mised to take her out if, as he said, he should sell every stick and rag he possessed. He redeemed his promise on the very next day, and early on Sunday morning he brought her out of the union and took her home. On the morning of the following Tuesday, the 14th, the woman presented herself at her mother's house, about three miles from Starling Green, accompanied by her eldest child. Her hands and dress were besmeared with blood. They had walked across the fields and through a wood in the dead of night. Upon gaining admittance she said that some one had broken into the house and had murdured her husband. She went into her mother's bed, and some time after wards told her mother that she herself was the murderess. Soon after daybreak two neighbours, who had been made aware that something had happened, drove over to the cottage. On going upstairs a frightful spectacle was presented. Law's body, covered with blood, was lying partly on and partly out of the bed. The head was fearfully mutilated. Subsequent examination disclosed nearly a hundred wounds on the head, face, and neck, and from 15 to 20 terrible gashes on the right hand and arm. While looking at the body, Mr.Codling was startled by hearing the cry of an infant. It proved to be the youngest child, which he wrapped up in a blanket and gave to Prentice, without suspecting that any violence had been used towards it. Mr. Codling went back to Langley, where the woman was, and went to her mother's house. When the woman first saw him she reached out her hands and said, Oh, my dear sir, poor Sam's gone." This she repeated several times. She said, "I didn't want to hurt him, but I could not help it; I was forced to do it. I chopped him with the bill. He went to bed first, and then I went upstairs and struck him when he was asleep, and he shrugged his shoulders and jumped up. I struck him again, and he groaned very much." She said that she struck him again several times after that. She then, according to her account, went downstairs and remained in the house nearly an hour, and then went up again and asked him if he knew her. He made a kind of expressive grunt of "Yes," and then she struck him again several times. She further said that all the time she was striking him there was such a noise on the stairs. She told witness, "This murder I have seen a month ago, and heard Sam's shrieks and groans just as I heard them last night." She also said that she went downstairs and put the light out, and then started off to her mother's; that, going along, she looked for a place to drown the child (referring, as witness presumed, to the one left alive), but she did not find any, and was afraid lest the shrieks of the child might be heard by any one. On examining the younger child it was found to be suffering from very severe injuries about the head, apparently committed with a hammer. It died the same evening. It appeared from the evidence of the surgeon of the union in which the poor woman had been while her husband was in gaol, that she had shown evident symptoms of derangement, that she had been put under restraint, and that the master had refused to allow her to leave until a certificate had been given that she was in a fit condition to do so. When placed at the bar at the ensuing assizes, to be put on her trial, the poor creature was in a most dreadful state of exhaustion and distress. As it was abundantly evident that she was insane, a verdict of acquittal was immediately returned. 13. FARM BOILER EXPLOSION. At the village of Stanton Wyville, in Leciestershire, an accident happened which caused great alarm amongst the agricultural commu. nity of that district from the explosion of a boiler of an engine attached to a movable thrashing-machine, by which four men met their deaths. This engine was about three or four horse-power, but, from the remains of it, did not appear in good working order. About 12 o'clock in the day, the labourers were obliged to stop working to repair the feedpump. Nearly the whole of the men, 13 in number, were gathered round the engine while the repairs were going on, and while thus congregated, the explosion took place. Three poor fellows were killed on the spot; a fourth died the same day; and several others were wounded. 14. THE GREAT PYTHONESS AT THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.-A very singular event, of great interest to students of Natural History, has occurred in the Zoological Gardens. In the fine collection of Reptilia, which form part of the Zoological Society's establishment in the Regent's Park is a female Python, captured in West Africa, and placed in the gardens eleven years since. The English climate and food seem to have agreed with her, for she has yearly waxed in length and girth, without loss of strength or liveliness. She has sometimes gorged 10 full-grown rabbits at a meal. In the same den is a male Python, much smaller than his companion, and treated by her with apparent disdain. It is stated in the article on Reptiles in the last edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, that "no reptile is known to hatch its eggs." This dictum was now destined to be refuted in a very remarkable manner. The pythoness had abstained from food for 23 weeks, when at the beginning of January she was observed to be in a very enlarged state. It was suggested that she had swallowed a