The Press. — London, England, 1854-11-11 00:00:00

NOVEMBER 11, 1854 of the toast, and the Lord Mayor for proposing it. He proceeded: — There are various topics to which I might, without im propriety, advert on the present occasion. But 1 wish to do so in a few words, and only upon that subject by which the minds of all men at this moment are entirely en grossed. On this day last year, when I had the honour of 1).-ing present in this hall, and addressing those who were then assembled, we still continued to enjoy a state of peace. It is true that the prospect was then threatening, but as war was not imminent, and, as the policy of her Majesty's Government was a policy of peace, I declared that no efforts would be wanting on their part to endeavour to pro serve peace. I know that it was the opinion of man) that these efforts were too long protracted, and that we ought much earlier to have had recourse to the arbitrament of the sword. So far is that from being my opinion, that, in spite of the justice of the war, in spite of its disinterested objects, I am perfectly persuaded that it never could have received that universal support it has met with in this country, and the sympathy of Europe, had it not been clearly seen and fully admitted that every effort was em ployed to avert the horrors of war. (Cheers.) I think it nut improbable that many of those who are most eager for war you may perhaps find easily discouraged by those vicissi tudes to which a state of warfare is proverbially liable ; but I trust you will never find anything of that sort on the part of her Majesty's Ministers. ( Hear, hear.) We are determined, under all circumstances, to persevere, and to endeavour to perform our duty in such a manner as we think our Sovereign and our country have a right to ex pect from us—(applause)—keeping steadily in view the great objects of the war, and looking to the permanent interests of this country. Acting, too, in strict concert with our great ally, I cannot entertain a doubt that we shall be enabled to bring this contest to a happy termination. (Loud cheers. Lord John Russell, who afterwards spoke, cheered the hearts of his civic hosts by assuring them that there hail been an inquiry into the state of the cor poration of the City of London, and the result had been that the corporation had been strengthened by it. That inquiry had proved that, so far as the ancient spirit of those institutions was concerned, they were to be maintained and preserved inviolate. Lord Palmerston was present, and made a speech characterised by his wonted gallantry in proposing the health of the Lady Mayoress. Various personal and corporate toasts followed, and the guests left the banquet-room about eleven o'clock, many of them protracting their enjoyment by repairing to the ball room, where dancing was kept up to a late hour. Xatv anh Volitt. SEVERAL CASES UNDER THE BETTING ACT have come before the metropolitan magistrates during the week. On Tuesday it seems that a foray was made by the police at the Rising Sun public-house, in Long acre, when no fewer than 114 persons, sporting characters and others, were captured at one swoop. Superintendent Pearce, armed with a warrant,walked into the house and coolly told the whole of the par ties present to "consider themselves in custody." When brought up at Bow-street, when the police office had to be cleared of the public for their accom modation, the defendants were charged as follows by their captor Superintendent Pearce stated that he held a warrant, signed by the commissioners of police, authorising him to p prehend a number of persons assembled in the Rising Sun a , 65, Long acre, fur betting put poses. Between oue and two o'clock he pro ceeded with his men to the house, outside of which there was a crowd of persons, including a man named Robert Ryan, who was the checktaker of the establishment, and whom he apprehended for obstructing the way. Witness then proceeded to the first floor front room, in which be heard a voice say " 5 to 1" on some horse. On entering the room he found ten or twelve persons seated round a table, on which there were several betting-books and a quantity of papers. Witness called out, " Ima an officer, and you must consider yourselves in custody." There were seventy persona in the room. Some of the papers were caught up and tlirowit into the tire before he could get them. Witness sent the ddfendants to the police station, where they were searched, a number of papers, betting-books, &c., being found in their pos session, together with very large sums of money, chiefly in bank notes, which were not taken from them. Inspector Mitchell deposed to having gone at the same time into the back-parlour of the bottle, where he found twenty-one persons similarly occupied. He found a book of handicaps and several sporting papers on the table, besides a portkdlo, con taining other sporting documents, lists, Be. He had seen most of the defendants betting, paying, rind receiving money at the house almost daily, and he once heard Mr Morbey, the landlord, say," 1 have sold upwards et two hundred tickets, and should have sold good many more if it had not been for the superintendent." The inquiry was adjourned, and the defendants set at liberty, after entering into their own recognisances to appear again on Tuesday next.