The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-09-30 00:00:00

THE THANKSGIVING PRAYER

The following is the prayer of thanksgiving to Almighty
God for the great blessing which, in his mercy and goodness,
He bath vouchsafed to this nation, in the late abundant har-
vest, to be used at morning and evening service, after the
general thanksgiving, in all churches and chapels in England
and Wales, and in the town of Berwick-on-Tweed. on Sun-
day, the 2nd of October next, as ordered by her Majesty in
council :
" 0 God, through whose good Providence the earth yield-
eth food for the sustenance of man, we offer unto Thee our
hearty thanksgivings for Thy late mercy vouchsafed to us,
in blessing the labours of our husbandmen with plentiful
increase, and preserving the fruits of the field for our use.
Give us grace, we beseech Thee, that whilst we receive Thy
bounty with thankfulness, we may regard the blessings be-
stowed on us as a call to repentance, and turn from the evil
of our ways. Remove from amongst us all causes of strife
and contention ; put an end to our unhappy divisions ; and
grant that all conditions of men, impressed with the fear of
iThy judgments, and trusting in Thy fatherly care, may faith-
tully serve Thee, in loyalty. to their Sovereign, in obedience
ro the laws, in kindly affection one to another, and in dutiful
esignation to Thy will ; that so, under the guidance of Thy
Holy Spirit, we may pass through this world in peace and
contentment, and finally, by Thy mercy, attain everlasting
life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

THE GREAT FIRE

Thd following appeared in our Second Edition only of

Tuesday last

Standard-office, Two o'clock, Tuesday, Sept. 27

The lofty N.W. corner of Rayner's warehouse in Formby-
street still stands, peering over the centre of the ruins, a sad
monument of the surrounding destruction. The Rotunda
Tavern (formerly a windmill) was, last night, during the
second outbreak of the tire, crowded with persons of both
sexes, whose figures showed in the glare cf the flames and
lurid smoke from the adjacent masses—which still burned
fiercely here and there, as well as from the livelier
brilliancy of the premises at the bottom of Crompton-street—
like warriors and Amazons on an outer bastion of a fired
city, determined on being immolated rather than surrender.
The yards and outbuildings of the premises immediately
burning in Crompton-street extended southward to withi❑ a
short distance of the Rotunda, and but for the exertions of
the fire-police, the parties within and on the top would have
shown " the better part of courage " by an evacuation of
their stronghold, which, with other buildings, including a
pile of cottages on the east, would certainly have taken fire•
We may add that the stable in which the horses were
burnt was covered with timber and tarred paper. The fire
reached the shed nearer Waterloo-road, formerly belonging
to Mr. Maw, which was partly burnt, the flames reaching
the premises of Mr. Sixsmith at the lower corner, which,
however, escaped.
The engines have been busily at work all night and this
morning. The fire is much subdued, and is now confined
within the boundaries stated, so that no further loss will
accrue.

ADJOURNED INQUEST ON THE BODIES OF THE
THREE MEN WHO PERISHED THROUGH
THE FIRE OF FRIDAY.

This day, shortly after eleven o'clock, the inquest on the
bodies of the three men, Martin, Smith, and Bell, who came
to their death by the fire, (and of which we liave furnished
the evidence adduced yesterday,) was resumed, before Mr.
Curry, with a view, we believe, to a clearer elucidation of the
facts as bearing on the cause or origin of the conflagration.
Nothing definite was, however, elicited ; but as the evidence,
though not taken—with the exception of a small portion of
it—upon oath, is interesting, and as the verdict, moreover,
goes to exonerate an individual who had previously been
deemed culpable of, at least, negligence, we supply an outline
of the principal facts :
Catherine Coyle, wife of Bernard Coyle, the watchman
employed to look after the several premises in Crompton-
street, in which the fire first broke out, was called, and in a
preliminary investigation (without being sworn) stated some
particulars of the occurrences of Friday morning, with rela-
tion to herself and her husband, which were not afterwards
taken on oath, as being irrelevant to the object in view. She
supplied, it appeared, a hatchet, thrown from the window of
the house, nearly opposite Mr. Peniston's, to the police
officers who first came up that morning, and with which they
broke open the gate.
Mr. Peniston himself was present at the inquiry, and
handed to the Coroner an epistle written on half a sheet of
letter paper, apparently in a school-boy hand, which he had
received through the post, and, of which the following is a
copy verbatim et literate :
Malus Bonus

