The Express.
London, England, 1867-06-08 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, JUNE 8, 1867.

Mr. Xewton observed that if this was not agreed to, he
should dismiss the summons with costs. There was of
course no aspersion on defendant's character—that was
understood.

The reward wu handed over, and the watch once again
changed hands.

THAMES.
DEATH OF A !MOLAR ON BOARD MHIP.

On Tuesday last, a poor man. named Mc:luinneas, and
his wife, dwelling at No. 54, Bell-street, Edgware-road,
came before Mr. Partridge, and complained that their
son, Allan Goodridge McGuinness, ordinary seaman on
board the ship Marlborough, had been brutally murdered
on board that ship in the course of her voyage to the East
Indies and back, and that four or five of the crew bad
informed them that he was badly used by the captain. Mr.
Partridge ordered an immediate inquiry to be made by
Daniel Smith. a police-constable, No. 415 K, who now
came before the court with three seamen, and said the
deceased was sent aloft to grease the masts in consciuence
of some neglect of duty, and while thus engaged he
had the misfortune to be attacked with coup de Nadel! or
or sun stroke, which affected his intellect, and he died
11l days afterwards. He was not able to ascertain that
the captain had treated the young man with any
particular harshness before he was attacked with a sun•
stroke. After the seaman was taken ill he received medi-
cine, and was attended by the captain till he died.
Mr. Partridge, after questioning the seamen, said he
did not see any grounds for his interference at present, and
he should leave the case in the hands of Inspector Allison,
an experienced officer of the K division, who would make
further inquiries, and interfere if he thought there were
any reasonable grounds for doing so.

'Whitson week is pretty well crowded with racing
fixtures, West Drayton on Monday, Windsor on Tuesday
and Wednesday, and Hampton on Thursday and Friday,
giving the metropolitan division plenty of choice.

- - - -
The Sporting Life says it is believed that the
Marquis of Hastings has won at Ascot this week quite
20,0001. in bets, " which is a fair instalment of his lord-
ship's late heavy Derby losses."
Fonstost-orries, JUNE t —The Queen has been
pleaserito Approve of Mr. T. H. Probst as consul at Hong
Kong for his Majesty the King of Prussia.-6'n:rtfe.
UNITED LAW Cuticles' SOCIETY.—The Vioe-
Chancellor, Sir R. Malin, will preside at the 35th Fes.
tival of this Association. to take place in the New Hall of
the Freemasons' Tavern, on the 14th June, and will be
supported by some of the judges and leading members of
the bar. The society now numbers 760 members, and
has nearly 40,0001. surplus capital.
GOOD GROUNDS FOR A STRIKE. —The whole of
the pitmen usually employed in Washington Colliery, on the
Wear, have struck work, and have refused to go Into the
pit until proper " Imps" are put into the shalt, to prevent,
if possible, the recurrence of an accident to the cage, such
as that which happened at the pit last week, by which two
men and lads were killed. The masters promise to get the
" keps" put in as soon as possible, but the men refuse to
resume work until these safeguards are completed.
The men also complain that their lives are en-
dangered by • locomotive being allowed to run
between the engine-house and the 'haft month,
by which, if the men are being drawn to bank at the
time the engine is passing, the engineman is likely
to be prevented from seeing the cage arrive at the bank.
The men have determined to seek legal advice to see if it
is possible to get some legal compensation for the families
of the men who were killed on Friday week. Two of them
only were members of the Miners' Permanent Benefit So-
ciety.—Lord Kinnaird writes to the Times Another
fearful accident, attended with serious loss of life, has oc-
curred in the Washington Pit, near Newcastle, the result,
it would appear, of culpable negligence on the part of the
proprietors of the pit in not adopting the safety cage and
the automatic disengaging hook. Accidents are of fre-
quent occurrence from overwinding and breakage of
ropes, and yet mine owners and managers will
not adopt these simple precautions by which
the majority of such accidents might be prevented.
I cannot help thinking that it would be worth while for
the Miners' Association to bring an action of damages on
behalf of the relatives of these poor people against the pro-
prietors of the pit. They might, perhaps, recover damages,
as in the case of railway accidents, on the plea that proper
precaution had not been taken to prevent accidents. I
suspect this will be the only way of dealing with some
mine owners who are reckless in regard to the life of their
men, as I despair of the legislature making the adoption
of proper precaution for the safety of human life coin.
SINGULAR AND FATAL ACCIDENT.—An inquest
I was held at the University College Hospital yesterday by
I Dr. Lankester, on the body of William Stable. aged 26, a
fireman, in the employ of the London and North-Western
Railway Company. On Tuesday last an engine and ten-
' der, on which was deceased, was proceeding slowly towards
I the Ruston-square station. Deceased got on the top of the
coals in the tender, with his back towards the direction in
which they were going, in order to get some food from his
box. He did not observe that an engine was taking in water
on an adjoining line, and that the ball projecting from the
arm of the watering pipe was over the line on which he
was travelling. Having got what he wanted from the box
he rose and turned, and just as he did so his head came in
contact with the ball, and he was knocked from the top of
the tender to the ground. He was taken to the hospital,
where it was found that he had sustained severe laceration
of the skull, and a fracture extending from the base of the
I skull round to the forehead. He died in 48 hours. The
jury returned a verdict of "Accidental death," and ap-
pended a resolution recommending the railway company to
abolish the projecting halls where they endanger life. The
representative of the company stated that the balls were
being abolished and hoses being substituted.
A LADY DROWNED WHILST BATHING.—A very
melancholy occurrence, resulting in the death of a young
lady and the narrow escape of her mother, took place at
the sea-tetthing resort of Silloth on Wednesday. The two
ladies, having gone into the water to bathe, got beyond
their depth, and before • rescue could be effected life was
found to be extinct in the case of the daughter, and the
mother was so much exhausted that fora time no signs of
life were apparent. The deceased young lady, Miss tireig,
had just left a boarding school at Peebles, and gone home
to Selkirk to join her mother and aunt, who were about
to proceed to Silloth, and who arrived there on Wednes-
day of but week. The news of the mournful event reached
Selkirk on Thursday forenoon, and as it became known
throughout the town a general feeling of sorrow was ex-
for the melancholy fate of the young lady, and
heartfelts sympathy for her relatives, who are highly re-
spected by all classes in the town and district of Selkirk.
—Edinburgh Courant

