she was in the house; and the prisoner replied, that he should do as he liked about that, and he objected to go up stairs. He then said he would take us and show us where she was, and went out, followed by me and the mother. I asked the prisoner where he was going to take us to, and he again said, "She is all right," and added, "I loved her; I worked hard to make her comfortable and happy, and we should have been very comfortable, if we had not been interfered with by her relations." I then again asked the prisoner to show us where his wife was, and he made an evasive answer, and I told him he must go with me to the station-house, where I charged him with being drunk, and on suspicion of making away with his wife. Upon searching him I found a shoemaker's knife. I went back soon afterwards to the prisoner's room with another constable, and, upon going in, I saw a bedstead near the window, and on removing the counterpane I found the body of the deceased lying on her back, with her throat severely cut, and quite dead and cold. The bed was completely saturated with blood. Upon making a search in the room I found a workbox, in which there was a razor, which I produce. There are still marks of blood upon it, and at that time the handle was completely smeared over with blood. The prisoner was taken to the Mansion House, and remanded, and while he was in my charge he was about to say something. I cautioned him, and he said, "I know, I know;" and then he said, that after his wife's mother went away, he had some conversation with his wife about her going away in the morning, which he believed she did not wish to do. He said they did

not undress, but they mutually agreed to destroy each other, and she took a knife, and he took a knife. They were on the bed together, and he said to her, "Remember, Anne, this is the last time we shall have communication together." He was then, he said, about to use his knife, when the deceased told him to stop, and she would tell him where his razor was, with which he could do it much quicker, and put her out of her misery the sooner; and she, at the same time, told him to do it quick, and not to put her to much pain; and he then cut her throat with the razor.

Thomas Balchin, a city policeman, said, that while the prisoner was left in his charge at the policestation, he addressed him and said, "I can tell you more than the whole world can tell you. I did it, and by my own hand. I don't care about dying for it. I know I shall be hanged; but her mother was the cause of it."

Mr. G. B. Childs, the surgeon to the city police force, said:-I was called upon to examine the body of the deceased, and found a very extensive wound upon her throat, which was undoubtedly the cause of death. It is my impression that she was either in a state of stupor, or of very sound sleep, at the time the injury was inflicted, and, from the nature of the wound, death must have been instantaneous. The right arm was slightly raised, as though she had made an effort to protect herself, but the suddenness of her death arrested it in the effort, and it remained in that position.

The counsel for the prisoner would not deny that the unfortunate deceased had perished by the hands of the prisoner; and the

only defence he could urge on his behalf was, that at the time he committed the dreadful act he was in a state of temporary madness, occasioned by the injuries he imagined he had received at the hands of the relations of his wife, and was, therefore, not amenable to a charge of wilful murder.

The jury found the prisoner "Guilty," and the learned Judge passed sentence of death. The cries and supplications of the prisoner during the address of the Judge were fearful.

He confessed his crime; and was executed.

22. COLLISION ON THE NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY.-A collision, which in this instance appears to have originated in misfortune, and not negligence, occurred near the Harrow Station of the London and North Western Railway. The Liverpool and Manchester express train, which was due in London at half-past 10, was late, and, on arriving at Rugby, had attached to it the Midland train, which ought to have come on to London by the Birmingham express, but was too late. The train, which was drawn by a new express-train engine, consisted, on leaving Rugby, of fifteen carriages and three guards' vans. This train passed the Harrow Station at its usual speed (upwards of 40 miles an hour), when, on arriving within about three-quarters of a mile of that station, the tire of the right side leading wheel of the engine flew off. The engine, after the tire was off, kept on the line for nearly 400 yards, until it came to a slight curve, which it could not go round, owing to the absence of the flange. It here left the line, ploughing up the road for some distance, and then ran across the line and turned over on its side, but not before it

had imbedded itself completely up to the smoke-box in the left bank.

