The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-12 00:00:00

WESTMINSTER.

MURDEROUS ASSAULT BY A MAN ON HIS WIFE.—
Michael Joy, a labourer, residing at 1, Wackham-place,
Chelsea, was charged before Mr Selfe with the following
murderous assault upon Mary Ann, his wife, whose head
had a large bandage round it.
this morning she was at
very weak from loss of
seteanetepdlethihaetnatb(oNuvtho2 soe,cemio:kd
home sitting on a chair when her husband came in. She
bloTohde)
had been waiting up for him. After he had been there a
short time he knocked her off the chair, They had some
words.
Mr Selfe—How did he do that ?

Complainant—He struck her with his fiat, and when she
was on the ground he kicked her on her forehead, and
caused a wound which bled very much. Thre was a pool
of blood on the floor. A policeman came in and took her
husband to tho station. She went there to make the charge,
when her head was dressed by the surgeon of the division.
In answer to the magistrate, complainant stated that this
was not the first time she had been assaulted by her hus•
band, and that she had never brougist him there before.
She had been married many years, and had a little boy.
He was in bed at the time. Her sister-in-law (prisoner's
sister) was also in the room.
Policeman B 159 said he was called to take the prisoner
into custody. He found complainant, who was bleeding
very much from a wound in the forehead. The prisoner
said that she fell on a tub. He (witness) had seen the in•
jury, and thought the wound was caused by a kick.

Mr Selfe observed that it was a most brutal assault. He
always looked on a man who assaulted a woman as a great
brute, and he never passed over such conduct.
He was sent to the House of Correction for two months.

New Silver Coinage for Great Britain and

Ireland,

(From the .11fechanio's Magazine.)
We have excellent authority for announcing the
fact that it is intended ere many months shall have
passed away, to recall the whole of the silver coins
now circulating throughout the United Kingdom,
and to replace them by an entirely new coinage of
that metal. There can be very little doubt that the
remarkable degree of success which has attended
the recent reformation of the copper currency, and
of which reformation this journal gave the earliest
intimation to the public, has prompted the
Government to take this important step. There
exists as little doubt that a judicious re-
modelling of the silver coinage will be pro-
ductive of satisfaction and advantage to the
community at least equal in amount to that which
has followed the introduction of the bronze money.
It must ba patent to every person that the time has
arrived when a new coinage of silver would be
highly acceptable, for all must have experienced
more or less of inconvenience from the dilapidated
and used-up state of that which now circulates.
Our crowns and half-crowns, many millions of
which came into existence as far back as 1816, and
none of which are of more recent date than 1849,
are miserably deteriorated, having lost by abrasion
the greater part of their original impressions, and
many of them 15 per cent. of their original weight.
Oar shillings are in as bad a plight, whilst the
sixpenny coinage is in a much worse condition
than either, and individual pieces are frequently
met with which weigh only two-thirds of the
standard weight at which they were issued from the
Mint. Threepenny pieces are rapidly following in
the wake of their richer relatives, and fourpenny
pieces are dying an unnatural death, for their issue
has ceased for many years. We say nothing of the
florin, because it is the youngest member of the
British family of coins, and it has been subjected to
less wear and tear in consequence.

The loss of weight among our silver coins is a great
evil no doubt, but the consequent defacement of
their impressions is of yet more serious consequence,
for it facilitates largely the operations of counterfeit
coiners. Such manipulators find it a comparatively
easy task to produce jac similes in base metal of half-
worn-out coins, and they avail themselves too freely
of the privilege thus afforded them.
Mere loss of weight is of the less importance,
because at the best silver coins are simply national

tokens representing certain amounts; that is to say,
their nominal and their intrinsic value, when newly
minted, are unequal, and abrasion and sweating
only widen the ratio of inequality. A pound
weight of standard silver costs—subject to slight
fluctuations resulting from the action of the law of
supply and demand—in the bullion market, sixty
shillings ; but after conversion into coins of either
of the denominations named, its value i 3 nominally
raised to 665, thus leaving a. margin or seiguiorage,
as the ancient term stands, for covering the cost of
coining operations, of 63 upon each pound
weight paseed under the Mint presses. A
shilling at its birth therefore is not intrinsi•
cally worth a shilling; it only represents that
sum. So of all other coins in the silver series.
Diminution of weight, therefore, as has been stated,
is of less consequence than defacement.
This fact admitted, there is no reason, as it seems
to us, why the pound weight of silver should not,
in the projected new coinage, be converted into
seventy shillings or even eighty shillings, and its
companion moneys in like proportions. The ex-
pense of the entire operation of recasting and re-
coining the silver moneys would thus be met, with-
out drawing a farthing from the public treasury
for the purpose; and, instead of having a miser-
able, and easily imitated mass of coins, grown
tight by wear, tear, and ill usage in circulation,
we should :possess a perfect token coinage--

ght, elegant, portable. and not to be counterfeited

without the exercise of great skill. If light silver
coins, which simply bear shadows of their former
impressions, now pass from hand to hand unques-
tioned, surely light coins upon which the full and
complete devices of the Mint dies stood out in
minute elaboration, ought also to circulate freely—
and so, no doubt, they would !
It may also become a question of interest for the
Mint authorities as to whether a harder composi-
tion than standard silver might not be discovered
and employed. Frequently the slightest variation
in the mixture of metals—take gun and bell metals
for illustration—makes a wondrous difference in
their hardness. At all events, the durability of the
uew silver coinage is a point only second in import.
ance to that of its speedy introduction.

