The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-29 00:00:00

Dreadful Boiler Explosion and Loss of Life.

At about a quarter to 3 o'clock on Saturday afternoon the
inhabitants of the centre of Greenock were startled by a
loud explosion, which was soon found to proceed from the
bursting of a boiler on board the iron screw steam lighter
Ruby, of Renfrew, lying at the Mid Quay.
The following are the particulars :—The Ruby had a
high-pressure engine of about 8 horse power, which was
supplied with steam by a common flue bailer, placed per-
pendicularly. She belongs to Messrs. Henderson and Cold-
burn, Renfrew, Shortly before 3 o'clock she arrived in the
West Harbour, laden with coal, and having on board WM.
Crombio, the master, Richard Linn, the mate, both belong-
ing to Glasgow, Robert Gilchrist, engine keeper, belonging
to Kilsyth, and a number of labourers who had come down
for the purpose of discharging the cargo. When the Ruby
canoe into the harbour she passed up the west side of the
Mid Quay, outside of a lighter named the Brownie, belong-
ing to D. Nicoll, coal agent here, which in the early part of
the day had been dischargi:.g coals on board the ship Mar-
garet Kerr, at the West Quay, but when partially dis .
charged had shifted alongside of a brig lying in the same
harbour. The Ruby ran against the Brownie,
the Ruby's
anchor piercing the hull of the Brownie under water on the
starboard side about the waist, making a hole in her. The
Brownie began to fill with water, and it was immediately
deemed advisable that she should be run round to the bank
opposite to the Tar Pots, on the east side of the Mid Quay.
Accordingly, for this purpose, the Brownie's warps were
thrown off, and the Ruby, with her anchor still sticking in
her side, took her in tow, and both were run round near to
the Tar Pots. There the Brownie began to settle down,
and her crew were hurrying to
get on shore, collecting to.
gather their clothing for this purpose. Just as the men of
the sinking Brownie were about to step on board the Ruby,
1 the boiler of the latter burst with a fearful explosion, send li
-
ing up a cloud of steam which for a few minutes con-
cealed the real position of affairs in immediate proximity
to the accident. When it bad cleared away men were run-
ning from the place suffering from injuries. It was found
that Robert Gilchrist, the enginoman of the Ruby, kad been
cut about the head, and that David Hunter, the mate of the
Brownie, was missing. He had last been seen standing aft
on board his vessel, about to get into the Ruby, and it is
supposed that he had been struck by a portion of the boiler
and knocked into the water. The after-part of the Ruby
had been blown out ; she had filled with water and settled
down on the ground, the water reaching to about the deck.
It was high water at the time. The top portion of the boiler,
weighing about 3cwt, had been projected over a number of
high buildings, alighting on the pavement at the north-
west comer of William-street and Dalrymple-street. A
second portion of the boiler, scot quite so large, fell on the
Breast, between the weighing machine and the corner of
William-street. A third portion of the boiler was blown
out into the harbour. A steam pipe was blown through one
of the second floor windows of Mr. Warren's boarding-
house. The man-hole door was projected over the houses
at the Breast, alighting in Shaw- street, at the foot of Long-
well-close. The engine grating was thrown over a tenement,
alighting on the top of some cellars, and a man's coat or
jacket was thrown on the roof of a high house. A large
portion of the lighter's deck alighted at the East. quay-
lane. Th 9 ruost of the windows of the houses and shops in
the district, extending from opposite to the Fish-market on
the west to about Shannon. close on the east, were com-
pletely demolished by the concussion. Especially were the
panes of plate-glass in shops along the Breast, up a portion
of William-street, and in Shaw-street, some of them very
large,
completely splashed. shopkeepers were running to
earthquake. Tho streets
their doors to look on the ruin which had suddenly over-
taken them without being able toanadecsiuvnetrafol rptehresocnasulsvecroef
di:e,evraaeusdt
strewedatgi roena t
tcwoo
with
thshtee
brsnrhoaokteiekonn prevailedgoifa
sa
injured by fragments of it falling on them.—Grecnock
Telegraph.