—At Marlborough street, on the same day, informations were heard, laid by Russell, the informer, against certain alleged nroprietora of gambling-houses at the West•end. The ,enalties recoverable under the act were 2001., of which Russell would be entitled to one-third. The first case investigated was that of Charles Pitcher, charged with keeping a room in No. 20, Albemarle street, for gambling purposes. After the production of some testimony, it was elicited that the hense in question had been closed for some months, and that Russell could bring forward no evidence touching transactions within the last six months, as required by the act. The information was accordingly dis missed, and Russell ordered to pay 5/. on account of expenses. ' The same defect,, with a similar penalty THE PRESS. attended his information against Charles Liley, ' keeper of a house in St. James's-street. Two cigar shop keepers, one in Windmill-street, Haymarket, and the other in High-street, Newington, have been charged with allowing or encouraging betting on horse races. Their offences were proved, but the defendants were allowed to escape with mitigated penalties on promising to discontinue the illegal practices. A POINT OF MUCH INTEREST was tried on Monday at the Bail Court. Mr. Sweetenhain, a surgeon and apothecary at Islington, was attending the family of a Mr. Reed, and, being called in late one night, or dered some powder for Mr. Reed and a lotion for his baby. Being far from home, he got the medicines made up at a neighbouring chemist, to whom he gave proper instructions. The chemist, however, so misdirected the packet which he sent in that the powder was administered to the baby. It contained opium, and the child died next day. The parents subsequently brought an action against Mr. Sweeten ham for damages, which was argued in the trial under the plea that, although he did not commit the, mistake himself, yet the chemist on this occasion appeared in the character of an agent, for whose actions and blunders he was liable. To make out this plea it was shown that the defendant paid the chemist for the medicines according to custom, intending to charge the plaintiffs an advanced price in his bill. The jury adopted the supposition of agency, and re turned a verdict carrying damages to the amount of funeral expenses and mourning for the dead child against Mr. Sweetenham. ALFRED MUNDY, landlord of a public-house near Printing-house-square, was charged before the City Police Committee with serving beer at illegal hours. It was shown that he had sent out liquor at midnight on Sunday week. In defence, it was pleaded that he served only the Times establishment at that hour. There were 'Mt persons, printers, steam-engine men, and others, employed the whole night through on the paper, and it was a matter of necessity that they should not be left without refreshment. At the po lice courts in Westminster, it was also urged, the ma gistrates admitted a similar excuse in behalf of the Sunday papers, and no penalties were inflicted for liquors served to their employes. The sitting alder man, however, found that the act said nothing of necessity. The prohibition was absolute, and the defendant was accordingly fined ss. and costs. AN ACTION brought by the Rev. Dr. Tidman, Secretary of the London Missionary Society, against the Rev. Robert Ainslie, a minister amongst the Independents, has been heard at great length before Dr. Whately, Q.C. as arbitrator. Dr. Tidman com plained that Mr. Ainslie bad libelled him in a defence he had made of a Rev. Ebenezer Davies, amissionary of Dr. Tidman's society, and who had been dismissed in consequence of some indecent letters which he had written being found, as well as other alleged grievous acts of immorality. The case, after occupying several days, came to a termination on Wednesday. Edwin Stacey and J. Horley, two of the clerks in the London Missionary Society, proved that Mr. Davies used to address letters to his wife at the Mission house. On one occasion she left one of these letters behind her. These gentlemen read it, and, as they found it to be of a very filthy description, they thought it their duty to make a copy of it. Stacey kept this letter for some years, and having heard from a Mr. Prout that there were some strange ru mours about Mr. Davies, from Berbice, where that gentleman had acted as a missionary, he told Mr. Prout that he had a copy of a letter in his possession which Mr. Davies had written to his wife in 1845, "of a very bad character indeed." In cross-exami nation by Mr. Edwin James, Q.C., • Stacey said, that soon after he had found the letter, he showed it to Mrs. Davies, who read it, and seemed pleased with it. The witness was confronted with Mrs. Davies, but reiterated his statement. At this stage of the pro ceedings, and after some further revelations which were far from tending to clear Mr. Davies from the aspersions thrown upon his character, Mr. Edwin James, who appeared for the defence, said he had consulted with his client, and the result was, that Mr. Ainslie, in consequence of the evidence which had now been brought forward, had been ranch shaken with regard to some of the important points of the case. Mr. Ainslie had taken up Mr. Davies's defence at great personal sacrifices both of money and friendship. He had thereby occasioned the rupture of intimacies of many years' duration with gentlemen with whom he had been upon the most cordial terms previous to his coming forth in defence of Mr. Davis whom he then believed to have been deeply wronged. But Mr. Ainslie bad now authorised him to tender an apology to the Rev. Dr. Tidman, who had been accused of forgery, perjury, and conspiracy, and to all the other gentlemen who bad been, he now saw, wrongfully accused in connexion with this case. Mr. Ainslie would now retire from the contest which he had undertaken from sincere and generous motives, to vindicate as be then thought, an innocent and injured man; taking care at the same time to indemnify the parties against all the expenses which had been incurred. 