The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-24 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 24, ISO.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE—This Day.

The Coroner for Central Middlesex and the
Parish Authorities of St. Pancras.

The disputed question arising out of the dismissal
of the coroner's summoning officer by the St. Pan-
cras vestry, was resumed yesterday at the ordinary
vestry meeting.
The CHAIRMAN, Mr. Churchwarden Taylor,
pointed out the position in which the matter stood
at the present time. There were before the meeting
a resolution, to the effect that the report of the com-
mittee presented last week should be adopted, and
that the vestry should proceed to the app: intment
of a beadle in the room of Murray, and have him
duly sworn in by the magistrates to discharge the
duties in reference to inquests; and ar amendment,
to the effect that the question of the legality or
other wise of Murray's dismissal, he not having been
allowed to be beard, should be referred to the
solicitor.

Dr. COLLINS said that on a previous occasion the
coroner had spoken to him with reference to nume-
rous complaints by medical men, to the effect that
they had not received their fees for making post-
mortem exam:nations, alleging that the St. Pancras
vestry must consequently be very negligent. He
was therefore surprised that Dr. Lankester should
be led to come forward new and make an attack
upon a public body like that, and support the re-
instatement of Murray.

Mr. WELLBY said that Murray had been grossly
misrepresented. The beadle was a persecuted man,
against whom unscrupulous means had been used,
and was therefore deserving of the support and
sympathy of the vestry. Dr. Lankester was a gen-

tleman better qualified than any present to form
correct opinions as to the character of the man, and
he had declared that Murray was an excellent officer
and a sober, steady, and honest man ; and if he were
discharged the public in general, and the parish of
St. Pancras in particular, would suffer for it ; and
if they did not rescind the resolution for his dis-
missal, they would everywhere be set down as great
noodles.

A stormy discussion ensued, which resulted in
the amendment being lost by 16 to 22.
Capt. CAMERON moved a second amendment, to
the effect that the question as to whether the resolu-
tion dismissing Murray was legally carried should
be referred to the solicitor. He contended that it
had not been carried, inasmuch as the bye-laws of
the vestry provided that the amendment should be
carried by two-thirds of those who voted,and not by
two-thirds of the vestry; therefore the 27 who voted
for the amendment for rescinding the dismissal of
the officer-40 only voting—must necessarily con-
stitute two-thirds. The chairman declining to vote
ceased to be a vestryman for the time being. There-
fore he considered that the amendment had been
legally carried.

Mr. JENKINS concurred in Captain Cameron's
opinion, and seconded the motion.
The amendment being put to the meeting, was
lost by 23 to 13.

The original motion was then put, and carried
by a large majority, and
The proceedings terminated.

MARKETS---This Day.

ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

At a meeting of this society on Tuesday evening—Mr.
CrawfUrd in the chair—a paper was read by Mr. F. Galton
"On the first steps towards the domestication of animals."
He stated that the object of the paper was to discuss the
character of ancient civilisation as indicated by the domesti-
cation of animals—whether there was a golden age of ad-
vanced enlightenment, or whether extraordinary geniuses
have existed who taught their contemporaries to domesticate
animals; or whether it was possible that the instinct of
savages, combined with the qualities of the animals domes-
ticated, sufficed to originate every instance of established
domestication. The latter view of the question was the one
taken by Mr. Galton, who proceeded to consider the condi-
tions necessary to domestication, and to notice varieties o:
instances in which wild animals have been tamed by savages.
The conditions under which he considered wild animals may
become domesticated, when briefly stated, were—that they
should atous.d in a wild state, that the natives should be
hunters, that the animals should be hardy, that they should
have an inborn liking for man, that they should be comfort-
loving, that they should be Lund useful to the savage,,
that they should breed freely, and that they should be gre-
garious. In support of these positions Mr. Gal ton adduced
the evidence of several travellers, combined with his own
experience, and he mentioned many curious instances of the
taming of animals by savage tribes, either for their use or
for show, or merely as pets. The Indians of North
America were stated, on the authority of Sir John
Itiche.rdson, to bring up young bears, the women giving
them milk from their own breasts; and the women in
the interior of South America are said by Mr. Wallace
to suckle and rear young monkeys. Mr. Galton is of
opinion that the gregariousness of all our domestic
species is the primary reason why many of them are extinct
in a wild state. The wild herds, he observed, would inter-
mingle with the tame ones, some would become absorbed,
the others would be killed by hunters, who used the tame
cattle as a shelter to approach the wild, Besides this, com-
fort-loving animals would be less suited to fight the battle
of life with the rest of the brute creation, and it was there- '
fore to Le expected that those varieties which are Lest fitted
for domestication would be the soonest extinguished in the
wild state. He believed that every animal had its chance
of being domesticated, and these which fulfilled the condi-
tions before named were demonstrated long ago. It would
follow, therefore, that the animal creation possesses no more
animals worthy of domestication, at least for such purposes
as savages care for. The elephant appeared to be an ex-
ception to the rule that domestication has always been per-
formed by savages. The African elephant is untamed, and
is not even alive; but three of the conditions of domestica-
tion are wanting in Africa, for the elephants are not there
sufficiently abundant, nor is the character of the country
such as to admit cf their easy capture, and the animal
would be useless to savages, especially in an open country
like Aft ica. In conclusion, Mr. Galton said he saw no reason
to suppose that the first domestication of any animal, ex-
cept the elephant, implies a higher civilisation among the
people who established it than that of barbarian hunters.
He could not believe it to have been the result of a precon-
ceived intention, followed by elaborate trials, to administer
to the comfort of man. Neither could he think it arose
from one successful effort made by an individual, who might
thereby juntly claim the title of benefactor of his race ; but,
on the contrary, that a vast number of half unconscious at-
tempts had been made throughout the course of ages, and
that ultimately by slow degrees, after many relapses and
continued selection, our several domestic breeds became
firmly established.
Professor OWEN said he agreed generally with Mr. Gal-
ton respecting the conditions required for the domestication
of animals, though there were a few exceptions to the rule.
He noticed, in the first place, that the period of the domes-
tication of the turkey and of the guinea-pig in Europe was
distinctly marked, as those animals were introduced into
the Old World from America; and yet, as they were most
probably previously domesticated by the Mexicans, that•
fact could not be considered a pi oof that they were not
originally tamed by man in a savage state of life. The
domestic cat, however, was an exception to the condition
that domesticated animals were in their wild state grega-
rious. There are, he observed, two species of wild cats, one
of which inhabits a district extending from Scotland across
the north of Europe into China and Japan; the other is the
wild cat of Persia ; and it is from the latter stock that the
majority of our domestic cats have sprung. He conceived
that the domestication of the cat indicated an advance in
civilisation greater than was exhibited by savage tribes, for
the use of the cat in destroying rats and mice could not be
experienced until there was an accumulation of grain or
other food to be preserved. With respect to the elephant
he did not agree with Mr. Galton in his explanation of the,
cause why there were no tamed elephants in Africa. 1L
was well known the Carthaginians employed trained eles
phanta in war, and the abundance of those animals in Cen
tral Africa was proved by the large quantities of ivory
imported from that continent, which greatly exceeded the
ivory obtained from Asia. Thus, it could neither be owing
to the incapacity of the African elephant for domestication
nor the smallness of their numbers that negroes did not
tame the elephants of Africa.
Mr. POOLE and Mr. GOODWIN considered the question

from an archreological point of view, from which they
were inclined to believe that the domestication of animals,
especially by the Egyptians, was not caused either by their
Utility to man or by the other conditions insisted on by
Mr. Galion. Many of the creatures that were tamed and
worshipped were rather hurtful than useful to man.
Mr. Markham, Mr. Wallace, and Mr. Bates, from per-
sonal observation among the savage tribes of South Ame-
rica and in the East, were of opinion that the domestication
of animals was never undertaken by tribes in a perfectly

savage state.
Mr, CRAWFURD expressed the same opinion, and with
regard to the African elephant, he contended that the cause
of its not having been tamed and rendered useful in that
country was to be attributed solely to the stupidity• and
want of capacity of the negroes.
Mr. CiAnioN briefly replied, and the meeting adjourned.

BULWER'S IDIOSYNCRASY.

(According to the Saturday Review.)

