13 SEPTEMBER 1851, Page 11

At the Mansionhouse, yesterday, a number of seamen appeared to

answer charges of desertion preferred against them by Mr. Colman, from the Ship- ping Registration Office. Clear cases were established, against William Thomas Dawson, of desertion at St. John's and against Thomas If. Farmer, of desertion at Quebec. These men had been seduced away by crimps, who offered them higher wages, made them drunk, and kept them out of the way till their ships had sailed, to the grievous cost of the shipowners. Dawson was sentenced to be imprisoned six weeks, with hard labour ; and Farmer to be imprisoned thirty days, with hard labour.

The Coroner's inquest on the death of John Taylor, by the railway collision near Nottingham, has ended in a verdict of " Manslaughter" against John Bower, under guard of the mineral train. He had time to warn the train which ran into the other train but neglected to give the warning till too late. The Jury recommend also the dismissal of Royce, a porter, who over- slept himself on the morning of the accident.

A Government inquiry into the circumstances of the collisions on the Great Northern Railway at Hornsey is in progress, under Captain Laffinn. The Reverend Mr. Snell is in a "very bad state" ; "he has not regained the use of his extremities."

An inquest was held on the bodies of the fourteen persons who perished by the breaking of the lifting-chain in the 1Vyrfa Colliery. Mr. .Matthew Mills, the coal-agent, proved that the men crowded into the lifting buckets in a dangerous manner-

" About half-past seven there were more than twenty persons waiting to go down. At length the hitcher at the bottom of the pit intimated that they might descend, and on that being said several men jumped into the bucket. The breaksman asked them why they went in before the catch-bolt had been withdrawn. All left the bucket then, and returned to it as soon as the bolt had been withdrawn. I told them not to go down that way—there were too many going down, as they over- crowded the platform on the bucket; and some of them then juinped back. I wanted to see that everything was right. I took hold of two—Edmund Williams and David Lewis—and two or three others came out of their own accord. I said to them, 'Do. not push in that manner, or else, some time or other, you will push one another down to the pit.' When the bucket went down they were not too many ; the ba- lance was rather light. I was not angry with them because their weight would be too much, but because they,were rushing on no incautiously, and would not go in an orderly way. David Lewis, whom 1 pulled back, would go down, and was killed. The bucket went down very slowly, as there was barely sufficient weight to balance it. I watched it for three yards, as I happened to be standing there. There were eleven persons in it. I then went from four to five yards back, and I heard a sound as if something was breaking."

He turned round, and saw what had happened. It was found that some iron-work had broken. The maker was examined ; but no blame was thsben on him. The verdict of the Coroner's Jury was— a

"Accidental death, caused by the breaking of the iron rods which connected the cross and the bucket. But the Jury cannot separate w ithout expressing their dis- approval of the present system of letting workmen go down to their work in the same way as materials are got up; and they recommend that drifts should be made in all similar works, go as to enable the workmen to go to work without any danger."