The Press. — London, England, 1858-10-09 00:00:00

THE PRESS, OCTOBER 9, 1858. in the colours of the " red, white, and blue," dropping a courtesy, answered, "Yes, sir, if you please."—Mr. Hammill : Nay, it is not as I please at all. You have brought this on yourselves, and I hope that such a bad beginning will not prove an omen of the future. You were both tipsy, I suppose, the first day of your . marriage ?-officer : Yes, sir, they were both so. — Mr. Hammill : Pray what are you, Mr. Wilkins ? Mr. Wilkins : Dust, your worship.—Officer : He is a dustman, your worship.—Mrs. Wilkins : Yes, sir, and I'm his wife ; a'int I, dear ?—Mr. Wilkins : Yes, Mary Anne.—Mr. Hammill : You must pay 20e., or fourteen days' imprisonment, and your husband 10s., or seven days.—Mrs. Wilkins paid her own fine, and left her spouse in durance vile, until, by pledging her wedding ring, she was able to effect his release. THE NEW DIVORCE ACT has besn appealed to, at the Thames Police-court, in the case of Mrs. Matilda Rainbow, an eating-house keeper, of No. 17, High street, Shadwell. Mr. Waller, who appeared in support of an order to protect her goods and chattels, gave the following history of the circumstances. Mrs. Rain bow was married to her husband in 1845 ; and some days after the marriage her husband said that be was compelled to go to America on business. Mrs. Rain bow said she would accompany her husband across the Atlantic, on which he said it was impossible, and that be intended to take with him to America a woman with whom he cohabited before marriage, and who lived ten miles from London. Mrs. Rainbow still insisted on accompanying her hus band to America, when be told her that his concu bine would tear her to pieces if she met with her, and that he would only be away six months. The husband proceeded to America, and did not return until 1848, when he saw his wife's father, but did not visit his wife, end had never contributed a farthing towards her support. Mrs. Rainbow, who was a very respectable and industrious woman, had established herself in business, and effected an insurance with an office in the City on her goods and chattels. A fire broke out on her premises, and the insurance office objected to pay the money to which she was entitled until she obtained a protecting order under the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act. In reply to questions, Mrs. Rainbow stated that she bad paid the premiums out of her own pocket, and that her husband bad deserted her, as stated. Mr. Yardley granted the order. girtibtuts anb Chas. A CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD FOREIGN GOVERN MENTS, by forgery, has been discovered in London. Besides the persons—two Frenchmen and a Greek merchant--in custody on a charge of conspiracy to coin false Turkish piastres, three men, Richard and John Webster, brothers, and Moses Barnet, are in the hands of the police, suspected of being concerned in the forgery of plates for the issue of Russian ten rouble notes. It is stated that other parties, in a higher position, are implicated. A DARING ATTEMPT was made near Woolwich Dockyard on Wednesday afternoon to murder Mr. William Budd, inspector of police in the dockyard. A pistol was discharged at him by a fellow who was formerly employed in the establishment, but had been dismissed and punished for robbery. A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT occurred at the Surrey Theatre on Monday night. A man who had got a front seat in the gallery, and was leaning over the rail, overbalanced himself and fell headforemost into the pit, driving in his skull. The unfortunate suf ferer expired in a few hours. A VERY Pens Fur. INTEREST has been excited at the Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields, by a ca.se of death from chloroform. An inquest was held on Monday; but the evidence went to show that it was one of those cases where no previous precautions could have been of use. The post-mortem examina tion, which was conducted by an eminent Vienna surgeon, Dr. Bader, was also attended by the officials of the hospital, Dr. Kidd, Mr. Lloyd (who adminis tered the chloroform), and Dr. Hawkins. The cause of death was the same, it is believed, as in the recent case of a similar kind at Towcester—asphyxia. The jury returned a verdict "that the deceased had died from the effects of chloroform." AN ACCIDENT, which might have been attended with fatal consequences, occurred to the Hon. Misses Langley, daughters of the Right Rev. the Bishop of Durham, on Saturday. They were driving through Auckland-park, when the horse took fright and gal loped off, upsetting the vehicle and throwing its oc• cupants out. The carriage was smashed to pieces, but fortun a t e l y t h e l a di es escape d w i t h out ma t eria l injury. A SHOCKING MURDER AND SUICIDE are reported from Preston. Mr. Robert Bond, aged twenty-five, shot Miss Wainman, to whom ho had been paying his addresses, causing her instant death. He then walked home, and with his father's gun literally blew off the top part of his head. No cause is assigned. AN AWFUL CATASTROPHE, involving, it