The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-03 00:00:00

BOROUGH AND SPITALFIELDS.

These markets continue to be moderately supplied with
home grown potatoes. For most qualifies there is a steady
demand, and prices on the whole are tolerably firm. Very
few foreign potatoes ere on sale. Last week's imports were
87 sacks from Dunkirk, 29 bags Rotterdam, and 9 bags
'rom St Brieux.
Kent and Essex Regents....Bos to 110 s per ton.
Rocks ....50s to 75s „
....50s to COs ~

Foreign
If

BOROUGH HOP.

The supply of new hops, of English growth, on sale is
tolerably large. For good and fine samples there is a steady
demand, and last week's currency is well supported. For
inferior produce the demand is by no means active, but in
those instances in which factors feel disposed to accept
less money sales aro somewhat readily effected, and the
business doing is seasonably large. In foreign hops very
little is doing. The imports into London last week amounted
to 281 bales from Antwerp, 45 Ostend, 25 Rotterdam, 3
Dunkirk, 22 Hamburg, and 100 bales from New York.
per cwt.
New Mid and East Kent
New Weaid of Kent 9os to 130 s
New Susses
New o,,ldings
Old
Bavarian —s to —s

A Row WITH THE DOCTOR.—William Payne, a tall
and powerful man, was brought before Mr Paget, charged
with assaulting Mr Grant, a respectable medical gentle.
man, of Millwall, Poplar, and William West, 153 K, a
police-constable.
On Saturday: night the complainant, after a fatiguing
day and visits to a great many patients, had lain down on
a sofa to seek a little repose, when he heard a loud knock
at his door. On opening it ho saw the prisoner, who re-
quested him to vioit a patient who had fallen down an
area, broken his neck, and was on the point of death. Mr
Grant observing that the prisoner was in liquor, said he
could not leave home until a fee of ss. was paid.
The prisoner said that the money would be paid directly
the surgeon reached the house where the patient was. Mr
Grant refused to leave home without his fee at such a late
hour, and the prisoner became very noisy and violent, and
attacked Mr Grant. He struck him and seized him by the
throat, and, according to Mrs Grant's account, her husband
was nearly strangled. The whole household, including
Mr Grant's sister, brother, and wife, who were all injured,
were barely sufficient to secure the prisoner, who was ulti-
mately given into the custody of West, 153 K, who
observed blood on the neck of the surgeon.
The constable
walked the prisoner about thirty yards towards the
station-house, when he became very violent.
struck the constable on the face, aiad laid
on the ground. In this position the prisoner remained for
half-an-hour until other police constables arrived, and car-
ried him to the stationhouse.
In answer to Mr Paget, the constable said no serious
accident took place. He saw the man said to be injured.
He was not injured. . .

Mr Paget said no one had any right to knock at a gen-
tleman's door, because he happened to be a surgeon, and
demand him to visit a patient elsewhere. Medical men
generally did leave home and visit patients when called
upon to do so, but there was no legal couipulsion. He could
not blame Mr Grant for refusing to leave home without his
fee on the invitation of a drunken man. He fined the
prisoner 20a, which he paid.

