old; and she was only fifty-six, the very day they went to church; consequently their experience was not so great as it might have been, had they been older. Nevertheless, they managed to get over the first six weeks, as Mr. Turner said, "pretty tightish." But after that time, his business began to fall off; and then Mrs. Turner, who was by profession a mangler, insisted on his turning the wheel of her mangle for her. Well, he did turn it; and turn it, and turn it, again and again, from six o'clock in the morning till nine at night; and if he did not turn it fast enough, Mrs. Turner boxed his ears; and often, when she had boxed his ears till fire flashed from his eyes, as it were, she would tell him, "though he was a turner by name, he was a poor turner by nature." On the other hand, Mrs. Turner alleged that he had "married her out of a kitchen, what she had lived in eleven long years;" that she had brought him as excellent a character as any man could desire; that she thought she could have done as well with him as she could with a man of twenty or twenty-five years old, but that she was sadly disappointed: for though she found him good for nothing in the world but to turn her mangle, he refused even to do that; or, if he did do it, he did it clumsily, and with grumbling; and he often left off doing it to beat her. Moreover, he had latterly threatened to sell her mangling apparatus; and, because she begged of him not to sell it—as his doing so would be their ruin—he "kicked her shins till they were all manner of colours."

The magistrate asked Mr. Turner what he had to say to this last part of the business.

He said, with his worship's permission, he would tell him.—"He had often promised Mrs. Turner, that he would make her a handsome present at Whitsuntide, if she would only keep her fingers to herself; and as Whitsuntide was now fast approaching, he went out one Monday evening and spouted[9] his watch, to raise funds for that purpose. With the funds so raised, he purchased a spick-and-span new straw bonnet, with ribbons all up a-top of it, quite beautiful to see—so beautiful, indeed, that the ribbons alone cost him a clear five shillings. And with this bonnet, so beautiful, he went home, rejoicing in his heart to think how pleased Mrs. Turner would be, and how happy they should live—for a fortnight at the very least. But he was mistaken. When he got home, he uncovered the bonnet, and, placing it on his hand, he held it up before her, nothing doubting but that she would be delighted at the sight of it; and he had no sooner done this, than she snatched it from his hand, and threw it on the ground, trampled its beautiful ribbons under her angry feet; and, seizing him by the scuff of his neck she bent him down towards the floor, whilst she pummelled him about the head and shoulders, till his very ears sung again. In this dilemma, he had nothing left for it but to kick backwards—donkey-fashion as he called it; and it was by the kicks so given in his own defence, that Mrs. Turner's legs were discoloured."

When Mr. Turner came to this part of his description, in order to show his worship more particularly the manner of his kicking, he kicked out behind with all his might, and in so doing he kicked an officer on the leg with such violence, that the poor fellow was obliged to go limping to a seat, and sit rubbing his shin for half an hour after.

Mrs. Turner strenuously denied having pummelled her husband in the way stated, or in any other way; and eventually he was ordered to find sureties to keep the peace towards her and all the king's subjects.

BATTLE IN THE BOXES.

Among the watch-house detenus brought before the magistrates one morning, to answer for misdoings on the preceding night, there was a little, fat, round, well-dressed, comfortable-looking personage, named ——; but his name can be of no interest to the public, as the offence laid to his charge amounted only to an assault and battery, caused by the boiling over of his anger at a supposed invasion of his right and title to a particular seat in one of the boxes at the English opera—he having set his heart upon that identical seat from the very beginning of the evening.

His opponent was a young gentleman named Dakins—a thin, genteel youth, solemn and sententious in delivery, far above his years, and backed by a host of friends. There was a world of oratory displayed on both sides; but we have no room to report it: all we can do is, to give a bare narrative of the facts.

Young Mr. Dakins occupied a front seat in one of the boxes till the conclusion of the first piece. Then, having nothing else to do, he looked round the house. Suddenly he espied a party of his friends, male and female, in the very next box. They occupied the front seat and part of the second; and he, perceiving that there was a vacant space on the second seat, went and took possession of it forthwith, and was highly delighted at the luckiness of the circumstance. In a few minutes in comes the little round man—"Hallo!" says he, "you've got my seat, young man." "Your seat, Sir?" said the young man, with some surprise. "Yes, my seat, Sir," replied the round one. "Well, Sir," rejoined the young one, "you need not be so hot upon't—there is a very nice seat, which I have just left, in the front row of the adjoining box—will you have the goodness to take that, as I wish to remain here with my friends?" "No, Sir," replied the round one, very waspishly—"no, Sir, I shall not! This is my seat—I have satten upon it all the evening, and I'll have no other; and let me tell you, Sir, that I think your conduct in taking it, Sir, very ungentlemanly, Sir!" The young man's friends now interfered, but in vain; and at length they told him to let the little fat man have his seat, and they would make room for him in the front row. So there they sat, enduring all the moist miseries of four in a row, till the end of the second piece; when the young man, turning round his head, perceived the little round man's seat empty again; and, after waiting a few minutes, and finding he did not return, he again took possession of it, to the great relief of the poor ladies in the front row. But he had scarcely seated himself when in pops the little round man again, and without saying more than "I see this is done on purpose to insult me!" he seized the young man by the collar of the coat behind, lifted him from the seat, and very dexterously slid himself into it. In an instant all was uproar:—"Turn him out!"—"Throw him over!"—The little fat man lost his balance, fell backwards, and in that position he let fly "an immense volley of kicks," which the young man received on his stomach. The ladies shrieked, the gentlemen tried to hold his legs down, the house cried "Shame!"—and at length, after kickings and cuffings, and pullings and haulings, quite distressing to detail, the little round man was delivered over to the peace officers, and conveyed to the watch-house, panting like a porpoise, and perspiring at every pore.

Thus far is partly from the evidence for the prosecution. For the defence, it was contended that it was excessively ungentlemanly to deprive any gentleman of the seat such gentleman might have occupied at the commencement of the performance; and furthermore, that the little round man was so roughly handled, that it was