ENGLISH ITEMS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 754, 29 September 1876, Page 3

ENGLISH ITEMS.

—o— William Ballard, one of the last famous Bow-street runners, died recently, at tho age of cighty-fo'br. He rivas one of the most daring and skilful k of the old school of Metropolitan Police. Mr Wells Smith, ah artist, ’residing at Leeds, hfts been the victim of a singular joke, which might have led to awkward consequences. Soon after the disappearance of the famous “ Duchess of Devonshire,” he received a note from a tf fiend "in London, which ran thus : “ What a nerve you must have had to collar the Gainsborough ! What are you going to do with it ? This note was thrown aside, and by-and-bye found its way to the dust-heap, out of which it was picked by a rag and bone collector, who, having heard of the reward offered for the recovery of the stolen picture, sent it to Scotland Yard. The result was that a detective went down, and Mr Smith had some trouble to satisfy him that he Lad not stolen “ the Duchess.” A curious scene was witnessed last week at the Rugby County Court. An action was brought by a widow lady against a butcher for killing a favorite cockatoo parrot, which the , defendant pleaded he had shot mistaking it for an owl. The companion bird of the dead parrot was brought into court, and during the pleading he he never ceased advising the disputants to “ shut up” and “shake hands.”

At a session held at Newington recently, no fewer than forty-six tradesmen were convicted of using unjust weights, scales and measures. Some of the defences set up were extremely ingenious ; one offender said that his pots were all new, and that he neverfntended to use them, another declared that his measures were only used for throwing water upon,fish, and a third 'protested'that what the inspector had seized as weights was merely a quantity of old iron which he had just boughtThe late manager of the London and and Lancashire Insurance Company, who absconded some two years ago after embezzling L 25,000, seems to have got through that amount very rapidly. He went out to India, but returned recently, and was found in London in a state of great destitution. He has been arrested and committed for trial.

Two Oxford undergraduates have been fined Lo each for wearing “ armorial hearings ” without a license. They had worn caps with the college crest upon them at the college boat races.

It is said tha*- a few days ago all the pictures in a mansion at South Ivensington were cut from their frames and carried off and that there is no clue to the perpetrators of the robbery.

Last week a man drowned himself through fear of a School Board prosecution. He hail been once imprisone I because his hoy did not attend School, although he did all he could to make him go. On heaving that antther summons was about to bo taken out against him be left home and jumped into the Regent’s Canal. An ejectment action now being tried at the Westmeath Assizes is ex-citing much interest. The facts are complicated, but the main point in dispute is the validity of a will left by an eccentric gentleman named Cooke, who died last year. He was deaf, and suffered from other ailments, accepted no form of religion, hut believed in the transmigration of souls, 'would alternately imagine himself to be a fox or an owl, and had built a marble tomb for himself wherein he ‘wished to he interred in a sitting posture. In 18(59 lie ma le a will bequeathing his property to Wellington Purdon, the manager of his estate, hut subsequently a certain clergyman acquired such influence over him that lie induced him to make another will leaving the whole of his possessions to Lord Longford’s son, a hoy twelve year’s old, whom he had never seen. This last will it is now sought to be set aside.

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