The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-22 00:00:00

not. injurious to the labouring classes and to the poor—you
might as well destroy or burn down the growing corn itself.
I shall therefore give you a heavier sentence—viz., 15 years'

penal servitude.
John Rogers, William White, and Mary Starmer, were
charged with burglary in the dwellinghouse of Jaynes Rid-
diford, at Fenny Stratford, on the Ist December, 1864, and
stealing six silver tea-spoons, two silver table-spoons a pair
of silver sugar tongs, a quantity of riband, and other articles,
worth altogether about £3O.
The two men pleaded guilty, and against the woman the
case as stated by Mr Stephenson, who appeared for the pro-
secution was that the house, which was safe on the night of
the 30th November, at b in the morning of the next day was
discovered to have been broken into, and all the property,
save a jacket, was found in the possession of the man White.
Now the womanrStarmer, who had been living with Rogers
was seen in the company of both the men on the 29th of
November, and at 9 o'clock on the night of the robbery, as
well as on the next morning ; but in addition to these facts,
she was also seen to be wearing a jacket which was identi-
fied by the prosecutor as part of the property which was
taken from his house by the robbers.
The prisoner Starmer having called Rogers as a witness in
her behalf, he said he had left her asleep under a haystack
at 10.30 p.m. on the night of the burglary, and found her
still asleep at 5 in the morning, and that he gaVe her the
jacket about half-past 5.
The jury found her guilty of receiving the property
knowing that it was stolen, upon which she was sentenced
to one year's imprisonment, while the two men were con-
demned to 10 years' penal servitude.
James Boyd was also indicted for a burglary in the dwel-
ling house of James Stone, at Newton Longville, on the
night of the 17th of September, with intent to steal.
Mr Markby appeared for the prosecution, and proved a
case which was remarkable more for the stout-hearted con-
duct of the prosecutor's wife, and for the cool manner in
which the prisoner's cross-examination was met by the pro•
secutor, than for anything else. The facts were simple, for
the prosecutor having roused his wife in the night, she saw
the prisoner standing by the bedside, who immediately ran
away, followed by Mrs Stone, to the children's bedroom,
where he was trying to get out of the window. Mrs Stone
seiz3d him by the hair, and held him until her husband got
underneath the window and called to let go, which she did,
when the man fell into her husband's arms, who, after a
scuffle. took him into the house and fixed him in his'arm chair.

The prisoner, who endeavoured most ineffectually to con•
fuse the prosecutor and his wife, and make them contradict
themselves, in addressing the jury, said that he was passing
the house at the time, heard the row and noise, and saw a
man running away, when he was seized by the prosecutor
entirely in mistake for the other man. "Is it feasible, gen-
tlemen," said ho, " that a man should go to the cottage of
a poor man to commit a robbery ?"
The jury, however, thought it was, and that he was the
guilty man, and upon their verdict ho was sentenced to six
months' imptisonment.

"A light sentence," said his lordship, " because you did
not resist or use any violence to that very courageous and
stout-hearted woman when she seized you, or attempt to
hurt her, which you might have done."
Joseph Baber was indicted for wilfully setting fire to a
stack of wheat, the property of James Roads, at Mentmore,
on Sept. 13.
This was a curious case, on account of the manner in
which the detection of the offender was managed by the
police authorities, in consequence of the entire absence
of suspicion or clue, The fire took place on the 18th
of September, and on the 21th a young policeman named
William Heads wee instructed by Captain Carter, the
Superintendent of the Bucks Polies force, to go from his
usual quarters, which was some distance from Mentmore, to
that place, where he was not known. This he did, having
disguised himself as a labourer, and took service as a horse•
keeper with a farmer named Bonest, at 12s a week, After
his day's work was over he went over to a public-house
frequented by the labourers of the district, called the Hare
and Hounds, and kept by a woman named Sale, whose son,
as will be seen, was implicated in the offence. There he met
the prisoner, with whom he soon became on friendly terms,
trea ing him to drink and getting treated in turn, On the

