The Press.
London, England, 1856-08-30 00:00:00

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AUGUST 30, 1856.

the fire, then losing his presence of mind tore out
his boxes of gold from underneath the bed,
snatched up the burning bluelight, rushed upon
deck, and. mad with fright and alarm for his
dear guineas, screamed out for, and scrambled to,
the lee boat : the ship gave a lee lurch, he tumbled
over the hencoops, and dropped boxes and all to the
bottom, not of the boat, but of the British Channel.
Here was a pleasant termination to all his sufferings,
hopes, and frights. It was very hard. The night
was dark, the deck was slippery ; but for a seaman of
fifty years to lose his sea-legs, tumble over the hen-
coops, and deliberately drop his two boxes of gold
into the water, would not bear reflection. Cooler
after the catastrophe, he did not jump is after them,
but immediately reported the case to the under-
writers, who declined to pay the insurance. An action
t iok place, a commission hal been sent to Australia,
and the present action was the result. Several wit-
nesses corroborated these various facts, when Mr.
Sergeant Wilkins, for the defence, rose and admitted
that the claim would be no further disputed :
His Loansme : I think that is quite right ; I am glad
the case has terminated in this way. At first it struck me
as one of the most ludicrous things in the world that a
man should have tripped in the British Channel, and
dropped his boxes of gold into the sea. But the truth is,
when the thing becomes thoroughly sifted, f am satisfied
of the correctness of the case. I think the underwriters
would have acted exceedingly wrongfully if they had not
fought out the case to the beet of their ability ; but I own
1 feel as satisfied as a man can be by hearing an ex parte
case that Captain Petrie has made out his case. It is
clear, it is abundantly proved over and over again, that he
had the means of having the gold in his possession. My
notion is—and I have repeatedly expressed it since I had
the honour of a seat on the bench—that very rarely yon
will find people commit a fraud unless the thing is done
and completed in a very short space of time indeed ; and
to doubt the plaintiff in this case would be to suppose a
most elaborate scheme of fraud on his part. I must say
I feel satisfied—of course keeping one's mind in reserve
for the other side of the question—that he has made oat
his case.

The learned judge further said that, if he were Cap-
tain Petrie, he would take nothing less than his
entire claim, and a verdict was accordingly entered.

A STAFFORDSHIRE JURY have just rivalled their
Bodmin bretbren in a testimonial " non-sequitur."
The question for inquiry was the cause of the late
explosion in Lord Ward's Ramrod - hall Colliery,
Oldbury, whereby four men were killed. The pit
was under the management of two responsible
persons, Mr. Spruce, the ground bailiff, and the butty,
Baker. The evidence clearly proved that the pit was
left unworked and unvisited between the Saturday
and the following Wednesday ; that, in disobedience
to Act of Parliament, the pit had not been tried with
a safety-lamp on the morning of the explosion, and
that the ventilation was grossly neglected. The
Government inspectors were both of opinion that
gross neglect, and a disregard of the most ordinary
precautionary measures, were the causes of the explo
sion, and that the ground manager and the Inlay
(one of the men killed) were the responsible persons.
The coroner in summing up said :
He considered that on this occasion the hutty (Baker)
had been guilty of the grossest and most culpable neglect,
fur after he had received warning from below, and had been
requested to bring the safety lamp down into the pit with
sin,, and after a lamp had actually been sent for, he said,
"Oh, there's no sulphur," and went down into the pit
with the other men, carrying with him a quantity of
ligh•ed coals, which caused the explosion. If Baker were
now alive, he (the Coroner) should have felt it his duty to
direct them to find a verdict of manslaughter against him,
for there could be no doubt that had he performed his duty
the explosion would have been prevented. Having dis-
posed of the case as regarded Baker, it would be for the
jury to consider whether Mr. Spruce or any other person
had been guilty of such culpable negligence as to warrant
a verdict of manslaughter against them.

The jury, who had not. asked a single question
of any of the witnesses, and did not appear at all to
understand the evidence as it was laid before them,
then retired, anti shortly afterwards announced that
they had agreed to a verdict of " Accidental death."
The Coroner : Do you all agree to that verdict?
Foreman : Yes, we are all agreed !—And Mr. Spruce
probably thinks himself fortunate.

