The Sun.
London, England, 1859-05-11 00:00:00

THE WESTMEATII MURDER.

The announcement on Thursday by some of the
Dublin papers of the death of Thomas Jessop was
premature, as it was not until Friday that he
breathed his last. An inquest was held on Satur-
day by Mr. T. Fetherston, one of. the coroners for
the county of Westmeath, when the fads respecting
the assassination, which we have already published,
were fully detailed. The evidence of Mr. T.
Claffy, one of the most respectable farmers of the
neighbourhood, is especially worthy of notice, as
depicting the state of terrorism which prevails in
his part of the county. He deposed that he
left Kilbeggan in his tax-cart at half-past
three o'clock on Saturday, the 31st ultimo ;
that he was immediately followed by another
farmer, Mr. Patrick Fay, on a jaunting-car ; that
when they had proceeded about a mile and a half
from Kilbeggan they heard two shots in rapid
succession a short distance before them, and that
they saw the smoke of firearms ; that on arriving
nearer the spot they saw a man holding a horse
attached to a cart ; that Thomas Jessop advanced
towards them from behind the cart with a pistol in
his hand; that witness was at once struck with a
conviction that Jessop had been shot for taking
Kelly's farm ; and that his (witness's) first
impulse was to turn back to Kilbeggaia
and give information to the police, but that
he was dissuaded by Fay, who said it
would be better to acquaint the Ballinagore police
on their way home (Ballinapore being about the
same distance as Kilbeggan) ; , that meanwhile
Jessop continued to walk towards thorn, and,
having rested for a short time against a wall, he
sank on the roadside; that two women came from
an adjoining house and stood beside the wounded.
man ; that witness and Fay drew up, the latter con-
versing for some time with the women ; that they
(witness and Fay) then drove homewards, giving
notice to the police as they passed through the village
of. Ballinagore. On being asked by the coroner why
he did not assist the wounded man to his own
house, Mr. Claffy replied that he thought he was
dead. " Why, then (said the coroner), did 'ou not
call here (at the temporary barrack in which the
inquest was held) and give information of the mur-
der to the police ?" The witness replied that he was
so confused in his mind that he did not know what
he was about. The other farmer, Patrick Fay, did
not appear, and consequently had no opportunity
of explaining his reasons for adopting the same
line of conduct as Claffy. The medical attendants,
Drs. Walsh° and Dorgan, having made a
_pot-
mortem examination of Jessop's body, gave evidence
as follows :—There were no fewer than six exter-
nal gunshot wounds situated on the right lumbar
region. Some of the shots penetrated to the
abdomen, and one pistol bullet traversed that por-
tion of bone known as the "spine of the ilium,"
fractured the "tranversc process," of one of the
vertebrae, and lodged beside the navel. It is
needless to state that the wounds were neces-
sarily mortal. How the poor fellow was able to
walk home—a distance of upwards of half a mile
—without assistance, and how he lived six days
afterwards, are facts almost beyond comprehension.
One of the women alluded to above was produced as
a witness, but she could not, or would not, give any
information. She swore that she did not know that
Jessop was wounded ; that she did not recognize
him at all ; that she thought he was some drunken
man returning from the market, who had fallen on
the side of the road. For some unexplained reason
—probably because a meeting of magistrates was
held on the same day in Kilbeggan—the men who
have been arrested on suspicion were not produced
at the inquest, and the verdict of the jury was
accordingly " Wilful murder against some person
unknown." The Lord Lieutenant has offered £lOO
for the conviction of the murderer.—Dublin Post.

CITY STREET HAWKERS.—Mr. D. W. Harvey,
Commissioner of the City Police, has just issued the follow-
ing orders on this subject to the officers in charge of divi-
sions, viz. :—" The commissioner orders that the attention
of the officers and constables be directed to the number of
street hawkers daily to be observed obstructing the public
thoroughfares of the city. The commissioner ditects that,
in the first instance, these offenders be cautioned that they
cannot be permitted to remain in the crowded streets, and
in the event of any one of them, after being so informed,
annoying passengers or impeding traffic during the busi-
ness hours of the day, that such persons so offending be
brought before the magistrates to be dealt with according to
law. The commissioner further orders that inhabi-
tantsthoseo_on
who make complaint to the polio') of this cla:ss . f
cases
tpermsons of
ders be requested to attend before the niagisthtrae
where it may be found necessary to _"2
May 8." ExpLosporr.—Another
FATAL BLAST-FURNACE
whom they complain to a police court.tatity Police-office,
at at Kingswinford on Sun-
-9t of unfrequent occurrence
Sun-
in f those
sent
h explosions Staffordshire, w which ch
carrre
water which is made to run
is necessary to prevent casing of the tuyeis from
round the inner
and
the molten• iron, and thus OCCa-
eX'
I°s
it will be remembered, are the hollowg
day. In the conducting of blast-furnaces great vigilance
among
by the generation of oxyhydro en
leaking out
gas. ped pipes through which the blast is made to
conical-she
sionin
opera._
fP directly upon the burning mss.tuyere in
• -hall blast-farnacesat li.' • one
of the Corbyn s mswmford, belong-
inga leakage ing to Mr. W. Mathews, of this description hap-
pened,
rh
eine s
theto threeconsequences
others.
of a
n explosion
and was revealed unhappily by an explosion, which
has caused the death of two men, the expected death of a
gThaentuyeres,
anddatsearitoiumseinwj
catastrophe
were likely to be most disastrous. The furnace was fully
charged, and its contents were ready to be run off
into moulds prepared to receive it.
othcrurre,
To effect this escape
of the molten iron, the workmen assembled at betweeen 9
and 10 on Sunday m •
ornmg. They were about to commence
to tap the furnace when a portion of its front was blown out
with a loud report, and at the same instant many tons of the
1 molten iron and red-hot scoria were forcedpuf upon them
with terrible velocity. The six men who were to have
engaged in the operation were in a moment enwrapped in
flames, or shockingly mutilated by the 'burning
mass. The two deceased presented a horrifying spect-
acle, their flesh hanging in torn and blackened pieces
from their bones, yet they lingered till evening. Of the
other four, three, there is reason to hope, will recover. The
deceased are named Hugh Jones and James Wootton ;
the survivor whose life is despaired of is Francis Briscoe.
The other three are Joseph Wallet, Joseph Roberts, and
Job Hendell. The surrounding buildings bear evidence
of the excessive heat with which the e 1 i xp_os.on wonattienatts
tended, as well as the extreme force with which t
accident and the
of the furnace escaped. The place of the
.t be thronged
abodes of the injured and the dead continue
I connected with
by people curious to know every par
relicauson to suppose that
the sad event. There had been no
e 0 MO. ore the
,d f ct. ' Vef
tiler wm,
the turre in question or,any
%nee -
explosion revealed the circumstance