ORANGE BATTERY AMONG THE SHEENES.

SKETCHES AT BOW-STREET.-No. V.

MESSRS. Joseph Solomons and Michael Isaacs were charged with having assaulted Mr. David Martin.

The parties are all orange-merchants in Coventgarden market. Mr. David Martin deposed, that as he was standing by his merchandize, about the hour of ten in the morning, counting some money he had just then taken from a customer, he suddenly received "a. squashy, well-damaged St. Michael's, vop in his right ear;" and upon his turning round his head to see where it came from, he received another, equally squashy, vop in his left ear. Then turning his head to the left, he received another in his right car; and so onleft, right, left, right, for nearly two hours, without his being able to find out where they came from. "But at last," said he, "by a curious. skvint of my two eyes at vonce, I catch'd both these ere gemmèn in the fact."

Messrs. Michael Davis and Joseph Solomons solemnly denied having done any such thing, and assured the Magistrate that Mr. David Martin was "a man what wasn't to be believed upon his oath." Nay, Mr. Joseph Solomons offered to prove this before his Worship, if he would give him leave.

His Worship gave him leave; and setting his arms a-kimbo, whilst he stared Mr. Martin full in the face, he demanded-" Now, Mister Martin➡ for that's your name you know-you have been. sworn, havn't you?"

"Ver goot," replied Mr. Martin, "I have shworn."

"Very well, then," continued Mr. Solomons,

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now, upon the solemn oath you have took, didn't you this very morning-whilst I was calling out to Aaron Levi, throw a great, big, rotten orange smack into my mouth?"

"That is where oranges ought to go!" observed Sir Richard, interrupting him.

"But not rotten ones, your Worship," rejoined Mr. Solomons, and then continued his crossquestion to Mr. Martin-" I say, Mr. Martin, didn't you throw a great, big, rotten orange, which took my customer on the whisker, and came slap into my mouth, just as I was calling out to Aaron Levi, by which means I was almost choked?"

Upon-my-solemn oat-I did not," replied Mr. Martin, with much emphasis.

"Oh! Lord!!" exclaimed Mr. Solomons; and.

he and his friend were both held to bail.

Herald.

ON THE LOSS OF THE AUSTRIAN ORDER OF ST.

f

THE TICKLISH POINT.

In the report of a case of Crim. Con., Carr v. Lillington, the defendant's Counsel, Mr. Holbetch, laid great stress on two circumstances, <first, the disparity of age between the husband and wife; and next, the unreasonable length of the periods of absence of the former. "In fact, (says the Counsel) the husband was absent from home more than half the year. Six weeks in each quarter he was on his commercial journeys, >extending his connection, accumulating wealth, and neglecting what should be dearer to him than pelf, his wife.”

The first of these circumstances, the disparity of age, it is hardly fair to urge, as the disparity was not less when the contract was entered into than when it was violated. The absence, however, involves one of the most ticklish questions that can arise in what may be called the equity of marriage.

There was a period when the ingenuity of Divines was very much employed in settling ticklish questions like the above. In Catholic countries this is still the case. There is no subject which the Casuists were fonder of discussing, than the various delicate considerations arising out of the manner in which the marriage duties are fulfilled. Sanchez de Matrimonio is an invaluable monument of the wisdom of our ancestors, and the extent of their knowledge on points which, in Protestant countries, are now very seldom elucidated.

But long after the Reformation, the Clergy con-tinued to make married parties an object of their special care and not merely the Established Clergy, but also those of the Dissenters. Indeed, the most distinguished writer on this was the celebrated Dissenting Clergyman-Richard Baxter. We cannot help thinking it a pity, that the place of writers of this description should be supplied by the Gentlemen of the Long Robe, whose morality is too apt to stretch itself to keep pace with their fee, and who have a sort of sinister interest in ensnaring poor females placed in critical situations, by the cobwebs of their sophistry. Mr. Richard Baxter, in his "Christian Economicks, or, Family Directory, containing directions for the true practice of all duties belonging to family relations, with the appurtenances," treats very fully of the very point urged by Mr. Holbetch.

"Is it lawful for husband and wife to be long absent from each other? and how long? and in what cases?

"Answer.-It is lawful to be absent either in the case of prayer, which Paul mentioneth, or in case of the needful affairs of their estates, so long as there may be no danger to either of them as to mental or corporal incontinency, nor to any other hurt which will be greater than the benefits of their absence: nor cause them to be guilty of the neglect of any real duty.. Therefore, the cases of several persons do much differ, according to the different tempers of their minds, and bodies, and affairs. He that hath a wife of a chaste, contented, prudent temper, may stay

many months or years in some cases, when all things considered it tendeth to more good than hurt. As Lawyers, by their callings, are often necessitated to follow their callings at Terms and Assizes. And Merchants may be some years absent, in some weighty cases. But if you ask whether the getting of money be a sufficient cause? I answer, that it is sufficient to those whose families must be so maintained, and their wives are easily continent, and so the good of their gain is greater than any loss or damage that cometh by it. But when covetousness puts them upon it needlessly, and their wives cannot bear it, or in any case where the hurt that is likely to follow is greater than the good, it is unlawful.”

Mr. Richard Baxter did not unadvisedly allude to what women can bear, for it would appear that he had strong doubts as to the propriety of building too much in all cases on their patience: "There are some women (he says), whose phantasies and passions are naturally so strong, as that it seemeth to me that in many cases that they have not so much as natural free will or power to restrain them; but if in all other cases they acted as in some, I should take them for mere brutes that had no true. reason; they seem naturally necessitated to do as they do. I have known the long profession of piety, which in other respects hath seemed sincere, to consist in a wife with such unmastered furious passion, that she could not, before strangers, forbear throwing what was in her hand in her husband's face, or thrusting the burning candle into his face; and slandering him of the filthiest