NOTES AND QUERIES.
FEW cases have presented more room for question than the com- paratively simple one of Lieutenant Leigh, of her Majesty's ship Meander, who has been dismissed from the Navy by what appears to us to be a very harsh construction of very intelligible evidence. On the afternoon of the 8th instant, the Meander lying at Devon- port, Mr. Leigh was placed under arrest, on the ground that he was not then sober nor in a fit state to perform his duty. It was proved that be had drunk not more than three glasses of wine at dinner; there was no probability that he had taken any other alcoholic drink. It was proved that at an earlier hour in the day he had shown such symptoms as are produced by narcotics ; it was proved that he had taken a dose of opium, which to some men would be moderate, but which to others would be very considerable ; that he had done so under medical advice, but that the prescription was of a kind which an habitual adviser throughout Mr. Leigh's life would have forbidden as unfit for his irritable temperament and feeble constitution. From the evidence it appears to us to be quite plain that Mr. Leigh was not perfectly master of himself, and that he was unfit to perform duty ; and that the proximate cause of that condition was the wine which he drank at dinner, while the deeper cause was the medical narcotic. In other words, he was not in a state of sobriety ; but it would be a gross violation of sense and good feel- ing to describe him as being in a state of intoxication according to the usual acceptation of the word. It is proper to put a very strict construction upon any licence in the matter of drinking, most especially among officers responsible for the safety of a ship ; but it is not proper to put a forced construction under any circumstances; and it is harsh to dismiss a man as an offender whose unfitness for duty was really the result of malady. There are oases in which a generous construction forms part of .simple justice, and this was one. From the evidence, we incline to concur in the judgment, that Mr. Leigh was unfit for duty, and that his constitution ren- ders him unfit for the service. A compulsory resignation ex- pressed in lenient terms, and accompanied by a transfer of the officer to some duty where his infirmity would be of less conse- quence, would have been a sentence in which every right-minded man would have concurred.
A far larger question, however, is suggested by this same case. One of the witnesses, Mr. Charles Bowden, the Master, was asked, "Do you know how he became drunk in the time when you have sworn he left the gun-room table sober ?" and he answered, SCI cannot say." Subsequently, Mr. Bawden was asked, "Do you think the state the prisoner was in on quarter-deck was caused by the medicine he took before dinner ?" and he answered, "I firmly believe it was caused by the medicine." On this the Court asked, "Blow came you to swear just now that you did not know how he became drunk ? please to reconcile this"; and Mr. Bawden could not effect the desired reconcilement. Yet the two averments are perfectly compatible. It is true that Mr. Bawden did not "know" how the prisoner became drunk, for it is obvious that under the circumstances he could not know ; but it is equally natural that Mr. Bawden should have " believed " the medicine to have been the cause, and that the wine alone could not have produced the effect. Take away the wine, and Mr. Leigh might still have been drowsy ; take away the opium, and the wine would probably have produced no effect. " Sublata calm& tollitur effectus." But the Court ap- pears to have been as little able to follow this distinction as the 'witness; and we find both judiciary and witness equally unable to arrange the facts with which they are dealing or to deduce the proof from them. There is a Judge-Advocate at these Courts, to Labour for the conviction : would it not be an improvement to have a Judge-President to labour for the truth,— an assistant judge, presiding over the law and logic of evidence, while the officers could act as his assessors in respect of military usage? Contradicting in a letter to the Times a report in the Nankeen that he had declared the discovery of a coal-mine in Russia to be' impossible, Sir Roderick Murchison expounds the result of his ob- servations on Russian coal. He is convinced that the mineral exists very extensively in the form of thin seams of ill-consolidated and impure coal; and recent researches confirm his view, that there is no coal worthy of national attention, except one particular Southern coal-field watered by the river Donets. Sir Roderick found kindness and hospitality 'amongst all classes of Russians, but not good coal. Amongst other deficiencies under which that extensive region ap- pears to labour, this perhaps is one of the most serious. One does not see how, under such privation, it can be possible to get up the steam; and we have some reason to suspect that the Autocrat him- self has been painfully impressed with the want. The very excep- tion is not altogether satisfactory : the field lies to the North of the Sea of Azof, far distant from St. Petersburg, and amongst those regions of which the aggressions of Russia have rendered the te- nure so disputable. By going to war, Russia appears likely to cut herself off from the coal-cellar.
