The Sun.
London, England, 1831-12-19 00:00:00

PAIRED OFF.

Bainbridge, E. T.—Taunton
Bernard, T.—King's County
Blackney, W.—C'. of Carlow
Boyle, Lord—Co. of Cork
Dundas, C.—Berkshire
Ferguson, R.—Dysart, &c.
Fitzgibbon, IL—Limerick Co.
Gillon, W. D.—Selkirk, &c.
Grattan, H.—Meath Co.
Kenne.ly, T. F.—Rothsay, &c.
Lambert, H.—Wexford Co.
Lopes, Sir R. F.—Westbury
Macnamara, W. N.—Clare Co.
Nowell, A.—Westmoreland
O'Connell, D.—Co. of Kerry
O'Ferrall, R. M.—Co. of Kildare
O'Neill, Hn. Gen.—Antrim Co.
Ossory, Earl of.. Kilkenny Co.
Oxmantown, Lord—King's Co.
Peiham, C. A.—Lincolnshire
Portman, E. B.—Dorsetshire
Thompson, P. B.—Wenlock
Traill, o.—Orkneyshire
Vernon, G. H.—Bassetlaw
White, S.—Co. of Leitrim
Wyse, T., jun.—Tipperary Co.

The publication of the Observer commenced
yesterday morning at the usual time, a quarter past five
o'clock, and finished the whole of its large publication
before nine o'clock on the Sunday morning. It contained
nine folio columns of the debate of Saturday, with the
division on the Reform question. A Monday afternoon
edition of the Observer, price Sevenpence, is regularly
published at 169, Strand, well adapted for the country and
to send abroad.

The choice of the official assignceships under
the new bankrupt law will be made early this week, and
excites considerable interest in the city, as the names of
some very eminent and leading men among the commercial
world appear in the list of candidates. That list is now
reduced, by the exceptions introduced into the late circular
letter of the Commissioners, from '7OO to about 130 indi-
viduals. Out of these it is intended to choose 40, whose
names will be forwarded, it is supposed, to the LORD
CHANCELLOR, to be by him reduced to 30, the number
required by for the purposes of the new Bill. The exer-
tions made and the influence used to obtain these appoint-
ments have been very great. Much argument was
em-
!Oiled, it seems, to induce the Commissioners to rescind
their determination not to bestow them on men actually
engaged in business ; and, indeed, the propriety of adher-
ing to that course was strongly questioned by many intel-
ligent men, but they were inflexible on that point. As
the Bill comes into operation early in next month, there
is not too much time for the gentlemen chosen to prepare
themselves for the important duties they have to perform.
They will not, it is presumed, disturb any of the arrange-
ments iu commissions of binkruptcy which have already
been issued ; though their assistance will, of course, be
available for advice and consultation in cases of difficulty.

Tilt CHOLERA AT HULL.

Td THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

is with great sorrdw that I write to you, to state a
case of real cholera that has appeared in Hull. The man,
named Thomas Whitechapel, residing ih No. 7, Roper-street,
of rather dissolute habits, is a sailor out of employ, and who
left his ship at Sunderland about nine or ten days ago. He was
seized at one o'clock r.sf. yesterday With vomiting and purging,
accompanied with violent spasms of the muscles of the abdo.
men, coldness of the hands and feet, and intense pain in the
head. He had caloinel and opium given in large doses every
hour, and had hot cloths applied to the abdomen ; but all to
no avail, for he died at ten the same night.
I remain your most obedient Servant,
R. BOTHAM, Member of the College of Surgeons.
Hull, Dec. 17.
P.S. He had also twenty leeches applied to the head. The
case has created considerable alarm in this town.

CHOLERA AT NEWCASTLE.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
NEWCASTLE, DEC. 17.

