Four savages--four brute beasts in human form we should rather say--named Slane, Rice, Hays, and Beesley, ranging in age between thirty-two and nineteen years, have been sentenced to death for the murder on the 6th of November last, at a place called Spennymoor, of one Joseph Waine. The convicts are Irishmen, and had been working as puddlers in the iron foundries. The principal offender was the ruffian Slane, who seems to have had some spite against the deceased, a very sober, quiet man, about forty years of age, who, with his wife and son, kept a little chandler's shop at Spennymoor. Into this shop Slane came one night, grossly insulted Waine, ultimately dragged him from the shop into a dark passage, tripped him up, holding his head between his legs, and then whistled for his three confederates. When Rice, Hayes, and Beesley appeared on the scene, they were instructed by the prime savage to hold Waine down--the wretch declaring, "If I get a running kick at him, it shall be his last." The horrible miscreant did get a "running kick"--nay, more than a dozen--at his utterly powerless victim; and when Slane's strength was getting exhausted the other three wretches set upon Waine, kicking him in the body with their hob-nailed boots, while the poor agonized wife strove vainly to save her husband. A lodger in the house, named Wilson, at last interfered, and the savages ran away. The object of their brutality lived just twenty-five minutes after the outrage, and the post-mortem examination showed that all the organs were perfectly healthy, and that death could only have arisen from the violence inflicted on Waine by these fiends, who were plainly identified by the widow and her son. It may be noticed, however, as a painfully significant circumstance, that the lodger Wilson, who was likewise a labouring man, and a most important witness for the prosecution, refused to give evidence, and, before the trial came on, absconded altogether. Among the epithets bestowed by the 'Telegraph',--very properly, but unnecessarily--on these free British Operatives, there is one which needs some qualification;--that of "Miscreant," or "Misbeliever," which is only used accurately of Turks or other infidels, whereas it is probable these Irishmen were zealously religious persons, Evangelical or Catholic. But the perversion of the better faith by passion is indeed a worse form of "misbelieving" than the obedient keeping of a poorer creed; and thus the word, if understood not of any special heresy, but of powerlessness to believe, with strength of imagination, in anything, goes to the root of the matter; which I must wait till after Christmas to dig for, having much else on my hands. 26th December, 1872, 8, Morning.