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The writ for the Isle of Wight election has been received at Newport, The nomination is to be on Friday the 23d instant ; and the polling, if a poll be demanded, on the Monday and Tuesday following. The candi- dates are Mr. Dawes in the Free-trade interest, and the Honourable Au- gustus Moreton as a Conservative.
The Harwich Election Committee had struck off the majority of five votes from the poll of Mr. Prinsep, on Thursday ; leaving the defeated Liberal candidate, Mr. Crauford, to strike off but one more vote in order to gain the vacant seat.
The _Leeds Mercury states, on the authority of a contemporary, that it is not the intention of Mr. Evelyn Denison again to become a candidate for the representation of the West Riding.
The inquest on the causes of the deaths by the collision in the Sutton tunnel of the Cheshire Junction Railway, on the 30th April, was brought to a conclusion on Monday, the seventh day of the proceedings. Some material facts were elicited from Alderman Bancroft, the chairman of the Company since 1848. It would seem that the works of the railway were not com- pleted; two intended stations had not been built, because the Company was crippled for means." Those stations would have afforded the means of watching the tunnels ; but when they were not constructed, " it never oc- curred' to the directors that arrangements should be made for independ- ently watching the tunnels. At a late meeting of the executive, the arrange- ments for the race-traffic were considered : verbal instructions were given to put an additional watch on the line, and to provide the necessary rolling- stock. The directors did not think that the engine power wee deficient : it had sufficed in the previous year, when there were four engines fewer ; and there were this year competing lines, which would diminish the traffic. It is true that when only fifteen miles of the line were open, fourteen engines were used ; and that afterwards when fifty-five miles were opened, and Mr. Gibson represented that the engine power was deficient, only four engines were added.
At the suggestion of Captain Laffan, a trial was made last week of the power of the Druid engine—the one which caused the accident by proving unequal to its load—with a similar load to that which it drew on the 30th. April. The trial seemed to be successful—the engine drew its load through the tunnel at fifteen miles an hour : but Captain Laffan found that there had been a deficiency of the trial-load, amounting to twenty tone—nearly a quarter of the passenger-load. A second trial was made with a full load, and the engine performed its task with great difficulty : it was then dis- covered that certain of the passenger-waggons, which had been borrowed of other companies for the race-traffic on the 30th, were so weak in the springs that the heavy loads now put on them brought their aides down to the edges of their wheels, and the wheels were thee checked. as effectually as if locked by a "break." This was most likely what had caused the train drawn by the Druid on the 30th to stop in the tunnel. The Coroner summed up at great length, and the Jury considered their verdict for five hours and a quarter. The verdict was " Accidental death "; but it was accompanied by the following severe censure in writing-
" Although the Jury have not felt justified in recording any other verdict than that of accidental death, they feel bound to state that they are unanimously of opi- nion that great blame attaches to the executive committee of the Birkenhead, Lan- cashire, and Cheshire Junction Railway Company ; and that there was a want of prudence and discretion generally in the conduct of the officers and servants of the company along the line from Chester to Manchester on the day when the melancholy occurrence took place, which resulted in the death of the parties (on Wednesday 30th April) as to which the Jury have been inquiring. With respect to the locomotive power of the company, it appears that no increase whatever was made for the greatly increased traffic along the line from Chester to Manchester during the Chester race- week ; and that there was no authorized superintendent of the engineering depart- ment along that line appointed, and no precautionary arrangements adopted for the safety of the public in reference to the Sutton tunnel, where the collision took place on the day above-mentioned. The Jury find, that throughout the day there was the greatest irregularity in the despatch and the arrival of the trains from Manchester to Chester ; and the advertisement issued by the company, to the effect that the trains would return from Chester at 5 30p.m., and continue running, so soon as filled up, to 9 o'clock)). or., was in the highest degree objectionable, being calculated to lead to confusion and danger. The Railway Company's superintendent himself _has stated, in the course of his evidence, that he does not consider the stock of locomotives sufficient for their ordinary traffic; and yet, as the Jury have already noticed, no increase was made for the greatly increased traffic during the Chester races; and to this deficiency of locomotive power is to be mainly attributed the lamentable catastrophe that has happened. The Jury are decidedly of opinion that the management of the railway in question is defective and inefficient, thereby en- dangering the safety of the public. In conclusion, the Jury recommend, that in order to guard against the recurrence of a similar accident, there should be an au- thorized servant of the company stationed at each end of the Sutton tunnel, so as to signal the trains, and thereby prevent two trains being in the tunnel on the same line at one time. They consider also, that the carriages of the Railway Company having to pass through a tunnel of such ,a length as the Sutton tunnel, should be furnished with lights ; and they desire also to call attention to the shortness of the intervals allowed for the trains following each other on the same line from the ter- minus and intermediate stations, which appears to them to be attended with risk; and to express their opinion that the intervals should therefore be increased."
Last week, the Great Western steamer, one of the Royal Weet India Mail Company's ships, brought to Southampton a large amount of gold-dust from. California, consigned to the .Bank of England. On Thursday, 157 boxes were unshipped, and packed upon four trucks to be conveyed to London : the average weight of the boxes was nearly half a hundredweight. When the train arrived at Nine Elms early on Friday morning, it was found that three boxes were miming from one of the trucks. On Friday afternoon, a boy, the son of a publican living near the Winches- ter station, while searching for birds'-nests on the railway bank, found one of the missing boxes : it had not been opened. A watch was set at the spot; and at half-past eleven o'clock at night a man came to the place. He was arrested. When taken before the Mayor and Magistrates of Winchea- ter, he said his name was William Plonlrin, and that he was a tailor of Earl Street, Soho : which was subsequentlyfound to be true. He accounted for his presence at Winchester, and for Ins going to the bank, in a way by no means satisfactory ; and he was remanded. A reward of 2501. has been of- fered for the apprehension of the thieves and the recovery of the other two boxes of gold : one weighed fifty-three pounds and the other forty pounds. The first account published cast imputations on the persons who had charge of the treasure; the Daily News has since declared that these were unfounded, and that the account generally was very inaccurate. It gave this explanation of the manner in which the robbery was most probably effected—" The luggage-train is a very slow one, and when approaching stations, goes so slow that a person could crawl into a goods- waggon while it is in motion. There is not much doubt but that the three boxes of gold-dust were thrown out on the line, and then deposited in se- cluded places until they could be securely taken away. The box that was found at Winchester was deposited so snugly that it would have been a very remarkable thing if it had been thrown there at haphazard; but that it had been thrown out was evident, because the lid had just been started from one of the corners, owing doubtless to its having been pitched on its edge against some gravel."
A serious explosion of gunpowder has occurred at Cilgwyn quarries. Half a ton of blasting-powder was kept in a building by itself; the foreman had been weighing powder, when a smith and two boys entered the hut, the former wishing to weigh two chisels which he had recently forged ; he had no sooner placed the articles in the scale than the powder in the shed ex- ploded, tearing the building to pieces, and dreadfully burning the smith and foreman ; the boys were less hurt. It is supposed that the chisels had re- tained heat enough to act upon`some particles of powder in the scale. .
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