The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-23 00:00:00

THE MILITARY FLOGGING AT

HOUNSLOW.

HOUNSLOW, WEDNESDAY EYENING.—ShortIy after the ad-
journment of the inquest on Monday last, and just as the
coroner and deputy-coroner had quitted the George the
Fourth Inn, Hounslow-heath, an occurrence took place which
had well nigh ended in a most serious riot.
It appears that as Farrier-Major Critton and Farrier Evans,
who had attended the inquest and produced the cat-o'-nine
tails with which the flogging had been inflicted before the
jury, were returning to the barracks, while proceeding up
the lane leading from the George the Fourth Inn to Houns-
low barracks, they were addressed by some agricul-
tural labourers at work in a field on the side of the lane,
who called out to the soldiers, " How's that affair gone off ?-
Farrier-Major Critton immediately replied by using language
of an irritating nature, which was followed by a stone throw'',
by the soldiers, upon which one of the civilians, named El-
ridge, took up a brickbat and threw it with great violence
at Farrier-Major Critton, which struck him on the right
temple, inflicting a serious wound. Privates Sparkes
and Pegg, who were following the farriers to the barracks,
witnessed the occurrence, and seeing Elridge run off across
the fields pursued him, and came up to him, and on seizing
him a desperate encounter took place between Elridge and
Sparkes, during which the former was most severely beaten.
Fortunately, one of the officers of the 7th Hussars reached
the spot and exercised his authority over the soldiers, while
Mr. H. Pownall, of Spring-grove, Hounslow, one of the
local magistrates present at the inquest, who having beard
of the disturbance had hurried to the spot, addressed the
crowd, which had by that time assembled, and quietness
was restored. Elridge was then given in charge to the police
for the assault on Farrier-Major Critton, and was conveyed
to the station-house of the 'l' division, of the metropolitan
police in Hounslow.
On Tuesday forenoon Elridge was brought up for exami-
nation before Messrs. 11. Pownall and B. J. Armstrong, the
sitting magistrates, at New Brentford, when, after a patient
investigation of upwards of an hour, the charge against
Elridge was dismissed, on the ground that Farrier-Major
Critton had given great provocation by using the improper
language he did, and throwing the stone, and that Elridge
had been greatly punished in his encounter with Sparkes
and Pegg.
It will be remembered that the inquest was adjourned on
Monday last, for the purpose of having the body of the dead
soldier (which was buried on the afternoon of Friday last
with military honours, in the presence of an immense assem-
blage of persons, in the churchyard of Heston Church) ex-
humed, in order that a further medical examination should
be made, with a view to ascertaining the state of the spine.
Yesterday (Tuesday), about six o'clock in the evening, Mr.
Wakley's warrant for the disinterment of the body was re-
ceived by the Rev. IL Trimmer, the vicar, Messrs. Whitney
and Harding, the churchwardens of Heston, and Brent, the
coroner's summoning officer. At eight o'clock the digging
of the grave was commenced, under the superintendence of the
Rev. Mr. Trimmer, and from that hour until nearly eleven
o'clock at night the churchyard was surrounded by the in-
habitants of the village.
This morning the preparations for the exhumation were
continued. At a quarter to eleven o'clock, Mr. H. G. Day,
of lsleworth, the surgeon selected by the coroner's jury to
examine the body, arrived at the churchyard, accompanied
by Mr. Erasmus Wilson lecturer on anatomy at University
College, who had been directed by Mr. Wakley to assist Mr.
Day. They were received by the Rev. Mr. Trimmer and
Mr. Churchwarden Harding. The coffin was raised and
opened, and the examination commenced, the only persons
permitted in the churchyard being the operators and their
assistants, the police, and the parochial authorities.
At twenty-five minutes to twelve o'clock a London street-
cab drove up to the churchyard entrance, containing Mr.
Hall and Dr. Read, the surgeons of the military medical
staff, by whom the first post mortem examination of the body
had been made, by direction of the Horse Guards, who,
alighting, entered the churchyard, but were immediately
met and stopped by Sergeant Jecks, and informed that he
had the Coroner's orders not to permit any person but the
two surgeons operating, and the parochial authorities, to be
present at the examination. Mr. Hall and Dr. Read appeareu
much surprised, and said it was absolutely necessary that
they should be present, as they were directed to be so by a
special order, which they produced, signed by Sir James
M'Gregor, the military medical director. Sergeant Jecks
told them that he had no power to allow them, 1 which
statement he was confirmed by Brent, the Coroner's othcer,
and the Rev. H. S. Trimmer. ..
Mr. Day explained the position in which they were placed
by the Coroner's instructions, and read for their information
the following instructions which he had received from Mr.
Wakley :
"The Coroner directs that no medical gentleman but Mr.
Day should attend your examination. This is peremptory,
and your authority for excluding all others.
" G. J. MILLS, Deputy-Coroner."
Brent, the Coroner's summoning officer, also read the
ollowing instructions he had received:—
" Take the enclosed order to the persons directed therein,
viz., Rev. Mr. Trimmer and the churchwardens, and inform
them that Mr. Wilson, surgeon, will be at Heston church-
yard, at eleven o'clock exactly, on Wednesday morning, July
22, to make his inspection of the body, and that the corpse
must be removed from the coffiin, and open for his examina-
tion, by that hour. No person whatever but Mr. Day,
whom Mr. Wilson will bring with him, must be present
when lie examines the body, consequently no notice is to be
given to any regimental or other medical officer as to the day
or hour of the inspection. Mr. Wilson has orders to exclude
every person but Mr. Day, unless it be some one to assist
with a bucket, water, sponge, cloth, &c.
~ J. MILLS, Deputy Coroner.
" 35, Bedford-square, July 21."
The military surgeons said they must of course bow to
the authority of the Coroner, and requested to have a copy
of the above instructions, in order that they might adduce
them before the Horse Guards' authorities as the reason they
were not present at the examination, which being furnisheet
them, they at once returned to town in the cab.
The examination of the body was then proceeded with by
Messrs. Wilson and Day, and occupied upwards of two hours.
The body was, as may be supposed, in a greatly advanced
state of decomposition. Immediately on the conclusion of
the examination the body was replaced in the coffin, which
was again screwed down and re-interred, the grave being
afterwards filied up.
Of course the result of the examination will not be per-
mitted to transpire until it is given in evidence at the ad-
journed inquest on Monday next.

