The Sun.
London, England, 1863-05-12 00:00:00

FORGERY.

Charles Smith pleaded guilty to forging a promissory
note for £5, and obtaining that amount at a loan office, with
intent to defraud James Steedtnan.

He was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment withhard
labour.

Francis Wildman pleaded guilty to uttering a forged
request for the payment of 35., with intent to defraud a
benevolent society.
....

The prisoner said that he picked up the pocketbook con-
taining the order, and in an evil moment he was induced to
utter it.

He was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment with
hard labour.

ROBBERY BY A SERVANT.
Lucy Buckston, 18, pleaded guilty to a charge of steal.
ing a pair of sheets, the property of her mistress.
Sentence deterred, in order that certain inquiries migh,
be made with respect to character.

ALLEGED PER/VRY.
Elizabeth Griffin, the wife of a labouring man living near
Ashford, was indicted for wilful and corrupt perjury. She
pleaded not guilty.

From the evidence it appeared that the alleged perjury
took place before the magistrates sitting in petty session at
Brentford, in a charge preferred against a man named Hart,
a labourer, also living at Ashford, for cruelty to a cat, which
resulted in a conviction, the magistrates fining him and
10s. costs ; but which sentence on appeal was reversed at
the Quarter Sessions. There appeared to have been some
ill-feeling between the prisoner's husband and Hart, and
she swore she saw Hart throw a stone at the cat, knock it
into a ditch, and afterwards on her looking at the animal
she saw it with its eye out and jaw broken. At the time
the prisoner said she saw Hart throw the stone it was
proved he was working in his garden some distance from
the spot.

The jury found the prisoner guilty.
The Common Sergeant sentenced her to six months' im
prisonment with hard labour.

The Matta Italiana announces that the ex-Gari-
baldian Colonel Nullo has been arrested at Cracow by the
Austrian authorities, while endeavouring to cross the Polish
frontier. Colonel Nullo was implicated in the attempt to
invade the Venetian territories about two years ago.
JESUITS' BARK. —The Bullein de la Societe
d Acclinzatation publishes a very interesting article,
by M. Rochumen, late Governor-General of Dutch India,
on the cultivation of the tree which yidds the precious
bark now known to be the only reliable febrifuge in the
world. This tree, and those of the same genus, were called
Cinchona by Linna3us, after the Countess Del Cinchon, the
wife of a Viceroy of Peru. Having been cured of an obsti-
nate ague by its bark, she brought it over to Europe, where
she distributed it in powder to the sick, whence it was called
the Countess's Powder. The Jesuits subsequently sent over
large quantities,whence it acquired the name of Jesuits' bark.
Until then it had been sold as a secret, but Louis XIV.
bought and published it. Unfortunately it has been ascer-

tained that the production of this bark does not keep pace
with the consumption, which has increased enormously of
late. The tree is indigenous in only a small p art of South

America ; it does not exist in forests, but is dispersed over
large tracts, and no laws regulate its cultivation or preser-
vation. The gradual disappearance of the tree is placed
beyond a doubt in Weddel's paper addressed to the Aca-
demy of Sciences in 1849, entitled ; " Natural History of
the Peruvian Bark Tree," and in his " Travels in the
North of Bolivia," where he says that it can now only
be found of good quality at a distance of from eight
to ten days' journey from inhabited places. This
serious danger, which menaces the general health of
society at large, has induced the Dutch Government to
adopt a course highly beneficial in a double point of view.
In the first place, the cultivation of the poppy has been pro-
hibited throughout the island of Java, together with the
production of opium ; thus opening a vast extent of land
to a more profitable purose, viz , the raising of the Peru-
vian Bark tree under the protection of all those salutary
regulations which experience has shown to be necessary
for the preservation of trees. The produce of the bark
will more than compensate the loss occasioned
by the stoppage of the opium trade, to which,
moreover, the Dutch Government has created an-
other impediment, by making opium a monopoly;
so that, since none is produced in the island, and that im-
ported from British India goes into the Government stores,
its colt has risen to six times its former value, and the poor
are thus debarred from the use of a drug the evils effects of
which are no torious.—Galignani.

