The contrast between the date mentioned at the commencement of our article and the present time is remarkable: the old and clumsy fleet has vanished from the Tyne; a railway carries passengers from Newcastle to Shields in a few minutes; numerous steam vessels sail upon the river, some of large size; which travel to various and distant ports. On the colliery railway hundreds of locomotives are at work, and hundreds of thousands of miles of iron rails spread over a wide extent of the civilized world; and, in addition to other wonders, the electric telegraph will, ere long, outrival the power of Puck, the fairy, and "put a girdle round the world in (less than) forty minutes." SIR WILLIAM WALLACE THE HERO OF SCOTLAND. 1305.--This year was marked by the capture of Sir William Wallace. It appears that the King of England had anxiously sought to discover his retreat, and that, tempted by the prospects of the rewards his baseness might earn for him, Ralph de Haliburton, one of the prisoners taken a short time previously at Sterling, had proffered his services for that purpose. Upon being seized, he was conveyed to the castle of Dumbarton, and thence to England. He was brought to London, "with great numbers of men and women," says Stow, "wondering upon him. He was lodged in the house of William Delect, a citizen of London, in Fenchurch-street. On the morrow, being the eve of St. Bartholomew, he was brought on horseback to Westminster, John Segrave and Geoffrey, knights, the mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen of London, and many others, both on horseback and on foot, accompanying him; and in the great hall at Westminster, he being placed on the south bench, crowned with laurel--for that he had said in times past that he ought to bear a crown in that hall, as it was commonly reported--and being appeached for a traitor by Sir Peter Malorie, the king's justice, he answered, that he was never traitor to the king of England, but for other things whereof he was accused, he confessed them." These circumstantial and minute details, inartificially as they are put together, and homely or trivial as some of them may be thought, are yet full of interest for all who would call up a living picture of the scene. Wallace was put to death as a traitor, on the 23rd of August, 1305, at the usual place of execution--the Elms in West Smithfield. He was dragged thither at the tails of horses, and there hanged on a high gallows, after which, while he yet breathed, his bowels were taken out and burnt before his face. The barbarous butchery was then completed by the head being struck off, and the body being divided into quarters. The head was afterwards placed on a pole on London-bridge; the right arm was sent to be set up at Newcastle, the left arm to Berwick, the right foot and limb to Perth, and the left to Aberdeen. AN ELEPHANT DETECTS A ROBBER.