27th they got into conversation at the Hare and Hounds,
when the prisoner said, "It is certain they don't and won't
know who set Mr Roads's farm on fire ;" and on the sth of
next month, at the same place, in another conversation he
said, in the presence of the landlady's son, James Sale, " It
only took one match to set it on fire ;" to which Sale replied,
"It must, have taken a good lot of wood to do it." " I
know better," said the prisoner, " It only took one match;"
upon which another man, Selston, who was present, said,
" Hold your tongue, you fool, or they will find us
out;" to which the prisoner answered, " I won't; I know
better ; I will tell the truth ; I know all about it, Some
few days afterwards a neighbouring btatute fair took place,
at which the prisoner was present, and in company with a
police-constable. ileads,whe was still dressed as a labourer
joined them, and the prisoner said, " Take a drink,
Charley, and don't take notice of what I said the other
night," admitting that what he had said was true. But
the important conversation between them took place on the
evening of the 11th in a stable belonging to the Hare and
Hounds, when the prisoner told Heads that the fire was
arrenged between himself and the two other men, Sale
and Selston (who, it appears is blind of one eye) on the
Thursday preceding the fire—that on the night when it
was done they watched Garibaldi (a policeman who was
so nicknanstd in the neighbourhood) out of the
place—the prisoner went to the. place instead of
Selston because the night was dark and Seleton's eye
sight was weak ; and that the prisoner set the wheatatack
alight in a little hole underneath the buttons of it, but that
the fire would not spread as much as was wished because
the night was so wet. Of course the policeman Heads was
the principal witness in the case: but several other witnesses
were called to corroborate the different parts of the pri-
soner's conversation, and to substantiate the whole charge.
Mr Payne, having pointed cut to the jury the fact that
the evidence against the prisoner rested entirely upon ono
man, and was obtained in a way contrary to th© established
custom and practice of this country, begged them to look
closely at all the alleged facts of the case, and sot to place
too much reliance on evidence that stood alone and could
not fairly be accepted as trustworthy. In answer to the
charge thus set up the learned counsel called two or three
witnesses with the view of discrediting the policeman's
story.

The easy was not finished at the tine of digintching our
parcel.

Scandalous Treatment of Irish Paupers.

Yesterday, at the Thames Police-court, John Sherman,
an infirm old man, a pauper belonging to the Greenwich
union, appeared before Mr Paget to answer a summons
taken out by Mr Thomas Babington, solicitor to the Cork
union, in Ireland, and which charged the defendant that
he, being a person employed in the execution of a warrant
duly issued by Mr Daniel Mande, a magistrate at the police-
court, Greenwich, requiring the guardians of the Green-
wich union to cause a certain poor person named Julia
Hannen and her c'aild to be safely conveyed from the parish
of St. Nichelas, Dopcford, to the parish of Killarney, in
Ireland, did unlawfully and wilfully desert the said Julia
Hannen and her child before they had been conveyed to the
place of destination mentioned in the warrant.
Mr Charles Young, solicitor, said he was instructed by
Mr Babington to prosecute in this case, which was one of
great importance. In consequmee of twelve poor persons
having been irregularly forwarded to Cork by the Green-
wich union, the Cork union had instructed their solicitor to
proceed against the defendant, who was the only person
that could be reached. The 4th section of the 26th and
27th of Victoria, cap. 85, enacted that any person being
employed in the execution of a warrant duly issued, who
shall wilfully desert any poison mentioned therein before
he or she shall have been conveyed to the place of desti-
nation, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour. Mr Maude, the
magistrate of the Greenwich Police-court, had, upon appli-
cation made to him, issued his warrant for tho removal of
a poor woman and her infant to the union of Killarney, in
Ireland, and to be delivered at the workhouse ef the Kil-
larney union. The defendant had sent the woman and
her child to Cork in a steamboat ex deck passengers at this
inclement season of tho year, and they had been sent back
again for the purposes of this prosecution.
Mr Joseph Patte, a relieving officer ct the Greenwich
union, asked for an adjournment of the case until the direc-
tions of the board of guardians could be obtained, but as
there was no charge again;t that body, but merely against
their officers, Mr Paget refused to comply with the request.
Evidence was then given showing that it was in obedience
to orders from the relieving officer, Mr Patte, that the de-
fendant had left the woman and child on the steamboat.
Mr William Cox, an inspector of the Thames Police, who
was on board at the time, said ho saw them arrive, and that
he told the defendant he was doing wrong in sending them
off with nobody in charge of them. Had not the second mate
kindly given up his cabin to theta they would have had to
remain on deck the whole of the voyage. Witness had be-
fore seen defendant sending uff paupers to Ireland as deck
passengers, and had warned him several times.
_ _ _

Mr Paget—llow long are the steamboats on the voyage
from London to Cork ?

Wi!ness—About three days and three nights.
Mr Babington said there was a special clause in the Ad
of Parliament prohibiting the shipment of women and chit.
ren under 14 years of ego as deck papsengera between the lsi
October and the 31st March. lle then read the section re.
ferred to.

