The Miner and Workman's Advocate. — 1864-08-13 (London, England)

SUMMARY.  A terrible accident occurred at Gravesend ak an early hour on Saturday morning. Some men were engaged in cleaning out a cesspool, when the pestiferous fumes suffocated one of them, and he fell off the ladder on which he was standing. Another man went down to recover him, when he, too, was suffocated with the stench and fell in. The police were sent for, and a sergeant tried to recover the bodies, when, shocking to tell, he became the third victim of the pestilential vapours. The foul air was at last expelled by the means of a "fire annihilator," when the three men were got out, but life was extinct in all of them.  Two railway accidents have lately occurred. On Friday week a labouring man, who was working on the North-Western line, near Sudbury, appeared to have become bewildered by the coming up of three trains on as many lines of rail, and was caught by the buffer of the engine of one of them, and driven up against a carriage with such force that his death was instantaneous. The other accident, which was fortunately riot attended with fatal cons,. quenc,es, took place on the old Liverpool and Manchester line, near Trafford. The engine of a passenger train going to Liverpool got off the rails. A luggage train pulled up in time, but a passenger train, coming from a different line, ran into the luggage train before it could be stopped, and the shock was severely felt by the passengers. One gentleman was taken out of a carriage insensible. The inquiry into the murder of Mr. Briggs on the North London Railway was resumed by the coroner on Monday last. The witnesses examined were Mr. Death, the Jeweller; the woman at whose house the suspected man Lodged; the wife of the cabman who gave the first clue to him, and some of his companions. It will be found that the statements they made are only repetitions of what has been already published, corroborating, but not carrying further, the suspicions that already attach to the Geitnan who is now pursued across the Atlantic. It will be remembered that the cabman who first gave the information, and some other important witnesses, have gone to America to give their evidence before the courts there, in order to secure Muller's extradition. The private, Cooper, who was shot at the ‘Vimbleclon competition by one of his comrades i while engaged n marking at one of the rifle targets, died on Tuesday afternoon. There was never much hope of him from the first,  but, as he lingered so long, faint hopes began to be entertained that he might, after all, survive. A correspondence, bearing gratifying testimony to his character and his conduct under the prospect of death, has ta,l:-.en place, and is now published, between one of the clergymen at Wimbledon and Cooper's commanding officer:: . .  The young man i'arker, who was —convicted at the la-it assizes of the murder of his mother by shooting her with a gun, was executed on Wednesday morning at ottingham in front of the county goal. The condemned man was very penitent, but to the last he denied that he intended to do harm to either of his parents. There was a large crowd of persons present to witness the execution, and their behaviour was, upon the whole, creditable to them. An inquest was held on Wednesday at Millwall on the body of a workman at some engineering works there. A travelling crane was employed to lift a boiler into its place, but from some cause the boiler dragged the crane out of its place, and jerked three men off the stage to the ground. They were all injured; but one, named Smith, had his skull fractured. The jury returned a verdict of "Accidental death." A serious fire was discovered on Tuesday night in St. Peter's Church. Southend, near Croydon. The fire was caused by the carelessness of some workmen who were engaged in the repair of the spire. Considerable damage was done before the flames were subdued, and the spire was totally destroyed.