The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-17 00:00:00

CHARLES MATHEWS AT PARIS

THE "MONITEUIt'S" TRIBUTE TO lIIM, AND THE
COMPLIMENTARY OPINIONS OF OTHER FRENCH

PAPERS.

In the customary theatrical review given every
Monday all the principal Paris papers of yester-
day's date (said the Paris correspondent of the
7 imes in his communication of Tuesday even-
ing) make honourable mention of Charles
Mathews's performance at the Varie C. The
Moniteur leads the van, and nearly the whole of
Theophile Gantier's feud/don is devoted to "The
Timid Englishman." In him he finds a sign of the
times, a new tendency, and one peculiar to our
epoch :—" When English actore came to France for
the first time, towards the close of the Restoration,
their presence caused tumults which almost bacame
riots. The national amour propre repulsed them
with a violence such as to day one can hardly ima-
gine. One might really have thought perfidious
Albion was seriously attempting to dispossess us of
our territory. Intercourse %as then rare between
the two natione, and there was little goodwill be-
tween them. The study of Shaltspere, Byron, and
Walter Scott had not then initiated us into the
English imagination, and the grotesque caricatures
due to the rancours of 1815 passed for striliieg por-
traits. On the other hand, the British had not a
very correct idea of the French. They pictured
them always as hairdressers and dancing-masters,
feeding exclusively on frogs. That was the sum
total of their information concerning us, and Ho-
garth's old caricatures still appeared to them true
to nature. Things have now changed. Thanks to
steam, we breakfast in Paris and dine in Landon.
People seldom hate one another except from want
of sufficient acquaintance, and aversions generally
spring from misapprehension°. Paris gave an en-
thusiastic reception to Macready and Helen Faucit,
and London applauded Fechter playing in English
as it had applauded him when that charming actor
belonged to the French company at the St. James's
Theatre. And now Mr. Charles Matthews pays
us the compliment of eoming to the Varie.es to
perform in a piece of his own in our language.
Mr. Mathews is a first-class comedian, very cele-
brated in England, a distinguished author, and a
perfect gentleman. His success in Paris has been
complete, especially since the piece has been relieved
from certain developments rather too lengthy for
Parisian impatience, which understands everything
when only half-spoken, and listens no longer when
once it has understood. Mr. Mathews has in his
meting a something of Perlet, something of Henri
:Bonnier, and something of Arnal, and, moreover, a
special Britannic savour, which to our mind gives a
great deal of originality to his play. His accent,
exceedingly slight, destroys no illu3ion, since he is
playing the part of an Englishman who is speaking
French. Is it not strange that, at the moment when
one of the most esteemed English comedians is acting
in our language, Taillade is preparing to perform
Macbeth in English at the Vaudeville Theatre ? Is
it not a sign of that intellectual reconciliation we
spoke of at the beginning of our article, and which
has been brought about, after such long antipathies,
by the progress of a civilisation which tends to
blend all nations in one common humanity ?''
Jules Janin in the Debats, the 7 e»2ps, the France,
the Presse —all, in short, speak in equally hand-
some and friendly terms. The Steele finds that
Mathews's style of acting has something of Lafont
and something of Levassor. The Temps declares that
Levassor or Brasseur would envy him his carica-
ture of an Englishman, and urged him to select, in
the French repertory, some of the pieces Levassor
is wont to play; the Opinion Nationale [whose tri-
bute to Mr. Mathews has been already given in The
Sun] wishing him to take Arnal's part of the "Homme
Blase" which he has played habitually in the English
version, and predicts a great success. As it is, in the
" Anglais Timide," the papers all declare his success
complete, and the best proof of it is that the
Variete3, which was doing very badly with a stupid
piece called " La Chanson de la Marguerite" before
he came, now cannot find room for all who fain
would have places.

SUICIDE IN THE STREET.—Last night Mr. S. F,
Langham, deputy coroner for Westminster, hold an
inquiry at King's College Hospital, touching the death of
John Hunter, aged 41, a tailor, lately residing at 41, Lower
Whitecross-strest, who committed suicide on Monday last.
Caroline Hunter, wife of the deceased, said her husband
had been in bad health for the last six months, and had
threatened to commit suicide before he left home on Mon-
day morning. He also threatened witness, and said they
had better go out of the world together. She did not see
him after ho left home on Monday morning until she saw
him dead at the hospital. He was not in want, but had been
so reduced by illness, she believed, as to affect his mind.
Thomas Grant, carman, in the employ of Messrs. Chaplin
and Home, deposed to finding the deceased on Monday
morning, about 8 o'clock, inside the gateway of the George
and Blue Boar lard, Holborn, with his throat cut. No one
was near him at the time. A shoemaker's knife was lying
by his side. There was a great quantity of blood lying at
his feet, as if he had fallen backwards. With assistance he
put deceased in his van, and brought him to the hospital.
He was not dead then. Witness had previously sent for
Mr. Williams, surgeon. Police-constable Sutton said he was
called by the last witness to the George and Blue Boar on
Monday morning. He found deceased as described by the
last witness. He asked deceased why he had done it, and
ho said because he had a bad wife. Ho tried to seize the
knife, and wanted witness to finish him at once. He also
expressed the same wish to the surgeon. Mr. Williams,
surgeon, Gray's• inn-road, proved being called to the de-
ceased. He attended to the wounds in his throat, and advised
that .he should bo removed to the hospital. There were also
some stabs in the stomach. Chas. Antonini, house surgeon
at King's College Hospital, said deceased when admitted
had a large gash in his throat about seven inches long, and
was very much blanched from loss of blood. He was put to
bed, but he died the same day. Death, no doubt, resulted
from the wound in the throat. After further evidence the

jury returned a verdict of "Temporary Insanity."
CELIBACY AND MARRIAGE.—Another volume of
the "Population 'Fables," compiled from the English
census returns of 1861, has been issued. Among the subjects
with which it deals is that of the civil condition of the people
of England and Wales. In April, 1861, there were found to
be in England and Wales 12,032,157 persons—men, women,
and children—who had never been married, 6,917,395 Per"
sons married, and 1,116,672 persons widowed—in
all
20,066,224. The females were 10,289,965 in number, being
513,706 more than the males ; but against this excess must
be set about 162,000 for persons belonging to England. in
the army and navy, and merchant seamen abroad et
the
time of taking the census, and consistiag mostly of adult
males. With regard to the condition of women, we learn
that while the increase of the entire population of England
and Wales in the ten years 1851-61 was below 12 per cent,
and the increase in the total number of tamales was be-
ande
be-
low 13 per cent, the increase in the number of wives was
above 15 per cent. In 1851 there were 3,015,634 mar-
ried4s
905m2e. n
Thein
proportionEeglaud an do
fl'a childrenes ; int
018a61 there were
3,485,952 marriagere
3,
the increase of population are greatly affected by the
age at which marriage takes place. The number of wives
who were under 25 years of ago when the census was taken
in 1851 was 290,031 ; but in 1861 the number had risen to
350,919, an increase of more than a fifth. Marriages in-
creased in the ten years, and celibacy declined. The census
of 1851 found in England and Wales 62.5 per cent of its
male population ant h 9.8 per cent of its female population
unmarried ; at the census of 1861 the proportions had fallen
to 61.2 per cent among the males and 58'7 per cent among
the females. But this is calculating on the whole popula-
tion, children as well as adults; the adult bachelors, men
of 20 and upwards, fell from being 30.23 per cent of all the
adult males in 1851 to be only 27.67 per cent in 1831, and
the adult spinsters from 28.32 per cent of all the adult
females in 18.51 to 26.72 per cent in 1361. Of the women of
the age of 20 and upwards, therefore, 28 in every 100 were
without husbands in 1851, not 27 in 100 in 1861. Or, taking
none but persons in the prime of life, 20 and under 40 years
of age, 45 in 100 of the men of this age were bachelors in
1851, but only 42 in 1861; and of the women 41 in 100 were
epioetere in 1851, but only :.)9 in 1361. These figures indi-
cate a time of prosperity and comfort, It is true that the
census of 1861 still found in England and Wales 1,201,576
of the men between 20 and 40 years of age bachelors, and
1,229,051 of the women between 2.0 and 40 left in celibacy;
but it must be remembered that the celibacy of some makes
it prudent for the rest to marry. Th 3 census again shows
that though a largo number of men and women never marry
the plantation in England can increase moderately, and the
work of colohibiDg and subduing the earth pall go on,