The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-04-11 00:00:00

IRELAND.

TBE DUBLIN and Wicklow railway will be opened in
Sum next as far as Bray.
MURDER AND SUICIDE.—On Sunday, last week, a man
named Hassett, who resided within a few miles of Nenagh,
whilst labouring under a recent attack of insanity,
drowned his own son, about three years and a half old,
and of whom he was remarkably fond, and afterwards
drowned himself in the same pond of water.
ROMANIST LIBERALITY.--MT. Richard Devereux, of
Wexford, who • has just left for Rome in company with
his priest, transferred, previous to his departure for the
Eternal City, the sum of £14,000 in, trust for Romanist
charitable and religious. uses. In the distribution of this
munificent donation Mr. Devereux has allotted the sum
of £l,OOO " for masses, for his family ;" and it is under-
stood that £4,000 are devoted to the fund now raising for
the establishment of the Romanist University.
AGRICULTURAL RETURNS FOR IRELAND.—In 1852
there were 353,566 acres in Ireland under wheat ; in 1853,
327,254 acres. Of eats there were 2,283,449 acres in 1852,
2,156,674 in 1.853. Of barley, bere, rye, beans, and peas,
there were 339,591 acres in 1852, 349,017 in 1853. Of
potatoes, 876,532 acres in 1852, 897,774 in 1853. Of tur.
nips, 356,790 acres in 1852,. 399,335 in 1853. Of other,
green crops, 121,565 acres in 1852, 120,561 in 1853. Of
flax, 137,008 acres in 1852.. 174,423 in 1853. Meadow
and clover, 1,270,713 acres in 1852, 1,270,309 acres in
1853. The total extent under crops was 5,739,214 acres.
in 1852, 5,695,347 in 1853, a decrease of 43,867 acres..
The chief decrease was in oats and wheat, the chief in-
crease in turnips, flax, and potatoes. These return are
collected, by the aid of the constabulary and metropolitan
police.

CITY' OF DUBLIN CO3IPANY'S STEAMERS:The fol-
lowing list of the steam fleet of the City of Dublin Com-
pany, as registered in Dublin, may prove interesting at
the present time, when attention is being directed to the
resources of the kingdom in steam power for•the purposes
of war. Those vessels marked * belong to the Ship
Building Company, an offshoot of the City of Dublin :
When When
Built. Name Tons. Built. Name. Tons.
1824 Mersey 196 1844 Iron Duke 3l2*
1825 Britannia 219 1845 Roscommon 293
1826 Birmingham .. 232 Albevt 353
Leeds 243 1846 Windsor 454*
1829 Ballinasloe
1837 Royal William
1838 Duchess of Keut 2BB Dover Castle ll4
Duke of Cambridge 369 1848 Trafalgar
1839 Prince 493* 1849 Eblana
Princess
1840 Erin Go Bragh
Presenting a total of twenty-one vessels, in addition to
the Llewellyn and St. Columba, recently purchased from
Government, for the Holyhead line. Six of the above are
iron ships.—Freeman's Journal.
A TRAGEDY.—On Saturday week, John Byrne, Esq.,
coroner, held an inquest at Rassan, in the parish of
Creggan, county of Louth, on the remains of a new-born
male infant, who was found dead, concealed in a bed, in
the house of Catherine Casey, at Rassan, on the 31st of
March. It appeared in evidence by Catherine Fee that
she knew Catherine Casey for about two years ; that she
heard she was very ill, and going to die, and witness went
to see her and found her very bad; she advised that she
should be removed out of the bed where she lay to another
part of the room until her bed was made ; to this Cathe-
rine Casey strongly objected, but upon two or three wo-
men coming into the room, they removed the bed to the
other side, and, on turning it up, they found the body of
a new-born male infant, quite naked, with a piece of tape
tied tight round its throat, between the mat and the bed.
She turned it over, and was so shocked that she fainted.
The jury found a verdict against the unhappy mother.
The coroner was in the act of drawing up the warrant to
commit Catherine Casey to gaol for the wilful murder of
her child, and handing it to the police, when Dr. Pollock
entered the room, and stated to the coroner he might save
himself the trouble, as Catherine Casey, the mother, was
dead ; she had that moment expired. Thus elided the
melanclAoly tragetly,—.Newry x4,aminer,

I LIVERPOOL SPRING ASSIZES.

NISI PRIUS-TUESDAY, APRIL 4.
(BEFORE BARON PLATT.)

The case of Evans v. the Royal Insurance Company was
resumed. The facts of this case, which we gave last week,
may be briefly restated. The plaintiff was in business in
Mill-street, Liverpool, as a draper, and in November his
shop was almost entirely destroyed by fire. He had been
insured with the Royal Insurance Company, and under
that insurance he claimed to be paid £3,350. The claim
was resisted on the part of the Insurance Company,
and hence the present action. Jonathan Leigh, a
wholesale clothier, who, from the 20th October to the
time of the fire, did business with Mr. Evans to the
extent of £404 19s. 6d., said that, after the fire,
Mr. Evans had called upon him to obtain the original
invoices, and that these were subsequently made out
anew, at Evans's request, as amounting to £1,044, in
order, as the plaintiff said, to make them more satisfactory
to the Insurance Company.—Thomas Wilson, who lived
next door to Mr. Evans, described the removal, in a car, of
paper boxes, about 12 o'clock on the Monday night pre-
, vious to the fire. They appeared to be such boxes as silk
goods were kept in. He had seen goods removed before
in this way, and once before at night.—Thomas Kilsie, an
inspector of police, after describing the fire, which was
extinguished about half-past five o'clock in the morning,
said he went to plaintiff and asked him the amount of
property in the shop. Plaintiff replied between £4,000
and £5,000, consisting of drapery goods, and such like.—
John Tallis, a fire-policeman, after describing the fire, said
he found a hole in the floor, in the middle of the shop,
which he could not account for. He saw nothing like
burnt bank notes. Captain James Weir, of the salvage
corps, made a similar statement as to the bank notes.—
Mr. Hill addressed the jury for the plaintiff.—His Lord-
ship, in summing up, observed that the benefits derived
by society from insurance offices were so great that it was
proper they should be protected by all legal means in their
power. It was most important they should not be made
the victims of fraudulent claims • on the other hand, the
company should be equally liberal to parties who, in cala-
mities of that description, were seldom able to give infor-
mation as to its value. There could not then be any
question as to whether the plaintiff fired his house or not,
for, if the company believed it, it should have been placed
on the record ; but, if the office thought the plaintiff had
done so, would it not have felt it its duty to come forward
and prosecute him for the act ? Referring to the evidence,
his lordship said, if the jury was satisfied that the plaintiff
had grossly exaggerated his loss, it was difficult for human
charity to think that such exaggeration was not intended
to be a fraud. The defendants, on their part, were bound
to make out the case of fraud to secure a verdict. His
lordship, in conclusion, left it to the jury to say whether a
fraud had been committed by the plaintiff by an inten-
tional exaggerated claim.—The jury then retired ; and,
after an absence of about two hours, returned a verdict for
the plaintiff for £2,478 Is. 3d.
Morrison v. Lancaster, an action tO recover £2PO for the
breach! of a contract to purchase' ale; between the plaintiff,
a brewer, at Bootle, and the defendant, a licensed victualler,
in Liverpool, was decided in favour of the plaintiff: