The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-22 00:00:00

110 W TO BUY FRENCH WINES.

You get a cask of " bon ordinaire," already drawn
off (soutire) and fined (colle), and only requiring
three weeks' or a months' repose in your cellar 'or
warehouse to put in bottle. At times of the year
when it does not freeze, an aboveground warehouse
is the most convenient to perform the operation in;
there is at least a certain amount of daylight, and
your man is not exposed for hours to the tempera-
ture and atmosphere of an underground cellar.
You bottle your wine, selecting a bright sunshiny
day, with the wind not far from the north or the
east. At Channel ports of France you get good
ordinary Bordeaux for from £9 to £l2 the cask,
which will yield 300 and a few odd bottles. I find
what contents me for £B. Very good ordinary Bur-
gundy may be had for less, but put it down at £B.
A cask of Burgundy yields only from 270 to 280
bottles; but the contents of wine casks, now differ-
ing greatly, according to locality, are shortly to be
equalised throughout France. If you deal with
Bordeaux or Burgundy direct, a "chemise'' or se-
cond outer cask, to prevent tricks being played
with your wine on the road, costs five francs, and
is not money thrown away. Adding to these
prices the freight to London, the wharfage, the
English duty, and the cost of bottling and of
corks (the best are the cheapest; many a bottle of
good wine is spoilt by a bad cork), the reader may
calculate at what a cheap rate he can furnish his
table with good light wine, by following the plan
of buying it in the wood. English wine mer-
chants should persuade their customers to buy
their ordinary French wine in the cask, and bottle
it themselves; they might sell it ho at a reason-
able price, and yet get a fair profit. Your wine is
bottled and stacked; a goodly store. For the first
three or four months it is " sick," and out of order.
If you can leave it untouched a twelvemonth, so
much the better ; but in six or !eight months you
may begin to make use of it. "It is pretty well,"
you think. " Very fair." If Burgundy, the bottle
already begins to show a crust, delightful to most
English eyes ; if pure Bordeaux, it should not be-
tray the slightest crust or deposit after being ten
years in bottle. Your wine costs so little that you
make free with it, giving country cousins tastes of
what they never tasted before, and trying its heal-
ing qualities on your poor sick neighbours. When
it is half finished, you begin to say :—" I like this
wine ; we must be more sparing with it," When it
is drawing near to its close, you shut up the last
two dozen in some secure hiding-place, only to be
produced on state occasions. This is the history of
many and many a cask of " bon ordinaire." We do
not fully value our friends until we are on the point
of losing them.—Dickens's " All the Year Round.'

An extraordinary case of murder, committed by
a woman, has just been tried in Paris. The prisoner, a
widow named Parisot, 54 years of age, is described as a
most horrible- looking creature— one of those miserable
wretches in the lowest strata of the sex who haunt the
purlieus of barracks,and who are known by the unfortunately
ignominious term of "soldiers' women." She had for a
regular lover a pensioner with a wooden leg, and the weight
of 76 years to carry with it. His largesse to her—all that
his means allowed—was the sharing of his daily rations
He does not appear to have known, however, what turns
out to have been a fact, that a rival named Hertz was in the
habit of enjoying the lady's favours when he was away.
One evening Hertz was either indiscreet enough or unlucky
enough to knock at the door of the woman's lodgings when
she was in bed with the old man with the wooden leg. She
thereupon snatched from the bedside a sword belonging to
the pensioner, and, without saying a word, attacked Hertz
with it lustily, inflicting upon him 13 wounds and cleaving
his skull. He died almost immediately, and the surgeon
who gave evidence said he should have thought it impossible
that a woman could hays inflicted such wounds. The ver-
dict of guilty being qualified b 3 extenuating circumstances,
this virago was sentenced to 20 years' hard labour.

'fbe advices from Pernambuco give the particu-
lars of the failure of the banking firm of Amorim Fragozo,
Santos, and Co., of that city. The liabilities are estimated
at £200,000, and two of the managing partners have ab-
sconded. The position of the creditors, however, will be
mitigated by the fact that the establishment was formed as
a company en commandite in 1850, and that the share-
holders, having paid up but 50 per cent, of their subscrip-
tion, are still liable for calls to the amount of £50,000. Four
or five other houses have been compelled by this disaster to
suspend, and also the banking firm of M. Silveira. The
treasurer of the branch bank of Brazil, st Pernambuco has
likewise absconded, leaving a defalcation of about £50,000.
THE YELVERTON CASE IN SCOTLAND.—Lord
Ardmillan's judgment in the Yelverton case will, I under-
stand, shortly come before the Court of Session for re-
vision. While much credit is given the Lord Ordinary for
the zeal and ability brought to bear upon the considera-
tion of thif critical case, few are found prepared to claim
for his vote the merit of impartiality. Most people pro-
nounce it, while an able, a notoriously one-sided docu-
ment. The fact that Lord Ardmillan is a trustee of Mrs.
Forbes is not looked upon as contributing to perfect im-
partiality. lam far from asserting there was anything in
such a relation to bias a judge. But, unquestionably, the
relation throws an air of suspicion over the judgment.—
Correspondent of Weekly Review.
The Opinione of Turin mentions some disturb-
ancesrowd which occurred on the 16th at Milan,
whpeanraadecd the
of young men assembled about 8 p.m.,
and paraded
! Viva
streets with torches, crying, " Viva
l' Italia Down with the Ministry I
p of the national
".1:1°A9.: eFhcmortmeoln-csehtarcacht iooonnfs,ut h.e se
esPPerlveaefeereacst:
afterwards to the prefecture.
They first proceeded to the house of theLhaFenGtyruaesnrsicgfhoict:onaltarul.blm,aalednli'd,'
guards preventing their
cheers
the Emperor of
tandheys contented
seenpteadratthede themselves eAlvut
tepesrow.unitiihcerlioeusda
another point of the city a
and Syndic both called
dissolvedsimilar
who, by the coolness of a
the personsF r
e ntchha twere uttered
arrested. m eac
Ato
after vainly captain of the
to disperse, ordered his men to load.
deraonantr:ttii.onnaiwgausards
fa lent and the patriots" decamped.
recom-
mending the crowd
This WaS bU.-C c
BAPTISM IN THE SEA.--On Sabbath last, a man
was baptised in the sea at Lossiemouth, in front of the
railway station,—Elgin Courier,