acquaintance, for one hundred and fifty pounds, to be paid to Mr. Hill, and by him to Mr. Winter. This draft he procured at Northampton, and there put it into the post. By the post-mark of this letter he was at length traced to his new habitation at Coventry, where, an indictment for perjury having been found against him, he was apprehended by a judge's warrant, and detained in gaol there, till by a habeas corpus he was removed to Reading, in order to take his trial at the Abingdon assizes, on the 22nd of July, 1750. But though the prosecutors were ready with their witnesses, at a vast expense, yet he traversed the indictment, as by law he might, and put off his trial to the following Lent assizes held at Reading; where the facts already related being proved, he was sentenced to stand on the pillory the then next market-day, and to be transported for seven years. The pillory part of his sentence was, however, changed by the judge into three months' imprisonment, for fear the populace, who were greatly enraged, should kill him.

This attempted fraud of Chandler's was the cause of two acts of Parliament. By one of these acts, the 22 Geo. II., c. 24, no more than the value of two hundred pounds could be recovered against the hundred, unless the party robbed was at the time of the offence accompanied by

some person that could attest to the truth of the actual robbery. The other act, the 23 Geo. II., c. 11, gave greater facilities to prosecutions for perjury. As above stated, however, the action against the hundred, on account of a robbery of the person, is now obsolete; the acts relating thereto being repealed by the 7 and 8 Geo. IV., c. 31.

In former times, this suit by an individual against part of the inhabitants of a county for the redress of an injury with which they had, in most instances, nothing to do, was extremely unpopular, and was received with great caution and jealousy by courts of justice. One example of the unfairness of the whole proceeding is to be found in the old law reports of William Leonard, in the time of Queen Elizabeth and James I. As the passage relates to no less a place than Gadshill, the famed scene of the exploits of Falstaff and Prince Hal, it may be esteemed worthy of notice here. It is to this effect:

In an action against the hundred of Gravesend for a robbery on Gadshill, it seemed hard to the inhabitants that they should answer for robberies committed on Gadshill, because they were there so frequent, that if the inhabitants should answer for all of them, they would be utterly undone.

And Sergeant Harris was of counsel for the hundred, and pleaded, "that time out of mind, &c., felons had used to rob on Gadshill, and so claimed to be discharged by prescription," but the inhabitants were adjudged to be chargeable.

THE MISDEEDS OF MR. NOBLE.

THE story of this unfortunate man, the victim of his own immorality, which led him to the scaffold, is connected with an old Buckinghamshire family, that of the Sayers.

John Sayer, Esq., a gentleman of estate, was lord of the manor of Biddlesdon, in Buckinghamshire. Mr. Sayer does not appear to have had in addition to wealth, any great abilities of his own, but was remarkable for his good-nature and inoffensive disposition. Mrs. Mary Sayer, to whom he was married in 1699, was the daughter and coheir of Admiral Nevil, and a woman of personal and mental attractions, but unfortunately of an abandoned disposition. Soon after Mr. Sayer's wedding, a Colonel Salisbury married Mrs. Sayer's mother, the Admiral's widow; but

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there soon appeared such blameful conduct on the part of both mother and daughter, that the two husbands had early occasion to be disgusted with the choice they had made. Mr. Sayer's nuptials had not long been celebrated, when he began to experience the ill-temper and ill-manners of his wife. Yet, so distractedly fond of her was he, that he bore this treatment with patience. At the end of a twelvemonth she presented him with a daughter, which soon died. After that he became still more fond of her, and was continually loading her with presents. Mr. Sayer took a house in Lisle Street, Leicester Fields, then a fashionable quarter, kept a carriage, and did everything which he thought might gratify his wife; but her unhappy disposition, and still more unworthy conduct, were the occasion of temporary separations. Another child was born, and the fond father still continued to be indulgent to his wife her mother, who was almost constantly with her, encouraged her in her perverseness. At length a scheme was concerted, which might probably have ended in the destruction of Mr. Sayer, or Colonel Salisbury, or both, if it had not been prevented by the prudence of the latter. The Colonel, taking an opportunity to represent to Mrs. Sayer the ill consequences that must attend her wickedness towards her husband, she immediately attacked him with the most outrageous