IMPROVED POSTAL ARRANORMLNTS.--COOTary
readers of London newspapers will be glad to learn that
the Post-office authorities have in contemplation an im-
portant modification in the arrangements for despatching
newspapers by the morning mails. Inquiries are now
being made with a view to ascertain whether the
change would be likely to work well, or whether it would so
limit the time as to render it generally inconvenient. It
is proposed. to send the newspapers by the letter mails,
at 6 a.m., instead of a separate despatch at 8 a.m. aa at
present ; and as they would thus have the advantage of a
quick transit instead of a slow one, the difference in the
time of receipt at distant places would frequently amount
to several hours, so that the advantage would be enormous.
The Post-office at present require the papers for Ireland
to be separated from those for other parte of the kingdom,
to facilitate the despatch ; and by extending this order,
by the division of the kingdom into (say) ten postal dis-
tricts, with one for Fr race and one for Ireland, the time
from the publication of the newspaper in London and its
delivery to its distant readers would be reduced to the
minimum.—Mislay Journal.

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A STUPID H05.1.--Some West of England paper
—which will, we trust, explain its connection with the
anecdote—recently published a piece of intelligence to the
effect that her Majesty had determined to bestow a half-a-
million sterling upon a London hospital. The first thing
to observe about such a hoax is that it is absolutely stupid
and childish. Anybody who had the opportunity of pro-
mulgating rarely, and without risk of personal detection,
such an assertion might of course do so, and be believed,
until his story was contradicted by the few persons who
could do so with authority. There is no reason
why any one should be ashamed of accepting
the falsehood in the first instance as true. Its wide
circulation reflects no shadow of dishonour on the
credulity of the world. It exposes no literary charlatan,
it raises the laugh at no impostor. The story is nothing
better than a lie ; and, unless a horse-dealer's lie about a
horse or a grocer's lie about a chest of tea is a clever and
witty joke, the lie about the Queen's charitable donation
is not either clever, witty, or jocose. In the second place,
the sole object of the hoax—if hoax it can be called—has
been to annoy and vex those about whom it was invented.
And lastly, this annoyance and vexation was meant to be
inflicted on a woman whocannot protect herself against such
unmanly cowardice, and who has done nothing to deserve
it. Against the anonymous malice of • ruffian there is of
course no remedy ; but when practical joking takes
this form. it does not deserve condign punishment the less
because it often succeeds in escaping it. Anybody can
chalk up an impertinence upon a door and run away. Any-
body can fling mud at a passing carriage and make off down
the nearest alley. This is precisely what the originator of
the silly fraud to which we refer has done. Probably it
would not be impossible to discover the offender, but it is
equally probable that, when discovered, he would turn out
to be some poor creature to whom a ducking in a horse-pond
would not really be a serious indignity. The occurrence
will, we trust, be sufficient to call attention to the vulgarity
and uselessness of such brilliantand ingenious literary jokes,
which are not, we regret tonal, becoming leas common in this
country as newspapers increase in number and in circula-
tion. If there were nothing else to be said against them,
it is desirable that the authors of them should learn to
appreciate the fact that liters 7 hoer., ought at
least to have some literary merit. There is nothing
more ludicrous, except indeed when it results in
mischief, than the forced and dull facetiousness of an
ass. The ass in Aeon's fable who took upon him.
self to amuse his master by his gambols received as his
only reward a sound cudgelling, and though the cudgel in
the present case will possibly be dispensed with, we cannot
congratulate the press of the West of England on their
=on amongst them of • romping donkey.—Saterday