The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-15 00:00:00

STEALING LEAD.

Two men, named Standing and Seymour, were indicted
for stealing a large quantity of lead from the roof of a
coal•shed at Walton's Wharf, Greenwich. The
lead was stripped from the roof during the night,
and afterwards the prisoner Seymour was taken
into custody while attempting to sell the metal
at a marine-store dealer's. Standing was seen by a police-
man to enter the shop, and the person who kept it said
he informed him that a man outside had a quantity of lead
for sale.

The Jury found both prisoners guilty.
The Recorder sentenced Seymour to six months' and
Standing to three months' imprisonment, with hard
labour.

THE FALL OF A HOUSE AT ISLlNGTON.—Yester-
day morning Dr. Lankester, the coroner, resumed
the inquiry at the Music Hall, Islington-green (Sam Col-
lins's), into the deaths of John Peake and Joseph Pearce.
These persons, it will be remembered, lost their lives by the
falling of a house in Islington. At a previous inquiry the
jury all agreed in the main point—a verdict of accidental
death in both cases. Bat the jury were of opinion that the
accident was caused by the insufficiency of the central piers,
they being much too slight for the purpose; and as they
were built according to the plan of Mr. Williams, the archi-
tect, they were of opinion that he deserved the severest
censure. The Foreman said it was the latter part of the
verdict which he did not agree to. The Coroner said he
would enter a verdict of accidental death, and then thejury
might embody their views in a resolution. This was done,
and the proceedings terminated.
THE METROPOLITAN BOARD AND THEIR
" WORKS."—Forty-five miles of sewer have been
constructed since the Board commenced operations, and the
outlay for works of this description, during the past year,
has been £720,229, exclusive of the cost of land, and the
expense consequent on various contingencies. The total
value of the main drainage contracts, either completed
or in course of construction, is about two millions and
three quarters. The entire amount of engineering work
done during the year, represented in sterling coin, is
5805,000. Plans for the embankment of the Thames
on the Middlesex shore, between Westminster and
Blackfriars Bridges have been prepared, and adver-
tisements have been issued for the necessary con-
tracts. Southwark-street is getting on, having been
been struggling into existence during the last five years, to
the woe and damage of the good old liorongh. TLe cost of
this street, thus far, appears to bo close upon half a million.
Among the outer deeds of this redoubtable body, we find
recorded the carrying through Parliament of the Bill for
the formation of the new street from the Mansion-House to
Blackfriars-bridge, a measure which we are told met with
considerable opposition in both Houses, from the Corpora-
tion and the Commissioners of Sewers, thereby causing
"much delay and a large pecuniary expenditure." On the
other hand, it appears that the Metropolitan Board, being
apprised of they-four "railway and other Bills," took
active measures early in the Session for opposing " the
greater number of the scheme." What amount of de-
lay and expense resulted in the promoters we are not in•
formed; but doubtless the Board considered itself justified
on public grounds for the " active measures" which it so
promptly adopted. Among the achievements of the event-
ful year which forms the subject ot this report, we find the
abolition ot 610 names of streets, and the revision and ad-
justmene of 10,295 " number of houses." It may thus be
heped that the metropolis will have less than a dozen streets
of the tame name, and not more than two " numbers One"
in the same street. The report contains further particulars
as to what was said and done by the Board, and its chair-
man, aad its engineer, and its superintending architect,
and the 56 district surveyors, and the 27 seven special sur-
veyors, and other officials ; but as we do not pretend to
exhaust so mighty a subject-, we leave it with some still
unexplored particulars, for the encouragement of those who
may come after us.—City Tress.
THE FLUSHING LUNACY CASE.—APPREHEN-
SION OF THIt VICTIM'S BRO?.IIER.—On Saturday,
instructions were received at Falmouth from the Lunacy
Commissioners to prosecute Samuel Porter for the ill-
treatment and neglect of his brother Robert. Porter was
accordingly apprehended at his residence at Flushing by
Sergeant Currah and Polica-constable Westlake, of the
county constabulary. In the afternoon he was brought be-
fore Thomas Moor Horsford, Esq., and Major M. V. Bull,
county magistrates, at Falmouth, when Dr. Bryne having
briefly stated a few of the circumstances, asked for a re-
mand until Monday. The magistrates accordingly re-
manded the prisoner until 12 o'clock yesterday. Porter,
who was accompanied by his wife and John Henry James,
his brother-in-law, asked to be allowed to remain at liberty
until Monday, offering to produce necessary and sufficient
bail. The magist rat es, however, said that it appeared to be
a serious case, and they could not grant bail. Porter, how-
ever, pleaded hard to be allowed to give bail, and remarked
that the newspapers had over-stated the circumstances, and
that he wished to go to Truro to consult a solicitor. The
bench still persisted in their decision, and be was locked
up in the county police-station, and informed that his soli-
citor might consult with him there.— Western Morning
News.