THE OFFICE OF SHERlFF.—Whatever might be
the condition of things if it were impossible to find
men willing to accept the office of Sheriff, it is very certain
that soc'.ety is under deep obligations to those who accept
the office, for it is an integral part of the free constitution,
under the shadow of which we enjoy our liberties and con-
solidate our wealth and power, The Sheriffs begin their
official career by assisting at the election of a Lord Mayor
for the year ensuing, so that the representatives of loyal
and royal authority bring, as it were, the Queen's
crown and the statutes of the realm to bear witness
to the invalidity of the aspirations of independent
citizenship. But it is not merely as the Shiro
reeve, the representatives of royal power and prerogative,
the intermediaries between the king and the people, that we
know the sheriffs best in these days, any more than we first
think of them as public executioners, because charged
occasionally with the responsible duty of disposing of a
human life. It is as almoners, and as themselves fountains
of almonry, that in these piping times of peace and
prosperity and content we best know of the existence and
movements of the sheriffs. Our love of organization is such,
that, when we have exhausted our powers of invention in the
organization of charities,we at last make a desperate clutch at
some venerable legal office, and load
it with responsibilities
touching bread,coals, and blankets, the care of orphans, idiots,
juvenile offenders, and other active and passive claimants
for charity, for whom there are splendid organisations
nevertheless. The charitable
part of the Sheriff's duties is
of comparatively recent origin ; it was not always the rule
to stick
compel a whole congregation to stare him out of
countenance, in order that the Samaritan Society should be
him,
and a live Sheriff in a high-backed pew and preach at
enabled to continue its useful career. the best part of the
feature is that, like the more ancient and more formal por-
tion of a Sheriff's duties, it fits the office very well—the
association of law and benevolence works very well in this
case, and the Sheriff bleeds as patiently as a connubial
by numerous
partner submitting to the lancet for the process of trans-
detractors been supposed that Napoleon owed
if be pie.,fited much by the gallantry of
fusTiounEto tGheßE"AoTtheNr sAirdeoc—EoCNit.y_Pirteshs.as
much of his miraculous success to an unexampled
galaxy
of skilful lieutenants. JomiT shows that such was not the
case—that, almost always victorious where he himself com-
manded, Napoleon,
generals fighting under his immediate superintendence,
Soult,could entrust the with a few exceptions suffered almost equally from the un-
fitness of these same officers for independent command.
Jonaini, speaking by the
.mouth.of Napoleon,
and perhaps Da-
thus sums up
his opinion of some of the principal French commanders,—
v"oliVsitt,h therethe e
com-
mand of a separate army. (The Viceroy, St. Cyr, Suchet,
and Oudinot were promoted only at a later period.)"—
Captain W. Knollys in Vie Reader.
CONFEDERATE RIFLES.—.A correspondent with
was
spntioonne otfobl as
whomsen a
I,
General Sherman's army writea—., The Whitworth
rifle in use by the rebel skirmishers and sharpshooters is a
weapon greatly to be feared, as persons nearly a mile and a
halt from the rebel skirmish line have been wounded when
they thought themselves safe from anything except solid
shot and ehell. Ono soldier was standing upon a log crossing
a creek, about one mile and a quarter from the nearest rebel
line of rifle-pits, and a comrade was talking with him, when
one of these fatal messengers came crashing through b th
thighs, and with this mortal wound ho sank into the water.
An officer speaking of it says, ' They break the bone of a
man's limb like a solid shot from a cannon.' Rebel deserters
say that each division of the rebel front is furnished with
about 50 of these rifles, which are used in their skirmish
line,"

E trly on Saturday morning two gunpowder
magazines, situated on the southern bank of the
Thames between Woolwich and Erith, exploded
with terrific violence, kildog eight or nine persons,
if not more, wounding others, and carrying conster-
nation and alarm among the inhabitants of the
whole neighbourhood for miles round. ...Although
the scene of the catastrophe is distant about 15
miles from Charing-cross, the explosion was heard
and felt more or less throughout the whole me-
tropolis, and even at places 40 and 50 miles from
the spot. There is nothing in modern times to
compare with the calamity in the feeling of wide
spread terror which it produced, or ie the ins.
tense interest which it has since excited, unless
it be the memorable explosion at Gateshead-upon-
Tyne, some eight or ten years ago. At first the
prevailing idea was that the inhabitants of the
metropolis and its suburbs had experienced the
shock of an earthquake, but that notion was
speedily dispelled, and by noon on Saturday
the exact nature of the catastrophe and
its locality were pretty generally known through-
out London. Later in the day the evening papers
appeared, containing accounts of the matter, and
were sold in incredible numbers ; but thousands of
people, impatient to know the real truth, had
rushed down to the scene itself by railway in the
afternoon, to learn it for themselves on the spot.
By the evening, therefore, it was the theme of every
tongue, and probably for years past no intelligence
of any domestic event has occasioned a more start-
ling sensation.
Tee explosion occurred in a gunpowder depot be-
longing to Messrs. John Hall and Sons, and almost
simultaneously in a magazine of smaller size used
by Messrs. Daye and Barker, both of them located
in the Piumstead-marshes on the margin of the
Thames, two miles west of Etith, and about an
equal distance from the village of Belvedere, on the
North Kent Railway. Here, on about 20 acres of
ground, separated for obvious reasons from the rest
of the neighbouring inhabitants, but in the imme-
diate vicinity of the ecene of their daily labour,
lived a few workingmen with their families in three
cottages engaged in a perilous calling. One
was George Rayner, who acted as store-
keeper in the depot of Messrs. Hall, and
who was a married man with a family, and
another named Walter Silver, also married,
acted in a similar capacity under Messrs. Daye
and Barker. Each of these hed a cottage to hima
self about 100 or 200 yards from the magazines, and
the rest, who were men employed in the larger depot,
occupied a cottage in common. The Messrs. Hall
have been engaged in the business of fabricating
gunpowder for more than 50 years, and have exe-
cie.ed large contracts ft om time to time, both for our
and many foreign Governments. They have a large
factory in the neighbourhood of Faversham, in
Kent, occupying about 200 acres of ground, part of
the works at which were erected in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth. There the work of manufacturing
and packing gunpowder is conducted by a body of
trained artisans, with all the safeguards and pre-
cautions suggested by experience, and within the
last few years the proprietors have purchased a
large tract of adjacent land in order the more com-
pletely to seclude their operations from the habita-
tions of men. Their magazine at Belvedere was a
substantial building, about 50 feet square, and con-
sisting of two floors. It was erected five or six years
ago, at a cost of about £3,000, and around it were
18 acres of land, with the view to isolate the build-
ing. For miles at that part of the river there is an
embankment, which protects the low lying marshes
from inundation. Bath their depot and that
of Messrs. Day° and Barker stood close behind the
embankment, and each had a wooden jetty pro-
jecting into the river, to facilitate the loading
and unloading of gunpowder. The quantity of
gunpowder stored in Messrs. Hall's magazine at the
time of the explosion and in two of their barges
which lay elf the jetty is variously estimated at
between less than 2,000 and 1,000 barrels, each
barrel containing 1001 b. They themselves state
that there were about 750 barrels in the depot and
perhaps 200 more in the barge. The quantity in
the magazines of Messrs. Daye and Baker has not
been ascertained. It should be understood that
these were places used entirely for the storage of
gunpowder and in no sense for its manufacture,
and that nano but experienced men were employed
at them. Rayner had been the storekeeper there