Behold
Love Reason and Justice
lay

Beauty for Ashes

where
The Poor asked Bread but the Rich gave Stones

Behold the Cross . Adore the Crown
Now Christ casts guilty nations down
In blood and fire millions rattle
The Devil Bankrupt falls in battle
Great Babylon

" Beat your ploughs into swords, and your scythes
into spears"—Read 3 Joel.
Brale tout ELIAS

This epistle is superscribed as under :
Mr. Penniston,
Wood-st. North,
Liverpool.
(With the postmark 24th Sept., 1842.)

A gentleman, Mr. George Wade, appeared in the court,
and requested to be heard in behalf of Mrs. Isaac, as to the
origin of the fire, which was readily agreed to by the coroner.
He said that he was desirous of removing some obloquy that
had attached to Mrs. Isaac, relative to whom a report was
current that the fire had originated in her premises. He had,
he stated, lived in the immediate neighbourhood for thirty
years, and was well acquainted with Mrs. Isaac's premises in
Crompton-street. He could not throw any light on the im-
mediate origin of the fire, inasmuch as he did not reach the
ground on Friday morning until four o'clock ; but when he
got there Mrs. Isaac's buildings were not on fire. Indeed,
they were amongst the last in the area in which they were
situated to be consumed, after taking fire and burning com-
paratively slowly.
After several inquiries were made by the coroner, and
some of the jury, of other parties present, who it was thought
would throw some light On the subject,
Mr. Inspector John Abraham was sworn and heard. He
entered into some details relative to his first seeing the glare
of the fire from Vauxhall-road, about five minutes before
three o'clock on Friday morning. He proceeded to the spot,
where he found several of the police, including Inspector
Massey, (before examined.) He saw the fire first in Mr.
Peniston's only. He found the door of the fire-grate of the
engine boiler, which is a little below the level of the ground,
open, as is customary, and even safe, in " gathering" or
slacking an engine fire for the night. Every precaution
seemed to have been taken as a security from fire from that
quarter the fire WWI slow when he entered, and he did not
think that the materials or buildings had ignited from it. He
found a bench or table on fire in a shed on the same premises,
and it had communicated to the wooden tarred roof, from
which it rapidly spread along the roof of another building.
running south, (also on the premises,) as if by a train of tur-
pentine or gunpowder. He and others got on the roof, to
extinguish it, but were obliged, from the head which the
fire gained upon them, to come down. Mrs. Isaac's
buildings caught fire afterwards, and burned slowly, owing
to the direction of the wind, which was then strong at N.W.
—they being in some degree protected by the brick building
or shed immediately below to the west. He thought the fire
had not originated in Mrs. Isaacs's, otherwise he would have
seen it there first. He was decidedly of opinion that the fire
had originated with the bench, or table, but how, he could
not tell. He had heard that a chimney in Stewart-street, of
the north, had been strongly on fire at nine o'clock on the
previous night, and flakes of soot from it, as he supposed, felt
in Mr. Peniston's yard after he got there. To a question put
he added, that he saw no aperture or opening in the shed
where the bench was by which the burning soot from the
chimney could have entered.
No. 24 police-officer, who had been earlier on the ground,
and had seen the watchman Coyle, was called, but could give
no information as to the real origin of the fire.
The Coroner said that there was no evidence as to the
origin before the jury, and after recapitulating the principal
points of the evidence as affected the death of the three un-
fortunate men, and pointing out the technicalities of the se-
veral verdicts they might return, left the case in their hands.
The jury returned a verdict, founded on the evidence, to
the effect that the deceased " accidentally" came to their
death by injuries received by the falling upon them of part of
the warehouse in which they were removing cotton in Nep-
tune-street ; and that the said warehouse was broken by the
falling of another warehouse at the back of it, which was de-
stroyed by fire ; but how the fire originated there was no
evidence to show ; and they appended a clause to their ver-
dict to the effect that the premises of Mr. Peniston were not
wilfully set on fire.
The Coroner then remarked that the letter (above) sent to
Mr. Peniston was evidently the effusion of a religious enthu-
siast, and unworthy of notice. It was, moreover, intended
probably as an address to the nation at large, and in place of
tending to implicate Mr. Peniston, went to support the opi-
nion of the jury.