TIIE BARON OF PRESTON.—We have authority for
stating, that the old Scotch title of Viscount Preston, is
about to be assumed by Sir Robert Graham, Bart., of Esk,
in Cumberland, who is now residing at Cheltenham. The
father of this very ancient baronet succeeded his cousin
Charles as fourth Viscount, in 1739, but not succeding to the
family estates (which are in the hands of Sir J. Graham,
late Home Secretary), at his Lordship's decease in 1774, his
oldest son allowed both the baronetcy and viscountcy to lie,
dormant ; he dying in 1795, his next brother became helr,
and in 1809 took up the inferior title of baronet. For corent
reasons connected with mercantile engagements in the city
of London, Sir Robert has deferred assuming his dignity
until the present period, when, at the earnest solicitation of
his friends, he is induced to accede to it, for the advantage of
his family.—Caledonian Mercury.

COURT CIRCULAR.
Lord Heytesbury ha-I an audience of the Queen yes-
terday.
Her Majesty and Prince Albert, accompanied by the
Princess Royal, took an airing in an open carriage and
four yesterday. The Equerries in Waiting, Colonel Ar-
buthnot and Lieutenant-Colonel Seymour, attended on
horseback.

Their Royal Highnesses the Duchess of Kent and the
Duke of Cambridge visited her Majesty yesterday.
His Royal Highness Prince Albert rode out on horse-
back yesterday, attended by Lieutenant-Colonel Seymour.
Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales, Prince
Alfred, and the Princess Alice took an airing yesterday,
in the garden of the Palace. _ _ _

Her Majesty and Prince Albert, accompanied by the
Prince of Leiningen, honoured the performance of the
French Plays with their presence yesterday evening.
The royal suite included the Countess of Desart, Hon.
Miss Devereux, Lord Byron, Colonel Arbuthnot, and
Lieut.-Colonel Seymour. Her Royal Highness the
Duchess of Kent also honoured the performance of the
French Plays with her presence, attended by Lady Anna
Maria Dawson, Sir George Couper, and Captain the
lion. James P. Murray.
Sir William C. Ross, R.A., had the honour of taking
a second sitting yesterday for a portrait of her Royal
Highness the Infant Princess, by command of the
Queen.

- Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of
Cambridge and the Hereditary Grand Duke and Grand
Duchess of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, attended by Lady
Augusta Cadogan, honoured the Russian Minister and
the Baroness de Brunnow• with their company at dinner
yesterday, at their Excellencies' residence in Dover-
street.

Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent took an
airing yesterday in a carriage and tour.
Intelligence of the demise of Lord George William
Russell, G.C.8., was received in town yesterday
morning. The Cabinet dinner, intended to have been
given by Lord John Russell yesterday evening, in
Chesham-place, was, in consequence, immediately post-
poned. Lord John Russell left town for Wimbledon.
Lord Ingestre and Captain Warner had a long inter-
view with Lord John Russell and Viscount Palmerston
on Tuesday, at the official residence of Lord J. Russell,
in Downing-street. _ _

A deputation of Merchants of Liverpool, trading to
Brazil, had au interview with the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer yesterday, on the subject of the duty on sugar.
The deputation consisted of Mr. J. Cramley Moore, Mr.
Charles Saunders, and Mr. Edward Johnston, and were
accompanied by Viscount Sandon and Sir Howard
Douglas.

