The Sun.
London, England, 1839-03-30 00:00:00

ST. MARY'S, ISLINGTON.

We have occasionally, since the ultra pious people of
the ultra pious parish of St. Mary's, Islington, took it
into their heads to countenance the election of the son
of a grievous defaulter to the post of honour and profit
occupied by his father, made our readers acquainted
with their doings, and we lately promised a CorreiTon-
dent to revert to them. The siime religious party which
procured the election of the defaulte'r's son, have lately
been called on, inconsequence of some fresh defalcations
having coma to light-4or the old proverb holds good
here, " like master like man"—to institute an iequiry
into the parish accounts, and the report the trus-
tees voluntarily made to the parish has been placed
in our hands. If we do not mistake, these trus-
tees have a body of bye-laws, one of which con-
stitutes a Finance Committee, and the duty of that Corn-
mittee, amongst other things, is to examine all the ac-
counts, and, by a comparison of the receipts and expen-
diture, to prepare estimates for levying the rates every
half year. But the Committee report that one collector
has now been discovered minus 1,0331., a part of which
accrued before Christmas, .1837, but was never found
out by the• Financial Committee, though it ascertained
the receipts and expenditure. One reason we hear as-
signed for this is that the poor-rate books, subsequent to
Michaelmas, 183, were never cast up, so that it was,
perhaps, impossible for these faithful guardians of the
parish money to know The truth of the representations
they annually, since 1832, made to-the Vestry. o:her
rate-books, too, we are told, are in the came neglected
situation, and forsix years have never been cast up. In the
face of this, however, the Tiustces .have made annual
reports, and now come down with a special report, which
is probably to he relied.on as much as the annual
of the same body. In this the Trirst.is to.
to things " that have come to their Ittrowled,re.”
have not the boldness to say that they have

rr.pprzs
co. refer

them but. But what is allowed to come to—;

knowledge appears to be derived from their clerk, "u i
is in full possession d all the pal ticulats,"
is the son of the lAte defaulter, whose " gr
neglect of duty" (what gentle words for a
who has defrauded the parish and individuals to ail
known extentl ) the Trustees admit was the eaire of

the irregularities. Thus, the son, and the son alone, has
the clue to his father's crimes, and is placed in the in-
delicate situation of exposing him, or of subjecting him.
self to most disagreeable suspicion. Moreover, this
son has promised to make good the father's defalcations
to the parish, and has, therefore a strong pecuniary in-
terest in concealing them. Further, the report states
that the " principal clerk in the late Mr. Oldershaw's
office, was accessary to the frauds of the collector.'
Not being the servant of the parish, but of the
late Mr. Oldershaw, the latter was responsible to the
parish for the conduct of his clerk, and all his frauds
fall to be liquidated by the Older Shaw family. In these
circumstances the son of the late clerk is the only person
who, by the report of the Trustees, is in full posses ion
of all the particulars, and he ekes out such ) a
supply as enables the Trustees to lay before the parish
a report as advantageous as possible to himself and
father. Now, when to all these items we add that the
persons who have come before the parish 4nnually to
assert expenditure and income, when the rate-books have
not been cast up for several years, who have lately, too,
made a specific report, mentioning certain defalcations,
and before made a partial report, stating less defalca-
tion, without having it in their power to ascertain
the extent to which fraud has been carried—when
to these circumstances we add that these gen.
tlemen know
.that the vouchers and books, for part of
the period that has not been cast up, have been design-
edly burnt, our readers Well know what to, think of
the love of truth and honesty of the religious Toris
of Islington. Easter Tuesday is at hand, and hose who
prefer hOnesty to hypocrisy, fair dealing to fraud, will
know on which side to vote.

A SirALL PRESENT.—" I will give you 'my
head," exclaimed a person to Montesquieu, " if every word
of the story I have related be not true." " I accept: yaur
offer," said the President : " presents of stn all value
strengthen the bonds of friendship, and should never
refused."

The COUNTESS G u ICClOLl.—lmagine a slender I
form, bende..l gently as an osier, with eyes' hi I ‘-'
irn' ediciikcaah I:a- :::1:1 1 4
yo asf
of
unfathomable brightness, their lids lashed len rkel:4l,-,anodf.
trhaeveiro,bsrpolwosmelsiklevraecthheeds oafheobootn,anwiatihtthhaattboc
sweetly chiseled mouth, and a melancholy
ismile,. w:th a
hand small, and of that consummate delicae
captivated Byron, and which is often deeym'e'
sensitiveness—imagine ten times more than all 'thtisneanri I
you have something like say Countess Guiccioli, such' as I
had dreamed the friend of the poet ought to be, and an
image of whom I had fancied to have one evening seen et
the Florian, in Venice. Alas I there was a wide chasm
between my fancy and the reality. The Countess befut c
me, in her substantial flesh and bone, was a woman to
whom you would involuntarily apply the descriptive word
" dumpy." She had not even the merit of an Italian black
eye, for hers was of a light blue; and as fur the hair, it wn
auburn, horridly approaching to red--for Byron's s.-.k..', No- . ,
may call it Sicambrian yellow. Her form was short ;tr.' ~
thickish; and as for her bearing, it was extremely oni::,.
pressive. However, her shoulders were reagnifieeet, aee
likewise the domains thereto adjacent—fairy islet, tee, ..
from a fairy sea. I recalled what Byron bad e,rit:„
about her value. To that voice the world is indebtaef ;
for the " Prophecy of Dante." " Thou spakest," and
the relult was the poem just named. " I wish you c, tilt, :
sec one of her portraits," said my comp.tnion. `• It i'i
a rare composition. She is represented as a Magdalene i
weeping over the skull of Byron." "In which," said a i
gentleman near us, you may discover all of the Magda-
lene except—her repentance." I half remembered a pas_
sage in one of the pores letters, running somewhat thus
" To-night, as
Countess Guiccioli oh=ervedmet
poringink
over Don Juan, she stumbled by mere chance on the 137th
stanza of the first canto, and asked me what it meant. I
told her ' Nothing—but your husband is coming,' As I
said this in Italian with some emphasis, she started up in a
iosrhe oughtcoming ?'—
tug
it was,
her
rd 0
vi said,n , w‘hoo' my
i God I ,
either as
the theatre. You may suppose we laughed when she found
w
out the mistake."—" Ball at the Mileries"—Bentley's
Miscellany.
A Coroner's inquest was held on Thursday at the
Weymouth Arms, Devonshire-street, Marylebone, before
Mr. Wakley, on the body of Charles Barratt, aged forty
years. It appeared in evidence that the deceased, who
was coachman to Mrs. Bevan, a lady of fortune residing
at 16, Devonshire-place, had been confined for several days
to his bed by an attack of inflammation on his chest. The
disorder increased in violence until last Wednesday after-
noon, when it afLeted his had, and he became delirious
and spoke in an incoherent manner. His wife, after hav-
ing applied a blister to his chest at twelve o'clock on Wed-
nesday night, retired to rest, and on awaking at three
o'clock yesterday morning, she saav the deceased lying -
by
her side with his throat cut in a dreadful manner a ra
,
firmly grasped in his right hand, and the bed cloth ze-
rated with blood. A surgeon, on examining the deceased, essat"-
pronounced him quite dead, and added that his o
eath must
have been instantaneous, as the carotid artery and all the
large blood-vessels on the right side of his
neck had been
completely divided. The deceased has l
eft four young
children, and his wife far advanced i
n Pregnancy. Ver-
dict—Temporary insanity.
On Sunday last, the very old custon of Gad
cracking, in Caistor church, was gone through as usual.
Hull Advertiser. , ~',-.:Af

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