The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-31 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, JULY 31, 1863

ROYAL ALFIANIFIRA PALACIE.-841130r
and Signori FRANCESCO in a Grand Divertissement
and Pas Deux--Operatic Selections from " Ernani" and
" Lucia de Lammermoor. ' lli iss M•Gregor, Mr. Laurence
Albert, Signor Georg ni, Mr. Vernon Rigby, dm km Band
and Chorus of Sixty Performers.

ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL. Gray's-inn-road
in the immediate vicinity of the Great Northern Rail.
way Terminus, at Ring's-cross.

Patron—The QUEEN.
President—The Duke of BU( CLEUCH, K.G.
Treasurer—Edward Masterman, Esq.

This was the first hospital to introduce the principle of free
and instant admission to the destitute sick, without the for-
mality of governors' letters. It is entirely devoted to desti-
tution in its most pitiable form—viz., that which is aecom-
pcnied by sickness and disease, and is now of sufficient
magnitude that, with adequate support, it may be rendered
capable of admitting into its wards a very large proportion of
the casual sick of this great metropolis. It requires but the
funds in order to have 500 beds available for the reception of
these the most wretched of our fellow-creatures. Moreover,

it gratuitously affords medical advice and medicine to more,
on the average, than 3,000 out-patients a week.

The Weekly Board feel it their imperative duty to make an
EARNEST APPEAL to the public for continued support,
to enable them to rdmit and relieve the distressing oases that
daily present themselves.

Contributions are received by the Treasurer, Edward
Maa erman, Ksq., Nicholas-lane; also by Messrs. Coutta and
Co. ; Drummond and Co. ; Rerries and Co. ; Ransom and
Co.; Prescott, Grote, and Co.; Smith, Payne, and Co. ; Glyn
and CO. ; Jones Loyd and Co. ; Barclay and Co. ; Denison
and Co. ; W Maras, Deacon, and Co. ; Overend, Gurney, and
Co. ; Nisbet and Co. ; Messrs. J. Barned and Co., Liverpool
and at the Hospital.
STANFORD S. SMITH, Secretary.

RO IAL NATIONAL. LIFE-BOAT
INSTITUTION
(Incorporated by Royal Charter).
PATRONEsS—Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen.
PRESIDENT—Vice-AdmKiral the Duke of Northumberland,
.G., F. R .S.
CumnmAN—Thos. Baring, Esq., M.P., F.R.S., 17. p.
DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN—Thomas Chapman, Esq., F.R.S., V.P.
APPEAL.
The Committee of Management have to state that, since
he beginning of the year 1860, the Royal National Lifeboat
Institution has expended £32,000 on various Lifeboat Estab-
lishments n the Coasts of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
The number of lives saved by the Life-boats of the
Society, ~nd other means, since its formation, is 12,800;
,or which services 82 Gold Medals, 718 Silver Medals, and
£16,480 in cash have been paid in rewards, The Institu-
tion has also expended £67,t00 on Life-boats, Life-boat
Transporting-cart 'ages, and Boat-houses.
The Committee desire to express their grateful sense of
the generous support which they have received from the
British public during the past few years, a support which
has enab'ed them to establish their present magnificent fleet
ot 123 Lifeboats on the shores of the 'United Kingdom
Deeply sensib e, however, of the great responsibilitey
cithaent
t
rew son them to maintain their fleet in a thoroughly ffi
state, and its Crews practised in the management of their
boats, whi h can only be effected by a large and pe manent
annual income, they earnestly appeal to all classes of their
countrymen to aid them in upholding and perpetuating so
great and truly national a work. -
The Committee gratefulky acknowledge the following cou
tributions

s. d
Her Majesty the Queen •• Annual 50 0 0
Campbell, the Hon. Mrs. G. annual 5 0 0
Clerk. Colonel, R.A. • .. annual 11 0
Coutts and Co. Messrs., Bankers annual 10 0 0
Currie, Wm., 1::sq. . • • • •• .. 4th citml-10 0 0
Erie, Lord hief Sustice . • .. dnn. 10 tO 6
Fanshawe, Vice-Admiral Sir A., K.C.B. .. 2d don. 25 0 0
Fenwick, G. J., Esq , cost of a Lifeboat and Tran-
sporting Carriage • • • • • • • • .. 250 0 0
Harvey, Rev. G. G. and Mrs. •• .. don. 30 0
Martin, Sir Henry, Bart • • .. 7th don. 10 0 0
Moore, Rev. G. B. don. 15 15 0
Smith, Mrs. George, Greenwich .. 3 0 0
Stirling, Col. Sir Anthony, K.C.B. annual 2 0 0
Thom Lady, Weston-super-Mare, collected by her

