The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1824-12-23 00:00:00

THE BRITISH PRESS.

and gave a reference to a Mr. Clark, of Bengal-place, Kent-road
and that gentleman told him be knew the lady, who was possessed
of a large property in the West India; he had discounted bills for
her to • large amount. This reference he considered satisfactory,
and she took possession of the cottage, and at the expiration of the
quarter, he wrote her a note, requesting payment. The prisoner
then waited on him, and said Mrs. Saunders had met with an un-
fortunate disappointment, and therefore begged a few days more,
which being allowed, at the expiration the prisoner again celled,
and the witness not liking to be put off, said " will you, Sir, be
security, or pay me the money ?" The prisoner replied, "Oh
dear no, no person likes to put hia hand into his pocket to pay
other peoples' debts," and refused giving his name and address,
I but after some hesitation gave his name as Oodfrey. He was after-
wards paid Lis quarter's rent. She remained another quarter, and
then referred him to Messrs. I'/Bather and Co. East India Cham-
bers, who gave her • very est:dime character, observing, they had
1 property of her's in their hands, and cou
had disnted her bills. But
they declined becoming security foe the rent, unless she gave than
orders to that effect. lie afterwards told her he would take her
bill on them. as they appeared a very respectable firm, which she
agreed to, and afterwards, in the presence of the prisoner Codfrey,
at the cottage, she gave him a bill at six months, drawn on blather
and Co.; but, in • very frw days, lie found be could not get the
bill even accepted, as Mr. Mather had disappeared.
The Captain handed in a letter, written from Mrs. Saunders to
his housekeeper at the cottage. The following is a copy of the
letter.

There were similar cues stated by Mr. Nutting, of Dean-street,
piano-forte-maker, who had lost a valuable piano; Mr.Wassell, of
Howland-street, who had lost a valuable harp; Mr. Payne, of
High-street. musician ; Mr. Crow, livery-stable-keeper, of High-
street, who had lent the prisoner a tilbury, a cabriolet, and a gig,
for which he had never received any thing.
Considerable contention arose in the office. as a Mr. Parke,
of Chelsea, a builder, was pointed out as having given Mrs. Saun.
ders references, and 'Aug connected with the prisoner.
Mr. Parker defended himself front the accusation, and said she I
had defrauded hint considerably.
Mr. RAW L I N 30 N read three anonymous letters received by Mr.
Wanaell, of Howland-street, Mr. Payne, of High-street, and Mr.
Nutting, of Dean-street. charging him with being an accessary to
all the movements of the swindlers, and with a participation in their
profits, and the property was concvaled in his house, (Westbourne
Cottage) from which it was removed nocturnally at the leisure of
the gang.
Mr. Parker said he had been attacked in that way before, and
had been placarded, and offered • reward of 20 guineas for the
offender. Ile had received a highly respectable reference from Mr.
Mather, and gave it as his opinion, " she (Mrs. Saunders) was
highly respectable, although unfortunate." Here an immense up-
roar took place in the office, and the retort courteous was most un-
ceremoniously passed between Capt. Sweetman, Mr. liven, and
Mr. Parke, as relating to his having stated those gentlemen dined
and drank wine, and were very intimate with Mrs. Saunders.
Mr. Raw!. xson said the case assumed so much the complexion
of swindling, that he should remand the prisoner until next Wed-
nesday.
UNION HALL.
_ _ _

