their duty as bankers, in paying a check the original
crossing of which had been thus erased, &c. The heads
and chief clerks of all the great banking firms and
companies in London were examined as to the usage: the
evidence showed that such a check ought not to have
been paid without "inquiry "; and there was very
weighty evidence to show that such a check ought to
have been "thrown out and not paid at all." The jury
found a verdict for the plaintiff; stating their strong
opinion that by banking usage "such a check ought not
to have been paid at all"—"not even to the Bank of
England," to whom it was originally crossed, much less
to Messrs. Gosling and Co., in spite of the direction in
the body of the check, and of the original crossing.

A Desperate Fight for the possession of a Railway
Tunnel took place on Monday the 21st, near Cambden,
a village in Worcestershire. Marchant, a contractor,
having failed to complete his contract for the roadway
through Muckleton Tunnel, on the Oxford, Worcester,
and Wolverhampton Railway, the works were given
over to Messrs. Peto and Betts for completion. Marchant
resisted. On Sunday night the Peto party, 500 strong,
marched down to Muckleton Tunnel, in order that
they might be first on the ground. On reaching
the Worcester end of the tunnel, the first detachment
of about 200 men was met by Marchant, who armed to
the teeth with pistols, barred the way and dared them
to come on. The leader of the invading force, Mr.
Cowdery, ordered his men not to strike a blow, while
he carried on a parley. But the negotiation failed;
and peremptory orders issuing from Mr. Brunel, the
men made a desperate rush upon the Marchant division,
and were repelled with the casualties of broken heads
and three dislocated shoulders. Hitherto, it appears,
the "navvies" had fought with feet and fists; but one
of Marchant's men drawing a pistol, he was seized
and a deep wound was inflicted on his skull. This
daunted Marchant, who retreated, and the army of
Peto remained in possession of the field. Marchant,
however, returned with some policemen from the
Gloucester constabulary, a body of privates of the
Gloucester Artillery, and two magistrates, who instantly
began to read the Riot Act. But a second engagement
began under the very nose of the peace-officers, and
several combatants came off with broken limbs.
Reinforcements now poured in; and Marchant, feeling
defeat inevitable, adjourned with Mr.Brunel, in order that
some amicable settlement might be made. The upshot
was, that Messrs. Cubitt and Stephenson were appointed
arbitrators, and the works suspended for a fortnight.

Mary Powell, wife of a clerk at Liverpool, has Killed
her Two Children and attempted to destroy herself while
in a state of insanity. The husband is dissipated and
had refused to support his family; the mother and
children went into the workhouse; for two months the
woman was treated as a lunatic, but after that she
appeared to have recovered her senses. She applied to
the governor to be discharged from the house; and he
consented; then it appears, she sought aid from her
husband, but in vain. She was seen in the street
exhibiting signs of madness; she threw an infant on
some steps and fled; the child was dead, having been
strangled. Subsequently the mother jumped into the
river, but was rescued alive. She told where the body
of her other child would be found: she had strangled
it also.

At the Nottingham Assizes, on the 25th, Sarah Barber,
a young woman of 22, was convicted of the Murder of
her husband by administering arsenic to him. The
crime was proved by a large body of circumstantial
evidence, and the prisoner was condemned to death and
left for execution. Robert Ingram, a young man, was
tried along with her as her accomplice, and acquitted.

NARRATIVE OF ACCIDENT AND
DISASTER.

The dreadful Colliery Explosion near Bristol, on the
20th ult., which was briefly noticed in last month's
"Narrative," was attended with circumstances of
extraordinary interest. The pit was sunk about eight years
ago; it is very deep, but very free from water and
choke-damp. The main shaft extends 810 feet down,
but at some yards along the workings of the top seam,
a second additional shaft, called a tip-shaft, is sunk
from the upper into the lower seam; workings are
being opened into still deeper seams. At eleven o'clock
in the morning, an ascending coal-truck knocked away
the timber framing, and caused the sides of the shaft to
fall in and completely choke the bottom of the
main-shaft up above the horizontal working in the upper
seam. The news soon spread, and the pit-mouth was
crowded with the relatives of the poor miners who
had been engulfed. One woman sat on the ground
frantically crying that her father, uncle, brother,
husband, and son, were all buried alive. The attempt to
rescue the miners was instantly commenced, but it was
perilous and slow. Only three men could work at once,
and they were in constant danger from the looseness of
the shaft-sides, whence masses of soil continued to fall.
Mr. Knight, proprietor of an adjacent pit, went down
first, and then men were set to work; but everybody
feared the task was hopeless, for the ventilation of the
mine would be stopped, or checked, so as to destroy
life in a few hours. It was evening of that day before
they could communicate with two men in the upper
seam; and when food had been sent down to them, it
still seemed impossible to get them out, for they were
too weak to cling to ropes, and nobody would volunteer
to go down and assist them. Mr. Goulstone, one of the
proprietors, looked round the crowd and said, "Will no
one try to save them?" when a modest-looking, indeed
rather an effeminate-looking youth, named James North,
said, "I will;" and soon after he did enter the bucket,
over which powerful shields had been fixed, and
descended to the men. Silence was strictly enjoined,
and attention was stretched for the signal to haul up.
At length the signal was received, and in a few minutes
the men appeared, weak and exhausted. They stated
that the air was so bad that no candle could be got
near the "tip-shaft," leading to the lower seam. One
of them felt sure that all below must be dead; the
other still hoped, and thought exertions should be
made. James North again volunteered; and, encouraged
by his example, five other men now offered to go down.
They laboured to restore the ventilating apparatus, but
were driven up again without any success. North had
crept to the edge of the pit-shaft, and shouted and
hammered for several minutes, but got no signal of life
in return. The labour was continued, and at last the
ventilation was enough restored to allow the men to
erect a windlass, and lower North down the tip-shaft.
He found the miners alive, huddled together near the
blocked-up main-shaft, engaged in prayer. They had
worked for hours endeavouring to clear the main-shaft,
had carried tons of the débris into the workings; but
their lights went out, and they gave themselves up for
lost. Crowding to the fresh earth in the main-shaft,
which gave out fresher air for breathing, they prayed
to God. The scene at the pit-mouth, as they appeared
among their relatives one by one, nearly lifeless with
exhaustion, was affecting. None were dangerously ill,
and all soon recovered.

Lieutenant H. P. Sale, of the 13th Native Infantry,
son of the late Sir Robert Sale, has lost his life by a
Melancholy Accident. He was stationed with his
battalion at Jutog, near Simla, and, on the 30th of
April, went down towards Kalka for the purpose of
meeting a detachment escorting treasure from that
place. After encamping near the river at Hurreepoor,
he strolled up the hill in the neighbourhood with his
gun, whilst the men were cooking their dinner; he had
not been long absent, when, to the surprise of the Goorkhas,
he fell from a tremendous height into the river close by
them. He died in half-an-hour, perfectly insensible.

The American emigrant ship Halcyon, which sailed
from Liverpool on the 17th ult., with upwards of 300
passengers, principally Irish and German emigrants,
for New York, was Lost on her Passage. The whole of
the passengers and crew, with the exception of one
woman and a child, were rescued, having been taken
on board, almost in the last extremity, by two New
York ships on their way to Liverpool.

A singular and Fatal Accident occurred at Woolwich
about four o'clock on the 10th inst., when a very