A serious accident was caused, and a fatal accident might
easily have been caused, on Sunday, by the mischievousness or ignorant curiosity of a passenger on the Thames steamer Bridegroom,' from Kew to London Bridge, who removed the pin of the fore-rudder, and so prevented the boat from answering to her helm. Several persons were injured by a sharp collision with the piers of Battersea Bridge as a result of this act of malice or ignorant curiosity,—more probably the latter, as the accident endangered the life of the man who did it no less than the lives of the other passengers. A great deal of indignation,—not too much,—has been expressed at the youth's unpardonable meddling with the steering of a boat ; but the mischief done is, after all, easily measurable, and but trivial compared to that done every day by the removal of intellectual and moral pins which destroy the steering power of great societies by acts of still greater malice or more guilty curiosity on the part of those who tamper with these springs of society. We notice, for instance, that one of the papers which deals most severely with the young man's culpable folly, has been opening its pages to all sorts of persons, who have been publicly invited to tamper with one of the chief securities of society, the institution of marriage, and who have tampered with it effectually. Will not every day's issue of these amateur tamperings do far more real mischief, than the removal of that pin from the fore-rudder of the • Bridegroom' did on Sunday last ?
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