i 8 feared, the loss of 500 lives, has occurred at sea. The P. Pendleton, which arrived at Southampton on Sun day from Virginia, reports the destruction by fire of the steamer Austria, from Hamburg and Southampton to New York, on the 13th of September. The ill fated vessel was a fine screw steamship of 2,500 tons and 600• horse power. She was built last year at Greenock, and has made three or four voyages. She belonged to the Hamlotw g and American Company, and, with the steamers Borussia, Saxonia, and Ham monia, formed a fortnightlier communication between Hamburg, Southampton, and New York. She left Hamburg on the Ist of September, and arrived at Southampton on the 3rd, with upwards of 400 pas. sengers, consisting chiefly of German emigrants, who belonged to the better class of the agricultural popu lation, and left that port on the 4th ult. for her de stination. She had been out nine days when the fire, which is said to have been caused by fumigating the ship between decks, broke out. A French bark bad rescued sixty-eight persons from the Austria's boats and pieces of floating wood, &c. ; and on the 14th of September, in lat. 44.18 N., long. 40 W., the P. Pendleton supplied provisions to the English bark Lotus, having on board eighteen persons who had been transferred from the French hark, and would be taken on by the Lotus to Halifax, whither she was bound from Liverpool. The other fifty persons rescued were still on hoard the French bark, name and destination unknown, but intended to land pas sengers at Fayal. There is no accounting for the remainder, who, in all human probability, have perished. Independent of the passengers, the crew and officers, with the parties composing the engine department, comprised about 100 persons ; and, it the whole of the ship's boats could have been made available, they were insufficient to bold one-half of the people who were on board. Captain Heydtmaon, who commanded the steamer, jumped overboard, and was drowned soon after the outbreak of the fire. Two vessels, which arrived on Thursday, saw what was left of the vessel at sea, and one of them perceived a number of dead bodies in her immediate vicinity. Obituarg. BARON WARD, the famed Yorkshire groom, who played so prominent a part at the Court of Parma, died on Wednesday night at Vienna. The history of this extraordinary man is full of remarkable events. He left Yorkshire as a boy in the pay of Prince Lichtenstein of Hungary, and after a four years' successful career on the turf et Vienna as jockey he became employed by the then reigning Duke of Lucca. He was at Lucca promoted from the stable to be valet to his Royal Highness. This service he performed up to 184. About that period he was made Master of the Horse to the Ducal Court. Eventually he became Minister of the Household and Minister of Finance, which office he held when the Duke abdicated in 1848. At this period he be came an active agent of Austria during the revolu tion. As Austria triumphed he returned to Parma as Prime Minister, and negotiated the abdication of Charles 11., and place:l the youthful Charles 111. on the throne; who, it will be remembered, was assassi nated before his own palace in 1854. As soon as Charles 111. came to the throne the then Baron Ward was sent to Germany by his patron as Minis ter Plenipotentiary to represent Parma at the Court of Vienna. This post he held up to the time of his royal patron's tragical end. When the present Duchess Regent assumed State authority, Ward re tired from public lite, and took to agricultural pur suits in the Austrian dominions. Without any edu cational foundation he contrived to write and speak German, French, and Italian, and conducted the affairs of State with considerable cleverness, if not with remarkable straightforwardness. Baton Ward was married to a humble person of Vienna, and has left four children. Perhaps no man of modern times passed a more varied and romantic life than Wald, the groom, statesman, and friend of sove reigns. From the stable be rose to the highest offices of a little kingdom, at a period of great European political interest, and died in retirement, pursuing the rustic occupation of a farmer, carrying with him to the grave many curious arcana imperii. 979 THE MINES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM produced in ,856 66,445,450 tons of coal, valued at the pit's month at 16,663,8621.; 24,257 tons of fine copper, valued at 2,983,6111.; 3,586,3 7 7 tons of pig iron, valued at 13,345,508/. ; 73,120 tons of metallic lead, valued at 1,755,0961.; 6,177 tons of white tin, valued at 821,54 . I/. ; and 614,180 ounces of silver from lead, valued at 153,4701. In 1857, 10,444 colliers arrived in the port of London, and the total quantities of coal brought to London both by sea and by land amounted to 4,368,708 tons. THE GREAT CHESS MATCH between Mr. Morpby and M. Harrwitz has been suddenly brought to a doge, in consequence of the latter gentleman being constrained by ill health to decline going further. The state of the games at the close was—Mr. Morphy . five, M. Harrwitz two, and one draw. The terms of the