woman must have been instantaneous. They were husband and wife, and they had been travelling from London in the same secondclass compartment. The man was an elderly person named Waldon, managing foreman for Mr. C. W. Wilshere, at the Frythe Farm, near Welwyn. A young man was found lying in another overturned carriage. He could not be got out until the panels of the compartment were broken in. He died shortly after removal. One of his legs was smashed into pulp, and he had sustained other injuries. Every thing possible was done for the sufferers until the worst cases had been removed, with the dead bodies, back to Hatfield, and those less seriously hurt had been attended to at the Gate-cottage, kept by a foreman plate-layer. Hedges, of Peterborough, the guard in charge of the train, escaped with comparatively slight injuries, and so did the driver and stoker, but a porter who had been taken on as supernumerary guard at King'scross in consequence of the length of the train was badly hurt. The other injured persons were all able to resume their journeys in a few hours by the down mail, which did duty for the crippled train. The down line was cleared in three hours and a half, and the up line, on which the broken carriages were thrown, was reopened at four o'clock the next morning.

At the inquest, Colonel Rich, the Government inspector, said, "The signals are so arranged at Welwyn Junction that no two trains can be signalled at the same time so as to come to grief without intentional wilful misconduct on the part of all parties concerned. The locking also appeared very close, so that they could not be moved when the signals were lowered in such a position as to lock them. When the signals are at danger' the points are free to be moved in any direction. They cannot be moved when the signal is taken off for a train. On the night of the accident those points could not have been moved, so far as we can be certain of mechanical arrangements, so long as that signal was at caution.' The moment the signal was put in its normal condition and raised to danger,' the points became unlocked, and they could have been moved by the man touching them, and experience leads us to know that with any little imperfection in their being shut home, they are apt to be moved by the vibration of the train passing through them. I firmly believe there was nothing to cause the accident but the clean shifting of the points by the man in charge while the train was on them. The reason for so little damage having been done must have been that the carriages travelled down the Hertford branch until the coupling-irons broke under the strain that was put upon them. No doubt the leading part of the train got safely through the points, and that they were then all right for the main line. As to the broken springs, no doubt, except the two old fractures, the breakage was all done after the accident. If there had been a fire. we must have found some traces of it. I could see nothing in the condition of the train which would conduce to the accident. I have

no doubt that the signal-man did accidentally affect the points, and it was certainly possible for him to do so. I cannot say he did it, but somebody did, and recently on another line it was done by a boy who happened to be in the signal-box. Means have lately been invented to prevent the points from being shifted while a train is passing through them. I first saw such an invention on this Great Northern Railway, but there was no such thing in this signal-box. I consider the speed of twenty-five miles an hour quite safe on the main line, and the rule which orders men to slacken to ten or twelve miles an hour on approaching junctions might safely be struck out of the books, so far as this part of the main line is concerned. The signal-man must have reversed the points as the train went through them, and must have got them clean over, a thing which I never knew perfectly done before, and which accounts for the little damage done to the rails. He might have moved them at first unconsciously, but could not have moved them back unconsciously. I must disbelieve his evidence or that of my own senses. It is evident the man was very hasty. His strict duty was not to let the Hertford train out by signal from Hatfield till the last carriage of the accident train had passed his box. The tail had not passed. The junction never was clear. His literal duty was not to telegraph the line clear until it was clear, and he did not wait for that. I have known cases where trains have been signalled as arrived before they were within 100 yards."

The Coroner carefully summed up, leaving the jury to decide whether the accident occurred from any defect in the train, or from something that was done to the points. In the latter case they must decide whether the signal-man altered the points accidentally, or with such a degree of gross negligence as would amount to manslaughter.

The jury, after deliberating for half an hour, found a verdict that the accident resulted from the accidental shunting of the points by the pointsman while the train was going over. They added a recommendation that an independent line should be made from Hatfield to Hertford.

29. FUNERAL OF LORD DERBY.-The Earl of Derby was buried at Knowsley Church. The funeral was strictly private, in accordance with the late Earl's written instructions, which prescribed for his last obsequies a style of modest and orderly propriety-the customary funeral of a wealthy English gentleman, attended only by his sorrowing kinsmen, his domestic servants, and a few persons connected with his private life, or with the management of his household and of his large estates.