From " Pelham" to " Caxtoniana" there has been
one long soliloquy. It is clearly in the light of half.
regret, half-apology for early faults, that we are to
read the analysis given in this significant Preface
of the earliest of the Bulwer Lytton novels. We
have the frank avowal that it was written " at that
crisis of thought and feeling, common enough to the
boyhood and early youth of all men of genius, when
all the elements. of thought are unsettled, when
crude impressions are hastily received as truths;
and in striving, first, to think for themselves, they
question all the oracles of human fate, and dange-
rously interpret the ambiguous answers accorded to
!heir own passionate inclinations." In the " Dis-
"
ov,ned" we are next told to ace glimpses of a much
loftier tone of mind, of greater capabilities for
pathos, of grander ideals of human character, and
the nobles aims of human life." The mystery of
•'Devereue is derived, for variety. " not from
the inferior sources of external incident, but the
complicated secrets of the human heart." In the
character of Aubrey, "our reason is satisfied not so
much by the probability of the events as by the
consummate analysis of mind and motive by
which the events themselves grow naturally
and inevitably out of the idiosyncrasy of their
agents. Of " Paul Clifford" the design has never
been apprehended before. "In form a burlesque,
in essentials a tragedy," it is " a satire upon crime,"
a burlesque upon the false shows •of civilised life,
" a genial appeal to the conscience of commanitie§
to adjust our codes to the reform of criminals es
well as to their punishments, Shallow critics have
been all along unaware of its ethical depth—
Our author must often have smiled, whether in scorn or
sadness, at the shallow criticisms which represented this
work, so full of a cordial philosophy, so marked by elevated
bArievelence, and so rounded into the very moral which all
our statesmen have shoe laboured to shape into Acts of
Parliament, as a vicious representation of heroes and high-
waymen
Nor is " Eugene Aram" without those traits of
self-portraiture which bespeak the mind of the
novelist passing through a further phase of culture.
There is here the imaginary study of evil in its
effects upon a temperament like Clifford's in romance,
but with far higher gifts of mind—" the effect of a
single crime upon a magnificent intellect." In
" Godolphin," on the contrary, we have the ideal
view of the same influence in a less tragical aspect.
" In one there is the picture of a life blasted, in the
other the picture of a life frittered away." In both
we see, as it were, the physician experimenting
upon moral poisons in their effects upon his ideal
self. Nor are we on any account to lose the
truthfulness and finish of the " high-bred
cynicism of Saville, or the elegant effemi-
nacy into which the original genius of Godol-
phin himself subsides, as the indolence of
the epicurean gradually prevails over his finer
nature. In "Ernest Maltravers" we pass on to
" the type of the poetic intelligence, working out its
highest ultimate destinies through the scenes and
probation of actual life." In what passes between
Maltravers and Evelyn is represented " that epoch
in the poetic mind when, wearied with the actual
world, the poet yearns for return to his early dreams,
seeks to renew his own youth, and forgets that he
cannot regain their former freshness, nor link inex-
perienced hope with the memory of errors and the
fulness of sorrowful knowledge." It is in the re-
uaion with Alice—that is to say, " the restoration
of art to nature"—that " the ideal intelligence, long
at war with the practical world, is reconciled to it.
" Zinoni"—the first inkling of a vein of thought in
Sir Edward's imagination which has since teemed
in the more astounding marvels of the " Strange
Story"—dawned upon the author's brain as the
"illustration of external life by symbolical phi-
losophy." Current rumour points to the no less
potent sympathy said eyed now to exist between
the same imaginative genies and spirit manifesta-
tions of a more vulgar kind. Such magical bias,
however, is declared to be in its origin " no gloomy
criminal art, but a mastery over the lawful secrets
of nature, to be attained but by dauntless will, by
self-conquest, by the subordination of flesh to
spirit."
It' his successive creations, from " Pelham''
downwards, may thus be viewed as so many reflec-
tions of the author's self, as in a room with many
mirrors, the same law of impersonation holds even
more strictly true as a key to his latest publication.
Passing by the practical lessons of the " Caxtons "
and "My Novel," as the expression of his sager
manhood, we have in " Caxtoniana" the didactic
statement of ideas which he has at other times
habituated himself to clothe with the personality of
fiction. By far the larger part of these two volumes
may be read as simple soliloquies or confessions.
Never, perhaps, since Rousseau, has a philosopher
or moralist thrown so much of himself into his re-
flections, even when giving them their most abstract
or general form, and using least commonly the first
person singular. To any keen interpreter of casual
hints and intimations, nothing more is wanting for
a complete mental image of the writer or the man.
Years which have added the last perfection to that
polished style—chastening its early exuberance, and
sobering the youthful tendency to inflation and bom-
bast—have but matured the habit of studying the
world by the inner light of his own consciousness. It
is in the microcosm of his own sentiments and
yearnings that the very universe seems alone
capable of being read and understood. What-
ever changes may go on without are as no-
thing to the importance of the alternations and
vicissitudes which mark the development within.
Tne laws of mind and morals are to be studied, not

