The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-30 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Times, in examining the views of Mr. Mill on
the treatment of professional criminals, observes that
it is agreed on all sides that some measures should
be adopted for the more effectual protection
of society against them. There are men, as is per-
fectly notorious, who live by crime, who commit
one crime after another till they are detected and
imprisoned, and who, as soon as they are released
from custody, 'take to crime again. Malefactors of this
class are usually well known to all concerned in the
administration of justice, and no doubt or mystery exists
about their habits or practices. It has been therefore pro-
posed that these declared enemies of society should be t) a
certain extent outlawed. Every man, according to English
law, is held to be innocent till he is found guilty, but with
regard to these habitual offenders, it is recommended that
they should be held guilty till they prove themselves
innocent ; that they should be compelled to give an
account of themselves and how they are living
when called upon to do so. If they cannot give
satisfactory answers, they are to be kept at work
under surveillance, on the presumption that otherwise he
would live by crime. The police assert that with this
power they could sweep out the nests of crime. Mr.
Mill holds that such a measure would be wrong in prin-
ciple and would not work well in practice. He says that
one man might be getting an honest living by odd jobs,
and yet be unable to prove it. Another might
be seriously injured if his previous history were
betrayed by the police to his fellow-workmen.
But he must be living without visible means of subsistence
before the police interfere with him, and that could not be
the case if he were one of a regular body of workmen.
The man who had casual employment could easily refer to
those who have employed him ; and after all, it must be
remembered, whatever hardships might be incidental to
the course suggested, the sufferers would be only those
who had exposed themselves to the visitation by their own
malpractices. As things go, it is reasonable to presume
that a man who has been not only twice tried, but twice
convicted of crime, must have been living for some con-
siderable time by depredations on society, and such a man
could hardly complain if society in self-defence put him
at some exceptional. disadvantage. He would, beyond
doubt, forfeit certain privileges, but would not the forfeit
have been deserved ? It is certainly not impossible that
the power thus lodged in the hands of the police might be
occasion ally abused, but the risk, according to Mr. Mill's own
measure, is:very limited. On the point of a man's character,
the word of a policeman would have no authority what-
ever, for the previous convictions must be established by
the records of a court. There is no room, therefore, for
false or mistaken evidence ; while, as to the second point,
the burden of proof thrown on the suspected person can
hardly be very heavy. If the man is not following an
honest livelihood, he deserves to be detained ; if he is, in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the proof must be easy.
In the hundredth case it may be just possible to imagine
injustice resulting ; but is that risk sufficient to outweigh
the recommendations of the measure and the claims of
society at large?
The Morning Post says that the question of who shall
succeed Sir Richard Mayne seems to be resolving itself
into a discussion as to whether the Chief Commissioner
should be a lawyer or a soldier, but it appears to us that
it should rest chiefly on personal qualifications. Sir
Richard Mayne was a barrister, and the complaint made
is that he rendered the force too military. Possibly
the converse might now result if a soldier were elected.
A police magistrate, as being thoroughly versed in criminal
law and the ways of criminals, would probably make "a
capital Commissioner, and there could be no difficulty in
making the selection. A military officer, too, who has
had extensive experience of convicts—and we have several
such—or who has been governor of a prison, would also,
in all likelihood, suit the post. But what is wanted, more
than any special knowledge, is tact, firmness, activity, and
common sense. These qualities, no matter what his pro-
fession, would render the selected Commissioner fit for his
trying position.
The Standard thinks that we have a foretaste of the
blessings which are to follow on Mr. Bright's accession to
office in the threatened abolition of the corps of marines, but
these are the days of advance, and we must not grumble. It
is only consistent with the doctrines of the Peace-at-any-
price Party that they should begin with the force which
is most useful as our instrument of war. It is a high
compliment to the marines that they should be selected as
the first victims to the doctrine that peace is promoted by
defencelessness. Of all the various kinds of force which are
employed by this country there is none which more admirably
fulfil its duties than the marines. It is our finest,
keenest, most useful weapon of war. It can give the best
reason for its existence. It is peculiarly the branch of the
defensive service which is best fitted to the genius of the
country. It is good by sea and good by land. It can go
anywhere and do anything. It is as useful on board ship
as in the field ; as much at home in the dusty plains of
India as in the snows of the Crimea or the swampy valleys
of New Zealand. The roll of the services of the marines
is an epitome of the military glories of England. They
baffled the ambition of Napoleon ; they avenged the death
of Nelson ; they carried succour to Lucknow. They have
been foremost in every service for which they have been
used. For some years past they have done nearly all the
fighting which England has had to do. They are our real
National Guard—the true representative soldiers of the
country.

