The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-08 00:00:00

COURT OF QUEEN'S BENOIT.

(Sittings at Nisi Prius, before Lord Chief Justice Cockburn
and a Special Jury.)
SHELLEY AND WIFE V. THE LONDON, BRIGHTON, AND
SOUTH COAST RAILWAY COMPANY.

The present action was brought by Mr. Samuel Shelley,
a gentleman farmer, who had two residences, ono at 20,
Eaton-place, Brighton, and the other at a place called the
Oaks, at Balcombe, Sussex, where he farmed some land,
to recover compensation for the negligence of the com-
pany's servants, by which his wife sustained serious per-
manent injuries. Tho defendants pleaded not guilty, and
that they wore not liable for the injuries of the female
plaintiff.

Mrs. Mary Shelley, the female plaintiff, who had to be
helped into the witness-box, and whoa as deeply affected
several times during her evidence from the pain she was
apparently enduring, said she was 57. On the 20th of
February last she returned from Bognor to Brighton by
a second-class carriage, in which there was no passenger
but herself. There had been snow during the day, and it
was very dark when the train reached the terminus about
half-past 3 o'clock. She heard a porter call out "Brighton,"
and immediately after the carriage door was thrown open,
but the porter went away. There was no porter near the
passengers' train, and they all appeared to be engaged at
the luggage train, which was at the other end of the plat-
form. She made no attempt to get out for about 10 minutes,
but being anxious about her luggage she attempted to
alight on what she supposed was the platform, when she
fell with great violence against the " turn table," the
carriage being some distance from the platform. She
screamed out ; some of the porters came to her assistance.
She was taken into the waiting-room and conveyed home
in a carriage, but she had to be placed in the dining-room
as she was in such a condition that she could not be car-
ried up stairs. From the day of the accident until the .
middle of May she was unable to leave the room, and she
was then conveyed to Balcombe in an invalid carriage
supplied by the company. Previous to the accident she
had enjoyed the best health, and was in the habit of walk-
ing from six to ten miles a day, and driving out by her-
self. By the accident three or four of her ribs were
broken. her left side from the arm to the foot was in con-
stant pain. She felt pain and weakness in her back, a
sense of numbness in the back part of her head, and her
left eye was also very weak. She was a continual sufferer
Mr. Sergeant Ballantine and Mr. Bolt appeared for the
plaintiff, and Mr. Hawkins, Q.C., and Mr. Hannon for the
defendants.

Mr. Shelly was then examined, and said that before the
accident his wife enjoyed such bodily health and spirits as
seldom fell to the lot of women. She used to romp with
her grandchildren as if she was one of them. She used to
assist him in his farming operations, and to accompany him
out shooting, and he never knew her to suffer fatigue
from bodily exertion. She was now a helpless cripple, and
could not walk 100 yards without falling down, and from
the effects of ono of these falls she had been laid up for a
mouth.
Dr. Bonkham and Dr. Bucklaud, physicians practising
at Brighton, and Mr. liaLcock, the eminent surgeon, de-
posed to the extent and permanency of the injuries of the
female plaintiff.
The learned judge having summed up
The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff, and assessed
the damages at £l,BOO.

of several samples
OUR BEER.—Mr. W. Ray Smee's pamphlet upon
a considerable aver-
occupation is in
aver-
age oea
n&geL.i
ov
neTds
ohtioh, c,l,v
h.
liceh analysisCsohn onlov r s "
abeyance ; why not revive ? Hero, for instance, at the
present moment, is a dispute between the Burton and Edin-
burgh brewers ; the latter asserting that they sell their
ale at a cheaper rate than the former. This may or
may not bo so, but why leave it to the inter-
ested parties themselves to decide ? Why not have
a quarterly return of strengths ? rue strength—
that is, the amount of malt in a given quantity
of beer, can alone determine its value. The price, per se,
is no true indication ;—as price must be always taken in
connection with, or weighed against, quality. Sixpenny-
worth of grog, is grog still, whether it contain but two-
pennyworth of spirit. Seit is with beer, and no true
judgment can be arrived at without ascertaining the
strength of its legitimate body—MALT. The number of
X's on a cask has nothing whatever to do with the ques-
tion—because one brewer's X X XX may be another
brewer's single X. The agitation is ono in which the
public must profit.—Citil Seretce Gazette.

