The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-03 00:00:00

THE LATE ACCIDENT ON Tli
MIDLAND COUNTIES RAILWAY.

When Mr. Justice Patteson the other day &fined
manslaughter to the grand jury at Nottingham, he
was dealing with more interests than he dreamed of.
He was not only disposing of the cases of the respective
individuala a 110 stand accused of the crime in question,
hut he was also, it seems, most thoughtlessly annihi-
lating the law of a very great constitutional tribunal.
He forgot that coroners' juries had a character to lose.
He forgot that he was making ducks and drakes of
the legal reputation of very high and learned
authorities. He overlooked the fact that " crowner's
'quest law" had been before him. There was not only
a law for him to expound, but a decision to reverse.
The case required not only learning, but delicacy.
Reputations were at stake—authorities were in peril
—much legal wisdom was exposed to ambiguous mis-
construction. It was an occasion for wary and
tender walking. yet Mr. Justice Patteson went, as
the boys say, "slap at it." He walked straight
through the question, as if there were no such thing
as " crowner s 'quest law" in rerun: natura. He was
as provokingly silent. about the legal speculations of
the juries who had committed Messrs. Lightfoot and
Raven as if the jurymen had neither the intention nor
jurisdiction to decide legal questions at all; as if, in
short, they had been actually and physically shorn of
all perception and comprehension whatever, beyond
that required for the mere ascertainment of facts, and
had had no idea that such a thing as law had ever
existed.
Poor Mr. Justice Patteson ! What has he suffered
in return 1 Or, rather, poor unfortunate " public "
for the public it is that, as usual, has most particularly
to pay the piper. The unhappy " public," in common
with Mr. Justice Patteson, has been visited with a
pamphlet-defence of the juror's law, signed by ten of
the jurors who sat on the inquests upon the late Mr.
Dean and the late Mr. Bolestridge, and vindicating,
with as much display of learning and acumen as can
be mustered for the occasion the claim of all
" crowners"quests" in general, and of these two
" crowners"quests" in particular, to the character
and functions of judges learned in the law. All this
weight of learning the public, or we who represent
the public, are now expected to read ; and that for
two reasons—namely, first, in order that we may for
the future know and recognise better the legal weight
and authority of coroners' juries; and, secondly, that
we may have the satisfaction of thinking, as often as
we travel on ill-regulated railways, that if we are
annihilated by a concussion, or smashed by a break-
down, the jury that sits upon us will probably com-
mit the engine for manslaughter, and defend the
legality of the course by a pamphlet. This would. of
urse, -r• t•••••
We b •v,- • . tee p Imphlet of rte. ;1•
grieved tvel • i-:1 ju• o s who committed \lr. L,gir -
foot and Mr. It-0/ n for tnitnslaughter on a..count of
the late ac•iiiient on the Midland Counties Raale ay.
The hare fact of its eublic iti••n firms a startling epoch
in the annals of eel- lace's' jai its. A coroner's jury
bandying law with one of her Majesty's justices of as-
size is itself a splendid ;ioviAt.:. .I"ht. flaring bravery
a the attempt is alone al ..ost erit)t4h t i att.';ct apt
tniration and syttwathy to Erie men who have ori-
ginated it. Lidt us, at any rate, give the " crowner's
'quest" men fair play.
But the quarrel bet aeen the judge and the jure,
setting apart the qeestiota of the weanded rttaj sty—
thc.. 6. sprrfce injuria fin-me—v.l' the lac ter i ti,d;ap
pity. plain and •tcabzhit;) ward e'e A coilisioo
n•.eurs on the MiqUand Counties Railway, !ran a cuss
understanding between the officers of tha company.
Death ensues. Juries sit on the bodies. They exa-
mine the facts for several days together. They have
proof that great deal too much trouble is taken by
Mr. Lightfoot, and none at all by Mr. Raven (he
having, in fact, no authority to interfere with the btpi-
ness), to prevent a collision. But, by reason of a blun-
dering, and certainly meat unpardonable, mistake, of
Mr.Lightfoot's, the collision occurs. The juries, wishing
to punish, find that the mistake is manslaughter, and
that the excessive trouble taken by Mr. Lightfoot
arose from a"a want of due diligence." Mr. Justice
Patteson comes down and tells the grand jury that
manslaughter means no such thing at all as any error
of judgtnent—that if a man has honestly done all he
can to prevent accident, and yet is unfortunately miss
taken, this is no crime, and cannot possibly be man-
slaughter. So the bill is ignored. And the judge
adds, that if the misunderstanding could be proved to
have arisen necessarily from a want of the proper
means and machinery for carrying on the railway,
then, of course, " such a fact would be decidedly in
favour of the accused—the blame would rest on a
higher party." " He," Mr. Justice Patteson, " did
not see that such a charge was made out against the
company; but if it were, it could not be used as an
argument against, but in favour of, the prisoners."
This we take to be the plain, common-sense view
of the matter; and if the juries, instead of speculating
whether Mr. Lightfoot's over-anxious, but mistaken
care could by any means be brought under the defini-
tion of manslaughter—a definition which describes
the crime as A want of due diligence—had only col-
lected facts to prove that the charge alluded to against
the company, was, in truth, supported, they would have
done more service to railway travellers and railway
pr iprietors than by the publication of 500 legal (or
illegal) pamphlets. •
Their law-learning, indeed, is somewhat funny.

