The Sun.
London, England, 1853-01-28 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 1853.

Quibbles are already heard in one or two quar-
ters, in answer (save the mark !) to that pamphle t
of Mr. COBDEN'S, the argument of which is as clea r
as a mathematical demonstration. Well, quibble s
are the only things that can be brought to bear
upon the question of the still obdurate, though long
obsolete, apologists of the twenty-two years' wa r
against the French revolution. It may be wort: h.
while, therefore, considering some of them in de:-
tail, as they appear, and treating them succinctly
in the way of exposure. An illustration
may at once be afforded of the shuffling
insincerity evinced upon this subject 'by
those who applaud as just, and as, indeed,
inevitable, the last struggle against France arid
England—the struggle beginning in 1793, and emd-
ing in 1815, a struggle which saddled England
with a debt of 500,000,0001. sterling, and France
with an old Bourbon Sovereign—France having
shaken off the Sovereign since then, and not only
the Sovereign, but both the elder and the younger
branch of the worn-out dynasty, but England not
having, by any means, yet shaken off the de'b t !
The illustration is one, it must be confessed,
somewhat remarkable in its character. It lias
taken some little time, it would seem, to pre-
pare it ; for already this is our third day's
reference to the brochure of the Honourable
Gentleman the Member for the West Riding
of Yorkshire, and yet it was only this
morning that the first allusion to the pampldet
(an allusion containing the quibble about to be
referred to) was made in the columns of our chief
morning contemporary. Remember, therefore,
that the quibble is not lightly advanced by the
Times—it is only advanced, it would appear, after
mature and lengthened deliberation. It is this.
Mr. COBDEN is admitted, "for the sake of argu-
ment" (of course only "for the sake of argument"),
to be correct in asserting that the rupture of 1793
was " our own doing exclusively," that England,
in short, was the aggressor—Bur—the other war,
the war w)iich ensued a little later, meaning, ,of
course, the war which followed the rupture of The
Treaty of Amiens, was a war in which England
stood simply on the defensive—a war in which the
aggressor was France, or rather the chieftain of
France—NAPOLEON. Now, this is the quibble.
We have read Mr. COBDEN'S pamphlet very erro-
neously, if his argument does not go to show that
the crime of the whole struggle, not the contest of
the first eight or ten years, but of the whole
twenty-two years, beginning with 1793 and ending
with 1815, devolves solely and directly upon this
British Government. We have read history very
mistakingly, if it does not prove this as clearly as
any one of the rudiments of arithmetic, or as any one
Of the elementary truths of natural philosophy.
It is the merest evasion to take Mr. COBDEN'S ar-
gument as applying simply to the contest prior to
the Treaty of Amiens, instead of to the whole of
the struggle from first to last, from Louis XVl.'s
execution to NAPOLEON L's avowed and final abdi-
cation. The pamphlet asserts this plainly enough
throughout. The pamphleteer speaks over and
over again of the twenty-two years' war, not of
the nine years' war, but of the war up to
the night of the battle of Waterloo. England
is shown by Mr. COBDEN, is proved by history,
to have been guilty, before GOD and man, of
the enormous crime of provoking that struggle
against the French Revolution. Here, however,
in that very phrase—the "war against the French
Revolution"—is discoverable the germ of the
prevarication. It is objected, that up to the
was, you will, a war
Treaty of Amiens, it
against the French Revolution, but that after-
wards it was a war against—NAPOLEON. What
miserable quibbling indeed is this ? Why, the
struggle was renewed against NAPOLEON—Simply
because he was the incarnation or representative
of the Revolution, the child born of it, the hero
who reduced it to order, and therefore Made it
really formidable. It is merely begging the
question, consequently, to maintain that the
contest which followed the rupture of the Treaty
of Amiens was a war against NAPOLEON, and not
a war against the Revolution. The struggle both
before and after was identical—and what history
proves is this, that throughout, from 1793 to
1815, during the whole of those two-and-twenty
years the crime of the war rested with England,
because England was the Aggressor.
It must be confessed that Mr. COBDEN has in a ,
measure laid himself open in his pamphlet to this

quibble or prevarication. He contents himself
with demonstrating most elaborately and logically
that the rupture of 1793 was attributable, not to the
French, but to the English Government. He does it
in a most masterly manner—setting facts in such
a way as to render them altogether incontroverti-
ble. He sets out, as we remarked yesterday, by
asserting most earnestly—" It is not enough to
say that France did not provoke hostilities—she
all but went down on her knees (if I may apply
such a phrase to a nation) to avert a rupture
with this country." In testimony of this, Mr.
COBDEN describes the whole of the conduct and
treatment--the conciliatory conduct, the harsh,
repelling, and even ignominious treatment—of
M. CHATTVELIN, the French Ambassador. He
mentions the indefatigable endeavours made
by that diplomatist, to guard against any
rupture between his own and the British
Government—together with the haughty, and,
at last, insolent rebuffs given to him by the then
Foreign Secretary, Lord GRENVILLE. He recounts
the correspondence between Lord GRENVILLE and
M. CHAIIVELIN, up to the 24th January, 17'93,
when the latter received the peremptory order of
the Privy Council, requiring him within eight
days to quit the shores of England. So far Mr.
COBDEN justifies to the full, his strong but not
extravagant assertion, that France (to use his own
phrase) " all but went down upon her knees to
avert a rupture with this country." But he con-
tents himself withthis when he might have gone fur-
ther—little dreaming, possibly, of the wretched
-little quibble by which the whole of his power-
ful argument might be evaded—the quibble
that the war was not the same war during the
whole of the twenty-two years from 1793 to
1815, for that after the Treaty of Amiens it was
a war against NAPOLEON, and not against the
French Revolution. We say that had Mr. Cos-
DMI" anticipated this most frivolous objection to
the continuity of his argument, he might have
gone further, instead of contenting himself with des-
cribing the conduct and treatment of M. CH.A.UVELIN.
He might have accepted, " for the sake of , argu-
ment," the distinction without a difference of a
war against NAPOLEON in lieu of a war against
the Revolution, And might have proved as
clearly and as logically as in the install°
of the original rupture of 1793, that England
was systematically the aggressor, the fomenter,
the sustainer of the quarrel throughout. What
are those three facts glaring upon us so reproach-
fully from the scroll of the Past, the records of
that age of blood and disaster ? They are visible to
every eye—those who " run may read"—they are
three documents, documents from no obscure
hand, documents penned by NAPOLEON, the Con-
queror of almost all the great powers of Chris-
tendom. Those documents are letters addressed
by that great man, upon three very momentous
occasions, to the Royal personage at the head of
the British Government. Two of them were ad-
dressed to the KING, the other to the PRINCE
REGENT. The two first were appeals made
by NAPOLEON to England, appeals in the name of
humanity that the war might cease—the earliest
of these appeals was forwarded to the Court of
St. James's, when the great French chieftain was
elected First Consul, the second, when his autho-
rity was rendered permanent. Observe ! so
deeply was NAPOLEON interested in pressing his
demand upon the attention of this country, that
he broke through the rules of diplomatic etiquette,
and personally addressed himself to the English
SOVEREIGN. The third document we are all of
us familiar with—that Letter to the PRINCE
REGENT, in which the great EMPEROR likened
himself to THEMISTOCLES, and in which he
appealed not to our humanity but to
our magnanimity. There is something de-
plorably "in keeping" in the result of all
those communications. It is not sufficiently
borne in mind in this country, and may here not
unprofitably be recalled to the popular
recollection. Not one of these three let-
ters was ever- even answered. Courtesy, to
speak of no other consideration, might have
dictated some response, no matter how evasive,
from the hand of the KING or of the PRINCE
REGENT. But no, there they remain, those
three documents, flaming reproach from the

scroll of history—unanswered ! Were we wrong,
therefore, in saying that Mr. COBDEN might
had he listed, have gone yet further in his argu-
ment ? But, Heaven knows, he went far enough
in the melancholy record of those atrocious wars
—demonstrating as plainly as any fact can by
possibility be demonstrated, that from first to last,
throughout the whole of those twenty-two years,
from 1793 to 1815, England was systematically
the aggressor—and the aggressor because France
had declared for freedom of opinion, and the
principle of equality, and the right of self-govern-
ment.

