The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-31 00:00:00

A Man Accidentally Shot at Hornsey.

Great excitement was occasioned in the parish of Horn-
sey, yesterday morning, in consequence of a report that a
young man had been killed in the Hornsey-road by one of
his companions. Inquiries were at one 3 set on foot by In-
spector Lang don, of the N division, when it was ascertained
that a young man of the name of Banks had been shot in
Hornsey Wood•lane, Seven Sisters-road, yesterday after-
noon, and that death had been instantaneous.

It would appear that the deceased, in company with a
young fellow of the name of Lamb, went out on Tuesday
for a little sport, the young man Lamb carry ing a gun.
When on the railway bridge near Hornsey the de-
ceased got on a heap of sand which was lying at the side
of the read. At that moment the young man Lamb raised
his gun to shoot at a small bird, but it being out of reach
he lowered it, and at that instant. the deceased ran down
the heap and received the whole of the charge in the right
sine just under his heart. The deceased fell, exclaiming,
'" tiarry, Harry, come here I" and then expired.
Dr. Barker was immediately on the spat, and pronounced
life extinct. On examining the body it was found that there
was a hole in the side about the size of a crown piece.
The young man Lamb was taken into custody by Police-
constable Moore, 212 N, and when at the police station he
was charged with feloniously causing the death of John
Banks. He was cautioned by Inspector Langdon as to what
he said in answer to the charge, when the prisoner replied
that he was about to uncock his gun when the deceased
passed in front, and the ceek slipping the gun went oft, and
the man dropped. He was sorry for what he had done.
Information has been forwarded to Dr. Lankester, the
coroner for the district, and it is understood that an in-
quest will be held at the Hornsey-wood Tavern on Friday.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

