The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-28 00:00:00

having taken Miss Seagar's lifa, Robinsdn seem to 1
have gone_upstairs into his tearoom, his hands wet with
the young Woman3s blood, and then to have attempted to
shoot himself; for not only was blood found upon the bed,
but the barrel and butt of the gun likewise had blood
upon them, and a charge of shot passed into the
ceiling and brought down some of the plaster. The gun,
which bore marks of having been recently discharged, he
would then seem to have reloaded. The child of Mr.
Isaiah Fisher who first gave the alarm appears to have been
attracted into the house by the report of the gun, and seeing
Miss Seagar lying surrounded with blood, conceived the
notion that she had been shot. The alarm is thought to
have brought the murderer down stairs before he had, by
the second discharge of the gun—one barrel of which was
found loaded—completed the purpose with which he is
supposed to have first exploded it ; but an equally ready
means being at hand when he got down, he seems to have
adopted it,and so gashed his throat with the razor that was
already dripping with the blood of his dying victim.
Robinson's habits had latterly been very irregular. As re-
cently as Wednesday last he came home at midnight drunk.
Mrs. Fisher let him in, and alike to her and to Mr. Fisher he
conducted himself very violently. On Thursday Mr. Fisher
told him that he must leave and go into lodgings, and that
as he had lately become accustomed to use harsh language
towards Miss Seagar, she also had better leave,-lest after
he had left the peace of the family might still be subject
to disturbances on the occasion of his visits. When even-
ing came Robinson craved the pardon of his executor,
and, making promises of • amendment, was allowed to re-
main. Miss Seagar used to chide him gently for his ex-
cesses and fits of moroseness, which followed upon most
of his drinking bouts.

There are two wounds upon the murderer's throat, one
of them so superficial as to scarcely more than cut through
the skin. The other does not include any of the principal
arteries ; and whilst it extends to each side of the wind-
pipe, has not injured it. In a few days, therefore, it is
expected that he will be sufficiently recovered to appear
in the dock charged with the wilful murder of Harriet
S eagar.

The deceased's father lives at Compton, near Wolver-
hampton, and is a blacksmith.

The coroner's inquest will be opened to-day (Monday).