The church was occupied by an expectant congregation. In the centre of the nave was the opening of the vault, the sides of which were also draped with black, the sombre hue being relieved by a rim of white along the edges. The church is so small that, even if all the seats had remained in their original position, it could not have afforded room for more than 300 visitors, and there was space

for but 250 on this day. Only those were admitted who had received cards and were dressed in mourning, and not a tenth part of the claimants for admission could be satisfied. By half-past eleven all the seats, except those allotted to the mourners, were filled, and in solemn silence the visitors waited for the coming of the funeral procession. It was curious to notice the people who were there doing honour to the memory of the Earl. They were manifestly the parishioners who had been connected with Lord Derby by something like a personal tie. They seemed to be, for the most part, simple village folk; and the homage which they were paying to the memory of the deceased nobleman was none the less impressive. During the time of waiting the wailing of the organ broke the solemn stillness; and when the organ was silent there was borne on the ear the faint, slow notes of a muffled bell.

At Knowsley Hall itself all was quiet up to the hour of noon, when the hearse, decorated with plumes and the armorial bearings of the house of Stanley, drew up at the west front. Following the hearse were eight mourning-coaches. The remains were enclosed in three coffins-the first of oak, made from a fine tree grown on the estate, the second of lead, and the third of oak covered with rich crimson velvet, with the necessary furniture gilt. Both the last coffins bore an Earl's coronet and the following inscription :-"The Right Hon. Sir Edward Geoffrey Stanley, fourteenth Earl of Derby, Baron Stanley of Bickerstaffe, and a Baronet, K.G., P.C. Born March 29, 1799. Died Oct. 23, 1869." When these had been placed in the hearse the funeral procession was formed. Preceding the hearse were a number of mutes, his Lordship's valet bearing the coronet on a cushion of crimson velvet, and following it were the eight mourning-carriages-the first containing Lord Stanley (now Earl of Derby) as chief mourner, the Hon. F. A. Stanley, Colonel the Hon. Charles Stanley, and Captain Stanley. The other mourners were Colonel Long, the Hon. Colonel Wilbraham (Lady Derby's brother), the Rev. Mr. Hopwood (brother-in-law to the late Earl); the Rev. Mr. Hopwood, jun.; Mr. Arthur Hopwood, Mr. Charles Hopwood, the Earl of Wilton, Viscount Grey de Wilton, Mr. Penrhyn, the Rev. Mr. Penrhyn, the Rev. Mr. Champneys, Lord Skelmersdale, Rear-Admiral Hornby, the Rev. Mr. Hornby, Mr. Edmund Hornby, Lord Hyde, Drs. Miller and Gorst (the late Earl's medical attendants); Mr. Lawrence, solicitor to the Knowsley estate; and Messrs. Hale, Moult, Statter, William Moult, and Holme, agents to the estate. About fifty servants followed the carriages on foot, all of course clad in deep mourning. The late Earl's brother, the Hon. Henry Thomas Stanley, was prevented by severe illness from attending the funeral.

The hearse was drawn by four horses, and each carriage by four horses caparisoned in sombre velvet bearing the armorial escutcheons. A limited number of tenants who had been admitted into the park joined the procession at intervals, and outside Knowsley Lodge, where the Knowsley-road joins the Ormskirk-road, a vast crowd of

tenants on horseback and in vehicles joined the cortége, accompanying it to Knowsley church, a distance of a mile and a half. The day, though cold and frosty, was very bright, dry, and sunny, and the scene, as the procession went through the picturesque glades of the park, was very impressive. At every point passed by the procession heads were reverently uncovered, and the sorrow seemed to be unaffected, genuine, and universal.