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SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

POST.—Among the many and various measure of
.aw reform which have been carried into effect dur-

ing the Chancellorship of Lord Westbury none hold
a higher place than thbsb hicbeffected the c(m-
solidation of the criminal law. 'the titheilgamation
of the statutes which constitute our criminal code

has long been the dream of law reformers, and
various have been the attempts made to realise it.
Committees have been appointed to inquire into
its practicability, and their reports have been pub-
lished and duly, canvassed; but some obstacle has
continually opposed itself to the legislation for
which they were intended to serve as a basis.
At length, however, some few years since, the
Legislature passed a series of bills which were de-
signed to incorporate the various statutes and sec-
tions of statutes relating respectively to offences
against the person, malicious injuries to property,
larceny, forgery, coining, and the law affecting
accessories and abettors. The statute book from

the time of Charles I. was thoroughly weeded, and
upwards of one hundred acts were either wholly or
in part repealed. Many of their provisions which
which had become obsolete, and served no other

purpose than to mislead, found no place in the new
acts, and the latter cons quently were, at the time
when they received the assent of the Legislature,
considered as forming a concise code of the existing
criminal law. Now that the consolidating statutes
have been submitted to the test of experience, it is
satisfactory to find that the expectations to which
they gave rise have been fully realised. It would be
impossible for any one unacquainted with the intri-
cacies of our criminal jurisprudence to estimate at
its proper value the effect of this measure of legal
reform. The obstacles which heretofore op-

posed themselves to the easy specification of
the offence with which a prisoner was charged,
the doubts continually raised respecting the
statute under which he should be indicted,

and the many loopholes left for the escape of the
most notorious malefactors, on grounds of a purely
technical nature, were entirely swept away by the
recent statutes. In so far as regards offences akin
to those prohibited by the acts to which we now
refer, all difficulty has entirely ceased to exist
respecting the simplest and most efficacious means
of putting the law in operation against wrong-
doers. But, after all the most that can be said in
praise of the measures which in part consolidated
our criminal law is that they constitute a step in a
direction in which many advances remain yet to be
made. Since those acts became law the present Lord
Chancellor has urged upon the Legislature the expe-
diency of attempting to do for the entire statute law
that which was in this instance effected with re-