At; INQUIRY into the alleged flogging of certain
girls in Marylebone Workhouse has taken place this
week before the guardians. The evidence was con
flicting. The girls swore to having been cruelly
beaten by the porters, and the house-surgeon deposed
to having found weals and bruises on their persons.
The master denied, on the other hand, that he had
authorised the use of canes ; and the porters and
matrons swore to the uproarious conduct of the girls,
who beat and kicked them till they were obliged, in
self-defence, to use " prompt " measures. They
denied, however, having beaten or illtreated the
girls.

MR BAXTER, of Greenside, near Durham, a retired
i ngneotor of Excise, has been arrested for the murder
ci his wife. The circumstbucAm are curious. Mr.

THE PRESS.

and Mrs. Baxter were accustomed every night to
get very drunk. Last Friday (week) night they re-
tired to bed in their usual agreeable state. About
two a.m. their servant was roused by the bedroom
hell ringing. She got up, went into the room, found
her mistress lying hal f off the bed, and her roaster in it,
both apparently helplessly drunk. She put her mis-
tress into bed and went away. About four a.m. she
was roused by the voice of her master crying out that
Mrs. Baxter was dead ! She ran into the room and
found Mrs. Baxter dead and cold. On Monday an
inquest was held. The jury viewed the body, and to
their surprise they discovered marks of discolouration
about the body and a clear ring round the throat.
They adjourned, a post-mortem examination took
place, and the medical men decided that deceased
had died from strangulation. The inquest was re-
sumed, but the jury could not agree to a verdict.
The coroner dismissed them, ordered the arrest of
Mr. Baxter, and has laid the circumstances before
the Home Secretary.
THE SUSPECTED MURDER AT HAMPTON-COURT is
Still enveloped in mystery, as the phrase goes, that is
to say the police, as usual of late, have utterly failed
as yet to discover any facts connected with the man's
death, to trace the large sum of money he was known
to possess on the day of his death, or to account for
his being found in the Thames with a frightful
wound in his side. The exhumation of the body this
week, and a more careful examination, has resulted
in the discovery of several swan-shot in the left lung,
going far to prove that the deceased was shot down
and then flung into the river. The stomach of the
deceased will be analysed to discover, if possible,
whether he was drugged or not before death. The
adjourned inquest was resumed on Thursday and
adjourned for further inquiry, information having
been received that the deceased had been seen alive
after the day mentioned in the depositions.
A PATIENT IN THE LEICESTER LUNATIC &SSYLUM, one
Sparrow, was put into a hot bath last week for punish-
ment by two of the attendants. The poor fellow, in
his violent struggles to free himself from his forcible
immersion, turned the hot- water tap. The attendants
did not perceive this for some minutes, when they
took Sparrow out of the bath. He was severely
scalded, and, from the fright, excitement, and injury,
died in three days. The jury, at the inquest, found
a verdict of "Accidental death," passing a severe
censure on the attendants.

A DREADFUL MURDER has been committed in
Liverpool. A man named William Ray, quarrelling
with a woman be lived with, struck her. She
threatened that if he struck her again she would
" stick " him. He dealt her another blow, when she
immediately snatched up a knife and plunged the
blade in his breast, producing a wound of about two
inches deep under the left nipple, in the region of
the heart. He rose from the table, and, followed by
the woman, went into an upper room, shook her by
the hand, said " I forgive you," and fell back dead.
The woman has been committed for trial on the
charge of " Wilful murder."
Two COLLIERS, Griffiths and John, were committed
for trial last week, at the Cardiff Sessions, for ac-
tempting to set fire to the Cefn colliery, Iythegstone.
MR, JOSEPH PAVINTON. of Thornton-heath, Croy-
don, blew out his brains last week in a fit of melan
choly. For many years past he had been in extremely
delicate health l'iom an injury to the hip. The jury
returned a verdict of " Temporary insanity."
JOSEPH MARTIN, a respectable, well educated
shipping clerk, was committed by Mr. Hamill, on
Thursday, for six months' bard labour, for cruelty to
his wife.

THOMAS MANSELL, a private in the 49th Regiment,
encamped at Dover, deliberately snot one of his
comrades, M‘Burney, last Wednesday. Mansell
has been handed over to the civil authorities.

,40
"741,40"

'lva woes++. -loir

827

as the most favorable ports. The minute then ob-
serves that if a steam-packet service be established
by a private company, the Government will adopt it
as a mail passage, and make such improvements in
the ports as may be required. The minute con-
cludes :

But, before my lords proceed actually to incur any ex-
pense upon the ports named, for their improvement, in
pursuance of any report that may be made by the Ad-
miralty, it will be quite necessary that they should be well
satisfied that all the arrangements herein referred to, and
which would be necessary to give public utility to the
scheme, will be completed.