of Messrs. Hall for 12 years, and accustomed to the
manipulation of gunpowder from his boyhood. He
was an intelligent and most Efficient mar, and
they had complete confidence in him. Between
their mills at Faversham and the magazine at
Belvedere, a distance of about 30 miles, the gun-
powder is conveyed in sailing barges, each of them
navigated usually by a couple of men, and two of
these, as has been stated, were moored alongside
the jetty on Saturday morning discharging cargo.
The gunpowder, carefully packed in barrels, is
borne on trucks with copper wheels along wooden
rails, in order to preclude the possibility cf a spark
from friction, and the operation is conducted with
other precautions, such as the wearing of list slippers
by the men engaged in it. By common consent, the
explosion occurred at between 18 and 20 minutes
before 7 o'clock in the morning, and it is presumed
that Messrs. Hall's men were then unloading one
of the barges. A clock in the house of Mr. Henry
Hall, at South Darenth, about three miles from
Dartford and seven from the powder magazines, was
stopped by the explosion itself at precisely 18
minutes to 7. There were three distinct explosions
immediately following each other, and the belief of
persons conversant with the trade is that the first
took place on board one of the barges; that the
terrific concussion produced by it tore asunder the
larger magazine, and some of the burning fragments
alighting in it caused an explosion infinitely more
appalling, and which was instantaneously followed
by the explosion of the smaller depot. At Erith
and Belvedere, where the shock was most felt, the
feeling produced by it is described as awful beyond
description. At Woolwich, about four miles off, the
first impression was that the powder works in the
Arsenal had exploded, and the wives and families
of the artisans at work there rushed to the spot in
a state of consternation. They were not allowed to
enter the plane, and they stood terror-stricken in the
square in front. Shortly after the explosion showers
of letters, invoices, and other papers, which had been
borne on the wind a distance of four miles, fell within
the precincts of the Arsenal, and clearly indicated
the scene of the catastrophe, but it was long before
the people outside could be persuaded that their re-
latives were safe. Immediately after the calamity an
immense pillar of smoke rose from the spot high into
the air, thick, black, and palpable, with a huge
spreading top, and about a quarter of an hour
elapsed before it died away. So soon as it was sup-
posed to be safe to do so people from Erith and Bel-
vedere proceeded to the spot and ventured to explore
the ruins in search of any one that might be livin:
Of the magazines themselves not a single stone re,
mained upon another, the very foundations being
torn up, and the cite of that of Messrs Hlll was
marked by huge fissures and chasms in the earth,