„.,
Their ..hji,ct is to prove Mr. Lightfoot guilty of man-
slaughter, in opposition to Mr. ,Justice Pa..te!.ion, who
affirms that "no man can be indicted tor manslaughter
for a mere mistake or error in judgment.” The pam-
phleteers, therefore, are very learned in the outset in
defining what manslaughter is. They tell us it., is " a
want of due caution," a "want of due diligence," and
the like. Thi,, however, is not at first sight very
inucii it vartan..,e with the judge's law ; and as all
they call orovt , ;.tiri:,t the accu-ed v-ally only artiouoes
to " in utg lent, they are obliged to qua:Tel
a little with the which defines error to be
crime. The, therefore, proceed. Their reference to
" the books" are as facetious as they are overwhelm-
" When a ioioi tileing a bonne lets fall a tile
knowingly, and without giving warning, and so kills
a man, it is manslaughter." fherefore, say the pain.
nbleteer,, Mr. Justice Patteion is wronz ; fir these
is a pa4iable similarity be, weep dropping A know-
ingly from a high station to ki:l a twin, and dropping
down a railroad one,ielf from a high s'arion, as Mr.
Lightfoot did, to prevent people c9ming up it to their
destruction. " So. if. a man have a dangerous ox,"
continue the pamphleteers, " and he does not use all
due dilig,nce to keep him up, and the ox gets loose
and kills a man, it is mansiaughter." And by parity
of reasoning, we presume, they would conclude that
if the ox is, for greater caution, tied up, e.g., by the
heels instead of the head, and it turns out that the ox
in question is a knowing animal, and, unlike other
oxen, is able to untie his own heels, whereas he could
not have untied his own head, and so gets loose, it is
manslaughter (not in the ox, but) in the man that
tied him up, to use this mistaken diligence in doing
Mr. Lightfoot, they go on to say, was in error
He " mainly erred" in going down to Beeston ; but
error is proved by the ox and tile cases to be the same
thing as " knowing and wilful negligence ;". ergo, the
crime. of manslaughter was committed. Again, Mr.
Lightfoot was " in error" in thinking that the ob-
struction on the up-line would be removed in time;
ergo, he was guilty of manslaughter, fur manslaughter.
is, not error, but want of diligence. Such is the logic
of the railway juries.

We recommend these jurymen, who place so strong
a reliance on their own versions of the precedents of
the broken tile and the vicious ox, to stick to their
lasts. They will take nothing but hard knocks by a
"collision" with Mr. Justice Patteson. If, indeed,
they hal traced the cause of the "misunderstanding"
in question to its real source, and not attributed it to
a mere " want of diligence" in this or that individual,
and that especially in a case where the real fault was
an anxious excess of diligence—an excess and an
anxiety probably caused by the want of sufficient force
for a due and regular organisation—they might have
done service; as it is, they are only making them-
selves ridiculous.

COUPAR-ANGUS.---..-MELANCHOLY AND FATAL AC-
CIDENT.—On the afternoon of Saturday, a melancholy
accident happened to a Mrs. Taylor, the wife of a mason,
in the village of Burrelton, in this neighbourhood. After
dinner time on Saturday, Mrs. Ta)lor, accompanied by
her daughter, a girl of somewhat tender years, went. to
a neighb •uring plal,tation for the purpose ur watherirg
brushwood, which she had accomplished, and, in return-
ing home, she had occasion to g- t over a paling, and
while in the act of doing so, and after she bad got over
herself, the load remained on the other side, and there
being a noose on the string, which was over her head,
she swung on the one side and the load on the other,
and was thus strangled. The girl observing the predi-
cament in which her mother was placed, made all pos-
. Dile haste 14 assistance; but, ere any person had ar-
rived, the vital spark had fled.—Edinbitigh Advertiser,
SINGULAR CIRCUMSTANCE. Saturday week, a
lady, w ho Eldersiie. left Paisley by the second
cla,s railway tram., at liblf-pist one o'clock, for (.41 eg. W.
After passing through the tunnel at Arkleston, she dis-
covered that she had been robbed, by her pocket being
cut near the bottom, and about fifteen shillings abstracted.
All the persons Ares, at b ing, to appearance, most
respectable, it never occurred to her that any of them
could be the perpetrators; but on stating the circum-
stance to her fellow;pa&sengers, one of the gentlemen
suggested that the whole party should be taken to the
stivion-house and undergo an examination. Circum-
stances led the inspector to suspect that the person who
sat next her in the carriage was the guilty person. He
was remitted back to Paisley gaol, and has been ex-
amined by the Procurator Fiscal. He still remains in
custody. He was most respectably attired, had a gold
watch, gold rings on his fingers, and about 201. in gold
and silver in his pockets.-r-Glasgoto Argus.
REMARKABLY LOW flDE.—WedneSday at noon the
river presented a most remarkable appearance in conse-
quence of the tide, which was considerably lower than it
has been for some years. From Waterloo-bridge to
Blackfriara bridge the river was scarcely navigable.
Extra lighters at the several steam-boat piers were
thrown out -to facilitate =the landing of the passengers,
who wro not very numerous above Inidp