The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-11 00:00:00

POLICE COURT, ABERGELE.

The inquiry before the county magistrates into
the charge of manslaughter against Samuel Eaton,
station-master at Llanddulas, was commenced yes-
terday, at the police-court, before Mr. R. B.
Hesketh and the Rev. T. Williams. Mr. Jones
Bateman, barrister, occupied a seat on the magis-
terial bench.

The room in the police-court being inconve-
niently small, the hearing was adjourned to the
large and commodious Town-hall, in which the
coroner's inquest was held.
Mr. Edwards-Wood appeared for Henry Cripps,
brother to the deceased Charles Cripps, one of the
sufferers by the accident. Mr. James, solicitor,
Llanwst, appeared for Eaton, the Llanddulas sta-
tion-master. Mr. Davies, solicitor, of Holy well,
appeared for the two breaksrnen of the goods train,
Robert Jones and Richard Williams, who have
been admitted to bail by the coroner to answer the
charge of manslaughter. The railway company
were not represented during the inquiry.
Mr. Edwards-Wood said it would be necessary
to refer to some of the circumstances of this cala-
mity. He should prove that the Irish mail train
met with an accident in consequence of an inter-
ruption on the line, and he must call witnesses to
prove the cause of that interruption. He should
trace this interruption to the station at Llanddulas,
and he should connect the station-master there with
the responsibility of the accidee. He had tele-
graphed for Mr. Mason, the assistant-manager of
the London and North-Western Railway, whose
evidence was necessary to prove the rules and re-
gulations of the company, and the duties of those
employed upon the line, especially the station-
masters. If Mr. Mason did not appear during the
inquiry it would be necessary for him to ask for an
adjournment, but from the handsome manner in
which the investigation before the Coroner had been
met by the authorities of the company, and the de-
sire shown by them to giveall the facilities and infor-
mation in their power, he had no reason to doubt that
Mr. Mason would appear at the proper time. The
cases upon which he should rely in support of his
application were " Reg. v. Haines," 2, Car. and Kir.,
368, and "Reg. v. Hughes," 7 Cox's Criminal
Cases, which he would for convenience read from
Fowler on Collieries and Colliers. It was here laid
down in the case of " Reg. v. Hughes" that " It is
no defence, in a case of manslaughter, that the
death was caused by the negligence of others as well
as by that of the prisoner; for if the death be caused
partly by the negligence of the prisoner and partly
by the negligence of others, the prisoner and all
I those others are guilty of manslaughter." This was,
however, the ruling of a single, but a very learned
Judge, the late Mr. Justice Maule. The two breaks-
men were already sent to trial upon the coroner's
inquest. The magistrates on Saturday had ad-
journed the application for a summons against them
until to-day, and he had now only to apply for the
committal of Samuel Eaton for trial at the Assizes
for the manslaughter of Charles Cripps.
Henry Cripps was called to prove the death of
his brother, and the identification of his remains
wider the circuraqtaacea already dcfacribcd, Tlis

The. clerk sak l the magistrates %VOXe there in the
performance of a public duty, and Mr. Jones and
all other witness es were bound to attend and give
evidence. Mr. Jones, however, would get his ex-
penses.
Mr. Jones was then sworn, and deposed that
Arthur Thompson (the engine-driver of the mail
train who saved his life by jumping off the engine)
had been under his charge for the last week for
biliary diarrhoea. He was not in a fit state to at-
tend before the Bench to give evidence. He could
not be moved out of bed, and it was quite impos-
sible for him to appear. He considered Thompson
to be in a dangerous state. lie was one of the
medical men who examined the charred remains of
the deceased. He was not in a position to say
whether the deceased Charles Cripps was dead
before he was burnt, or whether-he-died from suffo-
cation or from burning.

The magistrates then adjourned to Mrs. Dicken's
cottage in order to allow the deposition of Arthur
Thompson to be taken in the presence of Eaton,
the accused.