POST.—In walking along the great thoroughfares
of London, those arteries through which the life-
blood of our commerce circulates in ever-increasing
streams) attention is fixed upon what we see above
ground. It is to the palaces, the mansions, the
great mercantile establishments, the shops, the
traffic, the vehicles, the carriages and horses, the
equipages of the great, the carts and waggons of
the retail or wholesale tradesmen, that we look at
as at once the symbol and the embodiment of our
wealth and civilisation. As for the roadway itself,
:t is to most people simply a roadway end nothing
more. There lies the road ; it is a very good road and
it is impossible to conceive what we should do and
how we should get on in any sense without it. But
there one's reflections on the subject generally end,
whenever, indeed, they go so far. But underneath
that road there is an amount of money, literally
and metaphorically, sunk that almost baffles com-
putation. If the paving stones, and the concrete
bottom, and the subsoil were transparent, like glass.
we should see a net of works, a mighty maze, which
though not without a plan, would appear to the
uninitiated spectator as more intricate and bewil-
dering than the web of* introcrossing lines at the
London-bridge station. Underneath one great
thoroughfare runs the subterranean railway from
Paddington to the City, the gas and water mains
packed away at the sides, and the sewers stowed
nobody knows where. Under another, the weight
of the air we breathe, fifteen pounds on the square
inch, is continually driving backwards and for-
wards, through an iron tunnel, large cars full of
packages—the " Pneumatic Despatch," for the
transmission of letters, book parcels, See„ being
now as much an accomplished fact underground
as the overhouse telegraphs for conveying mes-
sages are in the air. But, to form an adequate idea
of what there is or soon will be underneath the
streets of London and its suburbs, we must look
to such works as the Main Drainage with its high,
low, and middle levels. The Middle LeT-el North
Sewer, for instance, when finished, will 'e a sub-
terranean river, black as the Styx, and equally to
be avoided, running from Kensal Green to Old
Ford. For a distance of about two miles of its
course—which is but a fraction certainly, but still
a considerable length in itself—it runs entirely
under dwelling-houses. Half of its length, of about
13 miles, has to he excavated by tunnelling. Its
cost is estimated at about £330,000 is round num-
bers. This work is in rapid progress. The High
Level Northern Main, running from Holloway to
Old Ford, a distance of eight miles, has been com-
pleted at a coat of £lBO,OOO and some odd hundreds.
The Southern Outfall Main is nearly eight miles
long, and extends from the Pumping Station at
Deptford, under Greenwich and Woolwich, and
along the Essex Marshes, as far as Halfway Reach,
at Crossness. It has been completed at a cost of
£310,000 odd. Though far out from London, yet
as connected with these, the whole forming one
great work, we may mention the Northern Outfall
works, which will constitute the outlet for the whole
sewage of the metropolis into the Thames, to which
venerable stream it is to be delivered for conveyance
to the sea; unless means should be devised for
utilising a commodity which, tee manure, has been
estimated at being worth a pound per head nor every
unit of the population of the city which it drains.
The Northern Outfall works are nearly 15 miles
long, reaching from Old Ford to Barking Creek ;
they consist of a vast aqueduct upon arches or em-
bankment, and pass over seven streams and rivers,
including the Lea, besides two lines of railway ;
they are nearly completed, and their estimated cost
is about £615,000. The Southern Outfall works
are also nearly completed. They consist of two
contracts ; one comprises the works for pump-
ing or lifting the sewage to heights varying from
ten to thirty-four feet. Tnis portion will cost
nearly £45,000. The other contract consists of the
engine and boiler houses, reservoirs, and ancillary
works, and amounts to £300,000. Then there
is the High Level South Sewer from Ciapham
to Deptford, running a distance of nearly ten
miles, which has been completed, with a branch
to Dulwich, for £217,000. The Southern
Low Level Sewer passes from Putney through
Wandsworth, Battersea, Kennington, Camberwell,
New Cross to Deptford, a distance of nearly ten
miles, and when finished will cost about £214,000.
The Northern Outfall Reservoir will cover about
eleven acres. It is intended as the receptacle for
the whole northern drainage of the metropolis of
London north of the Themes, the sewage being dis-
charged into the bed of the river, about three bun-
dled feet from the bank, and at ebb tide, so that it
may be swept clean eown to the sea by the cur-
rent. The contract for this portion of the works is
£161,000. The Deptford Pumping Station, for
sitting the sewage, will cost, for both contracts, up-
wards of £135,000 when finished. In addition to
these works there are some branch or subordinate
ones. The Ranelagh Overflow Sewer is rather more
than a mint long, passing from Kensington to
Knightsbridge, and has been completed at a cost of
about £31,500. The Acton Branch is rather longer,
'and runs fr(imi Acton to Notting-dale. This also
has been completed; its cost was under £lO,OOO.
The western area sewers are intended to drain
Hammersmith and Fulham ; they are between four
end five miles long, and will cost about £56,700.
The Bermondsey brt•nch sewers wily. drain the lo-
cality indicated by their name down to Deptford,
and will cost about £107,000. The Fleet Sewer
runs across the course ot what was anciently known
as the River of the Wells, flowing from Highgate,
snd falling into the Thames by Blackfriars, with a
width near its mouth large enough at one time to
admit small ships up as fee as Farringdon-street.
This sewer has given the engineers and contractors
great difficulty, in consequence of its having been
disturbed by the Underground Railway, where both
intersect at Victoria-street, Clerkenweil. The cost,
which it is said the Railway Company will have to
pay, is estimated at neat ly £25,000. These sums
mount up to a total of about a couple of millions
and three-quarters as the cost of our utilitarian
works. There is also a subterranean survey going
on amongst our other underground projects. Such
are some of the most salient features of the report
just issued by the Metropolitan Board of Works.
ITERALD.—Week by week the returns famished
by Mr. Fermatl exhibit an increase of pauperism in
the cotton districts, and s yet the improvements
undertaken under the Public Works Act, have not
arrested the steady flow of poverty. Until the
winter merges into spring it is to be feared there
willbe little amelioration in the condition of the
unfortunate operatives, and we have too much
reason for believing that it will be our weekly task
to chronicle bad tidings from Lancashire. Like the
American war, the crisis seems no nearer its end
than it was a twelvemonth since. Matters mend
only to grow worse again, and improvement ceases
hen it reaches a certain paint, leaving large num-
bers dependent upon charity or parish alms for
the- means ea existence. Seeing the course that has
with the difficulty, it almost
b e
givesn pbni rr et ihee
tdo in ewa
h that the public had not re-
sponded so liberally to thh, appeal made on behalf
of Lancashire. Had a smiles' amount been contri-
bated the exhaustion pf funds wntald, there is little
doubt, have incited the friends of the poverty-
stricken to make an attempt to obtain permanent
employment for them. As matters now stand, over
£300,000 are yet available for helping those who
are leading lives of idleness. If, in connection with
this face, we take into consideration the high rate
of wages which millowners boast they pay their
workpenple, can it be wondered at, when artisans
are told that the cotton-trade must revive, that they
prefer staying at home to putting themselves to the
trouble of journeying into other districts and there
learning new callings? We do not for an instant
seek to disparage the efforts of the Central Commit-
tee, nor is it our intention to reflect upon the admi-
rable manner in which it has dietturged the arduous
duties imposed upon it, Our sole object is to point
out and insist upon the fact, that the dietress in the
North his now come within such manageable limits
that there would be no difficulty in putting an
end to it altogether. It was a favourite axiom
with the Manchester school of political economists
that the relations between labour and capital
adjusted themselves. Yet we now find that ab-
solutely Government aid has been evoked, in
order that at some future day capital may
not suffer inconvenience from a want of labour !
This is as pretty an example of the difference be•
tween precept and practice as we could wish to
meet with. We may be told that it' the country
could absorb the superabundance of labour to be
found in Lancashire the demand would have been
made for it. In reply to this we have only to ask,
how, up to the present time, have those offers of
work which have been made to the Lancashire
then
ne
le
operatives been responded to ? We could name in-
stances in which the cotton hands
triedft them n e w
employments for a few days, and
without assigning any reason for their
strange con-
duct. We believe that with equal certainty we
might People have been re-
quired anffioremffotrtilsathwavheerbe work people
made to supply the want
from not even a judicious
systemOcafneinsitigirreat.totY liinaasllbye'en promoted ; so that it
may be safely declared no encouragement has been
given to the public to make any great exertions
towards finding employment for the operatives.
This is to be deeply regretted, as we cannot butfeel
that in the existing state of affairs there is more
anxiety exhibited for the interest of the millowners
than real symp thy for the unfortunate condition of
" the hands." If an appeal be made from Lanca-
shire for work for the operatives, it will, we are
positive, bs at once answered ; and if the men them-
selves will earnestly endeavour to learn new traces
they will find teachers ready to instruct them, and
employers willing to pay them a fair wage for a fair

