The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-10 00:00:00

LYRICS OF LOCOMOTION.

LAY OF THE LONDONER.
(From Fun.)
Wanly walking on all of us go,
Each with a dirk ready held up the sleeve,
Taking a stick to return with a blow,
The grasp we may get from a ticket-of-leave ;
Looking about lest a fellow surprising
Us, forth from some dark alley savagely flew,
This is the style of pedestrianising,
Through London in eighteen and sixty and two.
Armed with a six-barrelled shotted revolver,
Daring the danger of dusk in the Strand,
Picking our way with a knife for a solver,
Of what knotty problem may come to our hand;
Looking to left of us, looking to nigh• of us,
Steadily marking the course we pursue,
This is the way that a couple, each night, of us,
Go to our homes in the year sixty-two.
Back to the days of the old city Charleys,
Back to the times of oil-lamps in the streets,

Back to the age when compelled to hold parleys
With highwaymen ready for Turpin•like feats.
Calling for aid, no police at the station,
To cope with a cowardly night-prowling crew,
And this is the height of our civilisation,
In England in eighteen and sixty and two.

THE ORIGIN OF LUCIFER MATCHES.—The
original process, by which man first succeeded in produc-
ing fire, consisted in rubbing two pieces of dry wood to-
gether. This process, which is, however, still in use
among many savage tribes, was speedily superseded, in the
first period of civilisation, by the revolving wooden disk
and cylinder, and this, again, by other and improved
methods, until the tinder-box was introduced, with its flint
and steel, and brimstone match. This venerable antique
kept its ground for ages, and the time is still within the
memory of many living men when it constituted our most
approved means of obtaining fire. However, when, with
the new era in chemistry, so many and such glorious dis-
coveries followed each other in rapid succession, to be applied
with the same marvellous rapidity to the arts of life, the
" manufacture of instantaneous light," as it has not unaptly
been termed, also made a gigantic bound forward, and th e
so-called Briquets phosphoriques, or inflammable match-
phials, made their appearance some forty odd years since.
These consisted of a small phial of glass or lead,
either with a bit of phosphorus inside, slightly oxi •
dised by stirring it round with a red-hot iron wire, or
filled with a mixture of cork-raspings, wax, petroleum,
and phosphorus, incorporated by fusion. The phos-
phorus, or the mixture in the phial, served to kindle
sulphur matches dipped into it. The so-called oxygenated
matches were an improvement on the Briquets Phospho •
riques. These matches consisted of splints, either tipped
with sulphur or not, which were dipped in a paste, made
of a mixture of pulverised chlorate of potass, flowers of sul-
phur, sugar, and gum arabic, with water, and were then T
kept in a warm place, till they were thoroughly dry.
H.
To
kindle one of these matches, it was dipped into a small w
stoppered phial, with strong sulphuric acid in it, thickened
with asbestos. These were the great improvements
more immediately preceded the invention of the
frictit n or
instantaneous light match, which, by dispensing altogether
with the phial, made the process of striking a light one
extreme simplicity. Monet's. pump for kindling tinder,touchwood, &c., by compression of air, and the so-called
electric lamps, were rather interesting
and Dobereiner's
as physical appa-
ratus than useful for practical purposes
platinum apparatus, though a very neat and elegant in-
strument, was rather too dear for popular uses. Moreover,
all these are now completely superseded by the instanta-
neous light match at
present '
in in universal use, which We
lately saw manufacturedits most improved and most
perfect form, on theCo.'s
occasion of
Bethnal-green.-2 he
a visit to Messrs. R.
Letchford and factory
Grocer.
A HINT TO SPORTSMEN AND GAME PRESERVERS.
—A correspondent informs us that Mr. Mechi has this week
forwarded a cheque of £5O to Mrs. Polly: tenant-farmer on
the Layer Marney Tower estate, for damage done by game
where he has the preeervee.—Essex Iterald,

THIRD EDInON.

SUN OFFICE, SIX O'CLOCK.

MEXICO.

The Diaro of Madrid publishes a letter from
the city of Mexico of the 29th of October,
which affirms that great anarchy exists in ihe
country. It says :

" Colonel Buitron is making the Government
of Juarez pay dearly for his services. The
famous Rafael Cuellor does the same. -Those
men pillage the country in such a manner as to
get themselves bought off by the Government
which flees itself from their hostility by loading
them with piastres. Colonel Bojas, who com-
mands a battalion, is notorious for his atrocious
crimes. The division of Comonfort is 5,100
strong; he has three batteries of artillery. His
troops arrived at Azeapogollo in a deplorable state.
Comonfort and Juarez are still on bad terms with
each other. Juarez cannot forget that Comonfort
imprisoned him, and the latter has only one idea,
which is to get rid of .Tuarez in order to obtain the
presidency himself. The Government of Juarez is in
an extreme state of penury, and does not know what
to do to assure the service of the army of the East,
which is sensibly diminishing from desertion caused
by famine and misery."