WOODCUTS.—In a curious and interesting volume
just published by M. Ambroise Firtnin-Didot, en-
titled " Essai Typographique et Bibliographique stir
l'Histoire de la Gravure stir Bois," we find the following
chronological particulars which present some interest.
Papillon, in his history of engraving, relates that under
Pope Honorius IV., who reigned in 1285, a certain
Chevalier Cunio and his sister executed eight wood en-
gravings representing as many scenes from the life of
Alexander the Great. He does not say that he has seen
these cuts himself, but states that he had the fact from a
Swiss captain of the name of Gerder, who give him a com-
plete des ription of them ; according to this authority, the
impression was of a pale blue oa grey paper. This account
however is in contradiction to the fact that the first kinds of
paper manufactured in Italy, France, and Germany are re-
markable for their whiteness ; it is by no means clear that
there were any paper manufactories in Italy about the year
1284. The grey paper, on the other hand, might have bees
from China, since Marco Polo, who visited that country
about 1275, mentions a sort of paper •money printed there
on paper made of mulberry leaves. The oldest paper
manufactories in France date from the beginning of
the 14th century, and it is natural that engraving on
wood should be posterior to the making of paper.
Packs of cards are first mentioned in 1341 in the ro-
mance of "Renard Contrefait ;" before that time ivory
leaves were the substitutes for cards. In 1418 the making of
cards for play had become a regular profession at Augsburg.
In the year 1441, the Venetian card makers obtained an
edict forbidding the importation of foreign cards into the
Republic. The oldest woodcut (except cards) known in
Europe is " St. Christopher carrying the Infant Jesus ;" it
bears the date of 1423. There is another older still, if the
date, 1418, be correct, in the Museum of Brussels, represent •
ing the Virgin and four female saints. Heinecken quotes
a " Martyrdom of St. Stephen" of 1437, and Jansen a
" Calvary" of 1443. The first books with prints werevery
probably printed before 1454.—Galignani.

INFLATED COSTUME.—The peg-top trousers Of
the present day, unmanly as they are, in their
assimilation of the male to the female figure, are nothing in
comparison with the swelling, huge-hipped breeches of the
16th and 17th centuries. These were stuffed out with horse-
hair, wool, and flax, and seem to have made as great en-
croachments on the pubic space as the skirts of our better
halves do now. In the early years of Elizabeth's reign it
was actually found necessary to erect round the inside of
the Houses of Parliament a scaffolding for the express ac-
commodation of those noble lords and hon. members who
were determined to be in the extreme of th fashion. The
monstrosity went out of vogue in 1565, but came in again
in the reign of James the first. .A sumptuary law was
passed against these enormous "small-clothes;" but of
course it was frequently broken. A good story is told by
an old author, to the effect that a man who was cited before
a court of justice for offending against the inflated small-
clothes' law, declared that such garments formed his safest
storehouse, and straightway produced from certain occult
recesses sundry sheets, tablecloths, ten napkins, four
shirts, and abundance of linen and other necessaries ;
adding, that he had yet great store which re-
mained unshown. The story is of course a joke,
Invented by some witty fellow of that time, who,
if he lived now, would probably be a contributor to
Punch, and an assistant to Mr. Leech in ridiculing the ex-
cesses of crinoline. Equally fantastic were the beards of
the Shakesperean epoch. To twist and cut that stately
appendage into the most qu, inc and ridiculous shapes was
the great art of the barber. 'We see some strange specimens
now-a-days ; but they would look tame beside the oddities
which men were pleased to carry about on their faces be-
tween two and three centuries ago. People fashioned their
beards in much the same manner as they did the yew trees
and pivot hedges in their gardens, and cared little for defor-
mities if they could only hit upon something novel and
peculiar.—,Dickens's "411 the Year Round."
CLIFTON SUSPENSION BRIDGE.— fhe works in
connexion with this undertaking are progressing
satisfactorily, and are so far advanced that it is expected the
MU piers on the Somersetahire and Glocestershire sides
of the Avon will be connected by wire ropes in about a fort-
night. These ropes will form the temporary platform on
which the men will work to erect the permanent structure.
They have been manufactured by Messrs. Glass, Elliot,
and Co., of Cardiff, and there are altogether nine of them,
mowing 1,160 test in length and weigAing two tons each.