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which induced the belief that the children were suffocated in bed; had it been otherwise, or had they been previously alarmed, they would naturally have made for the window, and broken it open. A tradesman living immediately opposite, and who witnessed the fire from a front window of his house, with other members of his family, never saw or heard the children at the attic window.

So soon as it was safe to make a search for the bodies of the children, they were all found in the attic by the firemen. One was in bed, three lay together near the window, and the remaining two by the side of a bed, covered with pieces of the fallen roof. At that time the floor had fallen in at one end, and in the opinion of the firemen some of the bodies had rolled from the beds as it fell. Their remains were carefully collected in blankets and removed to the Lambeth dead-house in the course of the day. In the afternoon Mr. Carter, Coroner for Surrey, formally opened an inquest on the bodies at the Henry VIII. tavern, High-street. Captain Shaw, the chief of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, and a solicitor from the Board of Works, were present at the ceremony.

Several witnesses were called, and the Coroner, in summing up, said every effort appeared to have been made by the Fire Brigade authorities to save the lives of the deceased children. An attempt made by the father and mother to save them from the inside had been unsuccessful, and there had been barely time left for them to escape themselves. The engines and men were on the spot three minutes after they were called by the officer. As to the cause of the fire, if it was shown that it was a malicious act, then the person committing it would be guilty of murder. But was there really any evidence to lead to such a supposition? No reason was shown for the occurrence, and there might be a fair deduction drawn from the whole of the evidence that the fire had happened through some mischance. Whether it arose intentionally or not was the question for the jury.

The jury, after a consultation of about twenty minutes, returned the following verdict:-"That the deceased children individually became suffocated and burnt by reason of certain dwelling-houses, Nos. 132 and 134, Waterloo-road, taking fire. We have no definite evidence as to what gave rise to that fire. We are of opinion that the police constable, Frederick Woodger, and the officers of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, especially George Charles Williams, acted with great and praiseworthy exertions."

28. GOODWOOD RACES.-THE CUP DAY.-The Goodwood meeting this year was a dull and singularly uninteresting one, and the show both on lawn and in paddock was not the form usually displayed there.

The following is the account of the race for the Cup:

The Goodwood Cup, value 300 sovs., added to a subscription of 20 sovs. each, h. ft. The second to receive 100 sovs. Two miles and a half. 33 subs.

Sir J. Hawley's Siderolite, by Asteroid, 4 yrs. 9st.
(Wells)

Mr. Savile's Champion, 3 yrs. 7st. 7lb. (Maidment)
Mr. England's Pâté, 3 yrs. 7st. 3lb. (Wyatt)
Mr. J. G. Hessey's Sabinus, 3 yrs. 7st. 101b.
(Hibberd)

Sir J. Hawley's Morna, 4 yrs. 8st. 101b. (Morris)

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Mr. W. Nelson's Chawbacon, 3 yrs. 7st. 71b. (Jeffery) 0 Betting:-55 to 50 on Sabinus, 9 to 4 agst Siderolite, 100 to 12 agst Pâté, and 20 to 1 agst Champion.

Morna jumped away with a commanding lead for the purpose of serving Siderolite, who followed second, with Champion, Pâté, Chawbacon, and Sabinus lying off. They ran thus round the clump, but on reappearing in sight, Morna, having fulfilled her mission, was seen in the extreme rear, and Siderolite was seen in advance closely attended by Champion, Pâté, and Sabinus, the two latter being side by side to the turn for home, where Sabinus was seen in difficulties, and when fairly in the bottom he gave way amid loud cheers from the stand; at the same time Champion challenged Sir Joseph's colt, whom he headed a quarter of a mile from home, and appeared to have the best of the race to within a dozen strides from the chair, when Wells, who had been waiting for the one run, now came with a rush, and just snatched the judge's fiat by a head. Pâté finished a bad third. Chawbacon was stopped some distance from home, having broken down.

AUGUST.

