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farm of Mr Holmes, in the village of Langton, on the Yorkshire Wolds, by which two men were killed, and six others seriously injured. At the time of the explosion the men were gathered round the engine partaking of the customary allowance of beer. A young man named Suggitt, the son of the owner of the engine, and another man were standing at one end. Suggitt was struck on the chest by the iron door of the smoke box, and hurled against a wall 19 yards distant. The man near him was blown under a cart, his skull was split open, and he was otherwise so frightfully wounded and scalded that he died. Two men were struck down by flying fragments, and four others severely scalded. The elder Suggitt was oiling the brasses of the thrashing-machine, a few yards away from the end of the engine opposite the part blown out, and had a marvellous escape. It happened that the shafts used for drawing the engine about the country had not been removed, and the ends being on the ground were driven by the rebound like a wedge under the thrashing machine, hoisting it high into the air, and Mr. Suggitt up with it out of harm's way. The calamity spread a feeling of terror throughout the district, engines of the same description being in daily use for agricultural purposes, and a general impression prevailing that they should be brought under more properly qualified management. Professional evidence showed that this explosion was owing to the weakness of the plate next the smoke box, which had burst. This plate had been in the engine from the time of its construction; but the present owner, having been bred a shoemaker, was of course

incompetent to judge of the existence of such a defect.

Another fatal explosion took place on the 22nd of this month, at the Wolverhampton division of Rough Hills Colliery. A boiler used to work a pumping-engine had been cleaned out during the day, and was being prepared for work again, when it exploded with great force. The doors of houses at a considerable distance were shaken open, and the two halves of the boiler, weighing from two to three tons each, were hurled in opposite directions, to a distance of 200 yards. The three enginemen were at the moment in an adjacent hovel, which was completely shattered, burying them in its ruins. One of the men was taken out dead, and the second died within a few hours, but the third, though dangerously injured, was expected to recover. An examination of the fragments showed that the boiler had been patched in some places, and that the line of fracture ran along this faulty part.

In February, a boiler exploded at the paper manufactory of Messrs. Dickenson, at Manchester. Two persons were scalded from head to foot, and died the same night: a third was similarly injured, perhaps fatally; and a fourth severely.

7. BANK RATE OF DISCOUNT.At the commencement of business this morning, the Directors of the Bank suddenly announced that they had raised the rate of discount from 6 to 7 per cent. The causes of this unexpected movement were large transmissions of gold to the United States and to India, and the discouraging position of the Bank of France, which had become seriously affected by the American panic, and the pecuniary embarrassments of the

French Government. These circumstances had reduced the bullion by nearly half a million, and the reserve notes by upwards of a million, in a few days. The Bank of France advanced their rate, on the 2nd January, from 4 to 5 per cent., and, on the 8th, from 5 to 7 per cent. On the 18th, the Directors renewed one of their exceptionable operations by arranging a loan from the Bank of Russia of 1,200,000l. in gold, against a like amount in silver. The direct cause of the large exports of specie to the United States was said to be this:

The secession movement in the States caused an immediate and large fall in the value of all their stocks and securities. The British public, as yet slightly informed of the extent of the disruption, sent orders to their American agents to purchase. As much as £3,000,000 sterling was sent by private parties for this purpose. The eagerness of the purchasers, however, defeated their own purposes, for their competition was so great that the securities rose to above their former prices.

7. TRIPLE MURDER IN SLIGO.— A crime, which for savage ruthlessness will bear comparison with the massacre of the Marr family in Ratcliffe Highway, in 1811, has been committed in the town of Ballymote, co. Sligo. A very aged couple, named Callaghan, kept a grocer's shop in this place. They were in comfortable circumstances, and were supposed to have money in the house. As the shop was not opened at the usual hour on the morning of the 8th, the neighbours became alarmed, and the house was broken into. Old Mr. Callaghan, who was about 80 years of age, was found dead in his bed

