The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-16 00:00:00

then nowhere discoverable. Then, again, there is
the otherwise surely very remarkable circumstance
of a hat being found in the blood-bespattered rail-
way carriage compartment, which turned out to be—.
not the dead man's, but another man's hat—and
that man nowhere any more traceable as yet than
the exchanger of the gold chain already mentioned !
There— in the scene of all this fearful bloodshed,
there in that railway carriage compartment, toge-
ther with the dead man's stick and leathern bag
(the latter with the mark of the bloody hand upon
its fastening) was—not the deceased's hat, but
—another man's—a stranger's ! Not a gentleman's
hat—not a hat of the better sort—but a common
cheap London hat—belonging to some unknown
person. Everything here, we repeat, points to the
fact of Mr. BRIGGS'S death having been one of great
brutality and violence, caused by the hand of a
murderer. One's instant impression is that the
strange, battered, bloodstained, common hat is the
murderer's ! One's instant impression is also that
the bloody finger-marks on the fastening of the
dead man's leather bag were the bloody finger-marks
of the murderer, That murderer seekingt—while
yet red handed—in the bag, the booty he had
hoped to win by reason of this deed of assassina-
tion. The forcible rending away from the dead
man's possession of his gold watch and his gold
chain—all except the hook or fastening of the latter,
where it was too strongly entangled with his
clothing to be extricated in a hurry—this likewise
seems to us, quite as clearly as the rest of it, to have
been the work of a murderer, and of none else than
a murderer, or a murderer's accomplice. It may pos-
sibly be deemed by some a mere waste of words, in-
sisting upon all this, under such very frightful and
extraordinary circumstances. Yet, so singularly
ingenious an hypothesis has been thrown out this
morning by an anonymous correspondent of our
morning contemporary the Herald, to the effect
that the death of Mr. BRIGGS was, after all, the
result of no murder whatever, that we have felt
constrained to recall the above mentioned facts
to mind, before giving the argument put forth in
this same ingenious hypothesis in the manner fol-
lowing, The deceased gentleman—suggests this cor-
respondent of our contemporary—" Mr,Briggs, had
been dining out, and possibly from congestion he
may have had an attack of hemmtemisis, or vomiting
of blood ; from giddiness or other apoplectic feeling
about the head he may have taken up the first hat
he found at his last place of call, and hurried to the
train ; there he is seized with vomiting, and to his
horror he discovers it is blood ; he turns over the
cushions to ascertain the fact, and on doing eo, he
tries the window, but finds it barred. He then, with
his bloody hand, tries the handle of the door to
get it of,on, and while pushing and turning the
handle, the door flies open, and out he is precipi-
tated on his head, the watchguard or any loop
catching any projection, and the watch and guard
either carried along the line on the footboard, or
thrown with him, where it may yet be found. I
might enter into more minute details to account for
minor circumstances, "observes the correspondent,"
but fearing to tresspass on your columns, I only
wish to add that an assault on a banker's clerk,
with the hope of finding money, would scarcely
be undertaken at ten o'clock on a Saturday night,
or any night returning from a bank." Now, of
course, as the propounder of this (we repeat)
very ingenious hypothesis insists above, all this
may have occurred precisely according to
his conjectures. Mr. BRIGGS may have taken the
stranger's hat instead of his own by mistake—and
so forth. But—if ho fumbles with his blood•
soaked hand at the window and at the door to
gt t each open—how comes he to be fumbling pre-
viously with the lock of hie own empty leather
bag ? What possibly could he have been doing
that for ? Again, the gold watch may have
been torn out of his pocket, during the
accidental fall here hinted at, and have been thrown
somewhere on to the line, where it may yet be dis-
,...overed lying ! Only—days and nights have since
passed by--and it has not been so discovered nor
even a fragment of it! And—what is more—the
missing gold chain, the gold chain missed Blinn

taneouslv, from the dead body, together with the
gold chronometer, is known to have been exchanged
the day afterwards, on the sly, by an unknown
man, who can nowhere since then be discovered.
No—the strange, common, cheap hat, found blood-
stained and battered in that ghastly railway car-
riage compartment—the disappearance of the gold
chronometer—the mysterious exchange . made by
some unknown and undiscoverable person of the
lost gold chain—the bloody hand-mark on the
dead man's travelling-bag to say nothing
about the murderous wounds discovered upon the
skull of the unfortunate deceased—all point clearly
and distinctly, to our thinking, to his death as the
result of a most brutal, sudden, ruthless, inhuman
assassination. The railway official whom he had
cheerily bidden " Good Night" a minute or two
before his awful and violent death, can testify that,