turned. The cottage in which they lived is simply
a ruin, and the whole immediate neighbourhood is
covered with the debris of the fallen buildings.
Those of the sufferers, nine in number, who were
still living were conveyed with as much care and
speed as possible to Guy's Hospital. ole of them
died shortly after admission, the lives of two others
were despaired of, and it is apprehended that tte
men in charge of the barges have perished, for
they were missing up to yesterday.
The yawning gap in the embankment, about 100 yards
in width, next demanded attention, and most fortunately
Mr. Lewis G. Moore, an engineer connected with the Thames
Embankment, and who resides at Erith, at once perceiv, d
and appreciated the emergency. Luckily, it was dead low
water at the time of the explosion, but still only about
four hours were available for the rough repair of the
damage against the approaching tide. A message was sent
by Mr Moore to Mr Houghton, one of the contractors under
the Metropolitan Board of Works, at Crossness Point,
about a couple of miles off, and within 20 minutes after-
wards he had arrived upon the scene with 400 navvies, with
all their to Is and barrows. A communication was also
forwarded to the garrison at Woolwich, and by half-past
9 o'clock detachments of Sappers and Miners and Artillery.
to the number of about 1,500, under the command of Gen.
Warde and Colonel Hawkins, reached the spot with all the
necessary implements, and set about the repair of the
breach with great good will, and after the true method of
military engineering. They were followed speedily by the
sth Fusileers, who kept the ground from intrusion, and
later in the day by the Marines, both from the garrison at
Woolwich. Before the troops arrived, the navvies, acting
under Mr Houghten and Mr Moore, wheeled large masses
of clay in front of the breach, while others puddled it into
a solid bottom, by which means the subsequent military
operations were facilitated. On their arrival the Sappers
and Miners made horizrntal arches at the back of the breach
with bags of clay one upon another, and layers of earth in
tervening, these arches presenting a formidable front to the
advancing tide, while the rest of the gap was being filled up
and puddled by the navvies. Time was precious and there
was a scarcity of barrows ; but the troops, adapting them-
selves to the emergency, formed themselves into lines from
places where clay was available, and passed it along in
lumps, from hand to hand, to the point of operations with
great ease and rapidity. About half-past 1 o'clock, when
near high water, the work became extremely exciting. The
whole force contended with the advancing tide inch by inch;
knowing that, if it once made a breach, the repair of the
mischief would be vastly more difficult than the work in
which they were then engaged, By 3 o'clock the embank-
ment was restored in this rough and ready; but most effi-
cient, manner, and the crisis had passe'. It withstood the
succeeding tide, and was exposed to a severer trial in that
of yesterday, which, with a stiff north-easterly breeze, beat
heavily against it for a couple of hours. At one time,
apprehensions as to its safety existed, and a party of Sappers
and Miners, who had been telegraphed for, arrived from
Woolwich to assist in the emergency. In case of failure, Mr
Moore had taken the precaution to send for about a dozen
barges, with a view to have them loaded with clay and then
scuttled in front of the breach as a kind of breakwater ; but
fortunately occasion did not arise for the expedient being
carried into effect. He spe,ks in enthusiastic terms of the
hearty co-operation of General arde and Colonel Haw-
kins on the occasion, and of the practical energy shown by
the troops. In the course of the afternoon of Saturday
Captain Harris, Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, went
down to the spot with a detachment of the A Division ef
police, and yesterday again a still stronger force were on
duty there aiding the local constabularly.
The damage done at Erith in particular in the way of
broken glass and the injury to property in other respects is
lamentably great, and a public meeting of the inhabitants
has been convened for this afternoon to decide upon some
course of action in the emergency. There is scarcely a
house in the place the windows of which have not been
shattered less or more, and. the inhabitants are experi-
encing much inconvenience. The windows of the old
parish church have been blown in among the rest, as have
also those in particular of a whole row of houses, 20 or 30 in
number, situated on the brow of a hill Lading to Bexley
and belonging to Mr. Everett. The explosion was heard
and felt at Uxbridge, about 30 miles off, and at Windsor,
Taddington, and many other distant places. Mr. William
Hall, the principal partner of the firm whose property has
been destroyed, felt the concussion at the residence of Sir
Norton Knatchbull, at which he was staying, in the neigh-
bourhood of Ashford, and about 50 miles distant from the
spot. For some minutes after the explosion the earth heaved
and trembled with the effects of it in and about Erith and
Belvedere, and the people were appalled and terror• stricken

