The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-13 00:00:00

THAMES.

THE SUICIDE MANIA.—Four women were brought up
this day, charged with attempting to commit suicide. Three
of them, who had undergone a week's imprisonment, were
brought up on remand. Esther Duncan, a respectable
married woman, 25 years of age, quarrelled with her hus-
band, and attempted to drown herself in the Wapping lock,
or entrance, of the London-dock. Mary Flinn, 28, made a
similar attempt at the Old Gravel-lane swivel-bridge; arta
Mary Ann Harris, 34, sought a watery grave at the
Glamis-road bridge of the London-docks.
Mr. Woolrych said the Rev. Mr. jephson, a kind-
hearted and zealous clergyman, who was the chaplain of
the Clerkenwell House of Detention, had forwarded him
a letter stating that he talked with the three women, and
they were very penitent and expressed their sorrow for what
they had done. They had also promised not to repeat the
attempts on their lives. The prisoners had each been guilty
of a very wicked act. It was a sin against Heaven to com-
mit suicide, and the law treated it as an offence of a very
aggravated nature to attempt self-destruction. The chap-
lain had given the prisoners good advice, and he hoped they
had profited by it. These continual attempts to commit
suicide were very dreadful and shocking and to humanity.
One woman quarrelled with her husband and straightway
proceeded to the dock entrance; another, Harris, was in-
toxicated; and the third, Flinn, was disappointed in
obtaining work. He hoped the prisoners would
never make such rash attempts on their lives again. He
then ordered them to be discharged.
Alice Laybury, aged 30, a married woman) of No. 7,
Albion-terrace, White-horse-lane, Stepney, was charged
with attempting to drown herself in the Regent's Canal.
A young man named Joseph
Staley, carpenter, of No. 1,
Rhodeswell-terrace, Rhodeswell-road, Stepney, saw the
prisoner walk into the canal. The water only reached over
her ankles. She hesitated a moment and then plunged
into deep water. Staley jumped into the canal after her,
and brought her out. She was insensible, and it was some
time before she exhibited any signs of life.
Mr. Woolrych complimented Staley on his
courage, and
remanded the prisoner for a Week.

PATRONISING THE POOR.--How often have I
heard the unfortunate working man lectured, as if
he were a little charity-child, humid as to his nasal deve-
lopment, strictly literal as to his Catechism, 'and called by
Providence to walk all his days
-11 a station in life repre-
sented on festive occasions by a um_ L.
5 of warm-milk-and-
water and a bun I What PoPgune of jokes have these ears
tingled to hear let off at him, what asinine sentiments, what
impotent conclusions, what spelling-book moralities, what
adaptations of the orator's insufferable tediousness to the
assumed level of his understanding I If his sledge-ham-
mers, his spades and pickaxes, his saws and chisels, his
paint-pots and brushes, his ferges, furnaces, and engines
the horses that he drove at his work, and the machines
that drove him at his work, were all toys in one little paper
box, and ho the baby who played with them, he could not
have been discoursed to, more impertinently and absurdly
than I have heard him discoursed to, times innummerable.
Consequently, not being a fool or a fawner, he has come to
acknowledge his patronage by virtually saying_,,,," Let me
alone. If you understand me no better than that, sir, and
madam, let me alone. You mean very well, I dare say, but
I don't like it, and I won't come here again to have any
more of it."—Clrarles Dickens in " All the Year R.und."
CITY IMPROVEMENTS.—We are glad to see the
march of improvement in the City, and we are proud, too,
of the rapid strides that have been made in this generation.
We grumbly sometimes, for that is our privilege ; but still
we are not insensible to the beautiful transformation
which the City has undergone during the last quar-
ter of a century. King William. street, Cannon-
street, and Moorgate-street are noble thoroughfares,
whilst the grouping of buildings around the Exchange pre-
sents from various points of view pictures of architectural
grandeur of which old Rome might 'be proud. The taste
and opulence of our merchants and private companies are
exhibited in the multitude of splendid edifices that line our
streets, and strike the eye with their bold frontages at
almost every corner, and up every narrow court. What
a pity such a wealth of beauty should bo hidden almost
in dark avenues and blind alleys I The contrast is striking;
but this is London—an old City rebuilding, a bad ground
plan being gradually accommodated to the needs of a
gigantic and still-increasing trade. London is not 'Washing-
ton, with its long vistas of geometr:cal streets, ending no-
where and in nothing, nor St. Petersburg, built to order,
nor Paris, sought to be made a monument of autocratic
taste, but a city with a principle of growth within itself,
developing, enlarging, transforming, from an internal im-
pulse. It grows because it must ; if it cannot grow out-
wards, it will grow upwards, just like plants which, stunted
in one direction, expand in another. London, in short, is
simply the stone and brick embodiment of a weighty com-
merce, and as this increases, o the City. crab-like, must
enlarge its shell, to give it room to brra.i.h and move, and
Perform, all it.: vital fauctiolor- WY 21 05.!