ENGLISH ITEMS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 579, 23 May 1873, Page 3

ENGLISH ITEMS.

Mr. Lizardi, who is acen.sed of obtaining 12,000/. by fraud, has absconded from his ball, and his turcties have thus hail to pay 6,000/. Tho Solicitors who were concerned in his defence state that lie has also broken faith with them. The Lord Mayor, in refusing to delay the estreatment, reflected sharply on the statement of Mr. Douglas Straight at tho last hearing, that “ he had a most complete and thorough answer to the charge,” Mr. ttraigbt has since as serted that his remarks wore entirely in accordance with his instructions.

Five hundred pounds reward is offered for the apprehension of F. A. Warren, alias C. J. Horton, who-has forged securities to the extent oi 50,01)0/. A man named Noyes who is either an accomplice or a dupe, is in custody', and several other persons are “wanted.” The Bank of England will be the chief sufferer, but several City firms have also been largely defrauded. An extraordinary ease of self-destruction is reported from Manchester. Some’clerks wore practising blank tiring in a store-room at Messrs. Winders’ Lea I Mills, when one of them, nam l l Roberts, pause! Irs rifle to a comrade and told him to aim'at him. He did so, and was horrified to see him fall dead at his feet. A letter was found in the dead man’s hand, showing that he had himself loaded the rifle with ball-cartridge' hut giving no reason for his seeking death i r suoli a singular manner; It appears that it is cm tomary for Volunteers to point their rifles at each other in order to acquire steadiness of aim. We should imagine that the War Office will now prohibit the dangerous practice. A bigamist, who had reached his ninth wife and secon I conviction, has been sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude. At Leitrim a man was tried for perjury. The foreman of the jury said that they were agreed ; sentenced was passed, and no sign of dissent was made by any jury-nian. Next morning, however; five of the jury called on Baron Deasy, to tell him that they had not agreed to the verdict, and did not understand the case. The judge said it was too late for him to interfere, and suggested that the prisoner’s friends should petition the Lord-Lieutenant.

Four tea-dealers in the Isle of Man have been mulcted in penalties for selling coloured tea. ft was urged in defence that they sold the article just as they received it ; hut it appears that the Isle of Man Adulteration Act is much more stringent than that passed in England. A man accused of breaking into a house, and stealing six cakes, value 6d., has been committed for trial by one of the City magistrates, who said that ho had no alternative ; burglary was an offence with which all the Aldermen of London could not dealt and thus for six-pennyworth of cakes the country would probably be put to the expense of Ml. An ill-assorted couple, who became acquainted with each other by matrimonial advertisement, have been judicially separated! The husband had begun to abuse his marital authority on the day after the wedding. • At Stroud a man who had deliberately thrown his wife out of a throe-story window narrowly escaped being lynched by the crowd. The poor woman is at the hospital in a precarious state. A jury have awarded the handsome sum of 2,0001. to a young lady as damages for breach of a matrimonial contract, which was to have made her the wife of a widower of forty-four, who had eight children. The courtship only lasted three months, and the correspondence was of a very business like character. A barber was the other clay summoned by a dustman for having out off all his hair, and shaven his beard and whiskers, it was shown that while he was in liquor bis mates had taken him to the' barber's, and per suaded him to lie shaven and close cut. The summons was, of course, dismissed, the man being told that he could go to the County Court if he liked.

The doom of Northumberland-house is sealed at last, The Duke has agreed to sell if for 500,0001., and a great street, flush with Cockspnr-strect, will run through it down to the Embankment. According to the rate books of St. -Martin, the mansion was bniltin 1600 by Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, from whom it passed to the Earls of Suffolk, and received the name of Suffolk-house. It came to the Percy family by the marriage of Elizabeth, daughter of the second Earl of Suffolk, to Algernon Percy, tenth Earl of Northumberland, in 1042.

Regarding the lato Lieutenant Wagliorn’s family, one of the London daily journals says “ the attention of the Government has been directs I to the somewhat embarrassed circumstances of three sisters of the Late Lieutenant Waghorn, 11.N.. the pioneer of the overland route to India. Two of these ladies reside in Australia (where they followtho profession of schoolmistresses) and the third at Rochester. It is now stated, on authority, that Mr. Gladstone has recommended a pension of 231. per annum to each of the sisters.”

