le-street
and Old Hall-street, and it is a most strange circumstance that the
direct line of road was not retained instead of cutting the new street
called Exchange-street East through the houses and gardens between
Tithebarn-street and Dale-street. It was a great mistake, and everybody
said so at the time. Many great mistakes have been made in respect to
our streets and public buildings, not the least of which was the blunder
of filling up the Old Dock, and erecting that huge and ugly edifice, the
Custom-house, thereon.

I believe if the conflagration had extended from the Exchange to some
distance in the adjoining streets, we should have had some vast
improvements effected. From the narrowness of Castle-street may be
imagined what a scene of confusion it must have been during the fire. It
is quite a wonder that many lives were not lost during that morning of
terror. The inhabitants of the four streets in many cases prepared for
flight, for the fire raged so fiercely at one time that the escape of the
houses in the vicinity from destruction seemed miraculous. While I was
helping to draw water from the yard of some people I knew in
Castle-street, a burning ember or piece of timber fell into a lot of
dirty paper which would in five minutes have been alight if I had not
been there to extinguish it. There were many such wonderful escapes
recorded.

The trial of Mr. Charles Angus for the alleged murder of Miss Margaret
Burns (who was his late wife's half-sister) in 1808, may be considered as
one of the _causes celebres_ of the time. It took place at Lancaster, on
the 2nd of September, before Sir Alan Chambre. Sergeant Cockle, and
Messrs. Holroyd, Raine and Clark, were for the Crown; Mr. T. Statham,
attorney. Messrs. Topping, Scarlett, and Cross for the prisoner; Mr.
Atkinson, attorney. Mr. Angus was a gentleman of Scotch birth, and
resided in Liverpool--in King-street, I think. He had been at one time
an assistant to a druggist, where he was supposed to have obtained a
knowledge of the properties of poisons, and he was charged with putting
this knowledge to account in attempting to produce abortion in the case
of Miss Burns, who was suspected of being pregnant by him, and thereby
causing her death. Miss Burns was Mr. Angus's housekeeper, and governess
to his three children. The case rested entirely on circumstantial
evidence, made out against the prisoner by his conduct previous to the
supposed commission of