The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-29 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 29, 1858.

testimony to the truth of the statement, as did also
Mr. Tomlinson and other gentlemen.
Mr. YOUNG denied ,that the statement was a
truthful one, and complained that the committee ex-
cluded the press. He moved as an amendment,—
" That the committee ought not to have excluded
the public press, or proceeded with an inquiry into
the statement of facts relative to the Rev. T. Pugh
without offering him the option of being present at
such inquiry ; that the report of the 'committee
containing fresh allegations against Mr. Pugh was
unsupported by certain evidence of their truth ; and
that, in lieu of adopting the report, a faithful copy
of the minutes of the directors' meeting of the 7th,
and the vestry of the Bth of December, be forwarded
without comment to the Rev. Canon Dale, for the
use of the clergy about to inquire into the conduct
of the Rev. Thomas Pugh."
Mr. STUBBS seconded the amendment, and
The CHAIRMAN explained that it was unusual for
the press to attend committees, and that no appli-
cation for admission was made.

The amendment was negatived by a majority of
19 to 3, and the original motion ultimately carried
with three dissentients.

THE DERBY MURDER.

The inquest on the body of Edwards, the man
who was stabbed in the neck by his companion,
named Bland, on Christmas-eye, at Derby, was held
on Monday afternoon, in the grand jury room,
Town-hall, before Mr. Coroner Vallack.

Mr. Flewker appeared for the prisoner.
The following evidence was adduced
James'Birch, silk-twister, said—l was at Bishop
Blaze public-house on the afternoon of Friday last.
The deceased and Bland came in about 11 o'clock
in :the forenoon and drank together in the tap-
room. They quarrelled, and between four and five
o'clock they adjourned into the yard and fought.
Edwards seemed to have the best of the fight.
They fought fair for three rounds, and then
shook hands and went back into the tap-room.
Arthur Bland then stood up between two
tables, and commenced scraping his trousers with
a clasp knife, his face being turned towards the fire.
Some words which I did not hear took place be-
tween Edwards and Bland, aid the former got up
from his seat and struck bland on the-side of his
head, and he fell down. When he got up Bland
struck at Edwards in return, and the latter fell
down on the settle in a sitting posture. Edwards
never spoke, but a great quantity of blood gushed
out of his throat, just as if it came out of a tap.
He died in a minute afterwards, before medical
assistance arrived. He never spoke after he was
stabbed. Both Edwards and Bland were in liquor.
I was not sober. Before they went out to fight I
heard Bland say that Edwards could not beat him
in half an hour. Neither of the men were drunk,
but were rather "fresh." Edwards gave the first
challenge to fight, and struck the first blow on re-
turning into the taproom. In the yard Bland had
been knocked down, and he was scraping the dirt
from his trousers when he received the blow from
Edwards. The knife produced is the same that
Bland used. William Tarr seized hold of Bland
and held him until the police came. A boy named
Owen, a waiter, was in the room at the time Bland
stabbed Edwards.

Some other witnesses gave evidence as to the
quarrelling and the fatal blow that followed, and
the surgeon testified to the examination of the body
of the murdered man.

•
The Coroner summed up, and
• The Jury, after a brief consultation, took a mow
merciful view of the case, and returned a verdict o
Manslaughter only, and he was committed for trial
at the next March assizes.

THE APPALLING ACCIDENT AT TILE

VICTORIA THEATRE.