16 16 0

••• • _ _
lrilloughfjy d'Eroby, Lord .. • • .. annual 5. 0 0
Donations and Annual :-.P.'seriPtiOns will be thankfully re-
dyed by the Bankers of tho Institution, slesers. Willis,
Percival, and Co.,
70, Lombard—treet ; Messrs. eoliths and
59. Strand; %lessrs. Berries, Farquhar. and Co., 16, St.
amees-street, London ; by a 1 the Collectors of Customs
and Bankers in the Unitedklugdom; and by the Secretary
Richard Lewis, Esq 41,
at the office of the Institution, 14,
o°l -street) Adolph!., London.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.. -The weakness, the folly, and the credu-
lity of mankind are exemplified in our courts of law
with a boldness which fiction dares not emulate. A
column of Divorce Court cases reveals vices which
would be held to outrage all probebility if hazarded
in a three-volume novel; the romance of the Run-
pelt case seems equally beyond the possibi!i y of an
actual occurrence, whether we believe or disbelieve
the story of the convict ; and now this cause celebre
in the Bankruptcy Court, whereof Colonel Waugh is
the hero, comes to tea our capacity of belief in the
impudence of an adventurer, and in the blind
.credulity. of his dupes. If a manewould prey upon
his fellows, audacity seems to be the only requisite
for a temporary success. Colonel Waugh comes
before the Bankruptcy Court, not as a public wrong-
doer, but as an unfortunate man worthy of all cons
=aeration. He tells us at every turn of the argu-
ment that he is a rough, honest old soldier, who has
spent 23 years of his life in the service of his
country. He is so weak in his eyes that it would be
a cruel persecution to imprison him ; and he is able
to get up a burst of virtuous indignation at any
suggestion that he and his fellow directors in the
Londoa and Eastern Bank were not " the most
honest men in the world." If he keeps up the
representation long enough, and if day after day
his .counsel shall be allowed to dwell upon his
personal ailments and his military services, Colonel
Waugh will soon get a little public of commiserators.
It is eight years since he dazzled the town with his
pomps and his splendour. It is seven years since
the ears of the nation were filled with the wail
of the victims who were being swallowed up in the
little social. earthquake-„,whicpt deestroyed so many
humble families. 'll we could resuscitate the
details of those miseries, if we could follow the
fortunes of the victims, and contrast the present
position of scores of men and women and children
with what it might have been if' Colonel Waugh had
lived upon his moderate competency and hed never
got access to the funds of the London and Eastern
Band, public opinion would still go bard against
Colonel Waugh. Bat time has flown by ; the
victims have all been swept away; death and ruin
and inso:vency have rolled over them, and they are
gone down to the bottom of the social scale, out of
sight and out of hearing. The only residuum of
this great evil is the man who was the chief agent
in it; and he comes before us claiming our pity, and
even remonstrating against
in defence
He evi-
dently has the same anoacity defence which he
showed in his adventure, and there are fools enough
in the world, although of anotheer class, to make a
party against punishing
.him, just as there were
fools enough to believe in his story of untold millions
lying hid in the clay of Branksea Island. We laugh
at the absurdity of the Monto Christo romance, and
yet we find ourselves gravely investigating the in.
cidents of this Branksea Island reality. A retired
Colonel, with an income of £4OO a-year, buys a
little island upon the coast of Dursetshire. Fifteen
thousand pounds was the price,. and, of course, he
had not the money ton pay for it, but so plausible
was the Colonel, or tto silly were the people with
whom he came in contact, that in a short time he
hod invested £30,000 in the island, and bad raised
about the same sum in mortgage upon it. This
seems to have been the state of affairs when he in-
troduced himself to -the- managing director of the
London and Eastern Bank. He went there to raise
more money upon [some property
,belonging to hie
sister, and he took the. occasion to launch his story
of the wonderful wealth that lay bid in the clay of
Branksea Island. He was too wise to talk of hidden
treasures. Boxes ofdiamonas and chests of ingofs
are left now to more' professional romancers ; your
practical men take .a. bolder flight and assert that
the whole soil is a treasure. Here was an " old
soldier," whose polseasion was a deposit a clay
mortgaged to double its worth, persuading a
banker that this clay was a security for
£70,000 and was of the value of untold million./
A piece of paper purporting to be a reporteaer
valuation, showing how all this island might .be
made into alum, and calculating its value at
about £8 per ton, was sufficient to induce the
managing director to lend £50,000 upon this pre,
cioue clay. We suppose we must believe that
this statement is correct. There is no proof ,that
this was a conspiracy between Stephen and Waugh
from the first, and therefore we have no right to as-
