The Press. — London, England, 1858-04-03 00:00:00

Taintt anb glilitarg ~, THE LORDS OF THE ADMIRALTY paid their first official visit of inspection to Chatham Dockyard on ruesday afternoon. Their lordships returned to wn in the evening. ONE OF SIR JOHN PAKINOTON'S first official acts been the restoration of their half-psy to the veteran officers of Greenwich hospital. ACCIDENT occurred at Plumstead on Wednes by the bursting of an experimental shell, the ;ments of which severely injured Sergeant For , of the Royal Artillery, and necessitated the ..tediate amputation of his right arm. THE following change of quarters of the House. Brigade of Guards will take place on the 15th ,pril renadier Guards.—lat Battalion, from St. George's, ington Magazine, and Buckingham Palace Barracks, Tower of London ; 2nd Battalion, from Wellington Barracks to St. George's, Kensington Magazine, and Buckingham Palace Barracks; 3rd Battalion, from the Tower of London to the Wellington Barracks. Coldstream Guards.—lst Battalion, from Wellington Barracks to Windsor ; 2nd Battalion, to remain at Dublin. Scots Fusilier Guards.—lat Battalion, from Portman. ' and St. John's-wood Barracks to Wellington Bar , 2nd Battalion, from Windsor to Fortman•street and lohn's-wood Barracks. THE ARTILLERY CORPS have been employed in ,pleting the fortifications of Portsmouth garrison arsenal. A short time ago the two six-gun batteries flanking Southees Castle were armed with pivot guns of heavy calibre, commanding the channel leading to the harbour. During the past week the• have been engaged in arming the embrasures of the fortifications commanding Southsea•common, and the approaches to King William's-gate, Portsmouth. Major-General Eden on Thursday retired from the command of the troops at Chatham garrison, in which he is succeeded by Colonel H. Eyre. Oe Tuesday evening the officers belonging to the Ist and 2nd battalions of infantry entertained General Eden at a farewell banquet, at which the officers in ct,m mend of the various branches of the service a Chatham, together with nearly all the heads of departments, were present. T . - Ver Fatal ; 'TIE LORDS official visit of Tuesday alter' town in the evi ONE OF Sin has been the veteran officers AN ADMEN' day, by the bu fragments of rest, of the 1 immediate arni THE followir hold Brigade o of April : Grenadier Go Kensington Mag to the Tower of Barracks to St. Buckingham Pa Tower of Londoi Coldstrestn G Barracks to Win Scots Fusilier street and St. J racks ; 3ntl Batts St. John's-wood THE ARTILLI rempleting the and arsenal. batteries flanki pivot guns of h , leading to the have been enga fortifications co approaches to I Major-Goner command of t which he is s Tuesday evenin 2nd battalions at a farewell bt mend of the Chatham, toge departments, w :fonN HOGAw Faturday last, 11 in Dublin. Mr children in co The Freeman's his labours ar " Drunken Feu ceptions and tl old school of worthy an Athe artist preferred He often regre subjects, like m missions to the; and the few scarcely suffic simplest scale He was engage the Mathew tea reliefs for the Wi trative of the r liberti.. The skt the Esrl of Car beautiful concept the creative poi artist seized the plain to the least the Mathew Mon him to Italy to c (Ottitil a rg. Joni HOGAN, the eminent Irish sculptor, died on Faturday last, is his fifty-seventh year, at his residence in Dublin. Mr Hogan has left a widow and eleven children in comparatively destitute circumstances. The Freeman's Journal of Monday, in speaking of his labours and his poverty, remarks that his "Drunken Faun " was one of the most original con ceptions and the most classically treated out of the old school of Greece. Thorwaldsen pronounced it worthy an Athenian studio, and the same illustrious artist preferred his " Dead Christ " to Danneker's. He often regretted his inability to choose his own subjects, like more fortunate artists who give com missions to their own genius ; but he had no choice, and the few orders he received in Ireland were scarcely sufficient for his maintenance on the simplest scale : He was engaged up to his death on two commissions— the Mathew testimonial in Cork, and one of the bas reliefs for the Wellington monument in the park—illus trative of the Duke's concession of civil and religious liberti. The sketch for the latter had been submitted to the Eerl of Carlisle, and highly approved. It was a beautiful conception, and even on that small scale showed the creative power and felicitous skill with which the artist seized the idea and rendered the marble history plain to the least educated eye. After the completion of the Mathew Monument, he designed to carry his son with him to Italy to complete the bas-relief in the neighbour hood of Carrara, and return to Ireland with his great historical work, on which he designed to lavish all his powers. The remuneration was sufficiently poor, we be lieve only 1,00%, whereas the figures were to be about twenty, as large as life, in very high relief, or what artists call " the round," and the marble six inches thick ; but then he expected it would extend his reputation. All the drenins of genius are now over, and poor Hogan himself will lack a monument in his native country. He thought his influential countrymen overlooked his claims to illus. trate Irish genius in the Palace at Westminster, end had lie urged them perhaps they would have been recognised and satisfied. But Hogan was a modest men—too modest for success in life, and too p rou d to p l ace hi mse lf un d er obligation to any man. Of one member of Parliament, however, he always spoke with great warmth. Mr. White side, with whom he was very slightly acquainted, under took to submit his claims, as an Irish artist of the highest order, to execute one of the statues for the Houses of Par