......
On Tuesday a mart of decent appearance, named Wm. hair,
was brought before the sitting Magistrate, R. J. CIIAMBEIRS.
Esq., in the custody of Pople, the constable, who apprehended
him the previous night, for committing a desperate assault upon
his wife, Amy Keats.
Mrs. Keats, on coming forward to give her evidence against her
husband, exhibited a face dreadfully bruised and swollen, the
effects of the beating she had received from the defendant; both
her eyes were blackened, and there was a deep cut across the bridge I
of her nose. She stated, that she lives at No. 56, Elliott's-row,
Prospect-place, Southwark ; that she and her husband keep a house
for lodgers, ant! that amongst other lodgers a clergyman of the
name of Pause, from Liverpool, occupies two rooms in the house ;
that on Monday night Mr. l'ause happened to step into her parlour
in the absence of her husband, and while in conversation with that
gentleman her husband carne into the room, and ill-used her in the
terrible manner in which she appeared before the Magistrate.
The Magistrate asked Mrs. Keats where the clergyman was
during the time her husband was heating her.
The contpixinant replied, that she was so agitated at the moment
that she could not recollect what became of him, but she believed,
to the best of her recollection, that he had run out of the room
when he perceived the violent passion in which her husband ap-
-I..ared. Bad it not been for the interposition of some of the other
lodgers, she really thought her husband would have murdered her.
Pottle, the officer, who took the defendant into custody, was
called. lie said that on Monday night, about twelve o'clock, he
was called out of his bed by a woman, who desired him, for God's
sake, to hasten down to Mr. Keats's house, fur that a person was
murdering his wife. The officer immediately proceeded thither,
and outside the hall door, on the steps, he observed two candles
burning in candlesticks, the lights from which enabled him to dis-
cover great quantities of blood on the ground of the little garden in
front of the house. Ile then knocked at the door, which was
opened by Mrs. Keats, who held a handkerchief up to her face,
which wes literally steeped in blood. On looking at her :ice he
could scarcely discover a feature in it. so completely was it battered.
I Indeed, said the officer, so shocking and disfigured was Mrs.
Keats's fees, on that night, that I can now scarcely bring myself i
to believe that she is the saute person.
Mrs. Keats here assured him that she was, and that the swelling
had abated in connequence of the application of raw beet to the
parts affected.
The officer proceeded to state, that on entering the parlour he
discovered every article in the room destroyed. The whole of the
furniture, consisting of tables, chairs, end looking-glasses, lay in
fragments in a heap on the floor. The remains of decanters and
wine-glasses also were strewed about in all directions. "In fact,"
said l'ople. " 1 never saw such a scene of destruction of property in
one room in my life." The door of the parlour, he observed, bad
been knocked off the hinges in the height of the row. After having
examined the state of confusion in which things were, be questioned
Mrs. Keats relative to it ; and, in reply, she told him that a gen-
tleman who lodged in the house had Just stepped into the parlour to
ask her how she did, when her husband suddenly came in upon
them, and, without requiring or asking any explanation, corn-
merited a most violent attack upon her, which she was convinced
would have proved fatal to her had not some of the lodgers come to
her assistance and saved her. During this coversation, the defend- ,
ant came into the room, who, upon seeing the officer, asked him
what he wanted there. Being told, he directly said, " You stop
here and I will fetch the parson to you." Pople told him that he
aid not want the parson, for it was he (the defendant) that he
wanted for beaticg his wife. The defendant then exclaimed, I
" Surely you don't want to take me into custody; it is the parson
who has been the cause of all this trouble, and he is the man who
should be taken up." Pople added, that he led the defendant off I
to the truchhouse.

The Magistrate now asked the defendant what could have in-
duced him to commit such a barbarous outrage upon his wife ?
The defendant, in a subdued tone, expressed his sorrow for what
had occurrent ; but, said he, " I was greatly exasperated, Sir, on
coming home at 11 o'clock on the night mentioned, to find the Rev.
Mr. S sitting with my wife in the parlour, drinking wine to-
gether."
The wife here interrupted the defendant, saying, " Ah, Keats.
pita know well enough, was it not for the parson you would not
have a house over your head, or a bit of bread to put into your
mt nth. You knew all this, and yet you behaved is the manner
you did."
The defendant was proceeding to give some further explanation
respecting the intimacy subsisting between the parson and his
wife, when
Tim Magistrate observed, that he had heard quite enough of
the ease to call upon the defendant to put in bail for the assault
upon his wife, and remarked, that the defendant might be mis.
taken with respect to the nature of the Reverend Gentleman's visit
to the wife; for it might have been to administer 11003 c spiritual
consolation to her.

The defendant sighed and shook his head.
About an hour after the decision of the case. Mrs. Keats again
came to the office and supplicated the l'ilagistrate to discharge
her husband without bail. This application wu refused.

TO%VN.IIALL.
CONJUGAL Arts evriote.—Lucy Thompson, a very young
woman, was sent from the Mansion_ nous. to this Office, to prefer
the following piteous complaint :
The petitioner described herself to have been the wife of the
untortunate man hung at Hertford, on Tuesday last, fur the rob.
bery at Air. Haynes's. the steward of Earl Cowper, whose
proper name was Thompson rot Jones, and whose body was the
sante day brought to town by Dick Curtis, the Pet of the Fancy,
and deposited in a house, next door to the Bell public-house, in
the Mint, Southwark, kept by a woman named Elizabeth Croft,
with whom the convict had for years cohabited, and under whose
roof, then in Dover-street, Blackfriars-road, the same mats, Jones,
had escaped to, and had his irons tiled off, at the time he and others
escaped from the custody of the Marlboreugh.strect officer, in their
transit from that •."ice to Clerkenwcll, opposite the British
Museum, about three years back. This woman now denied
her the miserable solace of viewing the dead body of her lawful
bushand, under a plea that she was no longer his wife the moment
he was sentenced, and that he had expressed his dying wish to her
that his dead body should never be viewed by his wife.
Mr. Alderman Sst rell told the wife no power was vested
in him to force compliance to her widlest, but that all he could do
should he done, and an officer was ordered to attend the pAitioner,
and see what could be done.

