from the discharge of a heavy piece of ordnance; but, on looking seawards, and seeing there no signs of such discharge, those persons who were old enough to remember the sounds and vibrations experienced by explosions in the early years of the century, rightly surmised the cause. The news soon came that one of the "Corning houses" belonging to Messrs. Lawrence and sons at the Lower Peppernine mill had been blown up, and a workman named Putland, 57 years of age, and employed on the works for 26 years, had been shattered beyond identification. The whole building was destroyed, and portions of cemented brickwork were hurled to a distance of 400 feet. At the inquest on the man's shattered remains, it was shown that every precaution was taken; that one of the witnesses had worked in the mills for 31 years; that another witness (the foreman) had been employed for 40 years; and that no possible cause for the explosion could be discovered.
A seaman named Jeffery, on the 9th of September, while standing on the cross-trees of the Phoenix of Hastings and taking in sail during a strong breeze, fell to the deck and sustained a compound fracture of one thigh and other injuries. He was brought home to the Infirmary.
Mr. Chas. Dunk, of the Cutter Inn had been subject to epileptic fits, and on 13th of Oct. he was found dead in bed from an attack of one such fits.
An unfortunate bullock, which had strayed onto the railway between Appledore and Rye, on the 10th of October, had its head severed on one rail and its tail on the other by a train from Ashford to Hastings.
John Tunbridge, of Hastings, formerly a farmer and grazier, and subject to asthma, died in a railway carriage between Hastings and Bopeep, on the 16th of October. He was en-route for Brighton and had been seized by an apopletic fit, probably through hastening to catch the train.
A fatal railway accident occurred on the 29th of November which alarmed that Hastings and other passengers who were travelling eastward by the South-coast express train. On this side of Lewes, a horse and van came up to the gate at a crossing between the Newhaven junction and Glynde station a few minutes before the train arrived that spot. As soon as the gate-keeper had unfastened the gate to admit them through, he saw the train rapidly approaching. He again shut the gate without securing it, when from some misunderstanding on the part of the driver or from the horse becoming unmanageable, they got immediately on a point of danger, and a terrific collision was the result. By the time -