Mr Paget said it was perfectly clear the defendant, who
was an old, illiterate pauper, was following the directions
of another. lie was very reluctant to send the old man to
prison, because he acted according to the directions given to
bim by Mr Patto. They w: re most illegal directions. A
more flagrant violation of the law ho bad never heard of.
If it had not been for the kindness of the second mate of
the steamer the poor woman, who had been confined only a
month, would have been exposed to the elements on the
deck of a steamer in the beginning of December for three
days and three nights, It was quite monstrous. He was
glad the authorities at Cork had taken up this matter, It
was a very proper proceeding on the part of the authorities
of Cork. Notice ought to be given to Mr Maude, and he
should recommend Mr Thibington to wait upon the
magistrate of the Greenwich police-court, and let him know
how his warrants were executed by the people of the
Greenwich onion. In justice to Mr Maude he ought to be

made acquainted with the evidence. if any officer of the
Thames Police-court was so tar to forget his duty and exe-
cute a warrant of his as Mr Maude's warrant has been exe-
cuted, he would immediately suspend him. Ho must com-
mit the defendant for trial at the next Middlesex sessions,
He asked him if he could find security for his appearance
there.

Mr Paitc—We will be security; I and the master of the
Geernwich house.

Mr C. Young—l will take the master of the Greenwich
union only ; he is not a witness, Patte is, and I object to
him.

The bond of the master of the union was taken, and the
defendant was liberated.

A French View of President Lincoln's

Re .election.

A distinguished French writer, M. Auguste
Laugel, contributes an article on Mr Lincoln's re- i
election to the number of the .Revue des Deux
Mondes of Dec. 15, of which the following are the
concluding passages. M. Laugel, it may be men■
tiuned, was in America when the electoral contest
took place :
" The first words which fell from the lips of the
President after the re-election were words of peace
and conciliation. Gen. Butler, i❑ a speech which he
made before leaving New York, also gave it to be
understood that pacific proposals would soon be
made to the Southern States. 'rho misfortunes and
the emotions of the war have not aroused any sen-
timent of vengeance or of hatred in the hearts of
the inhabitants of the North; they are ready to
restore to the Southern States all their constitutional
rights, to cover everybody with a generous amnesty,
to consider all the decrees of confiscation a dead
letter. They merely ask of the South the renun.
elation of an institution henceforth considered in-
compatible with the Union. Never since the com-
mencement of the war has the North felt itself so
powerful, so united, so confident ; all doubt, all
hesitation has disappeared; the war has henceforth
its definitive meaning ; all the forces of the nation
have found a common object. This unconscious pur-
pose, pervading thousands of individual minds, has
at last become aware of its own existence. As the
price of so much bloodshed, of so many tears, exer-
tions, and troubles, it asks one thing only—' the
Union without slavery: The popular verdict has
already excited deep agitation in the Confederate
ranks. Mr Lffersen Davis and his friends hoped
that the democratic party would obtain the victory ;
they believed the North exhausted, discouraged,
divided, and even if Mr Lincoln were elected they
at least expected that his majority would be too
small to assure his moral authority. If a new civil
war grew out of the existing civil war, if the fac-
tions armed against each other in the towns and in
the States of the North, if party spirit penetrated
even the ranks of the army, the rebellion regained
in a moment all it had lost. A single day has anni-
hilated these vain hopes; the Southern Confederacy
stands face to face with the gloomy reality ; it sees
its army decimated, half its original territory lost
for ever, its last remaining cities threatened, its
treasury empty, its credit exhausted. No free voice
can make itself heard in those States subjected to
the military government; but the accounts of pri-
soners and refugees, the tone of the few Southern
journals in which regret and weariness may be
discerned under an assurance of enforced enthusiasm,
the speeches recently delivered in Georgia by Mr.
Jefferson Davis himself, the messages of several
governors of rebel States, the disgrace of the vice-
president, Mr. Stephens, who formerly made great
efforts to prevent the secession movement, all lead to
the belief that the Confederation is at this moment
being slowly torn asunder. A silent struggle has
commenced' between those who, satisfied with

