Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-02-09 00:00:00

LIFE IN NEW ORLEANS.

The New Orleans _Delta relates a horrible story.
Colonel Peck, a- member of the State Legislature, and a
Mr. C: N. Harris had had a quarrel about a yean ago.
They both happened to be staying at the. St. Charles
Hotel, New Orleans, on the 12th of January. Colonel
Peck and a friend were pushing their way through a
crowd after dinner, when Mr. Harris, who was unknown
to the friend of Colonel Peck, turned round and asked
if they intended to insult him by pushing against
him. Colonel Peck's friend replied politely that .no
one intended to insult him. Harris, while asking
the question, looked at Colonel Peck, who at once recog-
nised Lim. Harris, after an answer given by Colonel
Peck's friend, and, looking directly at Peck, said, as he
placed his hand in his pocket,_ to the latter, with an
oath, " You intended to insult me." Harris, the
moment he finished speaking, drew a pistol and fired at
Peck, who was in the act of placing his hand in his side
pocket for his pistol. - After firinc, and missing his aim,
Harris turned and ran through° the crowd. A short
while after this affray Harris was arrested for
disturbing the peace of the St. Charles Hotel by
firing a pistol .in the Rotunda, and locked
up. When he was arrested he - had in his room a
'revolver, a Dorringer pistol, and a bowie knife, which
were also taken- to the station house. He was ar-
raigned before Recorder Summers, and fined 20 dols.,
upon paying which his weapons were handed back to
him. Next day Peek confronted Harris as he was pay-
ing his hotel bill. The clerk, Mr. Mayne, who had just
handed Harris a ten-dollar bill in change, says that
Peck looked for about, a quarter of a minute at Harris,
then a few. words passed, which he did not hear, and
both drew about the same moment and fired, but he thinks
that Colonel Peck shot first. Others state that as Col.
Peck advanced towards Harris, the latter asked, him if
he intended taking advantage of him ; that Peck replied,-
" You took advantage of me yesterday. I am armed
and I suppose you are ;" that both then drew, some sap
that Peck shot a little in advance, some say that Harris
shot first, and others that the reports were simultaneous.
Another version of the affair is that Peck asked
Harris if he was armed, and 'he, avoiding the question,
replied, " I am not prepared to have a difficulty with you
here, and I wish you would leave me ;" and that both
drew at once. The firing having commenced, Harris
retreated, and finally dodged into the door of the small
bar and cigar room, and shielding himself-partly behind
the glass door, looked out, and fired from time to time.
Peck, while Harris retreated, stepped out from the office
and fired several shots—three of which took- effect upon
the person 'of Harris—and was in that position when
he was fired at from the room. Exhausting,hiS pistol,
Peck drew his bowie knife and advanced deliberately
towards the door of the cigar shop, from behind which
Harris had shot, and seemed to hesitate a moment
whether to:enter. - The next moment Harris fired at the
open doorwiiy, the ball of his pistol entering the side or
jamb of the door.. After firing the last shot; Harris ran
back just as Peck entered the door and got over the
marble counter at the bar, and into a corner among the
bottles. PeCk following. sprang over after him, and
grasping hold of him, inflicted
,upon .his person four
stab wounds with the bowie knife. Harris was picked

up and placed on the flour for a few moments, and
then carried to his roeSm near by, expiring almost
the moment he was placed upon his bed. The excite-
ment was very intense, and most of the crowd got
out' of the way at the first firing. Some got behind
pillars, others ran -into the passans leading to the
dining-room and ladies' parlour, and not a few, think-
ing it too late to fly, made shields of the chairs. A.
group of gentlemen were standing conversing, imme.
diately,
,in a line with the shot from Harris, which
lodged in the wall a few feet above their heads. Harris
received the following wounds : One shot wound
in the right shoulder, two stab wounds in the left
shoulder, one stab wound in the left' arm, one stab
wound in the left side, behieen. the fifth and sixth
ribs, penetrating the lungs; one shot wound in the
right side, between the seventh and eighth ribs, pene-
trating the' liver. The two wounds last above men-
tioned were the immediate cause of death. One shot
wound •in the breast, between first and second ribs.
Peck was arrested immediately after the murder.

In Tasmania public attention was rivetted upon the
details of several frightful murders, believed to have
been perpetrated by the desperadoes who, through the
benign policy of the home government, are let loose
upon the colony. It is even suggested in the colonial
parliament, that the dangerous members of the com-
munity should be summarily deported at the expense of
Tasmania, and landed in England.—Australian
SINGULAR AND-FATAL ACCIDENT AT BILSTON.—The
town of Bilston, a district of the parliamentary borongh,
of Wolverhampton, is built over. part of the South
Staffordshire coalfield. 'ln many parts the mineral is
entirely removed, and the props used in-supporting the
roofs of the workings are taken away. In consequence,
the houses' built over these parts have been rendered
insecure by the subsidence of the soil, .and this. is the
case with a block of houses in High-street, which are
also old and decayed in their timbers. On -Monday
evening, whilst • the occupier of one of these, a shoe-
maker, named John Welsh, was asleep in bed with his
wife "and two young children, the roof of the building
fell in, and 'a mass of the debris falling upon Welsh,
injtired him so severely that he, died about ten o'clock
the same morning,'
DAMAGE TO THE BISHOP ROCK LIGHTHOUSE (ISLES_
OF SCILLY.—The Cornish Te/egrapkreports that, daring
a 'violent gale on Monday, the 30th ult., 14 or 15 panes
of 'plate-glass (5-Bths thick) in this lighthouse were
broken, the' large brass ladder outside, and the 'fog-
bell suspended to the gun-metal 'gallery round the
lantern, from 120 to 130 feet above the sea, being
carried away. This bell weighed 4 cwt.; and could be,
heard a mile off'in calm weather. The lighthouse was
flooded, and shook so much that earthenware fell from
the cupboards. On Wednesday last boats went from
St. Mary's, but to land was impracticable. Letters,
however' . were passed off by ropes, and the damage is
roughly calculated at £1;000.
Soars OF THE RESULTS OF THE GREAT EXHIBITION
OF 1851.—1 t is not our intention now to enter upon the
discussion of the merits of the proposition put forward,
nor to consider the condition of the political atmosphere
of Europe ; but it may be well to impress upon the
mind of the public the important results which have
already flowed from the Exhibition of 1851. England
now possesses an Industrial, Art, and Educational
Museum. An. Are Museum, which illnstrates more
fully and worthily than has ever before been done,
the character -of the English School ; an Educa-
tional Museum, which it never before possessed, and
which includes within it the Products of the animal
kingdom, and which, when added to the Geological
Museum in Jermyn-street, and the Vegetable Museum
of Kew, places the products of the three kingdoms of
nature before the student for ready reference; and an
Industrial collection, which embraces within its wide-
spread arms the products of the potter's wheel, the loom,
and the last improved form of the mighty steam-enginc,
while it at the same time illustrates the means available
for constructing healthy homes, and increasing the com-
fort derivable by the working man in the economic use
and treatment of food substances. If such results have
already been reaped in' eight years from a single exhibi-
tibn—if such increased facilities for the instruction of the
artisan have been created, to what results may we not
look forward as likely to flow from a seQoAd exhibition
to be held in 1862 ?—Once a Week,