The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-25 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVE XING, JULY 25, 18 62.

water, and taken at bedtime." The deceased did not
immediately make use of either of the medicines,
which were put by in a drawer which she always
kept locked. On the 13th of April she received a
letter from Burke, inquiring whether she had used
the medicine and " salts," and next evening, the
14th, feeling unwell, she took part of the contents
of the package, and died in half an hour afterwards,
in the fearful convulsive agony that precedes death
caused by strychnine. The contents of her atomach
were analysed, and found to contain a grain of
strychnine—double the quantity requisite to cause
death. The residue of the package was found
to consist of Epsom salts, magnesia, and
strychnine. The prisoner had access to all parts
of the workhouse, and had been seen in the sur-
gery some short time previous to Easter, with a
paper before him containing a white powder, into
which he appeared to be pouring another white
powder from a bottle. In this surgery the Epsom
salts and magnesia were kept in open drawers, and
strychnine was most culpably kept in an unlocked
press. It was proved by Dr. Fitzpatrick, the phy-
sician to the workhouse, that in the beginning of
March the prisoner had a conversation with him
about poisons, in which the doctor informed him of
the nature and properties of strychnine, and that
half a grain of it would be a fatal dose. The cir-
cumstances of Mrs. Burke's death were proved by
her sister, niece, and servant. Dr. Harrington
identified the bottle of turpentine as having been
sent from his establishment, and proved that the
package of white powder had not been made up by
any medical man, the materials being merely mixed
together instead of being triturated in a mortar.
Dr. Blyth, Professor of Chemistry, in Queen's Col-
kge, York, deposed that he had analysed the con-
tents of the deceased's stomach and the remainder
of the powder. He discovered strychnine in each
—in the latter to the amount of 12 per cent. The
witnesses were closely cross-examined by the pri-
soner's counsel, Messrs. Rolleston and Johnstone,
but their evidence was not shaken. The trial ter-
minated at half-past six o'clock yesterday, when
the jury returned a verdict of guilty, but recom-
mended the prisoner to mercy on account of his
previous good character.
Mr. P. Delany, one of the Kilkenny deputation
to the American delegates who brought over the
supposed bones of M'Manus, was arrested on Tues-
day, charged with swearing in members of the
Phoenix Society.

accumulating until the whole sewer was filled to
where it crosses the railway tunnel at Frederick-
street. At this point tht sewer was not then com-
pletely cased up and secured in the manner in which
it is done at King's-cross. Here for a short time
great apprehensions were felt lest the enormous
bulk of water so confinel should burst over and into

the tunnel, where it world have done an immense
amount of mischief. Fortunately, the pressure

proved too much for the obstacles which were bat-
ring its progress where the sewer had fallen, and
the great stream at last forced a passage, but not
till it has saturated and sapped away a good deal of
the 12-feet strip of earth that intervened between
the sewer and the massive retaining wall of the
Victoria-street station.
The Board of Works had put up shores to support
the tottering rubbish on each side of where the

sewer had given in, and had began a cutting to
divert its course from passing over and into the rub-
blish. But the mischief had gone too far. On the
Monday following the accident the water had corn-

pletely soaked through the earth and through and

under the foundations of the railway Walls, which

began to yield. As these gradually sloped back-
wards towards the gap in the road, the pressure
became too much for the supporting shores. What
followed was then a matter of course-120 feet of

