The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-03 00:00:00

ET, JAN. 2.

s. d.
Walls End Haswell._ 23 0
Walls End Iletton 23 0
Pensher Primrose 22 0
Russel's Hetton
South Hetton
Stewart's
Sunderland
Tunstall
West Lambtolt ' 0
Cassop
Caradoc
Hartlepool
Heugh Hall
Kelloe
East Hartlepool
South Hartlepool 2l 9
South Durham 2l 6
South Kelloe
Whitworth
Evenwood lB 6

THE BRITISH,MINISTER TO MEXICO.—The Hon.
P. Campbell Scarlett, the newly 'appointed Envoy and
Minister Plenipotentiary to the Emperor of Mexico, left
London yesterday to enter on his newly-appointed duties.
Mr. Middleton goes out as first secretary, and Mr. H. Le
Strange as second secretary.
THACKERAY'S SCHOOL-DAYS.—It was when he
was between the ages of thirteen and fifteen and a
half or sixteen that I knew Thackeray best. He was then
a rosy-faced boy with dark curling hair, and a quick, in-
telligent eye, ever twinkling with humour, and good
humour. He was stout and broad-set, and gave no pro-
mise of the stature which he afterwards reached. It was
during a short but severe illness, just before he left school,
that he grew rapidly, leaving his sick-bed certainly a good
many inches taller than lie was when he entered it, and
heading at once all his contemporaries. No man ever
owed :more of his mental growth to time and exercise,
and less of his bodily stature. For the usual school-
boy sports and games Thackeray had no taste or
'passion whatever, any more than in after-life for those
field-sports which seem to have been the delight of his
schoolfellow and fellow-humourist, Leech. Such amuse-
ments would have come probably next to Euclid and al-
gebra in his list of dislikes. But he was by no means what
a good many men of genius are said to have been in their
youth—disposed to isolation or solitary musing. For a
non-playing boy he was wonderfully social, full of viva-
city and enjoyment of life. His happy insouciance was
constant. Never, was any lad at once so jovial, so
healthy, and so sedentary. Good spirits and merriment
seemed to enable him to dispense with the glow of
cricket or foot-ball ; and if in his still earlier days
he ever ".fagged out," it must have been most
bitterly against his will. We were now and then, indeed,
out together in small fishing parties, but it was for the
talking, and the change, and the green fields, and the tea
abroad instead of at home—cakes, &c., accompanying (for
he was always rather gustative, never greedy)—that
Thackeray liked these expeditions. . . . He was eminently
good-tempered to all, especially the younger boys, and no-
thing of a tyrant or a bully. Instead of a blow or a threat,
I can just hear him saying to one of them, "Hooky" (a
sobriquet of a son of the late Bishop Carr, of Bombay), "go up
and fetch me a volume of "Ivanhoe" out of my drawer, that's
a good fellow; in the same drawer you will, perhaps, find• a
penny, which you may take for yourself." The penny
was, indeed, rather problematical, but still realised suffi-
ciently often to produce excitement in the mind of the
youth thus addressed, and to make the service a willing
one. When disappointed, it was more than probable that
the victim would call Thackeray a "great snob" for mis-
leading him, a title for which the only vengeance would
be a humorous and benignant smile. In the two or three
years that I am recording, I scarcely ever saw Thackeray
seriously angry, or even his brow wrinkled with a frown.
He has been called a cynic ; it is doubtful whether a real
cynic could ever be manufactured out of a boy who had
such powers as he had of sarcasm.—"Comhill Magazine"
for January.
ALLEGED MURDER.—Mr. Richard Smith, a re-
tired surgeon, living at the quiet little town of
Winchcomb, Glocestershire, was on Friday committed to
Glocester county gaol on the coroner's warrant, charged
with the murder of his wife by shooting her through the head
with a gun. Mr. Smith formerly practised as a surgeon, but
had retired for some years, and lived with his wife alone,
without a servant, in North-street, Winchcomb. He was
very eccentric in his manner, but his eccentricities were
not considered by his friends great enough to warrant
them in placing him under restraint. On Tuesday night a
shot was heard in his house, and a neighbour who heard it
listened at the window and hearing Mr. Smith moving
about the room and talking she thought no more of it.
Next morning the prisoner went to his .brother, who lives
in the same neighbourhood (the prisoner's son living with ;
him), and told his sons that their mother was dead ;
that she had been shot. When asked whether the shooting
was accidental, he said the " gun was pointed at her and
went off," but he would not say whether it was accidental
or not. The sons ran to their father's house, and there they
found their mother lying in her blood, cold and stiff, in the
sitting-room. In a room' adjoining was found a double-bar-
relled gun, one barrel of which was loaded, and this, there
could be no doubt, was the weapon with which the deceased
woman was shot. After telling his sons of their mother's
death the father was proceeding to Gloucester, when he was
overtaken by the police and apprehended. The inquest was
held at Winchcomb before Mr. Lovegrover, coroner for
Glocestershire, when Mr. James Adolphus Smith, son of
the deceased, deposed that his mother was 52 years of
age, and that she and his father lived comfortably toge-
ther. The gun belonged to'witness, and had been left by
him at his father's on the previous Saturday. Witness
slept at his uncle's on Tuesday night, and on Wednesday
morning his father came there and said his mother was
dead, and also said something about a gun, but witness was
too agitated to understand him. He fetched his brother
William, who was in the same house, and then asked his
father, " Did you shoot her ?" He replied, " The gun
went off." The witness added that his father had been
labouring under delusions. He was under the impression
that his sons would be kidnapped and sent to America.
William Alexander Smith corroborated his brother's testi-
mony. He last saw his mother alive about three hours be-
fore the gunshot was heard. His father was at home, and
they appeared to be on good terms with each other. Next
morning on hearing from his father that his mother was
dead he ran to the house, and accompanied by a man named
Payne went into the parlour, where they found the de-
ceased lying on the floor on her side. She was dressed ash 3
had seen her on the previous evening. Corroborative evi-
dence was given in support of the above by Joseph Payne
and another of deceased's sons. Mrs. Greenhalf, who lived
next door to the house occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Smith,
deposed that about 9 o'clock on Tuesday evening, hearing
the report of a gun in Mr. Smith's parlour, she went to the
parlour shutter and listened. She heard some one move
the chairs about, and Mr. Smith spoke, but no one
answered. Hearing Mr. Smith afterwards go into the
hall witness went away. Mr. Newman, surgeon, Winch-
comb was called in to see the deceased on Wed-
nesday. She had fallen close to a chair, on which
her right hand and arm rested. There was blood
on the floor, and she was dead, cold, and stiff. There was
a gunshot wound.in the upper and back part of the neck.
The spine was fractured, and death must have been in-
stantaneous. He found 16 shots in the wound, and these,
on being compared with the shot found in the double-
barrelled gun, proved to be of the same size. There could,
of course, be no doubt as to the cause of death. Most of
the witnesses bore testimony to the fact that the prisoner
was of unsound mind. The policeman who apprehended
him said he considered ho had been in an unsound state
of mind for the last five years. At times he had been
in such an excited state as to call for his interference.
A juryman stated that he had seen him with a
fishing-rod fishing in the turnpike road. Mr. New-
man (the surgeon) said that ever since he had known
the prisoner, twenty years, he had considered him in
an unsound state of mind. The jury found a verdict of
" Wilful Murder" against Richard Smith, and wished to
append to their verdict an opinion of his insanity, but the
Coroner said that must be left to another court. The
prisoner was accordingly committed for trial at the next
Gloucestershire spring assizes.