even as recently as up to that moment, there was
no evidence of the confusion supposed by
the correspcndent to have been so heavily by
that time upon Mr. BRIGGS' faculties that

he had blundered himself out of the possession of
his own hat and instead of that carrying away upon
his head that of another person's! One other con-

sideraticn not yet referred to by us about the cit.s
cumstance attendant upon Mr. BRIGGS'S appalling
death we would here direct especial attention to,
as, to our thinking, in its way, perfectly conclusive,
that the unhappy gentlemen did not come by
his death in the manner suggested by this
correspondent, but that he did die the death
of the victim of a cruel and inhuman murder. This
simple, and, as we:conceive, quite conclusive con-
sideration, being the feet that the door of that
hideously blood saturated compartment of the
railway carriage—in which the dead man's
stick and travelling bag (the both blood-
stained) was found, together with the
common cheap hat of some other person un-
known—that the door of that compartment, from
which the dead man's body had been precipitated,
was found—closed-to afterwards 1 And not swings
ing wildly open—as must have been the case had

the deceased fallen out, as suggested, merely by
accident!

There is an old adage which tells us that there
we none so deaf as those that will not hear; and
certainly it may be followed by the aphorism that
none are so dull as those that will not under-
stand. It is certainly a very strange thing that no
amount of argument or opposition, or even an ad-
vcrse vote, can succeed in convineingher MAJESTY'S
Ministers that it is the wish and intention of the
House of Commms to retain the National Gallery
In this matter at least the pre-
on its present site.
vent House fairly enough represents the feelings of
the people, although its political views have in
many instances proved F.n opposition to the public.
It has given a decided opinion on the matter, and
has been supported in its opposition to the favourite
scheme of Government by the general feeling of all
classes. The retention of the National Gallery on
its present site is readily recognisable
as the most
sensible and suitable method of settling the long
discussion. The spot is still central in spite of the
spreading suburbs; it is easily accessible oa foot or
by vehicle, while the great focus of
nil ways at I

Hungerford will add still greater facilities to the
means of access already existing Thanks to those
metropolitan lines which are threatening to turn
London upside down, entirely for the convenience
of the sufferers, persons may now traverse its wil.
derness of streets with very little delay or
fatigue ; • but it is undoubtedly the right
course to pursue with a building of this character
to place it in a position which is within easy reach
of all classes, not only of those more favoured mem-
bers of society, who possess the magic agent which
contracts time and space. If, indeed, the National
Gallery were now in a situation which did not accord
with the character of the institution, it might be
desirable to reconsider the point, but Trafalgar-
square has been styled " the finest site in Europe,"
and it is capable of being made, as it ought to be, the
centre of artistic interest. 'Within N iew of the old
historic walls of Westminster and the Houses of
Parliament, were the intervening streets enlarged
and improved, as they ought to be, with the monu.
ment of our greatest naval hero in its front,
surrounded, if the design be ever fairly carried out,
by memorials of other English worthies, there
could scarcely be a more fitting locality with
regard to external associations. If half the care
and money were expended on Trafalgar-square
that have been lavished on those favoured spots near
Kensington, it would now present an appearance a
little more in accordance with our national dignity
and with the wishes of the public. People very
naturally prefer to fix their place of abode at a little
distance from the centre of business, but they do not
expect all the old fixtures, as CHAS. MATHEWS says,
to become part of the moveables. Nobody pretends
that it would be desirable for the Commons to re.
move their place of deliberation from St. Stephen's
to Kensington or Brompton—no one advises that
St. Paul's should be transported to some more airy
or elegant situation in the west. There are changes
enough being clamoured for which the Government
is unwilling to grant, or even to entertain the idea
of; but this transposition, which is not wanted,
they are always ready to tattle about. In the dis-
cussion which arose in Supply on Thursday even.
ing the old feeling was very strongly manifested.
Three separate representatives of the Government
—one of them the Prime Minister himself—per-
sisted with some ascerbity in pretending that the
House of Commons had come to no decision on the
matter. The right hon. speakers were warned by
the continued interruptions of the House that their
memories were inaccurate, and, indeed, they were
told so plainly enough. Sir JOHN SHELLEY, in his
usual straightforward manner, said that he thought
it a most unfortunate circumstance that the House,
do what it might, could not persuade Ministers that
it was determined that the National Gallery should
remain at Trafalgar-square. Surely, said the hon.
baronet, it was the duty of the First Commissioner
of Works to bow to the decision of the House.
But Ministers with crotchets and pet schemes are not
very willing to submit to any unfavourable decision,
and accordingly it is easy to assert that the house,
though it has expressed its opinion pretty often,
and once or twice in an unmistakable manner, has
never actually committed itself to any particular
scheme. Lord PALMERSTON was full of virtuous
indignation because the House expected the Govern.
ment to have a scheme ready at once when they
had just refused to accept the Ministerial proposal,
which, even as the noble lord put it, sounds absurd
enough to merit the most emphatic disapproval.
" What they had thought best, was to provide for
the National Gallery at the back cf Burlington
House, and to leave the Royal Academy at Trafal-
gar-square." The noble lord hopes next session to
propose some scheme which will reconcile all existing
differences. What that scheme is to be the future
must unfold, but it must be very different from any-
thing that has yet issued from higher official quar-
ters before it will commend itstlf to the 00113MOrl
souse and right feeling of the people.

The Factory Acts Extension Bill has passed
through Committee. This is very satisfactory to
reflect upon, for it is a measure that was urgently
called for, and indeed the only wonder is that it
was not sooner projected. It must not be supposed
either that enough has been done in this line, for,
as Lord SHAFTESBURY observed, this should be
only the precursor of a series of measures which
would confer the greatest benefit on the country.

It is a sad thing that while wealth increases and
commerce flourishes, the health of the operatives
should be injured, and their lives too often sscri.
ficed in consequence of the want of precautions
being adopted and due observance paid to the im-
portant rules which relate to health and the
violation of which entails such useful con-
sequences. The working of this bill will be
the means of affording relief to a hundred
thousand children and young people who have
hitherto drooped under the pressure of overwork,
and that
.under circumstances which militated
greatly against their health, It is always a source
of great pleasure to the deserving mind to reflect
that the rising generation are welt cared for. There
is no greater security for the well-being of a State
than the right training of its youth. It is not in
accerdance.with the_laws of ancient wisdom, or con.
sonant with the principles that modern science has
inculcated, to allow the culpable neglect that of late
years has taken place among u to continue. It
this timely aid had not been administered, and this
respite allowed to these overtaxed faculties and overs
worked frames, the consequences at a future period
would undoubtedly have been fatal to themselves in
many instances, and injurious to the interests of tho
community. There is no greater mistake than this
over hurry to get rich, and many disastrous results
have ensued therefrom. There is great truth in
Lord SHAFTESBURY'S remarks on the claims which
the workpeople of this country have on the consider
ration of the House. During the late cotton famine
no riots had taken place, and indeed the noble lord
said that their predictions had been verified, that
if the Factory Bill passed there would be no more
sedition in these places. It is some relief to those
who regret that the state of the young operatives
throughout the country should be so bad, to know
that since the recent factory legislation took place
the condition of the children there bas much im-
proved, and that deformity has almost entirely dis-
appeared. These facts prove beyond dispute that
the criticism of captions persons is unfounded, and
that great goad may be effected.by the adoption of
these remedial schemes. A suggestion was made
that :he lucifee match manufacturers and the
makers of percussion caps should be exempted
these regulations, but moat fortunately it was not
paid attention to, for Lord SHAFTESBURY con-
firmed the statement already made by many com-
petent judges, as to the very injurious nature of
these professions. In fact, these trades are about
the worst that exist. The employment of mak-
ing lncifer matches gives rise to jaw disease; and
women and young children are those who are
g
vet
ihneiectr:a
tol yh
heeonupgrras:veei
:di
toirnnas t
who
of
rmtkh,ai kins from
bill
i.gi lof percussion caps.
Tvery injurious, and the beneficialsriecletnaosseeaqiguthhenet,mcef'sraoormef
this shortening of their toil will now be apparent,
as it has been in the case of the operatives of the
factories. The gas at night is prejudicial in the
close rooms where they work, and these hours after
the 10/43' day's ltibOUY come very heavy upon those