The Sun.
London, England, 1862-09-30 00:00:00

are evenly matched in this game of blood, and
we await, therefore, with no little curiosity the
result of the battle—of all the North against all
the Sonth.

We had hardly written the above when we re-
ceived the telegrams which our readers will find in
our Latest News. From these it appears that the
Confederates have been compelled to evacuate Mary-
land entirely. The Federals have possession of
Harper's Ferry, by which the Confederates crossed,
and are therefore completely triumphant. M'CLEL-
LAN will now be again the hero of the hour, and
deservedly so. With a force, so far as is known,
not disproportionately large, he has completely
beaten, in fair fight, the two ablest Confederate
Generals. He has turned the tide. It is, however,
from his own shores, and the Federals will be wise
if they use the hour of victory, not to plan fresh
invasions and hazard fresh defeats, but to offer a
settlement on fair terms.

WILLIAM PALMER, infamous in the annals of
crime as a secret poisoner, appears to have been at
length in some measure surpassed in atrocity, and
this, too, by a woman. The wretched criminal who
was condemned to death on Saturday last for the
cruel murder of Mrs. SOAMES must henceforth have
her most execrable name remembered not simply
coupled with a miserable creature like Madame LA-
FARGE, but with miscreants like the female BORGIA,
the dark-eyed, the dark-haired, the dark-souled—
and the fair and flaxen Duchess de BRINVIL-
LIERS. If in nothing else, in the signal and start-
ling atrocity of its crimes the nineteenth will have
only too fear fully and undeniably a claim to pre-
eminence among the centuries. And one of the
very blackest among these foul blots upon the so-
cial records of this time, will be the terrible record
made there of the career of CATHARINE WILSON.
It was but in the June of this very year 1862 that,
upon another charge of poisoning—the attempted
murder of a woman with sulphuric acid—this mise-
rable wretch was tried in that same dock in whieh,
before the close of September, she heard her-
self at length pronounced Guilty by a
Jury and condemned to death by a Judge
for another, an earlier, attempt that had
unhappily proved successful. "It is very seldom,"
said the judge, " that I think it any part of my
duty, in a case of this or any other description, to
express either concurrence or dissent with the ver-
dict of a jury ; but upon the present occasion I am
bound to say that, in my opinion, the jury could
not have arrived at any other conclusion than they
have done, consistently with the facts that were
laid before them. I never heard a case where it was
so clearly proved that a murder was committed,
and where the excruciating pains and agony of the
victim were watched with so much deliberation by
the murderer." Those closing words are surely
strong enough, in every way, as an attestation
volunteered by the Judge as to his own abso-
lute conviction of the prisoner's guilt. But
stronger still were his lordship's words
in reference to another crime of a similar kind, a
crime for which the prisoner was not then being
tried, but for which, if acquitted in the case
then before the court, she certainly would have
been tried and that immediately. Referring to that
other charge of poisoning, the poisoning of Mrs.
ATKINSON, the Judge said emphatically in the
course of his remarks on Saturday—" If the jury
had acquitted you upon the present charge you
would have been immediately put upon your trial
for this murder." Adding, "I have read the depo-
t situ.. in this case most caretully and anxiously,
and the result upon my mind is, that I have
no more doubt that you committed that crime
than if I had seen it committed with my own
eyes !" The mere catalogue of these Secret
Poisonings by.CATHARINE WILSON—Two of them
Attempted, Five of them Accomplished—revolts
the imagination. Her two ineffectual attempts at
Poisoning were those made upon the life of the
woman, for the all but completed murder of whom
in June last the Prisoner, now under sentence of
Death at Newgate, was tried but eventually ac-
quitted. The other case of attempted murder by
poisoning at her fell hands, occurring in the course
of last year only, in the instance of a young man
named TAYLOR, with whom the miscreant was
living when the crime was all but perpetrated !
" Fortunately for him," as the Judge remarked
on Saturday, " remedies were immediately resorted
to and he recovered." Putting aside from enumera-
tion upon the black list now drawn up against this
Great CriminaI—CATHARINE WILSON is nOW
charged with, is now known to have committed the
following Five Dreadful Murders by Secret
Poisoning :
I. The murder of Mr. MAWER.
11. The murder of Mr. DIXON.
111, The murder of Mrs. JACKSON.
IV. The murder of Mrs. ATKINSON.
V. The murder of Mrs. SOAMES.
Of the last-mentioned murder, the second or third
of the five chronologically, the wretch, after a very
patient and careful trial, has been formally proved
and deliberately pronounced Guilty. Of the mur-
der of Mrs. ATKINSON, the fourth upon this fearful
list of Secret Poisonings, she was deemed to be so
ominously guilty by the judge who tried her in the
case of Mrs. SOAMES, that, as we have said, his
lordship declared himself to be as perfectly satisfied
in his own mind and conscience that she had com-
mittedMrs.ATKlNSON as though he
seen her do it ! In every
With
hohaeged against her, iseookinnoe:
his own eyes,
.had,vi murder upon
same appallingahe
instance
d the
have evidenceknown to
In everyinstance the c •
deliberation. rime is per-
petrated for
licney. In the instance of Mrs.
SOAMES the murder was perpetrated with the in-
tention of getting some £3O or £4O! The mur-
deress in this case moreover, when the infernal crime
her grasp upon no nio,
was accomplished, laying
obtained by
than £9 sterling as the booty , 4ree tom
of con-
atrocity. It is possible, _...tie—•fright fully
possible—that CATHARINE V
eILSON May have been
guilty of more tten these five crimes of
murder by poisoning. But, at any
rate, these five we have enumerated have been
brjught distinctly home to her. In the instance of
MAWER, it appeared, when CATHARINE liTasoN's
history came to be examined into, that in 1853 and
1854 she was living in the house of this person
named MAWER, as his managing servant or house-
keeper, down at Boston in Lincolnshire. Making
his will in March—a will leaving the whole of his
small property to WILSON, his housekeeper—
MAWER died in the Oct. following : quite manifestly,
as it now turns out, from the extensive administra-
tion of colchicum. Two years after MAWER'S death,
WILSON • •
is living with the young man DIXON, not
down in Roston, but up here in London—in lodg-
ings—at th
e house of Mrs, SOAMES. DIXON dies in
1856. Mrs. SOAMES expires labouring under pre-
cisely the same horrible torments that preceded the
sudden death of MAWER and afterwards of DIXON.
Mrs. JACKSON breathes her last after an agonising
illness of four days' duration, Mrs. ATKINSON also
after an illness of four days. The sufferings endured
by each of those unhappy vi t
c itns
excruciating character. Retchi being of the same
n
g, violent purg-
ing, vomiting, mnd an agony indescribable. Re-
meraburing the number
_of these atrocious crimes