Henry Candy, aged 30, late of 4, Groat Tichfield-street,
Marylebone, was brought up on remand before Mr. Part-
ridge, charged with stealing two bottles of sherry, the
property of the London and St. Katherine Dock Company.
Mr. Warner Sleigh, barrister, defended the prisoner.
The prisoner had been employed for some time as a
labourer iu the London Dock up to the 27th of last month,
when he was directed to act as a watchman on one of the
wine floors to prevent any pilfering or tampering with the
casks. On the same evening, a few minutes before five
o'clock, he was about to leave the dock, when ho was
stopped by two of the gatekeepers, named Spencer and
Henderson, who asked him if he had anything in his
pockets. He replied in the negative, oa which the officers
took him into a lobby and searched him. They found
two pint bottles of sherry in his coat pocket, and a wooden
spill in another pocket. The spill had been in a wine
cask. The prisoner said the wine was his own, and that
he brought it into the dock to bo used as a gargle for his
throat. On the way to the station-house he said to
Spencer and Anderson, " You can square it if you like.,
The prisoner's defence before Mr. Partridge on the 28th
of November was that the nine had been in his possession
four months, that he purchased it of Mr. Ford, in Man-
chester-street, Manchester-square, for the purpose of
making pipsine wine as a gargle for his throat, and that
if time were given him he could produce Mr. Ford and
other witnesses to substantiate his statement. A sample of
wine from a cask in the floor in which the prisonor was
stationed was produced, and the officers said it was
of the same description as that taken from the prisoner,
but Mr. Partridge, who tasted both, said there was a
slight difference. Ho remanded the prisoner, who was
subsequently brought before Mr. Paget, who also tasted
the wines, and he was of opinion the sample taken from a
cask and the wine taken from the prisoner were exactly
alike. It was the same wine. The prisoner repeated his
former defence, with the addition that he was a chemist
by profession, and had been at work in a laboratory—that
he had been accustomed to manufacture pipsine wine for
many years, and intended to convert the sherry he had
bought into pipsine wine for sore throats, foul stomachs,
and derangement of the gastric juice. He wanted another
remand to enable him to call Mr. Ford and others with re-
gard to the woqden spike—he used it as a tooth-pick. Mr.
Paget again remanded prisoner. The witnesses were ably
cross-examined by Mr. Warner Sleigh, a rising young
barrister, but their evidence was not materially shaken. The
learned counsel insisted that the sample bottle of wine pro-
duced was not the same as that taken from the prisoner.
Mr. Partridge was of the sane opinion, and a taster from
the dock, on being requested to compare the wines, said
there was a slight difference between them. It might
have arisen from there being a small quantity of liquor in
the bottles taken from the prisoner. Mr. Warner Sleigh
called no witnesses, and advised his client to reserve his
defence.

Mr. Partridge committed the prisoner for trial, with
liberty to put in bail for his appearance at the sessions.

Extraordinary Scene.

