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POLICE.

Trickey v. Pottinger.

GUILDHALL.---In this case, Mrs. Anne Pottinger, widow, appeared upon summons to show cause why she refused to deliver up certain stuffed birds, the property of Miss Mary Trickey, of Hatchet Court, Little Trinity Lane, spinster.

"Your Worship," said Miss Trickey, "about six months ago Mrs. Pottinger---this wicked old woman, took my second floor, unfurnished; at which time there were some stuffed birds in the front room."

Here Miss Trickey was interrupted by the Court requiring to know what kind of stuffed birds she meant---inasmuch as stuffed birds were of various kinds---viz., dried and stuffed specimens in natural history; or specimens for the spit, as ducks or geese stuffed with sage and onions---vulgo, thunder and lightning, and she was therefore desired to be more particular in her description.

"Oh, Sir," replied Miss Trickey, "I hardly know what they were ;--- there was a pair of pheasants, I know; and four other water-birds, the names of which I cannot properly explain; but they were very nicely done up, you know, in glass cases, sitting upon crooked sprigs with bits of moss and things; and when this wicked old woman took my apartments, I requested she would allow them to remain for a few weeks, until I had prepared a place for their conception (query, reception ?) to which she replied, 'Oh! most undoubtedly, Miss---they may remain as long as you please, with great pleasure.' But, Sir, would you believe it? --when I applied to take my stuffed birds into my own keeping, she contemptibly refused to let me have them, and called me every thing but a lady ;---nay, Sir, she has given it out that I am a what I am

not; and that she is obliged to clip her petticoats close to her as she goes up and down stairs, for fear I should pick her pockets !---and, Sir, she has sworn a shocking oath---for an old woman to swear, that she will keep my stuffed birds in spite of me, Sir; and she has even put her dirty old fist in my face when I have asked for them, Sir! And, Sir, here is another lady can tell

you what a vile old woman she is. Mrs. Jenkins!"

Come forward,

Mrs. Jenkins came forward and said---" Your Worship, I am a married woman---me and my husband occupy the ground departments of Miss Trickey's house; and very comfortable we found we'reselves till this old Mrs. Pottinger came amongst us; but she never goes out or comes in that she does not leave the front door open after her; and the wind comes so cold to my legs, that I really cannot bear it. So I said to my husband, Jenkins,' said I”—

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"Well, well," said Sir Peter Laurie--interrupting the thread of Mrs. Jenkins's windy narration, have heard quite enough on one side;-now Mrs. Pottinger, what have you to say in reply ?”

"Will your Worship give me leave to speak a few words?" demanded Mrs. Pottinger; and his Worship having nodded assent, she proceeded---"Last Monday the leg of my table got loose, and, as I was afraid it should come out, I said to my son-in-law, when he came home in the evening, James, says I, I wish you would mend the leg of my table for me---for it was a mahogany table, your Worship---and as I am a lone widow, I'm obliged to be careful of my things. So I asked James if he would mend it for me, and he said he would.---But first I should tell you, that there was a little stool of mine--- a little three-legged stool, which

I put my feet upon, that wanted mending quite as bad

as the table; and"

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"Well, never mind the stool," said the Aldermancome to the stuffed birds."

Mrs. Pottinger resumed---" Your Worship, I can't go on without the stool--- for every thing depends upon it. So the next night, Tuesday, when James came home, he said, Mother, I think I'll mend your little three-legged stool before I set about fettling the table leg. That's a good lad, said I, do, for I call him lad, your Worship, though he's my son-in-law, and as good a husband to my daughter as any woman need wish to have."

"Very likely, Mrs. Pottinger," said the Alderman"but what has all this to do with the stuffed birds?" Mrs. Pottinger resumed-"Your Worship, I'm com

ing to the birds as fast as possible. So James took the three-legged little stool upon his lap, and, just as he was driving the second nail, in comes Miss Trickey, and boring her fist in my face, like a female dragon, 'You old wretch,' says she, where am my birds?' 'Heavens above-Miss Trickey!' said I-and what else I should have said I don't know, if James hadn't put down the three-legged stool, and said, 'Come, Miss Trickey, don't let us have any disturbance here ;' and, like a good lad as he was, he put his hand upon her shoulder, and showed her the way out."

"Well, but the birds? You must come to the stuffed birds," said the Alderman.

Mrs. Pottinger resumed-" Well, your Worship, next morning, as we were sitting at breakfast, we hears one of my grandchildren at the bottom of the stairs singing out 'Oh, Jim, Jim! there's a constable coming to take away my grandmother!' and as I'm a living widow, your Worship, in the next moment a great ramping constable came bouncing into the room, and frightened me out of my wits!"

