The prosecution was conducted by the Crown, in conjunction with the next of kin of the parties killed. The bills charged murder; the grand jury ignored them all, but expressed their readiness to entertain bills for manslaughter against the captain and sergeant. The counsel for the next of kin refused to co-operate with the crown in trying for the minor charge, but the Crown counsel declared that the case must be gone through, whatever the next of kin might choose to do. Bills for manslaughter against the captain and sergeant were then sent up. The bill against the former was ignored, a true bill was found against the latter. He was put upon his trial, but the witnesses had disappeared. The trial was postponed till the following day, but then, too, not one of them was forthcoming, and the case was delayed till the next assizes. At Knocktopher, in the county of Kilkenny, on December 14th, a chief constable, with a strong party of police, went out to protect a process server in the execution of his legal duty, in serving the usual process for refused tithe. There were neither military nor yeomanry. The population prepared for murder. The sides of the road and the adjacent fields were covered with people armed with bludgeons, scythes, pitchforks, and other deadly weapons. They ferociously demanded that the process server should be delivered up to them. The police having refused, the crowd closed upon them in a narrow lane, overpowered them, and murdered twelve or thirteen of them, besides dangerously wounding several of the party. Among the killed was the captain of the police. The accounts were that his son, about ten years old, who accompanied his father, riding on a pony, was inhumanly butchered. The pony which the child rode was stabbed to death. Five of the police, who showed some symptoms of life, after being barbarously beaten with bludgeons, as they lay insensible on the ground, had their brains knocked out by a peasant's son, not more than twelve or fourteen years old, who was armed with a scythe. [Illustration: Bonnets.] The country people, after satiating their vengeance on the bleeding bodies of the murdered police, by kicking and stabbing them, retired to their homes and usual occupations, with as much indifference as if they had just performed some meritorious deed. [Illustration: Bonnets.] On preceding page are given illustrations of a bonnet, hat, turban, and caps, as worn during the year, and, here, the different styles of hair-dressing fashionable in 1830-31. CHAPTER X. 1832. Commissions at Bristol and Nottingham--Executions--Employment of children in factories--Cholera in London--Day of fast and humiliation--Riot in Finsbury--Cholera riot at Paisley--A small one in London--Decrease of cholera--Number of deaths--Cholera in Ireland--A charm against it--Its effect on rooks--The police, City and Metropolitan.