ock in the evening; he brought a ack mare with a saddle and bridle; e seemed to have had a hard day's ork. He said, "Ostler, will you ke care of my mare?" I said, "Yes, ir," and took the mare into the stale. He said, he had rode her 40 iles that day; and requested I would ed her well. He then gave me his purs, and said, he did not know wheher he should fetch the mare himelf, or whether he should send for her. He then asked me my name, and I old him my name was Stammers. He then asked me my Christian name, nd I told him James. He then said e should send a note, directed to le, to deliver the mare, and then vent away. Next day a man, named 'ruin, brought me a note from the risoner, directing me to deliver the aare to the bearer. Fruin paid me or the keep of the mare before he ook her away. She is a strong mare, nd rather more than 144 hands high. Cross-examined: I had not seen the ›risoner before to my knowledge.

James Fruin.-I am a green grocer n Carnaby-street, Carnaby market, and have known the prisoner five nonths before last haymaking. I always knew him by the name of Thompson. On Friday night, the 18th of February, he came to my house and asked if I knew of a lodging; I told him I did not; he said he saw one as he came through Crossstreet; (he had called on the preceding Wednesday ;) he went away and returned again, saying he had taken the lodging for a week, and he had some bread and cheese, and he sent out for a pot of porter; he asked me to call on him on the Thursday; I said I would, and I called between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning; he said he had got a horse from the country for sale, and if I would sell it he would give me a sovereign for my trouble; I went at the priso

ner's desire to inquire when the saledays were at Dixon's; I returned and told him Dixon's sale was on Friday, in Barbican; he then desired me to call again in the afternoon, and when I went he wrote three notes; the one (the order) now produced is one of them; he sealed two of the notes up, and gave me them to deliver; he told me I was to take one of the notes to Mr Cousins, the right hand side of High-street, Kensington, the other to give to the ostler, and the other to Dixon's; I went to leave the letter at Mr Cousins' first, and then I presented the one to the ostler and paid him 4s. 6d. on the delivery of the mare; I then rode her in the direction desired by the prisoner, towards Barbican, and delivered her to a man at Dixon's Repository, together with the note; I then returned home, and the prisoner asked whether anything was said; I told him the man said he had opened his mouth too wide; I spoke to a man at the Repository, and he is here now; I afterwards saw her sold at the hammer for twenty guineas; I saw the prisoner that night, and told him she had sold for eighteen gui, neas, thinking to surprise him when I told him she had fetched twenty guineas.-Cross-examined: There is a mark on the mare's back caused by the saddle.

David Lughton. I remember a black mare being brought to Dixon's by the last witness, with a note with her. The note produced is the same note. Fruin came next day, and I told him I thought she was marked at too much money, the price being named in the note thirty guineas. Fruin said she must be sold, fetch what she would. She was sold next day to Mr Eames for twenty guineas. I afterwards saw the same mare at Bow Street.

Mr Eames. I am proprietor of the

Angel Inn, St Clement's. I purchased the mare in question, at Dixon's, for 20 guineas. I saw the same mare at Bow-street.

Mr William Cousins.-I am a linen-draper at Kensington. I have known the prisoner some years. The witness Fruin brought me a note, signed Edward Thompson; I destroyed it before his face, and said I knew no such person. The note was in the prisoner's hand-writing. The notes to the ostler and to Dixon were here handed to the witness, who swore them to be in Probert's hand-writing. -Cross-examined.-I destroyed the note immediately. It merely said, Mr Thompson requests Mr Cousins will call on him to-morrow. I cannot now swear that the note was in his, the prisoner's hand-writing.

David Ellis, one of the officers at Bow Street. I apprehended the prisoner on Friday, the 18th February, in Great Windmill Street, Haymarket. I searched him, and found a parcel of papers about him, and some small bills for refreshments, and keep of the horse, at different inns on thé road between Gloucester and London, and a pair of scissors. I received a black mare from the witness Eames, which has since been seen by the several witnesses, and sworn to by Meredith. The mare has been in my possession ever since.

Mr Barry requested the Court to permit him to ask Mrs Meredith if she never lent the mare to the prisoner ? It was granted, and Mrs Meredith was called again and examined.

Mr Barry. Now, Mrs Meredith, the prisoner, I believe, is a distant relation of yours, and the question I am going to ask you, I must request you will answer me truly-remember you are on your solemn oath. Did you ever lend the prisoner the mare he is now charged with stealing?

Mrs Meredith.-Never,

Mr Barry. Nor did your husband or son?-Never, never.