thus coolly perpetrated by CATHARINE WILSON,
remembering
the time that had elapsed
during their perpetration before this dastardly
and deliberate murderess by secret poisoning had at
length been brought to justice, we could hardly feel
' surprised when the learned judge exclaimed on
Saturday :—" These facts render it extremely pro-
bable the startling statement made by Dr. TAYLOR,
in the course of his evidence, is correct, and that in
the midst of apparent prosperity and obedience to
the law, a dreadful crime and vice is rife in this
metropolis, the destruction of life by secret
poisonings." It is an appalling reflection, but it is
one from the horrible glamour of which there is no
escape—with the whole grimly series of these five
cruel murders perpetrated by CATHARINE WILSON
since 1854 glaring irresistibly at this moment upon
our recognition.

In the good old days of duelling the witty
Irish barrister who suggested instead a
harmless display of skill with pistols, deserved
well of the duellist class. Let us, said he to his
challenger, chalk a figure the size of each of
us on a barn door, and whichever hits the
other's chalk man shall receive an apology from the
one who misses. Now we do not know whether the
Catholic and Presbyterian Doctors of Divinity,
CULLEN and HANNA, do not equally deserve a Peace
Society prize, although, such is the infirmity of
human nature, what they devise for peace ends in
war. The Government will not indulge us, they say,
in good neighbourly breaking of each others' heads to
the honour of our respective faiths, so, let us show
our strength in another way. Let us have monster
meetings—processions—gatherings—and whoever
gets up the biggest meeting and makes the best
show, let his faith be the infallible one. Now
really this is a very creditable proposal. Why
should not numbers be the test of orthodoxy ?
Why cannot we accept the vote of the majority,
as we do in other matters and have done with it ?
Only carry out the CULLEN-HANNA principle,
and we really might get rid of ail our sects in a
little time. What a blessed peace it would be, too,
for us all, if once we could be as easy in religion
as in politics, and give in to the majority.
" Contending sects would lose their power or cease,
An e'en the dipped and sprinkled live in peace."

But poor Dr. HANNA has certainly a grievance.
If our duellist above-mentioned, being required,
through his bad marksmanship, to make the apology,
ran up to his rival and gave him the butt-end of
his discharged pistol, this would certainly not be
fair-play. Now, says Dr. HANNA, this is the way
with the Cullenites. They had their meeting in
Dublin. They went to the verge of the law, and
even beyond the law, by displaying party symbols
and banners, Lord CARLISLE, well meaning but
weak-acting man, did not put all this down; or, as
ABE LINCOLN'S friends say, " put his foot down
on it." Yet we exemplary Protestants in Dublin
made no disturbance. Dr. CULLEN had his demon•
stration to his heart's content. This, says Dr.
HANNA, was our grievance. We have sad com-
plaints to make about the castle patronage—
it goes out of all proportion, to incompetent
Catholics—we could however forgive even that.
We are industrious and shall not starve, although
we miss our proportion of the political loaves and
fishes—but for a grand public meeting of Catholics
to be tolerated—a meeting designed merely to glo-
rify Popery by a quiet display of physical force—no,
that cannot be brooked. If an amiable Lord Lieu-
tenant will not " put his foot down" he must see,
and the Catholics must see, that Protestants can
match them ; so Dr. HANNA blows his trumpet on
Mx. "B-plirnalSS. at Belfast, and calls on all good Pro-
testants from the four corners of Ulster to "gather
themselves together to the help of the LORD against
the POPE.."

