The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-24 00:00:00

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in modest and becoming terms by one of the
fleet. At the conclusion of his brief address *:A! , 14:yfk
applauded by his messmates and the of i 'il'.ine,Oit:e....Vitt,o,,ffeltite.
fleet present. Songs were then sung s_. 42. i 1410444:z• El" 1
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crews belonging to the Emerald an
These, like the other musical performAtibeict*E. T :,,, 44,„„::.4;",'
men and marines, were loudly applauded4Viiiiiegig
and the proceedings ware appropriately broNeht tcli a
close by the performance of' " Rule Britannia" on the
great organ by Mr. Best. As a whole, the banquet
went off in the most, satisfactory and successful manner.
Every one seemed delighted with the entertainment.
Tho hall and the fine company afforded ciljects
of special admiration. and delight to "Poor Jack." The
idea of giving this treat was in all respects a happy one.
The mcn landed at half-past 12 o'clock, each wearing a sprig
of oak in his jacket. They marched to the Exchange,where
they received a most enthusiastic greeting, and they were
also loudly cheered as they went along the streets, which
were crowded with people, although the day was wet and
stormy. A thousand of the men belonging to the fleet have
been invited to the Theatre Royal and the Royal Amphi-
theatre in the evening by Mr. Copeland, the leisee.

STAMPED ....sd.

similar manner, consequently all guns of that species
are now undergoing, a shortening of one foot at the
muzzle. Fifty have been thus reduced and re-issued
for service. Whaber the 300 pounder will be eimi-
larly shortened or rc-•,voided will be decided by the
Select Committee. In its present condition the gun
is totally unfit for use.

A rifle match has just taken place between 33
sergeants belonging. to the 4th depot battalion at
the camp at Colchester. The competitors were
divided into two Fections of 17 and 16 respectively,
and the contest took place at 200, 400, and 600 yards,
four rounds each. So close was the competition that
the second section merely won by 0.01 marks, the
average for the first section being 16.37 marks, while
that of the second section was 16 41 marks.

The Career of a French Convict.

