The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-30 00:00:00

NEWARK ACCIDENT.

The Telegraph observes that the verdict of the coroner's
jury in regard to the terrible Newark railway accident
stamps the disaster as the direct result of, existing
arrangements. So far, it shews that we erred in allowing
an exceptionally just use of the word " accident '
as applied to the event • but we do not regret
the fact, that the warning to be gleaned from
experience should have been enforced by a public
authority, rather than by any stern construction on our
part. The jury has found that the breaking of
the axle which caused all the mischief was " accidental ;"
but to that verdict they append certain codicils which
must engage the careful notice of all railivay companies.
The luggage train, they say, was driven at too great a
speed ; the axle had been too long in use • and it was in
a state unfit for use. They recommend that there should
be a maximum period fixed for the running of axle-iron
and wheels, and that some means should be devised for
applying to both a periodical test. They beg that their
recommendations may be forwarded to the Board of
Trade ; but we should hope that, for their own sakes,
those lines which have old rolling stock will not wait
for the Government to order a thorough inspection of
axles. The evidence has proved that the efficient cause
of a collision may exist under conditions which should
render detection easy,. yet without being detected; and
the public has also learned that many carriages and
trucks are running with axles of an old pattern, thinner
by half an inch than the kind now manufactured.
After such information, the loss of more lives by the
snapping of an old-fashioned axle must entail serious
consequences to railway managers who cannot prove
that the duty of careful examination has been fully per-
formed.

THE SUNDAY LIQUOR BILL.
The Post says that Mr. Ryland's Sunday Liquor Bill
was talked out before the arguments on either side had
been exhausted. An entertaining, if not otherwise use-
ful, series of moral exercitations has thus been lost; but
they would doubtless have been of a kind which is only
too well known, and we need not greatly regret being de-
prived of them. We may say at once that we do not
believe it to be contrary to the dictates of religion
either to purchase or to drink liquor on a •Sunday.
It is not considered to be so in any Christian country of
lurope, and the attempt to maintain that it is so is abso-
lutely confined to one narrow and gloomy section of
English Protestants, who strangely mistake the declared
character with which Christianity invested the Sabbath.
This is a question which peculiarly affects the poorer
classes, for the rich could easily evade or avoid
the pressure of a Sunday Closing Act. Accord-
ingly our old friends the working men have
been broght upon the scene to support once more
a narrow and shortsighted policy. We do not believe,
however, that the poorer classes wish to be deprived of
the opportunity of purchasing liquor on Sundays. They
would, on the contrary, regard a law to that effect as a
gratuitous and selfish piece of oppression. There is little
enough that they can do as it is on the Sunday. Mr.
Ryland's bill, in short, is founded upon no case, would
work no good, and has no friends but those who desire to
impose on their countrymen by law the views which they
cannot advance by argument.

Sir Shafto Adair has fifty labourers daily at work
in preparation.for the opening of the People's Park, his
principal gift to the Ballymena commmunity.
Bell's Life says, "we are given to understand that
a full declaration of the views of Admiral Rolls on the
turf of the present day will appear on Thursday in the
forth coming number of Daily's Magazine.
In •Conseguence.of the late proceedings in Calcutta
in connectic, with the 'conversion of a Hindoo widow, an
influential native at .Lucknow has forbidden the Zenana
teachers to enter his house any more. -
The Rev. Abbe Guin, at Trinidad, had been led
.
by night to an uninhabited place on an excuse to visit a
sick person, and4there niuniered, out of revenge. The
body was found frightfully mutilated. The murderer is
unknown. .