The Sun.
London, England, 1852-12-23 00:00:00

labouring under violent hysteria, which may be produced
by almost any cause. I have also seen the children,
and they are occasionally afflicted with vomitings and
the same symptoms. I know the firm of Messrs. Corbyn
and Co. to be most respectable, and I think it extremely
unlikely that any improper parcel would come from
their house.

Mr. William Baker, a surgeon and apothecary, of
Blackfriars, said : Mrs. Holly came to me about eighteen
months ago very ill, and said she had been so ever since
she took some arrow-root. I gave her some medicine,
and she recovered, but frequently called upon me after,
and always greatly excited. When poison once enters
the system, it will sometimes remain there for life.
Vegetable poisons affect the brain, and will overturn the
reason, and produce convulsions, tremors, and derange-
ment for life. Mrs. Holly brought me some arrow-root,
and I tested it for arsenic and corrosive sublimate, but
found neither in it. I tasted it, and found it extremely
bitter, and it left a great heat on my tongue that I could
not get rid of for some time. If it had been genuine
arrow-root, it would have had no taste. I washed some
of it and discovered a brown sediment, which I compared
with nux vomica, and found it precisely similar.
Alderman Wilson : That is not a dangerous chemical,
for there is an immense quantity of it used in beer.
Witness : I am aware it is so used, but I do not
think it quite so harmless, for I had the cramp in
my arms and legs all night from only drinking a glass of
pale ale. I wished to try the effect of the arrow-root
on some of the animals that are born blind, as nux
vomica kills that class of animals instantly, and Mrs.
Holly said she would try it on a bird, and in a few days
she brought me a sparrow which she stated the arrow-
root had killed. The effects of nux vomica might last for
years in the system. I mixed some nux vomica with
some pure arrow-root and then tasted it, and the simi-
larity between that and the arrow-root brought to me by
the complainant'was such that I could not tell one from
the other.

The two children were then called, but their testi-
mony was of little importance, as their memory was
scarcely sufficient to speak with certainty to what little
they remembered of the circumstances.

Mr. Bagley proposed to call witnesses to prove that
the complainant was of weak intellect, and therefore her
testimony would be inadmissible.

Alderman Wilson said it did not appear to him that
Mrs. Holly was weak-minded prior to the time of her
taking the arrow-root, and therefore to prove that she
was so after that would not tend in any way to strengthen
the defendant's case, or weaken that of the complainant.
It had gone forth to the public that four applications
had been made at the Mansion-house' and also at this
court, one of which was stated to have been made to
himself, but of which he had not the slightest recollection,
without the complainant being able to obtain a hearing.
He was rather surprised at it ; and on hearinc, of the
case from a lady in his own ward he determined at once
to have the matter investigated, and therefore sent for
all the parties on Monday last, when the complaint was
at length entertained. Under all the circumstances, he
thought it was due to the public, to the complainant,
to the defendant, and to himself, that all the witnesses
who could throw any light upon the subject should be
examined ; a great deal of mystery was attached to the
case, and he did not think he should be doing his duty
were he to dispose of the case in its present stage. If
it should turn out that poison really was in the arrow-
root, it would amount to a felony, and the charge would,
therefore, be a very serious matter to the defendant.
The, summons was then adjourned, the defendant
entering into his own recognisances in 1001., and giving
bail to the same amount, for his appearance.

SOCIETY OF ARTS.

EXHIBITION OF PHOTOGRAPHS.