WORTHY OT A PLACE IN VICTOR TII_TOO'S "MTSERAHLTS."
On Tuesday, the 28th of April last, the French
frigate L'Amazone arrived in the harbour of Toulon
with 150 returned convicts from Cayenne. Die.
charged at the Prefecture of poiiee;-'l3.ach of the 1i.,0
received a small sum of money and a passport,
setting forth his destination. Condemned criminals
in France, even after they had served out their full
term of punishment, are not free. They had to
settle within a certain district, either chosen by
themselves, or fixed by the police ; and whenever
they go beyond the limits of this district they are
liable instantly to be taken up again and sent to
prison, or to be returned to Cayenne. Among the
150 convicts set on shore at Toulon on the nth of
April, there was a man named Maurice, a bastard.
Brought up in misery and vice he had been many
times alrtady condemned for theft and robberies,
although only 29 years of age. His last ten years'
sojourn in the deadly swamps of Cayenne made him
eager, no doubt, to breathe again the air of liberty,
and, in company with two of his convict brethren,
he hurried away from Toulon as fast as his legs
would carry him. At the little town of PontsSaint-
Esprit the trio separated, proceeding in different
directions. Maurice, whatever his intentions, was
not inclined to enter the new eniarged prison
selected for him by the police, the town of
Blois, but kept beating about the country in gipsy
fashion, in part a beggar and in, part a thief. After
lengthened wanderings,
he arrived in the depart-
ment of Indre•et-Loire, ferming part of the ancient
province of Touraine. Oe INlay 29, Maurice reached
a village called Melande, where he was not so
fortunate as to obtain a lodging, but had to creep
into a barn, to rest in a heap of straw. watching
the departure of the inmates of the neighbouring
farm the next morning, he then broke into the house,
regaled himself with the best the cellar contained,
dressed in the clothes found hanging on the wall,
and emptied the contents of a small till into his
Pocket. Being a new man now in outward appear-
ance, he walked to another village, Antriche,
couple of miles distant, where he had himself
shaved, took a glees of wine at an inn, and bought
a short pipe and a box of matches at the shop of a
tobacconist, All the people he visited noticed a
peculiar-looking necktie, with red, blue, and green
stripes, which he wore, and of the possession of
which he was evidently proud. Leaving the little
village of Antriche, the man Maurice was lost to
view—until the evening, when the gendarmes of
the parish found him, covered with blood, in a forest
not tar distant, and at once took him into custody,
wader the accusation of murder. At noon on the
same day, the 30th of May, a labourer, working in
the fields not far from Antriche, heard loud cries
coming from a cottage inhabited by a very aged
and infirm gentleman named 13arillaut. The cries
did not last long, and the labourer, after listening
for a while and hearing nothing more, continued
his work. An hour after, a girl entered the outer
yard of the old gentleman's cottage, with a pailful
of milk, and, knocking in the accustomed manner,
tried to obtain entrance. Nobody answering, the
girl got alarmed, and ran into the field,from whence
she returned to the house with the man who had
heard the cries. After a short consultation, the
door was broken open, when a frightful spectacle
presented itself. The old man was lying in the yard,
in a pool of blood, completely disfigured, and with
numerous wounds all over his body. Round his neck
was a striped cravat, with which he seemed to have
been strangled ; one of his ears was cut off, and the
remaining portion of his face looked as if it had
been crushed in the vice-like grip of a powerful
hand, so strong as to break the whole of the teeth
from their sockets. Oa close inspection, it was
found that all the boxes and cupboards in the house
were broken open, and all the valuables, among
them a considerable sum of money, partly consist..
ing in old and curious pieces, had been carried off.
It was evident that a brutal murdr,r, as well as
robbery, had been committed. Two men at once
jumped into a cart, to detect, if possible, the assassin.
A suspicions-looking individual had been seen on
the road shortly before, and they drove after him as
fast as they could. But just when on the point of
reaching him the man jumped a ditch, and threw
himself into a neighbouring wood, into which they
were afraid to follow him. But the gendarmes
of the village, having been informed of the murder,
searched the wood in all directions, and, before long,
found the returned convict, Maurice, lying on the
grass, his clothes besprinkled with blood. He was
carried off to Tours, and put on his trial for the
murder of the old man, Barillaut. He is a rather
handsome man, with deep black eyes; he awakened
some sympathy at first sight, the more so as ho
strongly, though calmly, denied being guilty of
the murder of which he was accused. He avowed,
however, having committed various robberies sub-
sequently to his liberation at Toulon ; and, after
very much pressure on the part of the presiding
judge, confessed also to the theft in the farm-house
of Melande, on the morning of the 29th of May.
" Among the goods stolen was a striped necktie, in
red, blue, and green ?" questioned the judge.
" No," replied the accused. " But you have been
seen by numbers of people at Antriche With
the tie round your neck ?" " The people
were mistaken," quietly replied Maurice.
" But whence came the blood on your
clothes, when the gendarmes arrested you ?"
"It was owing to the bleeding of my nose,"
answered the prisoner. At this point of the in-
terrogatory a medal and a copper coin, which had
been found on the returned convict when arrested,
were handed up to the president. Both were
proved to have belonged to the murdered man,
Barillaut, and were extremely rare pieces—the
copper coin being known as a " double Tournois,"
bearing the date 1634, and the effigy of Louis
XIII. ; and the medal, the figure of a cavalier, with
the motto " Tuetur et ornat." At the sight of these
coins, the prisoner got pale, and, being again
questioned, faltered in his speech. Suddenly, ho
started from his seat, and demanded permission to
speak. "It was me who killed him," he exclaimed
in a hoarse voice. " Tell us all the circumstances,"
enjoined the president. " I cannot, and I dare not V,
exclaimed the convict. Being pressed hard to make
a detailed confession he said that when he entered
the house of the old man, he found him at his dinner,
and was invited to sit down to table with him.
Wine was twice fetched from the cellar; and ex-
claimed Maurice, "on his return the second time I
committed the . . misfortune (malheur)."
The sight of blood, he partly avowed in further con-
fession, awakened a wild desire for carnage with
him. Having strangled the old man with the
stolen necktie, he cut off his ear,
mutilated his face,
and hacked the body with a stiletto knife all over.
Not content with this, he dragged the corpse into
the yard, and with a paving stone broke the skull
and some of the limbs. "Is all this true ?"
asked
the judge. "It is just possible," calmly replied
the convict, assuming his former air of impaesa-
bility. The jury thereupon retired for a few
minutes, and, returning into court, brought in an
absolute verdict of guilty. The prisoner heard the
verdict of death pronounced upon him by the judge
without moving a muscle of his face. Passing be-
tween the row of gendarmes back to his cell, he
exclaimed, with a smile, "Well, the gameis played
out."

The Government :having at length decided on
erecting a suitable range of buildings at Chatham
for the married non-commissioned officers and troops
of the line regiments quartered at that garrison—
almost the only one of our large military stations at
which separate quarters have not hitherto been pro-
vided—a proposal has been submitted to the Lords
of the Admiralty for the erection of a block of
buildings to be occupied by the married non-com-
missioned officers and men of the Chatham division
of Royal Marines. Under the existing regula-
tions the latter are compelled either to live with
their wives and families away from the barracks,
or to be separated from them in the barracks. A
plan was laid before the Admiralty for erecting a
building in a convenient site, but contrary to ex-
pectation their Lordships decided not to authorise
its erection. It is therefore probable that some time
will elapse before the married men of the Chatham
division of Marines are placed on the same footing
as their comrades in other branches of the service.

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