The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-05 00:00:00

Tragic Affair at Sea.

Place, being towed
ce,
o tu
schooner On Su nodfaByo mt
oonns r ng, betwteheen
R 1 2 0
saenhda
g 1 ob'
,c I oocfkc,
rao Su
named,icaorttcyh
left Sunderland, coal laden, for the former
out by a steam tug andaecreeomApnandried:: bRY Ross,
captain, The, H crew,gh
four only in number, were
Mackay, mate, William Duff, able seaman, and Charles
Munro, ordinary seaman. nese men were all under the
influence of drink, more or less, but were not quarrelling
when left by the pilot and steamer, On the contrary, the
herßo
s ehangh s
tails were
Ross heard some quarrelling
were set, all right, and she proceeded on
between voyage.
The captain went down below to light his
pipe, and then proceeded to the helm to take the command
and steer his vessel.feW minutes after the three men
had left and
the mate and Munro, but took no notice of it, and
as the Bail was between him and the men tie could not see
what
was going on,
gone
immediately afterwards he saw the
midships bulwark, which is moveable, float past, and heard
a faint cry for help from the mate, whose voice sounded
like that of a drowning man. He ran forward, but could
see nothing, and found himself alone in the ship. He
searched the forecastle carefully, but saw no one, and there-
fore brought to his ship till she was taken in tow by a
steamer for Shields and taken into Sunderland, wherd she
arrived about 2 o'clock, or shortly afterwards. The captain
can give no other account of the affair than the above, and
it is surmised that the mate and Munro may have begun
to fight, and the other man (Duff) going between to sepa-
rate them the three began a violent struggle. and, locked in
each others' arms, staggered over the side into the sea, the
bulwark, which was rotten and insecure, giving way un'ier
their weight. It is strange, however, that the capt,, in, Tehr ja
the ship was boarded on her return cff Sunderland by a
young pilot named Dodd, took up an axe and threatened to
cut off the pilot's hands if he did not leave hold of the
"fender," or attempted to climb on board. Dodd afterwards
complained to the police of this matter, and the captain
was accordingly arrested and locked up on the charge of
assaulting the y„ung man. The crew, it seems, were drink-
ing all the week, and on Saturday night actually took
ashore some rope from the ship and tried to sell it for drink.
The unfortunate men who were drowned all belong to Oro-
marty. Mackay was unmarried, and about 30 years of ago ,
Duff was 28 years of age, married, and had two children
Munro being a lad of 20, and unmarried. The occurrent
happened off Whitburn, three and half miles north-east
from Sunderland harbour.

LONDON, TUESDAY, JULY 1864.

The battle has now begun in earnest ; Mr.
DISRAELrE opening speech calling up on the
Ministerial side a speaker no less eminent than
Mr. GLADSTONE. That right hon. gentleman en•
deavoured, with his customary ability, to turn the
aside the force of the direct charges against the
Government, by dwelling upon the official hopes
of the Opposition as a
party, -lirith that jocularity,
which appears to be a favourite weapon with our
Government at this crisis, he related to
the House
the anecdote of an old lady and
gentleman who
were murdered by their servant, and their epitaph
saggested that the murderer had done them a
kindness by saving them from the "discomfort" and
" inconvenience" of a natural death. " It is only very
recently," said Mr. GLADSTONE, " that I saw this
epitaph, and it now strongly occurs to me that the
right hon. gentleman is anxious to perform for the
Government the kind offico which the domestic
servant performed for that old lady and gentleman."
Without pausing to dwell upon the appropriate
nature of Mr. GLAD3TONE's comparison between
the Government of which he is a member, and "an
old lady and gentleman," the HGUE9 was, of course,
convulsed with laughter at the anecdote. Mr.
GLADSTONE might have remembered, however, that
with reference to every Government, as was wittily
said of the Czars of Russia, " their natural death is
a violent one." No such anecdotes and no such
laughter, however, no adroit imputation of party
motives or of personal ambition, can avail to set
aside the, plain statments and direct charges ad-

