The Press. — London, England, 1856-11-22 00:00:00

1112 those boilers, because it is exceedingly difficult to clean, and also difficult to ascertain whether they are cleaned or not. That objection occurs more strongly to me now after the explosion, but before I was a great advocate of these boilers. It would be quite impossible for a man to get through the narrow water space. It is not possible for a boy to get through entirely, so that it would be difficult to SIM whether the space was properly cleaned. As far as I know, I believe everything was dune that could be done to clean this part properly on behalf of the owners and the men employed. I see now the non•adaptation of those boilers for the use of salt water. The jury returned a verdict of " Accidental death," coupled with an opinion that the boiler wai one of imprcper construction for the purpose. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF ♦ REFORMATORY IN GLAMORGANSIIIRE was discussed at an influential public meeting held at Bridgend last week. The High Sheriff, the Lord Lieutenant, and the Lord Bishop of the County and Diocese addressed the meeting at length in favour of the measure ; and Mr. Moggridge, J.P., gave some statistics of the amount of juvenile crime in Glamorganshire : During the five years from 1851 to 18.55 inclusive the average number of children under sixteen years of age convicted and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment in the gaols of the county was 55 2.sths per annum. This fact alone, however, gave a very inadequate idea of the real amount of juvenile crime. It was estimated that there were in the county a general total of at least 700 young persons living by means of dishonest practices. Now, assuming only one-half of this number to be boys, that would give 350 who were fitting subjects for admission to a reformatory school. Resolutions approving the principle of reformatories, and acknowledging the expediency of the establish ment of one for the county, were proposed and unanimously carried, while upwards of 3001. were contributed towards the object before the meeting separated. A FIRE ON FARM PREMISES occurred at Hatfield, near Doncaster, last Sunday morning. The farm belonged to Dr. Matthews, a West Riding magis trate. Seventeen stacks of wheat, barley, oats, hay, and straw, were consumed, in spite of every effort of the villagers to save the property. The loss is esti mated at 1,5001., 8001. of which is insured. The fire is believed to have been the work of an incen diary. A pistol, powder-flask, and a wisp of straw, were found near the stack-yard during the fire. It is not, the first attempt which has been made against Dr. Matthews' property. A SYSTEM OF TWO-LOOM WEAVING—that is, ono weaver attending two looms—has lately been adopted in Bradford. Mr. Taylor, a large mill proprietor, of Ilaildon, near Bradford, introduced the system a short time since. The operatives objected, attacked the mill, and created great disturbances. The out• break was suppressed, and the two.loom system was continued, compliant weavers being obtained from Bradterd. Last Friday week some ten or twelve of these men were returning home to Bradford, when they were brutally attacked by a mob of Baildonites, who vowed death to the " two-loomers." The two loomer4 fought well, and at length got clear; but a straggler was soon after cut off, and was so cruelly beaten and ill-used that when rescued he was car tied to the hospital. The police are actively engaged n tracing the assailants. AN ABANDONED DANISH BRIGANTINE, laden with grain, from St. Petersburg to London, was found on the Gridler Sands, off Whitstable, last Sunday morn ing. A dead body, supposed to he that of the master, was found in the after-cabin. The body was taken ashore, and an inquest held— verdict, "Found dead." The crew are supposed to have deserted the ship after the master's death. A MAN UNKNOWN, last Wednesday morning, as the Great Northern 0 a.m. express was coming down between Hornsey and Southgate, suddenly ran on the line, faced the engine, and in another moment was struck down and killed on the spot,. The train was instantly pulled up, but the body was horribly mutilated and could not be recognised. It is be lieved to have been a deliberate act of suicide. As ACCIDENT occurred on the Manchester and Sheffield line on Tuesday. The 10.25 a.m. train from Barnsley to Penistone, on arriving at the junc. tion, instead of passing on to the main line, was, in consequence of the points being left open, driven into the siding, where several loaded coal-waggons were shunted. The collision was tremendous ; some coal-trucks were smashed, and several of the passen gers, as well as the guard and fireman of the pas. senger train, were severely injured. AN ENGINE OF A PASSENGER TRAIN on the Wes tern Valleys line, as the train reached the Aberbeig junction, broke the couplings, ran off the rails, and bumped with a complete summersault over the em bankment, some forty feet deep. The stoker was killed on the spot. THE ART TREASURES EXHIBITION OF MANCHESTER has received the promise of a valuable contribution from Prince Albert of fa c - s i m il e ph o t ogra ph s o f a aeries of original drawings by Raphael. The Earl of Derby has also promised twenty-one valuable pioturea THE PRESS. from his collection, and Pr. Hen. NVellesly, of Ox ford, his unrivalled collection of original drawings by Claude, Titian, Raphael, and Michael Angelo, be sides his entire collection of engravings. 