spars, for the waves were breaking over them and all were more or less exhausted and insensible before they were rescued. The officers of the Indus, who were watching the progress of the boat with so much interest, no sooner witnessed the catastrophe than they hastened to launch boats, others put off from the docks, and a very short space of time had elapsed before they arrived at the spot. The body of Captain Harrison was found floating about a foot under water; it was quite cold, and all efforts to restore animation were vain. The Coxswain was found insensible near the spot where his master had been picked up. He was restored to consciousness, but died the same evening. The corpse of young Lay was not found till late in the afternoon. The other seamen and passengers were, as before stated, rescued. It appeared to be the opinion of the medical men that Captain Harrison's sudden relinquishment of the struggle for life was caused by apoplexy induced by the intense cold. The unfortunate event occasioned great regret in all parts of the kingdom. The career of the Great Eastern was so bound up in the minds of men with the energy and resources of her commander, that his sudden death excited a painful foreboding of the failure of the enterprise. In Southampton the disaster occasioned equal sorrow and consternation; the shops were closed, and the vessels carried their flags half mast high. In Liverpool, where the deceased was well known, the regret was widely felt. His funeral partook somewhat of the character of a public ceremony; and on the day of his interment the shipping in the principal ports testified their value for the deceased by the signs

proper to marine mourning. A considerable sum was subscribed for the benefit of the bereaved family.

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21. FATAL COAL-MINE ACCIDENTS.-On the 21st January, four men and three boys got into a skip" to descend a colliery near Wolverhampton. The drum, around which the wire rope had been coiled, had been imperfectly connected with the engine, which consequently had no command over it. The "skip" and its unhappy freight therefore descended with constantly-accelerating velocity, and struck the bottom with tremendous force. The poor fellows were probably killed by the shock-but if any were injured only, their sufferings were but of a moment's duration, for the drum and machinery above flew to pieces by the velocity of their revolutions, and the whole wire-rope descended the shaft and crushed the men and "skip" into the earth.

22. WRECK OF A PORTUGUESE MAN-OF-WAR.-Intelligence been received of the loss of a vessel of war through stress of weather. The Portuguese brig-of-war Mondejo being on her voyage to Europe from China, met with very bad weather in the Straits of Sunda. The crew made great exertions to keep the ship afloat; but the storm continued without cessation, the men were utterly exhausted, and it was evident that the ship was sinking. At this moment of despair, an American merchant ship, the Uriel, came in sight; her commander made great efforts to rescue the brig's crew; but such was the tempestuous state of the sea, that some of the boats were stove in; the captain, officers, and 56 of the crew were got on board the Uriel with difficulty; as some boats were return

ing for the remainder, the brig went down, carrying with her 44 victims.

31. DESTRUCTION OF AN EMI GRANT SHIP BY FIRE.-The Endymion, a fine ship of 1374 tons, was lying in the Mersey ready for sea. She had, beside her crew of about 30 men, and a valuable cargo, about 25 second-cabin passengers. At daybreak she was observed to be on fire. In a harbour so crowded as the Mersey, there was no lack of assistance. The burning vessel was speedily surrounded by steam-tugs and boats, who conveyed away the terrified passengers and their lug gage; fire-engines were sent off, and every exertion made to extinguish the flames. These, however, made such progress, that the captain thought it necessary to scuttle the vessel, and run her ashore. This was done; but, as the tide was receding, without the desired effect. As the masts and cordage were consumed, the former fell, tearing up the decks, and thus admitting air. The flames consequently rose with fresh vigour, and the interior of the vessel was almost totally destroyed. The loss is estimated at upwards of 20,000l.

FATAL BOILER EXPLOSIONS. On Wednesday the 4th, a boiler explosion at Middlewich was attended by very melancholy consequences. At the iron-foundry of Mr. Samuel Heath, an engine of 6 or 7-horse power was used to drive a fan to give blast to a furnace in which the ore was heated. The steam was generated in a boiler which had been bought second-hand about fourteen years before, and was quite worn out; it had an old-fashioned safety valve, but no steam-gauge or

