The Press.
London, England, 1854-02-11 00:00:00

lttibtnts nnb Offnuts.

A FINE TRADER of 800 tons, the Hannibal, out-
ward bound for Sydney, got ashore on the Church
Rocks, near Folkestone, on Saturday evening during
a heavy fog. The place is notorious for its perils,
and the position of the Hannibal was most critical.
Fortunately, the electric telegraph was available on
the coast line, and tidings of the disaster being
flashed to Dover and Ramsgate brought three steam -
tugs to her aid, and by help of A calm sea and rising
tide she was drawn off into deep water by two a.m.
next morning. Within an hour a gale sprang up
which would have infallibly knocked the Hannibal to
pieces if not thus timely rescued.
THE COUNTRY BETWEEN BRIDGWATER AND TAUNTON
is almost one sheet of water, from the overflowing of
streams since the late heavy rains. These overflows,
however, leave a rich deposit, and the district con•
tains some of the finest pasturage in England.
THE principal of the audit department of the
North-Western Railway Company, Mr. Goalen, has
been given into custody on a charge of extensive
frauds, involving an amount of between 5,0001. and
0,0001.
A FRENCHMAN, who calls himself Louis Monte
gnard, and says his father is a merchant in London,
has been charged at Manchester with abstracting
notes and bills to the
Saturday nearly 10,000/. at an
hotel. He went on to the Queen's Hotel
in that city, staid there only two hours, and was
noticed wandering about in the vicinity of the bed-
rooms. Property was afterwards missed from one of
the rooms, and a portmanteau found cut open, from
which money and bills of exchange had been ab-
stracted. The police were advised, and the man
speedily captured at the railway station. The miss-
ing bills, and a large number of similar documents
stolen, as it proves in the same manner, from different
rooms at the hotel, which is much used by mer-
chants, were discovered in his possession.
A NEW RETTIIN OF RAILWAY ACCIDENTS, including
the official accounts on the subject for the half year

129

ending June 30th, 1853, has appeared. The num
ber of persons killed in that period was 148, and the
injured 191. The number of passengers was
45,080,316, and the increase of mileage during the
half year 176, making 7,512 miles of railway open on
the 30th of June. An addition to this return shows

that by collisions and other accidents to trains, in
number 40, there were 31 passengers and servants
killed, and 140 injured.

THE IRON-BOUND COAST OF THE ISLAND OF BARRA,
off the western part of Scotland, has again been the
scene of a heartrending shipwreck, in the total loss
of the Liverpool ship the W. H. Davis, Captain
Carling, master, while on her voyage to New Orleans,

with every soul on board, excepting one man, num-
bering in all thirty sufferers. The ship had become
unmanageable in the course of the recent gales, and
in attempting, on the night of the 27th ult., to weather
Barra Head, she went ashore on the rocks of Vater-
say, within a short distance of the spot where the
Anne Jane was lost, with some 3(X) lives, a few
months since. As soon as the ship touched the
rocks, the master and crew took to the rigging, ex-
pecting, as the wreck heeled over, they would be able
to gain the rocks. However, in a few minutes after-
wards, the ship went to pieces, and the whole num-
ber fell amidst the crumbling wreck and perished.
Only one escaped to disclose their fate—the steward,
a young man named Robert William Rushmore, who
took refuge on the bowsprit, and, as the vessel broke
up, sprang forward and succeeded in reaching the
rocks in safety, although very much bruised.

EIGHT LIVES WERE LOST BY A FEARYUL FIRE
which broke out on Tuesday morning in Princes-
street, Soho. The details were of an unusually
melancholy character. The house was numerously
tenanted. The shop and parlour were occupied by a
man named Reeve, a print and book seller ; in the
Bret floor resided the ostensible landlord, James
Anther, a painter and glazier, with his family ; the
second floor was rented by an interpreter named
Puzzi, who, with his wife and four young children,
occupied the two small rooms of which it consisted ;
and in the front and back attics lived respectively an
aged woman, whose name is unknown, and a Jour-
neyman tailor named Adams, with his wife. It is
believed that the fire was caused by one of the
lodgers, who returned home about three in the morn-
ing, and is supposed to have dropped the match with
which he lighted his candle among some straw. At
all events, flames were first seen by the policeman on
the beat rapidly kindling in the first-floor rooms, and
before the inmates could be roused had extended to
the floors above. A heartrending scene ensued. At
almost every window persons were seen in extreme
terror and peril, their retreat by the staircase cut off,
and the fire gathering closer every minute. Some
time elapsed ere the fire-escape arrived, and when
brought to the spot the dense sheets of flame which
poured from the lower windows rendered it impossi-
ble to mount them. Immediately afterwards the un-
fortunate interpreter Puzzi threw himself on the
pavement, and was terribly injured. At the same
moment his wife and children disappeared from the
window, and seemed to fall back into the fire, which,
by that time, had almost enveloped them. In another
minute all the windows were left vacant, the fire,
fright, and suffocation having paralysed the unhappy
occupants, whose fate could not be doubted. When
the engines arrived very little time sufficed to extin-
guish the flames, and to preserve the lower part of
the house almost undamaged. The ruins were suffi-
ciently cool for examination by eight o'clock, when
the relics, more than half charred, of eight bodies
were found in different rooms. The official report
briefly describes the results of this melancholy catas-
trophe—" that the upper part of the house, from the
ground floor, is destroyed, and the contents consumed.
Eight persons burned to death, and the lower part of
house damaged by water." A ninth victim will pro-
bably be added, the poor man Puzzi not being ex-
pected to recover.
FURTHER investigations are in progress with
respect to the disastrous loss of the Tayleur, and the
result, it is hoped, will remove some painful impres-
sions from the public mind as to the efficiency and
general condition of the vessel when starting on her
voyage. Mr. Grantham, inspector of iron ships for
the Board of Trade, and Mr. Rennie, of Liverpool,
have examined the wreck, at the desire of the owners
and underwriters, and, with the aid of experienced
divers, they have, it is said, clearly ascertained that
the submerged pointed rocks on which the broadside
of the ship struck are such as would have torn to
pieces any vessel, whether of wood or iron, one of the
questions raised on the present occasion being as to
the comparative security of iron or wooden vessels in
cases of shipwreck. Captain Walker, of the Board of
Trade, is still engaged in investigating the circum-
stances of this most melancholy disaster.
THE OAKBANK SPINNING FACTORY, near Glasgow,
was burnt to the ground ou Saturday morning,
nothing being saved, with the exception of a couple
of stories at one of the ends. Three hundred
workers will be thrown idle by the disaster.