vanced against the Government. "I have shown
you," said Mr. DISRAELI, "that the position of
England is most embarrassing, is intolerably
difficult, is full of humiliations." And who
shall gainsay the truth of that exposition ?
The lamentable fact is only too patent to all. The
leader of the Opposition, again, alluding to the
Premier's taunting inquiry as to his (Mr. DISRAELI'S)
policy, happily remarked last night—" My answer
is, my policy is the honour of England, it is the peace
of Europe, and I say the noble lord has betrayed
both." To which remark the house naturally
responded with " loud cheers." To indicate
what should be the foreign policy of the
nation—that, said Mr. DISRAELI, "is the
duty of no one but the responsible Minister
of the Crown. Weil, then, that being so,' con-
tinued the right hon. gentleman, " we will tell the
noble lord what is not our policy. We will not
first threaten and then refuse to act. We will not
lure on our allies by expectations we mean not to
fulfil. And if ever it should be the lot of myself
or of any public men with whom I have the honour
to act to carry on important negoeiations on behalf
of this country, such as the noble lord and his col-
leagues have had to conduct, I trust it will never
be thought by us to be our duty to come to Par-
liament to announce to the country that we have
no allies,' and then declare that England can never
act alone.' These, sir, are words which should never
have escaped the lips of a British Minister. Sir,
I repudiate and reject them. I remember
there was a time when, with not a tithe of her
present resources, England, inspired with a patriotic
cause, triumphantly encountered a world in arms.
And I believe that should the occasion arise—
should her independence or her honour be assailed
or her empire endangered, England would arise in
the magnificence of her might and struggle trium.
pliantly for those objects which are dear to human
life, and for which men live and nations flourish.
Bat, sir, I for one will never consent to go to war to
extricate Ministers from the consequences of their
own indiscretion. It is in this spirit that I have
drawn up this address to the Crcwn. I have
drawn it up in the spirit in which the Royal
Speech was delivered at the commencement of the
session. I am ready to vindicate the honour of
the country whenever it is necessary ; but I have
drawn up these resolutions in the interest of peace."
In the interests of Peace, interests dear to us all,
but also with a keen sense of the paramount
importance of Duty and Honour, the people are
now anxiously watching the proceedings of our
Parliament. With an eye to the coming elections,
the members have a difficult task. They have,
however, only to consider well the old adage that
Honesty, with Fidelity to alt our pledges and pro-
mises, is the best policy, and the only one likely to
tell with the English public.
" Not once er twice, in our rough island story,
The path of duty is the way to glory."

The removal of a good many of our metropolitan
toll gates last Friday was a source of general satis-
faction, and it is only to be wondered at that our
patience did not sooner give way before such an
infliction. Whether from sharing SHAISPERE'S
opinion of keeping to :he evils that we know, or
from the proverbial horror of ratepayers to an in•
crease of the rates, it is certain that turnpike trusts
and toll gates have long outlived their day, and that
they belong to a system and an epoch altogether
gone by. They are not in the least in accordance
with the spirit of our general legislation, and it
amounts almost to an absurdity that when so much
is being said about relieving traffic and facilitating
communication these establishments should be pre-
served. They are undoubtedly a very serious
hindrance to the passengers and tend greatly to
promote confusion and collisions by inducing heavy
vehicles or, indeed, vehicles of any kind that can
afford to lose time, to go out of their way to avoid
the obnoxious toll, and sometimes, as in the case of
the bridges, this produces over-crowding of the
rival ways. The good work has not, however,
been done all at once; and even now the inbabis
tants of the southern metropolitan districts rAre loft
lamenting not only the inevitable brik.se toll but
' the turnpike on the high road as well. The
report just issued by the arAect committee
appointed to inquire into t'ae matter of the
abolition gives, however, some encouragement
to these ill-used citizens and to the victims
of turnpike trusts throughout the country. Scotland
and South Wales lave greatly the advantage of
England and North Wales in this respect, and for
the superiority of the southern part of the princi-
pality, its inhabitants may thank the shade of
REBECCA and her followers, which is perhaps not a
very g',od moral. Tee extreme inconsistency in
the Humber of the county tolls in some parts is
easily explained. There is no longer sufficient
traffic on the highroads to pay for the expenses of
maintaining the road since the diversion of the
through traffic by the rilways, and consequently
the trustees are forced to increase the number of
their bars in order to obtain sufficient returns to
keep the road in order. It might be fair enough in
the old days for travellers to the north to contri-
bute to the maintenance of the great highways
thither, but in oar time those who habitually travel
much about the country pay a tolerably heavy
charge towards maintaining another roadway in
order, where the tollgates are the stations, and they
are not therefore forced by any law of social equity
or common sense to contribute to a highway they
never use. The whole burden of keeping the roads
in good repair and discharging the duties of the
turnpike trusts falls therefore upon the local in-
habitants, who would find it more convenient as
well as more sensible to pay the amount required
with their half-yearly rates instead of doling it out
in twopences and threepences every time they pass
up or down the road. We are told in the
report that ratepayers often have to discharge
the double duty, and to contribute to the mainten-
ance of the roads, as well as paying the toll. " Cases
are not rare of trusts in which the whole produce
of the tolls, after payment of the establishment
charges, is observed in the payment of the interest
of the debt, while arrears accumulate, and the whole
burden of the maintenance of the roads is thrown
upon the parishes." The establishment charges
which are referred to here aro often very heavy.
Mr. IVRialiTsoN, a gentleman who has given the
committee much information on the subject, esti-
mates the cost of each gate at £25, and he thinks
there are at least four gates in every trust, which is
a low estimate, so that, as the number of trusts is
more than 1,100, the cost of collection is very great.
Another gentleman states that in the Leominster
trusts, it takes one half the revenue to pay the ex-
penses and establishment charges, while the repairs
are put upon the perishes. In some districta in the
North of England and elsewhere there are excep-
tional instances in which the retention of the tolls
may be considered advantageous, but as a general
rule the Sooner they are abolished throughout the
country the better. The committee, having thou
roughly investigated the matter, have arrived very
decidedly at this conclusion, and pronounce the altos
lition to be both beneficial and expedient, especially
if the system now general in Scotland and South
Wales were adopted. Road boards ere appointed,
who, by the asaessment of counties, or the consoli-
daticn ci variona trusts, have greatly lessened the