The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-11 00:00:00

LAW AND POLICE.

A RAILWAY ACCIDENT.—In the Court of Exchequer, on
Thursday, the case of " Hart v. the Lancashire and York-
shire Railway" was argued. It will be remembered that
the circumstances were peculiar. The plaintiff was
travelling to Manchester on the defendants' railway,
when an engine ran into the train, and inflicted
injuries, for which a jury at Liverpool awarded £llO
damages. The engine was coming up a siding leading to
the main line, when the man in charge of it fell
down in a fit. The pointsman, knowing that a
Manchester express was coining on one line, and a
Yorkshire express on another, while the defen-
dants' train was most likely at a standstill, very
wisely turned the engine on to the line on which the
defendant was travelling, thus avoiding a greater acci-
dent. It was urged at the trial that the company ought
to have provided against the chance of such an accident.
Mr. Manisty, however, obtained a rule for a new trial,
which the court on Thursday made absolute. Mr. Baron
Bramwell, in giving his judgment, said that on one point
he should have great doubt if it went to a jury, and that
was, whether the company were responsible for the volun-
tary act of their servant. Baron Cleasby said that as a
general rule the proximate cause of an accident must be
alone looked at, and therefore it was doubtful whether
the company would be responsible.
SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE.—On Thursday an action in the
Common Pleas, in which judgment was allowed by default,
" Poole v. the Great Eastern Railway," was heard before
Mr. Under Sheriff Burchell. Compensation was sought
for injuries in a railway collision and damages were
laid at £1 ,500. The noticeable feature of the
case was that three medical witnesses on the plaintiff's
behalf declared that he had received a concussion of the
brain, and two surgeons for the company declared there
was no such concussion, but only disease of the heart of long
standing. Mr. Under-Sheriff Burchell commented upon
this extraordinary discrepancy, and advised the jury to
consult their own common sense. The damages were
assessed at .C3OO.

VELOCIPEDES ON FOOTPATHS.— The son of a velocipede
maker was summoned at Bow-street for riding a veloci-
pede on the footpath in Bloomsbury. The magistrate
inflicted the nominal fine of five shillings and costs, but
said it must be understood that such practices were
illegal.

CONFESSION OF MUIIDEIL—On Thursday, at the Aber-
gavenny Petty Sessions, Robert Jones, who recently
confessed that he had murdered a woman, was
brought up for examination. The result of
the inquiries that have been made was that the
prisoner did not resemble the man last seen in the
woman's company. The prisoner denied that he had said
he had murdered the woman, and his father declared his
son had been in London when the murder was committed;
he believed him to be weak in the head. The prisoner was
accordingly discharged.

Colonel Smyth, formerly member of Parliament
for the City of York, died at his residence, Heath Hall,
near Wakefield, early on Thursday.
The heavy penalty of £lOO and costs was in-
flicted on Wednesday upon a Liverpool publican for having in
his possession 74 gallons of illicit spirits—a mixture sup-
posed to be used for cordialising ordinary spirits.
The Bishop of London has commenced a prosecution
against the Rev. C. F. Lowder, the vicar of St, Peter's, St.
George's-in-the-East, in consequence of his violation of
the directions laid down in the decision of the Judicial
Committee of Privy Council, in the case of "Martin v.
Mackonochie." Mr. Lowder objects to remove his lighted
candles, or to consecrate the elements otherwise than he
understands the Church to direct him ; and for this he is to
be prosecuted in the Court of Arches, if Sir Robert Philli-
more consents to accept the letters of request.
I Mr. Forster, M.P., laid the memorial stone of some
Baptist schools at Walsall the other day. In the course of
some observations he said that he was very much in favour
of the working classes being admitted to the national
galleries and museums, but he disapproved of these places
being opened on Sunday. Had the House divided on the
question he was sure that a large majority would have de-
cided against the measure. He was in favour of the bill for
the exemption of Sunday schools horn parochial rates.

The Shedden legitimacy case was resumed on
Thursday for the fifteenth time before the House of Lords.
The Lord Chancellor commented upon the extreme prolixity
of Miss Shedden's address, which has now occupied fourteen
days, and exhorted her to confine her remarks to the evi-
dence. Shortly after commencing to address their lordships
yesteriay Miss Sheddea swooned, and was carried out.
Dr. Bond being sent for, testified that the lady was suffer-
ing from hysteria, brought on by nervous exhaustion.
Their Lordships postponed the case till to-day, when,
if Miss Sheddon should be unable to proceed, her father will
be heard.