Railway travelling, says the Daily News, is fast super-
seding omnibus travelling in London, and it is high time
that it should do so. Quicker and more convenient
methods of intercommunication have become necessary in
consequence of the enormous extension of the metropolis.
It is astonishing that Englishmen will put up for so long
with very defective arrangements in the matter of loco-
motion. London bad no coaches until the reign of Eliza-
beth, and one wonders how the London public could have
got on without omnibuses until 1830. The younger genera-
tion has, however, long been impressed with the conviction
that the omnibus service of the metropolis is obsolete to a
great extent. The Metropolitan Railway system is super-
seding it, and every addition to that system removes a
trouble from the minds of many Londoners. The under-
ground line from Paddington to the City has for the
last six years proved an immense boon to the inhabitants
of the northern and north-western parts of the
town. Brompton, Kensington, Notting-hill, and Bays-
water were joined to this system in October ; and
on Christmas Eve the first portion of the " inner
circle," extending from Gloucester-road, Brompton, to
Westminster, and continuing the line from Moorgate-
street, was opened to the public. By these lines, when
completed, the inhabitants of the western suburbs will be
able to travel expeditiously, either to Moorgate-street
by a northerly route, or to the Mansion House by a
southerly route. Even in the present incomplete state
of the system the gain to a large number of travellers
will be very great. You may wait a quarter of
an hour for an omnibus in the mud and rain, to find it full
when at length it arrives. Your omnibus, moreover, is
often a terrible dawdler. On the Metropolitan Railway,
however, the trains run every ten minutes, and the stop-
pages at the stations are of the briefest. Certainty, regu-
larity, and expedition are the three strong points of the
London railway system. The travelling through a long
series of tunnels, with only occasional breaks of light and air,
is doubtless not the most cheerful mode of transit ; yet
there is something that appeals to the imagination in
whizzing under streets and houses through the darkness of
subterranean London, and finding that, after a brief
interval of time, you have been transported from a quiet
suburb to the thick of the City, without, in appearance,
passing through any of the intermediate neighbourhoods.
And it is to be remembered that it is the multiplication
of means of getting over long town distances rapidly that
makes the continued rapid growth of this immense city
possible.

The Daily Telegraph observes that in all cases of alleged
murder three questions suggest themselves. Has a mur-
der been committed at all ? If so, by whose hand has the
crime been perpetrated, and what motive has led to its
perpetration? Of late too many cases of murder have been
sent up for trial before the agents for the prosecution have
fully prepared the evidence on which the jury must give
a verdict of life or death. Such are the peculiarities of
our criminal system, that no missing link in a case can
readily be supplied after trial has begun ; and since the
jury often form their judgment on insufficient data, we
have at times discreditable miscarriages of justice.
The Herald, in giving its hearty support to the new
Workshops Regulation Act, observes that no one can
doubt the need of such an enactment. The enormous mis-
chief perpetrated among the milliners and dressmakers
alone by excessive hours of toil is notorious, and has
often been denounced. Thousands of lives have been
sacrificed in this cruel slavery ; the only excuse
being the " pressure of orders." If the sick never left our
large towns, but stopped and died near the scene of their
work, we should know better than we do what is the waste
of life going on in our great hives of commercial and
trading industry. The sick girls go home to die, and the
village register is burdened with their deaths. So it is that
London draws pure blood from the provinces, and sends it
leek poisoned. But the sin of overwork does not rest
with London alone, though there it attains its most
gigantic growth. In the little villages of distant counties
41,b.ere are places where chil.lren are made to work to an
`eAtent which the law has long prohibited in factories. It'
is thus that the law inevitably extends itself. If the large
employer is compelled to give his workpeople the benefit
of certain hours per week for rest, why should he be
placed at a disadvantage as compared with the smaller
class? The Factories Acts apply where fifty or more
persons are employed. But the aggregate number
employed in lesser groups is immense, and if Parliament
really means to protect the workers, why should the
smaller groups ne passed by? The leisure is good for all,
and air and exercise are as needful for health as pure
water and efficient drainage. The Workshops Regulation
Act is a sanitary measure, if nothing else, but we beligye
it to beAgaixtslealDmh.,

ALLEGED ATTEMPT TO POISON A TEA

PARTY.