liament ; and had Hogan lived the Attorney-General Perhaps would have succeeded in helping forward his neglected countryman. But all such speculations are now useless, and the vital question remains, how are his widow and eleven young children to be saved from desti tution? Had Lord Carlisle been now in power he would have exerted all his influence with the Government, and Lord Palmerston, like Sir Robert Peel, has ever been dis tinguished for his attention to such claims. Lord Derby, we are certain, will be equally anxious to gratify the Irish people in providing an humble competence for the widow of their great sculptor. THE PRESS, APRIL 3, 1858. QtIINTIN DICK, Esq., uncle of W. W. Fitzwilliam Hume, Esq., M.P. for the county of Wicklow, died on Friday week at his residence in Curzon-street. The deceased was for many years a member of the Howie of Commons, and was much respected as a man of independent thought, sterling good sense, and unwavering attachment to Protestant prineipl es. He represented the borough of Maldon, in Essex, for fifteen years, during which period he stood four contested elections. In the general election of 1847 he was defeated by Mr. T. B. Lennard, and shortly afterwards was invited by the Conservative con stitueney of Aylesbury, in Buckinghatrishite, to be come a candidate for it representation, a vacancy having occurred by the unseating of Mr. J. P. Deer ing, on petition. After a warm contest he succeeded in defeating his Liberal opponent, Mr. John Houghton, and sat in Parliament for that borough until 1850, when he retired from public life alto gether. For some ,years he suffered greatly from confirmed and protracted ill health, and his demise, deeply regretted as it must necessarily he, was not unexpected by his relatives. Mr. Dick was un married, and died possessed of enormous wealth, a very large proportion of which will devolve on his nephew, the respected member for Wicklow county, to whom he was much and deservedly attached. THE EARL OF MORTON died this week at the family residence in Brook-street, after a short illness. The deceased earl was attached to the mission in Spain in 1811, and was appointed secretary of legation at Stockholm in July the following year. Subsequently, in 1814 and 1810, he filled the some capacity at the Courts of Florence and Berlin ; the latter post he filled up to January, 1825, when he obtained his diplomatic pension. The noble earl was a lord-in waiting to the Queen from September, 1841, to January,lB49. In November, 1850, he was appointed vice-lieutenant of the county of Mid-Lothian, of which county he was made a deputy-lieutenant in 1840. He is succeeded in the family honmrs and estates by his eldest son, Lord Aberdour, born 13th April, 1818, and formerly in the 71st Foot. The pre sent peer married in 1844 Miss Watson, daughter of Mr. James Watson, of Saughton, Mid Lothian, who died in 1850 ; and secondly, in 1853, Lady Alice Lambton, third and youngest daughter of the late Earl of Durham. Mr. Jour SEWARD, the eminent engineer, died on the 26th ult. Mr. Seward's improvements in marine engines, in the design and construction of which he was extensively engaged, won for him a deservedly high reputation. THE BLOOMSBURY FIRE. A TERRIBLE fire occurred in Gilbert-stree.;, Blooms. bury, on the morning of Sunday last, whereby fifteen lives were lost. The fire broke out in a small house, No. 23, the upper rooms of which were in habited by three families, numbering in all twenty persons, the ground floor being used as a carpenter's workshop by a man named Stubbs. The fire was first discovered by a policeman going his rounds ; he instantly gave the alarm, and sent off to the Fire Brigade stations. The flames, however, spread so rapidly, that before the engines and fire escape arrived, the lives of all in the house were in great peril. A builder's ladder was happily found at hand, and placed at once against the first floor windows, from whence one family, consisting of a man named Eastwood, his wife and three children, were rescued by a man named Curl!, a glazier. The flames were so fierce and the smoke so dense, that all attempts to get at anyone else failed, and though the fire-escape arrived shortly afterwards, the flames had got such a complete mastery over the front of the house that it could not be used in that direction. An attempt to rescue the other people in the house by getting in at the back failed, because the house had been built without back windows. Neither was there a trapdoor to the roof. One young man, Smith, had thrown himself from the top window into the street below, and was so frightfully injured that be died shortly afterwards. The engines arrived shortly, but the fire had ob tained such a complete mastery over the house that the end was at hand. In a few minutes the roof fell in, carrying with it the second and first floors, and burying the fourteen unconscious inmates in the ruins. In about two hours the flames were sufficiently subdued to permit a search for the dead. Fourteen bodies were found—viz., Richard Smith, aged 40 years; Harriet Smith, 41 ; Richard Smith, 17; Harriet Smith, 15 ; Alfred Smith, 14 ; Henry Smith, 12 ; Walter Smith, 10 ; Thomas Smith, 7 ; Mary Smith and Maria Smith (twins), 5; Jessie Smith, 2; John Hedger, 53; Elizabeth Hedger, 50; William Hedger, 20; and John Hedger, 13 : The spectacle of their remains would shock the stoutest heart, but, notwithstanding the hideous deformity of countenance occasioned by tho subsequent action of the fire and their entombment beneath the ruins of the fillet' house, there was yet an almost pleasing development of tranquillity and rest. The complete relaxation of the muscles, the natural position of the hands and arms, forcibly illustrated the composure and soundness of their thighs. 