theu about eighteen ; and if she happened to die unmarried, or if married, without children, her fortune was left to her guardian and to his heirs. As the interest of the uncle was now incompatible with the life of the niece, several other relations hinted, that it would not be proper for them to live together. Whether they were willing to prevent any occasion of slander against the uncle, in case of the young lady's death; whether they had any apprehension of her being in danger; or whether they were only discontented with the father's disposition of his fortune, and therefore propagated rumours to the prejudice of those who possessed it, cannot be known; the uncle, however, took his niece to his house near Ep. ping Forest, and soon afterwards she disappeared.

buckram and whalebone in the stays of Irish chastity, which enables it to walk through life as stately as a Duchess at a Coronation." CHINESE THEATRICALS.-The following are the chief incidents in a piece of great celebrity, performing for the amusement of the Chinese, when the last accounts left that kingdom. The subject is one which occupies the theatres of all countries-the attempt of a libertine to poach on another's manor. A female, who has a lover, not finding a better expedient to elude the attention of her husband than that of assassination, seizes the moment when he is in bed, (which is placed on the stage) and dispatches him by a dreadful cut in the head with an hatchet! Her husband, on receiving the blow, leaps from his bed, and walks up and down the stage, with the hatchet firmly fixed in his skull, uttering the most lamentable cries, while the blood flows in torrents down his face, and he at length expires in the utmost agonies and convulsions. His cries hav-appearing that the day she was missing, she ing brought the neighbours in, a Mandarin (magistrate) is sent for; who examines the woman, finds her guilty, and condemns her to be skinned alive. The audience Jose the treat of seeing this operation, for j is performed behind the scenes; but after it is over, the fair impaled re-appears on the stage, and sings a few tender airs to her skinner, to induce him to be satisfied with her punishment, and to give her a full pardon of her crime.

Great inquiry was made after her, and it

went out with her uncle into the forest, and that he returned without her. He was taken into custody, and in a few days afterwards he went through a long examination, in which he acknowledged, that he went out with her, and pretended that she found means to loiter behind him as they were returning home; that he sought her in the forest as soon as he missed her; and that he knew not where she was, or what was become of her. This account was thought improbable, and his apparent interest in the death of his ward, and perhaps the petu

SCOLDING WIVES.-The following para graph we copy by way of caution, from an early volume of the Gentleman's Magazine :-" Alant zeal of other relations, concurred to raise

writ of detainer came down to Newgate against and strengthen suspicions against him, and Richard Parrot, a husbandman, who having he was detained in custody. Some new circut his wife's tongue out, was committed until cumstances were every day rising against him. the issue should be known. The woman died, It was found that the young lady had been adand the Coroner's Jury have brought it in wil-dressed by a neighbouring gentleman, who had, ful murder. On Parrot's' examination he ap- a few days before she was missing, set out on peared to be deaf; and his plea for cutting out a journey to the north; and that she had dehis wife's tongue was, that she was an intole-clared she would marry him when he returned; rable scold!" This Parrot was by no means a bird for the ladies. He probably was misled by the precept—“if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off.”

SINGULAR RELATION.-A gentleman died possessed of a very considerable fortune, which he left to his only child, a daughter, No. XXVIII. Vol. V.-N. S.

that her uncle had frequently expressed his diapprobation of the match in very strong terms that she had often wept and reproached him with unkindness and an abuse of his power. A woman was also produced who swore, that on the day the young lady was missing, about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, G

certaiu is human testimony, even when the witnesses are sincere, and so necessary is cool and dispassionate inquiry and determination with respect to crimes that are enormous in the highest degree, and committed with every possible aggravation.

