impressive lesson on this subject, and exhibits, perhaps, the most dreadful instance upon record, of the facility wit which determined villainy may pervert measures intende to benefit and protect mankind, into bitter and scourging oppression. A few years ago, the green of a rich bleacher in the north of Ireland, had been frequently robbed at night to a very considerable amount, notwithstanding the utmost vigilance of the proprietor and his servants to protect it; and without the slightest clue being furnished for the detection of the robber.

Effectually and repeatedly baffled by the ingenuity of the thief or thieves, the proprietor at length offered a reward of £100 for the apprehension of any person or persons detected in the act of robbing the green.

A few days after this proclamation, the master was at midnight roused from his bed by the alarm of a faithful servant, who in the tones of alarm and agitation informed him "there was some person with a lantern now crossing the green." The master started from his bed, flew to the window and found his information correct, it was so in fact; he hurried on his clothes, and armed himself with a loaded pistol, the servant flew for his own loaded musket, and thus prepared they cautiously followed the light. The person with a lantern (a man) was, as they approached on tiptoe," distinctly seen stooping, and earnestly employed feeling about on the ground; he was seen lifting and tumbling the linen; the master's conclusion was, as may be imagined, quickly made; the servant fired, the robber fell. The man and master now proceeded to examine the spot. The robber was shot dead: and he was now, to their astonishment, recognized to be a youth of about nineteen, who resided but a few fields off. The linen was cut across; large bundles of it were tied up, as if in readiness for removal; and upon searching and examining further, the servant, in the presence of his master, picked up a penknife, with the name of the unhappy youth engraved upon the handle. This mass of circumstantial evidence was conclusive, for in the morning the lantern was acknowledged by the afflicted and heart-broken father of the boy, to be his son's lantern. The unhappy man would have asserted his son's innocence, and with a pure conscience,

but defence was dumb, astonishment sealed his lips, the evidence before him overpowered his belief and his parental feelings.

The faithful servant received the hundred pounds reward, and was, besides, promoted to be the confidential overseer of the establishment. The blood curdles in the veins, when we learn the remaining acts of this tragedy. This faithful servant, this confidential overseer, was shortly after proved to have been himself the thief! and was hanged at Dundalk for the murder of the youth he had so cruelly betrayed.

It appeared, upon the clearest evidence, and by the dying confession and description of the wretch himself, that all the overpowering mass of circumstantial evidence we have related, was preconcerted by him, not only to screen himself from the imputation of former robberies, but to obtain the proffered reward of one hundred pounds. The unhappy dupe, the innocent victim he chose for this diabolical sacrifice, was an industrious lad of the neigborhood, on whom an aged father wholly depended for support: he was artless, affectionate, and obliging. The boy had a favorite knife, a penknife, which had his name engraved upon its handle, the keepsake of some loving friend. The first act of this fiend was, to coax him to transfer to him that knife as a pledge of their friendship, and this, as may be imagined, was not easy to effect, but it was done. On the evening of the fatal day, the miscreant prepared the bleaching green, the theatre of this melancholy murder, for his dreadful performance. He tore the linen from the pegs in some places, and cut it across in others; he turned it up in heaps, and tied it up in the large bundles in which it was found, as if ready to be moved, and placed the favorite knife, the keepsake, in one of the cuts he had himself made.

Matters being thus prepared, he invited the devoted youth to supper, and as the nights were dark, he recommended him to provide himself with a lantern to light him home. At supper, or shortly after, he artfully turned the conversation on the favorite knife, which he affected with great concern, to have lately missed, and pretended that the last recollection he had of it, was his using it on a particular spot of the bleaching green, described that spot to

the obliging and unsuspecting youth, and begged him to see if it was there. The lantern he had been desired to bring with him to light him home, was prepared, and he proceeded with the alacrity of good nature on his fatal errand. As soon as the monster saw his victim completely in the snare, he gave the alarm to his master, and the melancholy and horrible crime described was committed, under the approving eye and hand of the deceived master himself.

Could there have been possibly a stronger case of circumstantial evidence than this? The young man seemed actually caught in the act. The knife with his name on it was found upon the spot; the linen cut and tied up in bundles for removal; the lantern acknowledged by his father to be his own; the night chosen for its darkness; the midnight; the master himself present, a man of the fairest character; the unsuspected servant, a faithful creature of unblemished reputation!!

PROPHECY THE CAUSE OF ITS OWN COMPLETION.