1. EXECUTION OF WALTER MILLER AT THE OLD BAILEY.-Walter Miller, convicted at the last sessions of the Central Criminal Court of the murder of the Rev. Elias Huelin, a clergyman, eighty-four years of age, residing at Chelsea, and of Ann Boss, his housekeeper (see Chronicle, ante), under circumstances of horrible and revolting atrocity, expiated the crime with his life within the precincts of the gaol at Newgate. The convict was a plasterer by trade, and about thirty years of age. From first to last, after his conviction, he treated the ministrations of the Ordinary with indifference, and there was reason to fear he died impenitent. He nevertheless attended the ordinary services in the chapel of the prison with the rest of the inmates, and on Sunday, the last day he was permitted to live, he was present there twice. To the last he denied he was guilty of the murders, and persisted that he had been confounded with another man. Some singular circumstances attended the execution. The Ordinary of Newgate (the Rev. Lloyd Jones) slept

in the prison on Sunday night, and visited the convict early in the morning, with the view of preparing him for death; but he declined the pious offices which, as on previous occasions, were offered him, and therefore the Ordinary was at length constrained to abandon the attempt. For some reason there appeared all along to have been an impression among the officers of the prison that the convict might seek to anticipate the sentence by the commission of suicide, and hence more than the ordinary watch was kept over his movements. This surmise had some foundation, for as the time for his execution approached and he was about to be pinioned, eluding for a moment the vigilance of his keepers, he ran head foremost against a wall of the cell, inflicting a wound upon the forehead which stunned him for a moment, and he lay for some little time afterwards on a mattress on the floor. Refusing, when the time arrived, to submit himself to the executioner, he was pinioned in that prostrate condition, and then, declining or being unable to walk to the scaffold, he was borne thither on a chair, as the clock struck nine, by four warders, preceded by the Ordinary, and placed upon the drop, still seated on the chair, the prison bell tolling the while, and also that of St. Sepulchre's Church, hard by. Some of the officers of the prison believed that he was feigning illness at that time, the self-inflicted wound on the head being slight, or fainting from the apprehension of a violent death. The ordinary preparations were soon made, and the bolt having been drawn, the drop fell, and with it the convict, seated as before, the chair falling with him. After a brief struggle, during which there was more muscular action and writhing than usual, he ceased to live. A black flag was then hoisted on the roof of the prison in conformity with the recent practice on such occasions to denote to people outside that the capital sentence had been executed. For upwards of an hour before a considerable crowd had collected in front of the gaol, but there was no disorder, and on the appearance of the flag the people there quietly dispersed. Inside the prison walls, and within view of the scaffold, there were a few strangers, besides representatives of the Press. The sentence was inflicted in the presence of Mr. Sheriff Paterson and the Under-Sheriffs, Messrs. Baylis and Crossley.

2. FATAL ACCIDENT ON MONT BLANC.-A dreadful accident occurred to a party of English tourists, near the summit of Mont Blanc, by which a lady and a guide were killed. The party in question consisted of Mr. Marke, of Woodhill, Liskeard; Mrs. Marke, his wife; a young lady, her friend, and three guides. They left Chamounix on the 1st, about midday, with two guides, and arrived without accident at the Hotel de Grands Mulets at eight p.m. The route was remarkably easy and free from dangers, and the weather was splendid. Here they slept, and at 3.30 the next morning, having added to their party the third guide, they started on their upward journey. After having safely traversed the Great and Little Plateau, they gained the summit of Le Corridor about ten a.m. At this spot, as there was a considerable breeze, the ladies

with one of the guides halted, while Mr. Marke, with the two other guides, went up higher to see if the weather would permit them to continue their ascent. They promised to return in ten or fifteen minutes.

The ladies beginning to feel the cold, their guide, contrary to the injunctions of Mr. Marke and the express orders of his fellow guides, started off with them on their descent home. They were all three connected by a rope, Mrs. Marke, unfortunately, at the same time also leaning on the arm of the guide, her friend following a few steps behind. Scarcely had they gone 100 yards when Mrs. Marke and the guide suddenly disappeared into a crevasse, which was covered with a thin crust of frozen snow. Providentially for her friend the rope, being rotten, broke, and she remained half dead with fear, but in safety, close to the upper edge of the chasm. Mr. Marke and the two guides, hearing cries of distress, rushed down in all haste, and in less than five minutes had reached as near as they could with safety the edge of the crevasse. They looked down and shouted as loud as they could. The silence of the grave was their only answer; death had overtaken their companions, instantaneous, but, without doubt, painless.