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE " SATURDAY REVIEW" ON CHLOROFORM.—
A certain physician, being asked how chloroform
was discovered, said that he supposed it must have
been by inspiration. The higher significance of his
phrase was so far justifiable in that no single dis-
covery has conferred so much individual benefit on
mankind as the demonstration of the safe, certain,
and pleasant method of extinguishing pain. In its
other meaning, the work " inspiration" exactly de-
scribes how the anaesthetic or sensation-destroying
properties of chloroform were first found out. Dr.
Simpson, of Edinburgh, invited a few congenial
spirits to meet at his house, and personally test (at
their own risk) a variety of substances, with intent
to discover a more satisfactory anaesthetic than
nether, which was objectionable on account of the
nauseousness of its vapour, and the large quantity
and long time required to establish the necessary
influence. To convey some idea of the risk which
these experiments involved, it may be mentioned
that chloroform (which they only took in its turn)
had already been pronounced by M. Flourens to be
dangerous to life. They experimented with it on
November 20, 1847. " Drs. Simpson, Keith, and
Duncan sat each with a tumbler in hand, and in
the tumbler a napkin. Chloroform was poured
upon each napkin, and all patiently inhaled and
waited for something to turn up. After a proba-
tion, Dr. Simpson, drowsy as he was, became con-
vinced that something had turned up, for he heard
Dr. Duncan snoring, and Dr. Keith kicking about
in an inelegant manner." They were profoundly
asleep, and would have certainly startled an intrud-
ing domestic more than the pipe of Raleigh
frightened his servant. The action of these
savans strongly contrasts with the proceedings
of those who first used nether as an anaesthetic
at Boston, in America, in September, 1846. In
Edinburgh, the honour of discovering choloroform
was at once conceded to Dr. Simpson. In America,
the discovery of the employment of mther vapour
was disputed by those who made the earliest expe-
riments, and the squabble would probably be still
going on if chloroform had not so entirely super-
seded the use of :ether as a means of destroying
sensibility to pain. But the search for such a
mighty agent had been prosecuted for centuries
previously ; and, according to Dr. Snow, 'ether
itself was probably used as an anaesthetic byßaptista
Porta, the date of discovery being almost coinci-
dent with that of the first arrival of Columbus in
America. This Baptista Porta, curiously enough,
was also the inventor of the camera, and the most
marvellous results of modern photography achieved
by its aid depend upon the solvent virtues of this
same nether in preparing the collodion film. The
first employment of anaesthetics dates yet further
back. From very early times, humane physicians
earnestly pursued the search for some method of
ensuring freedom from pain whilst the knife or the
cautery did its dread work. The nepenthes of the
ancients consisted chiefly of intoxicating herbs, and
the employment of Indian hemp as a means of
deadening pain was common to the ancient
Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Scythians. The
most learned and best-esteemed of our professional
societies, occupying in medicine much the same
position which the Royal Society bears in general
science, recently appointed a select committee to exa-
mine and report on many matters of exceeding impor-
tance, both to the profession and to the public, in re-
lation to the use of chloroform vapour as an
anesthetic. This was a wise and timely proceed-
ing, since there had, year by year, grown up very
serious doubts among the uninitiated as to the safety
of its employment. " Another death from chloro-
form" is a stereotyped paragraph-heading. And
the condition of fright induced by the suspicion of
such a result forms a very bad preparation for those
about to submit to its influence. Dr. Sausom has
carefully collected the results of various observers
as to the dangers of chloroform, and the statistics
are very re-assuring. For relief from the pangs
attendant on childbirth it has been used about
40,000 times in London alone, without a single acci-
dent. In general operations (and these furnish the
materials for the accident paragraphs), it may be
estimated that chloroform has, up to the present
date, been administered upwards of four millions of
times, and that nearly every case of death from its
use has been published to the world. The statistics
as to the actual number of deaths caused by admi-
nistration of chloroform vapour give, as the result,
an average of one death in 16,000 cases of inhala-
tion. But this is undoubtedly an unfair estimate,
since the numbers include all those deaths which
occurred before the profession bad thoroughly
learnt the safest methods of using chloroform,
what are the chief dangers attendant on its
application, and how they may best be averted.
There are only two ways in which chloroform ought
ever to be administered. The one provides that the
inspired air, previously prepared in a large reservoir
or bag, shall contain an exact and safe percentage
of chloroform vapour ; so that the patient, how-
ever he may breathe, can get no more than the re-
gulation dose. Under this regime, the insensibility
may be maintained for many consecutive hours, if
necessary. The apparatus for the purpose was de-
vised by Mr. Clover, an eminent London practi-
tioner, and has been personally employed by him
upwards of a thousand times without a mishap.
This is the only effectual way of assuring the
minimum of risk. In the other process the
safety of the patient depends exclusively on the
personal observation and experience of the
operator. In Mr. Clover's method it is assumed
that the inflated bag contains a mixture absolutely
innocuous under the conditions in which it is used.
But as chloroform is generally administered, rudely
poured on a folded cloth, or on sponge or lint, the
handy contrivance is a focus of vapour which has a
deadly strength ; so that undivided attention is
necessary to watch for and avert those symptoms
which indicate that there has been a breath or two
taken containing so excessive an amount of the
subtle vapour as to be dangerous. It is under this
latter method of administration that all the deaths
have occurred. Yet this is the method of administer-
ing chloroform vapour which the profession recognise,
simply because in good hands it is safe enough ; and
the apparatus used cannot be too simple. The best
yet introduced, because it is the simplest, is that
devised by Dr. Skinner of Liverpool, and to which
Dr. Sansom does but scant justice. He has an in-
haler of his own, which is somewhat pretentiously
described. It presents the very great disadvantage
common to all " inhalers," that the administrator is
led to place faith in the ingeniously, contrived appa-
ratus, and may thereby be induced to relax that
unceasing vigilance which is the only safeguard of
the patient. If there are possible dangers, such as
make every prudent doctor anxiously observant
throughout the whole time of a patient's insensibility
under chloroform, it is evident that any careless and
ignorant use of the anaesthetic must be fraught with
extreme risk. And this warning needs to be publicly
given, since there are many persons who, ignorant
of the dangers they incur, themselves employ chloro-
form vapour for the mitigation of temporary pain,
breathing it through a saturated handkerchief until
insensibility occurs.
"THE SPECTATOR" ON THE TIIAMES.—The report
of the committee of the House of Commons on the
River Thames, just published, reveals a state of
things scarcely credible to those who are not
thoroughly aware of the perfection to which the art
of " how not to do it ' can be carried by public
bodies under favourable circumstances. It seems
that the river Thames, which under any reasonable
management ought at least to furnish cheap carriage
for heavy goods from the Pool to 20 or more inland