By the Judge. I never saw the prisoner after I saw him at his mother's house on the Thursday before the mare was stolen.

Meredith again called and examined by the Judge.-Never saw the pri soner in the neighbourhood after the mare had been stolen. This closed the prosecution.

Lord Chief Justice.-William Probert, the case for the prosecution is now closed, and it is now for you to offer anything you have to say in your defence.

Probert.-My Lord, may I be permitted to read the few remarks I have to offer?

Judge. Certainly.

Probert then bowed respectfully, and commenced reading in a faltering voice the following defence:

66 My Lord and Gentlemen of the Jury-I have pleaded not guilty to the crime I have been accused of, not with a view of escaping the sentence the Court may put upon me, should I be found guilty; but with a view that I might have an opportunity of saying a few words in this court. I have, since my discharge from Hertford, been the victim of public censure, through the medium of the public press, and, wherever I went, even in the smallest village, I was shunned in society, and I could never move but my route was announced in the papers. Every door was shut against me, and every hope was blasted. I was hunted down like a wild beast in the forest. Heaven and myself know only what I have suffered since my discharge from Hertford. I will only ask, whether my situation was not most deplorable, and I will put it to the Gentlemen of the Jury, what they would have done if they had been similarly situated? and,

therefore, Gentlemen, I trust, that should you find me guilty, you will accompany your verdict with a recommendation to the Court to mercy. And you, my Lord, I hope will, in that case, forward such recommendation to the proper quarter. One word more, my Lord and Gentlemen, and I have done. My wife and children have been for some time in a state of starvation, and my poor wife has just been put to bed, without a friend or any human being to assist her. Such, Gentlemen, has been, and is still, the wretched situation I am labouring under. I hope, my Lord, you will consider me an object of commiseration, through the censure I have received through the public newspapers, and I trust, should there be any points in the case favourable to me, that you will give me

was also very much affected. The prisoner's mother, his wife, and brother-in-law, remained, by the permission of the Sheriffs, some time, longer than usual with the prisoner. He is perfectly composed, and converses with those about him very cheerfully. He, from his observations, anticipates a mitigation of the punishment his crime has subjected him to, and frequently says, he shall be heartily thankful to leave the country for ever; it would be the happiest moment, should it arrive, he had seen for many years.

HOUSE OF PEERS.-June 17.

SCOTS APPEAL.

Judge. Have you any witnesses to call to your character.

Probert shook his head.

The Judge then recapitulated the evidence, and the Jury, after consulting for about five minutes, found the prisoner Guilty, without a recommendation to mercy.

The prisoner heard the verdict without any emotion, and on Mr Wontner, the governor, asking him his age, he replied loudly 36. He then walked firmly from the dock.

On Friday morning, Probert was visited by his wife, Mr Noyes, her brother, and the prisoner's mother. This was the first interview Mrs Probert has had with her unhappy husband, and the meeting between them was truly affecting. On entering his apartment, she approached him in a flood of tears to embrace him. Probert coolly desired her not to feel, and to bear herself up under her afflictions with fortitude. Mr Noyes VOL. XVIII. PART III.

ters to the Signet.

Mr Graham being accused of subscribing signet letters not written by his own clerk, and of charging less than the established fees, he was cited before the Society; but having declined appearing, was held confessed, fined, and threatened with suspension and deprivation, if he persevered in breaking the regulations. Mr Graham having refused submission, an action of declarator was entered in the Court of Session. The Court found Mr Graham bound to yield obedience to the rules, and liable to the penalties imposed and threatened. The case having come by appeal before Lord Gifford, his Lordship reversed the judgement of the Court in toto, from which it results that the rules of the Society cannot be enforced in a court of law, that it cannot fix a minimum rate of fees, or insist that signet letters be written by the writer's own clerk or apprentices.

G

The court then pronounced this

SION.-June 29.

considered this petition, with the judgement of the House of Lords

to the Signet.

On the petition of Mr Graham, for an application of the judgement of the House of Lords, being moved, on, 29th June, the Lord President spoke in substance as follows:

"I may take this opportunity of mentioning, that I wish the writers to the signet would look back into their records; I have no doubt they are a corporation-nobody can doubt that; but to what extent are they a corporation? I recollect, when I came to the bar, the whole internal regulations of the body were executed by the keeper and the commissioners; they form the corporation, and, I think, if they were to look back into their records, they would find that everything was done by the keeper and commissioners, and that the body of the writers to the signet have no other power than the management and administration of their own funds -they have no powers otherwise. For example, I see a very respectable gentleman appointed their procurator-fiscal; but who authorized them to elect a procurator-fiscal? What corporation elects a procurator-fiscal? In short, if I am not mistaken, it will be found that the whole powers lie in the keeper and commissioners; the others are merely the clerks to the signet. It is just like the clerks of a bank making laws and regulations for the directors."

