Skating is a rather dangerous diversion, notwithstanding the severity of
the frost ; and several accidents, some of them attended with loss of. life, have occurred in London and the vicinity. On Thursday, a boy was drowned in the Regent's Canal ; and on the same day live gentlemen nearly lost their lives, in consequence of the ice giving way, on the Serpentine River. They were rescued by the men employed by the Royal Humane Society, and carried to the new Receiving-house in Hyde Park. On Wednesday, two buys, whose thther lives at B. icon, were sliding on a pond in a field near Streatham, when the ice broke, and both were drowned. Yesterday, two gentlemen lost their live, by the ice breaking, in the canal in St. James's Park. But the most serious accident occured yesterday on the Serpentine, on which seve- ral thousands were skating. According to time account in the Times, " Everything went on very pleasantly until about half-past twelve o'clock, when loud shrieks were heard proceeding from the of the Receiving house belonging to the Royal Humane Society on the north hank of the river. Hundreds of persons, both on the ice and on the banks, immediately hastened to the spot ; when it was discovered that a large piece of ice which had been marked ' Dangerous,' had, not- withstanding the exertions of the Society's men to prevent them, been crowded by skaters, and given way, immersing nearly the whole of them in the water. Batson, the foreman of the Humane Society's teen, summoned his assistants, by means of his speaking trumpet, who with their flat-bottomed boat, drags, and ropes, succeeded in about twenty minutes in extricating fifteen persons, whom they immediately cal IT d. into the Receiving-house." Of these, eight were recovered by the usual applications, but seven died. Up to eight o'clock last night, four only of the bodies had been owned. Three of these were mechanics ; the fourth was a remarkably fine young man, son of Major Barron Head!, of Connaught Terrace. The most active assistant of the Society's men was a drummer attached to the Scotch Fusileer Guards, who saved no fewer than five persons. [His name ought to be published.] On Monday, Hugh Ronalds, son of Dr. Ronalds of Kensington, fell a victim to the incautious use of fire-arms. He was out shooting with his brother ; some difficulty in drawing the ramrod out of the loaded fowling pieceoccurred ; the deceased was helping his brother to pull it out ; the gun went off, the ramrod mss driven into his chest, and though medical aid was immediately obtained, he died in a fern hours. He was only eleven, and his brother about fifteen years old. Early on Monday morning, the residents in Gray's Inn Lane, near Holborn, were alarmed by a man at the window of the fourth storyof, the house of Mr. Boy, boot and shoemaker, loudly calling " Mardevr; help ! help ! " In a minute or two he threw a rope out of the window, reaching down to the pavement, and which he had fastened to his bed- stead; end getting out of the window, swung himself off, end began to descend with great precipitancy. He had lowered himself down to between the first and second story, when, unable longer to sustain his weight, he let go the rope, and fell on the pavement. Ile was con. veyed to St. Bartholomew's Hospital ; where the back of his head was found to be dreadfully cut, and his right leg broken, It appears that his name is Samuel Dennison ; and that he was crazy, and fancied that several persons were lurking about to murder him.
Previous page
