The Sun.
London, England, 1858-11-06 00:00:00

IHE S UN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 6, 1858.

THE MET.ROP6'LITAN RAILWAY.

The special committee appointed by the Court of
Quarter Sessions for Mid llese7.; in May last, to con-
sider the application of tb c !,dfirectors of the Metropo-
litan Railway Company t ne allowed to tunnel under
the House of Correction, Coldbath-fields, have made
their report ;--4, By the terms of the reference frAnn
the court, your committ. te were empowered to con-
sider of
agreed to, with
power to eon.
shouldha t e termsnsebe
o; f the dirk
if at all, the appe
•
tors) competent
_A„
thesiudi et
draurtepetothnoerlsvexp
persons both as to the v, alue of 'Vle concession sought
from the county, and a 1 so 'ds to the practicability of
executing the propose ~
4. tunnel, and the stipulations
necessary for the ser
.1111.4 of the resent and any
future erections co-
nnected with th?prison; and to
advise generally on the merits of the proposal.
Your committer on the 4th of June, were attended
by a deputatic ,n of the directors (accompanied by
their enginer,r and solicitor), and it was then inti-
mated to fl-.em that, before incurring the expense of
consurtinrs competent persons as to the value of the
concession sought from the county, and the practic-
ability of executing the proposed tunnel, and the
stipulations necessary for the security of the pre-
sent and any future erections connected with the
prison, they had thought it desirable to take the
opinion of counsel whether, under the existing
state of the law, the proposed tunnel could be made
without further legislative powers, which opinion
being that further powqs were necessary the
directors suggested that, as:iuming the opinion to be
correct, the magistrates might, with propriety, if
they thought proper, _ make an arrangement
such as was proposed by the company,
provided such arranFernent were made pro-
visional on its ratifAeation by Parliament
next year, with the consent of both parties ; and
repeating the readiness, of the company to incur the
expense of obtainirT, the opinion of an eminent en-
gineer, for the pulpose of ascertaining whether any
other objection existed to the plan proposed. Under
these circumstances, the committee at once sought
the advice of Mr. G. P. Bidder, and, on the Bth of
July th ey received from him an elaborate report,
from which, although he expressed an opinion that
the -proposal to carry the railway under the prison
is practicable, still, as it would have to be carried
'out in the first instance, by an open cutting, pro-
tected during the progress of the work by .a move-
able iron shield—the roof of the tunnel being only
seven feet at one point below the surface of the
prison ground—and would involve the reconstruc-
tion and re-adjustment of a considerable portion of
the drains, it appeared to them to be in every re-
spect objectionable, and likely to create so much
difficulty in the management and discipline of the
prison, that in transmitting a copy of Mr. Bidder's
report to the directors, they repeated what they had
expressed at their first interview with the directors
—that the county-would greatly prefer the directors
adopting the alternative alluded to in one of their
former communications, so to deviate the line of
the proposed railway as to avoid the prison alto-
gether. On the 24th Sept. the committee received
a reply, stating that the directors had finally deter-
mined to apply in the next session of Parliament
for powers to deviate the line so as to avoid the
House of Correction ; and that the directors hoped,
in their application to Parliament for this purpose
they might reckon on the countenance and support
of the justices. By the original Act (17th and 18th
Vic., e. 221.) the company were empowered to take
the prison for the purposes of their railway, within
three years after the 7th Aug., 1854, and by the
19th and 20th Vic., c. 119, the time was extended
one year, so that their powers lapsed on the 7th of
August last."

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.

TRAFFIC RETURNS FOR THE WEEK.

coffins were found and complaints were made, they
did. what he (Mr. Cameron) wished they would
now do—viz., discontinue the excavations. He
should be able to show that frightful desecrations
within the past few days had taken place. The
authorities of St. Pancras had great difficulty in
getting in, and it was not until he had seen one
of the churchwardens of St. Martin's that admission

could be gained_
Mr. Dangerfield said as soon as the churchwar-
dens were applied to they at once granted permis-
sion. He would admit the removal of the human
remains, not bodies, and call upon the other side, in
the terms of the faculty, to prove that there was no

faculty.
Mr. Tyrwhitt remarked that this was one of that
sort of cases in which the defendant had a right to