We yesterday pointed out how it was that the
retail trade in beer was practically vested in the
Ale-kings by means of the licensing system, and
that any person who, despite the numerous impe-
diments in his way, succeeded in opening a free
public-house was either crushed or bought off,
according to his circumstances. The "unlimited
competition," the propriety and expediency whereof
has been admitted by nine-tenths of the members
of the popular branch of the Legislature, and by,
even a larger proportion of the community in gene-
ral, was thus effectually prevented, and the
" thirsty souls" of every district were thus com-
pelled to draw their supplies from the stores
of the great monopolists, at any prices which they
thought proper to demand. Hence it is, that no
matter how the price of barley may vary, the
charges for its liquid extracts remain un-
altered. A reduction in price of twenty
or thirty per cent. does not in any degree affect
the consumer—its only effect is to enhance the
previously inordinate profits of the brewer.
Another evil of the system is, that it leads, in
too many instances, to the adulteration or dilution
of the beverage. The moment a public-house falls
into the hands of one of the great firms, the oc-
cupant for the time being must submit to a com-
plicated and stringent code of rules and regula-
tions. He is no longer his own master. Any
disobedience may be severely punished. He
must not only purchase all his supplies from is
landlord's brewery, but the rate at which he is to
retail it is also specified ; and between the two
regulations, unable to gain a fair and remunerative
profit if he distribute the beer in the same condi-
tion in which he receives it into his cellars, in
self-defence he is obliged to tamper with his stock.
To be enabled to live he must sell out of
each cask many more gallons than it originally
contained, and. thus the consumer again suffers
from the virtual monopoly—the deterioration in
quality being even a greater grievance than the
increase in price.

It may be said that the evil is more apparent
than real—that there is nothing to prevent any
capitalist from entering into the brewing trade,
and that if he supply a superior article at a mo-
derate .charge, he may confidently rely on public
support. Never was there a greater fallacy. No
matter how sound and palatable may be his beer,
or low its cost, he cannot find customers amongst
those who, by the primary condition of their
leases, are bound to draw all their supplies from
an exclusive source ; and it would take much time
and expense before he could establish a private
connexion that would render his establishment
remunerative. •It may be said that good ale, like
" good wine, needs no bush" ; but if there
be no place where it can be obtained, either with
or without " a bush," the adage falls to the
ground. The licensing system prevents it being
sold under a bush, because the magistrates will
not allow the new brewer to open a house for the
sale of his beverages if the number previously
licensed were in their opinion sufficient for all the
wants of the district. It matters not how unex-
ceptionable the character of the occupant, or un-
equivocal his testimonials, the invariable rule is
appealed to. No more than two or three houses
will be tolerated, and nothing can shake the
magisterial determination. On the other hand,
the activity of the police effectually prevent the
possibility of any considerable quantity being
without " a bush," or, in other words, in an un-
licensed house. sold
Again, it may be said that licences may be ob-

tamed without the sanction or intervention of ma-
gistrates for the sale of beer by retail, either for
consumption on or off the premises. Such is
unquestionably the case ; but, although the pri-
vileges originally conceded by Ist WILL. IV. c. 64,
and subsequently regulated by 4 and 5 WILL. IV. c.
85, and 3 and 4 VICT. c. 61, have in some degree
mitigated the evil, they have not by any means
supplied an adequate remedy. There are many
stringent regulations with which the applicant for
a beer licence must comply ; many certificates to
be obtained before his request can be granted.
When these difficulties have been successfully en-
countered, when his object has been achieved, he
finds himself restricted to a single source of profit.
His opponent, who is living in a house of Ito
greater value, and who is not obliged to maintain
a larger or more expensive establishment, can sell
wine or 'spirits. One of a party may prefer the
more exciting stimulant, and carry with him some
half dozen companions to the place where any
demand can be at once responded to ; so that
although the beershop keeper may have his
beverages " drunk on the premises," he
frequently sees his best customers adjourn-.
ing to the tap of his rival. Besides, it may
be well worth the while of the latter to
get rid of the opposition, by selling, for a time,
his malt liquors without profit ; and it is noto-
rious that, in the case of proprietary public-
houses, the owner will bear a considerable por-
tion of the sacrifice necessary to " put down the
opposition," and restore the previous monopoly.
We do not offer these observations in any hos-
tility to the great body of Licensed Victuallers.
We believe, as " a class," they are as respect-
able as any other that could be named. They
have many serious vexations to contend with,
and many temptations to resist. There are, of
course, many exceptions to the general rule.
Black sheep will be found in every flock. But,
under all the circumstances of the case, it is very
surprising, and, at the same time, exceedingly cre-
ditable to the body that the great majority of esta-
blishments should be as well conducted as they are.
But it is for their interest, as well as for that of
the community, that the licensing system should
be abolished, and that they should not hold their
property on a tenure so precarious as the caprice
of any persons whatsoever, Magistrates or other-
wise. We believe that there are many persons of
capital and respectability in the trade who would
willingly free themselves from the thraldom in
which they are placed, and that many more per-
sons would enter into it relying solely on the
goodness and cheapness of their beverages, if
they could do without the influence of the " Brewo-
cracy" and the Licensing Magistrates. Men will
not embark thousands of pounds sterling in a
concern when subjected to the loss of their entire
property whenever some extraordinary fancy
may enter into the minds of the Justices. Every
risk attending capital, must of course be coun-
terbalanced by extra profits, which can only
be regarded as an insurance fund levied
on consumers to guard against contingen-
cies. The throwing open of the trade would
then be as beneficial to the retailers as to
the public. The only class interested in
maintaining the present system are the monopo-
lists,—those who are now levying a species of
black mail on the people ; and who, if they
thought proper to combine for the purpose, and
they could easily do so, might materially enhance
the prices of all beer, &c., although there had
been no adequate reason for such a rise.