sume it from the mere improbability of the alterna-
tive story. But, if that story be true, how strange
a truth it is! The next step is stranger still, if pos-
sible. Upon the strength of this very indebtedness
Colonel Waugh becomes a director of the bank from
which he had borrowed. As a director he seems to
have done pretty much as he liked, and he went on
" borrowing" till the amount reached £ll4 000. It
was only £114,000. Colonel Waugh complains
bitterly that be has been injuriously put down as a
debtor to the bank to the extent of /240,000, and
he evidently thinks that he has been by this cheated
out of £126,000. As we read his own statement,
however, it would appear that he raised £114,000
and £30,000 upon a mud bank for which he gave
£15,000. What became of all this money ? There
is a shell of an unfinished castle and some pottery
works cn Branksea Island, and there is a fading
tradition of ostentatious banquets in London. There
is, moreover, an estimate for the formation of a
working establishment, which was to cost £5,000,
and a paper of most audacious calculations concern-
ins 30,006,000 tons of " marketable clay," worth
£40,000,000 sterling. This is all we have to show
for £144,000 in hard cash. The flight of the co-
directors when the extent of the old soldier's bor-
rowings became known, the shifts, contrivances,
and broken promises, the confident assurances, and
the ultimate smash, are all too necessary a sequence
to the antecedent facts to be dwelt upon. The great
fact notable in the history of human credulity is
ex-
travagant flashy style, was able to raise £144,000
that a man of no great means, but living in an
upon a story that he was able to convert clay into
alum, to the extent of a profit of £40,000,000. It
the people who suffered were the people who were
cajoled by this impossible nonsense, and none
others, we might be inclined to say that n o laws
can protect such folly as this, and we . might be
satisfied to see such delusions work their natural
result. But the hundreds whom the London and
Eastern Bank ruined had no choice or voice
in this
matter. They did not know that their managing.dn
rector was lending their money upon thls.prom. long
adventure; they aid not know that their d.irecto
was helping himself to their money upon this won-
r
derful security ; they believed that their business
was being conducted as banking business generally
is conducted. When they awoke to ruin, end were
told that they were liable to their uttermost shil-
ling, because Branksea Island clay was not worth
£8 a ton, they had, probably, never heard of Brank-
sea Island, and had no notion that their fortunes
had ever depended upon any so singular an impro-
bability. This is not a fair risk. Take it in the
most favourable light ; let us strive to believe that
this man was his own dupe as well as the deceiver
of others ; still the manner in which he obtained
this money was as bad as bad can be. The moral
wrong produced was as great as that effected by
Redpath or Roupell; and if the law looks more
lightly upon it, and has no name for it among the
catalogue of criminal offences, more shame to our
criminal law. Perhaps if there were a public pro
secutor some section of our Criminal Code might be
found to have a bearing upon such acts as tt ese, for
in
nal character ha,
the majority of cases where the public cry out
against.the impunity of wrongdoers it is not the
law which is in fault, but the administration of the
done to prevent such law. Let it be, however, that nothing of a crimi-
herenecurred. Weare not about
to call for any
suc vindictive
manproceedings,. ee
this
he passing
throughagainst
Colonel Waugh,
have not occasionpedegh
Shomething, however, ought to be
the Bankruptcy
their offences under heavy sentences.
Court like a merely unfortunate
scot-free, while. others who
trader, and escaping
PosT.—Notwithstanding muchstores,
recentm misery rr.ye
reverses
e expi-
atings s u
be doubted whether anyoo material advantages have
vernment... The South
tained by the Southern
accrued to the Federal Confederacy, it may well
largequantities of warlike
of the important t strategic, posi-
tions lost many men anddpasainto
tumheu
haveite htecrernitiliieisded ahtlatanedusghof
the
s
appear
can bew
campaignin
theurned to
un-
doubtedly heavy, it is questionable ltether by
Pennsylvania are no
and
army.
the Federal Government they
any praptical account! The
yp Ipaanr.dt
aa nh o. rt•h-
east will once more be carried on within the el
Generalee
Meade bad not; according to the. latest accounts,
crossed the Vototac ; silt whet: he dues it will be
of
oftiger Virginia,bli eads toM support
either to resume the old position at Falmouth, or
some other from which operations may be con-
ducted against Richmond with some hopes of suc-
cess. That those operations will prove successful
there is however, no reason to believe. Although
Lee experienced heavy losses at Gettysburg, hie
Opponent suffered po less severely,' and, acting on
the defensive, the Confederates will doubtless be
as well able as hitherto to oppose the advance of
the grand army of the North. The marked diein-