THE STAVELEY COLLIERIES AND IRONWORKS,
at Chesterfield, Derbyshire, employing upwards of 3,000
workpeople, kc., so long known as the property of Mr.
Richard Barrow, have just been sold to a joint-stock com-
pany, through Messrs. Chadwick, Adamson, and Co.,
financial agents. The value of the property exceeds half-a-
million sterling, and the amount of the capital was all pri-
vately subscribed in Manchester in three da3s only.

KIDDLE-A-WINK is, it would appear, the Cornish
name for a beer-house, and it is in this sense that the title
has been chosen for a series of stories supposed, after the
good old fashion which has run down from Boccacio and
Chaucer to Longfellow and Dickens, to be told by guests
benighted or snowed up in an inn. These kiddie-a-wink
tales, constituting the resistance-dish of Mr. Beeton's
Christmas Annual, are certainly full enough (says a Satur-
day Reviewer) of ghostly incident, and blood-freezing
pathos, and of the most exasperatng puns I

NEW METALS.—In examining a Swedish mineral
containing silica, aluminia, yttria, oxide of iron,
cerium, didymium, lime, maganese, and several other metals
or metallic oxides, M. Bahr lately observed what appeared
la
to be the oxide of a new metal resembling aluminium.
stages of
Having extracted it lay a complicated process, the principal
f solutionacid
efpeinteehhy,drhocehleohritceined
and
precipitation which
withch were
oxalate the
oxalate of the oxide of the supposed new metal, which
appeared under the form of a
white powder slightly
tinged with red. M. Bahr did succeed in separating
the new metal, which he called Wasium, and repre-
sented by the chemical symbol Ws. The specific gravity
of the oxide he found 3 726 ; before the blow pipe, it
gave with borax a clear and colourless glass , l • gexamination
of its spectrum was without result. IL Nickles has since
maintained that M. Bahr's oxide of wasium is nothing more
nor less than impure yttria, containing some didymium and
tubium. MM. Reich and Richter announce a new metal
which they have found in examining a specimen of ariseni-
cal pyrites in the mining laboratory of Frieberg. The
chloride of this new metal, which the call Indium, is vola-
tile, and was obtained along with chloride of zinc, The
spectrum of the now metal contains a line of indigo blue
light more refrangible than the strontium blue line. There
is a second faint blue line, which almost, but not quite,
coincides with the blue line Gf potash. The reactions of
the new metal are the following :—Sulphuretted hydrogen
gas dens not give any precipitate in the acid
solution of the chloride. Ammonia throws down
the hydrated oxide from the solution of the chloride.
The dry chloride of indium, is deliquescent. The oxide of
indium gives a bead of the metal itself when it is ignited
with charcoal and soda. The metal itself gives a yellow
sublimate when heated before the blow. pipo ; this subli-
mate gives no characteristic reaction with cobalt solution,
The metal is lead grey, ductile, and very soft. Eminent
chemists have declared their opinion that there is no delu-
sion in this case.
MISSING VESSELS.—The Zampa, which sailed
front Christiania on or about the 20111 of August for Hull,
and the Emanuel, which sailed from Hazer on or about the
28th of October for Hull, have not since been heard of,