The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-06 00:00:00

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sent for, said he had not seen the waybill of any horses, and
Poulson, the guard, did not give him any bill. He did not
think there was any, Mr Blizard said some person con-
nected with the company would fetch the horses away.
Mr Darby was called and said—lf Marshall the guard has
stated that he left the train by my orders, it is false, and it is
not the first time he has left the train without leave. I saw
the guard in the train. I saw there was a horse-Lox labelled
Nlargate. I did not report Marshall when he absented him•
self once last summer at Ramsgate. It was his duty last
Monday to go on to Margate. It is my duty to see all the
guards are on the train, but in this case I took the man's
word. In the instructions the words are, " All guards of
through trains to work through to Margate." This book is
called the service book.
Henry Marshall was recalled, and his evidence being
read over to him, he persisted in saying that Mr Darby
gave him permission to go back to Ashford, but he would
not be able to go home to his own house any sooner on that
account, It was false if Mr Darby said he did not give him
leave, _ _ _

Mr J. P. Knight, traffic superintendent on the South
Eastern Railway Company's line, deposed—We have a
number of extra guards, who are called " spare or occa-
sional guards." They are attached to all the principal ter-
minus and junction stations, and it is their especial duty to
work with the several trains according to the requirements
of the traffic—that is, if the number of carriages require an
extra guard one of them is sent with the train. There are
no appointed trains to work back by, but the guard is to
rep rt himself at the end of the journey, and work back
either as 4 passenger, or with a train if he is required.
Henry Marshall is one of the extra guards at the Ashford
station.

By a Juror—Marshall had not fully completed his
journey, as he did not go on to Ramsgate, but got out at
St. Lawrence. If Inspector Darby had given him permis-
sion there would have been nothing wrong or irregular, and
the company would not have complained of his returning
early in that case. It was Inspector Darby's duty to find
another guard to go on, which is commonly done. The
Ashford guard would not finish his day's work any sooner
in consequence of returning when he did. There was no
evasion of his duty by returning early, for he might have
had occasion to make another trip the same day. I think
Inspector Darby was misled inadvertently, for we have had
no complaints against him, I am frequently at Margate
and Ramsgate in the summer, and from the daily reports of
the working of the trains I find the trains have sufficient
break power if a proper number of breaksmen be employed,
On the re-assembling of the jury at two o'clock this after-
noon the Coroner read the whole of the evidence taken
during the inquiry, commenting at considerable length on
the most important portions.

The jury then retired to deliberate, and they eventually
returned the following verdict—" The jury find that
Susannah Lock met with an accident which caused her
death on the Ist August, 1864, at the South Eastern Rail-
way terminus, Margate, by the collision of a mail train due
at Margate at 1 35 p.m., but which did nut arrive till 35
minutes late, with a stationary up-train waiting to be de-
spatched, and the jury are of opinion that neglect of duty
by the guard, Henry Marshall, of Ashford, and the inspec-
tor, William Darby, of Ramsgate, was the primary cause of
the collision and consequent death of Mrs Lock. And the
jury are further of opinion that the present arrangements
at the Margate Station of the South Eastern Railway are
insufficient for the accommodation of the traffic, and that
the railway company ought to take an early opportunity to
make such alterations as will prevent similar accidents for
the future."

The Coroner said the finding of the jury was equivalent
to a verdict of manslaughter against Henry Marshall and
William Darby.

The Recent Peace Comedy at Niagara
Falls.