day's work. As far as we can at present see, the
system we recommend must eventually be resorted
to ; but it is better it should be adopted at once, and
thus place a vast number
of w orkPeople out of the
reach of those demoralising influences which sur •
round an existence of dependence of the worst
description. Unless the cotton districts take the
initiative, little more will be done for the operatives.
Public sympathy for Lancashire is fast dying otri,
and in a little while it may have to battle single-
handed with overwhelming difficulties, unless the
present policy be abandoned, and the claims of
labour be placed before those of capital. As to
the actual position of affairs in the North,
we find, by the last return furnished by Mr.
Farnall, that during the week ending the 19th
inst. there was an increase of pauperism amounting
to 2,046. Phis addition makes up the total number
of paupers to 132,676, against 61,264 in the corre-
sponding week of 1861, and 264,417 in the corre-
sponding week of 1862 Toe result, then, is, that
while upon the year there is a decrease amounting
to 131,741, there is upon 1861, when Lancashire
was prosperous, an increase of 71,412 persons, or
116.6 per cent. In judging cf the present position of
the cotton districts, it is necessary to bear the figures.
we have quoted in mind, as, although the close of
1863 may show a marked improvement over 1862,
there is little cause fur congratulation when we CUD,.
sider what is the normal condition of pauperism int
Lancashire. Besides, in addition to those relieved
by poor-law guardians, there are the operatives sup-
ported by charity, numbering some 50,000 persons,
so that in round numbers there are 180,000 steeptd
in poverty against 61,264 at the corresponding
period in 1861. The cotton famine,
then, it may
be reckoned, now affects nearly 120,000'persons, and
we must remember that while last year at this
period pauperism was on the decrease, it is now in-
creasing, which arises from a falling-off in employ-
ment in the mills. We must also take into consi-
deration the fact that some 15,000 persons have
disappeared from the returns of relief committees
and parish guardians, they having either left the
neighbourhood or been absorbed into other occupa-
tions. In addition, 1,500 are engaged on works of
publicimprovement. It is absolutely necessary to
recollect these circumstances in reviewing the pro-
gress of events in Lancashire, and in forming a
correct estimate of the present condition of the
operatives and the prospects of the cotton trade. So
decided is the improvement upon last year that the
public is apt to forget that the difficulty has only
been lessened, not overcome, and as poverty is once
more on the increase, it is pretty conclusive evidence
of the mills not being able to assist in mending
matters. Indeed, we must confess that as affairs
now stand we are getting farther into the wood
instead of working our way out of it.