The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-21 00:00:00

THE TIENTSIN MASSACRES.

The Shanghai Evening Courier reports the execution
of sixteen men who were selected to suffer for the mas-
sacre of foreigners at Tien-tsin. They were decapitated
on the 19th of October. ' The notion of the execution
of the sixteen being a punishment has been carefully
concealed, by large rewards being given to the families of
the men-500 tier..: cach. After the execution the heads
were sewn on to L 1;:, I,,dies again, which were placed in
gorgeous coffin,: pi vi.;e I by the officials, and handed to
the families for haria,l. There are yet four others to be
executed. They are the supposed murderers of the Rus-
sians, and the Russian Consul-General will not permit
their execution until he has examined them, and satisfied
himself that they are really the guilty parties.
The Chairman of the Municipal Council has written
to the British Charge d'Affaires asking what was to be
done for the protection of the persons and property of the
foreign residents during the winter. Mr. Wade replied
that, during the winter there will be four French gun-
boats, and two English gunboats, and probably two ad-
ditional vessels of war under the flags of other nations/
But besides this; the Pekin " Government has de-
cided to retain the GovernonGeneral, Li-hung-Chang, et
Tientsin until the spring, and from his well-known energY
and capacity I should not fear to remain at Tientsin did
I reside there." The Courier correspondent asserts that
the Mandarins, as a class, have been the chief origins-
tors of the widely spread hostile feeling against foreigners,
and that the perpetrators of the outrage have uniformly
and openly claimed official' sympathy and support. 14°
adds :—" It is the most solemn opinion of many of the
residents here that the future Lever looked so dark as
does now."

EXTRAORDINARY FORGERY OF
RAILWAY TICKETS.

A gross fraud upon nearly all the railway companies in
England has just been brought to light at Derby. On
Friday evening last a man arrived at Derby by
a, train from the North, and presented a ticket
from "31asbro' to Smethwick." The ticket col-
lector (named Till), who has been in the Midland
Company'o service a number of years, on examining
the ticket, found that it was a forgery, and when the
train drew up at the passenger platform in the station,
the .man was given into the custody of a Derbyshire
police-officer. He gave the name of Matthew Goodwin,
and said that he lodged near Dudley. On Saturday
morning he was taken before Mr. W. T. Cox,
a county magistrate, and by him remanded until Thurs-
day next. It was subsequently discovered that the
prisoner has been apprehended in the borough, and not in
the county, and he was transferred to the borough autho-
rities. On Saturday afternoon, Detective Inspector
Fearn, of the Derby borough police, accompanied by one
of the Midland Railway Company's detectives, proceeded
to Dudley. and on making inquiries they found that the
prisoner kept a toll-gate just outside that town. They
went to the house, made a search, and in a drawer in his
bedroom tbey found upwards of 1,000 railway tickets' rom
one place to another on the Midland, London and North-
Western, and Great Western Railway systems. The
latter company appears to have been the most extensively
patronised. Some of the journeys were of great length.
The tickets were all second class, and in addition was
also found a number of steamboat tickets, principally for
" The Isle of Dogs ferry-boats." The officers also found
in the room a complete fount of type for setting up the
tickets, composing sticks, and every requisite for printing
them, together with plain cardk to paste them on, coloured.
papers, and colours and paint brushes to paint the tickets
the proper colours. When the prisoner was searched at
Derby on Friday night no less a sum than £199 108.
was found upon him, and it appeared that he came to be
present at the annual letting of the tolls on the different,
turnpike tolls leading out of Derby, which was held on!
Saturday last. It appears that prisoner has been in the
habit of renting toll-gates in almost every part of Eng-
land. On the 6th of July, 1868, he was convicted of
defrauding the Great Western Railway Company at.
Dudley, and was fined £2 and costs. There are other
facts connected with the case which it is not desirable at
present to make public, as so doing might frustaate the
endis of justice, but there is no doubt that the accused has
been committing very extensive frauds upon all the Drina-
Dal railway companies of this country.