The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1877-07-17 00:00:00

MANSIAUGIITER AGAINST Milt DIRECTOR 4 AND THE TOLL.

KRIM!. —TTI R CORONER'S RIMING MECO SRO ED.
After several adjourned enquiries into the deaths of the
who met with their deaths through the recent
fall of a bridge at Bath, the Coroner on Thurs-
day afternoon summed up to the jury. He pointed out
that Colonel Tolland and the other authorities whd had
been called, had stated that at the time of the accident
the bridge could not have supported even 100 persons.
They had a state of thing. which showed that grave
rairponsibility rested somewhere, as the bridge was
incapable of receiving the number its area was supposed
gibe capable of carrying, • contingency which ought to
have been provided for, and either the stability of the
bridge restored, or the necessary measures adopted to keep
off the crowd while it SO remained unsafe. Messrs. King,
who only acted ae trustees under the marriage settlement
of Mrs. Isaac, must be exonerated from any share in the
responsibility. They stipulated, when they became
trustees, that they would take no share in the management
of the bridge, and then they had asked to leave the whole
supervision of the bridge to others. From the position
the Masers. King held in the city, the same meager° of
exoneration must he awarded to Mr. Isaac, who hail been
away on the continent for several years, and had no part
in the management of the structure Mr. Hicks, was •
local resident, and the bridge inight be Us Ni to have
come under his observation, but they had nothing to Amer
that be had anythine to do with the objectionable sign,
to which may be attributed the main cause of the accident,
and they were justified in confining the responsibility of
the management of the bridge to Messrs. Mitchell and
Brace. It was now for them to say whether there was
culpable negligence on the part of these two, and whether
that negligence was of such a degree as to criminate them
by their verdict They had had it proved beyond doubt
by the evidence of Mr. Marsh that this bridge had been
left in • date not only defective in maintenance, but in •
state of danger fora long period, and on any day, by the
accident of overcrowding, it would have been carried
down. The defect was not latent, belt was a visible dis-
tortion, and yet it failed to awaken the attention of the
mansperk and the bridge was allowed to remain in that
mgt. They would, in fact, have to consider whether the
conduct and inaction of those gentlemen constituted gross
negligence. There was another question for them to
consider—whether Tanner, the toll collector, had not
tandered himself liable by shutting the gates. If they
were satisfied that it was he, and not the woman who bad
been spoken of, who actually shut the gates against the
cieerg when the bridge went down, they would have to
wensieter whether he knew of the existence of danger when
he did RE At all events, he was in charge of the gate at
the time, and if he shut the gate he was presumably re-
sponsible, and there could be no doubt that it was to the
detention of the crowd that was to be attributed the
downfall of the bridge.
The jury retired at tea minutes before three to consider
their verdict
On their return into court at six o'clock,
The Foreman said they found that deceased persons
met their death by the falling of the Wideombe footbridge,
and they found a verdict of Manslaturter against Henry
Tanner, Samuel George Mitthe'l, George Bruce, Henry
William Riches, and Thomas William Player Isaac. The
Foreman asked that the fees accruing t. the jury fin
amount =should he banded Over to the Royal United
HasOtaL Bait was smiled for by the various legal
genUmm engaged on behalf of their clients, and the
Coroner said he tad no hesitation in granting it--each
moon In glOO, and two sureties of .F. 50 each.

THE LATEST TICHBORNE STORY.
'The Now )ark 'oared of Commerce says :—" We
received by telegraph an item of San Francisco news
a day or two since giving the recollection of one Oliver
Perry oncerstag the ' Osprey, Captain Owen,' and
its voyage from New Yon in February 1864, for San
Frani:boo, during which, when off the onset of Brazil,
they picked up a boat with an overgrown boy in it,
rammed to be the claimant to the Tichborne estate.
We Os benefit of oar readers, and editors of the rural
.eiko mey Iv, .4 hand O.—
'

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