[ 584 ] [MAY, 



NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



MAGISTERIAL MAGOG. " Yesterday Mr. James Brennan, the artist, was 

 brought from the New Prison, Clerkenwell, for examination, before Mr. Laing, 

 the sitting magistrate, on the charge of having knowingly uttered a forged paper 

 writing, purporting to be Bill of a Exchange for 20 to Messrs. Venables and Co., 

 Linen-drapers, Lamb's Conduit-street, Brunswick-square. 



So far, so good ; and Mr. Harmer having proved to demonstration that 

 the bill was a forgery, the case for the present closed, and here comes the 

 rub. 



" Mr. Humphreys, for the defence, informed the Magistrate that a number of 

 persons were in attendance who could positively and distinctly prove an alibi, and 

 he trusted that the magistrate would not send a party for trial, until the witnesses 

 on behalf of the prisoner had been heard. Mr. Laing replied, that he had made up 

 his mind to send the prisoner for trial, therefore ivitnesses } as to alibi, would prove of 

 no avail if he heard them." 



We have put the last two lines in italics, for we know not how to 

 indicate them sufficiently to the reader in any other manner. We confess 

 that indignation prevailed over every feeling during our perusal of them. 

 Truly, Mr. Laing, although an illustrious, you are certainly, to say the 

 least, a very eccentric gentleman ! There are, indeed, a few things upon 

 which a man's mind may be supposed to be made up so decidedly, as to 

 admit of no shadow of change. The lying perversity of the German 

 Prince, the paternal indifference of Lord Plunket, or the unmixed piety of 

 Bishop Philpott, are facts at once so clear and self-evident, as to neutralize 

 any effort, however ingenious, to invalidate their truth. If a reader of 

 Blackwood were to urge an enthusiastic parti zan of the Monthly to the 

 perusal of "Kit North's" last rhapsody about poets, the admirer of the 

 Monthly would, of course, scant Kit North's paper, or any other, since 

 his mind was already made up to send Blackwood, and indeed all others, 

 to Coventry. There might be justice in that, but that a man should be 

 sent to prison, perhaps to his utter ruin and destruction, upon the charge 

 of a crime which respectable witnesses were ready to prove it was impos- 

 sible he could commit, appears so monstrous a perversion of all right and 

 justice, that it involves an entire change in our social system. We cannot 

 believe that such an act would be warranted by law, but is rather one of 

 the many examples of caprice and mystification of these petty Daniels. 

 If, however, the legislature, in its abundant affection, should have enacted 

 laws to authorise such an arbitrary announcement, or should even have 

 given these lords of the watch-house and treadmill, the power of inter- 

 preting such law in any way that may best suit their puissant magis- 

 terial will and convenience, then we say a new order of things will be 

 necessary. Instead of directing our mistrust and vigilance against the 

 open and professed enemies of purses, person, and character, let rather our 

 utmost caution be employed to save ourselves from our protectors ( ! ) 

 Let us no longer fear the" wolf, but the husbandman, for the bite of the 

 one is less to be dreaded than the crook of the other. 



MAY DAY IN CHILI. The commencement of this month, so dear to 

 our earliest recollections, the very name of which is associated with an 

 European's ideas of spring, and rural happiness, is celebrated in Chili and 

 the southern parts of Spanish America, in u far different manner than our 



