The Sun. — 1868-01-06 (London, England)

SENSATIONAL ITEMS.—A crime of more than ordinary atrocity was committed by Mr. and Mrs. Brown, of Chatham, New York, early last month. It appears ti at they bad insured for $5,000 the life of their little daughtL a girl twelve years of age. To obtain this money they murdered the child, and, to conceal the crime, set fire 0 the house.—A fire, accompanied by circumstances of unusual horror, occurred at New York on ti) 3 16th of December last. It broke out at two a.m. :a a six-storey building in Second Avenue, where 150 pe;-sons were asleep. The dense volume of smoke penetrating into the rooms drove the occupants in a panic upwards till they reached the garret, when they endeavoured to escape by a ladder through the ventilator in the roof. The ladder broke, when, iu a frenzy of fear, the people threw themselves from this enormous height into the street, where all must have been killed but for the masses of snow which broke their fall. Some escaped by the gutter pipes ; others by ladders. Twenty-three were rescued by the police, and seven dead bodies were found in the upper room. The house was a " model" tenement, and against the owner, who is accused of murder and assassination, the people vow vengeance, as the building is supposed to have been set on fire, and 11 persons perished in the flames. As we have fairly embarked on horrors, we give the story' of Mrs. Boone, the widow of the actor, and he: four children, known as "infant prodigies." After acting sham sensation scenes, these poor children being reduced to the last stages of want, enacted a real tragedy. Mrs. Boone having pawned everything, adm nistered laudanum to the whole family. Perhaps she had not money enough to effect the object she contemplated or the drug was adulterated, for they were all discovered by the police in a state of unconsciousness, and conveyed to the hospital. The family remain in a critical state. To these cases we add the railway accident on the Vermont Central Railroad, which occurred on the 11th Dec. A carriage, with 75 men, employed in rebuilding a bridge recently burnt, was backed off the abutment. The fall was 60 feet, and the car, as it was precipitated, broke in three pieces; one part fell on a shelving rock, whore 25 men lay half-way down the bank; 19 were killed and 40 desperately injured. It is remarked as singular that none were killed who fell the entire depth. Frank Abbott, the driver, has been censured, though, it is said, the engine was beyond his control. Mr. Locklin, assistant superintet_dent of the road, and Major Tenney, the master bridge. builder, escaped by jumping from the train. Of the injured more than 30 belonged to Vermont, and many wore French Canadians. The dead were taken to Northfield, where the accident occurred, and five surgeons from that town, and six from Montpelier, were quickly on the spot. We cannot close this grand record without. giving a big thing in robberies. On the 13th Dec., while the snow fell end the wind howled over Now Yolk, a messenger proceeded to the' Bank of New York, front the Clearing-house, by Wall-street, with his satchel filled with cheques and drafts. A man driving a sleigh stopped and seized the bag, with which he jumped into the vehicle and drove off, the messenger hanging on to the property till he was stunned by a blow on the head and left lying in the snow. The cheques and drafts amounted to $3,600,000, of which payment has of course been stopped, but the thieves have not yet been discovered. Admiral Porter gives a glowing report of St. Thomas, setting forth the excellence and defensive capabilities of its harbour. The inhabitants, he says, " are hospitable to a fault, and they are mostly coloured and extremely well educated." His Majesty of Denmark has published a pathetic proclamation, in which he takes leave of his islands, commending them to the protection of the Almighty in-a way scarcely complimentary to the United States.