The Proctors appear to have , forgotten Dame
PARTINGTON and the Atlantic i. if b
toe
mopcor -
r ect,they have actually met ana cocinrbepinoerd.
aniwnotayhs
tatanhnded
twobaegvfeeotrootfhiet_L
reform
ewnf
00 Reform.matter,they
yantcheirynk couldDoo.
as we noticed a few w has taken it
faytsheagjou'risdiction and
tors' Commons can.
administration of the Ecclesiastical Courts, in es-
The
dtaAra
Cendmse.nt
tSo-
ciety,
tamentary matters, into workingo form for Parlia-
ment ; and the Proctors, full well knowing that
the Society's unobtrusive proposals have carried
the day hitherto, may well quake for the reign of
routine absurdity and exactions. The Society,
which has done so much to reform Chancery
' Common administration, will not,
with Ecclesiasti-
cal
be easily deterred Law from meddling
s. There is indeed something wefancy,
and mystic to common ears when theyhea
Courts; we step
Court
ro
unhesi-
tatinglyf into a law court,__ and feel tolerably at
mg appalling
home, owNeA
step
ne
ps ' since Lord ST. '
Archbishops' and Bishops'
e so ; but whenij otvimerethceerttainhrelsy-
much more
thres-
hold ecclesiastical our begin
steps
fal-
ter. Spiritual powers
are somewhat to
a great mystery, what
they cannot do no man knows—what they can do
too many
have felt—.which
.
side they will lean
to, each unlucky heretic can t
Judge of the Court--there hil e sits e.And then the
jury all in himself, deciding on the facts as
judge and
well as the law of the case,
myrmidons out of the fees, liinterestedv very with
his
yten
often
indirectly, if not directly, against
you. Oh ! there
is something really awful, )except to hardened old
litigants, in the very thought of an
Ecclesiastical
Court and Ecclesiastical Judge. The Law
Amendment gentlemen, however, have non
our laymen's timidity ; they are as cool ande of
col-
lected in the presence of the half-spectral form as
in their own debating-room, and we stand by and
witness their attack with the greatest
satisfaction
and delight, confident that they will •
gain a sub-
stantial victory for us at last.
Mr. BETHELL has, in fact, summoned them to
his aid. He declared at Aylesbury, in the strew"-
est terms, the necessity of reforming these Courts
Christian, denounced the complications and injus-
tice of dragging persons through two or three
courts on one question, avowed himself in favour
of concentrating all under the jurisdiction of the
Westminster Coprts, and especially included in
his list, Church-rate cases,—vowing himself
favourable, we are most thankful to see,de-
stroying the present levy upon such as do not go
to church, and appropriating funds in the posses-
sion of deans and chapters to the repairs of the
churches." Surely the Ecclesiastical Courts can-
not be in better hands. All who would reform
them' must make hay while the sun shines. They
must furnish an amount of co-operation from
without which will make Mr. BETIIELL irresistible,
in council, with his own colleagues. Mr. COLLIER,
we are happy to see, does not merely debate in
the society, but he has also given notice of a mo-
tion on the subject of these Courts. This is good;
ventilate the matter in every form—daylight is
the most sure reformer ultimately of the hidden
and half-unknown evils of Ecclesiastical Courts ;
still we think it should be the object of the public
to put their own men in
he Minis try
power on the people's questions. It is the
perhaps necessary misfortune of the present Minis-
try that almost every kind of reformer in it is
neutralised by some anti-reform.er on the same
question. In the present case how will Mr.
GLADSTONE, the Duke of NEWCASTLE, the Right
Hon. SIDNEY HERBERT, and the other Puseyites,
relish defrauding the successors of the Apostles of
their testamentary and Church-rate jurisdiction,
not to mention Admiralty cases and other things
grasped by these courts ? We do not know their
sentiments, but we cannot trust them.
testamentary jurisdiction of these Courts Christian
grevi up entirely out of the ignorance of the dark
ages, out of laymen being unable even to write, and
from priests' eagerness to grasp a very handsome
" church's portion" out of the dying man's pro-
perty, ostensibly to purchase masses for his soul's
salvation. Their testamentary knaveries became Flo
glaring, that in EDWARD the Third's time an Act was
passed expressly to prevent their taking the admi-
nistration of the property from the kindred of the
deceased in cases of intestacy ; next, CHARLES 11.
and JAMES 11. fixed by statute the distribution of
intestates' estates. The Ist EDWARD VI., cap.
2, put the whole thing into the civil form, and
forbade the use of ecclesiastical names and p
but
owers
at all. MARY, of course, repealed this Act,
JAMES I. repealed again the Act of MARY ; ED-
WARD'S admirable law, however, did not revive,
for accidentally, as it appears, it was forgotten to
repeal another Act of PHILIP and MARY, which
placed the ecclesiastical jurisdiction on the same
footing as that on which it stood in the twentieth
year of HE.NRY VIII. But for this oversight