Paris employes no less than three thousand street-sweepers. Formerly these were mostly Prussians, but since the war they have been replaced by Piedmontese. A silver shilling of the reign of Queen Elizabeth was recently discovered in the coaljofa hoise’s stomach near Driffield. The coin, which was in a capital state of preser. vation,;was dated 1573. and bore on one If* si le tlio profile of Good Queen Bess, and on the other the Royal Arms. A largo number of base half sovereigns, bearing the date of 1849, are In circulation in London.

A terrible scene took place the other day in the Pallinasloe Lunatic Asylum. One of the inmates was caught in the aot of strangling his companions, of whom there were five in the ward. lie had killed one. and nearly finished a second when the ateudants arrived.

“ GUI! SEAMEN ; AN APPEAL.” (Graphic). If}Mr, r Plimsoll, as lie says, has no idea of writing a book, not a few professional authors may well envy his power of telling a plain tale effectively. “ Our Seamen” may or may not ho an exaggerated statement of isolated eases. Its accuracy will, we hope, be tested both in a Court of Law and before a Royal Commission. But of its graphic power there caiqbo no question. There is nothing in it to perplex the reader least versed in technicalities. On t the one page is the clear and naked statement of terrible facts, on the other the pieces JusliJicatives— the photographs of the sham copper bolts, known in the trade as “ devils ” of tho iron plates, (worn through by'chemical action ; the facsimiles of policies of insurance, ofj private, Jett era, of public reports. hi ore than half the vessels lost each yea’- at e Iqst when the wind force is under 7, that is to say,'in weather when no sound ship should run the slightest risk - They are Ipst because they are worn out, or badly built, or overloaded, or undermanned. There are, orratherwere, vessels that put to sea^with the main' deck ,2ft. 10 inches below the wa'or level; steamers Of 1,500 tons that sailed to India with only eight deck hands. Men high at the Board of Trade have said underwriters should see to this. Mr, Plimsoll. in answer, takes the reader to Lloyd’s. The insurer by land has to deal witlqpowerful and jealous Companies. The insurer by sea distributes the risk, through the medium of a broker, whose interest is to make things pleasant, (among a crowd of underwriters, none, perhaps, hazI anting more than a few hundreds even on a total insurance of , r )0,0IW. Will the underwriter for so small a loss offend the broker who brings him custom, or take the hazard of a most expensive’ law-suit ? And if the ship or the owner he too bad for Lloyd’s, there is still recourse to the • ‘Mutual Clubs’’ Of all the vessels lost, often with all hands, from plainly preventable causes,- beyond the common fault of over-loading, col iers and timber-ships are too often old and patched up crafts, too bad for any other employ, Iron vessels engaged in tho sugar trade become quickly corroded from the chemical action of the sugar drainage in the bilge water. Steamers cut in two and lengthened will carry double tho cargo for nearly the same cost. They are so lengthened by some cheap builder, an I, if they strike a rock, break up before there is time to get out the boats. But can captains and sailors do nothing ? A.eaptain’s occupation is gone if he gets the reputation of “being afraid.” The sailor knows nothing about the ship untd bo has passed the Rubicon snd shipped for the voyage. And the owners ? Some of the most worthless vessels are insured for more than their real value—a trick dulyprovided against by the laws of Holland. The worst of all are employed in the coast ing trade, and there are lifeboats everywhere now. After all it is live to one that the men csoipc. Lovers of tragedies in humble life will And sensation and to spare in tho chapter on overloading, and in the concluding pages of tho volume. We would merely quote a late instance. Is it, or is it not a fact that but a few months ago, it was told to Mr. Plimsoll last December- - the crew of a vessel bound across the Atlantic were sentenced by the Deal magistrates to some mouths’ imprisonment for refusing to proceed on the voyage ; that tho vcsSol in question had boon condemned by the surveyor at Lloyd’s ; and, with her new crew, has never since been heard of ? It matters not whether such deeds are due to many or to few. It is reason enough for an amendment of the existing law that one such case should be even possible.