The Press. — London, England, 1857-07-04 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JULY 4, 1857. "that there were not three sides to a political argument." Whether Sir R. PEEL is or is not a member of " The Carlton," we shall not inquire. We have marked down a number of inaccuracies in this new edition of "Dud," of more or less importance. It seems to have been got up in a great burry after the General Election, and on turning to nearly every eminent name in its pages we observe much to be criticised. It is truly ridiculous to be told that Mr. HERBERT INGRAM, M.P. for Boston, was " married in 1843 to ." This constant reference to the family of the Blanks is quite peculiar to tl►is edition. The Mayo election is just now attracting special attention to Mr. G. H. Moons, who, accorling to " Dod," is " unmarried." Turn where we will, mistakes of a similar kind meet us. The great patronage extended to this book of reference ought to make its com pilers more careful. The late shocking accident on the North Kent Railway forms a remarkable comment on the asseverations of those persons who make so much ado about particular systems of railway signals and station regulations. Here is a case in which proper observance of one of the simplest provisions of the company would have prevented the most frightful accident that has happened for years, and yet it was totally neglected by some one—who, we cannot say—without, as far as we can at present ascertain, the shadow of an excuse. Again, the other day in Lancashire the driver of a luggage train ran headlong into an excursion train in front of him, though warned in time, if not to have prevented the collision, at least to have greatly diminished its violence. Against carelessness and stupidity science may fight in vain. Something might, perhaps, be effected could Mr. STEPHENSON'S idea of self-acting signals be properly carried out. And we hope some of our leading engineers will turn their attention to the subject. It is also to be noticed that the officers of the railway in each of these two cases attribute the accident to the length of time occupied in collecting the passengers' tickets. If this be the truth it is a most important revela tion. We had hitherto been under the impression that the delay so occasioned, though excessively inconvenient, was a necessary form, and not attended with any real danger to life and limb. Now that it turns out to be purely arbitrary, and involving groat peril as well as great annoyance, we have no doubt that measures will ba insisted on to put an end to so reprehensible a custom. After the results of the investigation into the murder of Mr . LITTLE at Dublin, it seems clear that her Majesty's subj ects require more protection. A variety of circumstances show that the detective police were singularly slow as to what parties ought to have be en held suspected. We know that in official quarters it was believed that the blow which stunned Mr. LITTLE was given by a left-handed person. Without the use of a diagram it would be difficult to convey the exact grounds on which this belief rested ; but they were briefly these. The room was a small one. Its dimensions were further cramped by a railing put up for the sake of precaution. The supposition was that Mr. Lirri.E's suspicions were disarmed by a known person knocking at the door upon the lobby. Out went the unsuspecting cashier, and let the person in, returning inside the rail. ing, and taking his seat at his desk, which faced the door upon the corridor. While looking at a book, or letter, or memorandum, the unfortunate gentleman was struck from behind. But why should the blow, in that case, have been aimed at the left aide of the back of the head ? Because, undoubtedly, on that hypothesis, a person striking from behind in that narrow chamber would not have stepped back far enough to aim at the left side of the head. It was answered to this, that probably the person was left-handed, and the conjecture—made in the first instance, we believe, by an eminent Dublin surgeon—was ingenious and plausible. There was, certainly, something apparently very peculiar about the mode in which the blow was administered. Now, facts that are not the weight of a feather as positive evidence are most powerful in directing suspicions. There was then living on the railway premises a man blind of his right eye. Is it not strange that the peculiarity of the blow never helped to direct the detective police towards him? A man with defective sight of either eye does not shave straight; and we believe that a boxer without one eye cannot hit with precision. This peculiarity might, with sharp officers, have lighted up a whole chain of suspicion. SPOLLEN, it is stated, was (w►th one excep tion) the only man living on the