THE CHARGE OF INCITING THE SOLDIERS OF seek to take advantage of a hard-working clergyman by
CORK TO REBELLION.—The detailed reports of the hives-
1 giving him no opportunity of preparing for his defence, or
tigation before the Cork magistrates on Tuesday respect-
lof obtaining legal advice. Meanwhile the admirers of a
ing Johnson, who was arrested for distributing seditious
i leading Low Church clergyman in the West-end, a popular
placards, suggest the probability that the author of the 1 preacher in a chapel which has no parish attached
documents is demented. The evidence went to skew to it, and which involves no parochial work, have pre-
that,member of the Association
for some days past several soldiers, while passing sented to this overworked gentleman, himself, I believe, a
i
through the streets on their way to barracks, have beercarriage and pair. One
, a
handed by a civilian sealed envelopes, which, on opening, would like to know what the Apostles would have said to
the two clergymen, the one renouncing society and wealth
in order to teach the sinners and harlots of Ratcliffe High-
' they found to contain letters calling on them to abandon 1
way, the other preaching twice on Sunday in a West-end
their allegiance to her Majesty and enter the ranks of
the Irish army. They reported the fact to their officers,
and the police were set in motion. The result was the arrest chapel, and on the weekdays driving his carriage and pair
in Rotten-row. I fancy that they would have forgiven
of Johnson,who stated Lb at he is a printer out of employment,
and that he went from Dublin to Cork in sear oh cf work. the sin of Ritualism for the sake of the earnestness.
I went yesterday to the private view of the " reject( d "
One of the papers found on him was a sheet of green note
paper, on which was printed an absurd rhapsody, dated pictures, or, as it is called, "The Select Supplementary
"
June R, 1869, and concluding with the following passage :
Exhibition of Pictures. There are six rooms in the
" Soldiers of the R. Catholic, your services are required building, (which, by the way, is in Old Bond-street). In
for soldiers of Christ. Your oath and wicked promise to serve three of these, lighted from the top, but inconveniently
are exclusively pictures rejected -by the
heretics is not binding at this critical period. You must small,
Academy. Tine other rooms are lighted by ordi-
officer your countrymen—take your arms, &c.—come
n
into town and city, and enter all gunshops, provision shops, nary windows, and the pictures are imperfectly se i.
hotels—take cooked food, gold, silver, arms, and the best Mr. Moy Thonma, who Las had the chief work in getting
horses everywhere. Force the shopmen and constabulary ; up the Exhibition, has had many difficulties to encounter.
In the first place, a. large number of the "rejected" did
into the ranks.—PRINCE OF GREEN." He was identified i
by some soldiers as the person who had handed them the
, rot like to be procla%ned at such to all the world; in the
envelopes. His manner and appearance seemed strange, next place. there were come who lad had one or two
and the magistrates suspected him to be insane, but re• pictures accepted sold tl e rest rejected, and who thongl.t
mantled him for a week. 1
that they had uo great cause of compla-nt. Last y, there

were artists who thought that by keactiug . their works
to the "Supplementary Exhibition" they were declaring
war against the Academy, and that this would be remem-

bered to their disadvantage hereafter. The result is that
the present collection by no means represents the whole
of the rejected works, and probably not the best of them.
And it must be confessed that a general survey of
those which are shewn leads to the conviction
that no very great injustice has been done by
the Academy. Undoubtedly there are a few works
whose exclusion would be a matter of surprise under any
circumstances, and especially when we remember the
yards upon yards occupied by the R.A. portrait painters ;
but on the whole it cannot be said that the
standard of the works in Bond•street is so high
as to sustain the charge of gross favouritism
against the artists who excluded those pictures. There
are, however, a few works whose e7.-clusion will cause
some surprise. Mr. Cuthbert's " Maske of Cupid," Mr.
Anderson's " A Fond Delusion," Mr. Beavis's " A Tough
Bit of Road" (perhaps the best work in the Exhibition),
Mr. Brett's "Evening off the Menai Straits," Mr. F. S.
Smith's " Pipe of Freedom," Mr. Mawley's " Glade by a
River," Mr. Anderson's "A Letter," Mr. Naish's
"Stand By, Ready About," Mr. Desanges's "Spring
Flowers," and Mr. Gullick's "Portrait of a Lady," are
certainly up to the general level of the Academy. 11`
Mr. Sydney Hodge's portrait of the Archbishop of
Canterbury, painted for the laymen of the City of London
as a remembrance of his Grace's late episcopate, was pre-
sented to the Archbishop this afternoon at Graves's, Pall-
Mall

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

AGITATION.