The coffin was met at the porch by the Rev. William Leyland Feilden, the Incumbent, and the Rev. Mr. Bolton, Curate; and as it was borne up the centre aisle, Mr. Arrowsmith, organist of Prescot church, played an appropriate voluntary. It was about one o'clock when the service began. The northern and southern aisles of the church were set apart for those of the tenantry and the servants who were desirous of witnessing the last rites. Lord Stanley; the Hon. Frederick Arthur Stanley, M.P.; Colonel the Hon. W. P. Talbot, and Admiral Hornby occupied the front row of pews overlooking the vault, and ranged behind these were a number of friends and relatives of the deceased, and the servants from the hall. The solemn service of the Church was read by the Rev. Mr. Feilden with much effect. As soon as the coffin was placed in its chamber, the coronet was removed from the ermine tippet and placed above the breastplate. Lord Stanley and the several members of the family present then descended to the vault, and, after taking a parting look at the coffin, left the church. The funeral music performed on the occasion was the sacred air by Mozart, "Blessed are they that die in the Lord;" "He comforts the bereaved," Mendelssohn; "I know that my Redeemer liveth," Handel; "The days of man are but as grass," Boyce; and concluding with the "Dead March" in "Saul." It was estimated that the number of people who followed the procession and were in and about the church was between 4000 and 5000. As soon as the funeral procession left the hall, the family hatchment was placed over the front entrance. The route from the hall to Knowsley church was kept by forty county

constables.

In the steeples of many churches, in both town and country, muffled peels were rung at intervals during the day. At Huyton, Prescot, Preston, and Liverpool, the inhabitants showed their respect for the memory of the late Earl by drawing down their windowblinds, while many shopkeepers put up their shutters-some draped or painted in funeral colours. Every where, on the public buildings and in the docks and river at Liverpool, the flags were half-mast high.

NOVEMBER.

3. CATASTROPHE ON BOARD HER MAJESTY'S GUN-VESSEL "THISTLE." -A dreadful catastrophe happened at Sheerness on board her Majesty's gun-vessel "Thistle," and caused, as might be expected, a vast amount of sorrow throughout the Isle of Sheppey. By it many families were thrown into mourning and dire distress. The "Thistle," a double-screw composite gun-vessel, of 465 tons and 120horse power, carrying four guns, was the last vessel constructed at Woolwich dockyard, and just previous to the closing of that establishment was ordered to proceed to Sheerness to fit out and get ready for sea. She was commissioned three weeks before by Commander R. M. Blomfield, late of her Majesty's line-of-battle ship "Pembroke," guard-ship at Sheerness and the Nore. The "Thistle was fitted with two pairs of engines which had formerly belonged to gunboats. She had three boilers, two of which were condensers, and the third a high-pressure boiler. By direction of the Lords of the Admiralty, steam was got up, and the vessel started on a trip to the Maplin Sands for the purpose of testing her speed over the measured mile. The greatest care had been taken by Mr. Walter W. Williamson, the chief inspector of machinery afloat, and other officers that every thing was in proper order for the trial. Not the slightest defect was perceptible in either engines or boilers, and it was thought that the trial would prove more than ordinarily successful. On reaching the sands, the vessel was, as it is technically termed, "put on " the mile, the condensing boilers only being first used. A series of "runs" had been thus made, when it was determined to try the vessel's speed with the high-pressure boiler. This was accordingly done, and two runs successfully made. On turning for the third run, it speedily became evident that some very serious mishap had occurred in the engine-room. Mr. Williamson, in company with Mr. Bannister, chief engineer of the factory, had gone on deck only three or four minutes previously, leaving Mr. William H. Roberts, the engineer, in charge of the vessel; Messrs. Edmund C. Scorrer, John Smithers, and Joseph Knight, engineers; with John Daer, fitter; John Timson, stoker; Joseph Lawrence, stoker; George Battley, chief stoker; Robert Robertson, leading stoker; Thomas Wakerell, stoker; William Dwyer, stoker; William Mitchell, leading stoker; James Elder, stoker; Mr. F. Williamson, foreman of engineers; Edward Mason, fitter; Mr. Joshua Anderson, Mr. George Whalebone, jun., and Mr. John Edgar, engineer-students, in the engine-room. The first intimation that a calamity had happened was given by the sudden appearance of Mr. J. Edgar upon the deck of the vessel, upon which he fell in a fainting state. Volumes of steam and smoke