The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-01-04 00:00:00

—On Thursday morning last, a little after nine o'clock,
whilst the family were at breakfast, some thief or thieves

house in Perey-street occupied by Mr.
Thacker, proprietor of the Standard, and carried away a
plate basket which was on a table in the lobby, containing
four table spoons, two dessert spoons, one salt spoon, one
tea spoon, and four dinner forks. They afterwards had
the audacity to enter the dining-room at the back part of
the house, from which they abstracted a new over- coat
belonging to Mr. Thacker. It appears that, after having
taken into the breakfast room the plate required for use
at that time, the servant placed the basket on the table
in the lobby, and then went on a short errand, incautiously
leaving the front door open, and it was during her absence
that the robbery was committed. The theft was first
discovered on Mr. Thacker going into the dining room for
his over-coat, when he was astonished to find it non est.

entered the

DEATH OF MR. JOHN MAcm.---We deeply regret to
have to announce the death of this highly respectable
and estimable gentleman. Although only confined to the
house for a few weeks, his health, we understand, had
been on the decline for some time past. Mr. Macfie was
long actively engaged in business ; and even then he was
a warm friend of many of those philanthropic and chari-
table institutions, to the support and promotion of which
the dictates of his warm-hearted benevolence led him to
devote so much of the leisure of his later years. As an
office-bearer in the Church of Scotland he always felt
deeply interested in her prosperity; while he was a liberal,
and often a munificent contributor to the funds of her
missionary and other Christian schemes. Mr. Macfie's
death will be sincerely regretted by a wide circle of friends,
to whom his kindly disposition, his unbounded hospitality,
and invariable urbanity had justly endeared him.—Edin-
burgh Advertiser.—Mr. Macfie was a near relative of the
Messrs. Macfie, sugar refiners, of this town.

Ctiwaous CASE OF CHILD MURDER IN LIVERPOOL.—
On Wednesday, at the Coroner's Court, a verdict of
wilful murder against some person or persons unknown,
in the case of the death of a child, whose body was found
under the following circumstances, was returned :—On
Tuesday night police-officer M`Grane, whilst parading
Washington street, (St. James's-road,) saw a basket
lying upon the parapet, which, upon examination, was
found to contain the dead body of a newly-born full-grown
female child. On the previous night, as Eliza Hampton,
servant to Mr. Bremner, Washington-street, was return-
ing home, after discharging an errand, a man whom she
did not know pointed out to her a basket lying in the
street, which, he said, had a suspicious look. Strange
to say, she went home, and did not mention the circum-
stance ; and, what is still more surprising, a woman
named 'Whittaker, residing in Washington-street, saw
the basket twice on the Monday night lying in the street,
but neither removed it, nor mentioned the circumstance
to any one until the following day, after the basket had
been opened. Mr. George Kemp, surgeon, who made a
post mortem examination of the body, gave it as his
opinion that the child had been born olive, and that
death had been occasioned by exposure to the cold.

