The Sun.
London, England, 1862-11-13 00:00:00

Some of the Swiss journals state that the passage
of the Alps by railway on a second point—the Simplon—is
in contemplation. A committee of delegates of the Swiss
Cantonal Governments have held a conference at Lausanne,
where a resolution was come to that a special committee
should be named by the Governments of Geneva, Vaud,
Fridbure, and Valais, in order to come to an understanding
with the company having the concession of the Italian line,
and to concert on the ways and means for carrying out the
plan, The intention is to bore a tunnel, the total length of
which is to be from 4,600 to 4,700 metres. The rock to be
cut through is easy to be perforated, and is so uniform and
solid, the supposition is that it will not require to be faced
with any masonry.
At the Court of Assizes of the Seine, a young
young woman, named Justine Quentin, aged 29, was tried
on a charge of stealing a I,ooof. tank-note from her mis-
tress, Mme. Descombes, who keeps a boarding-school for
young ladies at the Ternes. The prisoner, who- is good-
looking, and possessed of considerable intelligence,' was
very near escaping from the hands of justice through the
manoeuvres of the secretary of the commissary of police, a
man named Delaboullaye, who has since been condemned
to four years' imprisonment for forgery and fraud; for,
when Mme. Descombes lodged her complaint with the po-
lice, it was received by Delaboullaye, and he, being smitten
with the charms of the accused, did everything he could to
stop the prosecution. His attempts were frustrated, how-
ever, and a strict inquiry into the prisoner's past conduct
having been instituted, it was ascertained that she had been
condemned to imprisonment for theft at Laval some years
ago, and on her liberation had come to Paris, and been suc-
cessively engaged as servant in seven or eight families, all
of whom she had robbed, but fouud means to escape prose-
cution. In her lodgings was seized a miscellaneous collec-
tion of linen, dresses, and jewellery, which were indentified
by their owners, whose marks still remained on some of
them. With respect to her last robbery, it was clearly
shown that she knew her mistress had put the note into a
certain drawer. It was abstracted one evening between 6
and eight o'clock, when no person but herself had entered
the room. It was further proved that the day after the
note had disappeared, the prisoner had taken jewellery out
of pawn to the amount of 258 f., and she had 550 f. in gold in
her pocket when arrested. The prisoner defended herself
with great volubility, boldly declaring that all the articles
found in her lodgings had been given to her ; she also made
scandalous insinuations against several of the witnesses
with a view of intimidating them, but all to no purpose, for
the jury found her guilty of stealing the I,ooof. note, and
the court sentenced her to three years' imprisonment.
The Tribunal of Correctional Police, the day be-
fore yesterday, tried two brothers named Balme for several
acts of swindling, which consisted in selling worthless
plants at high prices, under the pretence that they were
rare exotics. It appeared from the evidence that the
two accused, who are florists residing at Venose, near
Grenoble, last winter opened a shop on the Boulevard des
Capucines, for the sale of exetie shrubs and plants, which
they warranted to produce beautiful flowers, highly finished
drawings of which were shown to intending purchasers.
To these pretended rarities they gave the most high-sound•
ing names, as Pelpedium elephantissimum, Paconia varie-
gate nova superba, Andromeda variegate, &c. Attracted
by these fine names and the beautiful drawings of the
flowers, the gardener of the Princes Mathilde made pur-
chases to the amount of 800 f ; M. Molinet, a gentleman re-
siding at Fontainebleau, for 2,400 f; and many other per-
sons for smaller sums, but all were bitterly disappointed,
for the plants proved to be utterly worthless. Compl ints
were accordingly made to the police, and an investigation
was instituted, which resulted in the discovery that the two
accused had practised the same frauds two years before at
Cadiz, and that the campaign in Paris last winter resulted
in profits amounting to above 20,000 f. The offences having
been fully proved by several witnesses, the Tribunal de-
clared the accused guilty, and sentenced each of them to a
year's imprisonment and 50f fine.
SEA BATHING —Eschew machines, rightly so
called, as they reduce sea-bathing to the merest mechanical
process of getting into the water and out again, with a host
of cares on your mind. You are always afraid of getting
into the wrong machine, and as you swim out to sea, you
must be continually looking back to note the various
changes of those vehicles, for though your own particular
packing case may have been the fourth in order when you
left, a few changes will reduce it to second or raise it to
sixth. As you splash about in the water you cannot keep
from your mind the unpleasant consciousness that some
intending bather is watching your machine with hungry
eye and grudging you every minute of your swim. Then,
as you return, unless your senses of self-reliance be greatly
developed, it is barely agreeable to know that you are ap-
proaching a sea-shore crowded with spectators of both
sexes, and as you gradually get into shallow water, your
efforts to keep yourself modestly hidden under the sin-fano
are sadly provocative of excoriations on knees and elbows;
while if your contour has lost the Apollo-like elegance
of its youth, and is tending towards the matures outlines
of Silenus, you cannot avoid the humiliating conscious-
ness that your efforts are in vain, that perhaps,
though not witty in yourself, you are certainly the
cause of wit in others. Lastly, when you get up those
flapping steps, which always seem as if they were intended
for the purpose of removing the bather's cuticle just as ho
raises his foot fcr the ascent, what a wretchedly depressing
and comfortless cell the machines proves to be ?—London
Society.
HAVING YOUR PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN.—There
are few periods of a 'peaceable man's life more deserving
the name of " un mauvais quart d'heure" than the space of
time he is beguiled into spending in a photogropher's
studio. Of itself the attempt to select your own best ex-
pression of countenance is a perplexing effort, and the con-
sciousness that the face you put on, whatever it may be,
will be the one by which, in all future time, all who look
into your friends' albums will know you, does not diminish
the embarrassment. You have a vague expression that to
look smiling is ridiculous, and to look solemn is still more
so. You desire to look intelligent, but you are hampered
by a fear of looking sly. You wish to look as if you were
not sitting for your picture; but the effort to do so fills
your mind more completely with ti'e melancholy conscious-
ness that you are. All these conflicting feelings, pressing
upon your mind at the critical mordent ; are very painful ;
but they are terribly aggravated icy the well-meant inter-
position of the photograper. To prevent a tremulous
motion of your head which the bewildered state of your feel-
ings renders only too probable, he wedges it into a horrible
instrument called a head-rest, which gives you exactly the
appearance as if somebody was holding on to your hair
behind. In such a situation you may be pardoned if a
somewhat blank look comes over your usually intelligent
features. The photographer, of course, sees this defect, and
does his lest to remedy it by a little cheerful exhortation;
but naturally with no other result than that of making
matters much worse. " Just a little expression in your
countenance if you please, sir—perhaps if you could smile,"
is a most distressing admonition to receive at such a mo-
ment, just when you know that the photographer has his
hand upon the cap. If you are weak enough to listen to
him, and extemporise a little expression, you come out on
the plate with a horrible leer, looking like the Artful Dodger
in the act of relating his exploits. If, as is more probable;
you are too much absorbed in the uncomtortablenesso
your own position to regard his exhortations, you are
upon
im-
mortalised with an expression of agonised sternness
your features, unpleasantly suggestive of a painful disorder.
—Saturday .10vtiow.