With regard to the memorials for aid in completing
the railways by a public loan, it appears there is no
fund disposable for such a purpose except that an-
nually voted by Parliament for public works, and
administered under the board of commissioners ap-
pointed for the purpose:—
It will (says the minute) therefore be necessary for
those requiring such a loan to apply to the Public Loan
Commissilmers, with whom rests the responsibility of
judging of the security to be accepted in such cases, and
who alone can determine how far the other demands upon
the fund at their disposal will enable them to entertain the
rcquest.
_ _

A CORRESPONDENCE between the Lord Mayor and
the Earl of Clarendon upon the subject of the con-
tributions lately raised in this country for the rclia
of the sufferers by the late inundations in France,
has been published. The Lord Mayor states
that 705,000 f. (30,6001.) has been sent from
London; that the total subscription has reached
32,0001.; and be has no doubt the contributions
from other towns will sw'll the amount to nearly
50,0001. Lord Clarendon, in reply, says :

I have not failed to lay your lordship's letter before the
Queen, who has commanded me to express to you her
entire approval of the manner in which the committee so
worthily presided over by your lordship has discharged
the duties which it undertook. Her Majesty also desires
me to convey to your lordship the assurance of the great
satisfaction with which she has observed the generous
sympathy displayed by the public in responding to the
appeal made to them by the committee, and in thus en-
deavouring to alleviate the calamity which had befallen the
people in certain departments ofilerance.

Mr. Hugh Seymour Tremenheere's report on the
mining districts for 1856 has just been published.
The commissioner urges the necessity of a measure
to compel all boys between ten and fourteen years of
age, who work below ground, to attend some school
for 100 hours every six months. The efforts at, im-
provement made at the great mining districts of
Monmouthshire and Glamorganshire are next no-
ticed. The proprietors have taken some steps to
provide for their people better means of moral, reli-
gious, and general instruction. The unfeminine
employment of women upon the " pit-banks and
cinder tips" has long been indicated as degrading to
the female character, and EIS fraught with many
and most obvious evils. A woman of this class,
so brought up, and from an early age, marries
at or soon after twenty ; and how, it is
asked, is she qualified for the discharge of the con-
jugal duties! The strike in the principal coal and
iron districts in Scotland occupies the remainder of
the report. The loss of wages between March and
June (when the strike terminated) is estimated at a
minimum of 500,0001., but this very imperfectly
represents the total loss inflicted upon the commu-
nity. These strikes are likely to take place from
time to time in Scotland, and the employers are
urged to adopt, without delay, such measures as may
tend to abridge their duration. Mr. Tremenheere
thinks that it is possible, were the effort fairly made,
to establish eo much confidence between workmen
and masters as should satisfy the former, when a
demand for an increase of wages was resisted by
the latter, that they really could not afford to comply
with the request.

FROM THE LONDON GAZETTE.
Tuesday, August 26.
BANKRUPTS. EDWARD JACKSON Dsvirs, High street,

Poplar, draper—Hann TURNER, late of Kingstreet,-Hclhorti,
ribbon manufacturer and licensed victualler—Jons RICHARD-
YON, Trinity-street, Cambridge. taiIor—CHARLES WATERS BANES,
GEORGE BANKS, and ROBERT BANES, Bermondsey New-mad,
Surrey, printers and publishers—SAMUEL I3ATLY, Bournemouth,
Southan pton, hOI(3I4I3OperCLIARLES HAMILTON COLLINS, late
of Great St. Helen's, City, merchant—WlLLlAM HENET
WHEELER, Mickleton, Gloucester. brewer—Geoaon Dotoot,
Birmingham, painter and glazier—Tnomss Houle, Stoke-two*.
Trent, Stafford, innkeeper—Grusue PUCICRIN,TunstaII. Stafford,
grocer—Timm PERCIVAL WILLCOX and EDWIN WILLGOZ.
Bristol, contractors--Jsmrs MICHELL, Crews-hole, St. George,
and Westbury-upomTrym, Gloucester, copper and lead smelter—
JOSHUA MINNS, Dukintield, Cbester, cottan manufacturer
WALTER ADAM SLATER, Standish and Preston, coal proprietsr
and dealer—Baum BRADY Simpson, Deptford, Sunderland,
builder.