About 1,400 or 1,500 men, women, and children assem.
bled in a ball on Monday evening, at Wolverhampton, at
a farewell tea meeting to Fiddler Joss and his wife, on the
conclusion of nine weeks' Revival services which they
have been holding in that ball. Ample preparations were
made for satisfying the demands of the keenest appe-
tites ; but no sooner had the tea been poured out, and
milk added, than it was evident that something more
than usually entering into the composition of a cup of tea
was there. On tasting, it produced, though in a stronger
degree, the sensation upon the tongue which is felt
upon tasting alum-water. The greatest excitement pre-
vailed, and at once the cry arose that the water had been
poisoned. In the midst of the excitement Mr. Cooper
came upon the platform and announced that some one
acquainted with chemistry had tasted the tea, and was of
opinion that the alarming characteristics it presented were
due to a lump of green copperas having been thrown into
the water. There is, however, another theory which
perhaps more satisfactorily accounts for the occurrence.
Immediately adjoining the ball are the extensive
works of Mr. E. Davies for galvanising iron, in which a
large quantity of diluted vitriol is used, and the infusion
flows away over the ground. Now, as the water was
drawn from a well, it is probable that some of this liquor
has in process of time percolated into the well, and hence
the state of the water and the alarming condition in which
the tea was found. The people had to content themselves
with edibles and go away without partaking of potables.
But this was not a result with which all were content.
A small minority complained that they had paid for tea,
and tea they meant to have. Mr. Poole, on coming on
to the platform, after the tables bad been cleared, alluded
to this, and said he understood that some discon-
tented young men were within the hall with stones
in their pockets, and those stones they intended to
throw at the speakers on the platform. He advised
them not to do so. At this moment a young fellow was
seized in the body of the hall, with the cry of " Here's one,
M. Poole." Many strong hands were laid about the neck
of ,The young man, and an attempt was made to force him
to the platform. He stoutly resisted ; a struggle ensued ;
in which forms were overturned and sitters scattered ;
children cried, women shrieked, the platform swayed with
the weight of its excited occupants, and hundreds, in panic,
rushed to the doors, and a threatened disaster was averted
Ey the police, who rescued the young fellow, and removed
him from the hall. Mr. Poole exhorted the meeting
to quietude, and assured them that God would punish the
person who had tampered with the water. Mr. Raybould,
of Birmingham, spoke of the success which had attended
the services which had been held by Mr. and Mrs. Poole
in Birmingham and other parts of the district. He asked
those present who had been converted by the services held
in Wolverhampton to hold up their hands. A large
number of hands were held up ; but we are assured that
the number is much greater, as during the services 800
signed the pledge, and 500 professed to be converted.
During the course of the evening Mr. and Mrs. Poole
were presented with upwards of £l2, the collection of
working men in the room.

THE SECOND COLLIERY EXPLOSION
NEAR WIGAN

No more additions have yet been made to the number
A persons who have lost their lives by the explosion of fire-
damp at the Norley Colliery, Pemberton, near Wigan, on
the 21st inst„ but two of the injure,' men are so seriously
hurt that it is more than probable in a day or two they also
will be numbered among the dead. These are Taylor and
Sharrock, who, as already recorded, were working in the
tunnel at the time of the explosion. On th Gumption
of the inquest on the seven deceased whose names have
already been published, at the Red Lion, Pemberton, by
Mr. Driffield, district coroner, the Government inspector,
Mr. Higson, was present, as well as Mr. Pickard, miners'
agent, and several of the proprietors of the colliery, who
were represented by Mr. Maskell Peace, town clerk of
Wigan. Evidence in identification of the bodies disco-
vered since the inquest opened was first given, and
then several of the officials of the colliery were called. The
evidence of the manager is given below.
Mr. Joseph Thompson, manager of the colliery, said
The district in which the explosion occurred was reached
by two tunnels, which were worked pretty equally, and
had between them a communication for ventilating pur-
poses only. The explosion appeared to have occurred
at the further end of the workings along the direct
level from the pit. He was met on his way to the
works about a quarter to nine by a man who told him
that something had occurred at the pits. He found
it impossible to descend the No. 3 pit, where the
casualty appeared to have occurred, and consequently
vent down the No. 2 shaA to the yard coal, which be
traversed as far as the No. 3 shaft. From there he was
able to shout to persons at a mouthing below, and they
nformed him that an explosion bad occurred in the lower
tunnel, that the cage was fast in the shaft, and that the
signalling apparatus was out of order. The latter having
been got right, a capstan was put down, and a batch of
injured men was sent up. He subsequently went down,
and remained until late in the evening, in company with
several gentlemen from neighbouring collieries. In conse-
quence of the after damp, the whole of the bodies could
not be rec •vered until the 24th inst.