begin.
Mr. Cameron said he was prepared to prove that
coffins in a perfectly sound condition had been
taken up and ruthlessly broken to pieces, the re-
mains wheeled in barrows and pitched into a hole,
and the wood piled up against one of the houses.
Mr. Dangerfield said when he was called upon he
should ke able to prove that the remains spoken of
were reffioved from the parish of St. Martin at the
time of the Charing-cross improvements.
Mr. Cameron was prepared to prove that certain
burials had taken place in that part of the ground
in which the excavations were now going on.
Within the last five years the parish authorities of
St. Pancras had received orders from the Secretary
of State to close the vaults under the churches,
which they . had done at great expense, and yet
another parish could remove coffins and bodies to
the injury of the health of the parishioners without
being interfered with.
Mr. Tyrwhitt—They have got a faculty to remove
from all parts of the ground in dispute to that in
which no dispute has arisen, and which is not to be
covered.
Mr. Cameron—That faculty is a perfect mockery,
and the grounds upon which it was obtained are
on presumption and belief.
Mr. Tyrwhitt—They allow that burials had taken
place, and they obtained the faculty to remove to
other parts.
Mr. Cameron—They say in it that it was only
burials of paupers, and they were removed from
other parts. Now, he should like to know why
the bodies of paupers were not to be respected as
well as those of other persons.
Mr. Tyrwhitt—All that the faculty requires is
that the removal shall be done decently. It had
been stated in the preamble to the local Act that no
bodies had been buried there, and when they found
to the contrary they obtained the faculty. If there
was wantonness or impropriety in the way in whic7a
the bodies were removed, thenthe parties offending
could be indicted.
Mr. Cameron—The faculty refers to " such
bodies," which means the bodies which were re-
moved from Charing-cross, not those which were
buried there so late as 1854.
Mr. Dangerfield said the burials which had been
made so much fuss about took place in another part
of the ground, and if it was wished the ground
should be dug up and the coffins shown.
Mr. Tyrwhitt said the faculty applied to those
coffins which were removed from Charing-cross and
all bodies found there must be removed with
decency.
Mr. Cameron—The faculty would not have been
granted by the bishop if it had been known that
burials had taken place there within these five
years.
Mr. Tyrwhitt said that decency or public morals
must not be shocked. The present summons would
be dismissed.
Mr. Dangerfield said that until Friday next the
excavations would cease, and he did hope that the
disturbance would be discontinued, for he might
mention that he knew the names of several parties,
and that they would be indicted if it was continued.
Mr. Tyrwhitt said it was impossible to do any
good by violence. If the parties who removed the
bodies did not do so properly, they would be
punished.
The parties then left the court.
Various cases of violent assaults upon the police
arising out of the same affair were heard in the
course of the day.

LAMBETH.—Mr. Wm. Bennett, the husband of
the late Madame Coton, who lost her life by the
late explosion in Melina-place, Westminster-road,
and who had been tried at the Old Bailey on a
charge of manslaughter, attended before the Hon.
G. C. Norton to answer a summons charging hint
with the sale of fireworks, by which he had in-
curred a penalty of £5. Mr. Tritton, the vestry-
clerk of St. George-the-Martyr, attended to sup-
port the complaint, and Mr. C. Lewis, of Ely-place
appeared on behalf of the defendant.
Mr. Wellman, the inspector of nuisances for thek
parish of St. George-the-Martyr, said that he had
received directions from the vestry to put down the
nuisance of the sale of fireworks in the parish, and
had in consequence employed two witnesses, who
would be called, to purchase fireworks at a shop
recently opened by the defendant. He (Mr. Well-
man) did not witness the sale himself, and there-
fore could say nothing about it.
Two witnesses were then called, namely,
Frederick Collett, who appeared to be a cripple,
and about 22, and George Knighton, a sharp lad of
13, and from their testimony it appeared that on
Monday about 4 o'clock they went to a shop, 2,
Melina-place, Westminster-road, which had re-
cently belonged to a tobacconist, but been converted
into one for the sale of fireworks. At the time
they entered there was a little girl behind the
counter serving a gentleman with fireworks, and
the defendant, Mr. Bennett, was also in the shop
standing outside the counter. Collett asked for six
pennyworth of crackers and three pennyworth of
squibs, and these were served by the girl. The
defendant then asked if he should make it a shil-
ling's worth, and, Collett having consented to his
doing so, the defendant took some additional fire-
works out of the window, and folded all into a
parcel. Collett then placed a shilling on the
counter, which the defendant pushed towards the
girl, and the latter put it into a drawer or till.
This was the case in support otthg complaint.
The witnesses were subjected to a searching
cross-examination by Mr. Lewis, and from Collett
it was elicited that he had been discharged from a
situation through his loss of £2. He denied, how-
ever that he had been given into custody, or that the
police had been called in the matter. The younger
witness stood the test of cross-examination admir-
ably.
Mr. Lewis addressed the bench at some length,
hoing it woul notconvict on a highly peual
statute which red co
quired the testimony of two
credible witnesses.
Mr. Norton imposed the full penalty of £5