---.....-.

FURTHER PARTICULARS

Standard-office, Thursday Evening, Sept. 29

We noticed, in an earlier part of our account, that a great
quantity of oil, mixed with tar, turpentine. &c., the casks
containing which had been crushed by the ruins in cellars
and sheds, had found its way into the common sewer, and
thence into tte Prince's Dock Basin, whence much of it was
laded from the surface into casks and tubs by the boatmen.
A great quantity, however, ran into the river with the tide.
This flood of oil, &c., was at its height on Sunday forenoon,
and has continued to run more or less every day since. It
is, as may be expected, in a damaged state, being a mixture
of which floating dirt, cotton, sticks, &c., form a part; but,
after being somewhat purified, it may be useful for oiling
wheels, or other coarse purposes, though even as such it will
form only a trifling salvage. On the retiring of the tide on
Monday, a considerable quantity of the turpentine, tar, &c.,
which was left deposited in thick beds at the outer part of
the basin, gave employment and amusement to numbers of
men in taking it up. A large quantity of it, chiefly oil, also
floated to the Cheshire side of the river, particularly between
Seacombe and New Brighton, where, during the week, par-
ties have been busily engaged in securing it in casks, buckets,
and other vessels, ranged along the beach.

Eleven o'clock, p.m

We have visited the scene of the fire several times during
the day, and are happy to state that, notwithstanding the
great body of burning and smouldering materials under the
piles of bricks and building materials, particularly in Formby-
street, the exertions of the fire-police have not only entirely
subdued all appearance of flame, but so far cooled down the
before-threatening parts of the ruins, that little more than
comparatively small volumes of steam now rise from some
portions of the area on the south.

Great exertions have been made during the last two days
to reach the remains of Samuel Hodson, the fire-police offi-
cer, who had charge of the pipe of No. 1 engine in Formby-
street, on Friday morning, and was buried instantaneously
in the falling ruins of a warehouse, as before noticed. The
body has not, however, yet been found, owing to the immense
mass of materials that had to be removed, as well as to some
uncertainty as to the precise spot where he met his death.
At noon yesterday, however, a considerable length of the
hose, attached to the branch which he held at the time, were
discovered, and appeared to be uninjured, at least by fire,
and it is fully expected that his remains, dreadfully crushed,
but not burnt, will be found this morning (Friday). The
whole ground and ruins, at the bottom of the inclined plane
forming the top of Formby-street, are some two or three feet
deep in water. From this locality a great quantity of bricks,
&C.' as well as loose half burnt cotton, has been carted during
the day. The ruins present appearances at once interesting
and painful. They may now be mounted by those timid of fire,
if they be not apprehensive of a sprained ancle, or the like, in
scrambling on the loose hills of bricks that form the super-
structure. Several of the ruined warehouses have evidently
been most insecurely built, and all similar erections in future
ought to be looked after under the improvement act. Many
masses of curiously conglomerated materials, slate, stone,
iron, brick, &c., are to be found—some vitrefied into a glassy
substance, by the intensity of the fire in those quarters.
There is a large quantity of iron, in bars, rods, &c., still in
apparent preservation, but of course damaged. Other smaller
rods, &c., of the same materials, have been reduced by fusion
to congregated masses.

Eight or nine engines are still at work at the late hour at
which we write, and the voices of the men who work them,
shouting and singing, is beard to echo amidst the ruined
walls and remaining buildings on the outskirts of the scene
of the fire.

Amongst the men missing, and suppos3d to have perished,
was Jeremiah Tooney, a blacking-manufacturer, who lived
in Sawney Pope-street, and who has left a wife and a large
family.