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.

TEE 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. But 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 the jury
might embody their views in a resolution. This was dune,
and the proceedings terminated.

THE METROPOLITAN BOARD AND THEIR
" WORRS."—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
£805,000. 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 borough. The cost of
this street, thus far, appears to be close upon half a million.
Among the other 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 fifty-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 of this report, we find the
abolition of 610 names of streets, and the revision and ad-
justment 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 itschair-
man, and its engineer, and its superintending architect,
and the 66 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 Press.
THE FLUSHING LUNACY CASE.—APPREHEN-
SION OF THE VICTIM'S BROTHER.—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 111, 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 magistrates, however, said that it appeared to be
a serious case, and they could not grant hail. 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 he 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, So., 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 helf-a-
million sterling, and the amount of the capital was all pri-
vet ely subscribed in Manchester in three da3 s only.

DIDDLE-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 resitance-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 exasperating puns !
CIPHER AND ZERO, which are in reality but one
prove that figures are borrowed from the Arabs. Cipher is
the Arabic cifron, which means empty, a translation of the
Sanskrit s'unya. The same character, the nought, is called
sephiro in Italian, and has by rapid pronunciation been
changed into zero—a fern occurring as early as 1491, in a
work of Philip Calander on Arithmetic, published at Flor-
ence. Cipher—originally the name of the tenth of the
numerical figures, the nought—became in most European
languages the general term for all figures, zero taking its
place as the name of the nought; while in English cipher
retained its primitive sense, and is thus used even in com-
mon parlance—as, for instance, "he is a mere cipher."—
Learned Pundit in the Saturday Review.
A MODERN JUSTICE SHALLOW.—Late in the
evening an offender was brought before one of our
mayors, having been detected in stealing a smock-frock
from a pawnbroker's door, " Look in 'Burn's Justice,",
said his worship to his son—" look in the index for smock-
frock,"
a" Can't find it there, father, not there." " What !
nagainst stealing smock-frocks ? D— my heart,
olaw
young fellow, but you've had a lucky es„pe.,,
(Even
Justices in those times might incur the penalties against
oaths.) The constable demurred at tho discharge of the
plisoner. "Well, well, luck him up, and we'll see the town
clerk in the morning: '—Charl6s Knight's Recollections,
A GREAT GENIUS, BUT (we rather suspect also)
GREAT BORE.—When Madame De Steel visited
Germany, the great minds there shuddered at the mere ap-
proach of this impersonation of " ench volubility." Her
inconceivable facility, her
capacity of talking with freedom
and fluency on every subject, simply annoyed and disgusted
Goethe, who hated being put out of his way ; and the more
amiable Schiller—who p'ronounces her 6t of all living crea.•
tures the most vivacious, the most ready for argument, the
most fertile in words"
while he owns her to be the most
cultivated and intellectual of women, yet groans over the
"weary hours ho has to pa„, in her company'
MISSING VESSELS*--Tho Zampa, which sailed
from Christiania on or about the 29th of Algust for Hull,
and the Emanuel, which sailed from Hozer on or about the
28th of October for Hull, have not since been heath of,