Alv:. Wise had an interview with Earl Grey yesterday,
at the Colonial-office.

The Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England, had a
general meeting yesterday. There were present, the
Bishops of London, Bath and Wells, Chichester, Oxford,
and Rochester, and the Earl of Devon.

The Earl of Devon had an intereiew with Sir George
Grey yesterday at the Home-office.
Lord Clive had an interview with the Chancellor of
the Exchequer yesterday. The Chairman of the Excise
had also an interview with the Right Hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Edward Eyre had an interview with Earl Grey
yesterday. Mr. G. W. Jerningham had also an inter-
view with the Noble Earl.

Dispatches were received yesterday at the Colonial-
office from the Governors of the West India colonies.

The Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch left their real-
sidence, Montague House, Whitehall-gardens, yesterday,
en route for Scotland.

TO THE LORD JOHN RUSSELL, &c.
My Lord,—ln this crisis of colonial affairs, the conduct of
the Government being again vested in the leader under
whom we achieved that which should have been a wide
and general blessing—the abolition of slavery--I address
you in the hope that it is not too late to amend your colonial
policy.
I object to the measures you have proposed, as unjust to
the colonists, and not in accordance with those liberal prin-
ciples in the maintenance of which it has so frequently been
my pride to rank myself as your humble supporter.
You tell us that the promised and present supply of sugar
from the British colonies is inadequate to meet the home con-
sumption ; that as we, the colonists, cannot produce enough
sugar to answer the demand, the difficulty is to be grappled
with ; and ask whence is the deficiency to be supplied but
by the admission of foreign and slave-grewn sugar? You
hope that when the trade is open to the competition of the
world it will raise such a spirit of emulation in our breasts,
that we shall proportionably increase our production, and
benefit the public and ourselves by industrial exertion.
Your hope, my Lord, so far as regards the continental colo-
nies under the present inadequacy of labour, is utterly vain
and impossible.
I deal in no theory, but with the hard and cruel fact.
When the abolition of slavery was proposed I held six estates
in the continental colony of Berbice. There were about 3GO
slaves upon them, and those estates had produced a net in-
come of from three to seven thousand a year. I hold those
properties now.
Under your guidance I assisted to fight the great battle of
emancipation ; for though well aware that I must lose by
the abolition of slavery, still its existence could not be con-
scientiously defended by reasoning, human or divine.
At the time of its abolition, and subsequently, your Lord-
ship may perhaps recollect that I urged upon you a system of
wide and general free labour, and prayed that its first intro-
duction might not be confined to the Mauritius, but that, ac-
cording to the general and generous principle of affording to
the labourer the best market for his hire, the whole of the
1 West India colonies might be thrown open to those who,
guarded by the Government as strictly as necessary, might be
inclined to better their condition. All classes might then
have shared in the blessings contingent on, and not impos-
sible to, the liberal and comprehensive scheme embraced by
emanicpation.

The admission of free labour, which ought to have gone
hand in hand with emancipation (a more beautiful conjunc..
tion can scarcely be imagined), was, however, neglected. It
was refused, or ultimately saddled with such injurious re-
strictions that, so far as the colony of Berbice is concerned,
up to the present time the shadowy boon has been completely
valueless.

I particularly call your Lordship's attention to the locality
of my estates (better known as Benfield's estates), simply
that by the true picture of my distress I may leave you to
judge of the tenfold misery of others who have nothing to
support their state and station in society, or to find them in
daily bread, but their colonial possessions.
Since the abolition of slavery my estates have returned no
income. They have been a heavy debt, and an annual loss
of more than from 1,0001. to 1,20 W. a year. The original
prime cost of the property, before a clearance in the bush
was made, amounted to 100,000/. I do not, under present
circumstances, return one hogshead of sugar to this country;
afford me but the free labour I am honestly willing to pay
for, and I can return 1,000 hogsheads. Judge, then, the ge-
neral fact of the cause of the " deficiency of supply " by the
instance I set before you.
The compensation I received on the abolition of slavery
was about 14,000/. Is that a " liberal compensation" for the
loss of all income and superadded debt ?
Another fatal mistake has been made in bygone legislation
—let it be avoided for the future. It is, that no distinction
has been drawn between the necessities of the island and

those of the continental colony. The same rules cannot be
applied to both.
In the island the labourer, or the man that should be the
labourer, is circumscribed—his means of living without in-
dustry are more compressed—he is shut up and within the
influence of civilisation, and he is, to an extent, constrained
to do as others do.