By Mr. Higson : Had the pit been in full work, about
fourteen men, including officers, would have been in the
district where the explosion occurred, and about 6,000
cubic feet of air per minute would have been entering the
workings. The only places actually in working were
along the straight level. He had only had one report of
gas being found, and that was about the middle of Sep-
tember last, when some bratticing was deranged by the fall
of a stone from the roof. Ile was down these workings a
tew weeks before the explosion, and everything was
then going on in a satisfactory manner. He thought the
ventilation at the time quite sufficient. The furnace was
stopped for clearing a short time on the Sunday, but the
air ought to have been quite right by the time the men
descended on Monday morning. Cheetham was fireman
in the district, and appeared to have fired a shot in the
warrant. All the men were. required to provide them-
selves with safety lamps, which were alone used in the
mine, and these were locked by the firemen in the pit.
Blasting was allowed, but the shots were fired by firemen
only.
By Mr. Pickard : The return air had to traverse a
distance of about 4,100 yards, and along that distance
the average superficial area would, he believed, be about
twenty-five feet. About 280 yards of bratticing were
in use.

The inquiry was adjourned until the Government
:vector has completed his examination..

Booth, the tragedian, had a broken nose. A
lady once remarked to him, "I like your acting, Mr.
Booth, but, to be frank with you, I can't get over your
nose." "No wonder, madam," replied the tragedian,
" the bridge is gone."

HER MAJESTY'S NEW YEAR'S GIFTS. —Early on
Friday morning her Majesty's New Year's gifts to the
poor of the parishes of St. John, Windsor, Holy Trinity,
And Clewer will be distributed, in the presence of the
mayor and clergy, to the numerous recipients. These
gifts, amounting in value to nearly £200., consist of prime
pieces of beef, the weight being in proportion to the num-
ber of each family, and coals. The meat will be distri-
buted to the holders of tickets in the Butchers' Market, at
the rear of the town hall, while the coals will be de-
livered at the homes of the recipients.

THE ST. ALBAN'S RITUAL CASE.—In this case
no formal notice has been served on Mr. Mackonochie, or
the procter, Mr. Brooks, and no legal contumacy, it is
stated, has been committed in continuing the use of lighted
candles in the administration of the Holy Communion.
The judgment of the Judicial Committee must be con-
firmed by the Queen in Council, after which Messrs.
Moore and Currey will issue a monition to be served on
the respondent, admonishing him ti abstain for the future
from the practice condemned by the Judicial Committee.
It may take some weeks to perfect the judgment, and
until the monition is served no notice need be taken of
the decision, and consequently no legal contumacy will be
incurred by the defendants.
MATRIMONY AND ITS VICISSITUDES. The
Nottingham Guardian has the following :—" There 12
now living, not a hundred miles from Shelford, a man
who, at the age of twenty-five, was engaged and about
to be married to a woman of the name of Walker, but
she was taken away by death. Having mourned her for
some time, he married a woman named Voce. After
a few years she died. His next wife was a widow named
Vickerstaff. After a few years she also died. He next
married the sister of his last wife's first husband. In a
few weeks she died. Feeling almost discouraged by past
experience he waited awhile, but being lonely, he again
entered into matrimony with a woman named Webster.
After having enjoyed each other's company for se eral
years, she also was taken away by death. it is a
remarkable fact that all the *deaths were from decline.
The widower then commenced a courtship with a
woman named Holland, whose husband had emigrated,
and nothing having been heard of him for a number of years,
and thinking he was dead, they a length became man and
wife. They lived together in perfect harmony for two
years, when, to their great consternation, her former
husband, after the lapse of seventeen years, returned and
claimed her as his lawful wife. They are now living
together. So we see that this man has had as good as five
wives stolen AWAY by death. and the sixth by § livintt
Mir