327 sleep. The little children especially, if one could have divested his mind of the fearful realization of death, were in a posture indicative in the extreme of the naturalnestv of infant sleep. There was no evidence of a struggle, or an effort even to prolong life, but a manifest insensibility to dangers which they never knew. The youngest child seems to have raised its little arms as if suddenly aroused, and then as suddenly to have become unconscious and to have died. They in all probability, with two or three ex ceptions, died in sleep. The exception, however, is a pain ful one, in the case of Mrs. Smith, whose body, though much more burnt than any et the others, indicates every spoearance of having died an agonizing death. One foot and a great portion of the leg were entirely consumed, and the body so much charred as to be fearfully disfigured ; yet there was a rigid contraction of the limbs, as if distorted by agony, and a convulsive grasping of the hands and fingers. Mr. Smith was evidently in a sound sleep, and as he lay in his natural position in the bed, so he was dis covered in the ruins in which he and his family were thus hurried to eternity. Mrs. Hedger, it is supposed, was en deavouring to meke her escape, as her body was found in the narrow passage of the house. As the bodies were found, they were placed in shells and conveyed to St. Giles's Workhouse : In one coffin lie two poor little fellows (Smiths) about five years old, said to be twins, not much scorched, but with bleeding wounds upon their foreheads, as if they had been killed by the fall ; in another coffit, lies a boy, ap- parently twelve or fourteen years old, whose wrists appear to be a good deal scorched, but who also seems to have been alive when the house fell in. This poor little fellow has his trousers just drawn upon his legs, as if awakened and preparing for escape, when death overtook him. In another coffin lies Mrs. Hedger, shrivelled and mummy like, dead apparently from scorching and auflocation ; and in other coffins lie other members of both families, who appear to have received more injury from the fill than the fire. It is said that the whole building rested upon wooden " story-posts," and when these were burnt tl,rougb, it of necessity came down. The want of windows at the back is also commented upon as a bad feature in the construction of the house. A coroner's inquest was opened on Tues day, but not the slightest clue to the origin of the fire was obtained. Gas was not burned in the house, and no light had been seen in the house after en early hour in the evening, but two of the deceased lodgers, Messrs Hedges and Smith, appear to have come home at a late hour on Saturday night. The evidence of the man Eastwood was extremely in teresting; he lived on the first floor, and was sleeping with his family in the back room : My wife woke me in bed, and said, " Hark John, there's a row : what's that cracking noise ?" When I bad opened my eyes, I said " Dear me, the place is full of anioke." We slept in the hack room. My wife, myself, and one child were in the back room, and my two other children in the front room. I jumped out of bed, opened the door between the two rooms, and saw the reflection in Gilbert•street. I then went up to the front-room window looking into the street. When I got there I saw the flames curling up to wards the room next to ours, which was directly over the carpenter's shop. I then went back to the bed room door, and said, "My dear, jump up. for it's our place on fire." I then ran on to the landing, but directly 1 opened the door the flames rushed in. I immediately shut and locked it to prevent my wife, in her excitement, from attempting to escape that way, as it was quite impossible to do so at ttlst time. I then rushed to the front window and opened it, got out over the balcony railing in front of it, and callttl out for help. Before I went the first time I had heard the policeman's rattle. That was immediately after my wife had sue me. I pointed to a ladder opposite, which wrs in my sight, but not in the sight of the people below, anti they went and got it. When it was raised up, we all got out in safety. When I got my last little boy ..ut the room was full of smoke, but by stooping down I could ree, auii as I left the room the last time, I could see the flames coming through the door. This witness "firmly believed " that the fire origin ated in the carpenter's shop, and grounded this belief upon the direction from which the flames firAt appeared to him. Stubbs, the cat penter, who occu pied the ground•floor, had not been there since Saturday morning. There were no combustibles in the shop, but there were " shavings" and " a box of lucifers." Kennings, a fireman attached to the Chandos-street station, said ho had seen "many hundreds of houses burned," but he had never seen one fall in "so quickly." The coroner extracted from this witness the fact of there being no organizatiera among the different fire-brigade stations, so ~v, in event of fire, to secure rapid communication front one station to the other. After a lengthened ex amination of several other witnesses who were present at the fire, but none of whom threw any light upon its origin, the inquiry, w order to admit of a post mortem examination of the bodies, was adjourned till Tuesday, the 13th of April. From additional information obtained, it appear; tbat when Richard Smith, the younger, was in the University-hospital, he was asked by Mr. Jessett, the assistant house-surgeon, how the accident bad happened, and that be replied "that there had heed a fire, and that he had jumped out of the thst floor window." This statement is in direct the statement of Daniel Sullivan, ' The boy, tco, was much burned about ct opposition to the policeman. tt the legg and