DEATH OF COLONEL MAJENDIE.

A BRAVE INSPECTOR.

Colonel Sir Vivian Majendie, Inspector of Explosives to the Home Office, who was on a visit to his sister at Oxford, died suddenly on a recent Sunday night. In the evening Sir Vivian attended service at the Church of St. Philip and St. James, and was taken ill before the service had been completed. He was at once removed to the Vicarage, where he soon afterwards expired.

The death of Colonel Majendie has been certified as due to failure of the heart's action.

Colonel Majendie began his military career in the Royal Artillery, and served with distinction ;at Sebastopol and at the capture of Lucknow. In 18G1 he was appointed a Captain-Inspector of the Eoyal Laboratory at Woolwich, and in 1886 he became Assistant Superintendent, a post whence he was promoted to be Chief Inspector of Explosives to the Home Offioe, in 1879. It fell to his lot during the last quarter of a century to examine and report upon all kinds of bombs, infernal machines, and explosives found by the police in the pursuit of their avocation. In doing so he ran innumerable risks with the utmost coolness and bravery. It is said of him that he carried an indiarubber bag full of nitro-glycerine, found in the lodgings of a Fenian, in a four-wheel cab to Woolwich, and that on^this occasion he warned the driver not to 'collide with any other vehicle on the way, else "he might hear no more about it." When the cloak room at Victoria Station had been blown up, he opened a clockwork infernal machine which was working at the time, and might have exploded and killed him at any moment. Colonel Majendie was knighted in 1895.