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

lURT—This Day.

EXTENSIVE ROBBERY BY A FOREIGNER,

The Common Sergeant said the offence to which the pri
senor had pleaded guilty was a serious ore, calculated no
only to cause great loss to travellers, but affecting the cha
racier of the house at which he had been received as a guest
and throwing suspicion on the servants of the establish.
merit. He therefore sentenced him to six years' penal
servitude.

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 Steedman.
He was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment with hard
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.

lie 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 ro character.

ALLEGED PERJURY.
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 pref.rred 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 £1 and
10s. costs ; but which sentence on appeal was reversed at
the Quarter Sessions. There appeared to have been some
ill•feeling between the prkoner'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 sput.
The jury found the prisoner guilty.
The Common Sergeant sentenced her to six months' im-
prisonment with hard labour.

The Uinta Italiana announces that the e:7-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 Bulleiin de la Societe
d'Acctinzatation publishes a very interesting article,
by M. Rochussen, late Governor-General of Dutch India.
on the cultivation of the tree which yields 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 Linnaeus, 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 01
tae Peruvian Bark Tree," and in his " Travels in the
North of B ,livia," where he says that it can now onl.
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 01
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 purimse, viz , the raising of the Peru-
vian Bark tree under the protection of all those salutary
regulations whicn experience has shown to be necessary
for the pr, servation of trees. The produce of the tars
will more than compensate the loss occasioned
by the stoppage of the opium trade, to which,
moreover, the /: utch 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 cost has risen to six times its former value, and the poo,
are thus debarred from the use of a drug the evils effects o.
which are notorious.—Galignani.

WOODCUTS.—In a curious and interesting volume
just Published by M. Arnbroise Firmix;-Didot, en-
titled " Essai Typegraphique et Bibliographique sur
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 Cuuio and his sister executed eight wood en-

gravings representing as many scenes from the life of
Alexander the Great. He does not t•ay that he has seen
these cuts himself, but states that he had the fact from a
SWIFS captain of the name of Gerder, who give him a corn-

plete des ription of them ; according to this authority, the
impression was of a pale blue on grey paper. This acc..unt
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 been
from China, since Marco Polo, who visited that countrt
about 1275, mentions a sort of paper-money priuted 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 eon
wood should be posterior to the making of paper.
Packs of cards are first mentioned in 1341 in tho 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 fem Ale 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 et
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, w and flax, and seem to have made as great en-
croaohmenta on the public 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 lion, members who
were determined to be in the extreme of th 3 fashion. The
monstrosity went out of vogue in 1565, but came in again
in the reign of James the leirst. 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, dechned 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 quAne, and ridiculous shapes was
the groat 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 "All the Year Round."
CLIFTON SUSPENSION BEIDGE.—The works in
conisf nexion with this undertaking are progressing
satactorily, and are so far advanced that it is expected the
two piers on the Somersetahiro and Glocestershire sides
of the Avon will be connected by wire ropes in about a fort-
owrkilltofoerrmeetththeetepmeprmoraanryenptlsattrfuorcmturoen,
einufactured by Messrs. Glass, Elliot,
fort-
night.
hhgieheyht .
the
eve These
menbe
been
noi pr
and Co.) of Cardiff, and there are altogether nine of them,
measuring 1,150 feet is length and weighing two tons each.

Emile Collins, a Frenchman, pleaded guilty to three in-
dictments, charging him with stealing several portmanteaus
containing clothing and monies from 'various hotels were
he had taken lodgings. His system was the old one of
carrying a bag supposed to contain property, and taking
away the luggage of other p-rsons stopping at them, and
leaving his own worthless rubbish in its place.
Sergeant Russell, of the detective police, proved the pri-
soner had committed various robberies at Brighton, Brix-
ton, the Queen's Arms, and the Old Hummums, in
Covent-garden.