having vindicated military honour, have no wish to
plunge their country in greater disasters, and those
who, despairing of victory, wish at least to sur-
render merely a solitude to their enemies, This
might be foreseen from the commencement of the
rebellion ; the new Confederacy contained within
it two germs of death, slavery and the very prin-
ciple of secession. The South rose against the
North because it believed its favourite institution
threatened, and now, at the end of four years of
contest, people begin to talk at Richmond of giving
erais to the negroes, and of offering them libeity as
the price of their alliance ! The slaveowners took
up arms in the name of the sovereignty of the States
and now the Governor of Georgia plays off that
sovereignty against the despotism of Richmond,
and gives it to be understood that each of the Con-
federate Sates can separately make peace with the
North ! Never has the logic which flews beneath
the events of history been more imperious or more
visible ; nothing has been able to retard its decrees,
neither the courage of the Southern armies nor the
firmness of that soldier-President, at once military
and civil organiser, around whom there is some-
thing of a tragic grandeur to which even the most
resolute enemies of his cause cannot remain insen-
sible. If the war in the United States had been an
ordinary war that commanding figure might pr.
haps have secured the favours of fortune; but this
great contest is in reality a revolution, and in the
struggle of principles at stake toe victory will rest
with the citizen-President.

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.

DUBLIN AND BELFAST', AND DUBLIN AND

DROGHEDA.

A meeting of shareholders in these companies was held
on Tuesday in Dublin ; Mr Gartland in the chair.
The CHAIRMAN, in opening the troceedings, said if the
directors were iu earnest in carrying out an amalgamation
of the two companies the meeting would assist them in
every way ; but if they were not, then the shareholders
would take up the matter and carry it out themselves.
Mr M. ANDERSON said he had prepared a bill in cense.
quence of representations made to him by several share-
holders, and the project recommended itself so much to his
own feelings that he felt no difficulty in carrying out those
representations, backed as they had been by his own imme-
diate clients, and by the difficulties which he perceived to
exist in carrying on the traffic between Dublin and Belfast,
and which he felt could be remedied if the management were
in the hands of a single directory. As the professional pro-
moter of the bill, he unhesitatingly declared to every per-
son present that, whether by attendance there or by signing
the petition for the bill, no responsibility would be incurred
for costs or any other expenses. He had no feeling against
the boards of the two companies, and, in fact, ho did not
think they could get a more respectable body of men. He
read the clauses of the proposed bill, which proposed to in-
corporate the two companies in a company to be called
"the Dublin, Drogheda, and Belfast Railway Company,"
with a capital of £2,186,898, being the joint capital of the
existing companies, and providing for the constitution of
general meetings, the calling special meetings, a board of
directors, consisting of nine members, five to form a quo..
rum, each director's qualification to be £2,000, and that
one-third of them should go out of office annually.

/%Ir SHANNON then moved the following resolution:--
"That t ho shareholders of the Dublin and Drogheda and
Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway Companies do heartily
approve an amalgamation of the two companies, as cal-
culated to save expense, to increase the value of the pro-
perty, to conduce to the public convenience, and to develop
the traffic on the tines, and that the bill now read appears
to this meeting properly framed to carry out these objects,"

Mr A, FINDLATER seconded the resolution, which wa.
carried unanimously. _ _

The proceedings-terminated with a vote of thanks to the
chairman. --

DUBLIN, RATHMINES, RATHGAR, AND
ROUNDTOWN.

The first general meeting of this company was held on
Monday in DO-din—Sir P. Nugent in the chair. •

The Secretary read the report, which stated that the con-
nection formed under the present act with the D üblin,Wick-
low, and Wexford Company's line, at the Harcourt-street
terruinuq, would enable the latter company and Ihis com-
pany each to carry its passengers and goods traffic, on their
respective lines, to and from the company's sta'ion at Tri•
nity-street ; and in this respect the company would pro&
largely by this highly important and valuable connection.
The directors wake persuaded that, taking into account the
important position of the city terminus and the line of coun-
try through which the railway would pass, the company's
undertaking would prove eminently successful,
The report was unanimously adopted, and Mr H. R, Perry
and Mr J. L. Bryne were appointed auditors; Sir H. P.
Nugent, Sir J. Cray, Mr J. Rivolfat Mr D. Treace, Mr L•
E. Knox, and Mr J. Kincaid were erected directors, and the
proceedings concluded with a vote of thanks to the chairman.

