The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-07 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, JANUARY 7, 1861.

=;='

the arms of Savoy, executed in a week by M. Al-
phonse Bolzico, and representing a young girl,
returning from a masked ball, who had just decided
on laying aside her disguise. The King gave Bolzico
a striking mark of his satisfaction, by ordering
from the young sculptor three other figures of the
same size, destined to complete, with the first, a
moral idea. The four are to represent with the
features of the same young girl —lnnocence, Seduc-
tion, Misery, and Vengeance."
The Espero of Turin states that King Victor
Emmanuel, at the grand reception of the consti-
tuted bodies of the State, on New Year's-day,
said :—" I am extremely happy to find myself again
in the midst of my old subjects. The progress of
political events, especially regarding Italy, is satis-
factory; but the greatest prudence and concord are
necessary in order to enable us to triumph over the
obstables which are still in our way. For this pur-
pose, it is of the utmost importance that we should
maintain the best understanding with our real
allies.

The Corriere .31erealitile of Genoa publishes the
following adhesion to the Bishop of Venosa in the
province of Basilicata, Naples, to the Government
of King Victor Emmanuel;—" I, Anthony Michael
Vaglio, Bishop of Venosa, in Basilicata, do hereby
promise and swear not to take part in any conspi-
racy, plot, or sedition against the present Govern-
ment of King Victor Emmanuel, and also to yield
him obedience and submission in all things not
contrary to the laws of God and the Church.
" Given at Spinazzola, in the diocese of Venosa,
on the 29th of December, 1860.
" A. M. VAGLIO, Bishop of Venosa."

and threatened to overwhelm them and their crews
before they reached the shore. The village was in a
dreadful state of excitement, and the Percy lifeboat
was pulled outside the bar to meet any contingency.
This appeared to give the men confidence as they
approached the coast, for they dashed at the bar in
gallant style, and though there were many hair-
breadth escapes, the poor fellows all brought their
frail craft in the harbour in safety.

TEE ACCIDENT ON THE SHREWS.
BURY AND HEREFORD RAIL WAY.