he massive wall slipped very slowly down as the

water undermined its.. fou3dations, the foundations

working forward as the summit of the wall inclined
back, and, as this brought an increased pressure on
the top of the sewer that was still standing, while
the support of the earth was washed from its side,
120 feet more of the Fleet ditch collapsed as the
wall leant on it. Of course, the force of water in
the sewer was unable to push away the mass of
earth and bricks that now choked it, and the waters
again accumulated in it up to the Frederick-street
junction. But, in the interval that had elapsed
since the first break in, Mr. Fowler had averted the
danger that menaced from this point in case of the
sewer again filling, and all was perfectly secure.
The sewer therefore must have filled almost to its
very source till it again acquired strength to force
its way over the rubbish into the excavation for the
railway station. As soon as the water had filled
this it found its way into the railway tunnel itself,
up which it penetrated for some 800 yards, dimi-
nishing in depth as the incline of the railway rose,
and being nowhere deeper than at its mouth, where
it was 54- feet. As soon as the channel of the sewer
was diverted above the breakage, and brought by a
deep channel along Victoria-street to a point below
the fracture, the filthy inundation ceased; the water
was at once pumped out of the tunnel, to which it
has done no manner of injury, and the subterranean
railway left as perfect as before the accident, with
the exception of the overthrown 120 feet of wall,
which, as we have said, £7OO will replace as before.
The examination of the sewer since the accident
shows that in that portion at least which passes
along Victoria-street the brickwork is of the flim-
siest and most worthless kind. Though the tunnel
of the sewer is 10 feet 6 inches wide, the brickwork
is only 15 inches thick, scarcely enough to enable it
to bear the earth above it. Even 8-feet sewers are
now sometimes made with five rows bricks, but
this of 10 feet has only three. The wonder is, con-
sidering the loose soil through which it runs at this
part, how it has stood so long as it has done. The
whole sewer, however, has been known for some
time past to be scarcely equal to the work it has
had to do, and in the general plan for the main
drainage it is intended to relieve it of some of its
overflow water by making a junction from it into
the great Middle Level Sewer some distance above
Victoria-street. It will be no slight relief when the
whole of the great main drainage scheme is com-
pleted. Readers who wish to have a good notion
of the deliberate manner in which we have been
poisoning our atmosphere and our river for years
should go now to Victoria-street to the open cutting
through which Fleet ditch has been diverted, and
watch the rush and volume of its ble ck fcetid waves
pouring down thousands of gallons per second to the
Thames. The smell along the course of this torrent
of filth is almost enough to breed a pestilence in the
neighbourhood. Sanitary precautions, however,
have not been entirely overlooked, as the visitor
who passes up the filthy stream will see at the head
of the opening where a man is engaged in dribbling
chloride of lime into the chasm, at the rate of about
half a pint of the disinfectant to 10,000 gallons of
the poisonous fluid. How worthless are his labours
the stench from the sewer sufficiently proclaims.
The opening of the underground railway has, no
doubt, been delayed by this accident to the Fleet
ditch—not as regards the main line, which is still
as perfect as the day it was finished—but as re-
gards the completion of the temporary station
in Victoria-street. Engines can and do now tra-
verse the whole length from Farringdon-street
to Paddington, but the intermediate stations
are not yet ready for the reception of the pas-
senger traffic. The main station at King's-
cross is as large, as lofty, and as well lighted
through its glass and iron roof as any of the great
metropolitan termini, while the arrangements for
the arrival and departure of the incoming and
outgoing traffic are as perfect as modern railway
experience can make them. The present powers of
the company only allow them to carry their line
from Paddington to Finsbury-circus, a distance of
nearly five miles, of which the first great length
from Paddington to Farringdon-street is completed,
with working junctions to the Great Western and
Northern railways. The tunnel commenced at the
Paddington terminus, and continues in an almost
direct line towards the New-road, passing beneath
the Edgeware-road, at right angles, and intersect-
ing in the same manner Lisson-grove-road and
Upper Baker-street, skirting along beneath and
just outside the southern extremity of Regent's
Park. Thence it passes under the houses at the
eastern extremity of Park-crescent, beneath Tot-
tenham-court-road, into the New-road, and, passing
close by Euston-square, turns at King's cross to
effect a junction with the up and down lines of the
Great Northern Railway.
From King's-cross a great part of the line is an
open cutting, except for a length of about 600 yards
beneath Bagnigge-wells-road and Coppice-row,
where again a tunnel intervenes. From this to the
Victoria-street station it is nearly all a fair open
cutting, and up to this point the line is ready. From
the Victoria-street station, on the dirty waste ground
beyond Holborn which is still dignified with the
name of Victoria-street, the line is soon to have two
branches, one intersecting Holborn-hill, or rather
Skinner-street, and continuing its course due south
under the site of the old Fleet Prison, to effect a
junction with the Chatham and Dover line, which
is to cross the Thames at Blackfriars. The other
and more important branch—in fact, the main line
—is to be continued under the ground north of
Smithfield and south of Charterhouse-square, and
will pass beneath Barbican into Finsbury-circus.
At this terminus it is intended, for the present
at least, to stop ;.
though we hope that, as
the advantages which this mode of communica-
tion will afford and the relief which it must give
to the overcrowded traffic of our streets become
more generally known and appreciated, the share-
holders will find their account in extending their
branches to the chief suburban districts of the
metropolis. Along the whole of this length all the
stasions will be open-air stations except two—that
in Gower-street and that in the Edgeware-road.
Both these are underground, but Mr. Fowler has
given them almost as much daylight as if they
stood in the air by making circular apertures in the
sides of the tunnel which communicate with the
forecourts of the gardens in the road, where the
openings are covered in with ground glass. The
light which comes through these is collected and
concentrated by the apertures being lined with
glazed tiles, which throw the rays direct upon the
arrival and departure platforms; so that, in fact,
these underground statiors are almost as well let
as the others. As soon as possible after the opening
of this first length it is intended to proceed with the
main line to Finsbury. The cost of the whole un-
dertaking is estimated at about £1,100,000. Had
it been taken on a viaduct above the streets it would
have cost nearly four times this amount. Whether
or not it will be remunerative has yet to be seen,
and on this point we express no opinion. But, pay-
ing or not paying, it must be of the greatest eon-
, venience to the public, not only of the metropolis

but throughout the kingdom, as by its junctions with
the lines south of the Thames it will enable pas-
sengers to book through, without changing, from
Edinburgh to Southampton or Dover, and vice versa;
and we all know what an amount of annoyance
and delay is thus saved. It must also tend much to
relieve our overcrowded streets, which are now ab•
solutely congested with traffic.