The engine-driver of the mail train was unable to
answer certain questions as to distances which have
been accurately measured for the purpose of the
investigation. The collision occurred between the
Abergele and Llanddulas station, two miles from
Abergele. The engine-driver stated that he could
have seen the distance signal which protects the
Llanddulas station on emerging from the cutting in
which the accident occurred. his distance thus on
emerging from the cutting from the distance signal
would have been not less than 1,400 yards. The
distance from the point where the break-van was
standing at the Llanddulas station and the distance
signal of that station, nearer Abergele, was 377
yards ; the distance from the main signal at the
Llanddulas station to the point where the break,
van and the waggons were left is 225 yards. These
measurements have an important bearing on the
question whether the trucks, so long as they re-
mained at the Llanddulas station, were or were not
protected by the distance danger signal at that sta-
tion. The distance between the scene of the acci-
dent and the Llanddulas distance signal is one mile
and a half.

The inquiry will be resumed to-morrow, and the
accused was admitted to bail, himself in £lOO and
two sureties in £5O each.

711 E ANGLO-CON7IiVENTAL SOCIETY.

The following letter has been addressed to
the editor of the Guardian :

Sin,—Mr. Meyrick has given your readers
credit for very short memories. I showed by
incontrovertible dates that what Mr Meyrick
is pleased to call " the statements of fact made
by Mr. Clay and himself" were, in reality,
statements of fiction. And now Mr. Meyrick
coolly remarks, " Mr. MacColl's sole argu-
ment is one of dates!" I can quite under-
stand Mr. Meyrick's aversion to dates under
the circumstances, but I regret to say that
truth compels me to inflict one or two more
dates upon him.
" The reforming priests," says Mr. Meyrick,
" welcomed. Gualter because lie was sent by
their patron, Ricasoli. They did not know
that their patron had consented for State rea-
sons to sacrifice them to Cardinal Sforza, and
had sent a willing agent to carry out his new
policy."
The answer to this is that Gualteri was not
appointed by Ricasoli at all. He " was sant"
by Ricasoli's predecessor, La Marmora, four
months before Ricasoli became Premier. Prota
was expelled for reasons very different from
those assigned by Messrs. Clay and Meyrick.
Mr. Clay says that " no tribunal, formal or in-
formal, would condemn Prota." Hy answer
is that the Syndicate of Naples condemned him,
and that one of the members of the Syndicate
(Mr. Clay's " worthy alderman") is one of
the most distinguished lawyers, as well as one
of the most upright and honourable men, in
Southern Italy. The members of the Syndi-
cate were, in addition, Liberals in politics and
religion, and had every disposition to do far
moi e than justice to Prota. Moreover, the
facts were submitted to a committee of Eng-
lish Churchmen, including, among other
names, those of Sir Joseph Napier and Sir
W. Page Wood, and they considered them con-
clusive. If there are any who refuse to be
convinced by facts like these, they must live
in an atmosphere of prejudice so dense as to
be impenetrable to the rays of ordinary mun-
dane reasoning. .

Mr. Meyrick admits that the Anglo-Conti-
nental Society make a regular grant of money
to the Einancipatore, and he does not deny that
the paper is the property of its editor, Prota.
This being so, Prota is in the pay of the
Anglo-Continental Society. I must remind
Mr. Meyrick that I invited him, early in our
correspondence, to separate his own relations
with Prota from those of the Anglo-Conti-
nental Society, but he insisted on dragging the
society over the precipice with himself. "By
us," he said, " I mean the Anglo-Continental
Society. What else should I mean?" The
society and Mr. Meyrick must therefore sink
or swim together, for the society has taken no
step to disown Mr. Meyrick's acts.
I think I may now safely leave the matter
to the impartial judgment of your readers. I
will only add that I have by no means ex-
hausted the collection of facts which I picked
up during a tour of eight months in different
parts of Italy and Sicily. It ismy deliberate
conviction that the Anglo- Continental Society's
influence in Italy helps on the cause of infi-
delity much more than of reformation. Many
of those who came under its influence are, to
my certain knowledge, now infidels. Others
have breken loose from all Church principles
whatsoever ; and not a few have been preci-
pitated into immorality by the encouragement
they received from the society in breaking
their vows of celibacy. A gross instance of this
came under my own notice.
I am, of course, far from saying or intend-
ing that Mr. Meyrick and his friends in Eng-
land would approve, or are cognisant, of these
things. But they have evidently not weighed
sufficiently the fatal effects of their aggres-
sive policy in shaking the foundations of all
faith and morality in Italy. There is no need,
in Southern Italy especially, to publish violeni,
attacks on the Church of Rome, for she has
no longer any hold worth speaking of on the
population. M. MAC C OLL.