1067 gtttibtitts ant Offauts. A SHOCKING MURDER has been discovered near Clanmorris, in Mayo. The mutilated remains of a young man, named James Prendergast, were found floating on a pool near the place. The head had been severed, as well as both legs, and the arms tied down with a strip of calico. Deceased had been missed for a fortnight, and was supposed to hero gone to America. No clue has been found to the perpetrators of the crime. ANOTHER MURDER has been committed within the last few days, the victim being the wife of a silk weaver living near Holstead, in Essex, and the murderer her husband. The pair had lived unhappily for some time, owing to jealousy on the part of the man, and on Saturday last he is supposed to have cut her throat while asleep. The murderer has been committed. THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER was preceded, as usual, by an explosion of fireworks. The accident took place on Monday, on the premises of Mr. Watson, a firework-maker, in St. George's-in-the-East. A large quantity of powder composition and fireworks were in the house at the time, and it is supposed that some of the combustible matter became ignited from the snuff of a candle used by one of his daughters, who was engaged in filling the cases. The explosion was most violent, setting the house on fire, and resulting in a lamentable loss of life. Three of Mr. Watson's children were killed instantaneously, and his wife and another child died afterwards from the injuries received. Mr. Watson himself was absent at the moment, but was much burnt in endeavotuing to rescue his children. The subsequent conflagration was subdued in about two hours, but not until the house had become a wreck. At, the inquest held on the bodies a verdict of " Manslaughter" was returned against Mr. Watson, who was taken into custody ac cordingly. A MAN named Towler, whose conduct had been eccentric for some time previously, was seen one morning last week standing before the entrance of a large forge-furnace, at Farnley, near Leeds. Ile hid thrown off his clothes, and before the bystanders could interfere plunged head foremost into the fiery abyss, which contained at the time more than fifty tons of Molten iron and glowing coke. Nothing of coarse was seen of him afterwwards, but a few cal cined fragments were subsequently withdrawn from the furnace, which were assumed to be the remains of the unfortunate man, and as such formed the subject of an inquest, when a verdict of " Temporary 'nsanity" was returned. Ohituarg. Accounts from the Crimea announoe the death of Coeonze the Hon. Fesscia Gm - siva/0m Hoop, coin mending the 3rd battalion of the Grenadier eisatde. His father, Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Wheeler Hood, was killed on the heights of Aire, in the suit of France, in 1814, and be himself has met dee& in an equally noble manner at the head of his battalion before Sebastopol. He is the great grand son of the first Lord Hood of naval renown, who was elevated to the peerage in 1782, for his celebrated victory over the French fleets under the Count de Grasse, in the West Indies. Colonel Hood was brdther to the third viscount, who succeeded his grandfather; he bed been twenty-seven years in the Grenadier Guards, and was married in 1842 to his cousin, the daughter of Sir Gramm Hamond, Bart. ADMIRAL Bowes, who died on the 28th ult., en tered the navy in 1799. As midshipman he was present at the battle of Copenhagen in the Edgar, 74, which ship led the attack. In the Juno, 32, he was attached to Lord Nelson's fleet in the Mediter ranean, where he remained until after the battle of Trate!gat. In 1807 he was employed in the Poly phemus, with the rank of lieutenant, and thence transferred to the Nereus, 80, returning home in the latter ship with the remains of Lord Collingwood in 1810. In 1812, in the Northumberland, 74, he assisted in the destruction, off L'Orient, of the two French forty-gun frigates, L'Arienne and L'Andro maque, of 450 men each, and of an eighteen-gun brig with 150 men, though defended by the galling batteries of the fortress. In 1813 he was employed off the Texel, in the /ndus, 74 and subsequently in the blockade of the French 2dediterranean coast up to the peace of Paris. Since the close of the last war the deceased served in various ships on different stations. He attained the rank of poet-esptain in 1825, and that of rear-admiral in January,lBs4. The death of the COUHTLIIR or STRATHMORE took place yesterday week, at Florence. Her ladyship was the eldest daughter of Viscount Barrington by the daughter of Lord Havensworth, and was married to the Earl of Strathmore about four yeses ago . She wee but twenty-eight peers 0( eget and UMW 110 issue. iL-AL