On Tuesday evening, what is locally known as a
" crowner-in," that is to say, a sudden subsidence of
the ground from the coal having been taken away
beneath, took place at Newton, four miles from
Stourbridge. Sometimes the ground subsides gra-
dually over a considerable area ; but in the case of a
crowner-in a rugged shaft is formed from the old
workings to the surface. The sides continue for
some time filling in till the shaft is filled to within a
greater or less distance from the surface. The
crowner-in in question took place about half-past 6
on Tuesday evening. The village of Newton is
built on the Earl of Dudley's land, and in the
vici-
nity of an extensive colliery belonging to his lord-
ship. A person named Matthew Trowman, who
kept a public-house, some time back had observed
that the ground on which his house was built was
subsiding, and he took the usual measures, cramp-
ing the house with iron rods and buttressing it with
trees to lessen the damage to the building. All this,
however, proved of no avail, for with startling sud-
denness on Tuesday evening a great hole was formed
in his back yard. The alarming noise consequent on
the formation of the shaft was accompanied by an
outgush of a gas known among the colliers as " sul-
phur," and this having come into contact with fire it
at once ignited. The flame shot up from the hole to
the height of the house and set fire to the sashes of
the back windows. The wind was strong and the fire
made head rapidly. A fire engine was sent for to
Dudley, and after its arrival the flames were extin-
guished. Meantime the crowner-in was enlarging
itself in the most rapid and alarming manner, and
in less than an hour after it was first noticed the
back kitchen, a brewhouse, and a cart shed had all
disappeared in the ever-widening gulf. In the cel-
lar beneath the balk kitchen were several bar-
rels of beer and cider, and with them, of course,
descended the household utensils in the upper
part of the building. The alarming intelligence
soon spread in the populous neighbourhood
around, and there were in a very short space of time
many hundreds of people on the spot. With their
assistance Trowman and his family managed to re-
move the greater part of their household furniture,
linen, &c., before the back part of the mail build-
ing went. After this took place the " crowner-in"
did not widen so rapidly, and scores of ready hands
commenced to pull down the remainder of the house
so as to save the bricks and timber. On Thursday
morning very little of the house was standing. In
little more than 12 hours the crowner-in had in-
creased to a hole 16 or 18 yards across one way, and
10 or 12 yards the other. The depth would be about
10 yards, and the bottom was covered with great
masses of rock rent from the rugged sides. The size
was then increasing, but only very gradually. It
was a fortunate circumstance that the first subsi-
dence took place in the back yard ; as if it had oc-
curred within the house, several lives would proba-
bly have been lost. Trowman's family numbers ten
persons, and there were several in the house besides.

There is a well-known Greek story of a penniless
man who, going out with a rope in his hand to
hang himself, found a purse of money which in-
duced him to throw the rope away, whereas the
owner of the purse coming back to look for his
property, and finding only the rope instead straight-
way hanged himself. A still more curious tale of a
similar kind is told by the China papers. In the
native city of Shanghai the parents of a young lady
lately married having fallen into distressed circum-
stances applied to her for assistance, and her hus-
band allowed her to give them a coat for the pur-
pose of being pawned. The daughter, however,
being anxious to render further aid without her
husband's knowledge, secreted $l6 in the pocket of
the coat. The old man did not discover this and
took it to a pawnbroker, who, noticing the money
on unfolding the garment, kept his counsel, and
quietly advanced $2. Soon after the husband dis-
covered that his wife had given the-$l 6 to her
father, and made so much noise about it that the
young lady disposed of herself by hanging. In this
way the news of the robbery committed by the
pawnbroker became known to the parents, and the
old mother took the matter so much to heart that
she poisoned herself with opium. Lastly, the
pawnbroker, getting alarmed on hearing that his
dishonesty had already caused two deaths
drowned himself in a well. This story is very
characteristic of the Chinese feelings in regard to
life, and similar incidents not unfrequently occur.
Some years ago, for instance, an accomplished young
lady at Canton, who had been unfortunately mar-
ried to a coarse and stupid husband, was bewailing
her fate to a party of sisters ani female cousins,
and declared her intention of committing suicide.
On this the other young ladies declared that since
such was married life, they would die too ; and so
the whole bevy joined hands together, and walking
into a fish-pond deliberately drowned themselves.
Again, three men imprisoned in Hongkong gaol on
a charge of piracy determined to make away with
themselves rather than have the bother of a trial.
At some height in the cell where they were impri-
soned was a small window guarded by two iron bars
and the problem which these worthies had to solve
was how the three of them were to be hanged on the
two bars. From the positions in which they were
found in the morning it would seem that the third
man had assisted the two others in hanging them-
selves from the bars by their tails ; that then nthhee had
l
cut down ono of them by gnawing through
with his teeth, and, using the dead body as a stool,
to be afterwards kicked over, he had contrived to
suspend himself. All this, too, was done so quietly
as not to attract the notice of a sentry who was
pacing outside beneath the window.—Pall-Mall
Gazette.