The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-04-06 00:00:00

FATAL BOAT ACCIDENT AT
MADAGASCAR.

A letter received in Plymouth from one of the crew
of her Majesty's ship Vestal gives an account of a sad
accident off Cape Yanzu, Madagascar. The pinnace,
containing Lieutenant Saul and fourteen men, was
running under reefed sails for the harbour, two miles
distant, in a fresh breeze, when the wind suddenly
went down, arid before there was time to take any
precautions. the boat fell into the trough of a high
sea, filled, and sank immediately. Nine men reached
the shore, some by swimming, and others on oars, but
five were drowned. 'The survivors found themselves
nearly naked and destitute, and forty miles from the
nearest place where help could be obtaine6 ; but the
natives were kind, and, after many privations, the
wrecked men arrived at Majunga.

ASSASSINATION OF LORD LEITRIM.
On Tuesday morning, the Earl of Leitiim, his clerk, and
the driver of a car on which they were proceeding to Lord
Leitrim's residence at Milford, county Donegal, were shot
deyl at Cratlaghwood, a plantation four or live miles from
Milford. The following details of this tragic event are
given :

Lord Leitrim left his residence, Manor Vaughan,
at Milford, shortly before eight o'clock on Tuesday
morning, accompanied by a clerk named Meekins,
and was driving on an outside car to Derry to meet
his solicitor, by appointment. He always carried
arms. It is supposed that the assassins concealed
themselves in the plantation, and that, having first shot
his lordship they shot the clerk and the driver of the
car, named Buchanan. so that there might be no wit-
nesses against them. His lordship's valet was driving
about a mile behind in a tax cart, and on coming up found
his master and the clerk lying dead in the road. Lord
Leitrim's head was bruised from falling off the car.
Life was still in the driver. The assassins, mean-
while, had escaped in a boat across Mulroy Bay. The
valet drove back into Milford and alarmed the police,
who on coming to the place found the driver still
alive, but unconscious. He was removed to Milford,
but died shortly afterwards. There is no doubt that
the murder is agrarian.

Another account says :-,--" The left side of Lord
Leitrim's head is Ho battered that it is difficult to say
whether he was shot there, but he was evidently shot
in the chest, his left arm is broken, and there are
traces of a violent struggle. It is probable that the
assassins after shooting him beat in his head and broke
his arm with the butt-end of a gun. The broken stock
of a fowling-piece was found lying on the ground.
Lord Leitrim was an old soldier, having attained the
rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Army, and as long
as any strength was left in him was likely to make a
desperate resistance. His revolvers were taken
out of his case. He was seated on the left side of his
car when driving, his d
though 1 Watt found on the
right of tho road. His clerk was on the other side,
and the driver was in his seat. The latter was shot
in the mouth, the ball pasiing upwards, and the
clerk was shot 'behind the left ear. Lord Leitrim
was found lying on the right side of the road. A
ditch about 21t. high skirts the road in front of a low
plantation, and over this the assassins took aim.
Behiod is Mulroy Bay. No arrests have yet been
made.

The noble lord who has been the victim of this
cruel deed was William Sydney Sketlington Clements,
the third earl, the second, but eldest surviving, son of
the second earl, by his marriage with the eldest
daughter and co-heiress of the late Mr. William
Bermingham, of 11.,!es Hill, in the county of
'Galway. He was born in Dublin in 1809, and
!served for some years in the 51st Foot, but re-
tired from the army with the rank of Lieu-
tenant-Colonel. He sat in the House of Commons
as one of the members for county Leitrim from 1839,
when he succeeded to his elder brother's seat, down to
the General Election of 1847. He was Colonel of the
Leitrim Militia, and was f crmerly a magistrate for
the counties of Galway, Leitrim, and Donegal.
He succeeded to the family honours and estates
in 185, and held a seat in the House of
Peers as Lord Clements, a title conferred on
his father by Lord Grey shortly before the passing of
the first Reform Bill. As Lord Leitrim lived and
died unmarried, the earldom and other inferior
honours pass to his nephew, Mr. Robert Bermingham
Clements, only son of the late Hon. and Rev. Francis
Nathaniel Clements, by his first wife, Charlotte,
dawhter of the Rev. Gilbert King; of Longfield, in
the county of Tyrone. He was born in 1847, and
married, in 187_ ,3 Lady Winifred Coke, fifth daughter
of the present Earl of Leicester.

. At Colchester, on Saturday morning, Lieutenant
A. C. Hill, 108th Regiment, relinquished the task he had
undertaken to walk eighty miles in twenty-four hours,
'dressed as a private soldier, carrying rifle, knapsack, valise,
, the accoutrements, exclusive of dress, weighing over
'2Blb. Be did sixty miles in twenty-two hours.
According to a Sheffield paper, Mr. Roebuck fully
approves of the action of the Government, and believe its
members are actuated by a patriotic desire for the honour
land safety of England. He thinks it may he necessary for.
Englatutto occupy Gallipoliand perhaps certain po,itiotis
ear the Black Sea niouth of the Bosphorus, but the chief
dependence of Eugland should be on her Lavy. With that
immense force England could blockade every Russian port,
and thus compel her to yield.