A soirée, last evening, in the rooms of the Society of
Arts—Lord Monteagle officiating at the lecture as chair-
man, and afterwards as ambulatory president, and a
numerous and distinguished company of ladies and gen-
tlemen participating—inaugurated an exhibition, which
is to remain open for a week, of " recent specimens of
photography." Four rooms were filled with pictures ;
but we do not know why the generic term " photogra-
phy" has been used, since all these pictures are calotypes,
there not being one daguerreotype. The specimens are
French and English, in about equal proportions, and are
in every sense most interesting, as evidencing the pro-
gress which is being made in this one branch of photo-
graphy, both as an art in itself, and as an aid to the
general artist who approaches nature in a manlier more
indirect. We have seen better isolated specimens, both
in Paris and London, than any here shown ; but, no
doubt this, as the first exposition of the kind, is to be re-
garded as, on the whole, the most perfect collection which
has yet been made. And we think an examination of this
exhibition will demonstrate the soundness of the view ori-
ginally taken in reference to calotypes—setting aside con-
siderations of cheapness of material and facility of copying
—that the process cannot present anything to compete with
the Daguerrotype in the rendering of the human coun-
tenance, or of delicate copying of minute work of any
kind, but is simply successful, and with widely beneficial
results to art and artists, in giving broad outlines and
masses, landscapes, sculpture, and architecture. Com-
pared with the worksl of Beard and Claudet, the calotype
portraits shown last evening are very inferior.
The following names and pictures may be mentioned
as most worthy of notice—at least on a hasty survey, as
most likely to fix admiring attention :—H. Owen's, a
statue, by Foley; the same artist's, "Lord Falkland," a
statue, by Bell ; F. Marten's " Louvre ;" Sir W. New-
ton's " Ventnor, the Beach ;" P. H. Delamotte's
" Cellini shield ;" R. Fenton's " Windsor Forest ;" E.
Constant's " Roman Ruins ;A. Rosling's Southwark
Bridge ; H. Owen's " Street views in Bristol ;" and a
group from the Arc d'Etoile—(alto-relief, though de-
scribed in the catalogue as bas relief) singularly fine—
by Lodoisok.
The lecture was delivered by Mr. Roger Fenton, one
of the exhibitors ; and we give passages as stating
broadly the general objects and results of the exhibition.
Speaking of the technical progress in the art, he observed
—"New deoxidising agents have' been brought into ge-
neral use, and the surface of the paper has been rendered
smooth and more glossy, so that it will take a sharper
negative impression. Means have also been adopted
for keeping it in a sensitive state for a longer time
uninjured. A new medium, collodion, variously modi-
fied, has been. adopted, on which to receive the sun-
pictures—a medium which possesses three most valuable
properties, great rapidity of impression; excellence in
the picture produced, and the capability of receiving
either a negative or positive picture, according
to the intention of the operator balanced by two
disadvantage—the necessity of employing so heavy and
fragile a material as glass to receive the collodion film,
and of performing consecutively all the different parts of
the process. A gradual but slow improvement has been
made in the construction of lenses, principally consisting
in the use of a kind of glass, that, in the passage of
light through it, absorbs less of the chemical ray. In
spite of many attempts to improve the calmed, it is still
the same clumsy unmanageable affair that it has always
been. The improvements that have been made are,
with one exception, that of collodion, rather those of
detail than of first principle, and have been obtained
more by rough experiment and by accidental discoveries
than by scientific research." In reference to the differ-
ences between the French and English specimens, his
remarks were :—" The best pictures received from
France have been taken, by means of albumen, upon
glass ; and certainly nothing can surpass the brilliancy
of the views near Lyons, or the harmony of tone and
minuteness of detail of the ceilings of the Louvre. The
best productions of English craftsmen, without reference
to portraits, have been taken upon paper ; and upon
this medium, there has been nothing, it is believed, pro-
duced which can surpass in delicate beauty or in gran-
deur some of the specimens exhibited. This conclu-
sion is the more satisfactory, because it is admitted that
the perfection of the paper process is the true point to
which our efforts should be directed." The practical
uses made of the art are pointed out in this way :
" The present scientific and industrial applications of
this art are as yet little more than indications of
what will hereafter be done. We hear of ',the collodion
plan being transferred from the glass to the wood en-
graver's block ; of attempts being made by means of
sensitive paper to record the pathways of the heavenly
bodies, or to delineate in legible and lasting characters
the minute wonders of microscopic creation. Among the
pictures exhibited there is a remarkable specimen of suc-
cessful effort in this direction. It is also being used at
this moment for the advancement of geographic research;
photographic apparatus having been supplied to the ves-
sels dispatched to the arctic seas under Sir Edward Bel-
cher, and to the Herald, sent out under the command of
Captain Denham, to examine the unexplored islands of
the Pacific." On the other hand—" Its commercial and
industrial use has hitherto been very limited ; and be-
fore much progress can be made in this direction, more
attention must be paid to a part of the process at present
treated as one of secondary importance--namely, the
positive picture. According to the method generally
employed, and which seems at present to give the best
results, negative pictures can be copied with sufficient
rapidity only on days of strong sunshine : and, in order
to produce rich tone and agreeable colour, each proof re-
quires careful watching during the after process of fix-
ing. To say nothing of the risk of injury to which the
negative picture is exposed by careless manipulation, it is
impossible at present to trust the reproduction of the
positive proof to less skilful hands than those who ought
to have been employed in the creative branches of the
art._ Before sun pictures can be extensively used in the
production of lettei-press, some method of copying them
must be discovered, which shall produce as good or bet-
ter results than the present one, which shall be so simple
in its manipulation that a workman of ordinary intelli-
gence may be trusted to perform it--and which shall not
depend upon the state of the weather for its succes. Of
these conditions, the last is already fulfilled by the use of
the negative Talbotype process in printing."

•
THE FARMERS AND THE MALT TAX.—Monday last
was the annual rent audit at Harewood, when the
tenantry of Lord Harewood dined together at the house
of Mr. Sturdy, at the Harewood Arms. After dinner,
the proposition of the late Derby Ministry to reduce the
malt tax was freely discussed, and from the general ex-
pression of opinion by the farmers it was quite clear
that they did not care one straw about the reduction.
THE IMPRISONED MADIAI.—The Corriere Mercantile
states from Florence, 13th inst., that Madame Madiai
has been ill for some days past, and that the Grand
Duchesses, moved by her miserable state, have exercised
their influence to exhort her to return to the Catholic
religion, hoping thus to obtain her liberation from the
Grand Duke. It is added that hitherto they have been
unsuccessful.