In consequence of the jerks of the engine and tender when it got off the line, the coupling-irons between the tender and the guard's van were broken, and, as the engine and tender were crossing the line, the guard's van, urged on with terrific velocity by the impetus of the heavy train of carriages behind it, dashed into the tender, and immediately turned over on to the right embankment, smashed to atoms. At this moment, unfortunately, the 11 o'clock down goods train, with 40 or 50 goods-vans, was close upon the express train, and, before the driver could receive any signal, ran into a first-class carriage which had been, by the previous shock, thrown across the down line. Another collision thus took place, and although the carriage in question, a "composite" carriage, the centre being a firstclass compartment, was frightfully crushed, the two passengers who were in it escaped through the window without any injury. Three carriages were thrown off the line, and the second collision caused both lines to be blocked completely. The body of the guard of the destroyed van was found among the fragments of the breakvan, crushed into an almost undistinguishable mass. None of the passengers were seriously hurt.

Numerous other railway accidents are recorded as having occurred during the present month; some attended with loss of life.

On the Great Northern Railway an engine ran over a gang of meu employed in re-laying the plates near Grantham, killing two, and dreadfully mutilating a third.

On the 2nd December an express engine of the North Western

Railway went over an embankment near the Huyton Station; the driver and stoker were killed. The line had been damaged by the heavy rains.

On the 7th November a melancholy accident occurred at Liverpool. An aged gentleman, Mr. Hamnett, a spirit merchant, usually visited his three nieces at Seaforth on Sundays. On this occasion one of the nieces accompanied him to the railway station on his return. He got on to the platform as a train was moving forward, and opened a carriage door; his niece expostulated, and he shut the door, but directly afterwards opened another. The moving train pulled him off his feet; Miss Hamnett clung to his coat; and, in an instant, both were drawn between the carriages and the platform; and though the train was quickly stopped, both uncle and niece were crushed to death.

16. MANILLA DESTROYED BY AN EARTHQUAKE. Accounts have been received that the city of Manilla, the capital of the Philippine Islands, has been nearly destroyed by repeated earthquakes.

The

first occurred on the 16th of September; these visitations were repeated on the six following days, the earth trembling more or less during the whole period. A succession of shocks was experienced again on the 11th, 12th, and 13th of October. The consequences of these repeated commotions were very disastrous. The palace, two churches, the cavalry barracks, a new hospital, a convent, and some bridges, were among the public buildings destroyed. The private houses were wrecked, some totally destroyed. In the country districts the same effects were experienced; churches, plantation buildings, and

private houses, were thrown down, and property to an immense value destroyed.

CONFLAGRATION OF SACRAMENTO. The destruction of the great cities of California by fire has been already repeatedly chronicled. The terrible devastations to which they seem constantly exposed form one of the peculiar features of Californian society.

By the American mails intelligence has been received that the city of Sacramento has been again swept away by a fire which broke out on the 4th of November. It is estimated that 2500 buildings were destroyed; and that property was consumed worth 5,000,000 dollars. At about the same time the rising town of Marysville was destroyed, and San Francisco, which has earned the name of "the city of conflagrations," experienced a partial visitation of the same infliction.

Nor are the disasters of the modern El Dorado confined to the land. The superb steam-ship City of Pittsburgh, of 2000 tons, built in the United States for the traffic between New York and San Francisco, took fire after leaving Valparaiso, and was totally consumed.

18. RESIGNATION OF THE DERBY MINISTRY. In consequence of the adverse division in the House of Commons on Thursday, equivalent to the rejection of the financial measures proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on behalf of the Ministry, the Earl of Derby went to Osborne House and tendered to Her Majesty, on behalf of himself and his colleagues, the resignation of their offices, which Her Majesty was pleased to accept. This change in the Government, which had been for some days anticipated, produced no marked

effects; the funds even rose slightly-a circumstance due to the certainty that our present commercial system would remain as settled, and partly to the long and continued rise in the public securities.

20. CHILD MURDER AT SHEFFIELD.-At the York Assizes, Alfred Waddington, aged 20, was indicted for the wilful murder of his female illegitimate child, Elizabeth Slater, on the 18th of August last, at Sheffield.