—Not so on the continent, not so in Berbice. In Berbioil
civilisation is surrounded by a vast wilderness, the soil un•
occupied, and vegetation so luxuriant, that a month's labour
in the bush will afford vegetable subsistence enough to the
squatter or negro for the year's consumption. The rivers
and the woods supply him with deer, with fish, flesh, and
fowl, and free of society, he needs no clothes; he is above
the necessity of labour. The proprietor and planter hai
become the real slave to neglect and oppression.
You have, my Lord, in the continental colony, given the
negro an unlimited, and therefore a dangerous, freedom,
without surrounding him early enough by circumstances
that should keep him temporally and religiously useful to
himself and to the mother country. In Berbice you have
taken from the proprietor the sole value of his luxurious soil,
the real worth of that possession, to obtain which he once
had British encouragement and support. The British planter
in Berbice is left to perish, and succeeding Governments of
this country, in establishing and recognising, thet glorious
achievementm itin g the o f
existence emancipation,o
f a
monstroushave
aand
and sullied
les, amlin
oppression t
ptdia
sPu
tuts
itre:
thannf.ry oib;;Yraieli'eviel
ever
err
nfoorTweihgbeneisntlivtaehgzrelienanttgeerrefrssetleasdvofref
oltiniobel,iritiialsulabtryioatackd
the forced labourer was, inasmuch as the onsearesl tlaesmt
hueeps
0,0
any:: ill:: is.
the other, even in his slavery, has been proved in many
countrystaaces tofo
rhraedveresassyed shouldm ontenya the epr
willingop proprietor's eant o re'
stance as was afforded to the negro in the other.
As your Lordship's follower in your general line of policy,
I protest against your present colonial proposition—not to
the ultimate design, but to your immediate method. Give
to the ruined colonist the means of cultivation open to us
here in England ; enable him to compete with the rest al
the world, and to be aroused into that state of industrial
emulation you say you hope to sea supervene upon his pre.
sent helpless and forced inactivity. Give us, give me, au
simple labour I require, the power of paying for the fair ant
remunerative day's work, and carry out your system of free
trade all over the world. Put us first into a position to ac-
cept your free-trade principles—and you can only do so by
the importation of labour, ample, speedy, and decisive—ehd
on these just grounds I will still be, as I have been, your
humble but faithful fellow-labourer and follower,
GRANTLEY F. BERKELEY.
Berkeley-house, July 21.

FORTUNATE DISCOVERY OF FIRE AT WOOLWICH.—
Between three and four o'clock yesterday morning, a police-
man upon going on board the Ariel steam-packet, lying in
the basin at Woolwich Dockyard, perceived a locker below
to be on fire, and immediately extinguished it. The origin
is at present a mystery, without the slightest clue to its so.
lution. The opportune discovery was most fortunate, an
the Ariel was lying alongside the Growler steam-sloop, and
there were many other vessels in the basin so situated that if
the fire had grown to any head, the consequences waul4
have been most disastrous. Only a few weeks since the, lat 4
' Board of Admiralty called the attention of all the establish.
ments to their instructions with respect to fire, and its :Ton.
taneous

THE -SNUBBED ONE.—Sir Culling Eardly Smith
never alluded once at Edinburgh to the British Lion. This
neglect from one who, on every former occasion, clung to the
lion's mane, and pinched his tail to make him ro,Ar, met with
its due reward. Sir Culling wa.,3, thrown out. Yet we can-
not help thinking, that if he had thrown hit,nself boldly ori
the British Lion he would have been brouritit in. If Sir O.
Eardley Smith had only let the British lion loose, we a*
sure he would have cr,rried everything be:ore
We have obseried a paragraph going the round of thi,
newspapers, in wh3.ch it is stated that Sir Culling Eardley Smith, wllll
atcly canvassed
this city, is a nephew of the Dale of WellingtA,
This is a mist
ake. Sir Culling Smith's grand uncle had one sou.
Culling Char:its,
Noble D ' who married Lady Anne Fitzroy, a sister of
„ 4e. The Honourable Baronet's connexion with the fan*
of 'hs 'race is not much nearer than what in this country would
tonne Act a • Highland cousin."—Caledonian Mercury.
PAADAME LAFFARGE.—The heroine of the roman*
tause celebre, so notorious a few years ago, has for some tile(
been in a state of ill health that prevented her quitting her
cell. On Sunday last, however, she went, in the penitential,
dress, to hear mass in the prison chapel. Madame Laffarsee
having asked as a favour to be allowed to devote harself 14
the service of the sick, she has been charged with the supe r-
intendance of the infirmary. Mondaf
brother of VA
r to Lord Powleo,
There was no opposi, 4on
Duke of Cleveland.
The election for- St. Ives took place on