[ADIT.P.,TISEMENT.I—HoIIoway's Pills are the most gen-
tle, yet most effective aperients, and therefore better calcu-
lated for a family medicine than any other drug. They
always set the stomach right, rouse the liver, stimulate the
kidneys, and thoroughly cleanse the whole system Hollo-
way's pills are most useful in chronic weakness of the sto-
mach, induced by luxurious living, sedentary habits, or
other causes. They have restored the emaciated to health
after every other means had failed. While they are puri-
fying they are strengthening, while regulating they are
increasing nervous and muscular power. These pills do
not excite any violent action in the body ; hence they are
specially suited to the young aad feeble, whose constitu-
tions may be irretrievably injured by more powerful medi-
cine,

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The people of the Northern States of
America have just taken a step of the momentous
importance of which we, whose fate it is to live
under the carefully balanced institutions of an effete
feudal monarchy, are perhaps scarcely able to judge.
They have just consigned their lives, their liberties,
their property, their present, and their future for
four years certain to one of their citizens, in one
of the most difficult and dangerous crises which

history records. They are well acquainted with
the object of their choice, and are so far satisfied

with the state in which they find the republic

at the end of four years of his treatment that
they are willing to confide themselves to him for

another four years, though scarcely, we should
think, on the supposition that the future is to
be like the past. The man of their choice has

addressed them in a written Message, and they have
the opportunity of knowing what they have done,

and what estimate their chosen ruler forms of the
task that is set before him. We know not with what

feelings America has perused this Message of her
President. Having by some inscrutable process,
found in his past career the elements of future sue-

cess; she may possibly find in this Mange a clear
and hopeful account of the means by which that

success Is to ba obtained. For ourselves, w•e never

read a public document less calculated to inspire
hope, because we never read one in the preparation
of which a firm conviction of ultimate success ap.

peared to have so little share. Mr Lincoln, at any
rate, deserves the credit that he neither seeks to
amplify the resources of the North nor to extenuate
those of the South. He states his financial difficul-
ties with candour and fairness, abstains from pro-

phecies as to the ,termination of the war, and is
principally anxious to point out the sacrifices which
it is sure to demand. The American people have

made their bed and they must lie on it. They have
determined, after fall deliberation, almost in the
very words of Aristophanes, " We want no truce,
let the war go on ;" and the main business of the

President is to set before them the import of
the step they have taken, and to ask from them

the sacrifices which that step demands. He is in.
clined to think that if the English Government
could have foreseen all the consequences of
the step they would hardly have recognised the
Confederate States as belligerents. We are not

of that opinion ; bat we certainly think that if the
American people could have foreseen all the conse-
quences that have followed from the war, they would
never have engaged in it. • The financial position is
truly formidable, and need not be recapitulated here.
If anything could make one think worse of the
state of things than the bare figures themselves, it
would be the suggestion of the Message for the for-
mation of a new kind of stock, which is to enjoy all
the privileges of asylum, and may very properly be
introduced to the market under the title of "Alsatian

Bonds." -This privileged security, to ba issued by
a great and prosperous community in the fourth year
of a war undertaken with 75,600 men and repeatedly
announced as being about to be closed in 90 days, is
to enjoy an absolute immunity from the demands of
justice and patriotism. Whatever straits the State
may be reduced to, it is to be solemnly bound not to
tax this new species of obligation ; whatsoever be
the debts of the holder, not one penny is to be paid
out of it. Henceforth, when a man wishes to avoid