The Newcastle Board of Health have at length, by their
own CondUct, clearly shown that they have been misrepresent.
log the extent of the malignant cholera in this town, as I have
more than once charged them with doing. From the 10th to
the 15th December inclusive they headed their report " Daily
Report of Cases of Spasmodic Cholera." Yesterday and to.
day it is changed. It is now headed " Daily Report of Cholera
at Newcastle-upon-Tyne " The official report of this day
states that there are twenty new cases, seven recoveries, and
five deaths, but that nine of the new cases have occurred in
the township of Byker—in other words, nine of them are at
Dent's Hole. I before observed that the disease appeared to
he travelling by the side of the river. As a proof of this, I
may state that there are actually at this moment '22 cases in
the village of Dent's Hole l Do not imagine they arc all cases
of malignant cholera. There are only either one or two bad
cases amongst them. The rest, the surgeons themselves say,
resemble bilious cholera more than malignant cholera. They
have happily been all taken in the beginning, or they might
have terminated with the characteristics of the more formi-
dable disease. The '22 patients, with one or two exceptions,
have not the cold stage : they have occasional shiverings, but
the skin is hot; they have purging and vomiting, with sick.
ness, head-ache, &c. Two persons, Mrs. Emmett and Mrs.
Stephenson, died it is true on Wednesday or Thursday, at
Dent's Hole, with decided symptoms of malignant cholera, and
two of the 'persons at present ill have attended upon them.
There is one case I believe at St. Peter's, also by the river side,
and I have heard of one at Jarrow, and one or two at Hibburn,
on the south side of the river, near South Shields. Cases have,
I regret to state, appeared in more streets in Newcastle,
namely, one in the Wall Knowl, and two in Newgate-street.
I did hear there was one in Drury-lane, but that, I believe, will
turn out not to be a serious case at all. The two in Newgate-
street are both females : one an old woman, of the name of
Armstrong, who has bad symptoms, and whose recovery is
doubtful; she had diarrhcea for a week, but it was not at-
tended to. The other is a woman about forty, who went into
Sandgate, the worst street, to the house in which her niece
had just died of the cholera. There is, I repeat, a disposition
very improperly to make every case malignant cholera.
The Newcastle Board of Health give the public to believe,
by their statement of this day, that there have been from the
7th to the 17th of December, 94 persons attacked by spasmodic
cholera. I do not believe, including the two cases at North
Shields, the eases at NeweaStle, and by the river side, there
have been altogether twenty cases of malignant cholera. There
are, no doubt, thirty-four deaths-in that interval, most of them
sudden deaths, and perhaps even the majority of them by malig-
nant cholera. The disease is here, but there is nothing ter-
rific in the number it has attacked, in the sort of people it has
attacked, or in the places where they have been attacked.

DREADFUL EXPLOSION IN A COAL

MINE NEAR WIGAN.

TWENTY-EIGHT LIVES LOST.

(Communicated by Mr. Edward Stanley, Land and Mine

Surveyor.)

On Thursday evening last, at five o'clock, one of those explo-
sions of inflammable gas, which of late have so often been at-
tended with great sacrifice of human life, took place in the col-
liery of Messrs. Woodcock and Halliburton, at Kit-green.
The pit in which the accident occurred is known by the
name of the " New Engine Pit." It is of unusual depth, and
from the circumstance of the workings being intersected by
several faults or breaks, is particularly favourable to the accu-
mulation of inflammable gas. The depth of the shaft or pit is
:14,5 yards; from thence a descent by an inclined plane takes the
workmen to the coal. The perpendicular to this hypothenuse
is 170 yards, making a total depth from the surface to the coal
of 1,245 feet. The report of the explosion was terrifically loud,
and heard in the township of Adlington, a distance of eight
miles. As regards the immediate cause of the accident, little
can be said with certainty. From personal inquiry on the spot,
and information kindly afforded by Mr. John Woodcock, it ap-
pears that the underlooker of the pit, and his assistant, were in
the colliery examining it, and making some measurements,
when both had returned to the bottom of the pit. The infor-
mation of a person who ascended prior to the explosion, shews
that the assistant underlooker, and one of the men, re-entered
the workings, for the purpose of ascertaining the state of the
air in a particular part of the mine. From this circum-
stance it is presumed that they have been the cause of the ac-
cident. A general summary of the loss of life shews, that
eleven widows and forty-two children are left to deplore the loss
of their husbands and fathers.
The number of men and boys are 2O
Women and girls

Making the total of
The accident is in no wise attributable to any negligence on
the part of the owners or the deceased underlooker, John
Williams, as the circulation of pure air was abundant, had it
not been overpowered by an instantaneous rush of inflammable
air from the old workings. The deceased underlooker, during
the course of a conversation a fortnight ago with the writer of
this narrative, declared his confidence in the free ventilation
of the works, and the facilities afforded him by his employers
for carrying into effect every means that could be devised for
the safety of the workmen. In confirmation of the above
fact it may be stated, that during a period of forty years has
Mr. Halliburton's attention been directed to the grand deside-
ratum of ridding coal.mines of this dreadful foe to the collier.
Of late the dangers and hardships of this adventurous class of
men have been advocated in a paper that has appeared in that
popular work, the Mechanics' Magazine. It is there shewn,
in the person of Mr. Ryan, that individual exertion, even in the
cause of science and humanity, was overthrown by the narrow-
minded prejudices and jealousies of a few interested managers
at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who had no wish to see their own
talents eclipsed, when he solicited a trial to clear the mines of
inflammable gas. In the last number of the work referred to,
Mr. Ryan's plan is given to the public, and ought to be re.
published by every paper that has circulation in the mining
districts.

VICE-CHANCERY COURT-(THIS DAY.

JUDGMENT.-SHADWELL v. STEWART.

His Honour the VICE-CHANCELLOR gave judgment in
this case to-day, in which it will be recollected the bill was filed
for the purpose of setting aside two deeds obtained from a lady
named Letitia Shadwell, whom the bill charged was in a de-
ranged state of mind at the time of the transaction. His
Honour decreed the setting of the deeds, and ordered an account
to be taken of the money that had been expended by the de-
fendant for the use of Letitia Shadwell, but in taking that ac-
count the Master was not to have regard to any sums of money
expended in any other way than in board and lodging and the
other necessaries of life. His Honour also ordered all the de-
fendants to pay the costs of the suit.