Mr Forsyth.-Your Lordship, I am afraid, is promulgating very unpalatable truths.

Lord President.-Not at all, Mr Forsyth; for the keeper and commissioners would have the same powers as the body now claims.

pursuance of the said judgement, they alter the interlocutors complained of in the petitioner's appeal, assoilzie him from the conclusions of the action, and decern; and farther, recall the interlocutor pronounced by the Court on the 9th March, 1824, in the applica tion to regulate the interim possession in the cause pending the appeal. Find the respondents (W. S.) liable in the expense of this application; appoint an account to be given in, and remit it, when lodged, to the auditor to tax and report."

COURT OF SESSION.-30.

ROYAL BURGH CESS.-In a case before Lord Cringletie this week, relative to the exaction of cess by the bailies ofa petty burgh, Mr Cockburn, having mentioned that these bailies had levied more than they had any right to do, said that this practice was not confined to the municipality in ques tion. Edinburgh was a notable instance of it. The amount of cess affecting the burghs was settled at the Union, and remained the same to this day. L.6000 were allocated in Edinburgh, and it was clear, that the proportion exigible from each householder should diminish with the increasing size of the town-with every house that is built, the assessment being spread over a greater surface. But the proportion was never varied; it continued the same now that the town was enlarged, as when it was more limited. How this is managed, and what is done with the surplus, for the Crown gets no more than its L.6000, our civic rulers and their

friends know best. For his part, he paid no cess; it was regularly demanded, but the call was never answered. He invited them to prosecute him; he should like to be prosecuted; but he had never been, and he thought it was pretty certain he never would. The investigation would be troublesome. The learned gentle man delivered this con amore; and his Lordship said, he believed it was very possible that the case was as he stated it.

JULY.

6. LIBEL IN THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. In the Court of King's Bench, at Guildhall, the important cause came on of Buckingham against Murray, the eminent bookseller in Albemarle Street, for a series of libels published against the plaintiff, a gentleman of literary talents, in the Quarterly Review, No. 52, in the month of March, 1822. The case excited considerable interest. After Mr Scarlett had addressed the Jury at a very considerable length, a witness was called, who proved purchasing the work at the shop of Mr Murray, in Albemarle Street, containing the alleged libels.-After several of the passages had been read, the Attorney-General stated, he was instructed to express the regret his client felt at what had occurred, and would submit to a verdict being returned against him. The Jury instantly found for the plaintiff. Damages L.50.

AUGUST.

4. OXFORD CIRCUIT.-HEREFORD.-Judge v. Berkely and Others.In this case, which attracted a crowded audience, Jasper Tomsett Judge,

editor of the Cheltenham Journal, was plaintiff; aud Colonel William Fitzhardinge Berkely, Lord Sussex Lennox, and Robert Carr Hammond, Esq., were defendants. The declaration alleged a violent assault to have been committed by the defendants on the plaintiff, on the 14th of March, to which they pleaded, "Not guilty." This prosecution originated in Colonel Berkely and others having assaulted Mr Judge, in consequence of certain offensive articles regarding the Colonel's intimacy with Miss Foote having appeared in the Cheltenham Journal. The Jury found a verdict for the plaintiff.—Damages L.500.

DECEMBER.

HIGH COURT OF ADMIRALTY,
Edinburgh, Dec. 21.

TRIAL OF DUNCAN M'INNEs, late
MASTER, AND PETER M'BRIDE,
LATE PILOT, OF THE COMET
STEAM-BOAT.

The trial took place before the High Court of Admiralty, Sir John Connel, Knt., Judge, assisted by William Boswell, Esq., advocate, Sheriff of Berwickshire.

M'Innes and M'Bride, who had been liberated on bail, appeared at the bar, at ten o'clock, and soon after that hour the Judge took his seat.

The criminal letters were read over, and the charges they contained were as follow:-"That albeit by the laws of this and of every other well governed realm, culpable homicide, as also the culpable, negligent, and reckless command, charge, and steering of a steam-boat, by the master or pilot thereof, whereby the lives of any of the lieges are lost, are crimes of an