The Sun.
London, England, 1837-09-14 00:00:00

THE ASSEMBLY.

The first soiree took---plaCel;stlJ;fit and proved very at-
tractive. The magnificent suite of rooms was crowded
with a mingled assemblage of savans and fashionables.
Lords and ladies, doctors, merchants, and professors, were
grouped together in the most delightful confusion.
inc company began to arrive at eight o'clock, and the
cair s continued to set down without intermission till
nearly ten, and at intervals for some time after. About
half-past nine the doors of the refreshment room were
thrown open, and the apartment was soon so completely
crammed, that it was with difficulty the individuals who had
bee❑ fortunate enough to get places at the tables could
partake of the delicacies set before them.
Shortly after ten o'clock the company began to depart,
and the departures bee lire general about eleven. Shortly
after that hour the whole company had disappeared.

ENGLISH OPERA HOUSE.—The management of
his theatre produced last night a most humourous nautical
extravaganza, intitled The Spitfire. The plot turns upon
Shortcut (Mr. Compton), a tobacconist, and Shortcut (Mr.
S. Jones), the Captain of the Spitfire, being namesakes.
The Captain is in the debt of the tobacconist, who in the
pursuit of his ward (Miss P. Horton), who has eloped with
Lieutenant Seaworth (Mr. Brindal), gets possession of a
box of clothes containing a uniform and a cocked hat, with
these he infests his person, and gets on board the Spitfire
as the veritable Captain. In the meantime, the Captain,
to make the plot complete, has been taken prisoner by a
Freec'i man-of-war, as he has been cruising in a pleasure
yacht. Seaworth wishes to rescue him, and commands the
Spitfire to chase the enemy. A sea-fight and its usual
stage concomitants, blue fire, squibs, crackers, and watch-
men's rattles, succeeds with considerable effect. The to-
bacconist throws himself flat on the deck in an agony of
fear ; the Captain is rescued, the French defeated, a re-
conciliation takes place between the ward and guardian, who
is given in marriage to Seaworth, and all ends pleasantly
enough. There is a good deal of wit and drollery in this
farce, which was very well played by all concerned in it.
It was given out amidst the unanimous applause of a very
good house.
On Wednesday an inquisition was held at Liverpool,
to investigate the cause of the death of Ann Davies, a
young woman, twenty-nine years of age, wife of John Da-
vies, a pilot, whose death was said to have been occasioned
in consequence of violence inflicted upon her by her hus-
band. Alice Bradford deposed that she was mother to the
deceased. On Friday last, in consequence of being told
that some difference was taking place between deceased and
her husband, she went into the cellar where they lived.
Witness asked the prisoner the cause of the difference, but
he made her no reply, on which the deceased exclaimed—
" Oh, mother!" and made a " slip" to get past her hus-
band into the street. The prisoner caught hold of her by
the petticoat, and clashed her with great violence on the
cellar floor in a state of insensibility, and she never after-
wards spoke. The deceased was far advanced in preg-
nancy, and was delivered of a female child. Mr. John
Marshall, a surgeon, stated that he found about three
ounces of blood on the surface of the brain, arising from
rupture of one of the vessels, which rupture was produced
by a violent concussion. A verdict of " Manslaughter" was
returned against the prisoner, and he was committed to take
his trial at the Assizes.
MODE OF DESCENDING TILE SALT MINES OF
SALZBLIRG.—The machine is simply this :—A passage of
the same dimensions as the one we had traversed descended
almost perpendicularly from where we stood. Down this
were fixed two round, smooth beams of timber of about
nine inches in diameter, and placed in parallel lines one
foot and a half asunder. Over and along the right beam
is slung a rope, just affording room between that and the
beam to admit the leg. The victim sits down, stretches a
leg over each beam, as if astride across both, grasps the
rope in his right hand, and leaning b.cek, so as to be in al-
most a recumbent position, away he slides at a tremend-
ous rate, the steepness of the descent, and his own weight,
increasing the impetus to an almost frightful rapidity. Ail
real danger however is obviated by the power which the
rope passing through his hand gives him, a firm grasp of
which serves as an immediate check. Thus a distance of
300 feet was traversed with the speed of lightning. The
ascent is performed by means of narrow stairs, sunk deep
between the beams.—New Monthly Magazine for Sept.
We learn from Kouno that General Geestenswerg,
who commands a portion of the troops reviewed by the
Emperor near this village, very nearly perished in the
Niemen. The General had to pass during the manoeuvres
with his troops over a bridge thrown hastily across the river,
and of which the construction was not solid. His horse