towns, supply London with pure water, and yet re-
main the " silvery Thames" in all its beauty, is
actually in danger of becoming in some place a mere
rivulet, and in others a " pestiferous swamp." There
i 3 daily danger of loss of life at those picturesque
old locks and weirs which look so well on the walls
of the Royal Academy, any one of which may at any
time give way, drown the crew- of a barge or the
occupants of two or three pleasure boats, cause a
destructive flood, and finally put an end to the navi-
gation of the river. Already some of the higher reaches
are becoming unnavigable from weeds and silt, water
carriage scarcely pays even between London and the
wharves of Reading, Abingdon, or Oxford, about 100
unhappy bondholders have been victimised to the ex-
tent of £90,000 on security of tolls whichhave almost
ceased to exist, and the railways—in this case of course
the aggressors—are exulting in the approaching
removal of the wholesome competition of the navi-
gation. We also find—though this did not come
within the immediate province of the committee—
thirty-two more or less considerable towns which
send all their sewage into the river, besides the re-
fuse from gas works,paper mills,naphtha works, and
similar abominations. Even Kingston is allowed to
pollute the river, Sir W. Page Wood apparently
reasoning-that as thenuisance will probably be much
greater at some future day, it would be not fair to
put an end to it now. Such is the present state of
the river Thames, and such are the dangers which
menace its very existence unless some energetic
action be taken. To attain this happy result it must
be evident to all that a complication of Boards,
Commissioners, trusts, and Committees greater even
than is usual in such cases, must have been at
work. One ceases to wonder at the present chaos
after reading the evidence as to the management of
the river. From Staines downwards the river is
under the control of the Thames Conservancy, a
competent body, fairlyrepresenting the various river
interests as well as the City, prosperous, and not
dangerously in conflict with any other power or au-
thority. They manage a large amount of barge
traffic from below London Bridge to the small towns
below Staines, the five locks under their care
are all in good order, they are free from incum-
brances, and they are ready to forward any mea-
sures for facilitating the ascent of salmon, in case of
that fish ever being persuaded to trust itself in the
Thames. But beyond Staines all is chaos. The
control of the river from Staines to Cricklade, 107
miles, is vested in a body of Commissioners, con-
sisting of anybody who pos'sesses either £lOO a year
in land or £3,000 personalty in the counties through
which the river passes ; the members for those
counties, and the members or, and mayors and re-
corders of, certain boroughs • the Lord Mayor and
Aldermen of London ; a good many Oxford Dons,
the Fellows of Eton, and the incumbents of all
parishes on the banks of the river. Of this large
body some six or seven hundred have formally quali-
fied, and they elect a committee of 15—three from
each of the five districts into which the river is
divided—who act as the executive, subject to the
control of the entire body. Of course the large ma-
jority of the latter are in no way interested in the
navigation or the London water supply, or the state
of the river, or anything of the kind, and of course
the committee they elect cannot be supposed to be
very enthusiastic about any of those subjects. Some
of them are millowners, whose interests are directly
opposed to those of the barge-owners and river-side
merchants. The Commissioners, though they act
under six Acts of Parliament, are not a corporation,
and are therefore personally responsible and liable to
be sued for work done at their orders. By three Acts
passed in the reign of George 111. they obtained bor-
rowing powers to the extent of £lOO,OOO, nearly the
whole of which is now owing to about 112 bond-
holders, nominally at 5 and 41 per cent. on the
security of the property and tolls of the commis-
missioners. From causes that will shortly appear
the tolls received by the commissioners are not
sufficient to meet their minimum expenditure, even
without paying interest to the bondholders. There
is not a penny in hand to maintain the works, the
commission is hopelessly insolvent, the workmen
have been discharged, and the entire navigation
above Staines must shortly be closed. The bond-
holders are generally, willing to take 2s. in the
pound, but as many are executors, trustees, or inca-
pacitated, no legal arrangement can be effected
without legislation. The real difficulty, however,
is the rights possessed by the " old lockowners,"
specially reserved in all the acts. Between Staines
and Oxford there are no less than 20 locks, chiefly
belonging to millowners, who claim and exercise the
right to levy tolls of the most oppressive kind on every
vessel passing up or down, and not in any way bound
to apply receipts for the benefit of the navigation.
These tolls are levied upon tonnage, not upon the
amountof freight and actually amount upon a partially
laden barge to more than those levied by the com-
mission. In many cases the old locks are entirely
done away with, and pound locks constructed by
the commissioners, who have, however, to pay to
the old lockowners the sum which would have been
due to them if the old lock had been used. Some of
these old locks threaten to fall into ruin day by day,
others are so constructed as to prevent the passage
of barges drawing more than a very slight depth of
water, and the sum total of the blackmail levied by
these legalised plunderers between Staines and
Oxford is sufficient to render water competition with
the railways utterly impossible. These twenty lock-
owners, again, are with few exceptions millowners
too, and in some part of the river have to be com-
pelled by Act of Parliament to postpone the interest
of their mills to that of the navigations on certain
days in the week, which they then do with a very
bad grace. The result of all this is that the naviga-
tion of the Thames must cease, the locks come to
ruin, the river become a mere rivulet in some places
and a marsh in others, all flood water, after doing
great damage and involving the insolvent Commis-
sion in law-suits with indignant " riparians," will
flow at once away, instead of being stored up for
water supply, and the unlucky bondholders will
finally lose their chance of even two shillings in the
pound. This is the state of things disclosed in the
evidence before the committee, and one in which
legislation of some kind is clearly desirable.