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The toast of " The Liberal Members of the House of
Commons " was proposed by Mr. A. TROLLOPE, who said
that those present were not very well satisfied with them,
since they had allowed Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli to
holdoffice for two years. He advocated the disendowment
of the Irish Church, because that Church was a wrong
against the Roman Catholics, who formed the great
majority of the Irish people ; but the Irish Church once
disestablished, he contended that there would be no other
wrong which could be considered to be done by England to
Ireland.

Mr. CHICHESTER FORTESCIJE, M.P., responded to the
toast, and observed that Mr. Trollope had spoken of the
Liberal members of the House of Commons in a tone to
which he (Mr. Fortescue) could not object, for the Liberal
members of that House were not satisfied with themselves.
There were occasions upon which the Liberal members of
the House of Commons could scarcely be said to be a
party at all ; but with all their shortcomings they had,
at any rate, compelled an unwilling Government to pass
a Reform Act which was not a sham but a reality.
They had converted an Act which was contemptible and
delusive in its original constitution into an Act which,
with all its faults and imperfections, he trusted
and believed, among other good results, would improve
both the quality and the quantity of the Liberal party in
the House of Commons. He believed that those present
would not differ from him when be said that the best act
of the Liberal party in the late House of Commons, and
of the House of Commons itself, was an act committed
by it in its dying hours—he meant that great reso-
lution of the House which, after all, would hand down
its name to posterity, viz., the resolution by which
the House declared by an overwhelming majority that
the State Church should cease to exist in Ire-
land. The meeting would not be surprised if this
thought was the one that first came to his mind as a native
of Ireland, and as one who, in the Government of Lord
Russell and Mr. Gladstone, had the conduct of Irish
affairs in the House of Commons. It was a strange cir-
cumstance that the thought which was uppermost at
present in the mind of Ireland was the thought which was
now uppermost in the mind of England ; and the single
fact that Ireland and Great Britain were now at one
upon a great and vital question was .doing more to make
the union of the two countries a reality than anything
which had been done since 1801. We might depend
upon it that the step recently taken by the House of
Commons was producing happy results in Ireland. No
doubt it was creating irritation and anxiety amongst the
Anglican minority of the population ; but upon the
great majority of the Irish people what had been
done was already producing blessed and welcome results,
while the ranks of the Irish Catholic and Liberal party,
lately divided and distracted, were now being united
together with scarcely a single exception, so as to make use
of a golden opportunity to act in harmony with the
great Liberal party of England and Scotland, and
to send to the new Parliament as large a majority as
possible to support that great and distinguished man,
Mr. Gladstone, who possessed to a degree never yet
attained by any English statesman, the confidence and
affection of the people of Ireland. Amid the many points
rf view in which the question presented itself to his (Mr.
Fortescue's mind was that point of view which was
based upon a retrospect of the history of Ireland. If
we looked back upon the question from this point of view,
we must feel that the question was not in its essence
a religious or ecclesiastical question at all, but a ques-
tion of national or international justice. Of course, he
admitted that those who were against the establishment
of religion under all possible circumstances and in
all possible places, would be, &fortiori, against its establish-
ment in Ireland ; while there were others who were blind
enough to confound the case of the Church of England
with the Church of Ireland, although he ventured to say
that the two cases bad nothing in common. But the truth
remained, that the question was not in its essence an
ecclesiastical one. The Liberal party did not propose to
sweep away the establishment in Ireland because it was
an establishment, but because it was an institution repu•.
diated by the great majority of the people of Ireland. It:
was not hostility to religious establishments in general,
it was not hostility to the establishment of religion in this
country which would work this great political change.
But the people of Great Britain had at length woke up
to the reflection that it was a scandal no longer_ to be
endured that they should maintain, not metaphorically,
but literally, at the point of the sword, an institution
which the people of Ireland would never have created for
themselves, and which in an independent country could
not have existed for a single day. The Established Church
as it existed in Ireland was the last great remnant of
the system of conquest ; and religious equality was the
magic influence which would change the state of thought
and feeling in Ireland, to a degree of which few per-
sons had any idea, and which would at the same time
clear the air of Ireland for the settlement of other great
questions.

T" "SUN" NE ‘VSPAPER.-G. It. GLENIE,
Sporting Library, 4, Connaught-terrace, Edgeware-road,
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Jopies in Town, the Suburbs, and in many parts of the country
a ta comparatively early hour the same evening, say 40 miles by
nine o'clock

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