in reality, but in type, and that type not far to
seeks Into whatever fountain Narcissus turns to
gaze, there is, changed as it may be by time, the same
individual image still. As Sir Edward himself says
of Montaigne, " it is his own human heart, as he
has tested it though his own human life, that he
first analyses, and then syntheses. And out of that
analysis and that synthesis he dissects into separate,
members, and then puts together again, the world.
Of what avail to him are the multitude of books,
save as they " serve only to enforce his own opinions
and illustrate his own experience of life P"

POACHING AFFRAY NEAR MACCLESFIELD.—At
about 4 o'clock on Monday morning a desperate encounter •
took place on the Siddingtou estate, four or five miles from
Macclesfield, between 12 or 14
gamekeepers and nearly twice
their number of poachers. On the previous night the keepers
of Mr. J. B, Glegg, Withingou Hall, havingeenreetpineiruyseeldutdhn theiriitnthe-cie
poaching gang to the estate of Mr. A
where they fell in with H.
in-
formation of a body of poachers having been seen in th
e adjoining
neighbourhood, mustered in force and started off in pursuit,e
They traced the
teogileathlier with those of the
kDavenport,eeper B
Dir j• Dixon, Astle Hall. The k
came upon two ont
hCaatpeessttha :err:
landowner, • •
their strength, and being suitably armed,
wo formidable
setting nets in a field in the occuPation 0 f A gangs
search. About 4 o'clock they
Siddington. It was pitch dark, and th Ir. Jabez Wright,
of the strength of their opponents, eir keepers, unaware
the
two gangs closed and compelledpolinced upon them, but
aloof. The latter summoned the the watchers to stand
but the poachers replied with their antagonists to surrender,
regular tne4e then ensued. a 'volley of large stones. A
and the confusion the keepers In the darkness of the night
fear of hitting the fellow-watchers; were chary in striking through
less cau.tious, and watchers; but the poachers wire
set -
hard blows before di, Upon each other, exchanging many
perior in number a -covering their mistake. Though su-
periorand ',Rea OD th
p s, the made a general retreat,
leaving four of their
number wounded on the ground.
These the keepers took into custody. A hare, a rabbit, and
a quantity of
netting and sticks were found upon them.
The keepers
tended ~.r eseaped marvellously, many of the blows in-
„0,,,,,
tsi them falling on the heads of the unlucky
?',,u'uc . The four captured men, Joseph Wilson, Joselill
Ulayton, Thomas Fitton,
and Robert Mors, were brought
up at Macclesfield on Tuesday. They made no defence,
but Moss and Wilson complained of the brutal ill-usage
they received at the hauls of the keepers, 18 or 19 of whom
(they averred), armed with spears several feet long, and
double-barrelled guns, cut and slashed right and left.
Wilson showed some ugly wounds on his head and face, and
Moss had the back of his hand severely cut, he said, with a
spear. The justices sentenced the prisoners to three months'
hard labour each, and expressed an opinion thht if the
borough police officers did their duty under the power,
which the recent Poaching Act gave them, the game pre-
serves in the neighbourhood of Macclesfield would be less
infected with midnight marauders.
The steam despatch boat E3lairear has;
Just re-
ceived orders to take part in the works for laying a
own. the
new submarine telegraph line between Carth ,
Oran. The operations will commence on the :gena and
arrival at the
former place of the Dix Decembre, which h
as gnus to t
bind to bring over the cable. 0 .n,ng-

SECOND EDITION.

UN OFFICE, Tr
F-PAST 4 O'CLOCK.

THE REPORTED IN F. URRECTIONARY
MANIFESTO IN 3IIINGARZ

MILAN, Dec. 24.

The Allianza publishes a s tatement that an in..
surrectionary manifesto has: been affixed in the
principal towns of Hungary'.
The manifesto eqinouuces uhe establishment of a
General Committee to obtain the independence of
Hungary, and assume the direction of the affairs
of the country under the orde rs of Kossuth.

The Austrian Government is taking great pre-
cautions, but agitation is genore.l throughout Hun-
gary.