The Sun.
London, England, 1842-12-05 00:00:00

STEAM TO CHINA.

STEAM TO CHINA, VIA THE RED SEA, IN FIFTY
DAYS; OR BY THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE it
SIXTY DAYS.

(FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)
My version of the former von have already;
for, the latter, viz., round the Cape of Good
Hope, allowing the steamer only to run
eight miles per hour, she would perform the
voyage from Southampton to Hong-Kong in
sixty days, allowing two days to coal and water
at Saldana Bay, Cape of Good Hope ; or she
might, if necessary, coal and water at Ascen-
sion, Saldana Bay, and Singapore. The voyage
from England to China, by the Cape of Good
Hope, is only fifty per cent. longer than via
Red Sea, and in this all shifting of vessels and
land transit is avoided ; besides, as we can coal
and water at our own colonies, we are under no
obligation to France, Egypt, or any foreign
Power, and this is of consequence.
Saldana Bay is the safest and best harbour in
Africa, and it is sheltered from all winds. Water
(its great defect) has, it is established, bien found
in abundance. Not like Table Bay, or tiny
place to the east thereof, which are exposed to
the yearly effects of dreadful storms and ship-
wrecks, Saldana Bay is as good, extensiove, and
as safe a harbour as Portsmouth ; and, morei.
over, it can be got at easily at all seasons of the
year., Depots of coals, in bulks, moored in
smooth water, for the express purpose, where
time steamer can instantly run alongside and get
her coal and water, will be necessary at Saldana
Bay; and unless the steamer can do with one
,coaling on the voyage (which large ones may be
made to do), the like depots .will be wanted at
Ascension and Singapore.
The voyage direct to China, by steam,-will be
a much shorter cut than bY the route a sailing
vessel is compelled to go. The voyage, by steam,
from England to Bombay, by the Cape of Good
Hope, is double the distance of the same route
by Egypt- and the Red Sea, but the voyage by
steam from England to Hong-Kong is only fifty
per cent. longer than the route via Egypt and the
Red Sea.

MURDER ON Tlik-,HIGH SEAS,
AND COMMITTAL OF SIX SEAMEN.

LIVERPOOL, SATURDAY, DEC. 3.—Very consider-
able sensation was created in this town yesterday,.by
the circulation of a report, which turned out to be
true, that Philip Keel, a man of colour, and tha cook
on hoard the bark Clydesdale,' of Greenock, William
Renfrew master, had been strangled to death by the
chief mate and five others of the crew of that vessel,
which arrived in port from Bombay on the preceding
night.
The names of the prisoners are—John Boviman
Randles, David Barnes, James M'Donald, George
Deane, George Saul, and John Roberts, all of whom
are white men, and we regret, fur the sake of our
country and of humanity, to be given to understand,
natives of England.
It appeared.that. the deceaSed, Airlio was a native of
Jamaica, had been indisposed and confined to his bed
in the forecastle since Sunday last, and that on the
morning of Wednesday, when the reseal was about
twenty miles at this side of Tuskar, the chief' mate
proceeded down below, ordered the unfortunate marl
to get breakfast ready, and charged him with skalking
from his duty. The deceased remonstrated as well
as his illness would permit him, and protested that he
was not a skulker, whereupon the mate said that if
he did not get on deck immediately a tackle would be
put down the hatchway and .he would be housed "
out (an expression in general use among mariners to
signify that compulsion would be used). One of the
hands said that if a.rope's end were put round the neck
of the deceased he would hoist the fellow out, and
accordingly a two-inch rope was lowered into the
forecastle, which another of the hands adjusted round
the man's neck, and the party or parties on deck hav-
ing applied their strength to the'ml of the rope be or
they held, the deceased was in this barbarous manner
hanodistderdagogued a
tofh his
distance hammock
ofin
about his
the neck.
Here he lay for a moment extended upon a chest, *hen
the carpenter, who had been roused from his sleep by
the noise, rushed from his hammock and called out to
the parties on deck to desist, as the?, were choking the
man. The rope having according y been slackened,
the carpenter slipped it off the neck and on to the body
of the deceased, and in tifs manner the latter was
hoisted upon deck, where he was placed and kept in a
recumbent posture for about two hours ; but, as he
never spoke during that time, and as his mouth be-
came distended and his eyes, closed, there
is every
reason to believe that he was strangled to death in
the manner.stated, immediately before or after he had
been hoisted .through the hatchway. At all events,
he was dead when removed back to the forecastle ; and,
from the testimony of the medical gentlemen who
made a post mortem examination of the body, little
doubt would seem to exist that death had been caused
by suffocation.
These are the short facts of the case. The examina-
tion of the prisoners took place at the police-office
yesterday before Mr. Rushton, the Stipendiary. Ma-•
gistrate, and a densely crowded court. During a
great part of the examination, Mr. Commissioner Phi-
lips sat on the bench. The prisoners were gratuitously
defended by Mr. Wardle, a solicitor.
The circumstances which transpired on examination
of the witnesses are precisely those related above, wind
tending to implicate the whole of the pric.oners named.
After a full statement of the case, Mr. Rushton
directed the five prisoners (who had neither witnesses
to call, nor remarks to offer in their defence) to be
committed to prison for the present, and sent for trial
on the capital charge at the next sitting of the Gene
tral Criminal Court. •

The Duke of Devonshire's annual sale of fat stock
is to take place at Chatsworth, on Wednesday next.