The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-17 00:00:00

SERIOUS EXPLOSION.

A contemporary states that on Tuesday morning a
quarryman, named Pennington, employed at the Ken-
dalfell stone quarries, was seriously injured by
an explosion of gun cotton. Be was preparing a
" blasting" charge, and while ramming home the gun
cotton, which is now extensively used for such purposes in
mines, the latter suddenly exploded, caused, it is supposed,
in consequence of the boring sod being too small, and
the stemmer, thus coming sharply in contact with the
dangerous compound, acted as a sort of porcussional
explosive. A portion of one of Pennington's arms was
blown almost entirely off, the hand being held only by
a ligament; ono of his eyes was also dangerously in-
jured, and he was seriously burned and hurt about the
head and face. lie was at once removed to his

home, and medical assistance was called in, but, al-
though three doctors were one after another requested to
attend each declined—one because he had been up all night,
another on the ground of "inability," and the third on ac-
count of being at his breakfast. Meanwhile, the unfortunate
man was lying at home, his wounds unbound, and nim-

self falling into a syncope through loss of blood. The
accident caused the greatest excitement to prevail in
the neighbourhood of Fellside, where Pennington
resides; and when the refusal of the medical prac-
titioners became known a number of persons
rushed into the main street, and for a time a com-
motion but little removed from an indignation
riot prevailed. Ultimately, however, on the interfe-
rence of the mayor, who was applied to, a doctor
was obtained, and the injurol arm amputated. It is worthy
of remark, as illustrating the dangerous, explosive nature
of gun cotton, that during an experiment subsequently mado
it was found that by striking a piece sharply with a hammer
it would explode with a suddenness, a force, and a retort
each in every way similar to that of gunpowder.

LAW AND POLICE.

- _

SHEFFIELD INTIMIDATION. —An application has been

made before Mr. Justice Hannen, at chambers, on the
part of the three men, named Hinchcliffe, Armstrong,
and Sanderson, who were convicted before Mr. Justice
Lush, on the Northern Circuit, at Leeds, last month,
for conspiracy and intimidation, as members of the
Working Masons' Trades Union, and were sentenced by
his lordship to four months' imprisonment. On account
of the sentence it was understood a writ of error had been
brought on the part of the defendants, and they were
brought up from Wakefield prison by a writ of habeas
corpus, and several persons attended to put in bail to pro-
secute the writ of error. Mr. M. Williams supported the
application, and Mr. Welsh opposed. Several technical
arguments followed, chiefly relating to the bail. His
lordship ordered the matter to stand over, and on the pro-
secution being satisfied with the bail, notice would be
given. The only question was one of bail.

CITY CLERIES.—WiIIiam Taylor, a City clerk, has been
charged at the Mansion House with stealing a cash-box
containing about £lOO. He was remanded.—Another clerk,
named Henry Wallis, was charged with forging and
uttering a cheque for £BO, with intent to defraud Messrs.
Dimsdale and Co. He had altered a cheque of £8 to £BO.
The Lord Mayor committed him for trial, and he was
then charged with stealing three bills of exchange for £420.
CIIRIOIJS APPLICATION.—James Kirby was summoned
before Mr. Tyrwhitt for refusing to maintain two illegiti-
mate children, of which Fanny Preston had sworn he was
the putative father. Mr. Sayer, from the office of Mr.
Edward Lewis, appeared for the complainant, and
Mr. Kane for the defendant. Mr. Kane wished to
make a short statement of facts. The parties had
lived together as man and wife for some time ;
the defendant did not deny being the father of the
children, he did not decline to maintain them, but he had

offered to marry the complainant, and make her an honest
woman, notwithstanding the complainant, who was of
violent temper, was in the habit of knocking him about.
Mr. Tyrwhitt thought the offer was a fair one ; but the
complainant said she would be " hanged at Newgate first."
Mr. Tyrwhitt made an order for 2s. 6d. per week for the
youngest child.

FORGERY.—At the justice-room of the Mansion House,
Gerson Wetzlar, described as a merchant, was brought
before the Lord Mayor, in custody of Detective-sergeant
Foulger, on the charge of forgfng and uttering a bill of
exchange with intent to defraud. After hearing the evi-
dence the Lord Mayor committed him for trial, refusing
bail.

A BOY KILLED IX THE BROMPTON-ROAD.--
Between seven and eight o'clock on Tuesday evening, a lad
named Henry Tressider, aged about ten years, of Radnor.
street, Chelsea, was run over by an omnibus close to the
Consumption Hospital in the Brompton-road. He was
immediately conveyed to St. George's Hospital, but life
was found to be extinct.