elination whico l‘leade has shown to tread on
the heels of the retreating Confederates betokens
a want of confidence in his own strength which is
probably not without excuse, although his forces
were sufficiently numerous to bold a strong defen-
sive position on their own soil against the repeated
assaults of the Southern army. Not being either a
Pope or a Hooker, he does not
jump at the con-
clusion that, when carrying war into an enemy's
country, he would necessarily prove invincible.
Unless considerably reinforced; it will not be pos-
sible for the Federal general to do more than
threaten the Confederate capital. So long as he
occupies a position either Q1:1 the left bank of the
Rappahannock or elsewhere in' the vicinity of
Richmond, so long the Confederate Government
will be obliged to maintain their finest army in a
state of comparative idleness. But of reinforcements
there is no prospect; It has be,o) stated to be the
intention of the Government at Washington to en-
force the conscription notwithstanding the recent
riots. Whatever may be the projects of the Admi-
nistration, there can be no doubt that the draught
will never be assented to. by the Northern popula-
tion. The Federal Cabinet may threaten to enforce
it, but they do not possess the means. Mr. Lin•
coin might possibly wish to convert New York into
a Warsaw, but in order to do so he would be obliged
to occupy it with a numerous army. New York
is, however, only one of a number of cities in every
one of which the inhabitants have, with more or less
vehemence, announced their refusal to be dragged
from their homes to fill the ranks of the Federal
army. If Mr. Lincoln would enforce the conscrip-
tion he must employ his armies in carrying into
effect the orders of his provost marshals. New York
was pronounced by its Governor,. to be in a state of
insurreetioni-,,bokwe,; may nexVilarr::3t4kNA*
it has, been deelereilbY the" en. , to' e 'in-•tt
state of sisegC. ' We do' not think, however, that a
feeble attenipt at establishing a ',lnilitatY, dictator-
ship will eitheretrenthen the VtleraiGbaternment
or recruit the Vederaiirmies. Bbt if in Virginia
military operakions.Will in all prebabilityfiet 4herd
seems but little-likelihood of the" Northern.e.mieis
being 'able inTetbets parks of the Confederacy.tp do
more than retain ihe positiens they at present oc-
cupy. • The necessity, or providieg Yieksbizreattia
Port.ELudsen with.: strong .garrisent will., hre the
effect of withdraWingJrem.active.service no. incon-
siderable portion Ott* armies which have suceeeded
in reducing'thetn.: • It is one of thbonecessary inch
dents of the war in' Which-they are engaged that, the
Federal Governenear mnst-emolgy one set of ;armies
in retainingfogies'sibn'Of territoiideLwiafeh. another
Weil aniaq:uded. It *true that at the
spetikfrig,uninteriblted i but still
setpresent a r
'that condition:! which the
inaperatirelr demand. ,The
momentil the naviption • of. Miseiskipyi
itins e, comparativelyieses;sitirtitsomo f eoei ntti. or
0..
e.
rederalsea cc
nnot.oupt time banks of a. river-which
flows ibit'' many' Minaret:ls of ''mites Atari:l%4h an
enemy's Cantitryii and their inabilitly 'tell smite pro-
tectionyessels navigating the
isaistiippi should
