mind made up? said Matt.  Butler said it was.  Then, said Matt., you must hear my opinion of you.  You are a d——­d scoundrel and a coward.  Butler then struck Matt. twice, and pushed him back against the door.  Matt. drew his pistol and fired.  Butler held his hand on him for a moment.  As the pistol fired, Sturgus[BS] came to the door.  I drew my knife, and told him to stand back.”  Thus was Professor Butler, Principal of the High School of Louisville, shot by the author of English Items, with a pistol bought and loaded only an hour and a half previous, in broad daylight, and in the middle of his scholars.  The Professor died during the night.

The details of the trial are quite unique as to the language employed by jury, counsel, and evidence; but I purposely abstain from making extracts, though I could easily quote passages sufficiently ridiculous and amusing, and others which leave a painful impression of the state of law in Kentucky.  My reason for abstaining is, that if I quoted at all, I ought to do so at greater length than the limits of a book of travels would justify:  suffice it that I inform you that Mr. Matthew F. Ward was tried and acquitted.

When the result of the trial was made known, an indignation meeting was held in Louisville, presided over by General Thomas Strange, at which various resolutions were passed unanimously.  The first was in the following terms:—­“Resolved—­That the verdict of the jury, recently rendered in the Hardin County Court, by which Matt.  F. Ward was declared innocent of any crime in the killing of William H.G.  Butler, is in opposition to all the evidence in the case, contrary to our ideas of public justice, and subversive of the fundamental principles of personal security guaranteed to us by the constitution of the State.

“Secondly:  Resolved—­That the published evidence given on the trial of Matt.  F. Ward shows, beyond all question, that a most estimable citizen, and a most amiable, moral, and peaceable man has been wantonly and cruelly killed while in the performance of his regular and responsible duties as a teacher of youth; and, notwithstanding the verdict of a corrupt and venal jury, the deliberate judgment of the heart and conscience of this community pronounces that killing to be murder.”  The committee appointed by the meeting also requested Mr. Wolfe, one of the counsel for the prisoner, to resign his seat in the State Senate, and the Honourable Mr. Crittenden, another counsel, to resign his place in the Senate of the United States; effigies of the two brothers Ward were burnt, and a public subscription opened to raise a monument to the murdered Professor.  I cannot, of course, decide how far the conclusions of the committee are just, as I do not pretend to know Kentucky law.  I have, however, given the trial to members of the Bar in this country accustomed to deal with such cases, and they have without hesitation asserted that not one man in ten who has been hanged