The Bristol and Exeter Railway Company, of
which the Earl of Devon is the chairman, have intimated
to the officials employed on the line that " they are to vote
according to their political principles, or to abstain from
voting, as they may think fit." The directors will abstain
from any interference with the elective privileges of the
staff, and any attempt at the exercise of influence by one
officer of the company upon another will be dealt with by
the board.

THE VISIT OF ENGLISH RIFLEMEN TO BELGIUM.
—The first of a series of cheap special excursions, for the
accommodation of volunteers and their friends, &c., visit-
ing Brussels, was despatched on Wednesday afternoon from
Bishopsgate Station at 4.25. A large number of volunteers
went by it. Another cheap special is to be despatched at
the same time on Saturday afternoon.

VISIT OF ENGLISH VOLUNTEER RIFLEMEN TO
IRELAND.-The council of the Ulster Rifle Association of
Ireland, of which the Right lion. Lord Dufferin and
Clandeboye, K.P., K.C.P., is the president, has made
special arrangements this year for the visit at the ensuing
rifle meeting of as many English volunteers as like to
honour the association with their presence, to compete for
the prizes to be offered. The meeting, which is open to
all corners, will be held on the 22nd and 23rd inst., at
Clandeboye, near Belfast, and as an inducement for
volunteers to attend and compete, Lord Dufferin has pre-
sented prizes amounting in value to over £lOO, to be shot
for with smallbores and Enfields. It is anticipated that
many riflemen will avail themselves of this opportunity
of visiting the sister isle. The notice announcing the
rifle meeting states that " volunteers can cross to Belfast
by steamers every evening from Liverpool, Fleetwood,
Barrow-in-Furness, and Glasgow ; alsoriflemen who reside
in districts in connection with the Caledonian Railway can
cross over, via Portpatrick and Donaghoe:iee, short KA
route. being 1.00 Lalkthe4. -011-04#28421-i

THE PAPAL ZOUAVES.

In our last issue we dwelt upon the duty in-
cumbent upon us in England to do our part in
increasing the number and the efficiency of
the Papal Zouaves. We were not speaking
without cause, nor, we may add, without due
information, as to the preparations which the
Revolutionary party were making for another
attack upon Rome. There are many reasons,
apart from any hope of success, for the now
combined action of Mazzini and Garibaldi ;
their chief aim, at present is to increase the
distrust which exists in Italy of the existing
system of Government, and nothing could com-
plicate matters more irrevocably than to force
the ministry to choose between the French
alliance and a renewed connivance at a Gari-
baldian invasion of the Roman territory. A
rupture between France and the Italian Go-
vernment would aid their views, for it would
leave Italy a prey to the Revolutionary party,
but a forcible repression of the Garibaldian
hordes, at the bidding of France, would not
come amiss to them, for it would sting Italian
vanity to the quick, and fan the flame of dis-
content, until it broke out into open revolt.
Mazzini is waiting for such an opportunity,
and he is not likely to wait long, for the
unhappy Italians are smarting under two evils,
wounded vanity and national bankruptcy. The
inglorious part they played in the last war has
been flung in their teeth again by the dis-
graceful disclosures of rival generals ; the con-
temptuous manner in which their military
character is spoken of by France and Prussia,
the consciousness, which is no longer to be con-
cealed by empty gasconading, of their impo-
tence to pursue any course but that chalked
out for them by one or other of their tivo rival
allies and protectors, have exasperated to the
utmost a vain-glorious people. In such a frame
of mind the nation sees itself on the verge of
bankruptcy, which can only be staved off by
a resolute reducing of its vast, yet fruitless,
expenditure on its army and navy. Unaccus-
tomedto such a grinding taxation, and smart-
ing from a wounded national vanity, the people
of the Revolutionary kingdom turn upon their
discomfited rulers with a cry for vengeance.
Mazzini, with his accustomed craft, is at hand,
and whispers in their ear that the fitting punish-
ment for a Government which has betrayed
Italian unity and sacrificed Italian interests to
France, is to force that Government either to '
break with Napoleon and side with Garibaldi,
or to strike down Garibaldi and proclaim itself
openly by its acts to be the persistent servant
of France. To give effect to his councils,
Mazzini, in conjunction with Garibaldi, has
established a new secret society, to be called
the " Vendetta di Mentana," for the double-
purpose of avenginc, the ignominious defeat
of Garibaldi at Meftana, and the betrayal, at
the last moment, on the part of the Govern-
ment, of the expedition into the hands of
France, by the withdrawal of the Italian
troops. The scheme is not ill conceived, the
invasion of the Papal States, if opposed by
the Italian Government, will not only destroy
a ministry, but endanger what Mazzini most
desires—the monarchy itself. If secretly con-
nived at, but not supported, it will lead to the
prolonged occupation of Rome by France,
to the destruction of the Garibaldian Volun-
teers by the Papal Zouaves, and to a national
humiliation, which cannot fail to deepen and
intensify, as Mazzini desires, the deepseated
discontent that now exists. But should the