HERE', ORD, SATURDAY.
The inquest upon the bodies of the unfortunate
young ladies who, as we stated in a telegram yes-
terday, came to their deaths by drowning while
travelling on the above line of railway, was opened
this afternoon before Mr. Peter Warburton, coroner.
An envelope in the pocket of the eldest lady led to
the discovery that she is a Miss Lowe, of Curzon-
park, Chester, and was going on a visit to Bristol.
The other was named Mary Jones, from Breinton,
in this county, a respectable young girl, who had
been upon a Christmas visit in the neighbourhood
of Leominster. In the absence of the friends of
Miss Lowe, who, however, had telegraphed their
intention of being present at the inquiry, the coro-
ner's jury simply viewed the body, and adjourned
the investigation to 11 o'clock on Tuesday ramping.
The extraordinary character of the accident, and
the truly marvellous manner in which so many
lives were saved from the fate that awaited the two
unfortunate women before-mentioned, may well
claim a portion of our space.
The train which left Shrewsbury at 12.40, and
which should have arrived at Hereford at 2.40, is
known as the express, and on this occasion con-
tained an unusually large number of passengers for
this period of the year. The line, from.traversing a
country that is frequently inundated by the river
Lugg, runs along an embankment nearly the whole
of the distance from Leominster to Hereford (up-
wards of 12 mile), and to facilitate the drainage of
the land a dee? dike, generally filled with water
from the low le•el of the ground, runs along either
side and parallel with the line. About midway
between Leominster and Hereford there is a tunnel,
three-quarters of a mile long, known as Dintnore
tunnel, through which the gradient is one of the
steepest on the line. The run from Dinmore to
Moreton, along the whole extent of which the em-
bankment and Banking dikes exist, is generally
accomplished at full speed. Between these two
points also the Legg (which from the late thaw has
covered the landon either side for miles with seve-
ral feet of water, until the whole country seemed
one vast frozen lake) has to be crossed twice.
Shortly after crossing the first bridge, which is
from 20 to 30 feet above the river, the passengers
in the carriage next to the tender noticed a peculiar
sensation and observed something fly off, and one
of them, a young man named White, thrust his
head through the window and screamed to the
engine driver to stop the train, but it does not ap-
pear that this was heard by him. At this time Miss
Lowe and the young girl Mary Jones were sitting
nearly together, the former reading a book, and
opposite to them a sergeant of Marines, named Wil-
cox, with a recruit. Wilcox early noticed that the
carriage was going without its regular comple-
mento. wheels,ard expressed his fears that all would
not be well witk them, when a loud report was
heard, and a petition of the axle forced its way
through the bed of the carriage. At the moment
he instinctively lifted his legs to the opposite seat,
close to the dress of the unfortunate Miss Lowe,
who dropped her book, convulsively clutched him
by the cloak, and the next minute the carriages
had all toppled )ff the embankment on their sides
into the dike, tie momentum of the train brings
ing the last van upon the top of the others ;
though, from tie coupling chain of the tender
giving way, the engine did not leave the line.
The water being from five to six feet deep broke
the fall of the carriages, and probably prevented
that fearful crash which must have resulted had
they been thrown to the earth without an inter-
posing force, arid which probably would have
resulted in many deaths by the violence of the
shock. Sad to relate, however, another fate awaited
them. The intetsely cold weather caused all the
windows except that through which the young man
White thrust his head, to be closed, and hence the
passengers were huddled together in closely-cone
fired prisons, which immediately became filled
with water, and in the course of the terrible panic
that ensued the strongest and most active got up-
permost, and the weak and more terror-stricken to
the bottom. The intense anguish of the moment no
pen can describe. The guard's van containing two
persons,. Brown and Child, both of whom were
severely injured by the aoeident, seems to have
fallen into very deep water, in fact over their
heads, where they must both have been suffocated
but for the timely assistance of the engine-driver
and stoker, who rushed to the rescue, and with
hammers broke: open the windows and sides of the
vans, to liberate, if possible, those imprisoned
within. The marine Wilcox, a tall powerful fellow,
and William Watkins, a member of the Flintshire
Militia staff, stationed at Mold, behaved most gal-
lantly, each saving several lives, though both
thoroughly immersed in the water, and with their
clothes frozen on their backs. Watkins got out a
lady, her nurse, and child, who must have perished
but for his timely-applied courage. Wilcox, after
rescuing several, assisted an old man out of one of
the carriages, lifting him up cold and stiff by the
coat collar. He then assisted a woman to a cottage
at a crossing at some distance from the accident the
only site uncovered by water except the line, over
some extent. He returned and observed the clothes
of Miss Lowe floating in the water and endeavoured
to catch her up, but the cold had overcome his
strength and he failed. Soon after a farmer arrived
with an agricultural implement called a pike, used
in haymaking, and by their united assistance she
was got up and conveyed to the cottage, but there
was an abeence of the proper restoratives neces-
sary in such a case, and, indeed, of means of ap-
plying them, the cold had so benumbed every one.
But who ever dreamt of being drowned upon a
railway, and in such a place ?
The young girl Jones having been carried to the
cottage, her head was placed towards the fire, and
the starved militiaman and a comrade endeavoured
as best they could by chafing her hands to restore
animation. During this operation she was observed
to breathe once, and then her head fell back and
she was a corpse. Miss Lowe is supposed to have
been quite dead when she was recovered from the
water.

As soon as all the passengers were believed to
have been rescued, the engine was despatched with
Child, one of the guards, who was much cut about
the head, to Hereford for medical assistance, while
Brown was left signalling that an accident had
occurred, and that the line was blocked by the
debris of the broken carriages. This man, with
with many others who could not be accommo-
dated with dry clothing, had to remain in his wet
clothes, shivering, for nearly two hours.
On the arrival of the train at the Hereford
station, messengers were despatched into all parts
of the city for medical aid, and the Mayor of Here-
ford, Mr. Thomas Cam, Dr. Bull, Mr. Charles
Lingen, Mr. Henry Vevers, Mr. J. C. Lane, Mr. T.
Turner, and, in fact, almost the whole of the
medical talent of the city, hastened to the spot, but
Miss Lowe and Mary Jones had been dead some
time, and their attention was directed to the
alleviation of the sufferings of the survivors.
Cordialfr were procured and administered freely,
and everything done that humanity could suggest.
The passengers were conveyed to the Green Dragon
and Kerry Arms Hotels, in this city, where several
remain, some of them much shaken and unable to
leave their bedrooms. Others preferred being sent
on to their places of destination as soon as changes
of dress could be procured for them. Mr. Herbert,
an extensive farmer from Grosmont, remains at
the Kerry arms in a bad state. A Mr. Daw, a
retired farmer, a neighbour to the former, and
79 years of age, saved his life by means of a walk-
ing-stick, the hook of which he brought to bear
upon a piece of timber, and thus kept his head
above the surface of the water until assistance
could be rendered him.

