The Press. — London, England, 1857-05-30 00:00:00

528 NOTICES OF MOTION. MONDAY. Sir F. THESIGER—that on Tuesday, the oth of June, he should ask for leave to bring in a bill to dispense with attendance of grand juries at the Central Criminal Court and courts of quarter session within the police district, except in certain cases. Sir J. PAKINOTON—that it was his intention on an early day after the recess to call the attention of the house to the subject of national education. THURSDAY. Sir J. PARINGTON—that on Thursday, the 11th of June, he would call attention to the present state of popular education in England, and would move the following resolution : That the present system of popular education in Eng land is precarious, unequal, and insutficit.nt ; and it is therefore desirable to empower local bodies to raise and administer rates in aid of funds for education which may in such localities be derived from parliamentary grants, private subscriptions, or payments from children, due pro vision being made for securing the rights of conscience of all religious denominations. Mr. BOWYER—that, when the house went into com mittee on the Princess Royal's Annuity Bill, he should move an amendment providing that, in the .•vent of her Royal Highness becoming Queen of Prussia, the annuity should cease. BREACHES OF TRUST. THE new bill of the Attorney-General would enact as follows : 1. Whosoever, being a trustee of any property for the benefit, either wholly or partially, of some other person, shall, in violation of good faith and with intent to defraud, appropriate, convert, destroy, dispose of, or employ such property, or any part thereof, to or for his own benefit, use, or purposes, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour. 2. Whosoever, being a banker, merchant, broker, attorney, or agent, and being intrusted as such with the property of any other person, shall, in violation of good faith and with intent to defraud, sell, negotiate, transfer, pledge, or in manner convert or employ to or for his own use, such property, or any part thereof, shall be guilty of a inisdemean)ur. 3. Any person intrusted with any power of attorney for the sale or transfer of any property, who shall fraudu lently sell, transfer, and convert such property, or any part thereof, to his own use or benefit, shall be guilty of a mis• demeanour. 4. Whosoever, being a bailee of any property, shall fraudulently take cr convert the same to his own use, or the use auy person other than the owner thereof, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour. 5. Whosoever, beings director, member, or public officer of any body corporate or public company, shall fraudu lently take or apply, for his own use, any of the money or other piopeity of such body corporate or public c..nn• pally, mall be guilty of a misdemeanour. 6. Whosoever, being a director, public officer, or manager of any body zorporate or public company, shall receive or possess himselt of any of the money or other property of such body corporate or public company, other. wise than iu payment of a just debt or demand, and shall wilt idly omit to make or cause or direct to be made a full and true entry thereof in the books and accounts of such b,sly corporate or public company, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour. 7. If any director, manager, public officer, or member of any body corporate or public company. shall wilfully destroy, alter, mutilate, or falsify any of the books, papers, writings, or securities belonging to the body corporate or public company of which he is a director or manager, public officer or member, or make or be privy to the making of any false or fraudulent entry, or any fraudulent omission in any book of account or other document, with intent to defraud the shareholders, creditors, or other persons interested in the property or effects of such body corporate or public company, every director so offending shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanour. s. Whosoever, being a director, manager, or public officer of any body corporate or public c onpany, shall wilfully make, circulate, or pnblish, or concur in wilfully making, circulating, or publishing any written statement or account which he shall know to be false in any material particular, with intent to deceive or defraud any member. shareholder, or creditor of such body corporate or public compa•ty, or with intent to induce any person to become a shareholder or partner therein, or to intrust or advance any money or property to such body corporate or public com pany, or to enter into any security for the benefit thereof, shall he guilty of a misdemeanour. I). Every person found guilty of an offence under this act shall be liable, at the diacretion of the court, to be kept in penal servitude for any term not exceeding seven years, or to suffer such other punishment, by fine or pnsonment, or by both, as thec ourt shall award. THE ARCHDEACONRY OF Norm - It:if, which became vacant some time since by the death of the venerable John Belling field Collyer, M.A., has been conferred upon the Rev. R. E. Hankinson, M.A. The new archdeacon was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and was formerly minister of Well-street Chapel, Hampstead, near London. In 1847 he was nominated by the Dean and Chapter of Norwich to the incumbency of St. Margaret's and St. Nicholas, King's Lynn, and in 1850 he was presented to the rectory of Halesworth, and the vicarage of Chediston, Suffolk, and has continued to hold these benefices up to the present time, THE PRESS. MR. BRIGHT AND PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. THE following letter has been received by Mr. Alexander Lang, Hawick, in acknowledgment of certain resolutions of sympathy with Messrs. Cobden, Bright, and Gibson, on the result of the Hudders