CHARGE OF ARSON. – At the Liverpool Assizes, a man named MICHAEL MILETT was charged with having wilfully set fire to a warehouse at Warrington, belonging to RALPH JOHNSON. The prisoner, it appeared, was in JOHNSON’s employ up to December last, when he left. He was afterwards seen on defendant’s premises in a state of intoxication, and was ordered off. The night afterwards he was seen loitering about the warehouse, from which flames soon afterwards arose, but were soon extinguished. The prisoner gave himself into custody, and stated that he set fire to the warehouse. The defence was that the prisoner was drunk at the time he made the statement, which, therefore, could not be relied upon; but he was found guilty, and sentenced to five years’ penal servitude. _____________________________________________________________ CHARGE OF DRUNKENNESS AGAINST A CAPTAIN. – A meeting of the Liverpool Local Marine Board, held to inquire into a charge of drunkenness and misconduct against MR. THOMAS COUCH, late master of the barque ‘Netherton’, of Liverpool. The evidence of the mate and the boatswain was to effect that during a recent voyage from Pernambuco to Liverpool, CAPTAIN COUCH was several times intoxicated, and on one occasion when he was in that state, he used threatening and abusive language towards the mate. The result of the inquiry was that the captain was exonerated from all blame. __________________________________________________________ LANCASHIRE BRUTALITIES (from the “Echo”) The increasing number and maliguity of offences against the person, and their comparative impunity, are themes of indignant comment throughout the country, and it is agreed on all hands that something must be done to induce the administrators of the law to treat them with, at least, as much severity as offences against property. A sentence just passed at the Salford intermediate Sessions shows that the law can do a good deal to punish the latter. It is too much to hope that the former may soon be regarded as deserving similar notice, and that a man who kicks a fellow-creature almost to death will receive at lease as severe a punishment as the woman who steals a loin of lamb. For this offence MARY FENTON, a factory operative, was sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude, and seven years’ police supervision. It would be interesting to calculate, taking the present tariff of punishment as a guide, how many ribs she might have broken, and how many noses she might have smashed, at six months a piece, during the ten years she is to be incarcerated for stealing one loin of lamb. __________________________________________________________ A SINGULAR ACCIDENT has occurred in Weston’s Museum Concert Hall, Bolton. One of the performers, a “delineator of negro character”, in one part of his entertainment fired off a blunderbuss, loaded with powder and paper, and shot one of the audience, named LAMBERT FLETCHER, collier, of Daubhill, who was seated in the pit, inflicting rather a serious wounds. ___________________________________________________________ AT THE MANCHESTER COUNTY POLICE COURT – MARY DOLAN, a pupil teacher at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic School, Barton-upon-Irwell, has been charged with assaulting a girl with a cane for a mistake in her diction lesson. The manager wrote to say that the pupil teachers were not authorised to punish the children, and SIR JOHN ILES MANTELL, who heard the case, said they were not empowered to beat children under their care, and fined the defendant 1s. ___________________________________________________________ THE BROUGHTON COPPER COMPANY have brought an action at the Liverpool Assizes, against their secretary, MR. FREEMAN, for an alleged breach of faith in trading on his own account, he having engaged to devote his whole time to the interests of the company. One of the charges brought against him was that he had bought copper from the company iin one name, and resold it to them in another. The jury gave a verdict for the plaintiffs – damage £300. ___________________________________________________________ barb, ontario, canada.