the object of the legislature in conferring such a power
was to apportion the punishment consistent with the
position of the offender, so that persons who could
command the amount of a fine should not altogether escape
unpunished.

In the Court of Queen's Bench, on the 11th inst., an
action of Nuisance was tried at the instance of Mrs.
Bostock, against the North Staffordshire Railway
Company. The plaintiff is a lady possessed of property
adjoining Brudyard-lake, in Staffordshire, and she has
an interest in about 80 acres of the soil of the lake. The
different proprietors of property adjoining this lake
have the privilege of using the lake for pleasure-boats
and for other purposes, except for boats or vessels for
conveying passengers. The defendants became the
purchasers from the Trent and Mersey Navigation of their
interest in the lake. Advertisements appeared in the
different papers stating that on Easter Monday there
would be a fête and other sports on the lake, and that
the railway company would run cheap trains to the lake
during that day, and the consequence was that between
10,000 and 20,000 persons assembled there; great noise
was made, cannon were fired, and all sorts of amusements
took place upon the lake and upon the adjoining
property. On Whit-Monday there was another fête,
attended with similar noises and annoyances, and great
damage was done to the plaintiff's plantations; the
people broke the trees, and went all over the neighbourhood.
The plaintiff went out and told them there was
no public way; she was told to mind her own business.
They used very coarse expressions, and conducted
themselves in a very riotous and objectionable manner. The
people in the boats shouted and made all kinds of noises,
and altogether interfered very much with the comforts
of her house. Mrs. Bostock's complaints being
disregarded, the present action was brought. For the
company it was contended that they had the right to have
their boats on this lake, and to give these fêtes; and it
was urged that it was rather a hard measure for this
lady to attack this company because they had once or
twice a year devised a mode of giving happiness and
enjoyment to a class of persons who seldom had any
intermission to their toil. No doubt the rights of
property were to be protected; but were persons
to be so selfish and so churlish as to bring actions
because a few persons were thus enjoying themselves?
Lord Campbell, in summing up, said, God forbid
that the innocent amusements of the people should be
restricted. He wished more and more that the
legislature should encourage those amusements; but whether
a railway company were to depart from their original
object of conveying persons from one point to another, and,
for the purpose of increasing their dividends, resorting to
such modes as those described, was another question.
It could not be endured in this country that railway
companies were to create amusements which were to be
a nuisance to the neighbourhood. It was for the jury
to say whether or not this was a nuisance. The jury at
once returned a verdict for the plaintiff. The case
had been previously tried at Chester, and the jury
would not give a verdict.

A point of great importance to Shareholders of Joint
Stock Companies was involved in the proceedings of a
recent meeting of the contributories to the Merchant
Trader's Ship Loan Insurance Company, before Master
in Chancery Sir William Horne. A call of £25 per
share being declared, counsel opposed the step on behalf
of Lord Talbot and Mr. Winthorp, on the ground that
they will have to pay £50,000 of the call. The Master
observed, that under the extraordinary provisions
contained in the Joint-Stock Companies Winding-Up Act,
he had no alternative, however ruinous might be the
result, but to declare the call; Lord Talbot and Mr.
Winthorp, apparently the only solvent subscribers,
having been fixed upon the list of contributories as
liable to that extent. He could not help expressing
great regret at the facility which the registration of
the Joint-Stock Companies Act gave to the projectors of
speculative and disastrous undertakings to involve others
in these frightful liabilities. In the course of the
discussion it was stated, that the company in question,
and not fewer than four others, were the offspring,
within less than a year, of one unprincipled projector;
and men of straw by multitudes, who could not now
pay a farthing to discharge its debts, leaving the onus
on the few who could, and who were decoyed into the
scheme, received at the rate of 1s. and 2s. a head in the
lowest purlieus and pothouses to sign the document
obtaining registration. Notice of appeal against the
call was given.

Edward Staggles, a youth of 18, was brought before
the Southwark Police Court, on a charge of Attempting
to Murder Mr. Barber, a manufacturing chemist at
Bermondsey. He had formerly been in Mr. Barber's
employ; one night Mr. Barber found him in his
manufactory, and was almost blinded by a powerful acid
solution which the young ruffian threw in his face.
Mr. Barber locked the then unknown assailant in the
place, and fetched a neighbour. Staggles had then got
into an upper floor, and through a trap-door he fired
two pistols at Mr. Barber; one bullet went through the
hair and wounded a finger, the other passed along the
back, but merely tore the clothing. Mr. Barber
courageously mounted the ladder and seized him, and he
made no further resistance. He was committed for trial
at the Central Criminal Court.

A dreadful Agrarian Murder was committed in the
county of Limerick, on the 18th inst. The victim was
a poor man named James Cleary, who had been lately
employed as a driver or under-agent by some landed
gentleman. He was robbed and murdered within a
mile of Askeaton. He must have been murdered with
his own pistol, which he was observed to load and place
in his pocket on leaving Askeaton for home. Death
must have been instantaneous, as the bullet entered the
left side, and passed through the left lung, entering the
heart, which it also passed through and lodged in the
back. The perpetrators of this crime, after shooting
Cleary, carried off the pistol, and also robbed him of
about £12, which he had received the day previous as
rent for Mr. Davenport, one of his employers. The
lord-lieutenant has offered a reward of £100 for the
apprehension of the murderer.

At the Mansion House, on the 19th, Mr. Stephen
Beale, meat-salesman of Leadenhall-market, was charged
with having Exposed and offered for sale Meat unfit
for Human Food. The penalty amounts to £20 for
each offence. The charge was proved; and the sale of
the bad meat was admitted by Mr. Beale, but he said
it was the act of his foreman, and that in his large
establishment he could not prevent such things happening.
The sitting magistrate, Sir R. W. Carden, said:—The
station you hold as an extensive and respectable salesman
makes the offence of which you have been guilty more
injurious. You are, of course, accountable for the acts
of your servant. But I believe that you were perfectly
aware of the sale, and of the description of meat sold,
and that you completely sanctioned the dealing. As a
wholesale butcher, you sold to a retail butcher, a
poisonous article, which, if it had not been seized, would
have been sold to the poor, and in all probability have
caused some fatal distemper. You thus not only prejudice
the fair trader, but you deal destruction amongst the
indigent by the distribution of this horrible food.
You say the meat was openly exposed to the public,
but it has been proved that it was covered with a cloth
after it was sold. I believe that your foreman takes
upon himself the blame in order to save you from
punishment, but the calculation was an erroneous one.
The sale of unwholesome meat is, in my mind, a
desperate evil, and I consider this a very bad case, and
assure you that the trade shall be narrowly watched,
and, in the event of conviction, heavily punished.
Defendant:—It is the act of my servant, and it shall be
visited upon him, whatever it may please the bench to
fine me. If I am made responsible for the acts of my
servants in this way, I may be ruined in a night, for it
is quite impossible to see what they are selling. Sir R.
W. Carden:—You are subject to a penalty of £20 for
this infringement of the very necessary act of parliament.
I shall be content to inflict upon you the penalty of £5
and costs, or imprisonment for one month. The
defendant paid the penalty.

In the Court of Common Pleas on the 19th, Mr.
Palmer, formerly a traveller to a wine-merchant in
Aldgate, obtained £2000 as Compensation from the Brighton