The Index gives the following evidently autho•
Hoed explanation of the peace correspondence just
published relative to peace proposals at Niagara
Falls :

It so happened, as it appears, that towards the end of
July there were among the guests at the Clifton House,
three Confederate gentlemen of note and position, the Hon.
C. C. Clay, ex-senator from Alabama in the Federal and
afterwards in the Confederate Congress; the Hon. Jacob
Thompson, ex-member of the Federal House of Represen-
tatives from Mississippi, and Secretary of the Interior in
President Buchanan's Cabinet ; and the Hon. J. B, Hol-
combe, a distinguished jurist and publicist from Virginia.
It was understood that Messrs. Clay and Thompson had
been entrusted by their Government with a delicate, con-
fidential mission, though by no means that of proposing
terms of peace to President Lincoln. To Mr Holcombe's
mission, as the legal representative of the interests of the
Confederate Government in the adjudication of the Chess.
peake case before the Colonial tribunals of Nova Scotia,
we alluded to in these columns at the time. The presence
of these three gentlemen so near the frontiers of the United
States might well excite curiosity, and Dame Rumour, who
nowhere more than in Yankeedom uses her mythological
attributes did the rest. At all events this auspicious coin-
deuce was made the occasion for amusing the Yankee na-
tion with a little amateur diplomatic burlesque, in which
Mr Horace Greeley was selected to play the heavy comic
part, assisted by Major Hay, the private secretary of Presi-
dent Lincoln, with Mr G. N. Sanders as prompter and
stage manager, and Mr W. C. Jewitt, as " generally use-
ful" supernumerary.

Yesterday morning William John Stevens was executed
in front of the Bucks County Gaol, at Aylesbury., for the
wilful murder of Annie Leeson at Buckingham, It will bc,
remembered that Stevens was paying his addresses to the
deceased, that she repelled his advances, and that in a fit of
jealousy ho cut her throat with a razor, and then cut his
own throat. The girl died a few minutes afterwards, but
Stevens subsequently recovered. He had, however, to be
constantly watched, as he had intimated that if the police
officers would leave him alone for five minutes he would
save them all further trouble. At his trial, Baron Bram
well directed the jury that as there were than five wit-
nesses who testified to previous threats, and the prisoner's
after confession of his intention, they could return no other
verdict than that of wilful murder, which they accordingly
did. The learned judge then, without comment, sentenced
the prisoner to death. In the interval which elapsed be-
tween his sentence and his execution, Stevens has betrayed
on the whole a rather sullen demeanour, speaking but
seldom, and then only in reply to questions from the gaol
officials. At first he refused to listen to the exhortations of
the chaplain, but latterly he became more attentive to them.
Redid not make any written confession, but he frequently--
referred to his crime in terms of the greatest apparent sit--
row, and acknowledged the enormity of his offence and the
justice of his sentence. On the day before his executors
he said to his father and sister, at their parting interview,
that he was quite prepared to die, and that ho had
never been so "happy" as he had been for the last day
or so. This parting interview was a brief b'ut deeply
affecting one. His disconsolate mother, a) though in.
Aylesbury, did not see him, partly, WQ traerstand, at
his own wish, that she might be spared the agony of a
parting scene. The preparations for the execution were
completed on Thursday evening. No barriers were placed
on the road in front of the gaol to lessen the crush of the
crowd ; bat barricades were fixed in front of the union work.
house, which is directly opposite to the gaol, on the brow
of the hill, and no one was admitted on the premises of the
guardians except the reporters, though many earnest appli-
cations to that effect had been made to Mr George, the mas-
ter. The scaffold was fixed on the fiat top of the large and
lofty main archway of the gaol, between the governor's and
chaplain's residences, which forms, as it were, wings to its
front. The crowd, which began to assemble very early, was
generally very orderly. Several were heard to say that they
had walked overnight from Buckingham (the scene of the
murder). It is calculated that from 6,000 to 7,000 persons
were present. Shortly before the appointed hour, S o'clock,
the under sheriff, Mr R. B. Baynes, arrived, and was re-
ceived by Mr H. Shirreffs, governor of the gaol ; the Rev.
Mr Rawson, the chaplain, and by other prison officials,
and as the time of execution rapidly approached, the under
sheriff, governor, chaplain, and other authorities proceeded
to the condemned cell, where the culprit was found perfectly
resigned to his fate. The prisoner was pinioned, and the
procession formed. A few hisses were raised iu the crowd
when Stevens came forward and stood beneath the drop.
Of these, however, he took very little notice. Calcraft at
once proceeded to his task. As Stevens was a slightly built
man, there were a few muscular convulsions of the limbs,
but in a moment to two these ceased. The
inbody was cut
then
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within
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lapset oef
precinhourcts
:ct
sof h
an and placed
gaol, by
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ofnd
Moses Hatto, the only criminal previously hanged at the
same place.

