The Sun.
London, England, 1857-10-14 00:00:00

to "OM

1 THE FATAL ACCIDENT IN THE GREAT
NORTHERN TUNNEL.

Yesterday afternoon Mr. Wakloy, the coroner,
held a somewhat lengthened inquiry at the Railway
Tavern, Potter's Bar, respecting the deaths of
George Howe, and 38, George Balaton, alias
Simmons, aged 40, and Wm. Hubbard, aged 24,
three plate-layers, who were killed in the Potter's
Bar Tunnel of the Great _Northern Railway on last
Sunday morning.
Mr. T. Williams, the inspector of the line, was
in attendance, to give any information to the jury
on the part of the railway company.
A number of witnesses were examined, from
whom the following statement of the melancholy
accident was gleaned :

One of the deceased men, Balston, was a ganger,
and occasionally undertook piece-work from one of
the contractors, named Norton. For two Sundays
previous to the occurrence in question he had been
engaged with eight other men in raising the rails in
the tunnel, preparatory to turning them, as such
work could only be executed on a Sunday on ac-
count of the frequency of the daily trains. He was
bound down to complete his work on two Sundays
which ho did, but contrary to the intentions of the
contractor, he proceeded to lay the rails last Sun-
day. All went on wellenough until a few minutes
past nine o'clock in the morning, when an
empty returning coal train and a passenger train
entered the tunnel at opposite ends. The whole of
the men at work, numbering 9, got out of the way
of the empty train, but forgot the up-passenger
train, the tunnel being nearly filled with steam,
until it was close upon them, and the result was
that three of them were caught by the engine and
literally smashed to pieces, their remains being
picked up in various parts of the tunnel after-
wards. The driver and guard of the engine were
not aware of what had taken place until they
arrived at the Holloway station, when they saw
the blood of the killed men upon the engine
wheels.

It was stated to the jury that when men are
working in a tunnel, a green flag is always placed
some six hundred or seven hundred yards from
each extremity, and in the charge of a man or boy,
as a caution to drivers to proceed slowly. Balston
and his men were all unknown to the contractor ;
and the absence of Balston's boy from the green
flag impressed the engine-driver with the belief
that the work was ended.

A great deal of evidence was gone into, and
the room was cleared for deliberation. In about
20 minutes the jury returned a verdict of death by
misadventure, accompanied by an addendum, to
the effect that they considered the present signal
arrangements in such' cases very defective ; and
that a man, and not a boy, should be placed, on
all occasions when men are working in tunnels; at
some distance from each extremity, with appro-
priate flags to warn engine-drivers.
One of the men, Balaton, has left a family of a
wife and six children, the youngest an infant in
arms. The men and officers of the G Company of.
Middlesex Rifles have raised a small subscription
for the families.

SERIOUS CHARGE AGAINST A SURGEON

AT MANCHESTER.

At the sitting of the Manchester Court of Record
yesterday, before John Monk, RN., Recorder,
there was tried a case, "Dale v. Wainwright," in
which the plaintiff, a dressmaker, sought damages
for an assault committed on the 15th January.
The defendant, John Wells Wainwright, is a phy-
sician, practising as a surgeon, and residing in Bur-
lington-street, Oxford-street, Manchester.
The defendant pleaded that be had not com-
mitted the assault ; and that the plaintiff being un-
lawfully in his house, &c., he gently laid his hand
upon her for the purpose of ejecting her. Both
plaintiff and defendant were examined. After coun-
sel had been heard on each side,
The Deputy-Recorder, in summing up, remarked
that this was almost as painful a case as had ever
been seen in a court of justice. On the one hand
there was a young woman who publicly avowed
that she had fallen from the paths of virtue, and
lived for years in sin ; and on the other hand a
defendant, who did not deny that he had taken
advantage of the opportunities afforded him by his
being the medical attendant in a respectable family,
to become acquainted with the plaintiff, and to
seduce her ; that he continued to seek her society
so long as the small legacy, to which she became
entitled on her mother's death, enabled her to main-
tain herself ; and that when she bad nothing to live
upon he abandoned and left her without the
smallest means of obtaining the very necessaries of
life. When two persons were found coming to a
court of justice, each confessing an equality of sin,
the one manifesting some shame and confusion of
face at the confession, and the other bearing a bold
—he had almost said an audacious—front uuder
the accusation, it was for the jury to say which of
them came with the most credit, and which of them
they thought best deserved their sympathies. In
this case, he (the Deputy-Recorder) saw no way
whatever of liberating the jury from the conclusion
that one party or the other had intended to deceive
them, and by their verdict they must say which
of the two was so deceiving them. The learned
judge then road through the whole of the
evidence, making occasional comments upon it.
He said he concurred in the observations of the •
learned counsel who had just addressed them with so
much eloquence and power, as to the heartless
manner in which the defendant spoke of burning
the poor girl's letters. It was as heartless a thing
as he had ever heard a man confess. For a man
who had recently lost his wife, to whom one would
suppose he had at one time been tenderly attached,
who had seduced a young girl, and who knew her
misery, destitution, and wretchedness, to burn her
letters without even seeing what her statement was,
seemed to him (the judge) a very cold, hard, callous
a6tion. Almost the last observation of the learned
counsel for the defendant was, " You have seen the
way in which the plaintiff gave her evidence," im-
puting that it was discreditable to her ; but it
seemed to him (the judge) that she was to some ex-
tent overpowered with a sense' of the degradation
and disgrace that she had brought upon herself, and
her general demeanour appeared to be in her fa-
vour. The jury would have to say, in the first
Place) whether there was any assault committed. If
they believed her, in estimating the amount of
damages they would give, they had no right to con-
sider the seduction, nor think of punishing the de-
fendant because he had behaved heartlessly towards
the unfortunate victim of his lust ; but they had a
right to compensate her for her bodily suffering,
and such mental suffering as she had endured
through being struck by the man to whom she\had
given her affections. If they gave damages at all,
he would advise that they should be reasonable
and moderate, and not what were called vindictive
damages.