blanket, a feat which was achieved by a python in (if recollection serves) the same Gardens. While measures were under consideration for her relief, it was found, on the 14th January, that she had extruded about 100 eggs. These, as far as could be observed between the close coils of the dam, were each of the size of a goose egg, enclosed in a white leather-like substance, and connected with each other by a membrane. They seemed to be piled in a pyramidal or spiral coil, over and around which the python had folded herself. The dam was so assiduous in the duty of incubation, that for long the keeper never detected her to be absent from the pyramid of eggs. At length he found her uncoiled, but before he could get round the cage, she was coiled over them again. She would accept no assistance from her mate, but seemed, on the contrary, to be angry when he approached, and pushed him away by extending one of her coils. She drank freely, but did not eat-the presence of her ordinary food, rabbits, seemed rather to excite her anger, for one of these animals having once approached too near, she seized it by the throat and cast it away. The On the morning of the 29th of January (the fifteenth day after extrusion), one of the eggs had been accidentally detached by the python and rolled out. This was examined by Mr. Bartlett, the experienced resident manager of the Gardens. Cutting off a portion of the thick, leathery, parchment-like skin which represents the shellfor the substance of the shell-skin is not hardened by calcareous matter, as in birds' eggs-he found the young snake alive, comparatively well developed, and about five inches in length, attached by a cord to the yolk, and crawling freely about in the fluid albumen, or "white" of the egg. pythoness continued the process of incubation with great perseverance, until it was singularly interrupted -the period had arrived when the creature had to shed her skin. For performing this operation she quitted her eggs for a time so considerable, that they became quite cold. When she had "cast her slough," she resumed her position, and continued her task for a total period of 12 weeks. It had then become evident that the whole were addled. A very fetid stench issued from the heap, and the dam had become greatly attenuated and exhausted. She had abstained from food for 32 weeks. It was therefore resolved to remove the ova-a task which was not performed without danger, for the pythoness exhibited great irritation. When, however, they had been taken away, she speedily became tranquil. It is supposed that the embryos had been killed by the chill which resulted from the dam's absence while casting her skin. Dr. Sclater, the Secretary of the Zoological Society, has published the following valuable observations of the temperature of the body of the female during incubation, compared with that of the male during the same period; from which it would appear that, in the case of this cold-blooded vertebrate, the heat of the female's body is abnormally increased during the process of incubation. Date. 1862. Feb. 12 Surf. of body Betw.coils. Feb. 23 Surf. of body Betw. coils. Mar. 2 Surf. of body Betw. coils. 96 0 The eggs with the bulb of the thermometer inserted, 94° 7'. BIRDS OF PARADISE IN ENGLAND.-The spectacle of the incubating python drew large crowds of spectators to the Zoological Gardens, and the public curiosity on that strange sight had scarcely decreased when another of far greater beauty, though perhaps not of so much scientific interest, was added to the attractions of the collection. A celebrated zoological traveller and collector, Mr. R. A. Wallace, had obtained for the Society, in the island of New Guinea, a pair of those beautiful creatures, the birds of paradise (Paradisa Papuana). These he succeeded in bringing alive to England, and they were placed in a spacious apartment carefully fitted up for them, in which they were able to display their rare and beautiful plumage to advantage. Unfortunately they were both male birds, and therefore there is no chance of the public witnessing the method of incubation practised by their kind. These were not, as is generally supposed, the first specimens of their species brought alive to Europe. The late Princess Augusta possessed one, which died at Windsor about forty years ago. 16. THE HARTLEY COLLIERY ACCIDENT. In approaching the subject of an accident which consigned 204 of our fellow-creatures to a lingering and terrible death, it seems to be a positive relief to be able to say that the records of previous colliery accidents afford but slender help to the imagination in its attempt to realize the extent of the present calamity. On Thursday morning, the 16th of January, at about half-past 10 o'clock, in the great Northumberland coal district, one among a hundred other mines-the Hartley coal-pit-was in regular operation. There were no less than 199 men and lads down in the ramified passages below, and there were five men in the shaft-strong, healthy fellows, the bone and sinew, the prop and stay, of the villages around. There was no negligence; for in work so perilous as this, when the lives of all hang upon the lightest action, no one trifles. No precaution had been omitted, the whole machinery went steadily, and the hive below was working in security; for no one, we may be sure, thought of danger from that