ENGLISH & FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 13, Issue 694, 24 June 1869, Page 3

ENGLISH & FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

[FROM PAPERS BY THE APRIL MAIL.] DREADFUL COLLIERY EXPLOSION. Another dreadful colliery catastrophe, causing the death of at 1 >ast thirty-six persons, occurred on the morning of Thurs day, April 1, in the south of Lancashire district —an explosion of gas in the fiery Arley Mine, the seam in which so many fatalities have recently happened. At 7 o'clock the usual indications on the pit bank showed that the Highbrooks Collier} belonging to Messrs Mercer and Evans, and situated in Park lane, Ashton in-Marker field, a short distance from the bound iry of the borough of Wigan, had "fired," and the news spread with startling rapidity, so that the pit bank was quickly crowded with the friends and relatives of tlio men who were employed at the pit. Upwards of 70 men worked at the pit; about one-half of these were brought to the bank uninjured ; at least twenty-eight have perished ; fifteen others were recovered fearfully burnt or suffering from the effects of choke-damp. The Highbrooks colliery consists of two shafts —an upcast and a downcast, both originally sunk to work the Orrell 4 feet seam, which is found in the upcast at the distance of 280 yards from the surface. In the downcast, however, it was found that a fault occurred which had the eff cts of throwing the Orrell 4-feet or Arley Mine, which should lie sixty yards below the 5 feet, to a point sixty yards above it, or at least 12) feet out of its ordinary position. The winning of this 4 feet seam has been a matter of no ordinary difficulty, for, as the work has progressed, fault after fault has obstructed the progress of the work. The seam, too, so notably a gaseous one, has had to be got with the greatest caution, and every means has been adopted which could be suggested to secure the safety of the workmen. All the lamps were locked and examined by the fireman, no collier was allowed to fire a shot unless the fireman had first examined his place and given him permission, and care was taken to secure the services of the most competent men and underlookers and their assistants. The fireman, Richard Gortley, made his customary examination of the 4-feet seam, commencing at 4 o'clock, and afterwards returning to the pit-eye to lock lamps of the colliers when they descended the shaft to their work. Several shots, it is stated, were made ready for firing on the previous evening, and Grortley was asked to superintend the ignition of these as soon as possible. He went to consult with a brother fireman on the pit bank, and then descended again as soon as possible. He left the pit-eye aad proceeded to the southerly part of the woi kings for the purpose of examining the places in order to give the necessary sanction to the firing immediately after this the explosion occurred —how has not been ascertained, for the whole of the men and boys employed in the part into which (iortley went, as well as the fireman himself, are dead.

HORRIBLE MURDER IN INDIA. A fearful murder was committed at the Colaba Barracks. William Gn en, a private of the Welsh Fusiliers, was on picquet duty at the barracks, and having already had, we understand, two pints of beer and a glass of grog, was hindered by sergeant Webb from getting more. Strictly speaking, men on duty are not allowed to have more than one pint of beer. Green, however, seems to have persuaded himself that he was unjustly treated in not being allowed more liquor, and made up his mind to take the life of Webb. He had seen Webb lying on a cot in a room that day, and had concluded that the room was his; but it was the room of sergeant Francis. At dead of night he took his loaded rifle and two or three rounds of ammunition, repaired to the room where he had seen V ebb, saw a man asleep on the cot, touched his beard to make sure that it was the man, then shot him deliberately through the body. It waa Francis, a »d he had shot the wrong man, though | le did not discover his mistake till he had been arrested. It is said that he intended to murder others besides Webb. anything declare more plainly than this cold-blooded murder how utterly demoralizing is the caateea system, and bow