Now it really was a little too bad of the
Catholics to waylay and maul the quiet Pro-
testants who had assembled only for a great
" palaver" in the Botanic Gardens of the town.
Talk could do no harm. And as the Catholics
had their show unmolested in Dublin, it
was too bad of them to meddle with the
Protestant show at Belfast. We cannot excuse the
naughty Paddies, whose priests had doubtless in-
structed them, with an appropriate movement of
the eyelids, " to take care they did not disturb or
molest any Protestants." Yet we must own, as
good Protestants, we cannot let off Dr. HANNA and
Co. so easily. We cannot, if we are to suppose that
Irish Catholics judge of English Protestants by
Dr. HANNA. We would not have it thought that
we here, in sober old England, could be provoked
to a demonstration of physical religious strength.
We have heard a good deal lately of "Muscular
Christianity," but it is not just the muscularity of
crowds which finds such favour with us. May we
beg all in Ireland whom it may concern to take
notice, that religious ochlocracy is viewed with dis-
gust by respectable men of all creeds.

His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge
arrived in town on Saturday from visiting the Earl and
Countess of Chesterfield, at Gedling Lodge, Notts.
Their Serene Highnesses Prince and Princess
Edward of Saxe Weimar, who have been staying during the
week with the Earl and Countess of Chesterfield, at Gedling
Lodge, Nottinghamshire, returned to town on Saturday.
The Earl of Warwick left his house in the Stable-
yard, St James's, on Saturday, for Warwick Castle. The
earl and countess leave in a few days for the Earl of
Wemyss's seat in Scotland.
Viscount and Viscountess Palmerston are receiv-
ing a succession of visitors at their seat, Broadlands, Hants.

Viscountess Jocelyn and family are expected at
Cambridge House today from a tour on the Continent.

The Earl of Chesterfield has left Gedling Lodge,
Notts, for Newmarket.

The Dowager Marchioness of Queensberry has
arrived in town from the Queen's Hotel, Upper Nom,-

The Earl and Countess of Lincoln 1;P-
-at Thomas's Hotel, Berkeley-square, —ye arrived,
Worksop, Nottinghamshire. grom Clumber Park,

FALL FROM A -r.
night Mr. M-
AtAILIVAY-BRIDGE.—On Monday
ford-h-• _...edollald, son of the stationmaster at Stara-
high engine,
viaduct
whichthe s t e
c,.
, ....Age, It.t the North-Eastern, met with a serious mis-
clap. lie had occasion to speak with the driver of an
p crosses
ews
the
which
phe e
rw alightedent.
Itw when
being
do n
dark
to the yorekniejuries,
14 .14acIdonald missed the bridge
AO. It is said the bridge was not protected at
"el)th of 40 4. and fall into the valley, a
WARDS.--tudi:P
the place.
Act any of the
very
sever
.Mr. Macdonald, as may be supposed, received
internally and otherwise, and was sent
divided into wards
when found to contafionr the
DIVISION
OF
Hospital the same night.
METROPOLITAN PARISHES INTO
r the new Metropolis Local Management
parishes within the metropolis can now be
on the application b
of Works, or of not less th purpose of electing vestrymen
y the
eore than 2,000 rated householders,
vestry to the Metropolitan Board
obtaithe
sion is to be submitted to the 500 householders. The divi-
Secretary of State, and he
may order the same to
vestry of the interests of the :tea' fair representation in the
The Emperor Alexander 11,
has published a
ukase, by which he interdicts the carrying
of the doctrines of confiscation issued into execution
since 1532. This ukase, without repairing the Poles
the preceding reign, checks the effects of the iniquities of
confiscation
in cases where the extreme measure has not been yet
applied.
Private letters from Russia state that the
eman-
cipation scheme will now proceed without further hind-
rance " as the peasants find that they cannot have the land
for nothing, and that applications for further concessions
will be useless." One nobleman writes that he is happy at
no longer possessing a single serf, and that he has com-
menced letting his land out in farms as in this country.
He says, moreover, that his income will not be curtailed
for more than a year or two.
The opera season in Dublin commences ou Tues-
day, the 7th of October, under an arrangement with Mr.
\lapleson, of Her Majesty's Theatre. The company is a
good one ; it includes Mdlle. Titiens, Madame Lemaire,
Signors Giuglini, Badiali, Herr Formes, &c. The operas
announced are " Il Travatore," " Lucia di Lammermoor,"
" Puritani," &G.