fair in Suffolk, who endeavoured to win her confidence.
By means of this female she was introduced into a house
of ill-fame, seduced, and eventually brought by her to
London. She was taken to a low concert room in
Tower-hill, and left to a course of prostitution amongst
the lowest class of the waterside district. About nine
months ago, as she wandered about one Sunday afternoon,
she saw the door of a chapel open, and went in
to rest. What she there heard of mercy for the vilest
sinners, made such an impression as to render her most
unhappy under the course of life she had been pursuing.
At last, existence became intolerable, and she resolved
to put an end to it.—Alderman: I have been told by
the chaplain that you are truly penitent, and that you
detest the life you have been leading.—The defendant:
I would prefer death at this instant.—Alderman: Very
well. You shall be protected. I shall refer you to the
Ladies' Patronage Committee, with a view to your
reception into the Elizabeth Fry Refuge for the present.
I trust it will be stated in the newspapers, that the
wretch who was the cause of all this calamity is now at
Norwich, engaged in the same dreadful traffic of seduction.
—The defendant: May God bless you for saving me.

At the Liverpool Assizes, on the 28th, Dr. Nolan,
minister of a congregation of Independents at
Manchester, appeared as plaintiff in An Action of Slander
against one Pettigrew, for stating in the presence of a
person named Ford, that Dr. Nolan had seduced certain
female members, and had given medicine to one to
prevent the consequences. There had been religious strife
in Dr. Nolan's congregation; he had resigned, and been
re-elected minister; afterwards it had been found that
the re-election was not legal in form, and a heated
canvassing and contest arose. It was in the course of this
agitation that the defendant made the statement
complained of. The defendant was a respectable serious
man, and had made his statement in good faith, privately,
to Mr. Ford, as a person holding office in the congregation
and having weight in the election. The defence
was double,—that the communication was privileged;
and that it was true. The evidence was contradictory:
some scandalous facts were sworn to on the one hand,
and denied on the other. But the Judge ruled that the
communication was privileged; and a verdict was given
for the defendant.

NARRATIVE OF ACCIDENT AND
DISASTER.

An Explosion and Fire occurred on the 4th, at the
Naphtha Manufactory of Mr. James Bapty, chemist, New
Wortley. To prevent the disagreeable fumes generated
in making naphtha, Mr. Bapty had a pipe fixed, by which
they were conveyed from the still into a tall chimney;
the pipe was defective, and a new one was ordered, but
had not been got ready. Meanwhile the old pipe had been
repaired, and all went on safely, till about ten minutes
before six o'clock on the evening of the 4th, when, in
discharging the still, a quantity of the gaseous product
escaped through chinks in the pipe, and as the fire had
only been partially extinguished, in an instant a violent
explosion took place. The roof of the building was
lifted up perpendicularly, and the flames were forced
out laterally for several yards, and Mr. Bapty, Mr. John
Brook, and two persons, named Joseph Wrigley and
John Williamson, enveloped in a sheet of fire, had to
make their way out of it as best they could. A larger
building, to which that in which the explosion took
place forms a wing, was also set on fire. Mr. Brook, one
of the injured parties, expired on the 6th.

A young woman, Mary Donnellan, of Rinana, left the
Ennis Fever Hospital on the 7th, and endeavoured to
crawl home, faint and fasting, a distance of 10 miles;
she got into some kind of a wretched old hovel, where
she was found next day, Dead of Hunger and Exhaustion,
and her face eaten away by rats.

On the afternoon of the 11th, a series of Terrific
Explosions occurred in the powder-mills belonging to
Messrs. Curtis and Harvey, the well-known gunpowder
manufacturers and contractors at Hounslow. Eight
lives were lost, and two other men seriously injured.
At the time of the explosion, there were no less than
150 men employed about the works. The works were
insured, but not for accidents of this kind—the
insurance companies would not take them on any terms to
run the risk of explosions.

The immense warehouses of Messrs. J. P. Westhead
and Co., in Piccadilly-street, Manchester, were wholly
Destroyed by Fire on the night of the 13th. The
building, erected twelve or thirteen years ago, was an
exceedingly fine pile of warehouses, forming the centre
of a block of shops and warehouses fronting the Royal
Infirmary. The fire occurred under very extraordinary
circumstances. The packers and some of the
warehousemen and clerks were engaged in making up some
heavy orders for goods to go by railway, till after eleven
o'clock at night. On leaving the premises, the clerk
whose duty it was to examine the various rooms to see
that all was safe, called another young man to accompany
him, and, together, they made the interior circuit
of the interior of the warehouse, leaving it under the
persuasion that all was safe. Yet scarcely had the
youth who carried the keys to their usual place of deposit
for the night, less than two miles distant, reached there,
when he was overtaken with the alarm that the premises
were on fire. The fire is supposed to have broken out in
the top storey, or top storey but one, and was discovered
a little before twelve o'clock, but from what it originated
is not known. Property worth more than £100,000,was
destroyed, and the insurance reached but £82,000. The
buildings had five shafts piercing each floor, and covered
by a dome skylight. When the glass was destroyed,.
"each of the series of openings through the floors
under them acted as immense flues, through which a
resistless draught of air rushed up: they became centres
of heat, roaring and spouting forth fire like so many
volcanoes; rolls of ribands, and the remnants of partially
consumed lighter goods, drawn within the vortex of
these centres, were shot up into the air like rockets."
One fireman was killed, and another mortally wounded,
by falling walls, after the fire.

On the 16th, an Explosion of Fire-damp took place
at Messrs. Evans and Turners' colliery, in Haydock.
The explosion occurred in what is called the "Rock-
pit," and thirteen persons were either burned or
smothered to death, some of them being literally burned
to a cinder. Eleven of the parties were working in a
drift 1000 yards from the pit-eye, without any
conductor, when the explosion took place; all of whom,
were burned to death. Two others were working about
120 yards nearer the pit-eye, and they, on hearing the
explosion, rushed into the face of the fire, instead of
making to the pit-eye. The men were allowed safety-
lamps, if they thought proper to use them; but there
appears to have been no restriction against working with
naked candles, although the men had to run away from
the fire only the day before.

Miss Paul, daughter of Mr. Walter Paul, of
Highgrove, near Tetbury, was accidentally Burnt to Death on
the 20th. On that evening, Mr. Paul gave a ball
previous to his son, Captain Paul, leaving home to join his
regiment. At about nine o'clock Miss Paul retired from
the ball-room; having an attack of tic doloureux, she
proceeded up stairs to her own room. It is supposed
she fainted as she proceeded from one room to the other,
the lighted candle fell from her hand, and her dress,
composed of white lace, rapidly ignited, and the young
lady was instantly enveloped in flames. She
endeavoured to extinguish the fire by throwing a basin of
water over herself, and her screams alarmed the
attendants; but before their efforts could subdue the
flames she was so severely burnt as to leave no hopes of
recovery, and three days after she expired.

Ten persons were Poisoned at Stow Bardolph, in
Norfolk, on the 20th. The family, consisting of Mr. and
Mrs. Page, their son, Mr. Page's two sisters, a governess,
a man servant, and three female servants, sat down to
breakfast, and partook of tea, sweetened by some white
sugar, purchased at Downham by Mrs. Page. After
drinking the tea, Mr. Page complained that he felt sick,
and attributed it to the sugar. It was then examined,
and a few particles of white substance were discovered
in the basin. One of the females present remarked that
it was very likely that the stuff was put in to cheapen