The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-09 00:00:00

PRICE 4d.
STAMPED sd.

disbelieve in his innocence, on the ground that he
had not an open trial. Nor will the inference be
altogether unreasonable. For what useful public
object will be gained, what interests will be served
by secrecy ? The mere temporary suppression of
the evidence will not stifle, it will rather stimulate,
the general craving for information. We know
how, in the case of the scandal recently investigated
in the Upper House, it was utterly impossible to
keep all information from the public ; and how, day
after day, rumours grew and were circulated, fre-
quently prejudicial to innocent individuals, and mis-
leading the general public upon the simple point at
issue. If this was so where the Peers were con-
cerned, what will be the case in the Commons, with
its gossiping coteries in the lobby and the clubs,
and " our London correspondents" retailing every
wild rumour for the benefit of provincial
readers? - But apart from this very obvious
inconvenience, we are prepared to say that,
on the highest grounds, no inquiry into
the conduct of the Lord High Chancellor of
*England should be conducted with closed doors.
Publication of evidence has saved many an innocent
man and convicted many a criminal. Why, then,
this aversion to publicity on the present occasion ?
Possibly it is hoped that the inquiry may be pro-
tracted to such an extent as to lessen the public
anxiety about the honour of its Chancellor ; that
the non-publication of the daily evidence may tend
to banish the whole subject from men's minds ; that
in five or six weeks the matter will be almost for-
gotten, and the dissolution will put an end at once
to the committee and the inquiry into the conduct
of the Whig Chancellor. Possibly the evidence to
be produced is of too damaging a character to go
forth to the country a week or two before the gene-
ral election. However this may be, the secret inves-
tigation is as impolitic in the interests of the person
chiefly implicated, as it is alien to our ordinary no-
tions of fair play and right ; and we regret that the
committee should have decided to adopt a course so
calculated to weaken the effect of their general con-
clusions in the eyes of the public.

The Fatal Accident on the Shrewsbury

and Chester Railway.

One of the Times' Parliamentary reporters, who
was a passenger by the train to which this terrible
accident occurred, has furnished the following state-
ment :

" I will venture, as an eyewitness, to give you
some faint description of the dreadful accident on
the Great Western Railway at Rednal, on Wednes-
day. The excursion train left Birkenhead at about
a quarter to 11 o'clock, being 25 minutes behind the
appointed time for starting. After 'arriving at
Chester there was another delay of half an hour,
and the train was, therefore, about an hour late
when leaving this station. The train consisted of
35 carriages, propelled by two engines, and every
compartment was as full as it could be comfortably
packed with passengers. Between. Chester and the
other stations upwards it was evident the engine-
drivers were endeavouring to make up by extra
speed for some of the lost time. After passing
Gobowen station the rapidity of the train's progress
was amatter of remark among the passengers, forced
as it was upon their attention by the clouds of dust
that were thrown up on each side of the carriages.
For a considerable distance before reaching the
point where the accident took place men had been
engaged in raising the rails and sleepers, and the
line was consequently in a somewhat unsettled con-
dition, the ballast having been removed from
about the sleepers. Over this part of the line it
was the duty of :the driver to proceed slowly,
but the speed was not the least slackened and
the passengers soon had warning of the coming
catastrophe. There was a violent oscillation, during
which the passengers were unable to keep their
seats, and this was shortly afterwards followed by
the bumping of the wheels of more than one-half
the train upon the sleepers, the latter part never
having got off the line.
" The scene which followed will never be for-
gotten by those who had the misfortune to witness
it. The engines got off the line and parted com-
pany, the one rushing to the right and the other to
the left, and in a moment the work of destruction
was complete. Not less than nine or ten souls were
instantly crushed out of their mortal tenements, and
four or five more received such injuries that they
survived but a short period. Numerous, however,
as were the deaths, it was a matter of surprise to all
who witnessed the wreck that many more were not
killed. On the left there lay, first, the engine,
which had run some short distance down a siding,
tore up the rails and twisted them, ploughed into
the field adjoining, and then capsized. Further
along lay the tender on its side. Further along still,
towards the front of the train, but away from the
main line, lay a first-class carriage, a complete
wreck, with several persons underneath it, some evi-
dently not dead. On the right of the train, the side
on which the doors were locked (in the latter part
of the train the doors were locked on both sides, and
the passengers were obliged to get out at the win-
dows), the other engine lay embedded in a ditch,
and immediately behind it there were the splintered
remains of a first-class carriage, the pieces piled
upon each other as if broken up for firewood.
Close besides this again, lying on the down line,
was another first-class carriage, which had been
thrown off its wheels and turned over on its side.
How any of the passengers escaped here with their
lives is a miracle. Several bodies were extricated with
great difficulty from beneath the wreck of the first
carriage. The other carriages were chiefly, if not
all, second and third class, and remained in a line.
The first was raised in front by the wheels of some
other carriage, and it was left like a house without
a front, with all the doors, windows, and boarding
torn away in the front and on the left side. The
first seat was carried away, but the others remained.
Yet many escaped entirely unhurt out of this
carriage. Beneath it, however, and under the one
adjoining, there was a heartrending spectacle. A
child, apparently three or four years old, lay on its
face covered with mud, with the exception of its
legs and hips, which were naked ; at its feet lay its
mother, and at her side a man with his head com-
pletely severed from his body. Another woman and
a little girl about ten years old lay dead on the left
of the line terribly blackened and disfigured, and all
around were faces streaming with blood ; some had
broken arms, others broken legs, and many still
more severely injured were gathered up and con-
veyed on stretchers made of the doors of the broken
carriages to a shady spot in a field adjoining. One
man had his cheek laid open, and he walked about
a ghastly spectacle, unable to speak to those who
addressed him. A woman had her face cut in
several semicircular lines from the forehead to the
chin, and she presented a most extraordinary ap-
pearance. Not less than 50 persons were injured
more or less. Mr. Leather, a surgeon, well known
in Liverpool, was in immediate attendance, having
been a passenger by the train, and he rendered
valuable assistance. The accident, however, hav-
ing occurred several hundred yards below the
Rednal Station, and there being no village or in-
habitants near, the means off alleviating the
suffering was very limited, and there were two
dreadful hours of pain and anguish before assistance
arrived from Shrewsbury, which is about 12 miles
distant. A train at length arrived in which the
wounded were placed and taken to the infir-
mary at Shrewsbury under Mr. Leather's charge.
I shall not attempt to describe the excitement of
the people as they rushed out of the carriages when
the accident happened, the joy of some on finding
their intimate friends, and even fellow-passengers
safe, nor the bitter sorrow of those who had to
lament the loss of a relation, or who had to tend a
seriously injured friend. One poor woman lost her
husband, and she could not identify him among
those whose bodies were recovered, and she wan-
dered about as if demented. One engineman was
killed, and the other so frightfully injured that he
is not likely to recover, and, therefore, if any fault
lay with them, they will be beyond calling to ac-
count in this world. It was remarked by one of
the company's servants that the engine which lay
on the left of the line had been previously in-a