The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-15 00:00:00

PRICE OF SUGAR.

The Average Price of Brown or Muscovado Sugar, for the
week ending Nov. 12, 1844, is 295. 91d. per cwt., exclusive
of the Duties of Customs paid or payable thereon on the im-
portation thereof into Great Britair

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAT.
GLOBE.—When commenting recently on the case
of Mr. David Salomons, we took occasion to refer to
the unsatisfactory state of the law respecting as to
the form of the declaration required, as a preliminary
qualification, for municipal offices. The following
case illustrates the necessity of revising the law and
regulating the practice in the Court of Chancery
with reference to judicial oaths. The present state
of the law is obviously a source of inconvenience to
suitors in that Court, seeing it increases the costs
and occasions delay. The case alluded to, which
occurred yesterday in the Vice-Chancellor's Court,
will explain the mode by which these results are pro-
duced :

" Mr. Lloyd moved for a special dedimus directed to
Commissioners, to take the answer of a defendant named
Pringle, and to administer such oath to him as would be
binding on his conscience. Mr. Llloyd, in support of the
motion, said the party was a Scotchman, and he had
some religious scruple to kissing the book when taking
the oath, and he desired be should be sworn by holding
up his right hand. The former Commissioners had
refused to take the answer in that way.
"Mr. Bethell, without opposing the motion, suggested
whether the court, upon the mere statement of counsel,
would grant the application without requiring an affi-
davit of the facts.
" The Vice-Chancellor having consulted with the
Registrar, said the thing could not be done without an
affidavit.
" The case was, therefore, ordered to stand over for
that purpose."
For an oath to be worth anything, it must be bind-
ing on the conscience of the party. Yet, such is the

absurdity of the practice with which the Chancery
Commissioners in this case, and probably in other
cases, are enamoured, that they insist upon swearing a
witness by a form which he avows is not binding
upon his conscience ! They require a Scotchman to
" kiss the book ;" when the religion which he pro-
fesses, and the universal practice of the Courts of law
in that part of the United Kingdom of which he is a
native, require him to " hold up his right hand," when
taking the oath. The tender of a declaration "on
the true faith of a Christian," to a member of the
Jewish faith, only equals this. The mockery of that
which all men agree to regard as sacred, and the insult
it offers to the individual, are alike to be condemned.
To obtain the requite testimony of a wilness by an
oath, the forms of administering which his conscience
will recognise and approve, an affidavit of the facts must
be made ; and then a special dedimus must issue, giv-
ing permission—as a personal favour, and as an act of
condescension in the Court to the weakness of the
witness—to the Commissioners, to swear him by the
form which, he alleges, will be binding on his con -
science. Without here entering upon the question as to
the potency of oaths to extract truth from reluctant or
mendacious witnesses in courts of justice, we may
venture to ask, whether it be advisable to adhere to
specific forms, when those forms are objected to, on ap-
parently conscientious grounds by witnesses; and
whether they do not rather defeat than aid the object for
which they are employed? A party produced as a
witness in a Court of Justice, whether civil or
criminal, or before any commission authorised and
directed to take evidence in any suit or inquiry,
should be allowed to test the truth of his his testi-
mony by any form of oath which he renders
apparent to be that binding upon his conscience ;
or if he conscientiously object to judicial:oaths, in any
form, then to make and sign a declaration.
This, Quakers, Moravians, and Separatists (?) are, by
special statutes, allowed to do. Let a law be passed,
substituting a declaration in lieu of an oath in all
judicial investigations in which members of the now
exempted sects are permitted to substitute a decla-
ration for an oath. The penalties of perjury,
should attach to an engagement by the wit-
ness to " speak the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth." Great practical advan-
tages, without being accompanied by the slightest
inconvenience, would result from abolishing (ex-
cept in the case of the sects referred to) the im-
perative obligation to be sworn in a judicial proceeding
by a specific form. The truth is, that adherence to
a specific form in many cases, weakens the force of
the obligation. The form is evaded ; and the trick,
successfully performed, is supposed to abrogate the
obligation. An ignorant and mendacious witness of
the Roman Catholic Church, considers that the form
of a cross upon the cover of the New Testament
is requisite to oompel him to adhere to the truth in
giving his testimony; and that he is relieved from
this obligation if I the book he kisses, when taking
the judicial oath, be without that figure. A Protes-
tant swearer, who is indisposed to comply with the
terms of the oath, thinks he has escaped from the obli-
gation if he can manage to insert his thumb between
the cover of the book and his lips, and kiss the former
instead of the latter. Persons who are in the habit
of attending police-offices and other courts of criminal
jurisprudence, are familiar with such attempts to evade
the obligation. Such instances show the influence
which mere forms exercise over ignorant, and there-
fore superstitious, minds ; and suggest that where the
forms are retained, the oath should be solemnly and
impressively administered by the presiding judge, and
not, as now, slobbered over by one of the lowest un-
derlings of the Court.

THE LATE DREADFUL ACCI
DENT AT BLACK IV ALL.

DEATH OF THREE MOkE OF THE SUFFERERS,
INQUEST ON THE BODIES.-(THIS DAY.)

