The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-26 00:00:00

GENERAL TOTAL.
England and Wales
Scotland

••• ....

Total ... 55 17
NOTE —The deaths are returned according to the
superintendent registrars' districts, as it is found ins-
practicable to distinguish every place separately.
The house-to•house visitation of the metropolis having
almost ceased, no further returns will be published.

THE WHALE FISHERY.
This season has been one of the most disastrous on
record to the whaling verse's. Intelligence has already
been received of the entire destruction of four of these,
of which we merely notified the fact a fortnight ago; and
rumour has it that others have shared a like fate. These
four are—the Superior, 400 tons burden, belonging to
Peterhead; the Lady Jane, 300 tons, Captain Paterson,
of Newcastle; the Prince of Wales, 380 tons, of Hull;
and a large American ship—the whole crushed to pieces
by icebergs. The particulars are thus described :—On
the 12th of June last, three of the above-named vessel&
were fishing in company with eight other vessels, in
Melville Bay, Davis' Straits. For days previous the gales
had been frequent and terrific, and the seas tempestuous
in the extreme. About eleven o'clock in the forenoon an
alarm was raised of the floating ice setting in upon them.
So suddenly did it bear down, and with such force and
immense masses, that the Superior, the Lady Jane, and
the American ship M‘Lellam, of New London, had not
the slightest chance of escaping it, and were speedily
cut in pieces. The first vessel destroyed was the
Superior, and immediately afterward the Lady Jane
was literally cut in two, the masts at the same
time falling overboard, and in less than two hours
not a vestige of the ship was seen, so completely had
the ice covered her. From the time the Lady Jane
was struck to the moment she disappeared, the crew,
consisting of fifty souls, succeeded in securing the seven
boats belonging to the ship, together with some clothing
and provisions. As to the American verso I, although
ireadlully shattered, the crew, aided by those belonging
to the Superior and Lady Jane, made an effort to keep
her afloat. After remaining in ice till the 16th, and
ending all attempts to save the vessel abortive, the pro-
visions were divided, and the crews got the boats ready
and launched them, and at seven o'clock P.m., with the
wind north-east, and clear weather, they sailed south-
ward along the edge of the ice, sometimes having to en-
counter large fields of ice, which caused them to drag
the boats over it to gain the open sea. Captain Pater-
son's party made land on the 19th, though the
weather was thick and foggy, and after each boat's
grew had obtairied refreshments, they set sail
again and made for the nearest Danish set-
tlement, keeping the land in view as they
proceeded. Thus exposed to the weather, sometimes
rowing and sometimes sailing, and contending with
neavy falls of snow and gales of wind, they succeeded in
gaining Opernawick. Leaving two boats with their
crews, Captain Paterson proceeded with the other five
boats, all of whom reached Lively, another settlement of
the Danes, 500 miles from Melville Bay, on the 29th of
June, where they were kindly received and every hos-
pitality shown them, as far as the means in possession of
the natives could afford. The unfortunate crews of the
other vessels were, we are happy to say, equally success
NI; not a life was lost, and they eventually gained the
latter named settlement in safety, whence they were for-
warded to Orkney Islands by the first vessel that touched
at the settlement. The Prince of Wales whaler was
wrecked in another part of Davis' Straits under pre-
cisely similar circumstances. She was caught by huge
masses of ice, cutting her up in a very abort time, the
crew barely having time to save their boats. They
•4ained the Orkney Islands in safety, and have ere now,
we trust, reached their respective homes. It is worthy
of remark that one of the above vessels was the oldest
whaler in the Greenland service—the Lady Jane; she
had been employed in the fisheries nearly 70 years. The
destruction of the four ships is computed at a loss of
nearly 50,0001.—John o' Groat's Journal.