COMMITTEE FOR PRIVILEGES.

HOUSE OF LORDS, JULY 24.
Their lordships sat this morning as a committee
for privileges ; Lord Redesdale in the chair.
THE DUNDONALD PEERAGE.
The claimant in this case is Thomas Barnes Coch-
rane, who seeks the title and dignities of Earl Dun-
donald and Baron Cochrane, in the peerage of Scot-
land.
Mr. Fleming and Mr. Kay were counsel for t 129
petitioner; Mr, Archbold represented Capt. the
Hon. P. L. Cochrane ; and the Attorney-General
watched the case on behalf of the Crown.
The claim came before their lordships for the
third time under the following circumstances. In
1647 Sir Wm. Cochrane was created Lord Cochrane
of Dundonald, and in 1669, after the Restoration,
he was created Earl of Dundonald. Archibald, the
9th earl in succession, was the grandfather of the
present claimant, and he died in 1831. The claim-
ant's father was born in Scotland in Dec., 1775,
having entered the navy, in 1793, as Lord Coch-
rane, in which he saw much service. He was
elected member for Westminster in 1812 and in
1814, having been found guilty of conspiracy, he
was sentenced to imprisonment. On the accession
of William IV. he was restored to his rank and ap-
pointed to a naval command in the West Indies,
and subsequently took the command of the Chilian
fleet. In 1831 he succeeded to the Earldom of Dun-
donald, and in 1833 he voted at the election
for Scotch representative peers. After that the pe-
titioner was always called Lord Cochrane, until the
death of his father in 1860, when he assumed the
title of Earl of Dundonald. The petitioner's parents
were 'mulled in Scotland in 1812, each signing a
paper, acknowledging themselves to be husband and
wife, which, it was submitted, was sufficient toesta-
biish the legitimacy of the petitioner. There were
subsequently a public marriage between the parties,
both in Scotland and England, which would, it
was contended, even if the Scotch marriage were
held invalid, render the claimant legitimate. The
case was adjourned on the last occasion for the
attendance of the Countess Dowager Dundonald as
a witness.
Her ladyship now appeared to give evidence.
She stated that her maiden name was Catherine
Corbett Barnes, and that her parents died when
she was very young. She was now 64 years of
age. She was brought up by her aunt, Airs. Jack-
son, who resided at 9, Bryanston-street, Bryan-
ston- square, and was party educated at Great Mar-
low, in Buckinghamshire. Whilst living in Bryan-
ston-street, in 1811, she was introduced to her late
husband, then Lord Cochrane, by his cousin, Capt.
Nathaniel Day Cochrane, who was a friend of her
aunt's. He was then living with his uncle, Mr.
Basil Cochrane, at 20, Portman-square. He made
love to her and offered her marriage, which she at
first refused, but eventually she accepted him. He
asked her to be privately married, and to keep her
marriage a secret, as his uncle had promised him a
large fortune if he married another leg. She re-
fused, but on his being taken ill, he sent to her beg-
ging her to walk opposite his uncle's house, as he
was dying. She complied with the request, and on
his being lifted to the window, the sight of his
corpse-like form and face softened her heart and she
consented to a private marriage. Here Lady Dun-
donald became much excited, and said she could not
sit there to vindicate the conduct of that great man
who was the hero of a hundred fights. It was, she
said, impossible that he could have done wrong in
the matter, and he w,,s incapable of the deception
which the world—who it was she knew not, she
dare not say her own son—imputed to him, such a
good, such a great man, who could have so ruled
upon the waters ; and, oh ! it was too much that
she, his wife, should have to sit there and vindicate
his honour. She had followed the fortunes of that
great man. She had stood with him on the battle
deck, where she had seen his men fall around him,
and she had herself fired a gun to save the life and
honour of her husband, and was ready to do it
again. He was a glory to the nation to which he
belonged, and there was no member of the family
of Dundonald who should not feel proud of
him. Her ladyship then proceeded to say she
and her late husband went to Scotland in a car-
riage, attended by her maid and his man, and on
their arrival at Annan, on the Bth of Aug., 1812,
they went to the Queensberry Arms Hotel, where
Lord Cochrane wrote out a paper, and she copied
out another, which they signed. They ran as fol-