with his throat cut; his equally aged wife was found under the counter of the shop with her throat cut from ear to ear. There was but one other inmate of the dwelling, a servant girl. On search, her corpse also was discovered in a back yard, near the stable door, with her head almost severed from the body. It is supposed that she heard the scuffle when her aged. mistress was murdered, attempted to escape, was overtaken and slain. The old man was much confined to his bed by age and infirmity. On a table near his bedside were two tumblers, as though he had been drinking with another during the previous evening; and from the appearance of the drawers it seemed as though they had been searched and plundered. The suspicions of the police were quickly directed to a young man named Phibbs. He had formerly occupied a house and shop next adjoining the house of the Callaghans, had failed and become bankrupt, and had left the town. He was, of course, well known to his unfortunate neighbours. On the evening of Monday the 7th, he was seen to enter Callaghan's shop. On the afternoon of Tuesday the 8th, he went to a butcher's in the town of Sligo, 11 miles from Ballymote, and ordered some meat; he threw down some silver in payment, which the butcher observed was stained with blood, but, thinking that it had been in contact with the meat, took no further notice. As the butcher's lad followed him with the meat, he was found to be much intoxicated, and fell three times. The boy informed the police of his condition, and the police, in order to his security, took him into custody. On searching him there were found, beside other

money, 377. in notes, which were saturated with blood. The next morning, being quite recovered, he was set at liberty, and his money returned to him. Soon after intelligence of the tragedy at Ballymote reached the police, and constables were despatched in every direction. A mounted officer traced Phibbs to a place called Riverstown, where he came up with him and arrested him. He was again stupidly drunk. On searching him, the bloody notes were again found, and besides, two razors, a coat, and two shirts, all stained with blood, and other articles, all of which were recognized as having been the property of the murdered Callaghan. The accused had also been observed, on the morning after the murder, to take letters from his coat-pocket, tear them, and scatter the fragments as he went along. These fragments having been collected and put together, a complete envelope was formed, which bore an address to the deceased, and which the postmark proved to have been duly delivered. Notwithstanding the cogency of these proofs, and other evidence which made the case stronger, when Phibbs was tried at the Sligo assizes the Crown could not obtain a conviction. Eleven of the jurors were agreed as to his guilt; but the twelfth man held out against all argument, and the jury were discharged without giving a verdict. He was tried at the next assizes, found guilty, and executed. He confessed his guilt, and described the places where he had concealed his plunder.

7. A MAN KILLED BY A LION.The dominion of man over the brute creation has, very naturally,

been a constant topic of self-laudation. The spectacle of the strength of the horse, and the ox, and the elephant, of the sagacity of the dog, compelled to subserve to the convenience of their appointed master, has become so trite, that, though still serving to round the periods of the moralist and rhetorician, it has ceased to be a subject of ordinary notice. The attention of the vulgar to this ordinance of God, can only be roused by the exhibition of man's supremacy exercised over the savage inhabitants of the desert, whose ferocity can be tamed only in individual examples, and whose subjugation can be made of no utility to man. Accordingly, the sight of lions and tigers subdued to the will of a master, has always been a favourite spectacle with the populace. Whether an exhibition, of which danger either to the exhibitor or to the spectators is always an essential though unavowed attraction, should be permitted, is a question for the legislature: the public will go to see it, always protesting their disapproval of "such exhibitions," and their conviction that " some day something dreadful will happen."

Formerly-that is, in modern times, for the practices of the Roman amphitheatre need not be now referred to-the showman and his assistants had the danger to themselves, the exhibition taking place within the dens appropriated to the animals, while the spectators sat free from danger, if not from fear. When Van Amburgh, the lion-tamer, exhibited his really wonderful command over his brute subjects on the public stage, a strong iron grating secured the audience from a sudden spring. Since

his time, lion-tamers have become common, and competition has driven them to devise new feats of hardihood. One of these devices was, strangely enough, entirely at the expense of the spectators; for, while the tamer went through no more than his predecessors, the bars were removed, and no physical barrier parted the audience from the savage beasts. The spectacle thus spiced proved highly attractive. At length the forebodings of the prophesiers came true-something dreadful did happen-a lion exhibited at Astley's killed one of his keepers in a very picturesque manner; and the man-slayer and his fellow-brutes, going through their performances the same and every subsequent evening, drew great houses.