them how hopeless :it is to .expent to exercise
undisputed dcrallnion'Ahroughont-,,see,
teG a
eovhe..rn
length and
breadth' of-the Southern- States„::,;::lf Abe. Federal
Oink their. recent
for
rent are YtallY atinguien concerning the
'Celebrated
srbueyscuesel t'sd.saoeyfs 1 tareotll ef.go
efTeurreahiti' titnidks'ininfislgabisevYti on
,i 1; Awe
tfi
htlal fitly'
:.
would
do
well to peat is,giatice,on the mal.);Kthe Confederaie
States. Out of the 'teeny hundreds of ihousAnds
of-sqinireinifesetielvibich the Siaathertaternaories
extend they tolght,eopt by hundi.eda,t hose in which
;they have re.estabilshed theit, 'dominion. The
'UnioniSts of the North should nirteit•-•fOrgettlibt, id-
Republic of the West, they must .
notTheeceohtlty ctrc paleprsathot
irse
totbhermisnsi6o.
Charleston has ben.,reneseed, thaseek in wdiffeopt,
form. 'EVen•iren:clid Monitorwhave been obliged
to sticcuMb to fortifications whiich Were. bbilt years
before iron. plated' g9ntit,ate wets! thought -of, and
all. hopes of reducing the towsbya naval attack
seem' to 'have :.•Veeit .alian'ilonelL' 'The Bette tactics
*bit% the • tillit:s4arsted at Sebastepol.. ere., Dam
about W. be:ol,,ltilled.„by:,the Fe er 1
oe:ttt.Char leston
The. harbetrr lot w --nattkraly inacces-
eibie,," and ,laec''..Freucja'.:.iiitd glialf armies were
obliged . to (141gtid alinai exclusibely•On" siege opera-
'dens to "eiredi ' the 04441. ction * 1 sesr. :The
'recent attempt by,th;#ederal?firon-elads to force
their *way, past o,,eitskxtst oerunanniling the entrance
to Cliii'ilestOti- provea so ditsaitraife-ieltei rastifitiihtt:
it was not renewed, and now the North appears lo
place reliance solely on its armies to recover posses
sion of that Southern port. It would be premature
as yet to express an opinion of the probable issue;
but although the operations of the attacking force
have been up to the present tolerably successful, it
is not likely that Charleston will prove to be the
asy prize which the Northern generals anticipate.
But supposing, like New Orleans, it should suc-
cumb. What then ? From the capture of the
Crescent City the North, independently of the
plunder of the inhabitants, derived no material
advantage. The seizure of Charleston, beyond re-
lieving a portion of the Federal fleet from the
necessity of, blockading that port, would not place
the Government at Washington in a superior posi-
tion. In fact, however we regard the successes of
the North, whether past or future, it is equally
impossible to connect them with the realisation of
the object for which the war is prosecuted. Assum-
ing that the Southern population continue averse
from an amalgamation with the inhabitants of the
Free States, neither the command of the Mississippi
nor the capture of the principal cities in the Confe-
deracy will place the latter in such a position as to
enable them to dictate to the former the conditions
of their political existence. If the F. deral Govern-
ment have now, at the close of more than two years'
hard fighting, begun to conquer, they will find
themselves equally obliged to retain forcible posses-
sion of their conquests. The latter task, however,
in the present temper of the Northern population,
will be found no less difficult than the former.