spect to a certain class of Acts of Parliament. Let
us begin, said Lord Westbury, with Magna Charts,
and, turning over the statutes at large, folio by
folio, eliminate from the mass all that have been re-
pealed, or which the lapse of time and change of
customs have rendered obsolete and useless.
Although, however, the assent of Parliament was
given to the Lord Chancellor's scheme, the time, we
fear, is still far distant when we will see it realised.
Meanwhile, however, the work of consolidating the
criminal law might be advantageously proceeded
with. There are many statutes which, to the sur-
prise of both bench and bar, are from time to time
raked out of obscurity, and put in operation not un-
freqnently to accomplish private and not public
ends. When it is recoilected that the fundamental
maxim of criminal jurisprudence is that ignorance
of the law affords no excuse for the commission of
an offence, it must be admitted that those acts
which constitute offences which they prohibit under
severe penalties should be unusually clear and
easy of reference. Whatever objections may be raised
to a new scheme of general codification, they ought
not to apply to any project for the consolidation of
those portions or the statute-book creating the
criminal law. In ancient Rome it was ordained that
the laws should be transcribed and posted on tee
walls of the city, so that all might have an oppor-
tunity of making themselves acquainted with the
nature of the acts prohibited by the State, and thus
avoid, either wilfully or unconsciously, committing
them ; and a most serious charge advanced against
one of the Caesars (Caligula, if we mistake not) was
that be had the laws written in small characters and
posted so high that it was impossible for the passers
by to read them. But difficult tho ugh it may have
been for the Romans, under such circumstances, to
make themselves acquainted with the laws, such
difficulty was as nothing compared with that expe-
rienced, not merely by the British public, but by
legal practitioners themselves in extricating from a
vast mass of heterogeneous statutes those precepts
intended for the guidance of all, and with which
every one is conclusively presumed to be acquainted.
So few persons take the trouble of studying the law,
that, as regards the public, it might not perhaps
make much difference whether the criminal law
were condensed into ttfew simple statutes or left in
its present state ; but, as respects the administra-
tion of justice, the alteration would assuredly lead
to the most important results. Apart, however,
from the questioa of consolidation, there is abun-
dant room for reformation in the present system
of edministering the criminal law. It may well
be doubted whether it is conducive to justice
that the mouth of the accused should be closed.
and that the mere circumstance of being charged
with the commission of a crime should preclude
an individual from tendering his personal testi-
mony in refutation of the accus ttion. It may
also be questioned whether it is c 3nsistent with
im-
partiality or humanity to secure, at the public ex-
pense, professional advocates to prosecute prisoners,
and leave the latter,even on capital charges, totally
undefended when without the means of securing
professional assistance. It is absurd to suppose th. at
uneducated men or women can be acquainted with
the legal definition of offences, and yet on arraign-
mentA they are invariably presumed to be so. the
convict Wright may have been, and probably was,
justly executed; but no one will deny that when
called upon to plead he may have confounded
the offences of murder and manslaughter. The
State has an interest no less great in demonstrating
the innocence of those who are unjustly accused
than in convicting those who have infringed its
laws. Under the existing system of criminal law
administration this is to all appearance lost sight
of. We presume the accused to be innocent until
their guilt is proved, but we jrnlace too much reliance
upon the supposed invincibility o! the armour with
which innocence is conceived to invest those who
are wrongfully accused. Our criminal laws have,
of late, both in their essence and in their mode o.
administration, been considerably modified for the
better, but they still furnish a wide field for the
labours of the law reformer.
HERALD.—The Canada brings us but little news,
but what there is is satisfactory, as confirming pre-
vious reports of the utter failure of the combined
movement of the Federal armies and fleets. Gen.
Sherman has reached Vicksburg after suffering
immense loss in men, arms, and artillery. From
Demopolis, in Alabama, the Confederate General
Polk has issued an address of congratulation to his
men, in which he remarks of Sherman's abortive
campaign, that never did so grand an enterprise
fail so ingloriously. It appears that it was Sher-
man's intention to have captured Selma, in Ala-
bama, but on account of the defeat of Smith's expe-
dition from Memphis, by which he expected to be
reinforced, he was not able to get further than
Meridian. As a reward for his good intentions,
rather than for his success, General Sherman has
been appointed to the chief command in the western
district, which includes Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee,
Arkansas,and- the Cumberland River. If we may
measure his future by the gauge of his past career,
this appointment is of happy augury to the Confe-
derate armies in those regions. Sherman is now on
a visit to Banks in New Orleans, and is concocting
with him another grand combined expedition. The
Red River, which waters the vast region of Western
Louisiana, empties itself into the Mississippi about
half way between Vicksburg and New Orleans.
At the mouth of the Red River a fleet of Federal
transports is being collected. They are des-
tinned to carry an imposing force from Vicksburg
and New Orleans into a country which lately has
been almost given up to the Confederates. The
army, when started on its mission, is to be joined
from the North by another contingent, from Little
Rock, in Arkansas. In undertaking this campaign
the Federals are but anticipating a great danger,
which has long been gathering over them in the
South-West. Preparations have been long in pro-
gress on the right b ink of the Mississippi, the
avowed object of which is nothing less than the re-
capture of New Orleans. At the very time that the
Federal army, the Federal officials, and a handful
of cringing renegades have been inaugurating the
mockery of a State Government in that very
Southern city, the real governor—the one to whom
an oppressed people give all the allegiance of the
heart, if not of the lips—is addressing them from
beyond the river, and comforting them with hopes
of speedy deliverance. " Ladies of New Orleans,"
writes Governor Allen, "may Heaven guard you
and protect you. When the spring time comes you
shall see the grey-coats again, and welcome back to
New Orleans the sons and daughters of Louisiana;'
It is to nip this danger in the hud, if possible, that
Banks and Sherman are about to attack the Confe-
derates in Western Louisiana. No help meanwhile
can be expected from General Thomas, at Chatta-
nooga, whose position is now threatened in flank by
the advance of General Johnstone, to Ringold. No
help is to be had from Burnside, still beleagured at
Knoxville. The Coafederate army under Polk is
set free by Sherman's retirement and the departure
of the Federal fleet from before Mobile. If, while
the armies of Banks and Sherman are being slowly
pioneered through a difficult and hostile country
from the b inh's of the Red River, Governor Allen,