lows :--
"I, Sir Thomas Cochrane, commonly called Lord Coch.
rane, of the kingdom of Scotland, being desirous, for parti
cular reasons, to avoid a public marriage, hereby acknow.
ledge and receive Catherine Corbett Barnes as my lawfu
wife. " COCHRANE."
"I, Catherine Corbett Barnes, of the parish of Maryle•
bone, county of Middlesex, do accept and declare
Thomas Cochrane, commonly called Lord Cochrane, to be
my lawful husband, premising faithfully to keep secret this
deed of marriage until I shall be permitted in writing,
under the hand of my accepted husband, to disclose the
same. " CATHERINE CORBETT BARNES."
" Done at Queensberry Arms, in the town and parish of
Annan, in the county of Dumfries, in the kingdom of Scot-
land, the Bth day of August, 1812.
" ANNE MOXAM. RICHARD CARTER."
Lord Cochrane told Carter that he had come there
to be married. He also told her that the marriage
was legal. He left for London immediately, scarcely
stopping for refreshment. She returned on the 10th,
when she went to her aunt's house, where she re-
mained until the 18th, when she went with Lord
Cochrane to the Isle of Wight, where they stayed
two months, and she lived with him from that time
until his death. They were afterwards married in
England and at Edinburgh.
By the Chancellor—ln signing the deed she and
her husband used the same pen.
By the Attorney-General—She recognised her
own writing, although it was 50 years ago since she
wrote it. It had been in the hands of Lord Dun-
donald's lawyer ever since, as far as she knew, and
she had only seen it once since. That was in 1844,
on the occasion of her son's marriage. She was
aware that Mr. Basil Cochrane, on the 12th of
August, was married four days after her own mar-
riage, Lord Cochrane left her so suddenly in order
to be present at his uncle's marriage. Lord
Brougham was consulted on the marriage deed, and
he said it was perfectly binding. Lord Cochrane
had several country houses in England and some
property in Scotland. In consequence of certain
circumstances which occurred in 1814 he sold his
property. After his release from prison she took
him to Dover, and they embarked in an open boat
for Boulogne, standing up throughout a cold night
during their passage. She had discharged her maid
Moxam in 1813, and she heard she had died thirty
years ago. Her cousin was informed of her mar-
riage. She was not introduced to her husband's
family until afterthe English marriage, when they
received her, and behaved in the most kind manner
i I to her.
Mr. Herd, Sir J. H. Maxwell, and Mr. Bevan
proved that Lord Dundonald's family had recognised
the Scotch marriage, and that he himself always
considered it valid.
Mr. Archbold, on behalf of Captain Cochrane,
prayed that Mr. William Jackson, the husband of
Lady Dundonald's aunt, might be examined by com-
mission, as he was bedridden.
Their lordships granted the application, and the
further hearing was adjourned to Monday next.

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

NORTHERN CIRCUIT.—YORK, July 23.
CIVIL SIDE.
(Before Mr. Justice Mellor.)

ROGERSON V. OXSPRING-BREACH OF PROMISE OF

MARRIAGE.

Mr. Brett stated that the plaintiff was a daughter
of Mr. and Mrs. Rogerson, who were the occupants
of a farm belonging to Lord Galway, at Wincover,
near Barnsley. The defendant was a person about
thirty years of age, of a respectable family. In
1853, when the plaintiff was sixteen years of
age, she went to live with Mr. Ibbotson, of Chevet,
uncle of the defendant, for the purpose of as-
sisting in the farm business. Defendant was
at that time, about 21 'years of age, and also on his
uncle's farm, assisting in the management. In Jan.,
1855, plaintiff returned from Mr. Ibbotson's to her
mother's house, where she stayed some time, whilst
the defendant was received there as her accepted
suitor. In this light he was introduced to her
friends, and the defendant's friends from this time
forth visited the plaintiff's parents. In November,
1855, plaintiff went again into service, with Miss
Parker, of Doncaster, where she stayed three years,
and during this time the defendant began to write
to her. In a letter dated the 25th day of the above
month, he expressed his gratification at the plain-
tiff's good health and contentment, "as his happi-
ness in a great measure depended on that." He
then went on to say—" The thought of your gentle
frame has not been absent from me since the day of
your departure." After stating that whilst life re-
mained he would be constant to her he signed him-
self, " Your sincere lover, William Oxspring." She
visited her home in the midsummer of 1856, and the
Christmas of the same
year and 1857, where the de-
fendant was also present. On the 12th of July of
the latter year he wrote her again, and after in-
forming her of the progress of farming operations,