and South Coast Railway Company for injury received
in a collision near Langport, in October last year. Mr.
Palmer was struck on the back of the head; he is now
quite unfitted for business, and will probably never
recover his former health and strength of mind. His
short examination in court produced a painful impression.
He is a fine looking man of forty; and his salary
at the time of the accident was £350 a-year.

In the Birmingham Bankruptcy Court, on the 23rd,
in the inquiry into the affairs of the Bromsgrove Bank,
Mr. Francis Rufford, the partner who had the entire
management of the bank, was examined, and made very
remarkable statements. It appeared that he had
associated with him in that management a person named
Smith, who had absconded on account of the frauds he
had committed. The balance-sheet in this bank
extended from 1841 to 1851; in the former year there was
a balance due to the customers of the bank over and
above the receipts of the Yew Tree House estate (Mr.
Rufford's residence), which was valued at £20,000. On
the 1st of January, 1840, the firm had credit to the
amount of £170,000, all of which might be called in
a month; and all the available money they had to meet
it did not amount to more than £19,397. The bankrupt
admitted on a former examination, and he now
repeated, that the system of country banking was
defective; for that, owing to depositors requiring such a
high rate of interest, the bankers were obliged to transact
their business on insecure investments. The bankrupt
spoke to transactions with a firm, Messrs. Fardon
and Gossage. These persons were introduced to the
bankrupts "by letters from highly respectable parties,"
and upon such recommendation they allowed an over-
draw to the extent of £50,000, although during the time
that debt was accumulating two returned notes of that
firm passed through the bank. Ultimately Fardon and
Gossage sold their entire property to the British Alkali
Company for £130,000. The bankrupt (Mr. F. Rufford)
became chairman of that company, but, notwithstanding
the fact of this purchase money passing to Fardon and
Gossage, the bank at Bromsgrove never had the
precaution to secure the £50,000 owing to them, but,
instead, allowed the debt to increase. Mr. Gossage is
now passing through his examination in the Liverpool
Bankruptcy Court, but where Mr. Fardon is, he (Mr.
Rufford) did not know. The following was the state
of the Bromsgrove Bank at the time of the
bankruptcy:—Debts, £227,826 9s. 2d., to meet which there
was only £13,000. During eleven years and a half he
(Mr. Rufford ) had drawn out of the bank £56,859 14s. l0d.
for which the bank had no security.

A Melancholy Suicide has been committed by a poor
woman named Stone, in Dean-street, Westminster.
About seven years ago, her husband, an engineer, died,
and was buried in the Broadway churchyard. The
widow was left unprovided for, and left London to take
a situation in Kent, where she was not successful. At
the beginning of the present month, she took lodgings
in Dean-street. Nothing having been seen of her lately,
her door was broken open, and she was found lying dead
on the floor. Mr. Heath, the surgeon of Bridge-street,
was of opinion that she had been dead seven or eight
days. He found on the mantelpiece two bottles labelled
"poison;" and upon a post-mortem examination, he
discovered about an ounce of laudanum in the stomach.
She had been in the habit for two years of going to the
churchyard and weeping over the grave of her husband.
In her room the following letter was found:

"To save trouble, Mrs. Ann Stone came by her death by a
draught of laudanum, no one knowing that she did take it, as
she is a total stranger in the house she is in. Every effort she
has made to obtain an honest living failed her. She has the
presumption to throw her soul in the presence of the Almighty,
and she fervently prays that God will have mercy on her soul.
Good Christians, do not allow a number of persons to look on my
unfortunate body. I have performed all the offices that are
requisite; the body is quite ready for the coffin."

She then begs that she may be buried in the same
grave with her husband, and expressed a fear that the
New Victoria-street might destroy it. She concludes—
"If I could have died on my husband's grave-stone, I
would have done so."

NARRATIVE OF ACCIDENT AND
DISASTER.

DURING the late gales, a schooner in Scarborough
Roads signalled for a pilot to take her into the harbour;
six fishermen put off in a coble; not far from the pier-
end a sea upset the boat, and all the men Perished.
They were married, and have left twenty-five children.

Early on the morning of the 31st ult., a small craft
belonging to Gravesend ran down a bark off Whitby: it
sank almost instantaneously, and all the crew, twelve or
fourteen in number, were Drowned.

On the 30th ult., at Holywell Level Mine, near Holywell,
the men were in the act of lowering a lift of pumps,
when the vast weight of iron-work, suspended by a
capstan-rope, in its progress downwards came in contact
with some part of the pit-work, or part of the machinery
broke, and giving a lurch, whereby its weight (20 tons)
became suddenly increased too much for the men to
resist; they were instantly overpowered, and the capstan,
running round with great impetuosity, threw them off
in every direction, several of them being pitched high
into the air, and a distance into the field: two of the
men were hurled into the fire, and were much burnt,
and three were Killed.

A dreadful calamity has occurred at Holmfirth, in the
West Riding of Yorkshire, caused by the Bursting of
the Embankment of a great Water Reservoir. In the
hills above Holmfirth are several reservoirs, managed
by a body called the Holme Conservancy
Commissioners. They are formed by dams across narrow
gorges, which convert the vallies into lakes. The
embankment of the Bilberry reservoir, which is 150 yards
long and 90 feet high, had been lately in a doubtful
condition, from the pressure of the enormous column of
water accumulated during the rains of the last month.
On the morning of the 5th inst., before dawn, the
embankment was suddenly swept away, and the gorge
below it, with every house, mill, and manufactory on
the borders of the Holme, down to the town of
Holmfirth, nearly three miles from the reservoir, destroyed
or ruined. The loss of life and property is terribly
great. Whole families were destroyed, without a single
survivor being left. Several bodies were carried down as
far as Hull, where they were taken out of the Humber.
The houses in Water-street, six in number, were swept
away by a double flood; for the water from Bilberry
reservoir caused another reservoir belonging to a mill
to burst: the row of houses was struck by the flood
simultaneously at the end and at the front. James
Metterick, the only one of the family saved, lived in one
of these houses. He states, "that there were ten of
them in the house—his father, stepmother, and eight
children. They were roused by some one soon after
one o'clock. He hastily put on a few clothes, and ran
to the staircase-window, looking up the valley, where he
met his stepmother. A glance at the approaching water
satisfied them it was the reservoir had burst. The
children were asleep below stairs, but his father handed
them up to him and Mrs. Metterick, and they were
placed in the chamber. Just then the deluge came, and
the lower room was filled in an instant, and the water
burst through into the chamber. He and Mrs. Metterick
again seized the children, and carried all but one a story
higher, into the attic: the flood had caught his father
and one child on the stairs and overwhelmed them. The
next moment the whole house was carried away, and he
saw no more of any of the family: he found himself in
the raging torrent, swept before it for a quarter of a
mile like a feather. He got hold of a floating plank, lost
it, and seized another; was carried aside into the
Bottom Mill reservoir, where the water soon became
quieter; he paddled himself out of it by means of
another floating piece of wood which he seized. He
reached the bank of the reservoir in a very exhausted
condition." A boy in a cottage was carried up by the
water to within a few inches of the ceiling: he caught
hold of a beam, to which he clung for an hour, and was
rescued when the water subsided. It appears that
upwards of 100 persons have perished, and 71 dead
bodies have been found. There have been 4 mills, 10
dyehouses, 10 drying-stoves, 27 cottages, 7 tradesmen's