The tragedy for a horrible event it was, although it seemed to have on the public the effect merely of a sensation "-happened in this manner :-Crockett, the lion-conqueror, had for some time exhibited at Astley's four lions "known to be very ferocious," one of them loose upon the stage. These animals were usually kept confined in one large den at the back of the stage; but one of them being at this time sick, he was placed in a smaller den close by. On the morning of Monday, an under-groom named Smith entered a part of the theatre called "The Ride," being the space where the actors, equestrian and pedestrian, assemble before going on the stage. Almost immediately afterwards, the head-groom heard a noise, which he thought was occasioned by a stag having broke loose and attacked Smith. He entered the room to kick off the assailant, but saw nothing more than the

feet and wooden shoes of Smith kicking upon the floor; for, happening to look round, he saw a lion approaching him, as though about to spring on him. He instantly slipped back, and shut the door, leaving Smith to his fate. In fact, the three lions had got loose, and one of them, on Smith entering the room, had attacked the unfortunate man, whose feet and shoes the head-groom had seen beating the floor as the lion carried him about the room, "shaking him as a dog would a rat." The assault had been actually witnessed by another groom, who stated, that soon after Smith entered the harness-room, adjoining the Ride, he heard the poor fellow cry, "Oh! oh!" in a tone of affright. He saw him attempt to pass through the door, when at that moment the lion sprang upon him and tore him back the door then closed. When the terrified men regained courage, they cautiously opened a small wicket-door, and peeping in, saw the lion stalking about with his victim in his mouth, and occasionally shaking him. Smith then appeared to be quite dead. The lion - conqueror having arrived, courageously entered the Ride. The body of Smith was then lying, face upwards, close to the door, and one of the lions was sitting over it like a dog over a bone. The attack upon poor Smith seems to have been rather an act of instinct than of ferocity, for the lion followed his master when called with the docility of a dog; another was playing with some flowers; and the third, which had got into one of the boxes, was secured without difficulty.

The surgeon who examined the body of Smith, a very short time

On the

after the occurrence, found life quite extinct. The countenance exhibited a degree of calmness and composure by no means indicative of suffering, rather implying that death was instantaneous. The wounds were very numerous, but chiefly in two localities. head and neck were thirty-five. Some of these had inflicted a great injury upon the head, and one of them, a bite, had penetrated to the cervical vertebræ. On the right groin and thigh were forty-five wounds, some deep, some superficial. The inference was, that the wounds on the head had been caused by the paws of the beast when it first sprung upon its victim, and that, having thus crushed him, it seized him with its teeth in the neck, and had thus inflicted almost instantaneous death; and that then dropping him, it had seized him by the groin and so carried him about and shaken him.

The lions appear to have escaped from their den through the carelessness of Smith himself, who had failed to secure properly a sliding panel by which the den was entered. The lions had been thus enabled to scratch the panel aside, and so reach a carpet which was placed round the den of the sick lion. In their vigorous play to draw this into their own den, they had succeeded in pulling aside other fastenings, and so got loose into the Ride. They do not seem to have been in any way enraged or excited, and would probably have taken no notice of Smith had the poor fellow acted courageously; but, when he turned his back and fled, one sprang upon him from that instinctive feeling which induces every beast of prey to chase any animal that flees from it.

14. FATAL RAILWAY ACCIDENT

NEAR LINCOLN.-Another fatal accident, due to the severity of the weather, happened on the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway, near Greetwell, to the mail train due at Lincoln at 7.45

P.M.

The train was not proceeding at more than the usual speed of thirty miles an hour, and had entered the Greetwell cutting, when the tire of the engine-wheel came off; the engine ran off the rails, dragging the carriages after it, and ran into the bank, which at this point is from six to eight feet high, and then turned over on its side. The cleaner, Frederick Tayler, was crushed to death beneath the engine. The engine-driver was thrown upon the hedge, and his head was severely cut. The tender was thrown upon its side in such a position that it formed an arch, under which the stoker crept, and so escaped uninjured. A young man named Clarke, and his father, were in a compartment near the head of the train. On the first idea of danger, the father jumped over the seat in front of him, reached the centre of the carriage just as the end was forced in, and escaped with a few bruises; but the son, who does not appear to have left his seat, received injuries which caused his death on the following evening.

18. EXECUTION AT GLASGOW.This morning, Patrick Lunnay, who was convicted at the last Glasgow Winter Circuit Court, of the murder of James Cassidy, mason, Alexandria, Dumbartonshire, on the 11th of November last, suffered the extreme penalty of the law in front of the County Buildings, Dumbarton. The murder for which the penalty of death was thus inflicted, was of a very

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