COMPARATIVE VELOCITIES.-According to Dr. Bradley, an undulation of light reaches the earth from the sun (a distance of 191,434

she was coming through the forest, and heard a woman's voice expostulating with great eagerness; upon which she drew nearer the place, and before she saw any person, heard the same voice say, "Don't kill me, uncle, don't kill me;" upon which she was greatly terrified, and immediately hearing the report of a gun very near, she made all the haste she could from the spot, but could not rest in her mind till she had told what had happened.-miles, or 1,010,771,520 feet) in one second of Such was the general impatience to punish a man who had murdered his niece to inherit her fortune, that upon this evidence he was condemned and executed.—About ten days after the execution the young lady came home. It appeared, however, that what all the witnesses had sworn was true, and the facts were found to be thus circumstanced :—The young lady declared, that having previously agreed to go off with the gentleman that courted her, he had given out that he was going a journey to the north; but that he waited concealed at a little house near the skirts of the forest till the time appointed, which was the day she disappeared. That he had horses ready for himself and her, and was attended also by two servants also on horseback. That as she was

time. The motion of sound is found to be 1130 feet in the same period. The velocity of lightning is equal to 23 English miles in a second; and that of a hurricane, which tears up trees and carries buildings before it, is 100 miles in an hour. According to the computation of Cepede, the great northern whale swims at the rate of thirty-three feet in a second, at which rate he might go round the globe, in the direction of the equator, in 564 hours, or forty-seven days; while man is so inferior in the velocity of his movements, that to traverse a space equal to the circumference of the globe, would cost him three hours of hard walking, every day for seven years.

DR. JOHNSON'S COURTSHIP.-The follow

ing curious account of Dr. Johnson's courtship is extracted from the Letters of Anna Seward, and forms part of one to James Boswell, Esq.; as it is not inserted in this gentleman's Life of Johnson, it may be interesting to many of our readers:" I have often heard my mother say she perfectly remembered his

walking with her uncle, he reproached her with persisting in her resolution to marry a nian whom he disapproved; and after much altercation, she said with some heat, "I have set my heart upon it, if I do not marry him it will be my death; and don't kill me, uncle, don't kill me;" that just as she had pronounced those words, she heard a gun dis-Johnson's) wife. He has recorded of her that charged very near her, at which she started, and immediately afterwards saw a man come forward from among the trees, with a wood pigeon in his haud, that he had just shot. That coming near the place appointed for their rendezvous, she formed a pretence to let her uncle go on before her, and her suitor being waiting for her with a horse, she mounted and immediately rode off. That instead of going into the north, they had retired into a house in which he had taken lodgings near Windsor, where they were married the same day, and in about a week went a journey of pleasure to France, from whence wheu they returned, they first heard of the misfortune which they inadvertently brought upon their uncle.-So un

beauty which existed only in his imagination. She had a very red face, and very indifferent features, and her manners in advanced life, for her children were all grown up when Johnson first saw her, had an unbecoming excess of girlish levity, and disgusting affectation. The rustic prettiness, and artless manners of her daughter, the present Mrs. Lucy Porter, had won Johnson's youthful heart, when she was upon a visit at my grandfather's* in Johnson's school-days. Disgusted by bis unsightly form, she had a personal aversion to him, nor

*The Rev. John Hunter, master of the Litchfield Free-School, by whom Johnson was educated.

INCIDENTS

OCCURRING IN AND NEAR LONDON, INTERESTING MARRIAGES, &c.

TRIAL OF B. WALSH, ESQ.M.P.-Mr. Walsh was arraigned at the Old Bailey, Jan. 18, and pleaded Not Guilty. He was dressed in a suit of black, and appeared much dejected, and during part of the examination burst into violent fits of tears, and twice withdrew.-Mr. Garrow addressed the Jury. The indictment contained several counts; in the first set of which the prisoner was charged with feloniously stealing a check of Sir T. Plomer, value £22,000; and in the other counts with stealing Bank-notes to that amount. Mr. Garrow detailed the narrative of the fraud at

Verses to a Lady, on receiving from her a length; the only probable doubt, he said, was as sprig of Myrtle:

to the law on the subject. He would prove a pre-existing felonious intention in the mind of Mr. Walsh; that previous to the receipt of the check and money, he had made preparations for his flight out of the country; and that he had no sooner obtained possession of them than he proceeded to carry his felonious purpose into execu tion. If this were not a felonious act, he was at a loss to know the legal definition of the term larceny. There was, first, a felonious intent; second, a taker; third, a chattel taken; fourth