forced in a plank, and the General fell into the water. A
Lieutenant threw himself after him, but the General having
seized him by the body, and thus hindering him from swim-
ming, both sunk deep in the water, when a young man, who
had newly joined the service as a volunteer, plunged into
bringingthe Niemen, and at length succeeded in thm both
safe and sound to the bank. The Emperor, who was a wit-
ness of this scene, promoted the young volunteer to be an

officer, and raised the Lieutenant to the rank of Major.—
Journal du Frankfort.

The workmen employed in the excavation of the rail-
way through Carsebur❑ Muir last week, came upon a stone
coffin situated about twenty yards distant from the south
trench of the Roman camp, containing the remains of a
human body, and a small urn in good preservation. At
first sight, the skull seemed pretty entire, but after being
exposed a kw minutes to the air, it crumbled into dust, as
all the other parts of the body had previously done. A

tooth, that had evidently seen service, was found in the urn,
and which had doubtless dropped from the jaw in course of
its long rest of somewhere about 1,000 years ! The urn had
been made of burned vegetable earth, coated on the outside

with clay, and carefully punctured all over, by way of orna-
ment. The heart of the deceased had probably been de-
posited in it. The coffin was of the usual antique dimensioni,

nearly four feet long■, two-and-a-half feet broad, and of cor-
responding depth, to adroit the body in a folded position—

an odd way followed in those times, of burying the bodies of

distinguished personages.—Edinbure Evening Courant.
CAPTAIN MARRYAT'S NEW NOVEL, &C.—
Weare requested to state that the new edition of " Soar-

ley Yow• ; or, the Dog Fiend," will be published on Sa-
turday next by Mr. Colburn, 13, Great Marlborough-

street, who has now ready the following new works of fic-
tion :—I. " Uncle Horace," by Mrs. S. C. Hall, authoress
of " Sketches of Irish Character," " The Buccaneer,"
&c. " These volumes," says the Literary Gazette,
" whether for talent, feeling, or principle, do Mrs. Hall the
highest credit ; and we congratulate our readers on hav-
ing to make " Uncle Horace's acquaintance." 2. " Stokes-
hill Place ; or, the Man of Business," by Mrs. Charles
Gore, authoress of " Mrs. Armytage," " Mothers and
Daughters," &c., 3 vols. " This work," observes the Ex-
aminer, " contains some of the most exquisite sketches we
have ever met with, even' from the pen of Mrs. Gore."
The above new novels may be had of all respectable
booksellers, and at all the principal circulating libraries

throughout the kingdom.
The commercial interests of France are using great
exertions, it appears, to establish steam communication, by
means of home-built vessels, between her numerous ports
and the different ports of the continent, as well as Eng-
land ; but although they succeed in constructing vessels of
comparatively first•rate workmanship, they are compelled
to send them to this country to have the steam apparatus
fitted in whenever they desire to have them complete. Two
vessels, the Paris and Vile de Buurdeau.r. both built by
111. VAse, of Havre, are now in the river, having the patent
engines of Messrs. John Seaward and Co., placed in them.
The Paris is finished, and was tried in the river yesterday.
She is considered one of the finest French vessels that
has appeared in the pm of London. She is nearly
two hundred feet long, and of proportionate breadth and
depth of hold, while her form and construction are ex-
tremely elegant. The engines are of two hundred•horse
power, with five feet stroke and paddle wheels, of twenty-
five feet in diameter, m eking twenty-two revolutions per
minute. The Pa. is belongs to a steam-boat company at
Havre, and is intended to run between that port and Ham-

burgh.
The Editor of the Leipsic Gazette declares, in an-
swer to several letters which he has received, that no trace
of any contagious or epidemic disorder of any kind, still
less of the cholera, has appeared at Leipsic, or in any part
of the country, or even on the frontiers ; but that, on the
contrary, the sanitary state of the whole kingdom is as good
as poseible.—Journal de Frankfort, Sept. 8.