These dramatis personz deserve each a brief biographi-
cal sketch. Mr Horace Greeley, editor and proprietor of
the New York Tribune, has long been known by the affec-
tionate soubriquet of the " white-hatted philosopher ;"
but his eccentricities of dress, gait, and manner are as
nothing to the eccentricities of his editorial and political
career. lie has in turn, and sometimes altogether, advo-
cated disunion, free -love, spirit rapping, communism,
women's rights, abolitionism, and " miscegnation," besides
many other " isms" which we do not at the moment recal.
He was the first man who denounced the " star-spangled"
banner as a "flaunting lie," and his journal once published
some very spirited poetry on this patriotic scheme. He is
the author of the thrilling axiom, " Let the Union slide,"
which in the earEer stages of secession was the standing
motto at the head of the columns of the New York tribune,
but which when taken down in April, 1851, was succeeded
by daily frantic appeals for "the extermination of the
rebels." Mr Horace Greeley, despite his ill-balanced
mind, his innumerable crotchets and tergiversations, his
utter lack of judgment and childish credulity, is at heart an
amiable and benevolent man, with overflowing affections
for all human kind, and the most honest, perhaps the only
honest, man in the administration party. We can well
believe that his better nature revolts at the atrocities which
he had no small share in bringing about, and that his eager
belief in overtures of peace did only respond to an anxious
wish long and devotedly cherished.