premises of the railway ; he had to keep the roof of the terminus in repair; and from the roof was a window opening on a pivot, by which access to the corridor leading to Mr. Lernis room might easily be obtained. Escape could after wards be had through the same window; and by the use of a ladder put against the roof egress was quite possible, after the murder, with out going to the doors below, of which it is presumed that the house keeper had the key. The fact of there having been something peculiar about the blows, and the not following up the hint, shows want of ingenuity on the part of the authorities. SPOLLEN was less subjected to surveillance than many other persons. The fact to which we have culled attention is of no weight as to evidence, but it ought to have been suggestive of suspicion in the first instance. We conjecture that, in point of fact, the murderer (whoever he was) lurked in one of the small Moms, and while Mr. LITTLE WIIS absent for four or five minutes, he stole into the cashier's room, passed through the railing, and crouched in the dark in the corner, behind the door, between the rail ►ag and the wall on his right hand. In came Mr. LITTLE, suspecting nothing, and locked the door from the corridor. He then passed through the door in the railing, which opened on the right hand about four feet from where the murderer was crouching, and Mr. Lrrrus was then turning towards the left, to take his seat at the table, when up sprang his assailant from behind, and knocked him down senseless. The position of the two persons, on this supposition of the narrow space between the railing on the left and the wall on the right, would probably show that in any case, whether the murderer had one or both eyes, the blow would have been aimed at the left side of the head, as the wall on the immediate right would have interfered with the swing of the deadly hammer. These considerations, as we said, are of no importance against the prisoner now accused ; but when it was believed that there was something very peculiar about the mode of striking, wo submit that the detectives might have been sharper in their study of the case, which seems to have been mismanaged from first to last. THE HOUSE THAT BARRY BUILT. A.D. 3004. The house then resolved itself into a Committee of Supply on the Civil Service Estimates. The first vote, of 102,851/., to complete the sum necessary for the works and expenses of the new Houses of Parliament, gave rise to a long discussion, chiefly with reference to the allowance to Sir Charles Barry, and Sir H. WiLLouotitty moved to reduce the vote by 20,0001., but the proposition was rejected upon a division by 175 to 65. In the course of the discussion Sir B. HALL, in reply to inquiries, admitted not only the decay of the stone, but that, notwithstanding the galvanising process, the rust was eating into the iron in the roof of the building. A vision of a distant day Comes o'er me as I read How merrily this Architect Maketh the people bleed— A dream of dull debates to be When Berkeley it no more, Some night in Anno Domiui Three thousand years and four. I see the " Honourable House " Resolved into Supply ; Upon a nervous Chancellor Falls my prophetic eye. And as he lifts him to his legs My wistful glances range Upon a Speaker and M P.'s With hats and faces strange. "What's that," cries ore; another, "'Tents Before the aerial train ! We've paid for nine new houses since, Or Hansard speaks in vain." " I rise, Sir." cried in angry tones A third Hon. Mem., " to call On his magnificence to explain, The Eighteenth Sir B. Hall." Up starts then, aimilis proavo, That tribune of the Plebs., Points to a Chancellor, painted With the awfullest of " nebs," And says, "'Teas Cornewall Lewis, And Hall, I grieve to say, Who kindly left posterity These little bills to pay. " They gave a certain Barry The job to do—who planned A wall that would not carry A tower, that could not stand. An i while that cunning craftsman The public tin did draw, Each month he laboured to undo The work of that before. " So, fast as they did build it, It crumbled just as fast; The first half was a ruin When they finished off the last. When they put the iron roof on, The stone walls wore but dust; When they built it new all over, The roof was gone with rust. "'Twos when the Great Queen ruled us, Victoria the First, Before that bubble of Reform That Pam did blow, had burst; Long 'ere the present House was raised On the ruins of St. Paul's, Died that insatiate Architect, Peiished his rotten wally. " Merrily danced Hall, Barry, and Co., Merrily danced they; But the piper's called for his money, And our age has to pay." Then one proposed to yield no jot . Of the Architect's black mail— And when the vision faded, They were at it, tooth and nail. 1 I