Another of those frightful accidents has occurred by which many are killed, still more crippled or disfigured perhaps for life, and numbers afflicted with sorrow and deprivation, through a con- stantly-repeated carelessness. A small factory steam-boiler has burst at Rochdale, scattering the building in which it was, and committing havoc among people far and near. The neglected state of the boiler probably explains the explosion ; but recent oc- currences of the kind have suggested the probability that the ex- plosive power in these accidents is far greater than is attributed to the ordinary elasticity of steam or to the generation of gases. As the causes are unknown, the precautions must continue to be more or less uncertain. As the pecuniary injury is one happening perhaps too unfrequently to come within the usual ratio of insu- rance, it does not appear probable that there would be a sufficient bonus on the discovery of the true cause to operate as an induce- ment for assiduous inquiry. It seems a proper subject, therefore, for a premium to be offered by some body like the Society of Arts or by Government, on discovery of the true nature of the proxi- mate cause in these sudden and destructive explosions of steam- boilers.
No purist, we believe, is so rigid as not to view with some regret the absolute cessation of any national custom; perhaps, amongst other national customs, even the last murder would be regretted, if the people of the day could know that it was the last—we can imagine the moralist writing a paper and "dropping a tear" on the occasion. But it is curious to note how new improvements adapt themselves to the preservation of old institutions. The railway we associate with every idea of "progress," of publicity, and of the ex- tending virtue which is anticipated from commercial intercourse; yet of all places there is, practically, none so solitary for the purpose of the murderer as a railway-carriage. When once the train is in mo- tion, he is absolutely protected against all interference ; he may un- disguisedly and frankly own his purpose, and the victim has only the choice of remaining at the disposal of his fellow passenger or jumping out to destruction. We are not imagining a case, but might bring several examples ; the recent struggle between two prisoners and the policeman on their way from Manchester to Sheffield is one quite sufficient. Extraordinary courage and vigour saved the policeman ; but he had no means whatever of communicating with the guard or the driver; he could neither procure assistance nor stop the train. Is it possible, then, that a desperate ruffian should find any place more suited to his purpose for privacy and non- interference than a railway carriage in transit?
Of all inventions in advertising, Mr. Greene, M.P. for Kilkenny, has hit upon the best. He is " interested " in a new kind of print- ing, and all interested inventors are pleased to obtain "custom": Mr. Greene strikes high—he wants Government and Parliament for customers. Accordingly, he advertises—in a Parliamentary speech ; and he moves for a Select Committee to inquire—for the public benefit, of course, as well as his own. This is not only the highest form of advertisement—an advertisement gratis in all the journals—but it gains a step towards the object : it may be called the puff-compulsory. Most surprising, (or least surprising?) the House of Commons sanctioned this new use of a seat in Parliament, and passed Mr. Greene's motion by a decided majority ! Evidently, under new leaders, the House of Commons is going beyond free trade, and is at the same time concentrating the principle of pro- tection : it is uniting the principle of protection of self-interest with free and easy trade.
From the proceedings in Marylebone it would appear that Lord Palmerston applies the "representative principle" to the Metro- politan Sewers Commission by inviting the Metropolitan Members to name one for each district. This is a new invention in Par- liamentary government. We must learn more about this measure; which would seem to have introduced, without challenging notice, a more serious breach of the constitution than was ever attempted in modern days. How long has it been allowed that Members of Parliament could be singled out and invited separately to perforIi
. executive duties apart from the body of the House ? The distri- bution of patronage too ! We ask our readers, seriously, whether there could be a worse step to undermine the independence of Parliament? Some good people, of the sect called " Liberal," have beefl anxious to have Lord Palmerston as chief Minister; does this measure exemplify his knowledge of constitutional principles) or his sympathy with them ?
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