SCHOLASTIC REGISTRATION.—The general com-
mittee, encouraged by the success which has attended
the movement in favour of scholastic registration, has re-
solved to convene a public meeting of schoolmasters and
others interested in education, to consider the best means
of bringing the question before the Legislature and the
public. The meeting will be held on Thursday,
the sth of January, at two p.m., at the rooms
of the Society of Arts, John-street, Adelphi. The hon.
secretary will read a report of the progress of the
movement to this date, and will give an outline of the
Medical Act, which has suggested the proposed Act, on a
somewhat analogous plan, for the Registration of School-
masters and Teachers. Several gentlemen of influence will
take part in the meeting, and it is earnestly hoped that all
promoters of educational reform will endeavour to attend,
and co-operate with those whose object is to obtain for
the public some protection ageinst incompetent educators,
and for the profession the position to which its character
and importance entitle it. —Educational Times.

Messrs. Baring Brothers and Co• have received
by the present mail the following remittances on
account of New Grenada dividends :—From Santa
Marta, £1,971 14s. 2d. ; from Cartagena, £642 ;
and from Sabanilla, £4OB lls. 6d.—total, £3,022
4s. s Bd.

The mil from Guayaquil has brought a remit-
tance of £1,769 3s. 3d. on account of the dividends
on the debt of Equador.