Of Major Hay, who holds the proud position of confiden-
tial secretary to Abe Lincoln, little is known except that he
was the hero of the ill-starred Federal expedition into
Florida, undertaken to procure three electoral votes for his
patron at the ensuing Presidential election, on which occa-
sion Mr Lincoln wrote from the Executive Mansion at
Washington, under date of Jan. 5, to General Gilmore—
"l have given Mr Hay a commission as major, and sent
him to you with some blank books and other blanks to aid
in the reconstruction." This letter, in which the Presi-
dent candidate avows in terms his purpose, and desires
" the thing to be done in the most speedy way possible,"
was brought to light by a Congressional investigation cones
mittee, and will be found in page 300 in our number ef
May 12. It is all we know of " Major" Hay.
Mr Geo, N. Sanders is the king of " wags." No mat
living enjoys a joke better than he, and no one know bette'
how to give it universal publicity. He can perform miracle'
on the telegraphic wire which would put Blondin utterly ts
shame. He has, moreover, the faculty of always lighting
upon his legs, no matter how desperate may be his politico- i TEL CONDEMNED CONVICT PARXER,..The con-
acrobatic feats, and dexterous indeed must be the man who ' dettned convict Richard Thomas Parker, sentenced
can prove him to be in the wrong, Withal Mr Sanders is a
to death at the Notts Assizes for the murder of his mother,
held under
will be executed on Wednesday next, unless a reprieve be
important positions—no less a one for a short time than that
man of iginal and mind, and
rable and has
obtained at the Home-office. Petitions are in course of sig-
nature at Nottingham, Newark, and Fiskerton to Sir George
nieanour of the culprit is now very exemplary. Ho attends
of consul of the United States to London. Since the diarup- Grey, praying for a commutation of the sentence. The de-
tion he has figured before the European public as a eon-
chaplain, the Rev. W. Howard, and is daily becoming more
tractor in various gigantic enterprises for supplying tb.e with great earnestness to tthe ministrations of the gaol
military necessities of the Confederates—among other tVAngs
for a great steamship blockade running line, which was alive to the awfu.l position in which he is placed. None of
never built, but which in some unaccountable manner be- the prisoner's relatives have seen him since his condemns-
came confused, in the over acute perceptions of Historicus, two. It is said that old Mr Parker says two will die on the
with I tee Mersey rams. Over two years ago, wnen on the day his son Li executed, meaning that he intends commit-
i i hatt, the
very scone of his recent exploit, the Canadian press pone- ling suicide.
pously announced him as the bearer of proposals not unlike
I DEATH 01' A CENTENARIAN s
those with which he appears to have inspired the New
~. . SOLDIER. —John
Brigg centenarian, died suddenly on the
York press, judging from the Hew York ffirald of July 15, 'llio' .
which says :—. George Sanders telegraphs to us from Ca.. 1 ruing of the 31st ult., afeer rising to breakfast. The
nada that he, i, its Levi,. of peace. His next communication !deceased served in the array between the years 1797 end
to us, to secure any attention, must embrace the announce- :1814, and in IS4S received a silver medal for the good
went that he has forsworn Jeff. Davis and taken the oath of soldier-lika conduct he die-played during his serXice in
1 ~,
allegiance to the United States." There is little prospect of Egypt, According to his order of discharge from ke
George Sanders doing , t ibes , • for neither friends nor foes.... army, and his own stetements, he was 1031 years of
and the former are more numerous than the latter—would age.
suspect him of disloyalty to the South, or doubt his zeal to ATLANTA.--The city is laid out in a circle, two
serve her in his peculiar way. We must not conclude this riles in diameter, in the centre of which is the
imperfect sketch of the central figure in the late negotiations jassenger depot, from which radiate railroads to every quer-
without mentioning the cleverest joke in the catalogue, rend er of the Corlfederacy. In the business portion of the city one which shows that Mr Sanders may sometimes mingle ire many fine blocks of buildings. Before the war these were
with his facetia the sagacity of a prophet, and be wore die- filled with consignments of goods from the large cities of the
cerning than men of more serious turn. Amidst the tur- north and north-west fur the supply of the cotton regions.
moil of that forerunner of secession, the Charleston De- /Tow the city is one vast Government storehouse. Here are
moeratio Nominating Convention, in which Air Sanders treated the machine shops of the principal railroads : the
was a prominent actor, he telegraphed to Presided most extensive rolling mill in the south foundries, pistols,
Buchanan that unless he forgot his private feud agains and tent factories, &e. In addition, the Government have
Mr Douglas, and withdrew hie opposition to his nomi works for casting shot and shell, making gun carriages,
nation as the Democratic candidate, the party and hit cartridges, caps, shock clothing, 40,—Chicago Zribune.