This duty devolved upon that meritorious efficer, John Kinsey,
who made his report, that his best endeavours had proved abortive.
'When the miserable remnant of a miserable culprit expressed her
determination to have the body dug from the grave to satisfy the
ravings of her unsubduable feelings.

CORNWALL MtNEL—Tin ores sold at Redruth on
Thursday 21 tons. Amount of sale 1681. 7s. 8(1. Copper
OTIV for sale next week at Redruth—Pembroke, 744;
Wheal llorland, :198 ;IVheal Damsel, 255; United Mines,
226 ; Tingtang, 214 ; Wheal Pink, 86 ; Wheal Squire,
77; Wheal Spinster, 54 ; Creegbraws, 20; Wheal Hope,
20 ; Barton Mine, Is. Total, 2112 tons.
The Rev. E. W. Mathew, Vicar of Coggeshall, Essex,
was overturned in his chaise, ou the 11th inst. near the
Rev. Mr. Wright's, Marks Tey, by which he broke the
scapula of his left shoulder, and narrowly escaped with his
life. The accident is attributed to the negligence of the
surveyor, who had laid a quantity of gravel, without al-
lowing sufficient room for tno carriages to pus.

CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS. AND CEREMONIES
ON CHRISTMAS DAY.

(From Tines Teksenpe for 18251
Popular superstitutions and customs may generally be
traced back to heathen times, for on their rites and myste-
ries were many of the Catholic ceremonies afterwards en-
grafted; and to the Saturnalia we arc, or rather our
ancestors were, probably indebted for some of our Christ-
mas pastimes. The Reformation first injured their popu-
larity, and the age of Puritanism gave them a fresh shock.
0! rus, quando to aspiciain. Yet even there the
hand of improvement has been active, and some valuable
relic of ancient festivities is occasionally ushered from the
parlour to the kitchen, never more to return. The deco-
ration of houses and churches with evergreens is continued,
however, in London ; nor is there a deficiency, to the best
of our experience, in the demands for Christmas boxes;
the original intention of which was probably to enable the
poor to partake of. the festivities of the season, from the
gratuities of their more wealthy fellow-creatures—and,
God forbid that, while feasting ourselves, we should not
assist our poor neighbours and dependents to enjoy them-
selves. Certain nocturnal wandering minstrels occasionally
disturb the slumbers of the citizens for about a month
prior to Christmas, calling themselves Sails; but slack
the day !' instead of playing and singing the good old
Carol, our ears arc saluted with Roy's Wife, St. Patrick's
Day, or the latest Quadrille tune. In many parts of the
country, especially in the west, the Carol is still preserved,
and is sung in the parish churches on Christmas Day,
the singers also going about to the different houses
blithely caroling such cheering tunes as A Child this day
is bond—' Sit, you merry gentlemen'—' 1 saw three ships
come sailing in, &c. &c. In London, except some croak-
ing ballad-singer bawling nut God rest you, metry gentle-
men,' or a like doggrel, nothing in the shape of Carols is
heard, though there is a considerable sale of them among
the lower classes. Look at the following list of Christmas
amusements, given by Burton in his Anatomy of Melan-
choly, now superseded by his Pope-Joan, Blind Man's
Buff; and Puss in the Corner :—"Fhe ordinary recreations
which we have in winter are carder, tables and dice, sho-
vel-board, chew-piety, the philosopher's game, small
trunkes, billiards, musicke, makes, singing, dancing,
ule-games, catches, purposes, questions' merry tales of' er-
rant knights, kings, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants,
dwarfs, thiev;:s, fairies, goblins, friars, witches, and the
rest.' As to mummers and Christmas Plays, unless Gri-
tnaldi and the pantomimes be considered as relies, we know
not where to find them in or near the metropolis ; though
formerly a Lord of Misrule, or Christmas Prince' was
chosen, even in the highest families and most learned esta-
blishments;—even our kings used to join in these sports.
Mummers, guisardes, or guise-dancers, (commonly called
geese-dancers,) may yet be seen in the country ; and the
story of St. George and the Dragon and the Fair Sabra is
annually repeated, enlivened with the frolics of (lid Fa-
ther Christmas; and the Doe,or, who cures each deep
and deadly wound' of the combatants, coming for that
purpose
From the furthermost part of Spain,
NVith a little bottle of alieumpain.

But the sons and daughters of Christmas, " Old Christ-
mas of London and Captain Christmas," have seen strange
vicissitudes since the family were last assembled at
White:Jell. The goodly number of sports and customs
which took place in
Those golden days of yore,
When Christmas was a high day,
is yearly diminishing. Until very lately, the Chaplains in
St. James's Place retained the venerable custom of having
" a tureen full of rich plum porridge" served up, and not
only served up, hut actually " eaten on that festival at that
table." But, alas! the " plum-porridge" and the " tu-
reen" have disappeared before time magic touch of modern
refinement.