massive iron beam which stretched across the pit, and forming part of the machinery of the engine, raised to the surface the subterranean water. But suddenly one of those mysterious actions which will sometimes take place in metals, which cause a watch-spring to snap in a frosty night, or an axle-tree to fly like glass, without any appreciable extra friction, operated upon that great beam, when it parted, and in a moment a mass of 21 tons was hurrying down the shaft, gathering force and velocity as it fell; sweeping away the stages, props, and linings of the shaft; crushing the five men who were coming up to the surface, and carrying all down with it in one mass of ruin; but not to the bottom of the shaft, unfortunately, as the details of this distressing calamity will illustrate. The timber and planking which lined the pit being torn away, the sides in many places collapsed, and what had been a safe, open passage was the next moment choked densely many hundred feet deep, and the men and boys in the passages below were cut off from all communication with the upper world; and into those passages the water continued to pour at the rate of 1500 gallons per minutethe mine bordering so closely upon the sea as to render necessary the incessant action of the engine to keep it sufficiently free from water for the safe employment of the miners. For nine weary days and nights did the ablest mining engineers and pitmen in the coal trade continue their unceasing labours in the attempt to force a way through the obstruction in the shaft, in the vain hope of rescuing from their premature sepulture these poor creatures, if haply the inscrutable decrees of Providence should permit the aid of their fellow-mortals to be yet available to them. humane aspiration of as heroic a band as ever trod a battle-field was not to be realized. The work to be done must be done in darkness, occasionally almost in solitude, quite out of sight of applauding companions, and the only excitement to sustain them in the doing of it was that which grows This out of sympathy with the suffering. For several days the rescuers, familiar with all the sounds underground, heard the efforts, by "jowling," as it is termed, of the buried men to penetrate through the mass of obstruction; and at midnight on Friday, they could distinguish that they were signalling to the diggers above. On Monday morning the remains of the five killed in the shaft by the fall of the beam were brought up from the high seam, and at once removed to their homes. Theu, the shaft being reported clear of gas, a large working gang of colliers proceeded down into the workings, in search of the missing living, the dead, or the dying. When these colliers got into the upper or yard seam, they found the body of a man- a fine-looking fellow-sitting, apparently sleep ing, on a seat made in the side of the seam coal, only a few feet from the shaft. His flannel trousers were doubled up, and he looked as if he was resting after a hard day's toil. Five or ten yards within the seam there is a gallery five or six yards from the shaft. Here a large body of men and boys were lying in rows, those next the wall of the coal seemingly asleep in a sitting position, and the next row in advance of them resting on the others' knees. They were lying in three rows on each side, all quiet and placid, as if sleeping off a heavy day's work. Boys were lying with their heads on the shoulders of their fathers; and one poor fellow had his arms clasped round the neck of his brother. Brothers were locked in each others' arms, but all lying as if death had quietly crept upon them and stole away their lives, whilst they, perhaps, might be dreaming of home and liberty. Beyond the company of sleepers a man lay propping open a door, as if he had resisted the poison of the mine longer than the rest, and had arisen to open one of the doors to bring a little more fresh air in. Two men were lying on the ashes at the furnace. The whole of these bodies were lying within an area of something like 50 or 60 yards. Early on Sunday morning the work of bringing up the bodies of these sufferers was ended. It was at first intended to coffin them down in the pit; but it was afterwards determined to save time by bringing them up in slings and coffining them at the bank. The first two brought to bank seemed not to have suffered seriously from the effects of starvation. Several others were found to have corn in their pockets, evidently part of a distribution which must have been made from the coutents of the horse-bin in the stable. During daylight, with two or three exceptions, and these from decomposition, the aspect of the dead was far from repulsive, and many had evidently slept quietly away. The bodies, as soon as they were brought to bank, were wrapped in a cotton sheet, and, if identified, their names were at once inscribed upon the coffins in which they were placed. These coffins were put upon rolleys and removed to the carts in waiting, and therein immediately taken to their bereaved homes. Pitiful and distressing indeed were many of the scenes then witnessed. Upon the discovery of the bodies in the mine-so many days after the accident-the "fountain of tears" had been nearly dried up. But as each poor wife began to put her house in order, to receive home the remains of her lost husband-or a mother, her child |