.. :.

The Late Sir Cresswell Cresswell.

(From the Times.)
The shock to the system caused by an accident
has deprived us of one of the best and perhaps
altogether the most valuable of our Judges. Sir
Cresswell Creswell died yesterday morning. He
was an old man, for, as he took his degree at Cam-

bridge in 1814, he must in all probability have bee
in his seventieth year. Time, however, had no
impaired the v'gour of his intellect. He was in the
full enjoyment of his judicial powers; his memory
was as good, his discrimination as prompt, his
learning as ready, and his nerve es strong as iv his
earlier years wheu battling at the Bar. But for
this miserable occurrence of a broken-down carriage
and a frightened pair of horses he might, notwith-
standing that he appears to have had a latent
disease lurking in his frame, have gone on for years
doing good service to his country, and finding his
best enjoyment in the discharge of his duties.
_ .

Sir dresswell Cresswell's career has been simply

that of a hardworking lawyer. In later years he
appeared to be one of those who seem to love work
for its own sake, and such men always make their
way at the English Bar. This, however, may have
been an acquired habit. Being only the fourth son
of a gentlemen of good estate, perhaps it was in the
first instance a necessity to him to apply with
assiduity to his profession. It is certain that after
his call in 1819 the attorneys found out a capacity
which the Cambridge examiners had failed to dis-
cover. That he drudged away in Westminster-
hall the long series of Barnewall and Cresswell's

reports will testify. He joined the Northern Circuit
at a time when Brougham and Scarlett governed
the revels of the Grand Court, and divided the
business of serious litigation. He fought his
way along through the dust in which these
two gladiators were always enveloped; and
at last when the heroes were taken up into
the sedes discretce piorum, and no longer vexed
the Northern Circuit, unless asjudges, Cresswell and
Alexander succeeded to their places. The leader-
ship of the Northern Circuit was in those days some-
thing to straggle for and something to retain. It took
a strong man to hold his own there. Cresswell was
not a Brougham, perhaps be was not in tact and
power of persuasion a Scarlett, but he was strong
enough to seize up.-o the leadership of the Northern
Circuit, and to hold it easily against all comers. He
got his silk gown in 1834, and from that year ti:l
1842 he worked very hard, and must have made
much money. Most men in suc.h a position wouki
have looked to the House of Commons and to the
high prizes of his profession, all of which seemed to
be within his reach. Cresswell wad elected. for
Liverpool in 1837, and retained his seat until he
was raised to the Bench. He was not, however, a
very ardent politician, nor was be particularly suc

aa
cessful in the Hou.Ae ot Commons. His position w
made before he was a member of Parliamfaa t, and his
seat for Liverpool neither advanced nor retarded him
in his career. When Mr. Littledale was asked by
the Patronage Secretary of the Treasury what his
poiitics were he replied that he was a special pleader.
Creeswell could not have given this answer, but when
he was made one of the Justices of the Queen's Bench
in 1842 it was because he was a sound lawyer, and
certainly not because be was a member for Liverpool.
He fully answered all expectations formed of him as
a lawyer. He was what is called a " strong" judge.
That is to say, he was not only a learned judge, but.
a man who :could have his own way. He had suf-
ficient confidence in himself, a sufficient contempt
for his audience, and a sufficient power of saying
very disagreeable truths at proper times to keep
every one in awe of bim. It is a great temptation
to have this power in that position, and perhaps Sir
Cresswell' Cresswell abused it as little as it is in
human nature to do.

The work by which, however, Sir Cresswell
Cresswell will be remembered—and the only work
by which he will be remembered—is the creation
of the Divorce Court. Sir Cresswell Cresswell was
appointed to preside here in January, 1858. It was
an experiment distrusted at the time by the public,
and most dangerous to the reputation of the man
wian should first undertake it. Sir Cresswell Cress-
well's confidence in himself allowed him to accept
it, and, as that self-confidence was fortunately in
his case well founded, it enabled him to carry it
Ilire)dik\l*tin cOrttals R wip g.,t4t tAltb.piv9rco
Ciotiq haS.beeth a skeet sufcess. He has made a code
of divorce law by fiisaecisioriti; tindite, lids based it
•
upon sound;'brOad principles. ''Atir asocial lawgiver,
Sir C. Ciesawell is as greet as Lord Mansfield is-as •
a mercantile lawgiver.' He has built ,:.bridge in
chaos; and if his successor has the prtidepee to keep
to it he may, ravel without.any very violent falis.
This building up ,of a new system, of laW milk!
have grown to be a labour of love with Sir:C. Crees='
well. He had long ektiie earned his pension. He'
was rich `3n iiriverte theatis'vlic Was childlesa, ands.
indeed, unmarried; .It could only have. been an'
absorbing interest in his wprkiand a desire to cop 7
Solidate the practice,ochis.cpurt wl?ich, could have;
induced him to toil on in a drudgery which must'
caused him frequent disgust and continual t:their:
It is true that helwas'igafrally appreciated hiS
countrymen and'couitt /women, and was doubtless
conscious that-he' was doing his work well; rbut,
is
the work itself he could have takers no pleasure. ,He
was a; herd-working, conscientiens, and successful
servant, and his life has been useful. 1 tow
fewithe,r,? are who die and of whom so' much as this
I can be truly said; and who is 'there among its of
' whom we could truly say much More ?

