foundered almost instantly after, her crew having barely
time to clamber away from the wreck of the Floridian,
which seemed in the same condition. Her hull was cut
down to the water s edge, and it was not expected she
could outlive the night. One of the Helen's crew
perished in attempting to gain the Floridian. By
incessant working at the pumps both crews managed to
keep the vessel from sinking. Fortunately, on the
morning of the 15th, her perilous situation was observed
by the schooner Victoria, which bore down to her aid,
and the master succeeded in taking off the wreck the
crews of both vessels. The Floridian disappeared under
water in the course of an hour after. Their loss and
cargo is calculated at upwards of £17,000.

At the Wakefield station of the Lancashire and
Yorkshire Railway, a man was Killed on the 20th, by being
crushed between the buffers of two waggons, while
employed in getting some pigs off by a goods train to
Halifax, where he resided. The cause of the accident
was the backing of the engine without a warning signal.

By the Trent, West Indian Steamer, which arrived
on the 22nd, a number of persons were brought home,
who had been Shipwrecked on the passage from New
York to Liverpool. The following is the account given
by one of them:—The liner ship L. Z. sailed from New
York on the 12th of January, with 45 passengers. On
the 14th, it was announced that from seven to fourteen
feet of water was in the hold, entering from a leak. A
pump was then attempted to be rigged by the carpenter,
who was searching for his tools, until the water poured
in so fast that his preparations were useless. The
passengers were obliged to give up the pumps, being
both choked and not in order. The vessel was given
up for lost after midnight, when the crew got drunk,
and began plundering and breaking trunks and chests,
and looking for grog, and some selling and offering
pieces of beef and pork for grog to the passengers. The
captain, for the first time, crawled out of the cabin as
if drunk, and ordered the cargo, or a part of it, to be
thrown over. He remained a few minutes, when he
went to his cabin again, and left the ship to the
management of a drunken crew and officers. The
passengers and second mate employed themselves in
putting overboard some flour barrels and cotton bales.
On the morning of the 15th of January, the American
barque Marieta appeared in sight, and took the passengers
on board, but they were not allowed to take with
them a single article of property, except the clothes they
had on. This barque was bound for Havana, but
steered for Bermuda, to land them there. When a few
miles from the island, she struck upon a rock and was
wrecked, but the crew and passengers were saved by
boats from the island. The passengers who had sailed
from New York in the liner, obtained a passage for
England in the Trent, and arrived at Southampton, all
of them in a state of such destitution, that they received
support from the guardians of the poor. One of the
passengers had perished when leaving the wreck of the
liner, and another had become mad from terror and
suffering.

An Explosive Fire took place on the 23rd, on the
premises of Messrs. Heathfield and Burgess, chemists
and naphtha distillers, Prince's Square, Finsbury. It
was said to have been caused by some apparatus having
been incautiously overheated to such an extent as to
burst a boiler, the inflammable contents of which being
scattered about, the building appeared in an instant to
be enveloped in flames, which penetrated the roof, and
spread through the adjacent yard. The building was
in part destroyed, but, by the speedy arrival of engines,
further damage was prevented. Three workmen, named
Page, Talford, and Berry, who were on the spot when
the explosion took place, were so severely burnt and
injured, that they were conveyed in cabs to St.
Bartholomew's Hospital.

On the 26th, a Fire broke out at the warehouses of
Messrs. M'Culloch and Co., wholesale chemists and
druggists, in Bishopsgate Street. The floors were well
filled with drugs, but, fortunately, very little spirit or
oil was in the building. A considerable amount of
property was destroyed, but the adjoining buildings
were preserved by the exertions of the firemen. The
firm was insured.

A Fire broke out on the 23rd, at Clay-hill Hall, near
Enfield, the seat of Mr. Bosanquet, the banker, in a
detached building, which was being prepared for a
library. It was of an old-fashioned construction, the
fronting covered with ivy. Some persons had been
engaged during the day in airing the place, and about
six o'clock in the evening smoke was seen issuing from
the windows. An alarm was raised, and an attempt
made to enter the building. The heat and smoke were
too overpowering to allow them to proceed far into the
interior, and in a very short time the flames had full
possession of the building. Engines were promptly
despatched, but were not able to save any portion of the
place. The exact loss is not known, but it is stated that
some very choice books were stored in the building.

John Drury, a painter in Carey Street, was Killed by
a Fall on the 25th. He lived with his wife in a garret.
They had had a quarrel and a fight, which was put an
end to by a fellow-lodger, and the wife went down
stairs. Drury said he would not meet his wife again by
descending the stairs, but would go down by the water-
spout on the outside of the house, as he had often done
before. He made the attempt, fell into the yard, and
died on the spot.

On the 26th, an accident occurred at the mouth of
the Devonport harbour, by which four persons were
Drowned. The cutter of her Majesty's steam-ship Stromboli
was proceeding from the vessel in Plymouth Sound
to the harbour, when, between St. Nicholas Island and
the main, the weather being boisterous, with a strong
north-easterly wind, a large quantity of water was
shipped at the lee-bow, and the cutter immediately
sunk. The crew, consisting of 13 persons, were all
immersed. The accident was seen from several quarters,
and ten persons were rescued from their perilous position,
but a midshipman and three of the cutter's crew were
not recovered.

SOCIAL, SANITARY, AND MUNICIPAL
PROGRESS.

A PUBLIC meeting called by the Aborigines Protection
Society and the Peace Society was held at the London
Tavern on the 30th of January, "to consider the fearful
Sacrifice of Human Life on the Coast of Borneo in July
last, and to petition parliament for the total and
immediate abolition of the practice of awarding head-money
for the destruction of pirates." Between three and four
hundred persons were present: Mr. Joseph Sturge
presided; Sir Joshua Walmsley and Mr. George Thompson
were among the leading occupants of the platform. A
letter from Mr. Cobden expressed reprobation of the
sanguinary attack on the Sarebas Dyaks, "as a gratuitous
and cold-blooded butchery, which brands its authors not
only with cruelty but with cowardice." The chairman,
as a commercial man, stated that his firm had paid
hundreds of thousands of pounds for ship insurance, and
he was not aware that they paid a shilling less for
English vessels on the ground of their being protected by
English men-of-war: if the latter were all scuttled
to-morrow, he believed he could go to Lloyd's next day
and insure his vessels without a shilling more. He
quoted a letter from China, to the effect that from 1845
to 1848 the writer never knew of an instance in which
English vessels were attacked by pirates, "except such
as were notoriously engaged in the illegal opium traffic."
A seafaring man, who gave the name of "Captain Aaron
Smith," here declared from the body of the meeting,
that he could prove such attacks. He was invited to the
platform, and took a place there. He then rose and said,
that he had been attacked by pirates in the China seas,
at midnight, by a fleet of prahus—no mere "baskets,"
but boats manned by a hundred men each, and rowed by
seventy or eighty oars. He had navigated those seas
thirty years, and the pirates had cost him many a
sleepless night. Bound from Sourabaya to China on
the 30th of April, 1836, he had been set upon by twenty
of these pirates. "We had a three hours' engagement,
and during that time I can tell you I killed as many
men in proportion as Rajah Brooke. I only did my
duty, for it was my duty to defend my ship. After a