Of the s?lendid and substantial hospitality which dis-
tinguished the celebration of Christmas in former times,
when noblemen and gentlemen of fine estates had their
heralds, who wore their coat of arms at this and other
solemn seasons, and cried Largesse, &c., we have already
dissected in our previous volumes ; and have given a
poetical bill of fare in the time of King Arthur, describ-
ing the " salmon, venison, and wild boys," which were
served up by hundreds, along with " hogsheads of honey,
kilderkina of mustard," &c. We will now record a few
anecdotes of the principal personage in our modern Christ-
mas dinner—Monsieur Dindon ; or, in vulgar English,
our Alderman-in-Chains.

Naturalists are at variance upon the origin of the turkey.
Some pretend that it was not known before the discovery of
America, and that the first which appeared on a table in
F►ance was eaten at the nuptials of Charles IX., in 1370.
Henry VIII. had some of them brought to England in
1425, and they are supposed to be indigenous to Canada
and the adjacent countries, where they are found sometimes
weighing upwards of SOlbs. Credal Atheist Apella. How-
ever, we, must allow that the Norfolk breed does not fall
considerably short of that weight. On the other hand, it is
said that Meleager, a King of Macedonia, brought them from
India into Greece at a very early period ; and that out of
gratitude for such an acquisition the Athenian Gastronomers
called the bird Meleagris. Mythology contends that
they were so named from the Macedonian hero above
mentioned, after whose death his woe-begone sisters
were transformed into these birds of mournf.il appearance.
But there is still • doubt whether the ..11eleagris of
Aristotle, of Clytus, of Calixenes, of Ptolemy, and other
authors of ancient times, was not the bird now known
under the name of Guinea-hen. Ovid certainly mays
(b. viii. of the Metamorphoses) that Me!eiger's sisters
were turned into birds, but mentions nothilk; die, except
that, having acquired horny beaks and ex,cosive wings,
they were sent adrift, to find their way through the
vacant air. The idea that the Jesuits brought them into
notice is erroneous; they were known in Europe long be-
fore the institution of Loyola's order. Why the French
should call them doodles de saretier, cobler's larks, can-
not easily be be accounted for. This bird is so stupid or
timorous that if you balance a bit of straw on his head, or
draw a line with chalk on the ground from his beak, he
fancies himself so loaded or so bound that Le will remain in
the ante position till hunger forces him to move. The
French say of a silly person, "c'est us dindon ;" applying
the term as,we do that of goose.
This bird is either roasted or boiled, and often accom-
panied by a chine of pork : when of a goodbreed, it
possesses a flavour between the pheasant and the chicken.
In the French cuisine, turkey d la dattl.e, means the bird
confined in a terrine with truffles, maroons, &c. &e. and
so baked in the oven that it may keep. It is eaten cold, and
offers an elegant and substantial relish for the luncheon of
a Gastronomer. But r►mugre la Carte franeaise, we
must confess ourselves English enough to prefer, espe-
cially on Christmas-day, " an Alderman in caging," with
his attendant liverymen, hereunder descrited
All hail ! thou Monarch of the smiling board,
Majestic Turkey !
All hail ! the forced-meat balls with which thnn'rt stored!
All hail! the sausage-fetters steaming o'er thee !
Hail ! ye inferior, yct delightful dishes,
O'er which in trance ecstatic roves my eye !
Ye savoury fowls, ye most alluring dishes,
And brandy flashing in the burnt mince-pie !
! end and oyster-sauce ! quail! patridge ! bastard !
Lobster! plain-pudding '• apple pie ! and custard !

OUTLAWRY OF THE 1115110, OF Cr.ocitta.—On Sun-
day last, after a very excellent sermon had been delivered
by the Rev. Dr. Busftild, and as the eongrcgatioa was on
the point of departing, a well-dressed man arrested their
attention, by reading, in a very loud tone, the following
words from a paper he held in his hand:—
•• 0 yea, 0 yea, 0 yea--Come forth and enrrender yourself to
the Sheriff of Middlesex, on the octave of St. Hilary, for a certain
misdemeanour, or you will be outlawed.
" Wet. HEMP,
Bailiff to the said Sheriff.
- -- •

" Mary-la-bonne, Dee. 19, 1824."
The congregation were astounded, and as many could not
distinctly hear, it was a considerable time hefere the church
and its spacious yard could be cleared. The notice is now
to be seen posted on the principal door of Mary-la-banne
church, and which, it is astonishing, has not before been
noticed in any of the papers.
ASSIST•NT lI•IIRISITLRS.—The appointment of Mr.
M'Can to the West Riding of the County of Cork has
taken place, and Mr. Manley has been promoted to the
East Riding.