field and Manchester elections, passed at a meeting held in that town some weeks ago. A letter on the subject from Mr. Cobden has already been pub lisbed _ _ _ Geneva, May 17, 1847. Dear Sir,—Your kind note, inclosing a copy of the resolution passed at a public meeting of the inhabitants of Hawick, reached me only last evening. I lose no time in writing to say that I am very glad to find that in your town the cause of reform, free trade, and retrenchment has so many warm friends, and that you have understood and approved the policy which Mr. Cobden, Mr. Gibson, and myself have supported in the House of Commons. In the question of free trade little progress has been made for some years past ; as to retrenchment, the word has become almost obsolete, and the military expenditure of the country is now nearly double the amount which the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel thought neces• nary in In), although we have no more territory to defend, and although a large army is no longer necessary to maintain tranquillity in Ireland. As to reform, while almost everybody professes to be in favour of it in some shape, the preparation of the particular bill to be brought forward next year is left in the hands of a Minister whose hostility to every proposition for reform since the year 183.2 is notorious and undeniable. Whether on these three points to which your resolution refers the country is in a satisfactory position I must leave the friends of free trade, reform, and retrenchment to decide. With regard to the promised reform, let me warn you to look not more to the question of franchise than to the other arrangements of the measure. It would be easy to double the number of electors and at the same time to in• crease the aristocratic influence in Parliament. To give votes without giving representatives in some fair degree in proportion to the votes is but to cheat the people ; and to give a large increase of votes without the security of the ballot will subject increased numbers of our countrymen to the degrading influences which wealth and power now exercise so unscrupulously upon the existing electoral body. A moderate measure, and an honest one so far as it goes, is far more to be desired than one of great preten• sions with some fraudulent scheme for defeating the wishes of the nation. A dishonest apportionment of members may effectually destroy a representation ; and any trick to obstruct the flee action of majorities, such as that proposed in Lord John Russell's last bill, should he strenuously resisted, as calculated to undermine the very basis of representative institutions, and designed only to cheat the people of' that increased power which the bill would profess to collier upon them. Whether I shall ever again in Parliament support the policy you approve is extremely uncertain, hut 1 shall always retain a grateful senso of the kindness which I have received in past times, and at the present time, from the intelligent community on whose behalf you have written to me.—Believe me to be very sincerely yours, To Alex. Laing, Esq., Hawick. JOHN BRIGHT. BURNING OF AN AUSTRALIAN TRADER. INTELLIGENCE of the destruction by fire of the fine ship Joseph Somes, while on ber voyage from London to Melbourne, reached Lloyd's on Monday. The passengers and crew were all saved, but, considering that among her cargo she had 250 barrels of gun. powder (in all 18 tons) and an immense quanhity of spirits, their escape was marvellous. The Joseph Some: was a teak built ship, 780 tons register, corn manded by Captain Elms►on. She sailed from the East India Docks, Blackwall, for Melbourne on the 15th of last December, with a cargo on board valued at 80,000/. • The following details of the loss are extracted from a narrative written by Mr. Goodall, late a mem ber of Lloyd's, who with his wife and family were passengers on board : On the morning of the 25th of February we came in sight of the cloud capped peak of Tristan d'Acunha, and by two o'clock p.m. were near enough to the north side o f the island to lower the lifeboat. Captain Elmston having invited me, I accompanied him with six hands on shore. %'e pulled into a beautiful sandy bay, bounded nearly from po'.nt to point by bold bluff cliffs, rising like a huge wall some 3,000 feet perpendicularly from the shore. The captain made arrangements for coming ashore on the following day with the water casks. We then returned to the ship, which had stood off, and was now some seven miles distant. We rowed a considerable distance, and through a heavy sea, when we saw her go about and stand in for the land. The sun was just setting. We had noticed with some astonishment how badly the ship steered, and 1 joked the captain upon what I thought the smoke from the galley fire, for we had not dined. A minute more my heart was in my throat, for a cry was raised, " The ship it on fire !" The smoke was coming up about the main hatchway, where we knew the powder magazine was. Captain Elmstou was never more alive. He seemed as if he would spnng from his boat into the ship. He exhorted the rowers, " Pull for your lives!" and as we neared I saw quite sufficient to convince me that it was a hopeless case. The moment our boat reached the ship Captain Elmston leaped on to the main chains, and in a second was on board in time to order all the r assengers forward immediately, for the flames were rush. SATURDAY, ing up the skylights and out of the cuddy doors, so that in a few minutes their retreat would have been cut off entirely. The fire was discovery? :•v the captain's little black servant, Cassim, who with de steward got amen the companion-hatch into the store, and was engaged is searching for the source of the smoke when the alarm became general. Mr. Vaughan, the second officer, had joined them in the search, and at length discovered the