indicator; the feed-pump was worked from time to time by hand, and it was the custom to tie down the safety-valve in order to obtain a greater pressure of steam. All these preliminaries having been thus carefully prepared, what is called "an accident" occurred. The boiler had been heated to the utmost, the engine had driven the fan at speed, and the ore was molten and ready for casting. The engine, having done its work, was at rest; the workmen went to tea, leaving Mr. Heath and his two sons to watch the furnace. Perhaps the safetyvalve was tied down as usualpossibly the water in the boiler had been allowed to get too low, until steam was generated to a fearful pressure-but the boiler burst with a tremendous explosion that shook the whole neighbourhood as an earthquake: the boiler, which was riven into three fragments, was forced through the wall into the next house; the engine was crushed, and the building (three stories) was shattered. When the daring exertions of the neighbours had searched the ruins, undeterred by the vapour, dust, and molten metal, the bodies of the father and his two sons were found, horribly burnt and bruised. One son was quite dead, the other so injured that his life was held in great danger, and the father, just alive, but without hope of recovery.

In February, a similar "accident" occurred at Messrs. Tod's, at Edinburgh. The engine was stopped while the men had their breakfast: some went home, those who did not came to the engineroom. In order to obtain a go d head of steam for the re-start, the engineman placed a heavy iron rake on the safety-valve. The cons

quence was that the boiler burst, and the rush of super-heated steam was such that the people around were frightfully scalded, and three of them died in agony.

On March 27, a steam boiler in the Blaydon Maine Colliery, near Newcastle, exploded with fatal effect. The engine was employed in pumping the water out of the works, which it did at the rate of 600 gallons a minute, and worked day and night. It was supplied with steam by three boilers. The whole were supposed to be in excellent order. The two engineers were on the top of the boilers examining them, and having found them well supplied with water, were about to descend, when one exploded with great violence. One of the men was blown up some height, but strange to say was little injured. The other was killed instantly; as were also a man and boy near. The machinery and engine-house were much in jured; but although a large number of pit-men were assembled on the bank ready to descend into the pit, happily none were hurt.

31. BANK RATE OF DISCOUNT.— Symptoms of a withdrawal of bullion from the Bank vaults induced the Directors to raise the rate of discount from 2 per cent. to 3 per cent. The export of gold continued during the month until nearly 2,000,000l. had been with drawn, and the Directors made a further advance in the rate. This increase in the value of money caused no surprise, as the cause of the export was known and legitimate. It has been found that the Indian Rupee Stock" could be purchased in India on terms much more favourable than in England, and large sums were therefore remitted for the purpose.

ATROCITIES ON AMERICAN MERCHANT SHIPS.-The cruelties for which the United States' merchant service has of late years become justly infamous, demand the im mediate attention of their Executive Government if they wish to retain the character, or indeed the condition, of a civilized people. Deeds of violence cannot be perpetrated with impunity without quickly demoralizing the community which suffers them. In a few years an American merchantman will be a floating hell; every boy who goes on board will learn the horrible lesson, and by the time he has strength to use marlinespikes and knuckle-dusters he will be too bad for anything but the gallows.

The British Government have concluded with the Government of the United States an extradition treaty (the 6th & 7th Vict. c. 76), and are known to have called the special attention of the latter to the cases of murder which have occurred on board American merchant ships while out of our jurisdiction, but apparently with little effect; they have themselves shown what their view of this class of crimes is, by hanging a British merchant-captain, and sending into penal servitude for life an American who had unadvisedly indulged in torturing a brother American to death in a British port. Our authorities are said to have fully made up their mind that every man who commits a murder on board a British ship, or on board any ship in British waters, shall be prosecuted and hanged, or otherwise punished.

Several shocking cases of this class of murders have been recently brought under the notice of our magistrates.

Few more horrible tales have

been told than that of which the scene was the American barque Anna. The two mates, Lane and Hires, were brought before the magistrates of Southampton early in January, charged with having caused the death of no fewer than six of their seamen (all blacks) by a series of atrocious cruelties. The yellow fever, however, had been on board the vessel, and possibly more than one of these deaths may be attributable (as was alleged by the mates) to that disease. The deaths of two of the six were, however, certainly the direct results of the acts of the accused.

