The Sun.
London, England, 1849-01-06 00:00:00

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EENTH CENTURY. --.
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The coffee-houses must not be disniiiied` With a`-
rsory mention. It might indeed, at that time, have
been not improperly called a most important political
institution. No Parliament had sat for years. The
municipal council of the city had ceased to speak the
sense of the citizens. Public meetings, harangues, reso-
lutions, and the rest of the modern machinery of agita-
tion had not yet come into fashion. Nothing resembling
chiefth e
metropolis
organs through
which the ventedthe modern newspaper existed. In such circumstances,
thepublic coffee-houses wopeiionrnetheof
itself. The first of these establishments had been set
up in the time of the Commonwealth, by a Turkey
merchant, who had acquired among the Mahometans
a taste for their favourite beverage. The convenience
of being able to make appointments in any part of the
town, and of being able to pass evenings socially at a
very small charge, was so great, that the fashion
spread fast. Every man of the upper or middle classes
went daily to his coffee-house to learn the news,
and to discuss it. Every coffee-house had one or
more orators to whose eloquence the crowd listened
with admiration, and who soon became, what the
journalists of our own time have been called, a fourth
estate of the realm. The Court had long seen with
uneasiness the growth of this new power in the state.
An attempt had been made during Danby's Adminis-
tration to close the coffee-houses ; but men of all par-
ties missed their usual places of resort so much that there
was an universal outcry. The Government did not ven•
ture, in opposition to a feeling so strong and general, to
enforce a regulation of which the legality mi • ght well be
questioned. Since that time, ten years had l d e apse ,
and during those years the number and influence of
the coffee-houses had been constantly increasing.
Foreigners remarked that the coffee-house was
that which especially distinguished London from
all other cities ; that the coffee-house was the Lon-
doner's home, and that those who wished to find a
gentleman commonly asked not whether he lived
in Fleet-street or Chancery-lane, but whether he
frequented the Grecian or the Rainbow. Nobody
was excluded from those places who laid down
his penny at the bar. Yet every rank and profession,
and every sae of religious and political opinion, had
its own head-quarters. There were houses near St.
James's-park where fops congregated, their heads and
shoulders covered with black or flaxen wigs, not less
ample than those which are now worn by the Chan-
cellor and by the Speaker of the House of Commons.
The wig came from Paris ; and so did the rest of the
fine gentleman's ornaments, his embroidered coat, his
fringed gloves, and the tassel which upheld his panta-
loons. The conversation was in that dialect which, long
after it had ceased to be spoken in fashionable circles,
continued in the mouth of Lord Foppington, to exoite
the mirth of theatres. Tbe atmosphere was like that
of a perfumer's shop. Tobacco in any other form than
that of richly sented snuff was held in abomination. If
any clown, ignorant of the usages of the house, called
for a pipe, the sneers of the whole assembly and short
answers of the waiters soon convinced hint that he had
better go somewhere else. Nor, indeed, would he have
had far to go, for, in general, the coffee-rooms reeked
with . tobacco like a guard-room ; and strangers
sometimes expressed their surprise that so many
people should leave their own firesides to sit in the
midst of eternal fog and stench. Nowhere was the
smoking more constant than at Will's. That cele-
brated house, situated between Covent-garden and
Bow-street, was sacred to polite letters. There the
talk was about poetical justice and the unities of place
and time. There was a faction for Perrault and the
moderns, a faction for Boileau and the ancients. One
group debated whether ” Paradise Lost" ought to have
been in rhyme. To another, an anxious poetaster
demonstrated that Venice Preserved ought to have
bean hooted from the stage. Under no roof was a
greater variety of figures to be seen, earls in stars
and garters, clergymen in cassocks and bands, pert
templars, sheepish lads from the universities, trans-
lators and index makers in ragged coats of frieze. The
great press was to get near the chair where John
Dryden sate. In winter that chair was always in the
warmest nook, by the fire ; in summer, it stood
in the balcony. To bow to him, and to hear his
opinion of Racine's last tragedy, or of Bossa's
treatise on epic poetry, was thought a privilege. A
pinch from his snuff-box was an honour sufficient to
turn the head of a young enthusiast. There were
coffee-houses where the first medical men might be
consulted. Doctor John Radcliffe, who, in the year
1685, rose to the largest practice in London,
came daily, at the hour when the Exchange
was full, from his house in Bow-street, then
a fashionable part of the capital, to Garraway's,
and was to be found surrounded by surgeons
and apothecaries at a particular table. There
were Puritan coffee-houses, where no oath was heard,
and where lank-haired men discussed :election and
reprobation through their noses; Jew coffee-houses,
where dark-eyed money-changers from Venice and
from Amsterdam greeted each other ; and Popish
coffee-houses, where, as good Protestants believed,
Jesuits planned, over their cups, another great fire,
and cast silver bullets to shoot the king.—Macazday's
History of England.

