The Potteries Examiner : — 1876-03-04 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

CONSECRATION SERVICE AT TILE HANLEY CEMETERY. •  Notwithstanding the threatening character of the weather on Friday afternoon, the consecration service of a portion of the ground of Hanley Borough Cemetery passed off well. Chief Constable Windle was pre. sent, and a number of the police force arranged at the entrance of the Cemetery. Bishop Hobhouse officiated, in the absence of the Bishop of Lichfield, and was received lAr the Mayor (J. Baker, Esq.) with an appropriate address. There were also present—T. Ashworth, Esq., and Messrs. Rodgers, Hammersley, Warrillow, Hamp•on, and others of the Corporation of the Borough of Hun. by. The Rev. Mr. Boothman read the prayers. and the 39th and 90th Psalms. The first lesson was read by the Rev. Mr. Stokes front the 23ed chapter of Genesis, and the second lesson by the Rev. Mr. Bond from the 11th chapter of the Gospel of John. The hymn, " A few more years shall roll," was then sung, after which his Lordship delivered a brief and appropriate address, commenting upon the importance of the act •of consecration in which they were engaged, and especially at this time when encroachments were being made upon the customs of the Church. The instance referred to in the lessons was a family act, and under the Levitical dispensation the priests had no burial consecration. In the Gospel dispensation the interment of the departed became a duty for which Christians had to make provision, and it was received by the Church that due provision should be made. His Lordship impressed upon his beaters that it was utterly- impossible for a man who had lived a wicked life and died a wicked death to have any change in the grave. Consecration could not im. part h,diness to the dead. What they consecrated the ground for was because it was taught by Christ that the grave contained the seeds of immortality. After further remarks, the precession was formed, heatled by the choir, next the Mayor and Corporation, and on reaching the ground the usual consecration service was effectively read.  I SHORING BARBARITY TO A Wwn.—An inquest has been held at Sheerness on the body of a woman named Akhurst, wife of a tailor. Owing to the man's dissolute habits the family, including six young children, had been living in a most miserable condition, and the unfortunate wife had been subjected to repeated acts of brutality. The husband admitted to the jury that he had threatened to take her life only two days previously, and that he had ill-treated her for twenty years. It Was said that he frequently dragged the poor woman about by her hair, and then when she fainted drenched her with water; also that at times he pulled her out of bed, and turned her into the streets in her night-dress. On one occasion after her confinement, he pricked her with needles to limbo her sit up and do some work. Unable to bear up any longer, Mrs. Akhurst got some of Battle's vermin-killer, and poisoned herself. The jury returned a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind, caused by the husband's barbarity; but this latter clause, the Coroner said he was unable to accept, as it did not come within the rope of the inquiry'