;

Here the "great ramping constable," whose entire corpus might have been stuffed into a jack-boot, jumped into the witness-box and said "your Worship, I am the constable in question; and the matter was as this; Miss Trickey complained to me that Mrs. Pottinger were unlawfully depriving her of her stuffed birds; and she asked me to try what I could make of her wherewith I went into Mrs. Pottinger's room, and said, 'Mrs. Pottinger, I'm come about them stuffed birds.'-'Do you make a request, or a demand?' says Mrs. Pottinger's son-in-law, James. A request,' says I. Then there's the stairs,' says he, walk down ;' and I did--and that's all I know about it, your Worship."

"Ay, your Worship," said Mrs. Pottinger, "he did walk down; but there's no knowing what he might have done with me if James hadn't been there." She then handed in a letter, which she said she had received from Miss Trickey; but it turned out to be a letter from Miss Trickey's solicitor, threatening Mrs. Pottinger with the terrors of the Ecclesiastical Court for certain defamatory words uttered by her against

the fair fame of Miss Trickey's spinstership, unless she made ample and public apology.

The Alderman said he hoped Miss Trickey would not proceed to such an extremity.

"Indeed but I shall, Sir," replied Miss Trickey--"for I'll not be called a W. at my time of life by such a vile woman, without making her prove her words!" "Well, I have nothing to do with that," rejoined the Alderman ;---" but, Mrs. Pottinger, you must give up the stuffed birds."

"Your Worship, I've no objection to give up her nasty stuffed birds---she may have 'em any day---and a great deal cleaner they are than when she left them in my keeping," replied Mrs. Pottinger.

"And I hope your Worship will order her to shut the street door after her," said Mrs. Jenkins.

"I can make no order about the street door," said the Alderman; and the Marshalmen showed the whole party the way out of Court.

HORRIBLE ADVENTURE.

Ar the period when Murat was about to invade Sicily, the Chevalier R—, Paymaster-General of the Neapolitan forces, was travelling through Calabria for the purpose of joining the army, having been to Naples to make arrangements for the transmission of a quantity of specie. He had sent on his servant before him to prepare his quarters at the town of —, expecting to arrive there himself by night-fall; but, the day being very sultry, he had loitered on the road, and at nine o'clock in the evening, found that he was still at a considerable distance from the proposed end of his journey. He was so much harassed and fatigued, that he determined to put up for the night at the first convenient house. He at length entered an old romantic building on the road-side, inhabited by a man and his wife, the former a stout muscular figure, with a swarthy countenance almost wholly shrouded in a mass of bushy whiskers and mustachios. The traveller was received with civility; and, after partaking of a hearty supper, was conducted up a crazy old staircase to his apartment for the night. Not much fancying

the appearance of the place, and finding no lock on his door, he fixed a chair against it; and after priming his pistols, put them carefully under his pillow. He had not been long in bed when he heard a noise below, as of persons entering the house; and, some time afterwards, was alarmed by the sound of a man's footsteps on the staircase. He then perceived a light through the crevice of the door, against which the man gently pressed for admittance, but, finding some resistance, he thrust it open sufficiently to admit his hand, and with extreme caution removed the chair, and entered the apartment.

The Chevalier then saw his host, with a lamp in one hand and a huge knife in the other, approaching the bed on tiptoe. The Chevalier cocked his pistols beneath the bed-clothes, that the noise of the spring might not be heard. When the man reached the side of the bed, he held the light to the Chevalier's face, who pretended to be in a profound sleep, but contrived nevertheless to steal an occasional glance at his fearful host. The man soon turned from him, and, after hanging the lamp on the bed-post, went to the other end of the room and brought to the bed-side a chair, on which he immediately mounted, with the tremendous knife still in his hand. At the very moment that the Chevalier was about to start up from the bed and shoot him, the man, in a hurried manner, cut several enormous slices from a piece of bacon that was hanging over his bedstead, though it had been wholly unnoticed before by the agitated traveller. The host then passed the light before his eyes again, and left the room in the same cautious way in which he had entered it, and, unconscious of the danger he had escaped, returned to a crowd of new and hungry guests below stairs, who were, of course, not very sorry to perceive that he had saved his bacon.

PAINTER'S BILL.

To the Churchwarden of Siddington, Cirencester.
Mr. Charles Forbes to Joseph Cook.

To mending the Commandments, altering the Belief, and making a new Lord's Prayer, £ 1. 1s.

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