The jury con-kulted for a few minutes, when the
foreman ingnired what amount of damages could
be given in that Court ?

The Deputy-Recorder said he thought he ought
not to tell them ; but upon Mr. Wheeler remarking
that the amount at which the damages were laid
was stated in the record, and he had forgot to men-
tion it, the learned judge said the jury must only
give what they believed to be reasonable damages.
The extreme amount laid in the declaration was M.
After ten minutes' consultation, the jury returned
a verdict fc.,r the plaintiff—damages 401.

PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS IN AMERICA.—The tightness
in the money market does not affect the spirits of our
people so far as to keep them away from places of amuse-
ment. Perhaps they may feel the need, all the more, of
s nnething to keep their spirits up after the anxieties and
tribulations of the day. All our theatres seem to be in
full blast, and the Opera singers discount notes to crowds
of eager customers. The amount of money expended
nightly upon amusements in this city is much greater
than is generally imagined. Take the following state.
went as a rough, and certainly not an exaggerated esti
mate of the amounts received upon any one night at the
various theatrbs,&e.:—Academy of Music, 2,000 dole.,
Niblo's Garden, 1,000 dollars ; Laura Keene's Theatre,
800 dollars ; Broadway Theatre, 1,300 dollars ;
lack's Theatre, 800 dollars ; Burton's Theatre, 900 dole. •
il,6ros 0.
flowery Theatre, 500 dollars ; National Theatre, 400
dollars ; Barnum 's Museum, 500 dollars ; Bryant
Minstrels, 250 dollars ; Franklin Museum, 400 dole. ;
ollars
making dollars
t o Christy
8f M0,n05 Minstrels,
dollars.
dollars Olympic ;
Dusseldorf
04r Of oGla
; Anatomical
Museum, 100 dollars ; ma
Here is a total of over 10,000 dollars expended every
night
in this city alone, merely for amusements, And
yet it may not be wasted. It is impossible that men
'as many de in this city
should go through the wear and tear of business day
wafteriday
ano t and week
recreation
e first daanft
er
relaxationeek of some sort. It is,
indeed,tho one necessaries of life to the thousands
and tens of thousands of our working men. Those who
work with the brain feel it most, but those who labour
with the bands need it also, and ought to have the
means and opportunities for it much more abundantly
than they have at present. It it; for the lack of it that
so many day-labourers resort to the rum shop, to find
in the lights and hilarity, as well as in the drink
of the place, some stimulus to the exhausted
body and flagging spirit. The cause Of morality
would be greatly benefited by any one who would
devise a system of cheap, popular, attractive,. and
innocent amusements for the poor. But probably two.
thirds of the money paid for amusements in the city
comes from strangirs. It is curious to stand at the
entrance of any of our theatres or concert saloons, and
observe how few among the faces of those entering can
be recognised as belonging to the city. There are always
at least twenty or thirty thousand strangers in the city,
and the great mass of them pay at least one visit to
these places of entertainment during their stay.--7Neio
York, Times.