The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-19 00:00:00

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.

Commissioner Alvah Crocker, in his report on
the Hoosac Tunnel, strongly urges the necessity of
a railroad up the Deerfield valley, eight miles be-
yond the mouth of the tunnel, in order to open the
vast timber tract now inaccessible, except for a
short time in each year. A contract for lighting
the Hoosac tunnel has recently been awarded to L.
I. Fisk and Co., of Springfield.
The Wall-street Journal, alluding to the freight
rates of the Union Pacific Railroad, says :—" The
Government contract for carrying freight from the
terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad in Colorado,
South and West, has been let to a Leavenworth
firm of freighters at $1.83 per 100 lb. per 100 miles,
as fast as the railroad is completed. The same
freight is carried for 38 cents per 1001 b. per 100
miles.
.This contract is the largest given out by the
Government, and has been carried heretofore by
Wells, Fargo, and Co. It amounts to over
$2,000,000 per annum, as it includes all fuel and
stores for the military and Indian outposts
in the territory lying West of Omaha." About
the Central Pacific it adds :—" At the Cali-
fornia end of the Pacific Railroad, tunnels, mostly
through the solid rock, succeed each other at in-
tervals of a few miles. Taking the road from
Sacramento, the first tunnel is at a distance of 76
miles, through Grizzly Hill, among the lower un-
dulations of the Sierra. Like all the rest, it is 18
feet high and 16 feet wide. Its length is 500 feet.
The second is 300 feet long; the third, 300; fourth,
100; fifth, 100; the sixth (the great Summit tunnel)
is 1,659 feet long; the seventh, 100 ; eighth, 375 ;
ninth, 216 ; tenth, 509 ; eleventh, 577 ; twelfth,
342 ; thirteenth, 870 ; fourth on the Truckee, 128 ;
and the fifteenth, 80."

FATAL BOAT, ACCIDENT.—A tradesman named
James Peters, aged 52, and his two sons, of Portscatha,
Cornwall, were drowned on Saturday evening a few miles
from Falmouth to which port they were towing a large
balk of oak. It is believed that the boat fouled the tim-
ber, and that its Bid, or stern was thou stove in. The
two sons were very good swimmers, and as the accident
must have happened a short distance from land, they
doubtless perished in their endeavours to save their
father.

DAVID GARRICK'S PARENTAGE.--This future
ROSCILIEI was not altogether an Englishman. His grand-
father, the founder of the fatnilys a far as England was
concerned, was originally De la Garrigue, a Huguenot of
Bordeaux, forced to fly from France in 1685, to escape
the storm then sweeping over the reformed church ;
Madame de la Garrigue, or Garric, following some
months later, hid in the hold of a small fourteen ton
skiff, belonging to one Peter Cock, of Guernsey. In
that piteous plight she remained a month, tossed about
in heavy gales and fearful tempests, in peril of her
life by shipwreck on the ono hand, or by ecclesiastical
zeal on the other, should she fall into the hands of
the authorities. It was not until a year and a half
after their own flight that they received their little son
Peter, the future lieutenant of dragoons, and our David's
father: the persecution of the moment extending even to
babes and stir... Wings, on the principle of crushing the eggs
of the cockatrice betimes. In fulness of time Peter made
a love-match; about as imprudent as love-matches gene-
rally are. lie married Arabella, the daughter of a certain
Reverend Mr. Clough, a vicar-choral of Lichfield, and her-
self the daughter of an Irish mother; and thus in little
David's veins were mingled the three streams of French,
Irish, and English blood, affording good tracking-ground
to the ethnologist, and first-rate elements for dramatic
talent and steady success.—Dickens's "All the Year
Round."

There seems to be a probability that next year's exhibi-
tion of the Royal Agricultural Society will be held in
South Lancashire or its neighbourhood. The Manchester
and Liverpool society, with a view of obtaining an
acceptance of the invitation, have passed a liberal resolu-
tion. It has been determined, in case of the Royal society
coming within this district, to abandon their show for 1869,
to give £5OO towards the expenses, and to assist in making
the royal show a success. The Royal society is left to
settle the place of meeting.
The arrangements for the Queen's visit to Aldershot have
been completed. Her Majesty will proceed from Windsor
to the camp, by road, to-morrow morning, will partake of
luncheon at the Pavilion, and will return to Windsor in
the evening. There will he no great staff in attendance,
but only some ladies and officers of the Household.
During the Royal visit the troops will be inspected by her
Majesty, but it is doubtful whether a review will be
field.
SUFFERING AT TUNIS. —A lady recently returned from
Tunis, writes:—"l want money to send to Tunis to our
Consul bleneral there to save some lives, for the famine is
very terrible, and the poor, patient Arabs are lying down in
the streets and dying of hunger. I have seen them, so I
know it is true and there is no exaggeration. They have
had two years of no rain, and, besides, a plague of locusts ;
they have lost every means of living, and I have seem
numbers of them daily too much exhausted and too near
death to be able to rise to buy bread with the money given
to them. I have seen babies in arms with faces like old
men's, so pinched and drawn with hunger, and the skin all
shrivelled on their poor little bones. I saw the Irish famine,
but it was not nearly as bad as what I saw at Tunis. There
is famine also in Algeria, and we saw much misery there ;
but France is very rich, and France is doing a great deal
for her Arabs. At Tunis, the Bey is the Government, and
the Bey is poor, and the Whole country and all classes are
suffering cruelly."