The first part of the statement made by John Thomas, one of the surviving coloured men, relates to the murder of James Armstrong. Lane, the chief mate, gave an order to this unhappy creature. He did not attend to it as quickly as the mate wished, and Lane, taking up a mallet, struck him with it over the eye. The man "jumped up, fell on the main-deck with his head forward, and then leaned over the chain. I went to his assistance, put my hand on his head, and pulled it back, and I saw that his left eye was running out." Armstrong was then sent half insensible down on the martingale under the bowsprit to clear the earring." He was washed off the martingale and towed along in the water by the earring, round which his arm was coiled. As Abraham Rock, another coloured seaman, was about to haul him in, the chief mate said, “Don't haul that nigger in; cut the earring, and let him go!" About two minutes after Armstrong let go his held, and was lost. Another man, John Turtle, was dragged down by Hires, the second mate, who stamped on his head with his sea-boots. Turtle

died, and the witness swears that he found the bone of the forehead broken in the centre. A youth named Johnson and a man named Frank also died after being illtreated in the most frightful manner by the mates, and, though the deaths may not have been immediately the result of the beating and the choking, yet, supposing the negroes to have been in a weakly state from fever, there can be little doubt that such usage must have tended to produce fatal consequences. In all, six coloured men perished, and their deaths were all charged to the mates by the surviving seamen.

As the offences were committed on board an American vessel and on the high seas, the American Minister in this country sent a protest against the jurisdiction of the court, and nothing remained for the magistrates but to dismiss the charge. The American Minister having, however, made the demand with the formalities required by the treaty, the ruffians were again arrested. The necessary evidence was taken before the magistrates, who were of opinion that four charges were so far substantiated that they were justified in committing the prisoners to gaol, until they should be delivered to American authorities under warrant from the Secretary of State.

The investigation into the case of the Anna was still proceeding, when George Dower or Stevens, the second mate of the American ship Devonshire, was brought, under the extradition treaty, before the Bow-street magistrates, charged with the wilful murder of a seaman named Humphreys.

It appeared that the accused was a man whom the whole crew held in dread, and that the deceased

had been subjected to much ill usage. The first day the ship left port, the mate knocked him down with a belaying-pin by a blow in the face. The assaults were repeated day after day, sometimes with weapons, at others with fists, and always by kicks when down. The ship sailed from New York on the 30th November; before the 8th December the victim was bruised from head to heel, and spat large lumps of blood. On the night of the 8th the ship was off the banks of Newfoundland; the crew were reefing the main-topsail. The witnesses heard the prisoner order Humphreys in the most brutal and disgusting language to go down to the deck, and immediately kick him savagely about the face with heavy boots. The poor man descended some way, when he was stopped by the other men being on the ropes; whereon the prisoner rushed upon him, and by kicks on the head and face, blows, and other violence, so maltreated his victim that he fell from the rigging clear into the sea. No effort was made to save him, and the poor wretch perished. One of the crew-it is incredible how free men can submit to such an existenceremarked afterwards to the prisoner, that the poor fellow was gone, and he did not know how soon it might be his turn to follow;" to which the prisoner said "The was no sailor, and I calculated to drown him anyhow before getting to London." For the prisoner it was alleged that theman had fallen overboard by accident, and by his own unskilfulness, and that all the usual efforts had been made to pick him up. As this exculpation was further accompanied by declarations of witnesses that they had never seen the

prisoner strike or ill-use the deceased, and that he did nothing whatever to him at the time he went overboard, the magistrate thought that they proved rather too much, and that it was the duty of the United States' tribunals to decide which narrative was the true one; the accused was therefore ordered to be retained in custody, to be handed over to the American authorities. The ruffian was convicted at New York of manslaughter, and sentenced to three years' confinement and a fine of 300 dollars.

At the same time, a seaman of the American ship, Wizard King, died within our jurisdiction; and a coroner's inquest was held on his body. The jury, however, found that he died of exhaustion, and that he was grossly and cruelly neglected. The details of the cruelty of the officers to the unfortunate man were of the grossest description.

Charges of gross cruelty, and even of murder, are too frequently brought against the masters of English merchant ships; but they are certainly not so frequent as to be formed into a distinct class. When they occur, they fall naturally into our criminal records.

FEBRUARY.

4. DARING ESCAPE OF TWO CONVICTS.-Two convicts escaped from the custody of their gaolers in a very daring and extraordinary manner. A gang of convicts, thirteen in number, were ordered to be removed from Dartmoor to