The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-13 00:00:00

FOREIGN THEATRICALS.

Mlle. Marie Battu has signed an engagement with the
Grand Opera, and will make her debut next week in Res.
Elea " Moiee." _ _

Mme. Penco has accepted an engagement for the Opera
at Cadiz and Seville for a limited number of nights,

Mmes. Plessy and Bressant have rammed to their posts
at the Frangais after a brilliant tour.
Mile. Vaneri, who was so favourably received last year in
London at the Italian Opera, has declined all engagements
here, and has left Paris for Italy, where she has accepted
the offers made her by the managers of some of the largest
theatres.

Ernest Depas, a Belgian composer, whose performance of
some trios for the pianoforte, the violin, and violoncello se-
cured for him so much admiration last year, and whose
original and graceful productions made a great impression,
revisits Paris early in the season.

An instance of remarkable musical precocity, equalled
only in the instance of Mozart, is the theme of general con-
versation in Paris. A boy of ten years of age, aged 16, has
composed a mass which has been executed with great suc-
cess. The young composer consented to allow the mass
to be performed at the end of the month in one of the
largest churches for the benefit of the Poles. These young
persons are the grandchildren of. Biagioli, the commentator,
of Dante and Petrarch, who so long resided in London,
and was so highly esteemed by the English aristocracy.
At a recent performance of "Faust" at Pesth, Madlle.
Carina, who played the part of Marguerite, was not a little
embarrassed on opening the casket containing the jewels
left by Mephistophiles, to find it empty. They had been
placed in the box as usual, but lhad been stolen before being
brought on the stage. The thief, who has not been disco-
vered, must have been greatly disappointed on finding that
the value of Satan's present did not exceed a few florins

Lord Stanley of Alderley arrived at his house
in Dover-street yesterday evening from Alderley Park)
Cheshire.
The Right Hon. Sir George Grey left his seat,
Faliodon, Northumberland, yesterday, for Scotland, to at.
tend the Queen.

The marriage of the daughter of Victor Hugo
with an English officer of distinction is announced. The
poet has lived for the last 11 years at Jersey.
The Right Hon. Sir C. Wood Bart., M.P., has
arrived in town from his seat, Hickleton Hall, Yorkshire.
A FOREST GIANT.—A tree has recently been cut
down in California, the circumference of which was 90 feet,
and its height 325 feet. The bark was in some places 4 feet
thick. The tree contained 250,000 feet of solid timber. Its
age was 3,100 years. The wood was sound and solid.

A RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX.—Being a wonder-
fully enigmatic sentence taken from a second edition of a
recently published book called " The Rosicrucian."—The
absorbed (however materially) Londoner hurries by in as
equal unconsciousness as, perhaps, the very imitative Bel-
zoni complacently fixed it, who sculptured deep, as his
" forehead-mark," because he found it dominant (although
in secret) upon the freizes of Egypt, upon his Piccadilly
" Egyptian" Hall, a "symbol" which the quicker-eyed and
thoughtful adept, taught in his great experience, passes
not—in its unutterable mystery as a possibility—without at
shudder !

THE COAL TRADE TO LONDON.—Daring the
month of September last 442,562 tons of coal and coke we".
entered at the Coal Exchange as having been conveyed u/
London by rail, sea, and canal. Of this immense tonnage,which exceeds that of the corresponding month of 166,::4g
36,591 tons 2 cwt, and 274,187 tons were seaborne, 6ai
tons were conveyed by railways having access to thosiw°lestri°;
polis, and 887 tons by canal. The railway
traflitern
the following proportions :—London and Nerth.vires2oB tons
Railway, 85,781 tons 12 cwt; Great Aland,Norther
10,782
1 cwt; Great Eastern, 12,701 tons 2 cwt ;
sgouth .
Western,
tons 19 cwt; Groat Western, 6,714 tons; ~„ cwt; and Til-
-1 1,722 tons; Chatham and Dover, 535 tozipsii; in September,
bury and Southend, 53 tons. The P
,i_fgust month's entry
1862, was 145,173 tons, 8 cwt, 80 lu't
Of the 274,187 tons of
was 22,324 tons 12 cwt in excenoweastio in 232 Ships,
seaborne, 91,770 tons came fr°l344 ships, 63,964 tons front
84,747 tons from Sunderland inr in 197 ships, 19,688 tons
Hartlepool and West HAWS)
9 tons from Middlesborough
from Yorkshire in 28 ships,
and 1 33
12 ships, 1,364 tons from Daft
hi
in 2 ships, 7,659 tons of
from Seaham in 82 shfrilltor:l3o
in 21 ships, 569 tons from
_.
Welsh in 18 ships,
Froman. 1 to Sept. 30, 1863,
ships, , 2 tons small
in 5 ships, 1,661 tonac .
2,341 tons from Scotland
'TM,' ilil ....._
an increase of 13 gg
, 8 tons over the
coal, in 2 ships. -.--
month of September' 1
i n 8
,
tons 18 owt,
threltooota3B7
tons 12 cwt more than for the same period of
7862, when the tonnage was 3,620,937 tons 6 cwt. As cora-
ith the first nine months of last year the seaborne
pared w
fouling° has decreased 501 ships and 84,320 tons (2,467,614
tons against 2,353,291 tons in 1863), while on the other
hand the railways have brought this year 1,237,153 tons 18
cwt, against 1,052,224 tons 16 cwt in 1862, or an increase of
154,920 tons 2 ewt,

INTERESTING DISCOVERY. —Au interesting
archaealogical discovery has just been made at
Ornolac, near Ussat-les-Bains (Ari Age), On taking down
a bell to make certain repairs in the steeple of the church, it
was found to bear the date of 1079, and must consequently
be one of the oldest bells in Christendom. There is indeed a
bell at Larroque•d'Olmes bearing the date CCCLXXXV,
but the letter M is supposed to have been accidentally
omitted, as the use of bells was only introduced in the sixth
century. The bell abcvo mentioned at Ornolac is the only
one loft of three which the church poss9ssed before the first
revolution, when the other two were destroyed. Ornolac
is undoubtedly a place of great antiquity, as numerous an-
cient medals and coins have been found there. Not long
since M. Bonne', the cure of the village, found a medal
with Hannibal on horseback on the obverse, and an inscrlP-
tion in Punic characters en the reverse.