flames along the ship's side close to the gun deck, For some time every one considered that the buckets of water which were freely administered would subdue the fire, and no very great alarm was felt at first; but a few minutes served to dispel this illusion. Mr. Stokes, the chief officer, who in the captain's absence had the command of the ship, seeing the increased danger, gave orders for all hands that could be spared from the working of the ship to open the magazine and throw the gunpowder overboard. Mr. Bernal (a passenger) rushed to his cabin for an axe, which was of considerable use in teanng up the hatchway. The third officer, Mr. Pye, got to his cabin, where three barrels of powder had been stowed for want of room, and these, with the remaining 249 barrels in the magazine under the main hatchway, were handed from hand to band and thrown overboard. The fire had disappeared from the store-room as soon as the main hatchway was opened ; there being then a new and greater draught, tha fire was making rapid strides to this deadly mine, charged with about eighteen tons of gunpowder. At last the lower tier of barrels was actually hot—almost too hot to hold. This was no fancy, every man was intent upon his work. These were minutes of agonising suspense. The weaker sex never seemed to have lost their presence of mind, and it was a remark of admiration made subsequently by the crew that not a scream was heard from any one. The steward, Alfred Marsh, acted with great bravery and device tion ; three times he made his way through the dense smoke into the cuddy to the cabin in the stern, and saved the captain's chronometers, desk, watch, and other valuables. Cassim, the black servant, also got through the caddy into the cabin to save some of his master's things, but his retreat was cut off by the increasing smoke and flame, and he was drawn up half suffocated, through the quartervallery window on to the poop. The pinnace being lowered, the captain stood guard and saw all the women and children handed down before he admitted others to jump in to make up her complement. The re mainder of those on board eEcaped by the lifeboat, in which the captain had returned from the island. The satisfaction that was felt when the last barrel of gun. powder went overboard gave all on board that comparative cool less and belief that the worst was past, without which feeling in all probability many lives would have been sacrificed. After all the crew were in the boat the captain had a struggle to get a large Newfoundland dog of his over the ship's side, but, finding it impossible, he seized a rope and swung off into the boat. He was the last to leave the ship. From the time of the first alarm to the time of leaving the ship an hour had not elapsed, and as we cleared her the flames rushed up in all directions. She had an immense quantity of spirits on board—in fact, the great hulk of her cargo was brandy and gin—which accounts for the extraordinary rapidity of the ignition. The gig, which had put off with five boys, was lost sight of, hut we neared the pinnace, and were hailed to lighten her of some of her freight, for the water was fast gaining upon them, and they had little room to work their oars. We got alone aide, and took Mrs. Elmston and two women into our boat, which made up our number to thirty. I had only time to hail my wife and child, and tell her to be of good courage, when the boats parted, and darkness completed our separation. On turning our eyes to the burning ship we saw the fire run up her new rigging with innumerable flickering jets, like a brilliant gas illumination, and her main and wizen masts went over the side with a fearful crash. The foremast and bowsprit stood a short time longer. We pulled straight in for the land, so as to get under its lee and avoid the swell. On approaching the stupendous cliffs the rollers and roar of the surf, tuned into a deeper note by the great boulders rolling over each other, gave us timely warning not to draw too near. A last, after five hours' pull, we rounded a point and made the sandy bay where the captain had landed on the pre vious (lay. The settlers had kindled a fire on the sands, and as we neared the shore we gave a cheer, but the echo from the overhanging rocks was the only response, and not the least striking scene of that night's drama was the landing on those black sands by the light of a clear bright are and not a soul to meet us. The good islanders . had retired from their watch at midnight in great doubt of our safety. On climbing up the cliffs we found the islanders up, from whom we received the greatestkind ness. At the break of morn the hull of the far distant ship appeared like one bright speck of flame, paling its light before the rising sun, and a dense volume of steam and smoke hung like a pall for some hours before she went down. Onr great tear all night was thst the gig with the boys, the eldest only twenty and the youngest nine, must have been lost ; but in the course of the morning, to our great joy, we found both pinnace and gig had come ashore on a sandy beach. The island Tristan d'Acunlia is in long. 11.43 W., lat. 37.8 S.. about fifteen miles in clicurnierince, and some 1,300 miles from the nearest land. From March until October a ship near the latitude of the island is a rare sight. A few days previous to the loss of' the Joseph Somes the inhabitants of the island had been considerably lessened by fifty ci . f them, accompanied by their pastor, the Rev. n. Taylor, leaving the settlement in her Majesty's ship Geyser for the Cape. Although the islanders left did all they could to relieve the wants of the shipwrecked people, their small supply of provisions gage them but a very inadequate fare, and for nine days they endured considerable privation. On Friday, March 6, a ship was descried to the leeward.