Mr. Leslett has resigned his seat for Worcester, being compelled
to take that step by ill-health. The Conservatives put up a Mr. Hardy, but he has withdrawn, and now the only candidate in the field is Mr. Padmore, a Liberal.
At a meeting held in the Mayor's parlour of the Town-hall, Man- chester, on Monday, a resolution was passed to make a vigorous effort for raising 100,000/. for carrying out Mr. Thomas Fairbairn's great scheme for a free Art Gallery for that town.
Mr. Roberts, auditor of the Poor-law accounts for South Lancashire, attended a meeting of the Manchester Guardians on Monday, to resume his audit of the accounts of the Board. Some months ago, Mr. Roberts adjourned the audit, on the ground that the Guardians refused to allow him the assistance of his own clerk, On Monday, he had with him, in place of his own clerk, Mr. Fitzgerald, of the firm of Child, Fitzgerald, and Taylor, professional accountants. The Board again declined to allow their books to be examined by a stranger, not the auditor, and Mr. W. Heron, their attorney, stated at some length the legal grounds on which the objection was based. Mr. Roberts replied, but the Guardians main- tained their objection, and the audit was further adjourned.
A murder was committed at Walkeringham, in Nottinghamshire, on Tuesday night. The murdered man, Charles Spencer, was a cattle-jobber living at Walkeringham. John Fenton, blacksmith, and landlord of the Three Shoes Inn there, is in custody as the suspected murderer. At the in- quest, which was held on the body on Wednesday, and adjourned to that day week, the following statements were made, Spencer received two bank notes from a Mr. Clayton on Tuesday night, at the Ferry Inn, Walkerith. Spencer left there in company with Mr. Anderson, his son, John Fenton, and James Fenton. They crossed the river together. Spencer accompanied Anderson to his gate, "joked " a little and went off home, the usual way to his own house, about 200 yards distant. At six o'clock the following morn- ing, the body. of Spencer was found in a dyke, about forty yards from his own residence, with two terrible gashes in each side of the neck, only a little of the flesh in the front, and a little behind remaining. Twe discharged pis- tols were found on the bank of the dike. A village schoolmaster startled from his bed by the report of pistols, looked out of window ; heard some one exclaim " For God's sake, what are you going to do ; " saw no one and went to bed again. The moon was shining brightly. The pistols were identified as resembling a brace possessed by John Fenton. When arrested, he had in his possession caps like those on the pistols, and bullets fitting their barrels. A pair of trousers and leggings, which he was said to have worn on Tuesday, were found freshly washed.
Eighty men and boys lost their lives in an explosion in Burradon Colliery on Friday. Burradon Colliery, an old pit in the Wall's-end group, in the working of Messrs. Bowers and Co., Leeds, is situate near the Killingworth
station of the North-Eastern Railway. There are many miles of workings in the pit, which is in a low main, and the pitmen say it has a somewhat fiery and dangerous character. The " broken " was wrought with the aid of Davy's safety lamps ; but the men appear to have wrought with candles at the face of the coal or the " hole "—the part where the gas appears to have formed. During the explorations which were made after the explosions, it appeared that the larger portion of the men were suffocated with choke damp. On reaching the face of the workings, part of a pitman was observed, the other part of his person being covered with coal that had fallen upon him. " The body was got, out, and as it was badly burnt, and as his candle was found beside him, the explosion, it is conjectured, had occurred at his candle." The first explosion happened at about half- past one o'clock on Friday afternoon, of a very slight kind ; the second followed about three minutes afterwards in tremendous blasts, driving along a stone that killed a lad, and destroyed the waggons and ma- chinery in its path. About thirty men and boys escaped up the shaft. Two wastemen who went down to render assistance were suffocated. All the night long, after the accident, poor women were shivering at the pit's mouth waiting for those who came to them only as blackened curses. From almost every third house in the village, some relatives were lost. Mr. Reed, the Coroner for South Northumberland, opened an inquest on the bodies on Saturday. Sunday and Monday were days of burial. The miners of Burradon are an intelligent and superior class of workmen. Their cot- tages are scrupulously clean. A subscription is projected at Newcastle-on- Tyne for the bereaved families.
On Saturday, an inquest was held on some of the bodies, and adjourned until Friday. On Monday, an inquest was held upon the body of a boy named Golightly, and a verdict returned that he "had died from the effects of an explosion in Burradon pit, but that there was no evidence to show how it originated."
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