LATEST PARTICULARS, TUESDAY NIGHT.
A sensation which it would be difficult to describe
still exists on the Surrey side of the water, arising
out of the deplorable affair which occurred in the
Royal Victoria Theatre, on Monday night, and
some particulars, as far as they could be obtained
during the excitement which prevailed, appeared
in this journal of yesterday.
At an early hour yesterday morning Mr. J.
Towers, the lessee and manager of the theatre,
summoned all hands who had been engaged the
previous day in the house, for the purpose of
inquiring into the cause leading to the deplorable
loss of life, It was stated that a gas explosion had
been the principal cause of the disaster;, this has
been found, upon inquiries instituted, to be entirely
erroneous.
Mr. Towers staled that a report appeared in One
of the daily papers that he mentioned something
about an explosion of gas having taken place ; on
the contrary, he begged to state most distinctly that
there was no 'explosion whatever. From the
inquiries made of the master carpenter (Mr. Wood),
and various others connected with the theatre,
there is not the slightest ground for the supposi-
tion that any explosion happened; on the con-
trary, a box or package of fusees, in a man's pocket,
or lucifer matches, by some means became ignited,
when a false outcry of "fire" was immediately
raised, and hence arose the awful panic which led
to so many fearful deaths.
Many persons complain of what they describe
an act of indecency in opening the theatre after
such a fearful sacrifice of human life, but it is only
right to say that it was not done for a matter of
gain, but from sheer compulsion—the gallery stairs
being entirely choked up by people, and to attempt
to expel them would have been attended with far
more serious eonsequenees than unfortunately hap-
pened. Mr. Towers, in addressing his company,
said that no man could deplore more than himself
the loss of life, and he would not only go to the
expense of burying the bodies of the unfortunate
deceased, but he would freely grant the use of his
theatre for the benefit of the relatives of the unfor-
tunate parties.
Had it not been for the praiseworthy exertions
rendered by the police under Mr. Superintendent
Beckerson and Inspector Byron, of the L division,
it is impossible to form a conception of how many
other lives would have been lost. Harrington, who
is specially engaged as an offiser in the theatre, in
endeavouring to keep the populace back, was seri-
ously injured in various parts of the body.
The following is a correct list of the names and
addresses of the deceased lying in the workhouse
of St. Mary, Lambeth, which have all been identi-
fied by their respective friends, viz. :
, of No. 11, John-street, West-
street,Monks, of No. 1, Harwood-court, Peter's-
rle
St.s oßluacyhea,s. & was aged only 13 years.
Buchan,
hilCl,h Henry
Daoctor's-commons; aged 17 years.
James Valentine Newman, aged 16 years, of No.
108, Saffron-hill.
Robert. Cobley, of No. 3, Union-street, Borough-
road, Southwark,
ig aged 14 years, of No. 2, Upper
aged 16 years. .
Cross-street, East-lane, Walworth.
Moses Holford, aged 17 years, of No. 42, Rent
Georgea
street, Southwark.
Charles Marven, aged 21 years, of No. 9, Grove-
place, New -cut.
Thomas Herring, ofNo. 15, Dudley-street, Seven-
dials, aged 15 years.
aged 15 years, of No. 43, Judd-
street, Brunswick-square.
Charles Thomas Barber,Lween, of No. 9, Pepper-street, Union-
street, , aged 14 years.
Borough,
of Lambeth are lying :
Wellington-street, Blackfriars-road, aged 13 years.
n y li the
l Ba o
dead-house
in Jennings, of No. 5, Wellington-court,
Patrick Hanorein, of 15, Cherry-garden-street,
Bermondsey, aged 13 years.
In St. Thomas's Hospital are lying :
Two persons dead, one named William Cooper,
of No. 7, Anthony-street, Bermondsey,. aged about
15 years. The other person is supposed to be the
ailed Connolley.
son of a painter niequestupon the two bodies lying in this
hospital will be held by Mt. Sergeant Payne, this
afternoon (Wednesday.)
In Christ Church dead-house, Blackfriars-road, is
lying the body of Edward Walter Maizey, of No
17, Neptune-street, Spring-place, Wandsworth
road.

Upon making inquiries at the other hospitals to
which other persons had been removed, after being
injured, our reporter was informed that, notwith-
. standing they had been frightfully hurt, they were
likely to survive.
Drs. Donahoo and Johnson, with surgeons Bate-
son, Sewell, and Edmunds, of the New-cut; Brookes,
of the Waterloo-road ; and various other medical
gentlemen, have been unremitting in their attend-
ance upon the many other persons who have been
removed to their own residences in theimmediate
vicinity of the theatre.
The moment Inspector Byron, of the L division,
became aware of the calamity, he sent for his super-
intendent (Mr. Beckerson), when that gentleman
and nearly 30 police officers hastened to the theatre,
and to their exertions may be ascribed the salvation
of the lives of many other persons.
In giving the details of this fearful catastrophe
we cannot cmit to notice the kind treatment dis-
played to many hundred persons by Mr. Piersey,
Master of Lambeth Workhouse, who had the esta-
blishment kept open the whole night, to enable
those. who had missed any of their children or
friends to enter the place and identify them if they
were amongst the killed or wounded.
About nine or ten years ago two boys were suf-
focated on the stairs leading to the gallery, and the
breaking of the banisters, but since that time Mr.
Towers, to avoid, if possible, a similar occurrence,
has had the entrances fully ventilated by having
fresh openings made, but notwithstanding he was