The Sun. — 1846-11-16 (London, England)

NOVEMBER 16, 1846. PRICE SD. LON DON, MONDA Y  ANOTHER FEMALE SAILOR.—On Saturday, at the Lambeth Police-court, as the business was nearly disposed. of, Maria Rosina Cook, a young woman, dressed in the garb of a sailor, was brought in, and placed at the bar before the Hon. G. C. Norton, on a charge of attempting,to destroy herself by swallowing a quantity of laudanum. John Constable, 43 L, deposed that about ten o'clock on that day, while on duty at the Tower-street stationhouse, a person cam? in, and requested his immediate attendance at a coffee-house in the Waterloo-road, where a young sailor had poisoned himself. He instantly proceeded to the house, and, finding the prisoner in a sleepy state, he went in pursuit of a medical man. The first shop he went into he was asked if it was not a young sailor, who had destroyed himself ? and, on asking them why they should know the fact, they told him that a young sailor had been there a short time before to request three-pennyworth of laudanum, but they refused to serve him. He subsequently removed the prisoner to Guy's Hospital, when the stomach pump was used, and she became • sufficiently recovered . to take her to the station-house, when he had the charge booked against her. From the statement she had made to him (the constable), it appeared that she was the daughter of a respectable veterinary surgeon, residing at Clutton, Somerietshire, and having become enamoured of a private soldier belonging to the 37th Regiment of Foot, she had left her home, and had latterly lived at Chatham, where her lover was quartered. The regiment had latterly been ordered on foreign service, and was about to sail for Ceylon, and prisoner, discovering that the object of her affections was to proceed thither by the ship Minerva, lying in the East India Dock, she sold her female apparel, at a great sacrifice, and purchased the sailor's clothe she then had on. She then went to the registry for seamen, and procured a registry note in the name of David Cook. She next went on board the Minerva and offered herself to .the captain as a cabin boy, but to her great mortification found that the captain had shipped all hands on board and therefore did not require her services. Foiled in her object in accompanying her lover she had resolved upon committing suicide, and her first intention was to have thrown herself off one of the bridges ; this she should have done, she said, had she not been told by a sailor boy that she brought with her from Chatham that the Thames was -so excessively crowded with craft that the probabilities were that she would drop on to one of them, break her bones, and die a lingering death. She then made up her mind to take poison, and procured a small quantity of poison at different shops, all of which she swallowed off with some coffee, before the constable found her. The witness here handed to the Bench a letter, which Mr. Norton read, and of which the following is a copy:— " Dear Thomas,—l have overstepped the bounds of prudence and modesty, in hopes of being able to reach Ceylon with you. I have put on boy's apparel and come to this sink of iniquity, London, to enter the " Minerva" as a boy, but when I got here, the captain had shipped all his hands. I have tried to get on board several vessels, but cannot, on account of not being able to find money enough to provide enough of clothes to get to sea. I have sold all my own to get what I have on, and have no money to get others. I have no friends here, no place to go to—but I cannot blame anybody but myself! Think of me no more, Thomas, as it is useless— you will never see nor hear from me again. Remember, me to Harriet and Charles. Don't make yourself uneasy about me. I have no more to say, but remain yours, till death,  OPENING OF THE TUNNEL AT  EfNesMtivAeEceNlebßrAa:fin consequen • upon Our report of thr (From the Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald.) the opening of the railway tunnel through Penmaen Bach will be perused with deep interest. Next to the erection of a bridge over the Menai Straits, that should be in every respect unobjectionable, the cutting through the hard rock of a promontory, so formidable as Penmaen Bach, was considered to be the greatest difficulty in the construction of the entire line. Yet now —and, as will be seen, in less than half the time originally contemplated as necessary—an opening has been effected through the very heart of the hill. Operations, thus successfully outstripping even the quick march of ardent expectation and sanguine hope, are deserving of marked encomium ; and, we feel assured that neither the enterprising will that undertook the task, the engineering mind that presided over the operations necessary to effect it, nor the steady untiring toil by which it has been accomplished, can be too warmly eulogised. Contractor, engineers, and men, ore alike deserving of all praise. The tunnel is a curve of about six hundred and thirty yards in length, being the arc of a circle of half a mile in radius. In other words its curve is between one-eighth and one-ninth of a circle a mile across—its curvature is therefore very gradual—in fact so gradual as to look like a straight line when inspected in detail from within. The span of,the tunnel is ample, and its sides and roof are well and finely hewn, so as to present no unsightly ridges, or suggest the least idea of danger. The stone is hard, solid masonry of nature's own cementing—gigantic basaltic blocks, the anhydrous fused result of the creative power that has pervaded the bygone eternity : and their hardness and intractability formed the prime difficulty in the undertaking. This difficulty was much increased by the impossibility .of constructing shafts er openings from above. None but lateral openings could be brought to bear. Five openings, however, were driven sideways into the hill, and when the workings had reached that length which was deemed to indicate a junction with the line of the tunnel, double sets of men were put on to work away right and left. The result evinced the accuracy of the observations that had been made ; and practice showed the truth of the theory that guided it. In all the parts the working proved correct, the different gangs meeting without the slightest fault. Air and daylight are now dancing in the bosom of the mountain, holding their railway jubilee. The completion of the work is going on with vigour, for Mr. Cropper is not a man to rest too long upon his oars ; and we trust that the period will not be remote at which we shall have again the pleasing task of inspecting the perforated hill to report the full completion of its tunnel.  "M. R.