Nothing remained now for the survivors but to hurry back to the Grands Mulets and send down to Chamounix for assistance as quickly as possible. In a very short time a party of porters and guides, with every thing requisite for the search after the remains of the ill-fated travellers, arrived at the scene of the disaster. The search continued when the weather permitted during the remainder of the week. No pains and no labour were spared; a large reward was offered, but owing to the situation and formation of the crevasse all their efforts proved unsuccessful.

A solemn and impressive funeral service was held in the English chapel at Chamounix on the 9th, at which a touching address was delivered by the Rev. M. Neligan, the chaplain. There was a crowded congregation, and all the guides of the neighbourhood attended. Mrs. Marke had only been married two months; she was the eldest daughter of the Rev. R. C. Maul, rector of Rickinghall, in the county of Suffolk. The names of the two surviving guides were Franz Bourgeuer and Jean Pierre Zimbougen, natives of Valais, and that of the poor young fellow who lost his life, and who had joined the party at the Grands Mulets, Gay Crozier Ozyme, aged twenty-three, a Savoyard.

8. EXECUTION OF THE DENHAM MURDERER.-John Owen, alias Jones, was executed in the yard of Aylesbury Gaol, for the murders of Emanuel Marshall, his wife, sister, mother, and three children at Denham, in May last. (See Remarkable Trials, post.)

Since his apprehension the prisoner maintained a callous indifference to his situation, and refused all religious counsel.

The Rev. Mr. Bumberry, the chaplain of the gaol, was unremitting in his solicitations to bring the prisoner to penitence for his terrible crime, but the prisoner only returned his kindness by curses and foul expressions.

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At length he said he was a Catholic, and a Roman Catholic clergyman from Wolverton on being sent for visited him. He, however, only received similar treatment, and the prisoner eventually declared that he did not believe that there was either God or devil, heaven or hell. At one time he virtually confessed to the murders by saying, "I am only sorry that I did not shoot Superintendent Dunham and a Justice of the Peace that once sen

tenced me as well." He was visited by his father and wife, neither of whom he had seen for years, but he treated them coldly, and when they shed tears replied to their grief by saying, "What have you to snivel for ?"

At three minutes to eight the bell began to toll, and he was brought from his cell by two warders. Calcraft met him in the corridor, and the prisoner at once submitted to be pinioned. The procession was then formed, accompanied by Mr. Sheriff Tyndall, Mr. R. C. Ceely, surgeon, Superintendent Jervis, the warders, and the chaplain reading a part of the burial service. When the culprit came in sight of the gallows it seemed to absorb his whole curiosity, and after surveying it for a moment he attempted to go up two steps at a time, but at the request of the warders he walked up in a more orderly manner. Calcraft then placed him on the drop, put the rope round his neck, and the white cap over his face. The culprit asked to be allowed to make a statement. Calcraft permitted him. The prisoner, whose back was towards the people, then turned round, and Calcraft lifted the cap above his mouth. The culprit then said, "My friends, I am going to die for the murder of Charles-What's his name? I forget. Oh! Charles Marshall; but I am innocent." He then turned round again, and put his feet close together to be pinioned. Calcraft at once strapped them, immediately walked off, and drew the bolt. The prisoner fell two feet and a half. The body seemed to fall heavily; death was almost instantaneous, and only one moment's convulsion marked his end. After an hour the body was cut down, and an inquest held.

10. TRIAL OF THE EDITOR OF THE SHEFFIELD DAILY TELEGRAPH" FOR A LIBEL ON LORD AND LADY SEFTON.-A criminal information against the editor of the Sheffield Daily Telegraph for a libel upon Lord and Lady Sefton, in which also the name of the Prince of Wales appeared, was tried at the Leeds Summer Assizes, before the Lord Chief Baron and a special jury.

Sir John Karslake, counsel for the prosecution, said, "I appear on behalf of the Crown in a proceeding by way of criminal information against the defendant, Mr. Leng, who is the managing editor, printer, and publisher, and, I believe, a part proprietor of a paper called the Sheffield Daily Telegraph. The case consists in the publication of a libel which is complained of by Lord Sefton, to whom the conduct of this prosecution has been confided by the Court of Queen's Bench, and which was brought before the notice f the public in the defendant's paper on the 4th of April of this

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