3rtlattb. MR. HORSMAN, M.P., Chief Secretary, WEIS thrown from his horse while following the Ward hounds on Saturday, and much bruised and shaken. His EXCELLENCY THE LORD LIEUTENANT has been pleased to appoint Edmund Burke Roche, Lord Baron Fermoy, to be lieutenant general and oleos rotutorum for the county and the city of Cork. THE EARL OF GRANARD has been appointed lien tenant-general and custos rotulorum of the county of Leitrim, in the place of E. King Tenison, Esq., who resigned, and who has been appointed to a like office in the county of Roscommon. THE VACANT RIB AND OF THE ORDER OF ST. PA TRICK has been bestowed on the gallant Viscount Gough. THE REPORT OF THE SUICIDE OF MR. LITTLE, the cashier of the Midland Great Western Railway, on account of defalcations discovered in his accounts, has proved to be grossly untrue. The unfortunate gentleman has been most barbarously murdered, and his accounts on examination found to be accurate and correct. The details of the case, so far as the mystery which surrounds the whole affair permits us to judge, are as follows :—Last Thursday week Mr. Little was left in the office at 5.10 p.m. It was his custom to remain over time in order to arrange his papers, and, as cashier, make up his parcels of money. On the day previous, owing to the Mullingar fair causing a heavy increase of pas senger traffic, the amount of money (over 1,5001.) sent i.ito the office was unusually large. About a fortnight since Mr. Little told his clerk that he had been greatly frightened the previous evening by a labouring-looking man coming suddenly into his office upon him while he was counting the cash, and asking for the engineer, whose office is in the same corridor. The lock of the door, which Mr. Little then tried, would not lock inside, and lie said he should have it made to do so in order that he might lock himself in after dark and the clerks had left, when his business would detain him. The lock was so arranged the week before his death, and it appears from the evidence at the coroner's inquest of the servant girl, whose duty it is to go round the offices after rive o'clock, to clean them, that Mr. Little did lock himself in each night of last week, which she ascertained by turning the handle and pushing the door. He answered her on Monday night that he was not yet gone. Tuesday night he did not answer, but she heard his papers rustling ; and a little girl about fourteen years old, the daughter of the house• keeper, states that she knocked at his door on Wed nesday evening, that it was locked, and he would not admit her with her message till she answered who she was. His clerk left him alive at ten minutes past five on Thursday evening going through his accounts. At half-past five the servant girl turned the handle of the door, and found it locked, and got no answer, but she swore that at a quarter past seven she heard his step in his room. At ten o'clock the next morning Mr. Little did not arrive as usual at his office. Time passed, twelve o'clock came, and still Mr. Little did not arrive. At half. past twelve Miss Little called to inquire for her bro ther, saying that he had not been home the night before. Suspicion was at once excited, and his door was tried. It was found locked. Men were sent round to the window, the blinds were down, and the window bolted ; but a carpenter was sent for, the window raised, and an entrance gained to the room. The cries of the attendants at once induced Mr. Beausire, the secretary, to break open the door:— I went inside (he relates) and found Mr. Little lying on his right cheek and his stomach and chest, his head in a pool of blood, his right hand under him, and his left lying upon the floor with the palm upon the ground. The blinds upon the windows were down, and the gas lighted, but not full All his pipers were in perfect order, and his money lying on the desk as if lie had just arranged it. On a table to the right . of the desk was a quantity of silver counted in pounds. There was an empty basin on the desk, on the floor a jug, and beyond the jug a towel man. rated with blood. There was a knife lying upon the table —a small office knife—without the slightest mark of blood: and a very small penknife in the drawer, which was half open. Above where the body lay thero was a pair of scissors on the table. I searched for the key of the door in vain. How and when the murderer got into the room, or how he made his escape from the office unnoticed, is a mystery. Whether the murderer was concealed in the corridor, and on trying found the door un locked, or whether, coming to Mr. Liitle's door upon some pretence of lt , iness, Mr. Little admitted him, it is impossible to say ; but it is clear, from the frightful fractures of the skull, from the position of the body, the absence of all marks of a struggle in SATURDAY, the room or on the clothes of the murdered man, and the fact that neither the housekeeper nor her maid heard anything like a struggle going on over head, that the murderer, once in the room, must have struck Mr. Little senseless while he was sitting at the desk, and then deliberately murdered him by repeated blows on the head with a blunt instrument, and at length to have cut his throat, to