from Opelousas, should march upon New Orleans
from the west, while Polk moves rapidly from
the east upon the same point, the most important
of Federal oonquests may slip from their grasp,
and with its loss the evacuation of the whole
south-west would become a necessity. In their
movement towards the city the Confederates
ought not to be deterred by the infamoas
threat that if New Orleans has to be evacuated the
Federl gunboats Will first shell and destroy the city.
Such a crime, calamitous as it would be in its re-
sults to the South, would eventually recoil on the
heads of those who had perpetrated it. We do not
for a moment doubt that the Narthdrn commanders
are capable of it. Though the destruction of a de-
fenceless city would be even more wejastifiable than
the attempt to burn Charleston behind its triple
circle of forts, we cannot affect surprise at any
cowardice or any atrocity on the part of the men
who planned the surprise and destruction of Rich-
mon by a cavalry raid, including in the programme
the murder of the' Southern President and every
member of his Government. No further attempt
ht s been made to question the authenticity of the
vile documents on the body of Dahlgren. It is
true that Kilpatrick endeavours to make out that
Dahlgren exceeded his instructions. This is no
more then is to be expected of him. A man who
could place assassination would not stick at a false-
hood ; and it is easy to gloss over the matter when
his wretched tool has died by the sword. The cha-
racter of this chivalrous cavalry officer is shown by
the brutal manner in which he has sought to
avenge his failure. Among the fertile pastures which
skirt the York River in Virginia is one particularly
beautiful tract of country, called King and Queen
County. The industrious farmers of this district
have meddled as little as possible with the war
that has desolated the rest of the Old Dominion. In
this quiet corner they hoped that the rush of battle
would pass them by unharmed, and leave them in
peace to cultivate their corn and tobacco. It was
not to be so. Kilpatrick has failed in his desperate
ride against Richmond. Many of his officers and
men have been taken prisoners, and will be fortu-
nate if they are allowed to share, on equal terms,
the fare of the Bellelsle prisoners whom they
wished to liberate. Smarting with rage at the
thought, the gallant Kilpatrick bethought him-
self of the women and children and unarmed
men, on whom ho could wreak his vengeance
with impunity. The horde of avengers
swept over King and Queen County. A garden of
Eden in the morning, ere night it was howling
wilderness. Villages were destroyed, d welling-
houses sacked, homesteads given to the flames, the
inhabitants flying ruined to the fields, pursued and
slaughtered. The horsemen of Kilpatrick left their
track in blood and ashes. And so the manes of
Dahlgren were pacified. Can we wonder that
people in Europe shou'd turn sickened and disgusted
from the oft recurring news of a war which is
illustrated by such deeds, and in such profusion
that it has become monotonous in horror ? What
does surprise us is, that there should still be any
left among us, any truehearted Christian men, any
delicate, merciful women, to sympathise still with
a nation the tale of whose deeds reads so much li▪ ke
the " Newgate Calendar." Revolted by these
histories, it cannot be expected of us that we should
pretend to take much interest in the politic•
al
intrigues, the continual changes of command, which
argue the weakness and imbecility of the Washing-
ton misrule. What particular concern of ours is it
whether Mr. Lincoln is to be re-elected, or whether
General Grant is to succeed General Halleck in the
chief command of the armies of the Federal Union ?
TIMES .—A case was tried last week at Cambridge
which may certainly be termed a remarkable one,
though for very unusual reasons. It was a case
admitting of no doubt, of very little defence, and of
as little uncertainty in the verdict. It involved no
heavy damages, affected no commercial interests,
resolved no intricate question of law. In all these
points it was absolutely without importance; but it
possessed, nevertheless, an aspect notable enough
to excite much comment and invite special reflec-
tion. In its actual form it was an action for tres-
pass. The Stewards of the Jockey Club had warned
Mr. Irwin Lewis Willes off Newmarket-heath, and
as that gentleman had appeared there, in despite
of their notice, they indicted him accordingly. No
doubt the Jockey Club owns the Heath and can
regulate the admission to the ground. In this
sense Newmarket Racecourse is private property.
but, exactly in the same sense, theatres are private
property too, and we can hardly illustrate the case
better than by supposing that the proprietors of
Drury-lane or Covent-garden should, by their com-
mittee or stewards, warn off the premises any thea-
trical critic who had given an unfavourable opinion
of any piece or actor. This they have certainly the
right—that is to say, the power—to do ; but what
would be thought if it were exercised ? What
would be said if the managers of our operas, who,
like the Stewards of theJockeyClub, do enforce their
rights against objectionable characters, should ex-
tend his punishment, as the Stewards have done,
to a writer who had offended them by a report
in a public journal ? Would it not be evident
that such a measure, besides being arbitrary in its
character, was detrimental in its effects to the inte-
rests of the public ? What results from the proceed-
ings at Newmarket is this—that a report from that
place on the doings there may now be regarded as
conveying not what the reporter would wish to say,
but what the authorities of the Jockey Club per-
mit to be said. There is no limit to the " warnings"
which may thus be given. If the system were car-
ried out and applied to other public entertainments
or transactions,an honest, independent report would
be thought an impossibility, and one of the best
securities for public morality would soon disappear.
It is surprising to us that these consequences were
not foreseen by the committee of the Jockey Club.
They are peculiarly interested in the maintenance
of all these safeguards. The morality of the turf,
which they charge themselves with protecting, is
not so solidly established that they can afford to
dispense with any of its supports, and nothing could
aid them more than free criticism and perfect pub-
licity in upholding those principles which, as is ad-
mitted on all sides, they are sincerely anxious to
maintain. It would have been better to put up
with even unmerited or unjustifiable criticism than
to interfere by the exercise of a private right with
the freedom of the Press. That right undoubtedly
existed, but it was a great mistake to extend its
application from cases obviously witbin its scope to
one in which the only offence was the expression
of an opinion.