the taking was against the will of the owner.Mr. Scarlet, who, together with Mr. Alley, was counsel for the prisoner, rose to state his objections to the evidence, as not substantiating the charge of felony laid in the indictment. He, as well as the prisoner, acknowledged the moral turpitude of the act; that act, as a moral offence, he should not attempt to paliate; but the legal construction of that act, and the penalties applicable to it as a criminal offence, were now before the court, and not the moral guilt. The indictment, in different counts, charged the crime in two different modes. First, a felony in stealing the check delivered to the prisoner by the prosecutor, to which most of the counts applied (as if the framer of the indictment despaired of the effect of the other counts); and secondly, it charged the prisoner with stealing Bank-notes to the value of £22,200, the property of Sir Thomas Plomer, and from the possession of Sir Thomas Plomer. With respect to the check, there could be no felonious intent to take that individual check, because part of it had been applied, and paid in to the banking-house of the prosecutor, as he directed. Again, the check could be no subject of felony; it was no security, the term made use of (and under which it could only be comprehended) in the statute of 2 Geo. II. cap. 25. To steal the check was to steal no valuable chat

tel;
it was a mere order for money, and gave Sir
Thomas no new credit with his banker. The
very point occurred in Mrs. Frippeau's case, and
a check was not deemed a thing capable of felo- ||
nious appropriation. Next, as to the previous
felonious intent of the prisoner, when he received
the check, to convert it to his own use. The mere
meditation of a felony was no felony. Felony was
not a cogitation, but an act; it was an intention
put into a substantive act, and which act and in-
tention jointly and concurrently constituted the
act. There being no fraud, no circumvention, no
violence, actual or constructive, to gain possession
of the thing alleged to be stolen, the mere naked
existence of a felonious intention could not make
it felony. Thirdly, that where the party intend-
ed to part both with the possession and the pro-
perty of the thing, as the prosecutor did in this
case, for it was plain that Mr. Walsh might have
received what change he liked for the check,
provided he fulfilled the contract which he made
of purchasing the Exchequer Bills,—that, under
these circumstances, the felonious intention
would not make it felony. The prosecutor parted,
by the delivery of the check, both with the pro-

He

perty and the possession, and, in lieu of it, he
expected only an equivalent, and not the monies
themselves. Fourthly, the prosecutor gave an
undoubted credit to Mr. Walsh, as his Broker;
he trusted him, and his possession freely gained
of the subject of trust could not be changed, in
the construction to be put upon it, by any evil.
intention in his mind; the prosecutor himself
ever acting upon that intention, so as to gain
the thing confided to him. Fifthly, the Bank-
notes, the fruits of the check, were never the pro-
perty or in the possession of Sir Thomas Plomer,
There were no specific notes on which he had a
claim. Walsh was not bis servant; so that it
was not a case in which the possession of the ser-
vant was deemed to be that of the master.
gained them upon contract, and in confidence,
and bis abuse of the possession could not be con-
strued into a larceny of the property.-The
Judges all agreed, that as it was a case in which
many serious and important points might arise,
and was certainly an arguable question, it would
be best to take the verdict of the Jury generally,
as to the guilt or innocence of the prisoner, and
to reserve the main question, whether his act con-
stituted a felony or not, to the solemn and deli-
berate opinion of the twelve Judges, to be argued
before them early next term. The Chief Baron
then summed up to the Jury. The law of the
case, he told them, was reserved for the highest
tribunal which the country knew. His Lordship
then stated, with remarkable candour and perspi-
cuity, the main points on which they alone could
decide, and the Jury found the prisoner-Guilty.

INTERMENT OF WILLIAMS.-The premature death of Williams having defeated the ends of that justice with which it is probable, from the very suspicious circumstances that have transspired, this wretched man would have been overtaken, the Magistrates came to a resolution of giving the greatest possible solemnity and publicity to the ceremony of interring this suicide.On Tuesday morning, December 31, about nine o'clock, the High Constable, with his attendants, arrived at the watch-house with a cart, that had been fitted up for the purpose of giving the greatest possible degree of exposure to the face and body of Williams. A stage or platform was formed upon the cart by boards, which extended from one side to the other. They were fastened to the top, and lapping over each other from the hinder part to the front of the cart, in regular gradation, they formed an inclined plane, on which the body rested, with the head towards the