render death certain : There is no appearance (says the Dublin Freeman) of a struggle or resistance at the door, between which and the desk is a partition topped by a lattice-work, such as is usual in banks and other offices. In this partition is a narrow wicket. The blood is all in one spot, just beside the chair, from which he would appear to have fallen uu the right side. His dress was altogether undisturbed, so that lie must not have attempted the slightest resistance which would render dragging or pulling necessar.. His papa's were all found arranged in systematic order, and the gold and silver made up in cartridges. The notes, made up in several parcels, did not appear to have been mcved. The detectives say they are quite at a loss to imagine how the murderer got into him, and assailed hint at his desk ; but they are convinced he must have been concealed somewhere about the corridor. He has carried off the two instruments he usedlhaving carefully wiped the edged one; he locked the door, and has taken away the key. When he got out of the house is another puzzle. At nine o'clock a number of cross doors are locked ( and they were found locked as usual next morning ), which would compel him to take to a back staircase, by which, before he can get out, he must first go down to the base ment story, traverse some intricate passages, and reascend more stairs to reach the door leading to the platform. This was bolted inside at halt-past eleven, and the station master, who lives in the house, swears he found it open the next morning when going out to his duties atter six o'clock. He never knew this to be the case before. This would tend to show the murderer got out after half-past eleven, in which event he should have been observed by the night watchman on the platform. The detectives and others, however, thought the escape was made so early as fifteen or twenty minutes after seven, when there was bustle consequent on the starting of the mail train, ur at half-past ten, on the arrival of the night train. A coroner's inquest was held on Saturday, but no evidence of imp' rtance was adduced, beyond Oat relating to the discovery of the body, the correctness of the deceased's accounts, and the impossibility that the wounds upon the deceased could have been self inflicted. The jury returned a verdict of " Wilful murder." Since then the police have been engaged day and night in attempting to trace the murderer. Various rumours and reports are of course in circulation, but nothing of real importance has transpired beyond the notable fact that on draining the canal, which flows close to the station, on Wednesday last an engineer's hammer was discovered in the mud, split in the handle, and with human hair caught in the notch. A reward of 5001. for the discove►y of the ,murderer has been offered. Mr. Kemmis, the Crown solicitor, aided by the police, is sparing no exertion that may lead to the apprehension of the assassin, and a private investigation, which commenced on Tuesday, continues with scarcely any interruption. It is stated that, though none of the large sums of money on the cashier's table were touched, yet the deceased's purse and pocket-book, and some 3501. fro►u the cash safe, are missing. A FRIGHTFUL RAILWAY ACCIDENT occurred on the Waterford and Kilkenny line on Wednesday. The Dublin mail train, about two p.m., a few miles below Waterford, ran into an empty ballast-train, which had been permitted to pass on and stand to be filled on the main line, instead of being shunted at the Dunkitt station. The result was a tremendous collision, and a lamentable loss of life. The follow ing are the latest details : At the time the collision took place the working men in the stationary train jumped from it, and a high embank ment being at the side, they rushed to it. All tumbled hack again and were caught by the train and cut to atoms. Four had their heads cut completely off, and one, who was the only victim that showed any signs of life after the collision, had his aims cut off. Human efforts must fail to accurately describe this appalling picture. Brains, blood, and entrails of men, pieces of carriages and engines, goods and luggage, were everywhere visible, and all presented a scene too horrible for contemplation. The engine -drivers, who fortunately leaped on to the side of the truck where the down train should have passed, escaped almost uninjured. The engine of the down train, with tender and goods waggon, was smashed to atoms, the tender standing on end. The following are the names of the five men who were killed:—John Kennedy, Patrick Mur phy, John Hudson, James Myers, and Martin Doyle. The man Kennedy lay in a ditch on one side of the line, with his skull smashed in, out of which might be seen protruding the unfortunate man's brains. Another lay un consciously in the truck, with the wheel of the engine through his back, literally out in two, and having his head completely severed from his body; while a third man might be seen with both arms off. The remaining two men had also their heads severed from their bodies, and under the waggons could be seen strewed about fragments of the remains of the men. All those killed were labourers who had come from Thomastown and were employed in ballasting the line. The unfortunate man Hudson lived for some minutes after the accident occurred, but expired