FEEBLE LITTLE JOKE OF SIR HARRIS NICOLAS.
—The late Sir Harris Nicolas used to practise
rather strongly upon some of his friends. I was not an un-
willing victim. The pleasure derived from the wit exceeded
any pain it inflicted. Indeed, Sir Harris himself one day
expressed his disappoinment at my insensibility, by saying
that he had never in his whole life been able really to hit

me. The late Lord S . . . was sitting with him one
morning listening to a very astute but rather dry explana-

tion of some matter about which his lordship had inquired
At last he threw himself back in his armchair and said

"14 dear Nicolas, I am very stupid this morning; my
brains are all gone to the dogs." On which Sir Harris
pathetically exclaimed, "Poor dogs!" —Babbage's Autobio-

graphy.
CAPT. W. W. KNOLLYS' VIVACIOUS NOVELETTE,
in form, says the .Reader, something like " Letters left at a
Pastrycook's," professing to be extracts from the diary of
a young lady consigned to the IRdian matrimonial market,
will appear in a few days under the title of "Misses and
Matrimony."

A SCREAMING FARCE, in two acts, has just come
out at Wurtzburg, the text of which is published by
Richter, called " Shakespeare in Deutschland am Tage
seiner Jubelfeier." With slight alterations it would suit our
London commemoration nearly as well.
'I HE NEW GOVERNOR OF THE CAPE.—Lieute-
nant-General Sir Robert Percy Dangles, who has
been appointed Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, is the
eldest son cf the late Sir Howard Douglas, who was Go-
vernor of New Brunswick from 1823 to 1829, and Lord
High Commissioner of the lonian Islands from 1835 till
1810. The new Governor was born in 1805, and succeeded
to the baronetcy in 1861. He has been Inspector of Militia
and Assistant-Adjutant-General to the Forces.
IMPORT OF CORN.—A Parliamentary return pre-
sents a tabular account of our imports of grain, corn, flour,
and meal for the last 23 years, and shows that in the 10
years, 1541-50, the quantity averaged 5,810,470 quarters a
year; in the 10 years, 1851.60, 9,629,425 quarters; since
then it has been larger than was ever known before—namely,
in 1861, 16,094,914 quarter'.; in 186'2, 15,441,791 quarters;
and in 1863, 15,352,559 quarters. The estimated value of
these imports was £34,918,639 in 1861, £37,772,191 in 1862,
and £29,956,939 in 1863. We get at least a third of our
supply from America, but the largest portion is drawn from
our own hemisphere, and much from the most ancient
sources; we get above 1,000,000 quarters in a year from
Egypt, where the patriarch Jacob sought and found corn,
and from Turkey, Denmark, Southern Russia, Prussia,
more than 1,000,000 each.
INSURANCE AMALGAMATION.—The Leeds and
Yorkshire Assurance Company, the head office of
which is at Leeds, is about to be amalgamated with the
Liverpool and London Fire and Life Insurance Company,
with which the Globe Insurance Company has just been
amalgamated. The Leeds and Yorkshire Company has been
very successful, and the terms on which it unites with the
Liverpool and London are deemed very satisfactory, and the
result will probably be an increase in the Yorkshire busi-
ness of the united companies.
A HILL-SIDE ON FlRE.—Last evening, part of
the hill-side at Carrigaloe was observed to be on
fire, and is a short time the flames spread with such rapidity
that the entire side of the hill facing the river presented the
appearance of a huge sheet of flame. Tho conflagration is
said to be caused by a spark from the railway engine falling
amongst the heath and furzo,which, owing to the late con-
tinued hot weather, had been made easily ignitable.—Carle
'Examiner.
BODY OF A CHILD FOUND IN THE CLOAK ROOM
OF THE BRIGHTON RAlLWAY.—Yesterday morning,
information was forwarded to Mr Payne, the coroner, that
on Saturday last the superintendent of the cloak-room
of the above railway, while inspecting the various parcels
left in his charge, found in a black box, which had been
lying there since the 14th ult., the body of a full grown
child. Such crimes have it seems of late been of frequent
°cent rences on the metropolitan railways.
FIRE IN LAMBETII.—A short time before three
o'clock yesterday morning about five-sixths of
Davis's ginger beer and soda water manufactory, Princes-
street, Stamford-street, Lambeth, was destroyed by fire,
The private residence was also damaged and a portion of
Mr H. Hies's factory destroyed. Several adjoining houses
were damaged.
CONSCIENCE MONEY."—Yesterday an official
document was printed, showing that in the year ending the
31st March the amount of " conscience money" paid to the
Government \YU £7,4Q0 14e, 801.}