borse; and so much elevated as to be com- the servant of the late Mr. Marr, to attend, and pletely exposed to public view. On the body give such information touching them, as lay withwas a pair of blue cloth pataloons, and a white in their knowledge. Mrs. Vermilye stated, that shirt, with the sleeves tucked up to the elbows, she had often seen trowsers of the description bat neither coat nor waistcoat. About the neck produced before the Magistrates, but she could was the white handkerchief with which Williams not pretend to say that she had ever before seen put an end to his existence. On the right hand || the identical pair in question. Sailors, in comside of the head was fixed, perpendicularly, the||ing from the East Indies, used to wear such trow. maul with which the murder of the Marrs was sers on board ship, and they generally had them committed. On the left, also in a perpendicular on when first landing; but she thought they were position, was fixed the ripping chissel. Above too shabby for Williams to have worn when on his head was laid in a transverse direction upon shore. He was always very smart in his dress, the boards, the iron crow; and parallel with it, but particularly so when in the house. Holbrook the stake destined to be driven through the and Hewitt deposed as to the finding of those body. About half past ten the procession moved articles; and both of them declared, that the stains from the watch-house. An immense cavalcade of on the trowsers were those of blood. Hewitt prothe inhabitants of the two parishes closed the pro- duced a chalking chissel, which he found in a cession. On arriving opposite to the house of drawer in the lumber-room at the Pear Tree, with Mr. Marr, the procession halted for about ten the letters J. P. pricked upon it in the same manminutes, and then proceeded down Old Gravelner as those letters were marked upon the maul lane, Newmarket-street, Wapping High-street, found in Mr. Marr's house. The other tools beand up New Gravel-lane, when the procession longing to John Patterson were not marked in again stopped opposite to the King's Arms, the that way upon the iron, but only upon the wood. house of the late Mr. Williamson; from thence This new discovery still more strongly confirms it proceeded along Ratcliff Highway, and up the identity of that fatal instrument with the Cannon-street, to the Turnpike-gate, at which house wherein the suicide had lodged. The identhe four roads meet. About half past twelve tification of the scissars remains doubtful, until o'clock a man mounted the platform, and laying Catharine Stillwell, the grand-daughter of the hold of the suicide by the wrists, precipitated him late Mr. Williamson, comes forward. The murinto the hole, and then descended and drove a derous instruments, the maul and ripping-chissel, stake through the body with the identical pin- of which so much has been said in relation to the maul which had been used in murdering the fa- murders at Ratcliffe, have been deposited at the mily of Marr, amidst the shouts and vociferous Public Office, Bow-street, by order of the Secreexecrations of the multitude; the hole was then tary of State. filled up and well rammed down.

THE LATE MURDERS.-In consequence of the orders given by the Magistrates of Shadwell Of fice, the privy belonging to the house of Mr. Vermilye, was lately searched for the purpose of ascertaining whether Williams had concealed therein any evidence of his guilt. In the discharge of this duty, the officers found a pair of old blue cotton seaman's trowsers, part of a sempstress's hussif, and a pair of clasp scissars. The scissars were attached to the latter, and it was supposed, were the property either of Mrs. Williamson or Mrs. Marr. The trowsers, were washed, and after the filth had been cleaned away, there appeared upon them the most evident marks of blood in every direction. With a view to identify some of these articles with the suicide Williams, the Magistrates ordered Mrs. Vermilye, John Harrison, the sail-maker, and Margaret Jewel,

WILLIAMS, THE SUICIDE.-A most important discovery has lately been made, which removes every shadow of doubt respecting the guilt of the late suicide Williams. It was proved before the Magistrates of Shadwell Office, that three weeks before the murder af Mr. Williamson and his family, Williams had been seen to have a long French knife with an ivory handle: That knife could never be found in ithams's trunk, or amongst any of the clothes he left behind him at the Pear-tree public-house. The subscquent search to find it has been successful. A short time since, Harrison, one of the lodgers of the Pear-tree public-house, in searching among some old clothes, found a blue jacket, which he immediately recognised as part of Williams's apparel. He proceeded to examine it closely, and upon looking at the inside pocket, he found it quite stiff with coagulated blood, as if a blood-stained