The prisoner, a Sheffield artizan, had courted a young woman of considerable personal attractions, named Sarah Slater, whom he had known from childhood, and whom he had asked to marry him. The result of the prisoner's intercourse with Sarah Slater was the birth of a female child, which in August last was a year and a half old. This infant was affiliated on the prisoner when it was a month old, and he was ordered to pay 2s. per week for its support. The infant was kept and maintained at its grandmother's, the mother of Sarah Slater. It appeared that the prisoner was in arrears in his payments for the support of the child, and a summons was issued against him on the 16th of August for its payment. It also appeared that Sarah Slater had refused to marry the prisoner unless he would provide her a home and be steady, and that the prisoner laboured under the mistaken impression that she had become some rich man's mistress. On the night of the 18th of August last, the prisoner's child was taken out of its grandmother's house for a walk by a girl; they were met by the prisoner, who, in spite of the girl's remonstrances, took the child away from her. Sarah Slater, the mother of the child, an exceedingly handsome girl, had VOL. XCIV.

gone that night to attend her reading-class at the Lyceum. About 8 o'clock the prisoner Waddington put his head into the room where she was with other girls, and called her out, saying she was wanted. As soon as she got out the prisoner said to her, "Where hast thou left thy child? Who hast thou left with it?" She said she had left it with Martha Barlow. The prisoner then said, "She has fallen off a wall and broken her neck; if thou wants to see it alive, thou must come with me directly." Slater said, "Oh, surely not!" The prisoner then took a shoemaker's knife out of his pocket which had blood on it, and said, "This is thy child's blood; I have murdered it;" and he showed her some blood on the back of his hand. Slater said, "Surely to the Lord thou hast not hurt the child?" The prisoner said, "I have." She then ran down the street towards the music-hall, and the prisoner ran after her and overtook her, and said, "Come with me, and I will take thee to the child." She crossed over the road and went into a lane called Ayre Lane, the prisoner going with her, and she asking him how he could hurt the child. The prisoner then fell on his knees, and said, "I declare to God I have not hurt the child." He then got up and said, "Wilt thou follow thy child?" She answered, "Yes, I will go anywhere for the child." He said, "I have placed it where nobody can get it but myself. Before I will let it be a slave under anybody I will murder it." He then said he had left the child at Caroline Wainwright's house. Slater said, If you have taken it there, she will take it home." The prisoner looked into her face and said, "Ay, but it is not there."

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He then said, if she did not follow him he would go and kill it. She followed the prisoner into Jessop Street, and then said she would not go any further; she would go to her mother's. The prisoner then said to her, "Thou can either save thy child's life or kill it." He then seized her by the waist and tried to stab her in the side with the knife. She got away from him and ran down Sylvester Street, the prisoner following her. There he caught her by her dress, and immediately tried to cut her throat. She held her head down so that he could not, and he then tried to cut the back of her neck. She cried out Murder," and held her hands up to the back of her neck, and one of her hands was very severely cut, the other slightly. She got away, and ran home to her mother's. The child was not there. In May last the prisoner had assaulted her, and she had complained to the magistrates; and in August, two days before this occurred, she had a summons out against him for non-payment of arrears of his affiliation money, and she had told him if he did not pay he would have to go to Wakefield. The prisoner had repeatedly threatened he would kill her since the child was born-that he would blow her brains out and play Rush with her. Another witness, named Sarah Dobson, stated, that after Sarah Slater had left the Lyceum, she went out into the street after her, and met the prisoner, of whom she asked where Sarah Slater was. The prisoner said he had murdered her, and, showing her his hands, said, "This is her blood." soon as he had said this the prisoner gave the witness a cut across the face with his knife, inflicting a deep gash, and she immediately

ran away. Soon after the prisoner gave himself up to the police, and told them the body of the child was in Cutler Wood. On search there the police found the body of a female child lying on its back, apparently entire. On attempting to raise it by the head, the head parted from the body and rolled down the embankment. There was much blood at the place. The body was afterwards identified by the mother of the child. On searching the river at the place described by the prisoner, a sharp shoemaker's knife was found.

The surgeon, who described the condition of the child's body when found, admitted, on cross-examination, that there was a disease called homicidal monomania, and that persons labouring under that disease often attempted to destroy those to whom they were most fondly attached. It was possible for this impulse to be long felt and concealed; sometimes it was suddenly developed: but added that he had conversed with the prisoner after this occurrence, and thought him perfectly sane.

The counsel urged for the prisoner that his conduct was only reconcileable with insanity, that he was labouring under a jealous monomania at the time he committed the act; but the learned Judge told the jury that because the prisoner had committed a great crime he was not to be presumed to be insane from the very atrocity of the crime.