The Social Science Association have again had the ques-
tion of compulsory education brought before them, this
time by the Rev. 1. howler, who has read a paper on the
subject. The essayist, commenting on the opposition
offered by the English people to compulsion in any form,
said the feeling which prompted it was " an odd combi-
nation of, patriotic pride, genuine love of liberty,
and perverted sentiment." The opponents of compulsory
education were, however, daily becoming fewer in number.
The rev. gentleman was in favour, first, of compelling every
district to provide schools sufficient for its need ; and
second, of obliging the parents to avail themselves of the
schools thus provided. It would be a great step if OH.,
House would appoint a commission to inquire into the best
means of carrying out a plan of compulsory education.
He would proceed by degrees, until a -system - were

organised under which a boy on leaving. scho:11 should bE
compelled to obtain from her Majesty's inspectcr a arid.
kW-LA.4IITO wbickhe_ could Adbumnasiticii,

On Tuesday night, between eight and nine o'clock, a noy
of the name of John Pritchard was passing along the,
banks of the Regent's Canal, near the Rosemary Branch
Bridge, when he saw the man in custody kneeling by
the side of the water, but what he was about he could
not tell. The boy asked him if he was drowning a dog,
and he said he was not ; his little boy was in the
water. At that moment the boy saw the hair of some
one on the water, and he saw that the person was alive,
and his fingers were moving as if attempting to swim.
Both the man in custody and the boy tried to get the body
out of the water, and whilst so engaged the roan in custody
dropped some sugar out of his pocket. This he picked
up, and whilst doing so the body sank, and did not rise
again. At that time the man had a pair of slippers in his
hands, which he stated belonged to the boy in the water.
In an after conversation the man said that he had sent his
child for some sugar more than two hours before, and that
finding he did not return home he went to look for him,
and found him on the towing-path. Whilst walking;
under the bridge the boy fell into the water, and his
slippers fell off.

The boy, seeing Sergeant Stammers, 4 N, on the bridge,
told him what he had seen, and the prisoner was after.
wards taken by him, and when the charge was read over
to him by Police-sergeant James Taylor, 33 N, he said,
" I did not cause his death." On being placed in the cell
the prisoner said, " I hope nothing serious will take place,
as I am innocent." He afterwards said, " This affair
might turn out very serious ye t—l mean the affair of my
boy being drowned."

All Tuesday night the canal was dragged, but no success
attended the efforts of the police until the morning, when
the body of the child was found near the New North-road
Bridge, only a few yards from the spot pointed out by the
boy as the place where he first saw the man in custody
leaning over the water.

The body was examined by Dr. Buckle, of Upper-
street, Islington, and he found no external marks of
violence, but as to the cause of death he could not state,
as he had not made a post-mortem examination.

THE CASE OF SCALDING AT A CONVENT.

Margaret Walsh, teacher at the school held at the Con-
vent of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul,
Ashley-place, Pimlico, was re-examined at the Westminster
Police-court, on Wednesday, charged with assaulting one
Ellen Brown, a child of the tender age of four years.
It will be remembered that the case for the prosecution
is that the prisoner had taken the child and put it into the
copper of boiling water ; even if it fell in accidentally she
would be guilty of a common assault for placing it in a
Position whereby hurt resulted to it.
Sarah Gallagher, a girl of fifteen, employed in tne
laundry of the convent, said she was at the wringing
machine opposite the copper, and saw the prisoner bring
the child in. She took it by the legs at the knees, lifted
it up, and put its feet into the copper. She was in the act
of sitting it on the ledge of the copper, when it fell in.
Witness, in reply to Mr. Arnold, could not explain what
she meant by this ; the child was never sat on the copper.
The child did not cry at all, or scream ; it trembled very
much. Some one said the socks were wet, and the pri-
soner said, " I am afraid I have scalded the child ; I will
send for its mother.'

Honors. Coppinger, a washerwoman, who was present
at the time, and had to be fetched to the court to give
evidence, said she saw nothing of it until after it had
been in the water ; she took off both its stockings and one
boot, and Margaret Walsh (the prisoner) took off the
other. She, however, was contradicted by
Eugenie Moir, aged 12, who was in the bath-house, ana
saw nothing of the scalding. She said she took off the
stockings and a boot, and Walsh took off the other boot

The father was called, and then the court was adjourned
for the attendance of the Sister of Charity who saw the
injured child first.

Sister Magdalene, sworn : I remember the day when
the child was scalded. It was on Tuesday. I remember
the fact. Prisoner asked me to come and put oil on the
child's feet as they were scalded. She said she had taken
it to punish it. I went to the schoolroom. The child was
much burned about the insteps, not quite half way to the
knees. I poured oil on the legs, and nothing more was
done. I applied lint. The mother came and took the
child away.

By the Magistrate : There were four or five teachers,
and I don't know what they said. The child was crying
and suffering, and I asked her nothing. It was a weak
cry. The skin was peeled doWn, as if it had been broken
down by the stocking when it came off. Margaret Walsh
had no business to go into the wash-house. The Superior
bad told her not to go there.
Remanded for a week, for the attendance of toe
surgeon.