large quantity of gold. About eight o'clock information
was sent to Stafford that a cottage at Moss Pit was on fire,
and engines were immediately despatched to extinguish
the devouring element. On breaking open the door of
the house the fire was discovered to have originated in
one of the bedrooms, but the smoke and flames prevented
any one from ascending the staircase. Ladders were
immediately procured and holes made in the roof of the
building, and the fire-engines having subsequently
arrived, the flames were extinguished. On ascending
the stairs, the old man and woman were discovered at
the further end of the room on a bedstead, still burning.
Upon examination, it was discovered that the head of
Blackband had been cloven with some heavy weapon,
the frontal bone being completely smashed, and the
back of the head opened. The body was reduced almost
to a cinder with the exception of the head and one of the
legs. Across the bottom of the bed lay the burnt trunk
of his wife's body, arms and legs being entirely gone.
She had received a heavy blow over the right eye. For
many years the old couple, through infirmities, had slept
apart in different rooms in the house. The stairs to the
old man's room ascending from the house-place, and
those to his wife's bedroom at a distant part of the
dwelling from the pantry. At the bottom of the pantry
stairs was a large pool of blood; and it is supposed, that
after the murderer had despatched the old man, he
proceeded to the other part of the house, where his
second victim was descending the stairs, when he
immediately dealt the fatal blow which deprived her of life.
Having committed this twofold deed, he must have
carried her through the house to the bedroom of her
husband, and placing her on his bed, have set fire to the
clothes, intending to destroy every vestige or mark
which would tend to his detection by burning the house
and all that it contained; and thus lead to the supposition
that the fire was one of accident. The dog, which
was kept in the house, was found in the well opposite
to the door, a heavy blow on the head having, no doubt,
previously deprived it of the power of making any
alarm. The murder must have been perpetrated after
daylight. At half-past seven o'clock a gentleman passed
the house when there was no sign of fire, but he observed
a man walking through an adjoining field, as if leaving
the house.

In consequence of the excitement produced in
Plymouth and the neighbourhood by the practices of the
Rev. Mr. Prynne, in regard to Confession, the
churchwardens of St. Peter's, Eldad, have been under the
necessity of applying for the assistance of the police,
stones having been thrown at the windows of the church
during the time of service.

NARRATIVE OF ACCIDENT AND
DISASTER.

Railway Accidents have become a regular article of
intelligence. Preparatory to the opening of the
Birmingham and Oxford line, on the 1st instant, a
special train left Paddington at 9 o'clock on the previous
morning, carrying the directors and a large party of
their friends. Their destination was Birmingham,
whence they were to return to Leamington to a grand
dinner. At Oxford several ladies and gentlemen entered
the train. At this time the ordinary passenger train,
due at Banbury at half past ten, was on its way, and
stopped at the Aynho road station, about six miles from
Banbury, where tickets are taken. While this was
being done, the driver of the train observed the special
train approaching at a rapid pace. He immediately put
his engine in motion, but was unable to get it sufficiently
under way to avoid a collision. The crash was very
great, and many of the passengers in the second-class
carriages were much cut and bruised; the trucks at the
end of the train were smashed, and some of the second-
class carriages injured. Some of the passengers refused
to continue their journey, and left the train; those who
remained were brought on to Banbury, and an engine
with assistants to raise the disabled one was sent to
Aynho, and returned with the special train, which it
conveyed onwards to Leamington, where it stopped
without proceeding to Birmingham, as originally
intended. A déjeuner afterwards took place at Leamington;
and the special train reached the Paddington
station at one o'clock next morning. Another accident
has subsequently taken place on the same line. A
passenger-train at night ran into a luggage-train, which
had no tail-lights. Several carriages were crushed, and
their occupants were more or less hurt: one gentleman
suffered from concussion of the brain, which placed his
life in danger.

Two accidents occurred on the night of the 4th inst.,
on branches of the South-eastern Railway. The great
fall of rain suddenly washed away earth and rails
between Ticehurst and Etchingham, on the Tunbridge
Wells and Hastings branch. A train which had passed
up three hours before, when the line was perfect, was
returning from Tunbridge at night; in the darkness it
was not perceived that anything was amiss, and the
rails having been moved by the water, the train was
turned over on its side. Fortunately, there were no
passengers; the guard was unhurt; but the driver and
fireman were jammed between the engine and tender.
After considerable delay in consequence of the flood,
the guard obtained assistance, and they were extricated:
the driver had escaped with bruises, but the fireman had
one of his thighs fractured.

There was a collision on the Great Northern Railway,
and a remarkable escape from fatal consequences, on the
same night. Near Newark the line is intersected by
the Nottingham and Lincoln Railway, which crosses
almost at right angles. As the Great Northern express-
train for London arrived at this spot, a Midland goods-
train was crossing; the express-train severed the goods-
train, hurling one truck into a river, and throwing
others off the rails. Though the carriages were much
shattered, no passenger was seriously hurt: the driver
of the goods-train had two teeth knocked out. It is
stated that the signal for the Great Northern train to
pass was up, and the driver of the Midland train should
not have attempted to cross.

A train proceeding from Hastings to Ashford, on
emerging from the Ore tunnel, ran into a body of water
which covered the rails, and got off the line. No one
was hurt, but the passengers had to return to Hastings,
and remain till the following day before the line was
passable.

On the morning of Monday the 11th inst., the remains
of Jeremiah Dooley, a station-master at Astley, on the
Liverpool and Manchester portion of the London and
North-Western Railway, were discovered by his wife
between that place and Bury-lane station; the head of
the unfortunate man having been apparently severed
from his body by a train which had passed along the
line during the night. He had left the Astley station
between 9 and 10 o'clock on Sunday evening, and
walked to Bury-lane station, and, after partaking of
some ale and spirits at a public house, returned along
the line soon after 11 towards his own residence, situate
between the two stations. He never reached home,
however, and his wife went in search of him early on
Monday morning, and found his body on the line as
described, the head being rolled to some yards distant.
The line had been repaired near where his body was
found, and it is conjectured he might have stumbled
forward with his head against a rail, whilst passing over
some holes left in the road by the men who had repaired
it, and becoming insensible had remained there until
the train passed over him.

There has been a fatal collision on the railway at
Portobello, near Edinburgh. As the mail-train for
London was dashing through the station, it came into
contact witli an engine and tender which stood across the
rails, employed in shifting trucks from one siding to
another; the locomotive of the mail-train turned the
pilot-tender completely over, and threw it on the engine,
and then itself mounted on the ruins: the mail-tender
and carriages kept on the rails. Several passengers
were cut and bruised by the collision. A porter who
was near the pilot-engine was killed instantaneously,
and one of the driver's legs was broken. The driver
and stoker of the mail-train were badly scalded and
bruised. The mail locomotive had a narrow escape
from tilting over the parapet of a bridge fifty feet high.