* We may refer all our non-professional readers to
"The History of Church Laws in England," by Edward
Muscutt, on the general subject ; and to his "History
and Power of Ecclesiastical Courts"—for fuller informa-
tion on that branch.

RAILWAY DEPITTATION.—A deputation from the com-
mittee of negotiation between the London and North-
Western and Great Western Companies, appointed at
an influential meeting held in Liverpool, had the honour
of an interview with the Board of Trade on Wednesday
last. The deputation (says a correspondent) were
assured that the Government considered the subject of
railway legislation as of imperial magnitude, the im-
portance of which could not be overstated. They were
further given to understand that the labours of the com-
mittee of the House of Commons, appointed by the late
and strengthened by the present Government, would be
devoted to an earnest consideration of this momentous
question, a satisfactory solution of which would be most
gratifying to the Goverment, and that profiting by the
experience of the past, it was thought a course might
be devised which would, for the future, put at end to
ruinous contests between rival companies, having regard
to the interest of the shareholders and the public, which
were in fact identical.
FATAL DRINKING IN THE LONDON DOCKS. Last
evening, Mr. W. Baker held an inquest at the Barley
Mow Tavern, Cannon-street, St. George's-in-the-East,
respecting the death of Robert Richard Vaughan, aged
45 years. The deceased was a labourer in the London
Docks, and on Monday afternoon last was engaged with
other men at the eastern quay. A large quantity of
white brandy was on the wharf in casks, and the bungs
were out to allow the gaugers to examine the extent and
quality of the contents, when one of the dock officers
saw the deceased in a stooping position drinking brandy
through a hollow piece of cane, which is commonly
called " Sucking the monkey." The officer ordered the
deceased away from the warehouse, and told him to
_leave the docks, which he did. About half-past three
o'clock the deceased was discovered lying upon the pave-
ment in Chigwell-hill, Ratcliff-highway, quite insensible,
in which condition he was taken home by four men to
his lodgings; at No. 2, Russell-court, St. George's-
street, where he expired at an early hour on the follow-
ing morning. Mr. Richard Sharp, surgeon, of the New-
road, Cannon-street, said that he was called to the -de-
ceased after death, and had made a post mortem exami-
nation of the body, On opening the stomach he found
about five ounces of strong spirit, which seemed to be
brandy. Witness bad no doubt that the deceased had
died from congestion of the brain produced by what he
had drank. The Coroner having remarked on the case,
the jury returned a verdict of " Died from drinking a
quantity of over-proof brandy."
_ _

BANKRUPTCY OF AN M.P:—A curious case in bank-
ruptcy has arisen in
the Courts at Liverpool, and is now
undergoing investigation. A fiat it appears, has been
issued against the Hon. Edward Lloyd Mostyn, the
member for the county of Flint, having, we presume,
been applied for and obtained during the parliamentary
interregnum, and it is sought to supersede it on
grounds which have not yet been made public. The
case was argued by barristers especially brought down
from London, on Tuesday and Wednesday, but reporters
were not admitted.

