Sea, and was considered by them the head of the firm.
The prisoner reserved his defence. He was committed
for trial.

In the Dublin Commission Court, on the 10th inst., Mr.
Kirwan was found guilty of the Murder of his wife
and sentenced to death by Mr. Justice Crampton. The
evidence was circumstantial. Mr. Kirwan was an
artist, living by sketching. He had been married
twelve years; but the whole of that time he had been
living also with another woman, by whom he had eight
children. Neither of the women knew of her rival,
until six months before her death, Mrs. Kirwan learned
the fact. On the 6th of September, the Kirwans went
to the little island called 'Ireland's Eye,' in Dublin
Bay, to sketch. Kirwan had a sword-cane with him.
Another party visited the island, and at four o'clock
saw Mrs. Kirwan alive; the couple being then left
alone on the island. At seven o'clock cries of distress
on the island were heard. When the boatmen returned
at eight o'clock according to their instructions, Mrs.
Kirwan was missing; and after a search her body was
found on a rock. The incident is thus described by one
of the boatmen—"Her bathing-dress was up under her
arms, and there was a sheet under her; her head was
lying back in a hole, and her feet were in a pool of
water about the full of my hat—about half a gallon.
I saw cuts on her forehead and under her eye; there
was blood coming down by her ears, from her side and
breast, and other places." Kirwan told the boatmen
that his wife left him to bathe at half-past six o'clock;
but the continued fall of the tide proved that she could
not have been drowned or carried by the water to the
spot where she was found. The boatmen found her
clothes in a spot which they had previously searched,
after Kirwan had been a short time absent from them.
The body showed marks of violence; but a Coroner's
inquest found a verdict of "Accidental death;" and
the body was buried in a part of Glasnevin cemetery,
so wet that in two months the body was decomposed.
—Since the trial, the correctness of the verdict
has been questioned, and Mr. Kirwan has received
a reprieve.

At the Surrey Sessions, on the 11th, the Reverend
Daniel Donovan, a Roman Catholic priest of Bermondsey,
was tried for Assaulting Mary Murphy. The woman
had been confined three weeks, and was sitting by the
fire with her infant when Mr. Donovan came in. He
was very angry with her. She and her husband had
become Protestants; and the infant had been baptised by
Dr. Armstrong, an Irish Protestant clergyman, who has
converted many Roman Catholics in Bermondsey. Mr.
Donovan inquired about the infant's baptism; and then
abused the woman, and struck her three times with his
umbrella. Further, he incited the landlady to turn the
Murphys out of the house; and the landlady
subsequently took away the bed on which the woman slept.
The witnesses called for the defence in some measure
corroborated Mrs. Murphy's statement, though they
softened it. It appeared also from Mrs. Murphy's
admissions that she obtained money and other relief
from Catholics as well as Protestants—Donovan had
given her money. The jury convicted Mr. Donovan;
but both they and the prosecutrix recommended him to
mercy. On that recommendation, the sentence was not
imprisonment, but a fine of £5. The fine was immediately
paid, amid the execrations of the mob and the
dreadful howling of the women. They were in a state of
such excitement that it was found necessary to send out
both the priest and his accuser privately through the gaol.

At the Central Criminal Court, on the 16th, Henry
Horler, a young man, was convicted of the Murder of
his Wife, by cutting her throat while she was in bed.
The man's counsel could only suggest that he was not a
responsible agent when he did the deed, his mind having
been unhinged by injuries which he imagined he had
received from his wife's relations. Sentence of death
was pronounced by Mr. Justice Wightman, amidst the
wretched prisoner's screams for mercy.—On the same
day, Amelia Elizabeth Burt, a married woman of thirty,
was tried for the Murder of her Child, by throwing it
from Hungerford Bridge. In this case it appeared
that the poor creature was of unsound mind, and she
was accordingly acquitted on that ground.

At the High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh, on the
23rd, George Christie, an old pensioner, belonging to
Aberdeen, was convicted of the Murder of a widow
named Ross, and her grandchild, a boy about five years
of age, on the 4th of October last. The old woman
lived in a small cottage along with her grandchild, about
a mile from Aberdeen. She kept a few cows and sold
milk. It was supposed that she had a little money, and
as far as the evidence went, the sole motive for the
murder on the part of the accused was to possess himself
of the property. The murder appears to have been
committed in a very atrocious manner; no fewer than
nine blows—any of which were sufficient to have caused
death—having been inflicted on the woman, while the
skull of the child was split open down to the nose. The
prisoner was seen in the house on the night of the
murder, and was afterwards apprehended with several
articles, including a purse with a small sum of money,
and a gold ring, belonging to the deceased. Blood was
also found on his person. His guilt was quite clear,
and the jury had no hesitation in convicting him. His
execution is appointed to take place at Aberdeen
on the 19th of January.

NARRATIVE OF ACCIDENT AND
DISASTER.

Floods caused by the continued rainy weather have
done much damage in many parts of the country. On
the 11th, there was such a flow of water into the Tyne
that two vessels were sunk in the harbour, and numbers
of others were damaged. Four men were drowned. At
Carnarvon, a petty stream was so swollen that it washed
down a high wall, and broke into the town; much
damage was done in the lower parts of houses, and some
persons were in danger of drowning. A mountain lake
burst its boundaries near Penrhyn slate quarry; several
houses were swept away, and one man was drowned.
In other parts of Wales, and in the island of Anglesea,
much damage has been done. At Bangor a large stream
flowed through the streets on Sunday morning, the 12th,
and people who had attended the service in the Cathedral
had to be conveyed home in Coaches. A gentleman
has been drowned at night in Lake Windermere while
returning home, in consequence of the road being under
water, so that he missed his way and got into deep
water. A man has been found dead in a pool under a
railway-arch on the Botley-road, near Oxford. He
seems to have fallen into the pond at night, probably
somewhat in liquor. The Coroner's Jury recommended
the railway company to have the water removed forthwith.
Exeter has been flooded in several parts by the
sudden swelling of the Exe. A great deal of damage
was done, and some persons were in danger; but no life
was lost. Perth has been flooded. The waters of the
Tay rose to an extraordinary height, and viewed from
an eminence the city was seen to be two-thirds
surrounded by water. All low-lying parts of the
city suffered much; while carcases of sheep and oxen,
with trees and brush-wood, borne along the impetuous
stream, showed that the upper part of the country had
not escaped ravage. From Ireland there are great
complaints of the prevalence of floods in all parts of the
country, putting a stop to agricultural operations, and
diffusing a general gloom.

Many Railway Accidents have been reported this
month. The following are among the most remarkable.
On the 8th, an alarming collision between a passenger
and a goods train, arising out of the negligence of a
pointsman, occurred on the Midland line at Leeds.
About a mile from the Wellington station there is a
junction of the lines leading to that station on the left,
and the Hunslet station on the right. At half-past
seven in the evening a goods train passed this junction,
and was telegraphed by the pointsman to the other end
of the line leading to the Wellington station. The
pointsman then left the place for half an hour, and when
the York and Leeds passenger train arrived at eight
o'clock, without taking the trouble to ascertain whether