THE " EXAMINER" ON A MODEST RAILWAY DE-
FENCE.-Mr. Best, a commercial traveller, brought
an action in the Bloomsbury County Court against
the North-Western Railway Company for the re-
covery of expenses incurred by him in consequence
of detentions on the road contrary to the announce-
ments of the time-table. The defence of the com-
pany deserves notice for its matchless impudence.
First there was the plea, often put forth but never
allowed, that the times stated for the arrival and
departure of. trains are not guaranteed, in which
case, if a tram appointed to start at a certain hour
never started at all, or never arrived at its promised
destination, the company would not be liable for the
disappointment of travellers and derangement of
their plans. But more impudent still was the
second point of defence, that on the days of Mr.
Best's detention the company was conveying a very
large number of excursionists at a cheap rate, which
interfered with the punctuality of the ordinary
trains. So the travellers who paid dear fares, rely-
ing on the promises of the time-table, were to be
thrust aside, belated on the road, and to have all the
plans for their journeys deranged, in order that the
excursionists who paid cheap fares should be con-
veyed in great numbers. The avowal of this pre-
ference is cool, but the reason of it is intelligible
enough. The low fares of the numerous excur-
sionists pay better than the high fares of the
regular trains, and therefore it is that the
regular trains are made irregular that the road may
be clear for the more favoured and more profitable
excursion trains. Yet it never occurs to companies
that if all trains were run at low fares they would
pay as well as excursion trains. It is said that
baggage makes the difference, but baggage might
be charged according to weight, so as to defray the
cost of any extra steam power. And in the present
system, which, as it began without experience, has
been carried on without profiting by experience, it
certainly seems somewhat inequitable that passengers
with very unequal weights of baggage should be
carried at the same price. But to return to things
as they are, not as they might, could, or should be,
nothing seems to be gained by the public paying
first-class prices, and to bring companies to their
senses and something like fair dealing, people who
have hitherto been accustomed to take first tickets
should take second, and those who have taken
second should take third. As it is, what happens
on every holiday, or such-like occasion, when trains
are full, and places still in demand? Why the
mob at the stations are allowed to storm the car-
riages, and half a dozen roughs, some half or
whole drunk, will force themselves into a first-
class compartment, and hold possession. When the
ticket-collector comes round he will take the tickets
of those intruders and interlopers as if it was quite
a matter of course that they should be where they
are. As the Irishman in the sedan chair without a
bottom observed that, he had as lieve walk, so the
first-class passengers on these pleasant occasions
are apt to reflect that they might as lieve be third-
class in tickets as well as in company. The decision
in Mr. Best's case was most satisfactory, the judge
holding the company to the implied engagements of
its time-tables, and as upon this ground the judg-
ment rested, he probably did not think it necessary
to animadvert upon the impudent admission that
faith was broken with the regular passengers at high,
fares that monster trains at low fares should have
precedence on the road.. His Honour ruled that the
statement made by the railway company as to their
not guaranteeing the times of the arrival and de-
parture of their trains did not protect them except
in cases in which an accident, or circumstances
which could not be anticipated, came in the way ;
and if persons made their arrangements on the faith
of the time-tables, and the company departed from