HANGING AT PESTII.-0n the last day of the old year
an outlawed Hungarian was hanged at Pesth. Previous
to the execution, he was taken about in a procession for
two hours, during which he sang patriotic songs, and
displayed a supreme contempt for death. At the foot of
the gallows an officer read a prolix statement of his crime
and sentence. The name of Kossuth occurred in this
document, and had no sooner escaped the lips of the offi-
cer than the prisoner took off his hat and reverently in-
clined his head. As the fatal rope was slipped over his
head, he gathered up his strength and cried—" Magyars,
keep up your pluck; we'll give it them yet "and died.
A POISONING WIPE.----A letter from Tain, in a Paris
journal, says, an attempt at poisoning has lately taken
place at Merges, a small village in the Drome, under
rather singular circumstances. The wife of a carpenter,
whose moral habits were not of the strictest kind, con-
ceived the idea of getting rid of her husband, in order
that she might with less restraint carry on an illicit
connection with another man, with whom she was
known to be connected. For this purpose she went to
an apothecary at Romans, and asked for some arsenic
to kill the rats with which her house, she said, was
swarming. The apothecary refused, saying that he
could only deliver arsenic to her husband in presence of
witnesses. A few days after the husband happened to
come to the shop for some article, when he was asked
whether the rats still disturbed him. "I have never
heard any," was the reply. He was told what his wife
had done, when he said : "Ah ! the coquine, she wants
to poison me." It was then agreed that if she came
again the apothecary should give her some harmless
substance, and that when the husband had eaten his
dinner he should fall down, and pretend to be dead in
order to give his wife a lesson. This farce was carried
on as arranged. Then came the performance of the
wife. In order to make the world believe that he had
committed suicide she took a rope, and, making a run-
ning knot, passedit round the neck
then went up into an upper room to the beam of which
she had fastened the end of the rope in order to pull him
' up. The moment she left, the husband slipped off the
rope from his neck, and tied it to the bench on which
he was sitting. The woman began to pull, but finding
the body heavier than she expected, she again came
down to see what prevented her lifting him, when her
husband gave her two or three hearty blows, and after-
wards had her carried to prison."
LORD BYRON'S FAME.—It is not only because Byron
" was grand in his descriptions, sublime in his musings,
and lashing in his satires, that he eclipsed all the poets
of his day. I attribute his world-wide fame to the fact
that he was essentially the man of the age. Purity of
diction is, of necessity, almost lost in translation ; why
was it, then, that, among foreign nations, and especially
in France, whose language least of any admits of a
worthy rendering of Byron's glowing imagery, he occu-
pied attention almost to the exclusion of all his contem-
poraries ? because he breathed the restless, vacillating,
superstitious, on-ward-tending spirit of the times ; be-
cause, in the midst of wars, and amidst rumours
of wars, when Europe was convulsed, when no
man 'could tell what was next to befal, when
nations knew not what they would, nor whither they
were tending, when opinions were shaken, when king-
doms changed hands, and crowns and thrones were tot-
tering—one man arose whose mind was convulsed as was
the face of Europe, whose will was as powerful and ill-
directed as that of the raging nations ; whose opinions
were as shaken, as vacillating, as uncertain as those of
the fallen empires and trembling kings, one who breathed
the pervading spirit of bitterness, of discontent, and
helplessness ; in whom all these feelings, all these emo-
tions found a living voice, and whose magnificent strain
echoed and resounded through all those lands whose in-
terpreter he was ; therefore was he the idol of his own
age, as he will surely be the wonder of future genera-
tions I—The Earl of Belfast on the Poets and Poems o-1.
the Nineteenth Century.
A MERMAID.—An impostor at Barton, the other day,
endeavoured to extract halfpence from the credulous by
the exhibition of a mermaid, which he pretended had
been caught "in the South Sea Islands."