The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-03 00:00:00

SELF-DEFENCE AGAINST GAIIO2 TE.RS.

Evils of this sort do bring their cure in time ;
the gentleman highwayman, who used to stop the
mail on Hounslow-heath, has long since been ex-
tinguished; and we shall extinguish these human
bull dogs, by boldly dealing with them as in the
style of Mr. Burt, in the first instance, and giving
them a full measure of punitive correction in the
second. In regard to the first point, it needs to be
observed that, as no one is safe in the public
streets at any hour of the day or night, so in ren-
dering assistance promptly to a fellow-citizen in
distress on the first alarm of danger, the act is as
much one of self-protection as of mutual sharing
of the risk. But theca must be a limit to the pre-
cautions for self-defence. Much as we admire the
daring of Mrs. Norman, at Whaley bridge, who
met a burglar with a revolver, and shot him in the
breast, we should regard it as a great calamity
were the public to take to carrying firearms, or any
really killing weapons, for defence in the streets.
A bludgeon or life-preserver cannot well be used in
mistake to harm an innocent man, but pistols and
daggers have an evil influence on their possessors,
and there is always the possibility of life being sacri-
ficed, even under imaginary alarms. Many of our
readers will no doubt remember the case of the Rev.
Mr. Smith, of Nottingham, some years since. He
had been alarmed by burglars, and procured a gun
for self-defence ; the next night he heard a tapping
on the shutters and he fired, and shot dead a poor
man who had come with a message to one of his ser-
vants, and who knocked on the shutters in order to
avoid disturbing him by ringing the bell. We
should have no end of domestic tragedies if it be-
came the fashion for Englishmen to go about armed;
happily that has not been the fashion for some cen-
turies past, but there is some fear of the revival of
the fashion since the dangers of the streets have so
multiplied, and the tendency to the carrying of
pistols and dirks is much to be deplored. Nor is it
possible to justify the carrying of weapons as a means
of defence against street robbers ; an oak staff or
ashen truncheon will be far more effectual tor those
who ars capable of making a defence at all ; and,
however desperate the attack, we have no right to
do more mischief to the marauder than suffices to
disable him, and render his capture certain. The
law is the best avenger, and in spite of the laxities
through which many of these disorders have arisen,
the law is, after all, our only real and permanent
defence, and every measure taken by individual
victims and sharers of the dangers should be to
bring the culprits within reach of whatever terrors
the law has in store for them.— City Press.

ENTOMOLOGY AND ETYMOLOGY.—ScaIe insects
are something more important than marvels and revelations
of the microscope, for they play an important part in the
business of man. They attack many stove plants, and
besides make their presence felt for evil upon plums,
peaches, grapes, pears, aloes, nectarines, pine apples, olean-
ders, and acacias, as well as oranges, Scale insects Insve
been known to destroy an average harvest. Their ravages
destroyed, in 1843, the chief dependence of the inhabitants
of a whole group of volcanic islands in the .51editerran.n.
The learned name for this group of insects is the coecitim,
from the Greek word coccos, a berry. The story of this
names illustrates how words are imported into languages,
and how languages grow. Probably one of the ear
of liest
dyes used by mankind was deriv,cl from the berry the
plant which the Greeks called Kertnes, whence the French
and the English the word el im.
derive their word cratuoisi,
son. D„es the word miminal come from the red stain
The scale insect which yields the cochineal, from its ap-
pearance, was supposed to be a berry, and When this error
Ea nn dg
shhe then
derived f o m
ah
ee
was abandoned, it was said to be a worm. During the
worm o rumn
vceor, o
the
middle ages, while this belief prevailed, the colour was
word vermilion.—All the Year Round.
cFarlelendeZerai:i=;:i
CONSUMPTION OF SPIRITS.—The Excise returns
for the first three quarters of the year have been issued.
The quantity of spirits retained for consumption in the
United Kingdom as beverage
only has been 13,532,217
gallons in the first nine mosame period of 1861 it uths of the present year. In the
was 13,050,988 gallons, and of 1860,
16,160,240 gallons.