signal a mistake it is to intensify the passion for drink in the soldier as this system does ? The demand for drink becomes the dominant and all-controlling desire, and a hindrance placed in the way of its indulgence is re arded as a mortal offence worthy to be visited with d«ath even at the peril of one's own life.—Tunes of India. MODERN FASHIONS. The followingis from the Daily Telegraph: —" The other night at the Austrian Embassy the dresses were lower —especially at the back —and longer than ever. Too low at the back, we fear—much too low. We hope that a fierce censoriousness is not much in our way, but if we could pre vail upon certain admirable ladies to cut a few inches off tails of their dresses, and move the produce of the operation a little higher up the back, it would look so much nicer. A y«.ar or so ago it was all the other way. We need not be ashamed to write about that which ladies are not , ashamed to do ; and we have no hesitation i in saying—well, that the dress s were i much !00 low ih front for the masculine taste. Is not the old saying the true one? Women don't drees to please men, though they always say they do ; the fact is, they dress against each other. If Miss A allows one inch where the tucker used to be when the old fogeys of to-day w. re lads- and used to treasure up bits of ribbons, a stray glove or so, some miserable faded nSwe:". VJiss 13 must show two inches: and we tremble at results when Miss 0 and M'ss i), greatly emulative, have distanced tin ir uredecessors in a canter. Young ladie.-, don't do it. The men don't like it—not one of those whose opinion would be of any consequence to you. Surely you do not wish to take ra k in men's minds with ihe ballet gins and the bold who figure in the poses plastiques, over whom the Lord Chamberlain has recently been pouring the vials of his wrath. Sometimes we see elderly ladies, who should be old enough to know better, rival their daughters in this respect. We advise our venerible friends to cover up their poor old shoulders with modest velvet n<" silk, or whatever it may be. If yom g people cannot venture upon such extravagance oi display with impunity, surely toe 000 copious or too meagre matron should feel that it is timj lor her to retire fom the ungraceful rivalry. JJresses, in plain Eng lish, are now worn in Paris so low at the back that a decent man would be sorry ti. see wife or sister of his in such unseemly disarray. What a curious sight it wis to watch the company troing to the drawing room the oilier daV ! There was a row of carriages—a hundred and filtv or two hundred of them. In each carriage one miserable-looking -lady, or perhaps two ladies equally miserable-locking, with red noses, a:.d bosoms uncovered, all bedizened out with jewels, and as fine as their milliners could make them. The sun was shining brightly upon them, and the whole affair looked like a theatre by daylight, or a company of belated travellers going home from a marked ball. Now that tin Lord Chamberlain has kindly alloweu the men to encase their miserable legs in die trovvsers of the period, and generally adopt a morning costume, why should no! ladies be permitted to follow the same seemly fashion? Why should they not he permitted on a miserable afternoon in early spring, when the wind is as northeast as it can be, to pay their respects to their sovereign in high ' bodies ? ' Ihe opposition would presumably come from the ladies themselves Their mothers and grandmothers caught cold in their heads — sometimes, poor things, more serious colds than that—in the cause of loyalty ; why should they not be as loyal and as cold as their predecessors ? But the whimsical thing, the other day, was to see the ignominious position of insignificance to which the men were reduced. On the front seats of the carriages, buried in petticoats and finery, you could just make out the nose of some fierce admiral or general thoroughly subdued. No good now giving h'mself t.irs 1 where he was, there he must stay till he was let out. The whole thing looking supremely absurd ; but what will not women —and men, too, for the matter of that—go through in the sacred old cause of vanity ? So far, then, we have rambled on about dress; but we would not part from our readers in a cynical or unkindly spirit. We are free to confess, as they tay in that tiresome House ol Commons, that in scores and scores of the hemes of England you can still see young giris pleasantly and modestly dressed; and we doubt not many young gentlemen are aware of the fact, if the young ladies did but know the fatal effects of plain muslin with a bit of ribbon, or some simple ornament, a lithe figure, a-d a sweet girl's face, they would not env) the dowagers their velvets and their diamonds. The girls of the pe; iod won't take this view of the question —the young ladies of the period win." The chignon has itself been an offence to the masculine eye in search of the " beautil ul and true." The small bonnet was a compensation, and induced us to believe that a lady might possibly walk without topping over in a high wind. Mirabile diciu, we now learn that the fashion is to be aggravated by a gigantic bonnet, and it is likely that the "top-knots'' of our ancestresses will be put in the shade. " Art is long and time is fleeting," but in the case of this hideous fashion of representing wo men with an abnormal development ot the cranium, it would appear that the time in which it is the rage is very long and the art very heavy. ±)a the ladies ever admire a Greek statue ? and do they ever reflect on the time when the chignon shall be discarded with abhorrence and on the head of the housemaid on Sundays Bhail bo an ever-present remorse ?