English and Foreign.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VIII, Issue 492, 22 July 1857, Page 5

English and Foreign.

,An avtraoT-Vnary case for the middle of the '■"nf'-.'uth citiury has been tried at Stafford TuiVueliff, keeper of a beer-shop, was ceased of o|aining £30 by false pretences

from Charlesworth, a farmer and small landowner at Bromley Hurst,—to wit, by pretending that Charlesworth and his family, his live stock, and his dead stock, his cows, cheeses, and cheesekettle, were " bewitched," and that he could remove the spell. He pretended that Charlesworth's mother had been the witch ; the foolish son believed all he was told for a time, and paid Tunnicliff so much per head or per article for removing the bewitchment. He described the terrible contests he had met with other wizards ; and performed incantations with a plate and knife in a room alone, coming out " blue." While he was in the farmer's service as a labourer, Charlesworth and his wife suffered from sickness,it is supposed from drugs; it may have been from drinking brandy, to which both were addicted. The wife heard strange noises; one night she was suddenly lifted up in bed; the servant saw a fiery dog; and so on. Charlesworfch, however, "recovered his senses, and prosecuted. Tunnicliffe was found guilty, and sentenced to imprisonment for a year. Prom'the evidence at this trial it is clear that " witchcraft" is still one of the popular delusions of the Midland Counties.

At Warwick, on the 22nd of March, Lord Campbell and his fellow judge attended the service at St. Mary's Church. The Reverend Albert Bondier, apparently ignorant that Parliament was non-existent, began to read the usual prayer for the Parliament. Whereupon Lord Campbell cried out, much to the amazement of the congregation, " No, no ! there is no Parliament." Mr. Boudier passed to the next prayer. One of the most destructive railway accidents on record occurred in Canada, on the Hamilton Railroad, on thel2th March. The line from Toronto to Hamilton crosses the Desjardins Canal by.a swing-bridge sixty feet above the level of the water. Just before it reached the bridge, the engine ran off the rails; it is supposed that its weight cut through the timbers ; the whole structure fell, and with it the train, into the frozen waters beneath. The engine crushed through the ice ; the carriages remained partly above the surface, partly beneath. There were ninety passengers in the train, some of them men of local mark : only twenty escaped with life. A sad but beautiful and touching scene was witnessed at the accident on the Dv Page Bridge. _ On the morning after the accident, the slow tolling of a bell was heard. On looking to see whence it came, it was discovered to proceed from the engine, as it lay submerged in the water. The waves, as they foamed and surged over the suriken engine, swayed the hell, which alone, with the smoke-pipe, appeared above water, and caused it to give a slow tolling sound. When the engine was raised from the water, the engineer was found in a standing posture, with his stiff, cold, icy hand firmly grasping the throttle-valves, as though amid the thick darkness he had discovered the perilous condition of the train, and had sprung to avert the ruin. But it was too late j the engine and train, with their precious freight of life and property, went down, and during the dreary night the enginebell and the mad rushing waters rang out a solemn requiem for the dead! It is probable that, had not the freight-train gone down as it did, the passenger-train from Chicago, due two hours later, and loaded with sleeping passengers, would itself have taken the fatal plunge.—Jbliet (Illinois) Democrat. Denmabk.—The Sound Dues treaty was signed at Copenhagen on March 14th. According to the terms of this document, the dues of all kinds to which vessels are subjected in passing the Sound and the Belts will be completely done away with from the first of April. Denmark also engages to suppress for certain kinds of merchandise, and to materially reduce for others the dues which she has hitherto received for transit on the canal of the Eyder, and on the routes which unite the Baltic with the North Sea. The maritime states on their part engage to pay Denmark as compensation in one or more instalments, an indemnity representing the average for five years of the revenue of the present Sound dues, capitalized at the rate of four per cent. England's share amounts to about a million and half.

Italy.—The anniversary of the battle of Norara was celebrated at Venice in a startling manner. The nobles dined together, and when the Governor of Lombardy arrived there was none to receive him. The ladies at the theatre carried bouquets of red, green, and white flowers. " The ' Simon Boccanegra' of Verdi was given, and the celebrated ballet of ' Bianchi c Neri.' At the moment when the negroes in the ballet burst their chains, and the slave kills his master, there was one universal shout carried to the highest pitch. The ladies applauded. This demonstration was so expressive that a repetition of the ballet was forbidden. During the same .afternoon an enormous tri-coloured balloon was seen hovering over the quay DegliSchiavoni. The walls were covered with placards, such as '■ Italy for ever!' ' Cavour, Prime Minister of Italy for ever!' ' Emmanuel, King of Italy, for ever !' " The national tricolor was in three places hoisted above the Austrian standard. The excitement continued for two days. On the 25th persons entered the Arsenal by means of false keys, and carried off a quantity of powder. The Austrians had taken the precaution to supply soldiers with ball-cartridges, and to train cannon on the city as early as the 22nd. Tuekey.—The Austrian troops have completely evacuated the Danubian Principalities. They have made forced marches and, suffered greatly. Many lost their arms and accoutrements in crossing the swollen streams. The firman of the Sultan convoking a Divan ad hoc has been promulgated with great solemnity at Jassy in Moldavia.

Mr. Gowan, an American engineer, is said to have provided the most complete machinery ever constructed for raising the ships sunk in the harbour of Sebastopol. He anticipates complete success. His profits in the venture will be one half of the value of all the ships raised.

The Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna made a fruitless attempt to introduce the Jesuits into the suburbs of Alser and Bossau. To the astonishment of his Grace, the rectors of the two^ suburbs mentioned refused to permit the followers of Loyola to preach in their churches, " because their parishioners were not so desperately wicked as to require such violent language as the Jesuit missionaries were in the habit of addressing to their audiences." It has transpired that Russia has taken more active steps than England to establish telegraphic communication with India. According to private and reliable advices just received, she made a contract previously to the termination of the late war for a line from Nicholaieff via the Caspian Sea to Ispahan and Herat. It has since been in progress, and although, under the secrecy forced in that country, no conjecture can been formed as to the probable period of its completion, the contingency is not imposible of our finding before long that she is in regular receipt of news frem our possessions weeks before its arrival in London.— Times. In an article in the Paris Constitutionnel, M. de Casena has outdone the usual blunders of j Frenchmen in discoursing on English matters : he informs his readers that the" West Riding " is the " Partie Orientals de Londres!"—the " East end of London. " To relieve the suffering of the Queen of Naples immediately previous to her confinement, two important aids were brought from Naples,— Signor de Renzis, an accoucheur extraordinary, , and—the relics of San Gennaro ! The new-born Prince was named " Gennaro Maria Immacolata. " | It is rumoured that M. de Homy intends to settle in Russia: that he has bought estates there ; that it would not be convenientto himself to return to France just now; and that the ! Emperor of the French is not pleased with him. The Sultan, who had already made a present to the Emperor Napoleon of the Church of the : Nativity at Jerusalem, has, in order -to render ' the gift complete, alse given him the old palace of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, which !is annexed to St. Peter's Prison. The Greeks had long solicited the same building. These ruins have been surrendered to France, on the ground of her considering herself as the representative of Catholic interests in the East.

During the recent Greek carnival at Constantinople, many of the Turks laid aside their gravity and joined in the amusement of the hour ; especially they danced with great spirit at Pera, where a ball was given, under the English Ambassador 's patronage, to relieve the distress of the poor of the city: £3000 was netted. The General Hospital of Senlis (Oise) has just lost one of its most interesting inmates, in the pefson of a widow named L'Hotellier, who was born on the 12th September 1752, and on the day of her death (the 22nd February) had attained the age of 104 years 5 months and 8 days. She retained all her faculties, with the exception of hearing, up to the age of 102. She was remarkably lively in temper; and she found it the greatest deprivation when compelled only a few years ago to give up dancing, in which exercise she used to exhibit her agility to her numerous visitors.

The Lyons journals state that great sensation was caused in that city on Saturday by the appearance in the streets of a priest, whose nose, ears and right hand, had been cut off. On inquiry ,it appeared that he was the Abbe Beloc, missionary to China, and that he arrived at Lyons, from Marseilles, on hia way to Eennes, where his family resides; also that the frightful mutilations he displayed had been inflicted by the savage population of Penang Kiou, which is at the mouth of the Tchou Kiang, at the extremity of China. Four missionaries, his colleagues, were, he states, mutilated in the same manner as himself, and were then decapitated. He also was to have been put to death, but was rescued by some English sailors. The report from Count Eayneval, the French Minister at Rome, to Count Walewski, published last week by the Daily Neios, has caused a stir on the Continent. The French journals reprint it, but say that the sense and words have been altered. The Daily News returns to the charge. It states that the English version was translated into French by the Independance Beige ; that of course a Belgian journalist could not guess at the exact words used by Count Eayneval; and that the charge of perverting the sense is thus accounted for. Then it reprints a copy of the original document in the French tongue! It appears that the " special correspondent " of the Daily News at Turin obtained the document from "a Liberal Member of the Chamber of Deputies" there, and forwarded to London. It is assumed that the confidential despatch concocted expressly to provide a pretext formaintaining the French garrison in Eome. [The Gazette of Lyons has now discovered that the despatch was printed in the Annuaire of the Revue dcs deux mondes " a year ago. "] The well-riddled nag of the renowned Twelve Apostles, once the pride of Sebastopol Harbour, . is now in the hands of a person at Malta, who occasionally hoists it to shake out the moths, to the great indignation of the Enssian Consul. A commission of the Academy of Sciences of the Imperial Institute of France, at the head of which is Elie de Beaumont, the fellow-traveller of Humboldt, have pronounced warmly in favour of M. Ferdi-.uind de Lesscps's scheme for cutting a ship-canal through the Isthmus of Suez.

"Uncle Tom" is dead—Thomas Magruder,of Indianopolis, who had attained the great a<re of a hundred and ten. He was called "Old Uncle Tom." and had been visited by Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Stowe, and there seems reason to believe that lie was the original of the lady's world-famous character. Dr. Charles | Sumner, of Rochester in the United States, has published an account of the extration of hundreds of needles and pins from the flesh of a young woman; who must have thrust them in herself while lahouring under some hallucination. A similar case occurred in this country, at Faringdon, some twenty years j aS°Mr. Buchanan, like all his recent predecessors, was fairly held in a state of siege by the office-seekers, and almost worn out by their importunities. It appears that when one Democratic President succeeds another, what is called j " the principle of rotation " is or should be applied to _ the office-holders. Those who have held their places four years ought to give way. According to an account lately published in one of the Mexican papers, some new gold-fields have been discovered upon the borders of the State of Chihuahua, which are said to be far richer than those of California. The report states that they are situate near a lake named Jaco ; to the South-east of the city of Chihuahua, and just upon the territory known as the favourite haunt of the wild Indians. Major Farrel, chief commissioner of the United Mexican Association, was attacked by brigands, at midday, near Salamanca in Mexico. ° His arms were on the roof of his coach. While the ruffians were plundering the coach, he stepped up. to the roof, and " woke them up " with his rifle. The chief of the band fired in reply ; but Farrell and his servant repeated their fire, and the brigands fled ; one at least met his death. Major Farrell was attacked by a large gang on the same road some" three years ago; on which occasion he shot two, and but narrowly escaped with his life.