Mr. Thomas Charley, the member for Salford,
believes in the platform. During the electoral
campaign it was the fashion of the Conservatives to
sneer at Mr. Gladstone for going on the stump. But
Mr. Charley thinks that the Premier was right, and
he attributes the success of the Liberal party at the
elections, and since, to the brilliant speeches of the
right honourable gentlemen in Lancashire last
autumn. The ConservatiVe leaders, the member for
Salford complains, did nob appear upon the platform
at the general election. The platform being,
in his opinion, " the mainspring of political, as the
pulpit is of religious, life and action," no party
leader can afford to despise it. Mr. Charley, there-
fore, in a letter to the Telegraph, appeals to the
Conservative leaders to follow Mr. Gladstone's
example, and to stir up the country by harangues
to support the peers in the struggle which must
necessarily issue on the rejection of the Irish Church
Bill by the Upper House.

Two political meetings worth notice were held on
Wednesday. The first and most important was held.
at Leamington. A banquet was given by the Con-
servatives of South Warwickshire to Messrs. Wise
and Hardy, to celebrate their return at the last elec-
tion. The brother of the latter gentleman, Mr.
Gathorne Hardy, was present, and made the
speech of the evening. Both he and Mr.
John Hardy said they did not know what
the House of Lords would do with the Irish
Church Bill, but Mr. Chthonic, Hardy vindicated,
its constitutional right to throw out the bill, and de-
clared that, whatever it did, it would command the
respect and deference of the country. In the course
of his speech the right hon. gentleman, referring to
the statement that the Conservative party had been
educated by its leader,said that in the case of the other
party the position was reversed—the leader had been:
and was being, edu ated by the tail. After some de-
nunciation of Mr. Bright, who, be said, was leading the
Liberal party where he would, and whither they
knew not, Mr. Hardy concluded by recommending
Conservatives not to resist the changes that might
be necessary in these changing times, not to give
people reason to say that Conservatism w.is obstruc-
tion,not to oppose the correction of abuses in the Irish
Church, but to remember tie blessings they had
enjoyed under the union of Church and State in a
country which had ever respected the rights of
property.

Another meeting, this one also Conservative, was
being held at Liverpool while Mr. Hardy was
addressing the meeting in Warwickshire. The
Liverpudlians turned into the open air in front of
St. George's Hall to listen to speeches against the
" Church Plunder Bill," "the traitor Gladstone"
and " the revolutionary Bright." The crowd, esti-.
mated at from 15,000 to 50,000—set down as
20,000 by the local Conservative journal, and
80,000 by the Liberal paper—was addressed
.by the well-known Mr, Harper, the Grand
Master of the Orange Association, and by several
local clergymen. A resolution was passed, setting
forth that any intimidation of the House of Lords
to induce it to pass the Irish Church Bill would be
received with scorn and indignation, declaring that
the people of England were prepared to lay down
their lives in defence of the independence of the
House. There %VIZ much confusion, and some little
fighting, but, on the whole, the monster meeting
passed off very quietly.
But two can play at the game of agitation, and
the supporters of the bill are bestirring themselves.
The Reform League already threatens to revive, and
its members do not riinounce their contentment with
the mere disestablislimeut and disendowment of the
Irish Church. They demand the abolition of the
House of Lords. We are told that those who formed
the branch leagues in. the metropolis have been
brought together again within the last few days, and
have formed the determination to reorganise their
respective bodies, and to call on Mr. Edmund Beales
to be their common president as befoxe. Of course
the first thing that will be done is to hold a
grand demonstration in Hyde Park or in Trafalgar-
square, so that the end of the session is not unlikely
to witness another time of excitement much like that
which accompanied the discuskion of the Reform Bill
in Parliament.

The leading Liberals of the Northern towns are
also taking steps to support Mr. Gladstone. In
Leeds and in several other towns of Yorkshire it
has been determined to hold great meetings, should
the bill be rejected; and at Nevcastle, on Wednes-
day night, a meeting of the tarty was held, and
arrangements were made for holding a grelt mass
meeting on the Town Moor, should the Peers pass
Lord Ilarrowby's motion.