The Sun.
London, England, 1855-11-21 00:00:00

TRIAL OF A NEW LIFE-BOAT.

A. very successful trial of the qualities of Mr. T. C.
Clarkson 's (of High-street, Wapping) patent cork life-
boat was made yesterday morning in Portsmouth dock-
yard. She is constructed of alternate layers of sheet
cork, canvas, and thin wood, adhered by adhesive sub-
stances, which give elasticity, with greater strength than
ordinary wood. She was launched from the dockyard
wall into the harbour, having on board the inventor and
four others, volunteers from the ships in the port. The
height of the wall from the water was ten feet perpen-
dicular, and being plunges from the edge of the wall
without anything to guide her or keep her upright, she
entered the water safely, soon righting herself, from her
buoyant qualities, and not having shipped much water.
She was then capsized, but immediately regained her
proper position ; and in two or three other trials of
placing her on her beam ends, she appeared to possess
so great an amount of buoyancy as to render upsetting
almost impossible. There were also a number of con-
trivances displayed for clearing her of water in the event
of shipping a sea. By taking portions of her to pieces a
raft was formed capable of buoying up 10 to 15 persons.
Altogether, in cases of emergency, this boat and her fit-
tings was represented to be able to support 200 persons,
though •nly 27 feet long, and 7 feet 6 inohes beam. The
experiments were highly interesting.

-,Cr•-•

Another body of volunteers arrived at Woolwich on
Monday from the Militia. They were to the number of
52, all volunteers from the Lancashire Militia Artillery
at Northfort, Liverpool, for the Royal Regiment of
Artillery, and appeared to be a fine set of young men,
well adapted to the Artillery service.
Captain Hill, 75th Regiment, has been qualified as an
instructor in musketry, and is to hold himself in readi-
ness for immediate embarkation for India, in charge of
19 non-commissioned officers and soldiers belonging to
the Indian depots, who have gone through a course of
instruction at Hythe. The Board of East India Direc-
tors have decided that the mode of instruction pursued
at Hythe shall be adopted throughout the Indian army.
Captain William Nott, 83d, and Lieutenant Wm. H.
Ballingall, 35th Regiments, having qualified themselves
at the School of Musketry at Hythe, have been ap-
pointed instructors to the Provisional Battalion, Chat-
ham, under the command of Ccl. Henry Jervois. Two
depots are kept off duty for instruction in the Enfield
Rifles, all officers belonging to such depots being re-
quired to attend. A detachment who recently volun-
teered to the 19th have marched to their depot, Walmer,
having become expert marksmen.
The necessary arrangements have just been made for
the erection of a monument to the late distinguished
General Sir Walter Raleigh Gilbert, Bart. The site
selected is the Beacon at Bodmin, and it will consist of
an obelisk of granite, 144 feet in height from the sur-
face of the ground.
THE MONSTER MORTAR.—We have every reason to
be:ieve that the difficulties experienced in constructing a
monster gun or mortar are likely to be overcome through
the genius and skill of our scientific countryman, Mr.
Robert Mallet. The attempt to weld together longi-
tudinal bars, so as to form a cylinder, failed in the hands
of one of the ablest English engineers, from the circum-
stance that the long-continued high temperature main-
tained during the process of welding produced a ten-
dency to crystallisation, and, therefore, was destructive
of that fibrous structure essential to the strength of iron
for artillery purposes. In Mr. Mallet's mortar the
cylinder is formed by a series of fiat rings, fitting in one
onother by flanges, n d clamped together by strong es
ternal bolts. The force exerted by the explosive gas is
chiefly lateral, and not longitudinal ; that is, it has a
tendency to burst the cylinder in a direction at right
angles to its axis, and only a small force comparatively
to separate these rings in a direction parallel to the axis.
We understand that one of these mortars has been com-
pleted at Millwa,ll, and the shell already cast. The di-
mensions are startling. Instead of the 13 inch shell (the
largest hitherto) weighing about 2001 b., and carrying 30
pounds of powder inside, we are to have a shell of 36
inches diameter, weighing about 2,4001 b., and charged
with half a ton of gunpowder. The range will be about
half as far again as that of the 13 inch mortar. Hence
a dozen such shells would have left Sebastopol in ruins.—
Dublin Daily Expresa.
"DRUMMING OUT THREE OFFICERS."—Three officers
of the 3d Regiment of Light Infantry of the German
Legion deserted, and were subsequently apprehended
while endeavouring to make their escape from this
country—two of them intending to start for America,
and the other for Rotterdam. A. charge of embezzle-
ment was also laid agiinst one of the delinquents—the
sum of 601., which had been entrusted to him for the
purpose of paying the men, was applied to his own use.
The names of the officers were Lieutenant Rotzol, En-
sign von Woyna, and Ensign von Prondzinski, and
shortly after their apprehen-ion they were reconveyed to
Shorncliffe, where a court-martial was held yesterday
week, and they were sentenced to be degraded and dis-
missed the service. The troops were immediately pa-
raded, and after being formed into a hollow square, the
" officers " were brought out under guard and placed in
the centre. They were rhea addressed by General Stut-
terheim, who pointed out to them in strong terms the
disgrace they had brought upon themselves and thei:
comrades.' The usual forms of degradation, the tearing
up of the commissions, &c., were then gone through,
and the prisoners were marched off the ground. Only
one of them had retained his sword, which was broken
in due form.—South-Eastern Gazette.

