Westminster office with Assaulting his wife by kicking her so
violently that her life is now endangered; and on the
same day a man named Barry was brought before the
sitting magistrate, in Southwark, charged with Attempting
to Murder his wife, the prisoner's daughter stating
that she thought her mother's legs were broken. Both
were remanded.—The most atrocious of these cases was
that of Henry Watts, a coachman, who was tried at the
Central Criminal Court for the Murder of his wife. He
had been about to flog his son, when his wife begged of
him not to chastise the child, and said it would be more
to his credit if he sent it to school. Upon this he took
her, instead of the boy, by the shoulders, beat her, and
roared out in answer to her remonstrance, "I'll be
d——d if I don't murder you." She went up stairs, he
followed, got first upon the landing, and by a blow
struck her down into the passage. She was carried,
much injured, into the room of some lodgers, and
placed on a bed. There he endeavoured again to
get at her, and resume his torture, but was
prevented. Unfortunately no hindrance was offered to the
subsequent desire of the woman to be taken up to her
own room, where she was placed on her bed, and so
given up as a victim to her torturer. He pulled her
from the bed upon the floor, and, when her eyes were
fixed with approaching death, dragged her about, bent
and twisted her body, kicked and bumped it with his
knee. Still in this condition, with death appearing
more and more near, he held her head back over the
grate, and shook it; he struck her about the face and
breast; and with a remark that "he knew how to touch
her and make her feel," proceeded to atrocities which
even the Old Bailey flinched from hearing told in detail.
All this was seen, and the witness who saw it deposed
that the wretch was perfectly sober. A case of murder
was clearly proved; but a verdict of manslaughter only
was given, and the criminal was sentenced to 14 years'
transportation.

NARRATIVE OF ACCIDENT AND
DISASTER^.

MR. DOUGLAS DENT, storekeeper of the dockyard in
Devonport, was accidentally Drowned on the evening of
the 3d inst. He was cruising in his dingy under
canvas near Lady Emma's Cottage, Mount Edgecumbe,
where the flood-tide runs between the rocks with great
swiftness, and with occasional irregularity; he was
accompanied by his two sons, Mr. Albert Dent,
Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, recently returned from the
West Indies, and Mr. Digby Dent, clerk in the Devonport
Dockyard. The wind was puffy, and the sail
having jibbed one of the sons reached up the mast and
attempted to clear it: his weight overbalanced the
dingy, which was of light draught, and she upset
immediately. The accident was observed by a number of
pleasure-seekers on the grounds of Mount Edgecumbe,
and they hailed several boats; which, however, were
unfortunately at such a distance as not to arrive before
Mr. Dent had sunk, and his sons did not recover until
some time after they were picked up. A seaman
recovered Mr. Dent's body by diving.

Three pupils of Heversham Grammar School—Goodwin,
Cowell, and Rigby—have been Drowned at Heversham
Marsh, an arm of the sea forming part of
Morecambe Bay. The deceased were all young men; a
number of pupils went with them to the Marsh to
bathe; the unfortunate three seem to have got hold of a
plank, and were thus probably tempted to go out too
far; and it would seem also that a sudden depression
had formed in the sand: the three got out of their
depth; they could not swim, there were no swimmers
or boats near, and they were drowned.

The journey of the Queen to the North, on the 6th
inst. was attended with several Casualties, one of which
was fatal. The journey from Grantham to Bawtry
was completed in sixty-two minutes, and at Bawtry the
train was stopped by the heating of one of the axles of
the engine. At Darlington, again, it was found necessary
to detach the royal carriage from the train, as the
axle had become hot. About six miles north of
Darlington, one of the Great Northern Company's "fitters"
left the guard's van, when the train was at full speed,
to lubricate a heated wheel-box: while he was thus
engaged, his head came in contact with a girder of a
bridge, and he was killed on the spot.

A shocking Railway Accident occurred at the Dudley
station, on the Oxford, Worcester, and Wolverhampton
line, on Sunday night, the 9th inst. A train is due
from Worcester at 8.45 p.m., but on that evening it did
not arrive till about 9 o'clock, when it ran into the
station at about the usual rate. Previously to the
stoppage of the train, as the railway officials allege, the
doors of several carriages were seen open, and although
the usual cry was made to the passengers to keep their
seats, one or two of them jumped out, and among them
was a Mr. John Cooper, assistant clerk in the Walsall
County Court, who had a child about four years old in
his arms, and who, in descending from the carriage, fell
between the carriage and the platform, and was dragged
a distance of about twenty or thirty yards. It was
found, on the train being stopped, that his legs were
bent back, and that the body was jammed in between
the carriage and the platform. He had his child grasped
firmly in his arms, and the train had to be detached
from the carriage, and the carriage itself raised with
jacks, before they could be extricated. They were
conveyed into the porters' room, and Mr. Johnson, surgeon,
was sent for; he came immediately, but Mr. Cooper
had expired. Several of his bones were broken, and
his body was dreadfully crushed. The child also
was found to he seriously hurt, the poor creature's
thighs being fractured, and its body otherwise injured.
An inquest has been commenced, but adjourned to
allow time for inquiry.

A lamentable Railway Accident has taken place on
the Reading and Reigate line. Crosley, an engine-
driver, was directed to take his engine to Guildford, and
bring to Reading a London train. Finding that the
stoker of his engine was not there,—he ordered a
"cleaner" to jump up; and without placing any lights
on the engine, without looking whether the points
were right for the up-line, by taking which only he
knew he should avoid a train nearly due, without
speaking to the station-master, he put on steam, and
started out of the engine-shed on to the down-line.
About a mile and a half from Reading, his engine
crashed against the down-train. The two engines were
destroyed; a luggage-van and second class carriage were
broken to pieces; and the passengers were strewn about
in every direction. Three were killed—Mr. Fynmore,
a banker's clerk at Reading; Mr. Belton, a military
student; and Francis Beant, a gamekeeper. Crosley
was found dead. Nine passengers were badly wounded
—two dangerously. The inquest was opened on the
13th inst. Jesse Ferguson, Crosley's stoker for the
occasion, who was in the hospital, badly hurt, made a
statement to the Coroner, which was read to the jury.
It exhibited very clearly Crosley's recklessness. He
told Ferguson not to mind lighting the lamps till the
engine was in motion—a grave offence; Ferguson was
trimming the lamps when the collision occurred. It
was Crosley's duty to direct his fireman to turn the
points on leaving the station, that the engine might be
put on the up-line—he gave no directions, and seems to
have assumed that the points were rightly placed, which
he ought to have known they would not be. His
engine proceeded with the tender in advance, exhibiting
no light; and at the time of the disaster he was blowing
off steam: the people in charge of the passenger-train
were unconscious of his approach.

A Railway Accident of a novel but very shocking
character took place on the 18th inst., about nine at
night, on the Dinting Viaduct of the Manchester and
Sheffield Railway, across the river Etherow, near Glossop.
A train from Manchester approached the Hadfield
station, which is at the eastern end of the viaduct, and
in consequence of a Liverpool excursion train being in
advance, and having to discharge passengers at the
station, the Manchester train was brought to a stand on
the viaduct. The night was very dark, and it appears
that some of the passengers in the Manchester train,
who had to get out at Hadfield, imagined that the train
was already at the station. Three of these persons, two
young men and a young woman, succeeded in opening