Among the passengers was a Miss Powell, who
was unable to proceed, and a gentleman named
Rule and family, going to Camborne, in Cornwall.
Three children of one family in the train were
nearly frozen to death. The accident furnishes an
instance of the extreme peril attending railway-
travelling during such a frost as we are now ex-
periencing.

MURDER IN THE COUNTY MONAGllAN.—lntelli-
gence reached Dublin on Saturday morning that two men
named Robert and James Shaw were on the previous day
found dead in their house, which is distant a few miles from
Monaghan. It is stated that there is little doubt but that
the two men have fallen victims to a desperate and brutal
murder.

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TIIE 1V ETV COINAGE, AND THE MINT

AT SOHO.

The issue of the new coin to the public having
now commenced, it will not be uninteresting to our
readers to give them some account of the history of
the old copp:- coinage, and of the measures which
it has been necessary to take for tho preparation of
the new.

It was in the year 1788 that Mr. Boulton, the
well-known partner in business of the celebrated
Mr. Watt, first invented and perfected the beautiul
coining machinery which is in use at the present
day, that firm having erected a mint at their works,
Soho, near Birmingham, at which the whole of the
copper coinage which was issued betweeen 1797 and
1806 was executed, amounting to 4,200 tons weight.
Prior to that period the operations of preparing
and striking the coin were conducted by a very
tedious, expensive, and rude method, which Mr.
Boulton's ingenuity was destined to supersede. The
screw coining press, making from 60 to 100 blows
a minute, and driven by the atmosphere acting on a
vacuum produced by the steam• engine, is one of the
most perfect and delicate pieces of mechanism ever
contrived. Many thousands were expended by Mr.
Boulton in experiments in the construction of the
first press before he succeeded in producing a really
satisfactory coin. His perseverance, however, in the
end reaped its reward. The Government were so
, impressed with the rapidity of action and improve-
ments at the Soho Mint over the system then
, adopted, that they ordered, in 1806, Messrs. Boulton
and Watt to construct the machinery of the Royal
Mint, on Tower Hill. which, with the new buildings,
was completed in 1810, at a total of about £200,000.
Subsequently that firm constructed the Russian,
Danish, Spanish, and Mexican Mints, and also
those at Calcutta and Bombay for the East India
Company.

The British Mint has, when greatly pressed,
turned out as much as 150,000 pieces a day.
In the course of the past summer the Government
contracted with Messrs. James Watt and Co. for the
execution and delivery of the new bronze coin ; the
quantity to be produced by them in the next two
years and a half amounts to the enormous quantity
of 1,800 tons. To give the reader some idea of the
magnitude of an operation of this kind, we may
inform him that it involves the striking of upwards
of 400,000 pieces per day on an average during the
two years and a half. These pieces have to be made
up into about 60,000 roleaux per day, wrapped up
in paper, placed in separate cases of £1 each, and
packed in strong boxes of £2O each for delivery
and distribution. More than 40,000 of such boxes
and 800,000 internal eases are required.
The old Soho Mint, after an existence of nearly
sixty years, was taken down about ten years since,
to make room for the new suburbs of the expanding
town of Birmingham; but we have been lavoured
by an inspection of the new Soho Mint, containing
13 coining presses, whilst the latter has only 8,
has been erected, and all its beautiful machinery
manufactured and brought into operation. We
found anew foundry erected for the melting and
mixing of the metal, all of which has to be done in
crucibles capable of producing from four to five
tons per day. We passed the laminating apartment,
where the bronze slabs, or ingots, are rolled into
plates, and into the cutting rooms, where the blanks
are punched from thin plates; thence to where the
milling, cleaning, pickling, and annealing opera-
tions are carried on, and finally into the long press
room, in which the 13 presses can complete more
than 40,000 coins per tour. The packing of all
these—no small operation in itself—is the last pro-
cess. Nearly 200 persons are thus employed, and
we could not help contrasting the rapidity with
which such an establishment has been raised and
organised by private enterprise, with the delays too
commonly attendant on our public works. During
the past year the Indian Council have had con-
structed by Wessrs. Watt and Co. a new copper
mint for Calcutta, and have enlarged their existing
mints at that place, and at Bombay and Madras,
at a cost for the machinery of more than £70,000.
The demand throughout India for copper coin has
rendered this imperative, in addition to the exports
of large quantities of coin manufactured in this
country.—Aris's Birmingham Gazette.