Government be forced to take part in the
Vendetta di, Mentana, the result would be a
war with France, perhaps a European war, and
in the universal turmoil Italy would be either
avenged, as Mazzini hopes, or destroyed. It
would be, in reality, Ronta, o monte
Men like Mazzini, familiar with conspiracy,
in which the innocent and guilty blood of
others may .be shed like water, themselves
standing aloof from danger, are wonderfully
reckless of consequences, so long as the idea
which they are possessed of has a chance of
realization. The folly or the criminal character
of the attempt is no surety that it will not be
risked. Ambition or vanity has darkened
their judgment, and the souls of such men
are familiar with bloodguiltiness. Men must
therefore be on their guard, and not judge that
because an act is absurd in the extreme and
too criminal to be accounted possible by ordi-
nary men, that, therefore, it will not be com-
mitted. The invasion of the Papal States by
the Mazzinians and Garibaldians, foolish as
it may seem after the experience of last year,
and criminal as it is judged to be by every
man who can distinguish between right and
wrong, is nevertheless but too likely to be
attempted. It is our duty, therethre, not
indeed to be alarmists, but to be prepared for
every emergency; it would be a disgrace to the
Catholics of Europe if through supineness or
over-confidence, they allowed the gallant army
of the Pope to be surprised before they had
sent it a sufficient supply of men and arms.—
; Westminster Gazette.

MR. MURPIIY AND THE MANCHESTER

MAGISTRATES.

Catholics, we believe, may safely leave Mr.
Murphy and his coarse and brutal slanders of
Catholic priests and nuns to the verdict of
public opinion in England. We do not know
how far Orange fanaticism goes in Ireland,
but the calumnies uttered by Mr. Murphy at
Manchester and elsewhere have excited here
universal indignation in every educated man,
and in every man who regards a slanderer
as worse than a thief. No Catholic priest,
no Sister of Charity, is injured by the vile
abuse of a man who must have lost all self-
respect and sense of decency before he could
have brought himself publicly to utter accu-
sations which every one on a moment's reflec-
tion cannot but see are, and must be, simple
calumnies. To this part of the subject, there-
fore, we have no need of alluding, but what
does require some explanation is the con-
duct of the magistrates at 'Manchester. Why
was Mr. Murphy, after he had been bound
to find bail to keep the peace, allowed, under
the pretext that he was a candidate for the
representation of Manchester, to hold a public
meeting and deliver an address, by which the
peace of the city was broken? The magistrates
are bound to prevent a breach of the peace,
and by compelling Mr. Murphy to find bail
for his good conduct whilst in Manchester,
they, as the event proved, took a wise precau-
tion. But how comes it that his bail is not
now estreated, and the Orange lecturer himself
not again bound over to keep the peace ? To
punish the rioters at Manchester, and to allow
the disturber of the public peace to forfeit his
bail and go unpunished, cannot but have a mis-
chievous effect on the Irish population of Man-
chester. It will seem as if Mr. Murphy were
allowed with impunity to break the law, and
that only those were punished who committed
the offence which it was apprehended by the
magistrates would be committed, if so violent
and slanderous a speaker were allowed to hold
a public meeting in Manchester, and deliver
the insulting harangues which in other places
had provoked serious disturbances. That Mr.
Murphy, who on sworn informations that his
conduct 'would lead to a breach of the peace,
s formally prohibited by the magistrates
from delivering his harangues, should never-
theles set the law at defiance with impunity
under the simple pretext that he was address.
ing a body of electors, seems impossible. It
is to be hoped that some public explanation
will be offered ; it were better for the magis-
trates of Manchester to acknowledge, if such
be the truth, that they were afraid of the con-
sequences of taking decided steps against Mr.
Murphy ; it were better to confess that justice
was balked of its rights by the fear of Orange
violence, rather than let it appear that it had
betrayed its trust by dealing out punishment
to the Catholic rioters at Manchester, and
letting the Orange disturber of the peace and
violator of his bail go scot free.—Westminster
Gazette.

Mr. M. Firth, the Master Cutler, of Sheffield, is
about to erect and endow 36 almshouses, at a cost of
424,040.