AN English gentleman residing at Berlin, gives the following account of the execution of a man who was told that he should be hanged. "I went a few days since," says he, "to see a man executed for the murder of a child." His motives for this horrid deed were much more extraordinary than the action itself. He had accompanied some of his companions to the house of a fellow, who assumed the character of a fortune-teller, and having disobliged him, by expressing a contempt of his art, the fellow, out of revenge, prophesied that this man should die on the scaffold. This seemed to make little impression at the time, but afterwards recurred often to this unhappy creature's memory, and became every day more troublesome to his imagination. At length the idea haunted his mind so incessantly, that he was rendered perfectly miserable, and could no longer endure life. He would have put himself to death with his own hands, but he had been deterred by the notion, that God Almighty never forgave suicide; though upon repent

ance, he is very ready to pardon every other crime. He resolved, therefore, to commit murder, that he might be deprived of life by the hands of justice; and, mingling a sentiment of benevolence with the cruelty of his intention, he reflected that if he murdered a grown person, he might possibly send a soul to hell. To avoid this, he determined to murder a child, who could not have committed any sin, which deserved damnation, but, dying in innocence, would go immediately to heaven. In consequence of these ideas, he actually murdered an infant of his master's, for whom he had always shown an uncommon degree of fondness. Such was the strange account which this infatuated creature gave on his trial, and thus the random prophecy proved, as in many other cases, the cause of its own completion. He was executed about two miles from Berlin. As soon as he ascended the scaffold, he took off his coat and waistcoat; his shirt was rolled down below his shoulders; his night-cap was pulled over his eyes: he was placed on his knees, and the executioner, with a single stroke of the broad-sword, severed his head from his body. It was the first time this executioner had performed: there were two others of the same trade on the scaffold, who exhibited an instance of insensibility, more shocking than the execution. While the man's head rolled on the scaffold, and the arteries of the trunk poured out their blood, these men, with the gayest air you can imagine, shook their brother by the hand, wished him joy, clapped him on the back, congratulating him on the dexterous and effectual manner in which he had performed his office.

ACCOUNT OF TOPHAM, THE FAMOUS STRONG MAN.

WE learn from private accounts, well attested, that Thomas Topham, a man who kept a public house at Islington, performed surprising feats of strength; as breaking a broom-stick of the first magnitude, by striking it against his bare arm, lifting two hogsheads of water, heaving his horse over the turnpike gate, carrying the beam of a house as a soldier his firelock, &c. But however belief might

stagger, she soon recovered herself, when this second Sampson appeared at Derby as a performer in public at a shilling each. Upon application to Alderman Cooper for leave to exhibit, the magistrate was surprised at the feats he proposed, and as his appearance was like that of other men, he requested him to strip, that he might examine whether he was made like them; but he was found to be extreinely muscular. What were hollows under the arms and hams of others, were filled up with ligaments in him.

He appeared near five feet ten, turned of thirty, well made but nothing singular; he walked with a small limp. He had formerly laid a wager, the usual decider of disputes, that three horses could not draw him from a post which he should clasp with his feet; but the driver giving them a sudden lash, turned thein aside, and the unexpected jerk had broke his thigh.

The performances of this wonderful man, in whom were united the strength of twelve, were rolling up a pewter dish of seven pounds as a man rolls up a sheet of paper; holding a pewter quart at arm's length, and squeezing the sides together like an egg-shell; lifting two hundred weight with his little finger, and moving it gently over his head. The bodies he touched seemed to have lost their powers of gravitation. He also broke a rope fastened to the floor, that would sustain twenty hundred weight; lifted an oak table six feet long with his teeth though half a hundred weight was hung to the extremity; a piece of leather was fixed to one end for his teeth to hold, two of the feet stood upon his knees, and he raised the end with the weight higher than that in his mouth. He took Mr. Chambers, Vicar of All Saints, who weighted 27 stone, and raised him with one hand. His head laid on one chair and his feet on another, four people (14 stone each) sat upon his body, which he heaved at pleasure. He struck a round bar of iron, one inch in diameter, against his naked arm, and at one stroke bent it like a bow. Weakness and feeling seemed fled together.

Being a master of music, he entertained the company with Mad Tom. I heard him sing a solo to the organ in St. Warburgh's church, then the only one in Derby; but though he might perform with judgment, yet the voice, more terrible than sweet, scarcely seemed human. Though