THE LATE ACCIDENTS ON THE LONDON AND NORTH-
WESTERN RAILWAY.—Amongst the passengers injured
by the accident to the five o'clock train from Birmingham
to Liverpool, Manchester, and Chester, on Christmas eve,
was Mrs. Girviii, of this town. She suffered a fracture
of the scapula. About nineteen or twenty passengers in
all were injured more or less, but fortunately none of
them were killed. The Rev. Mr. Allen, of Hanmer, in
Wales, was much hurt, and Mr. Conry, of Turner-street,
Manchester, had the splinter bone of one leg broken, and
his head badly bruised. The adjourned inquest on the
body of the guard, John Bartholomew, who was killed by
the accident which happened to the up express train, on
Wednesday, the 22d, was concluded at Harrow, on Wed-
nesday last. The jury returned a verdict, " That the
deceased, John Bartholomew, was accidentally killed by
the breaking of the tire of the leading wheel of engine
289, on the London and North-western railway, in conse-
quence of such tire having an imperfect weld of iron in its
manufacture." The jury added their opinion that greater
care and improvements ought to be adopted in the testing
of weldings, and recommended the firm of Messrs. Sharp
and Stuart to make provision for the widow and family of
deceased. [We understand that a subscription, on behalf
of the widow and children, has been commenced among
,the_emproyes of the London and North-Western Cona-
pany in this 'town, by whom the deceased was much
respected.—Ed. L. S.]
CHARGE OF FORGERY.—On Tuesday at the Police-
court Wrn.Wilde, a German,was charged with fraudulently
obtaining the sum of £2O on a bill of exchange. Sigismund
Bcokheiar, bookkeeper at the Emigrants' Home, Moor-
fields, said that the prisoner, whose acquaintance he had
made at the Victoria Hotel, offered him a bill for £1,200
dollars. The prisoner said that he could get bills to the
amount of 3,200 dollars, and expressed a wish that the
witness would exchange one for him, producing the one
for 1,200. Mr. Sabel (proprietor of the Home) told him
to bring his pessport, and on the following day he came
with it. He also brought four bills for the amount of
4'3,200, and gave witness one for 800 to discount. Mr.
Sabel, who examined the passport, said that be would
give £5O on account of Mr. Samuel, and he would give
another bill for the balance on a bank at New York. Mr.
Sahel then gave Wilde £2O in cash, and an I 017 for
£3O. In consequence of what the witness soon after
heard, he suspected the prisoner. The bill was endorsed,
and one signature was William -Wilde. The bill and
passport produced had been stolen out of a trunk at Mr.
Wernwick's, Marybone, and had belonged to Mr. Otto
Berz. The prisoner, who had just completed a term of
imprisonment for three months, on a charge of robbing a
fellow-emigrant, was, just as he was about to leave the
gaol, arrested on the above charge, on Tuesday morning,
and subsequently the =investigation took place. He was
remanded to this day for further evidence.
g e
mand m
n e
namedthe body John Duggan, who was
employed as painter on board the American shin Susan,
g tTE
soTf s —young n
W
G. Owens, and who was supposed to have died from-the
effects of inattention whilst on a voyage from-Charleston
to this port. On the arrival of the vessel at Liverpool,
the deceased was found by his friends in a very dangerous
condition, with a wound in thelower part of his back,
and another on the left thigh. He was at once conveyed
borne, but died on the day following his removal:; and,
from the statement made by the surgeon who attended him,
his relatives were fed-to believe that death had resulted
from neglect. After a lengthened investigation, how-
ever, it transpired that the deceased had met with
an accident off the banks of Newfoundland during
a heavy gale, and that subsequently he had experi-
enced every attention at the hands of the captain and
others connected with the vessel. A verdict of " Acciden-
tal death" was returned.—On Wednesday, an inquest was
held on the dead body of a newly-born child, under the
following circumstances:—A box, containing the dead
body of a child, was found on Monday night, in a passage
in Wilton-street. A post-mortem examination of the
body was made by Mr. 'Kemp, surgeon, who deposed that
the child had been born alive, and that its death had
resulted from congestion of the lungs, probably from the
effects of over feeding, as the stomach was found to be
crammed with food. A verdict of "-died from con-
gestion of the lungs," was returned.—On Wednes-
day, an inquest was held on a cowkeeper, named
John Green, residing at 'Kensington, who had, on
the previous evening, fallen -down on some waste ground
and expired in a fit.—On John Elliot Douglas, aged 12
years. Deceased went on Christmas Day to the water-
closet used by persons working the Canning Graving
Dock, when be fell from the seat backwards, and was suf-
focated. The jury returned a verdict of accidental death,
but stated that they considered the state and condition of
the place in question as unfit.for human beings, and a
disgrace to the town.
A LIVERPOOL -VESSEL BLOWN UP BY GUNPOWDER.
--=Loss OF THIRTY-TWO LIVES.—The Mona's:Herald,
of Wednesday last, gives the particulars of the stranding
and subsequent explosion, by gunpowder, of the brig
Lily, of 180 tons. The vessel in question is owned by
Messrs. Hatton and ,Cookson, of Liverpool, and left the
Mersey on Thursday week, under the command ofCap-
tain John Owens, for the south-west coast of Africa.
The cargo consisted of about fifty tons of gunpowder,
twenty puncheons of rum, a quantity of arms, and some
bale goods, containing articles of barter on the coast.
The vessel was beating about the channel till Monday
morning last, when she was driven by the violence of the
storm to the Sound of the Calf of Man. The sea was
running mountains high at the time, and, despite all the
efforts of the crew, about .eleven o'clock the Lily was
stove on Kitterland island, which lies between the island
of the Calf of Man and the mainland of the Isle of Man.
With a desperate effort moat of the crew {-thirteen in
number) reached the rocks by the aid of the boats. The
waves beat furiously upon the wreck and the rocks. Cap-
tain Owens and three of the crew got on the 4edge of a
rock, from which two of the seamen sprang to the land ;
but the captain, in attempting to do the same, was
drowned. The cook and two lads also met with a watery
grave. The carpenter was killed by the mast falling upon
him. 'Thus five of the crew were lost. Early on Tuesday
morning, Mr. Enos Lace, grocer and shipbroker of Port
St. Mary, being sub-agent for Lloyd's, repaired to the
wreck with 31 men, to see what could be saved. At a
quarter before eight a violent shock was felt throughout
the southern district of the island ; and a sheet of fire
and pillar of smoke were seen to be hurled into the air,
hundreds of feet high, from the wreck. It seems that a
hale portion of the powder was placed so high in the
vessel that it did not get wet by the waves breaking on it.
The explosion dashed the vessel to atoms, and blew to
broken fragments some 30 human beings! But one indi-
dual near the fatal scene escaped to tell the story, James
Kelly, who is still alive, although one cheek and ear are
taken off, and he is otherwise much contused. Hopes,
however, are entertained of his recovery. Among those
who perished were John Creggs, chief constable of Castle-
town, and John Wright, constable of the same place.
Many of the deceased were the active, energetic men of
business of Port St. Mary, and were engaged in the fish-
ing and other nautical pursuits. Thirty-two men (besides
the five of the crew that were lost on Monday) were
killed, leaving twenty-three widows and seventy-three
fatherless children. The explosion was heard in Douglas,
and was supposed by many persons to have been an earth-
quake. Fragments of the wreck were thrown as far as
the Red Gap, near Castletown, being a distance of six
miles. Portions of the vessel and cargo, consisting of
chain-links, portions of gun barrels, swords, caps, frag-
ments of wreck, shirts, &c., have also been picked up in
various parts of the parish of Rushen. Some pieces of
burning cotton were actually found at Poolvash, near
Balldoole, at least six miles off. No vestige of the vessel
remains ; but fragments of wood, iron, copper, guns, and
parts of human bodies are strewed around the country for
tulles.