paying his just debts, he will have no occasion to
resort to the bungling expedient of settling land on
his wife and children, and assigning a nominal es-
tate to trustees for the benefit of his creditors. He
will not even be obliged to remit the means of a
comfortable maintenance to Europe with the intens
tied of following it as soon as he is called upon for
payment. He will have nothing to do but to invest
his creditors' money in some of Mr Lincoln's new
stock, and he may laugh at his creditors, having been
enabled, as the Message expresses it, " as a prudent
person, to set aside a email annuity against a pos-
sible day of want." What must be the situation of the
Government, what the extremity of its pecuniary
distress, when it proposes thus publicly to sell to the
needy and unprincipled a sure, easy, and simple way
of evading the payment of their debts? We see Go.
vernments do strange things, we see them repudiate
their own obligations like Spain, we see them utterly
careless of enforcing the law against debtors as in the
South American republics and in Oriental countries,
but we never saw before a proposal by the chief
magistrate of a great nation to sell to its citizens a
licence to incur debts over which the decisions of
Courts shall have no power. The only difficulty in
the scheme is the possibility that people may sus-
pect a Government so willing to furnish its subjects
with the means of eluding their obligations of not
being very fastidious in the discharge of its own,
and that when the money has once been borrowed
and spent the Executive Government may repent
of the privilege which it has created. Mr. Lincoln
is very anxious to cosfiac the benefits of his fiaan-
cial operations to America. He wishes to divide
the debt as equally as poseibie, among the people.
He repudiates foreign money. Whether the loan
be a benefit or a burden it should bo equally
divided. There cannot be much oppression he thinks
in a debt which people owe to themselves. That is
true; but are we expected to admit that each india
vidual American who lends mousy to the State is
absolutely identical with the State itself; or is it
not certain that while he undertakes the whole ins
divided risk of lender he is subject to only about one
twenty-millioneth part of the responsibilities of bor-
rower, so that he is just as far from lending to him-
self as a single unit is from twenty millions ? The
employment of such gross fallacies does not bespeak
[_any great confidence by the President in his finan-
cial position. If' we turn to military affairs, we are
informed that the great feature of the year is Sher•
man's expedition into Georgia. We are not yet
able to say whether Sherman will succeed in escap-
ing the fate of Burgoyne; but we know that his
apparent rashness is excused by the fact that Sher-
man was unable to return on the way by which he
came; so that the most remarkable feature of the
war, according to the President, is the wild and
desperate effort of an out-manceavred Gene-
ral to exticate himself from a position which
whatever effect it may have had on the
election, should never, on mere military
grounds, have been occupied at all. If we look to
the waste of life occasioned by the war, the prospect
is almost equally gloomy.
The President relies on
immigration to make good the ravages of war, and
congratulates the people on the election, not because
it has re-appointed him to rule over them, but be"
Cause there were so many living men left to vote.
" While corps, and divisions, and brigades, and
regiments have formed, and dwindled, and gone out,
of existence, a great many of the men who come
posed them are still living. The same is true of
the navel service. So many veers could not else
be found." This is, indeed, an original topic of con-
solation. They do not conquer, but they do not die ;
teey cease to serve the State as soldiers, but sur-
vive to serve her as voters. The muster-rolls are
empty, but, as a compensation, the ballot-boxes are
full. Lest and dreariest of all are the President's
views on the prospects of peace. No negotiation
can do any good. The Union must be preserved.
The South insists on severing it. The President
recommends, by way of a peace offering, the total
abolition of slavery—a measure sure to be passed
sooner or later, and which, he thinks, may as well
be done at once. "It is still open to all to lay down
their arms and seek pardon, but the time may come,
probably will come, when public duty shall demand
that the avenue to grace shell be closed." Thus,
without apparently possessing any confidence that
he can bring the war to a speedy or successful terc
mination, does the President refuse all reconcilia-
tion, except on terms which he well knows the
Southern leaders cannot and will not accept,—the
laying down their arms, suing for pardon, imme-
diate abolition of slavery, and restoration of the
Union as: it was four years ago. The vessel is
driving straight on the rocks, and the helmsman
will not move his hand to the right or to the left
in order to avoid a collision which must shatter it
to atoms.

POST.—The disaster cn the North Kent Railway
forms an exception to the rule in railway accidents,
in so far as there would appear to be no great diffi-
culty in ascertaining its cause. That it occurred
through an error is too evident. The facts, as they
have been disclosed in evidence, clearly take it out
of the category of accidents properly so called. But
although it may be assumed that the collision was
caused by a mistake, it is by no means so easy to
arrive at a reasonable and just conclusion with re.
speet to the apportionment of the responsibility.
This is precisely the difficulty that is met with in
all cases of the kind, and it is conspicuous in the 0f.19
that is now being investigated. Of course, pending
the inquiry it would be improper to d'scuss +las
question as affects the individual whose blunder is
suppond to have led to the fatal result; but the
circumstances may be referred to without prejudice;
and, indeed, in the interests of public justice, they
ought to be stated and considered. The account
given of the accident is, as we have said, remarkable
for its simplicity. On the afternoon of Friday last
a ballast train left Dartford about five minutes past
three o'clock. It was an ordinary train, consisting
of twenty-two trucks, and an engine and tender.
E ich truck was laden with gravel, and the engine
was in front. The train stopped at Erith, where
eight trucks were unloaded, and nine which were
loaded, were taken on ; and after detaching the
eight empty trucks at Abbey Wood, it proceeded
to Charlton where there was a stoppage directed by
signal. This was about four o'c►ock, and at a
quarter past four the signal to start was given, and
the train entered the Blackheath tunnel with
twenty-three loaded trucks and two breaks. About
midway in the tunnel, owing to the damp, as it is
alleged, the wheels slipped and would not" bite"
Shs train (17" -vas

the rails. and t

apa. to 1 It