match were that the winner of the first seven games should be the victor. THE STATE UF THE ATLANTIC CABLE has been reported on by Mr. Henley, the electrical engineer, who states that the results of his experiments lead him to the conclusion that the cable has been seriously injured about 300 miles from Valentia. He expresses an opinion that the fault existed in the cable before it was submerged, and that it should have been tested in water during its manufacture. He has put his large magnetic machine in operation, with a view to transmit massages to Newfoundland, but he will not know whether they have been received until intelligence comes from the colony by the or dinary route. He does not believe that the defect will be found near the shore, but he recommends that fifteen miles of the cable should be taken up and tested. Any attempt to raise the cable in the deep soundings would, in his judgment, cause its de struction. Finally, Mr. Henley does not despair of making the cable workable, provided that it does not get worse. Altogether the report may be regarded as encouraging rather than otherwise. STATISTICS OF SUP-IDE, from which we coiled the following, are furnished in the able report of the Registrar-General, just published. In the five years, 185'2.56, 5,415 persons put a period to their earthly career by self-destruction—viz., 3,886 males and 1,529 females. The annual average of mate suicides is 777.2, and that of females 3058. The general average shows that upwards of 1,000 persons put an end to their sufferings by committing suicide in every year of grace. The lowest, number of suicides was 1,031 in 1853, and the highest 1,182 in 1856. Poisoning being the easiest is a common but by no means a general means of self-destruction. The favourite poisons are arsenic, opium, laudanum, prussic acid, the most rapid in its action, and essential oil of bitter almonds. It is a remarkable fact that female suicides manifest a strange predilection for the very painful irritant poison called oxalic acid. As many as thirty-four were so foolish as to choose this compound of oxygen and carbon, while only fifteen males resorted to it. On the other hand sixty-seven men resorted to hydrocyanic acid and thirty-three to the oil of bitter almonds, while only eight women had resolution to swallow the former fatal poison and eighteen the latter. Strychnia was use 1 by one man and one woman, and in one case camphor was used. But hanging is by far the most general mode of suicide, for nearly half the annual average of suicides terminate their miserable lives by suspension. Cut throats and drowning stand next in the order of frequency; B.loths of all the suicides are committed in one of these three ways. Asphyxia proper, or suffocation by the fumes of charcoal, is by no means a favourite mode of suicide here, as in France. The greatest number of suicides occur between the ages of thirty-five and forty -five. Thirty three persons of both sexes committed suicide at ten years of age, and fourteen persons of both sexes at the sge of eighty-five. THE COPYRIGHT CONGRESS AT BRUSSELS, OD the question of international copyright, has concluded its sittings, and the results may be thus briefly stated :- 1. International admission of the right of literary and artistic copyright, with or without reciprocity. 2. The establishment of a uniform law, that protec tion to the produce of intellect may be universal. 3. Complete equality between native and foreign authors. 4. A simplification of the formalities re quired for an author to publish his work in a foreign country. That is to say, that the fact of his having complied with the requirements in his own country shall be sufficient. 5. Dramatic works and musical compositions to be placed on the same footing as literary works, as regards copyright. 6. An author's or compositor's right over the representation or per formance of his works. 7. Works of design, painting, sculpture, architecture, and engraving to be placed on the same footing as regards copyright as works of literature. 8. Au abolition or, at least, a reduction of Customs dues on all works of genius. The prin ciple of perpetuity in literary anti artistic copyright was rejected by a large majority. The King and the Duke of Brabant attended the third sitting of the Congress, and appeared to take • great interest in the proceedings. Visallantous. THE NEW MEDICAL REFORM ACT came into operation on Saturday last. CAPTAIN M'CLINTOCK, R.N., commanding Lady Franklin's yacht, has safely crossed the middle ice of Baffin Sea, and is in a fair way of successfully accom plishing the object of his enterprize. DONATI, who discovered the present comet on the 2nd of June last, is now living at Florence. .MR. RLREY, the celebrated horse-tamer, has dissolved partnership with Mr. Goodenough ; " and while the latter," says the Illustrated London News, "has returned to Canada, laden with a cool ten thousand as his moiety, after deducting expenses, the master spirit has taken a journey to Sweden, and purposes seeing Lapland before he returns. It is surprising how the system takes everywhere." U