El 4/ S PA.PE R
giFI3;;;O4Z-07444 p
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country would split in twain, and he,
.
be the last President of the whole Un jaatesn t
never been ascertained which disgusted moib he "rehetiP
of Wheatland," then in the Presidential chair—the
astounding assurance of the suggestion, or the fact that
the telegram, costing some 21 dollars and odd cents. was
not prepaid. •
Mr W. C. Jewitt was unknown to fame until he ap-
peared in the columns of several London newspapers in the
character of a Curtius ready to plunge into the abyss that
separated the belligerent American federations, and in that
volunteer capacity had an interview with the King of the
Belgians, who must have been even more profound in state-
craft than the modern Nestor is believed to be, if he could
understand what Mr Jewitt wanted, what he proposed, or
by whose authority, expressed or implied, he acted. Mr
Jewitt is supposed to be a native of New Ragland ; but in
his communications to the London press he aesumete, a If cal
habitation more neutral, and more befitting a ceemcpoliten
philanthropist, and amateur peace-maker-general, by hail-
ing from " Colorado Territory," a region very far in the
"Far West." llis functions on the occasion in question
seem to have been confined to the carrying of notes tetween
the parties.
Such, then, was the scene, and such the pee sownel, of this
comedy of errors, which for a moment really electrified the
public of two hemispheres with a hope in which all good
men of all nations and all parties sincerely unite. The
action of the piece begins appropriately with a note from
Mr Sanders, in which he says rather vaguely that he is
authorised, &c. Had Mr Greeley, to whom this note was
addressed, not been blinded by a pardonable, and, to
him, honourable eagerness, he would have detected the
"quiz," in the transparent fact that Mr Sanders included
himself in the proposed commission to Washington, and
styled himself "from Dixie." But even the use of the
familiar nick-name lovingly given by the nagroes to the only
home of their race, and immortalised in the well-known
quick step which is supposed to be the national tune of the
Southern Confederacy, and which under various names, and
with varying words, is dear to the Arabs of the London
streets—even this suggestive word of "Dixie" did not warn
Mr Horace Greeley. He forthwith addresses to the uncon-
scious Southern representatives a proposal which must have
no little astonished and delighted them, as coming from
such a quarter. An invitation to Washington, with a safe-
conduct, given by a trusted friend of the President of the
United Stated, for the express purpose of treating of the
anxiously looked-for peace was too happy an omen to be
disregarded ; and while they courteously explain to Mr
Greeley the error into which he had been led by the viva-
cious Mr Sanders, they felt in duty bound to accept the
offer on the conditions under which it was possible for them
to accept it, and pledged their beast endeavours, as men en-
joying the complete confidence of the Confederate Govern-
ment to obtain its subsequent sanction of what they might
do in absence of special authorisation. But as soon as it
penetrated the dim understanding of the ex-grog-shop
keeper and ex-village attorney of Illinois that the three
guests at the Clifton House at Niagara Falls had not come
as suppliants from Richmond to sue for mercy—had, in fact
not come at all with any mission to him—but that the first
overture had been made through a false impression en the
excitable imagination of his honest friend Mr Greeley, the
natural ferocity, sharpened by imbecile disappointment, re-
turned to the man who has publicly boasted that, when na-
vigating a raft or flat boat on the Mississippi river in his
younger days, he used to amuse himself with sewing toge-
ther the eyes of the hogs that formed part of his cargo. The
hero of the Florida President-making expedition, Mr Major
Hay, is sent with a message to "all whom it may concern,"
proffering terms of uncenditional surrender as haughty as
it the incumbent of the White House were a conqueror in-
stead of a vulgar buffoon permitted by a just Providence
to be the unwitting instrument of punishing a nation's sins,
and maintained in power by a party machinery, effrontery
of lying, and the inertia of a demoralised public opinion.
Impartial observers will admit that the reply of the
Southerners, who were for a moment betrayed into be-
lieving that a gleam of reason might illuminate the mind
of the President of the United States, is that of patriots and
of gentlemen, and that even the disgust which they could
not but feel does not cause them to forget what is due to
their country and to themselves. They have vindicated
the earnest, but not craven, desire for peace unanimously
entertained among their countrymen, and they have ad-
ministered a rebuke which, though lost upon Mr Lincoln,
may not be wholly unfelt by the better classes among the
Northern people. We give the correspondence in full,
correcting some of the obvious typographical errors which
have crept into the text as published by the Northern
newspapers. From this our readers may draw the moral
for themselves. If this correspondence effects no other
good, it will at least have shed a flood of light upon the
feelings of the honest men ofj the North, typified in.
Horace Greeley; it will have demonstrated that the main.
obstacle to peace is a corrupt shoddy Administration,
having Mr Lincoln for its mouthpiece; and it will have
added another to the many proofs that the war is not of the
South's seeking, and that every sincere overture of peace is
always sure of being received by it in a spirit of courtesy.
and moderation.
EXECUTION AT AYLESBURY,