At one o'clock this day an inquest was held in the
Board-room of the London Hospital before Mr.
Baker and a most respectable jury, upon what may,
with horrible truth, be called the remains of William
Riley, boiler- maker, aged 32, Patrick Donovan, la-
bourer, aged 46, and Charles Mills, aged 33, en-
gineer, who added, by their deaths, three more to the
frightful catalogue of the sufferers at the late Black-
wall explosion.
The CORONER, before entering upon the evidence,
said he wished to address a few remarks to the jury
upon the facts and law of the case. An inquest had been
holden two days ago upon the bodies of seven other per-
sons who came by their deaths from the same cause which
led to the present painful investigation. Their duty
was to inquire into the cause of the accident, and by
their verdict, if blame were attributable in any quar-
ter, to prevent the recurrence of such catastrophes.
No doubt could be entertained by the jury that the
accident arose from the imperfect construction of the
main pipe, for it must have been very bad, when it
had been built to bear a pressure of 401bs. to the
square inch, yet gave way when the pressure had risen
to only 251bs. to the inch. This fact must be the
more apparent to the jury, when they consi-
dered that the material at the joint was quite
incapable of resisting the force of the steam.
It was also clear that to prevent danger there should
have been some "play" at the joint where the emission
of steam took place, to allow for expansion and con-
traction. However it would be better to leave this
matter in the hands of scientific men, and attend more
to the points which affected the want of caution or
neglect on the part of any one engaged in the entire
transaction, and thus come to the conclusion as to
whether any of those were guilty of manslaughter,
for owing to absence of intention their conduct
could not be defined to amount to murder. He
should wish to impress on the minds of the
jury, that if they were of opinion there was a
want:of caution on the part of any persons concerned,
it would be their (the jury's) duty to return a ver-
dict of manslaughter against those parties. The un-
fortunate gentleman, who was the inventor of the
machinery, placed himself in the most dangerous
position, and in consequence met his death almost in-
stantaneously; so that if there were any culpability
originally on his part, he was now out of the reach of
the law, having suffered the severest penalty that
could be inflicted upon him, and he (the Coro-
ner) thought it would be an unnecessary harshness
to charge Mr. Joseph Samuda with constructing a
machine by which his own brother was killed. In
the case of the " King v. Carr," in Sewell's Law of
Coroner, a case was stated, in which a cannon being
found to be damaged it was sent back to the foundry
to be repaired, and upon its being sent back, owing
to the imperfect manner in which it was repaired, it
burst the first time it was fired off, and a person
being killed by it, it was held to be manslaughter.
The Coroner then directed the attention of the
jury to the question of a deodand, and remarked that
in many instances this subject was surrounded with
great difficulties, for it sometimes happened that the
object or element by which death was caused was
too insignificant for a deodand to be imposed. In
the present case the tube, the malformation of which
caused the death of Mr. Samuda and his men, was
perfectly valueless, and it therefore would be worse
than useless to impose a deodand.
George Lowe, the engineer who so miraculously
escaped by being sent upon deck by Mr. Samuda to
see the steam blow off, was called, and, having been
sworn, the Coroner read over his evidence (a full
report of which appeared in The Sun, at the time of
the inquest upon Mr. Samuda and the other sufferers),
and he deposed before the present jury to its correct-
ness.

In reply to the Coroner, as to whether any further
ideas suggested themselves to him, as to the cause of
the accident, Mr. Lowe exhibited two small tubes, one
of which fitted into the other in the same manner as
the tube from whence the steam escaped, and
stated that, if there had been a ring or collar at the
termination of one of them where they joined, so as
to prevent them from parting, at the same time that
it allowed room for expansion and contraction, he
thought the accident would have been prevented, for
if such were the case no steam could have escaped.
The CORONER thought this evidence most important,
and hoped it wouid be made known to the public and
those more immediately concerned, as after such a
suggestion it would place those using such engines
under a serious responsibility before a Coroner's Court
if an accident occurred where this ring or collar was
not used. Under all the circumstances of the case
he thought it would be useless to call the surviving
brother, as he would not be bound to criminate him..
self, in any explanations he might be called upon to
give. Owing to the low rates of payment to wit-
nesses, which) had been fixed by the magistrates, he
was unable to order the attendance of scientific gen-
tlemen, whose evidence might tend to elucidate several
points which might now appear obscure.
Mr. Hensell, a civil engineer, said he fully agreed
in all the previous evidence of Mr. Low, but thought
the suggestion with respect to the collar, or ring, not
of much importance, for if the tube were soldered with
iron, it would be as safe, as the expansive or con-
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After hearing the surgical evidence, the Coletuatothrtiroeenite,
cases.

THE LATE RAINS.—By putting our umbrella into
the fountains at Trafalgar-square, we have ascertained
that the quantity of rain fallen last week is just one cubic
ferule. This, if poured into buckets, will make twenty-
five pails, seven cups, and three saucers. This quantity
has been drawn out, and pumped into the Artesian
so as to form a sinking fund for the fountains when they
can no longer play in their old age.—Punch,