The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser. — 1826-07-18 (London, England)

AILLANCIIOLE ACCIDENT.—On Sunday a large party, consisting of ladies and gentlemen, proceeded up the River in one of the larger class of wherries. Having spent an agreeable day, they came down with the tide; and it was proposed that all the ladies should be landed on the Southwark side above London-bridge. The females having been put on shore, the waterman who steered the boat strongly reannruenddl the gentlemen not to proceed through the bridge, on account of the rapidity of the current, and actually landed himself, fearful of the consequences. The gentlemen, however, determined on running the boat through, in order tb land at D ptford, proceeded to shove off the wherry from the stairs. They had scarcely, however, got a dozen yards front the shore, when the boat being in the current, struck against one of the dams of the' new bridge, and instantly upset. Two of the gentlemen. one named Parker, many years brewer to St. Thomas's Hospital, and a Mr. Lott, were both drowned ; and the rest of the gentlemen were with difficulty saved from sharing a similar fate. The bodies of the two unfortunate gentlemen have not been yet found. On Tuesday an extensive tire, calamitous in its efF, ere, as poor people are the principal sufferers, took place at Craigie, near Perth, lately the scene of similar devastation. A young woman is said to have been kindling a fire with wood shavings and dried broom, which, blazing to a considerableheight, set the chimney in a flame. Some of the sparks communicated with the roof of a thatched house in the neighbourhood, the materials of which, from the extreme drought, having been rendered quite in a state for rapid combustion, was instantly enveloped in the devouring element. A tnan was immediately despatched to Perth, to give the alarm and to procure the engines ; but as they cannot be granted without the authority of a magistrate, and as some time elapsed before that was obtained, the flames spreading in the mean time with overwhelming fury, much damage was sustained before the engines arrived on the spot. Four dwelling-houses, a wright's shop, and a cowhouse, fell a prey to the flames, and scarcely a single article of property or furniture was saved from the conflagration. DREADFUL Rior.—At the fair of Kilfeacle, on Monday, no business was done, on account of a tremendous riot between two factions under the titles of the Hickeys and Hogana' each party consisting of three or four hundred men, armed with muskets, pistols, bayonets, scythes. &c. They bad been making preparatians for this affray a month before. It appears two men were killed, one a desperate character of the name of Duggan, who had been corporal in the 84th Foot, the same who suffered two years' contioement in Clonmel gaol for a felonious assault on a female child, and who deserted front that regiment since his liberation from prison. Mr. Thompson held an inquest on his body, in Tipperary, on Monday evening. Another man, of the name of Trehy, was also killed in the affray at Kilfeacle; and two even, of the names of' Carey and Peters (the last-named was lately arraigned under a charge of murder at Clonmel Assizes), were wounded. The military from Tipperary, and the police from different stations, were on the spot in the morning, under the directiolt of Magistrates, who also attended the fair, to prevent the disorder; but as these went home early, the opposite fictions came in contact, and battle and death ensued between the deluded wretches. Several wounded were supposed to have scrambled into the surrounding corn-fields, and their numbers or condition were not known at the time our correspondents closed their letters.—Clortmel Advertiser of July 12.