THE LATE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT CHELSEA.--
UNEXPECTED APPEARANCE OF THE MISSING MAN.—
Between six and seven o'clock last evening, Thomas
M.Gowran or M'Guire, whose mysterious disappearance
since the 25th ult. has created so much excitement, was
brought into the station-house of the B, or Westminster
division of police, in Rochester-row, by Sergeant Loom,
who had received information that he was at a public-
house in the neighbourhood, and accompanied by a man
and woman, who had brought him a considerable dis
lance. The circumstances that led to his unexpected
appearance are these :—Between twelve and one o'clock
yesterday afternoon Mary M'Carthy, the wife of a la-
bouring man, residing at 8, Mill-lane, Deptford, who
formerly lodged with M'Gowran at Mrs. Donovan's, 1,
Queen's-place, Chelsea, was proceeding along near
Lambert's breivery at Deptford, when she observed
MU ‘owran coming in a contrary direction, and imme-
diately accosted him. She then invited him isto her
house to take some refreshment, and having stated the
circumstance of the M'Donalds being in custody upon the
charge of robbing him, together with its being strongly
suspected that he had been murdered, with the whole of
which circumstances he affected to be perfectly ignorant,
she prevailed upon him to come to London in order to
allay the sensation caused by his disappearance, and
having brought him to within a short distance of the
station, as above described, gave information of the cir-
cumstance. Mr. Russell, the superintendent of the B
division, questioned Mllowran with resaect to the rob-
bery and his sudden disappearance from Chelsea, when
he stated that the robbery was committed by Mrs.
M'Donald, and that when he discovered his loss he rushed
from the neighbourhood in a state of phrenzy, and cared
not where he went or what became of him. The thought.of
his loss drove him almost mad, and, determined to forget
it if possible, he went into Kent, and had remained there,
sleeping at various nightly lodging-houses at Woolwich,
Deptford, and their vicinities, and earning a miserable
subsistence by hawking some little pamphlets (a number
of which were found upon him). Upon being shown
the large sum of money which had been recovered and
his clothes, he appeared much pleased, and expressed his
thanks for the exertions of the police on his behalf,
declaring most positively that having determined to
banish all recollection of the robbery from his mind, he
had made no inquiries about the matter, and was igno-
rant of the proceedings which had taken place, until in-
formed by Mrs. M'Carthy yesterday. Mr. Russell very
properly directed such arrangements to be made as will
effectually promote the ends of justice, and insure the
attendance of the prosecutor. The three persons who
stand charged with the robbery had been but a few
hours previously further remanded by Mr. Broderip,
until Wednesday, and could hardly have arrived at the
House of Detention, before M'Gowran made his appear-
, ance as above described.

THE ITALIAN OPERA IN PARIS.—La Presse of
yesterday says that all difficulties have been overcome,
and that M. Ronconi will open the Theatres des Italiens
on the Ist of November. Lablache, Ronconi, Mariani
(now on his last legs), Morelli, Persiani, Mesdames
Barbierihini and Rosetti form the troupe. Mademoiselle
Angri is the contralto. A new tenor, named Luc-
chesi, will make his deUt It is a pity that the
theatre should be opened with the wretched and effete
opera of the Capuletti e Montecchi, which so signally
failed in London in the season of 1848. This is a mis-
take certainly. .

THE LATE FIRE AT LONDON-WALL.--Owing to
the exertions of Mr. Jacomb, who has had the super-
intendence of removing the salvage from the ruins of
Messrs. Gooch and Cousins' premises, which were de-
stroyed by fire a few weeks since, property of the value
ot 30,000!. has been collected from the rubbish. The
whole of the men in the employment ot the firm have
been engaged ever since the fire was extinguished in
removing the wool from the ruins, and depositing it in
the Artillery-ground, Bunhill-row, and in the gardens in
front of Carpenters-hall. Several sales have since taken
place, and the amount realised from the salvage amounts
to the above large sum, which will be divided amongst
the offices interested, so that their losses will not be near
so heavy as was at first believed.

CULTIVATION OF THE VINE IN THE WEST INDIES.
—We mentioned at the beginning of the year an at-
tempt of Mr. Okey, counsel to the British Embassy at
Paris, to improve the manufacture of sugar on the
French principle, and to introduce the vine into the
West Indies. Although the weather in Antigua has
been this year unusually dry, and the canes have suffered
ia consequence, Re hear, that Mr. Okey's vines are as
green and flourishing as if growing in their native soil.
A new source of industry may, perhaps, thus be opened
to these depressed colonies.