HOSPITALS OF PARIS.
From an account for 1t347 Just published by the
Administration Generale des HOpitaux of Paris, it
appears that it has under its direction 16 hospitals,
11 hospices, and 3 charitable establishments. The
hospitals are the 116tel-Dieu and its succursal, La
Pitle, La Charlie, St. Louis, St. Antoine, Necker,
Cochin, Beaujon, Bon Secours, du Midi, de
Lourcine, des Enfans Malades, les Clinique',
the Maison d'Accouchement, and the Maison
Nationale de Sante, Faubourg St. Denis. The
hospices are : De la Viellesse (men), ditto
(women), Incurables (men), ditto (women), des
Menages, La Rochefoucauld, Ste. Perine, Boulard,
Brezin, Devillas, Enfans Trouves and Orphelins.
There are 6,E04 beds in the hospitals, and 11,079 in
the hospices—in a 1117,583. In 1836,there were only
16,224. In the course of the year 1847, 88,493 sick
persons were treated in the medical department of
the hospitals, and 23,291 in the surgical. The
number of days passed by the sick persons of both de-
partments was 2,156,463 ; that of the employes,
578,662—in all, 2,735,125. The average number of
persons attended to in the hospitals is 5,800 daily. The
periods for which they remain on an average vary in
the different hospitals ; in the medical department, it
is about 231 days—in the surgical, 312. Out of the
88,493 sick persons who were attended, 8,617 died.
The average of deaths is one in ten. The permanent
population of the hospices and inaisons de retraite is
about 9,750, of whom 2,250 to 2,300 are insane ; and,
in addition, 19,293 insane persons and infirm persons
entered the hospices during the year. Of these
29,043, 1,781 died. The days passed by the patients
amounted altogether to 3,439,773. The number of
enfans trouves and orphans received in 1847 was
4,554, of whom only 477 are supposed to be legi-
timate ; and, in addition, there were 2,800 children
who had been received in the previous year; 3,682 of
the children were placed in the country, 1,240 given up
to their parents, 1,215 died. In the course of the year
214,554 persons altogether, including the sick and the
indigent, were relieved. The total expense of the admi-
nistration was 14,9t0,211f. Among the items are
the following :—Bread flour, &c., 2,154,112 f. ; wine,
867,015 f. ; meat, 1,617,140 f. ; different provisions,
1,189,979 f. ; medicines, 600,000 f. ; bandages, &C.,
73,000 f. • firing, 583,000 f. • lighting and washing,
332,318 i. ; linen, 246,000 f; clothing, 259,240 f.;
furni-
ture and utensils, 220,590 f. The expense of children
in the country was 1,591,485 f. ; the direction
nourrices, 81,000 f. ; and assistance to the indigent
their own residences, 2,183,688 f.

produced wee
=tenimmErsemilirry,srssEr.-- On
DRAMATIC INSTITUTION,
Wtdnesday night
since their anis g
Dramatic) Club,
1 amatriiioo.ennrieCwswitrahellilthdueep
their first
- t
attihLeiulirt
at I:::o:vmnGdeisitsnsironinisi s,
Dramatic Friends' Secietyhee
Old
Massinger's favourite pl y
- :tour performance, reflected the
at the above theatre.. if
of Afirsivt erwieciferay to Pay
i tnmose who were engaged in it. The
highest credit on 1
notss. have Altogether,
d disgraced
c eidt
actors,
Deits ;
with
a fr
arts, and appeared to be thoroughly
in thttdeidffewrlnth parts'
tshtaagt c:ouuslidnc
segue formance
The afterpiece consisted of Colman's
Bull, which
was a p
and,
er for alt t!
„f many of our, so called, legiti-
int hacto boards -
theatres,jn
comedy °f °'
bl was also excellently got up,
very credits y acted. During the interval between
and
the Performances a trio, called the " Fisherman's Glee,"
by _a, sang Messrs. Henry, and Charles Beverly, and
kr. T. U. Harrison. It was well sung, and deservedly
encored. Great credit is due to Mr. Julian 0. Harrison
for his excellent management on the occasion, and the
unanimous approbation of pit, boxes, and a gallery, which
were crowded to excess by a most respectable auditory,
must havo been a gratifying evidence to him and his
companions that their exertions were appreciated in a
proper manner, and betokened an earnest of future
success.

SUGAR MANUFACTORIES IN FRANCE. The
number of sugar manufactories in France at present at
work i
5277, and of those idle 30. These figures give a
diminution of 26 establishments being idle, and an aug-
mentation of 15 new ones at work. There have been
prepared during the past season 15,000,000 kilogrammes,
or nearly 6,000,000 more than during the preceding sea-
son. The quantity given out for consumption has been
12,750,000 kilogrammes, or 4,500,000 more than the
season before. At the end of November upwards of
21,060,000 kilogrammes remained on hand, besides
6,000,000 more the year before. Thus more sugar has
been made, and more consumed, but also more remains
on hand.
SUICIDE BY A SOLDIER.—On Thursday morning a
a private in the 46th Regiment, named David Trail, CORI•
mitted suicide, by shooting himself with his musket.
The body of the deceased was found, between seven and
eight o'clock in the morning, in th. o roar of the officers'
headquarters, at Everton,
the regiment being now loca-
ted at the house formerly occupied. by Mr. Shand. The
deceased's musket was lying on his body, So far as we
have been able to ascertain, nothing has been lately re-
marked in the conduct of the deceased which would load
to the conclusion that he was affected in his miad.—
Liverpo2l Mercury,