THE MATFEN MURDER.-COMMITTAL
OF THE PRISONERS.

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE, Nov. 20.—The adjourned in•
quest on the body of Dorothy Berwicke, the old woman
who was barbarously murdered at Waterloo, near Mat-
fen, Northumberland, on the 21st ult., was brought to a
close yesterday, when the prisoners, James Conroy,
Michael Allan, caias Anderson, and John Simm, toge-
ther with Conroy's wife, and three other women, the
mothers and sisters of Michael Anderson, were fully
committed for trial at the assizes. It appears from the
evidence that all these persons were together at West
Harle, a village six or seven miles from the scene of the
murder, on the previous night, and that they occupied a
barn in that village. After the murder was discover( d
suspicion fell upon them as the perpetrators, and a dili-
gent search was instituted. A hazel stick, with a ham-
mer head attached, and a stick of mountain ash, were
found in the house of deceased. They were newly cut ;
and the male prisoners, who are besom makers, and go
about with carts, having been cutting sticks from some
trees in a neighbouring wood, the sticks so found in the
house of deceased were compared with the trees from
which cuttings had been made, and were found to cor-
respond. Conroy's residence was at Waterloo, and the
door of his neighbour's house was found tied with a rope
on the morning when the murder must have been com-
mitted, evidently to prevent his leaving the house, and
obtaining a knowledge of the horrid deed that was being
committed. On searching the barn at West Hark,
where the prisoners were supposed to have slept, a
halter was discovered, which was first claimed by
"Tibby" (Anderson's mother), but Conroy's wife in-
sisted it was hers, and then Tibby Anderson said hers
was left at Conroy's house ; but on searching the house
no halter could be found, which induced the suspicion
that the missing halter was no other than the rope used
for tying the neighbour's door. A leather strap had been
used by the murderers for confining the arms of the de-
ceased while they strangled her. A few days before the
murder, Michael Anderson was seen to fasten his stock-
ing with a leather strap similar to that found on the
arms of the deceased ; and when the prisoners were
taken no leather strap could be foand upon any of them.
Another suspicious -circumstance was the finding of
three silver Spoons belonging to the deceased, marked
" W. B." They were found in a field adjoining the road
leading from Waterloo to Matfen. Some days before
this discovery, and after the murder the female prisoners
were seen sitting under the hedge side, near to where
the spoons were afterwards found. On the 2d instant
Joseph Mundy, the station master at the Crampington
station on the North Eastern Railway, happened to be
at a public-house near the station, where he met with
Tibby Anderson and another of the females who were
not then in custody. The old woman made a most ex-
traordinary statement respecting the murder, the object
of which was to exculpate the men in custody, and fix it
upon some other person, but showing at the same time
that she was intimately acquainted with all the circum-
stances. This woman, it appears, when the party was
at West Hark, borrowed a candle and some lucifer
matches from one Patrick O'Callaghan. The body of the
deceased was disfigured with droppings of candle grease,
and matches, which appeared to have been ignited, were
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osing
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It has not been ascertained whether the prisoners slept
in the barn.