The Sun.
London, England, 1871-01-26 00:00:00

THE POLICEMAN AND HIS PRISONER,

The promptitude and decision with which the police
have arrested Mrs. Tarpey on the charge of jewel robbery
are so satisfactory that we are little disposed to criticise
the means which they adopted for securing their prisoner.
At the same time we must say that the inconsistency
which manifests itself in our treatment of suspected
criminals has seldom been more strikingly illus-
trated. ' Inspector Lund, who arrested the prisoner,
cautions her against saying anything which may criminate
herself, and at the same time snatches from her hand a
letter which she seemed anxious to conceal, and which he
therefore rightly suspected to contain evidences of her
guilt. We would, however, remove this inconsistency,
not by enlarging but by restricting the privileges which
are allowed to persons arrested on suspicion. In
our opinion the practice of volunteering such warnings
as that addressed by Inspector Lund to Mrs. Tarpey has
been carried much too far, and is a by no means legiti.
mate accretion to the rule, in itself just and sound, which
forbids an officer to put any questions to the prisoner he
arrests without warning him of the possible consequences
of an answer. The object of that rule is, we take it,
not so much to prevent the prisoner from supplying
real evidence against himself as to protect a man
from the danger of having evidence fabricated against
him by questions to which in the agitation of the moment
he may return an unsatisfactory and suspicious answer.
But the unsolicited remarks or statements of an arrested
person are surely quite as legitimate evidence against him
as the contents of his portfolio or his pockets; and if we
are justified in possessing ourselves of the latter by force,
we are surely not bound to prevent him supplying
us of his own accord with the former.—Pall Mall
Gazette.

HALF-YEARLY MEETING OF THE MAN
CHESTER, SHEFFIELD, AND LINCOLN
SHIRE RAILWAY.

1 (CENTRAL PRESS TELEGRAM.)
The half-yearly meeting of the Manchester, Sheffield,
and Lincolnshire Railway Company was held in the com-
pany's offices at the Manchester station yesterday. The
chairman of the company, Mr. Edward Watkin, presided.
The Chairman made an elaborate statement of the
accounts of the company. He contended that it
was one of the most economically managed
lines in the country. The Government return
for 1869, which was the latest he could procure,
showed that the average per-centage of working expenses
of ten of the leading railways was 49'49, while the per
tentage on the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire
Railway was only 46.57, the only company whose work-
ing expenses were lower was the Lancashire and York-
shire Railway, where the per-tentage was 45'66. It
was, however, to be borne in mind that in the companies
the Lancashire and Yorkshire gained in consequence of its
large receipts from lands. At the same time the Manchester
Sheffield, and Lincolnshire paid more in keeping up its
road and rolling stock than any one of the neighbouring
companies. The directors had resolved to expend a large
sum of money in the present year in increasing their
siding accommodation. They did not say that this
was a ' measure of absolute safety, but the
directors had adopted it in view of the many
accidents which had recently occurred, as a measure
of precaution. In referring to the Stairfoot accident,
which he and all the directors deeply deplored, he stated
that in the ten years from 1861 to 1870 the company
carried 46,900,000 passengers without a single fatal acci-
dent. He had made the strictest investigation, but he did
not think it could be shown that the railway had not been
worked with prudence, and every regard for safety. The
money loss to the company would be comparatively little,
but the directors did not regard it as a question of money,
it was a question of human life. (Hear, hear.) He
should reproach himself bitterly if any precaution which
could prevent accidents was omitted to be taken. The
chairman then referred at great length to the question as
to agreement between the Great Northern and the Midland
Railway Companies, as to the differential rates ttpon coals by
which the South Yorkshire coal-owners were practically shut
out from the London markets. There was no reason why,
with free and suitable outlet to London, the annual
output of the South Yorkshire coal field should not be
4,000,000 tons in the year, instead of 2,000,000. The
secretary had made a calculation which shewed that the
amount of gross revenue, of which the Manchester, Shef-
field and Lincolnshire Railway was being deprived annually
in consequence of the prohibitory rates charged by the Great
Northern and Midland on Yorkshire coal going to London,
was about £84,000 a year, and probably £20,000 more was
being lost in passengers and merchandize in consequence
of the crippled state of the trade of the district. He
trusted that the question might be remitted for settlement
by arbitration to the Duke of Richmond or Mr. John
Bright, and that a ruinous competition which otherwise
might be entered upon would thus be prevented. The
directors would spare no effort to bring about a peaceful
settlement of the question. The report was adopted, and
the retiring directors, including Sir Edward Watkin, were
re-elected.

A Cabinet Council was held yesterday in Down-
ing-street. The Ministers present were—The Right
Hon. W. E. Gladstone, the Lord Chancellor,
Earl de Grey and Ripon, Viscount Halifax,
the Right Hon. H. A. Bruce, Earl Granville, the
Earl of Kimberley, the Right Hon. E. Cardwell, the
Duke of Argyll, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the
Right Hon. G. J. Goschen, the Marquis of Hartington,
the Right Hon. C. Fortescue, and the Right Hon. W.
E. Forster.

HEALTH OF THE QUEEN.—Her Majesty the
Queen, accompanied by their Royal Highnesses Prin-
cesses Louise and Beatrice and Prince Leopold is,
according to recent arrangements, expected to
leave Osborne for Windsor on the 3rd of next
month. Her Majesty, we regret to say, suffers from
occasional attacks of neuralgia, of a somewhat
painful description; and it is, therefore, possible that
her return to Windsor may be postponed to a later
date in February than that given above. Under
these circumstances, should her Majesty be detained at
Osborne till the 9th of February, the day fixed for the
meeting of Parliament, it is is not unlikely that she will,
health permitting, proceed to London to open the House,
and return the same day. At present, however, so far as
is known at Windsor, the Queen is expected at the Castle
on the 3rd of February.
THE COST OF THE LONDON SCHOOL BOARD
ELECTIONS. Mr. Russell Gurney, Q.C., M.P., the
Recorder of London, who was, under the pro-
visions of the Elementary Education Act, ap-
pointed by the Education Department of the
Privy Council returning officer for the recent elec-
tions to the London School Board, has. just issued
his precepts to the various parishes for the amounts
stated to be incurred in the respective districts for such
elections. For the Marylebone Division, in the parish of
Marylebone alone, the amount of the precept is £384
12s. 9d., and for St. Pancras it is over £360, so that in
two parishes only the official expenses charged exceed
£740 ; Paddington and Hampstead being added to Mary-
lebone and St. Pancras will make the cost of 'the election
for the Marylebone Division considerably over £l,OOO ;
and if the official School Board elections were
carried out in all the other metropolitan divisions
in the same ratio of expenditure, the gross cost
in the election of the forty-nine members of the London
School Board will exceed £lO,OOO. With pretty much the
same machinery as that used for the purpose of elections
of guardians under the Metropolis Local Management
Act, the latter, even in the case of a poll being demanded
in every ward, is carried out in some of the largest parishes
at a cost of some "X2O or £3O.