. (Frpn, the Lancet)
At seven minutes.te Vph the evening of Wednesday the
distinguished Judge4ofqho Ccinit'or Probate and DiVoreO,
Sir Cresswell Cresswell, suddenly expired. It is well known
that he, had, recently ,met with a severe accident;' but the
!iniury wiiich he then received,nitliouh, it may have acele-
,rated'hie iieceisfiby.the:seiveie thpck which it undoubtedly
infhoted.9n the -,ayetem„floes ntlit appear to have had any.
directshare in the fatal reeult which has unexpectedly oc-
' cut red 'Whe'n violently tifrovin ovetkgyithe runaway tioses
which brekelfrain- tad ''aveland!ecarriage, Sir Cresswell
was found,,m2,being,raieedfr,om the ground, to be ,suffering
trem fracture ef the knee-pan. This was not, however, a
fracture from diredt Violence; but ''when examined by the
surgeon tlitmreened—'-Mr• jaMes lame, of St. Mary:s Hos-
pitak—heifokund that from the nature of :the fracture it was
evidently one,of those rare instancei in.which the piee.:pan
is rent by'the sudden and 'violent action 'of the' extensor
mnscles dfi the thigh',• commonly;in the 'effort to recover the
balance of itte body. and aphidfeylling. There.was but little
bruising—innch less than might have been anticipated; and
no ocher apparent injury.; he frabtnred part was bealitik
favourably, and Sir Cresswelt bore ,the ) confinement with
great equanimity, and uasdn good sOrits throughout. Mr.
James Lane and Mr. Crtarlee Hawkins were in continuous
attendonce,,au, Et Ivrythmkronayeti
.typeedy recovery.
Properly devised splints havingf:tneti:acljustAia;Sirt
was able, with assistance, to shift himself from the bed to
a couch, and had done so in the course of Wednesday. As
he was being lifted in the evening from the couch again to
the bed, with the assistance of his brother, the Rev. Oswald
Cresswell, he complained of feeling faint, asked for wine,
and almost immdiately died. He had always considered
himself a specially healthy man,and was mentioning shortly
after his accident that he had never had a day's illness,and
had never consulted a physician since he left the school. He
had lately become somewhat suddenly corpulent, but it was
never suspected, by himself or any other person, that the
hand of disease had seized him so firmly though silently.
The post martens inspection was performed at 7 p.m. on
Thursday by Mr. Charles Hawkins, Mr. James Lane, and
Dr. Baber. The examination of the chest showed that the
heart was the sole seat of disease. It was loaded with fat,
the walls of the ventricular cavities were thin and weak,
and the muscular fibres pale; the valves were competent.
Throughout the rest of the body the organs were found in a
healthy condition, although in parts much loaded with fat.
On examining the knee joint some blood was found effused
between the fractured surfaces of the bone ; there was no
inflammation, irritation, or effusion in the interior of the
joint, but repair was going on satisfactorily. The cause of
death was doubtless severe syncope, fatal because occurring
in a weak heart fattily degenerated.
A circumstance occurred in connection with the accident
which, although by no means exceptional, deserves to be
mentioned, as illustrating the admirable spirit in which our
hospitals are administered, and the firmness and self-devo-
tion with which the members of the medical profession per-
form their duties to the poor in those establishments. Sir
Cresswell was overthrown within sight of St. George's
Hospital, and a hasty message was sent there, stating that
an accident had occurred to the distinguished Judge, and
requesting that the house surgeon might accompany him
to his home. The house surgeon, however, was then en-
gaged in urgent duties of attendance upon poorer sufferers,
and felt unable to leave his post. Other skilled attendance
was immediately at hand. Such incidents are not rare, and
we cannot but think that they reflect honour on our profes-
sion and deserve to be widely known.