At Woolwich the usual drills and barrack duties were on
Saturday dispensed with as far as practicable, for the pur-
pose of rendering all possible aid to the sufferers from the ex-
plosion. The effects in the garrison and town were destructive.
The windows in the official departments, at private resi-
dences, and shops were shatter. d ; frames and sashes were
dashed in, and several persons were severely injured, In
many houses ceilings and portions of the walls were:shaken
down, and people rushed from their houses in dismay.
The whole of the medical staff of the garticon and town
hastened to the scene to render their assistance. Dr Dora-
ville, of the flagship Fisgard, who was the first to reach
the place, was pulled down the river to the immediate
locality in the ship's cutter. In the shock many persons
were thrown violently from their beds to the floor and
their beds shook like ships at sea. In the Arsenal and
dockyard serious fears were entertained that the large
workshops would fall in, so great and violent was the
concussion felt by the Levo shocks immediately fol-
lowing each other. In connection with the showers of
paper a remarkable circumstance occurred. A lad
named Eaves was standing near the Royal gun facto-
ries, in which ho is employed, and picked up one of
the torn pieces of paper which fell around him. lie found
it to be part of the page of a ledger, in which his uncle, a
foreman in the employment of Mr Hall, had that morning
entered a memorandum. He had attached his signature at
the foot, together with the date of the entry—namely,
October 1, 1864. Ihe shock of the explosion was distinctly
felt in every part of Chatham and Rochester, which are dis-
tant about 25 miles from the scene of the disaster. In
Chatham dockyard the windows of nearly every part of the
building were shaken and doors were krced open. The
cloud of smoke which followed the explosion was distinctly
visible from Fort Pitt and the Chatham Lines, and until
the telegramsconveying intelligence of the occurenco arrived
a general opinion was entertained that the Government
powder magazines at Puffiest had exploded. The shock of
the explosions was felt most severely in the more elevated
portions of the neighbourhood.
At Deptford, in the workshops of Mr. Stone, a large
navy contractor, which are under the arches of the railway
there, the gaslights, to the number of about 150, were
blown out simultaneously by the explosion.
Sergeant Cox. of the police division stationed at Erith,
gives the following narrative of the circumstances :—He
was getting up when he heard the explosion, He ran out
and found all the back windows were broken, the sashes as
well as the glasses. He looked in the direction whence the
sound proceeded, and imagining from the smoke that one
of the magazines had exploded, he went back, and, having
quieted the fears of hie wife, proceeded to the scene cf the
disaster, procuring assistance by the way. Mr Churton
and Mr Tipple, two medical gentlemen of the vicinity,
were on the spot almost as soon as the police, awl, with
Mr Matthewson and other surgeons, did all that was
possible for the sufferers. On arriving at the spot,
having literally picked his way through the heaps of rubbish
and masses of stones and brick that had been strewn about
by the explosion, Sergeant Cox found the body of Mr Geo.
Rayner in his own garden. He was much cut about the
face, as if by splinters, and the back part of the head over
the left ear was cut open, the brain protruding. He was
quite dead. Sergeant Cox next saw Rebecca Wright, who
was removed as soon as possible, under the care of the medi-
cal men. A son of Rayner, names Oliver, was next dis-
covered. His head was smashed in a fear:lll manner, and
death must have been qui.e instantaneous. Elizabeth
Wright, aged
_l3 years, a daughter of the poor veoe,:an
previously mentioned, was next found, and she wag
carefully removed to Guy's Hospital, but died a few
minutes after her admisyion. She bad sustained a
compound fracture of the skull, a fracture of the left thigh,
and was severely burnt on the chest and upper extremity of
the body, The bodies of Rayner and his son were removed
to the Belvedere Hotel, and placed in a shed to await the
coroner's inquest, and shortly after the body of a man, ap-
parently ab ut GO years of ago, was found in the mud of the
river, and conveyed to the same place.
Yesterday thousands upon thousands of people of visited
the scene of the catastrophe, travelling mostly by the North
Kent Railway, and it required the aid of a strong body
of police at the Erith and Belvedere Stations to maintain
order and prevent accident.
Long after dark the platform and grounds of the Belve-
dere and Erith Station were crowded with thousands of
people waiting to be conveyed homewards.
At 11 o'clock the trains were coming in rapidly to Lon-
don-bridge, the passengers by which reported that a large
number of persons were sill waiting down the line.

The Russian
Malta screw
on them
26th frigaSeptember from
te Oleg of 57
guns arrived at
the Pima& The usual salutes were exchanged
between her, the forts, and the English flagship.