The Sun.
London, England, 1836-01-12 00:00:00

whom it was addressed.
At the conclusion of the proceedings at the trial of
Lacenaire, several writers have endeavourod to form a
corre-:t idea of his character ; we, however, carefully ab-
stained 1:0m giving' any opinion at the time, reserving our
judgment until more decisive' proofs could be adduced, and
our anticipations have not been deceived.
Some have attempted to draw the character of Lacenaire
from the line of ct.,•nduct he pursued since the period of his
arrests; he was falsely judged. Lacenaire was by no means
the person he wished td pass for—a man conceiving him-
self. unfortunate through the fault of his fellow-men, hesi-
tating between suicide and crime, and plunging into the
latter because society was unjust and /cruel towards him ;
he was certainly not the systematic assassin who had
signed a pact against society, risking his head and wield-
ing his poniard like a pen—no, indeed Y • and fortunately
faw such men exist. Such was the Lacenaire of the
Court of Assizes, and such, perhaps, will be the character
which Jrarnatists and romance writers will attribute to
him ; but Ive must declare, for the honour of human na-
ture, that sueli was not the man who had just lost his life
upon the scaffof,i.
Lacenaire bad p.'unged into crime, because debauchery,
gaming, and idle haNts would not allow him to seek a
different course as ame of existence. He was first a
a:W
robber, then an assassin, not ,2 ecause they appeared to him
lawful and proper avocations, t for the reason, that he
was bent upon gratifying passions ich honest labour could
not satisfy, and, finally, because he ho;led that the day of
retribution would never arrive.
cenaire joined a
But to a considerable stock of vanity
cultivated mind, a rare understanding, and um ommon capa-
city,: and this was the reason that he found it nCtessary to
give a certain gloss to his profession of a robber and as-
sassin. Hence the part which he had undertaken tf; play,
and which he bravely sustained as long as death seeme3 at
a distance, as long as a gleam of hope remained ; hence
originated the character he assumed, a character certainly
not his, and which belongs to no one. lie could no longer
deny his crime, it was too well known ; there was no justify-
ing it, for the details were but too horrible. Finding him-
self in this predicament, he adopted the part of an inflexible
logician; who would become wicked, not from depravity, but
from system, who robs and murders because he had deeply
studied the theory of society : execrable quackery And
this man, whom awkward commentators have held up as a
philosopher, tries to snatch at this species of proffet.ecl
sympathy ; and this culprit, this assassin, whilst in the
dungeons of the Conciergerie, in the condemned cell be-
comes a literary character, lays claim to publicity, and boasts
of his talent. He writes his memoirs. We are unae-
quainted with their contents ;we cannot say-whether he ,
has not once more endeavoured to develope his frightful
theory, but, whatever they may be, there will be another
page to add to these memoirs. It is absolutely necessary
that those who peruse them should be aware of the last
moments of the miserable historian who had placed himself
in so bold and careless a manner in the presence of crime
and of the a
Lacenaire, the " materialist," the " jovial and poetical"
eaffold.
assassin, died trembling. He who would believe in no-
thing, and who NN; ould not repent, turned pale, and was
unable to stand, at the sight of the fatal spot. It was in
vain that he exerted lijrnself to play his part until the
end ; his strength failed hi,7l entirely. There is something
consoling in the thought that this criminal could not brave
the fate which awaited him as boldly as he could have
wished. His companion, Avril, who lacd boasted not of want
of fear, who had acknowledged the enormity of his crime,
who expressed contrition and hope of pardon in another
world, died with calmness and resignation. At this trying
moment he gave an example to Lacenaire, of which no one
bad supposed that the latter stood in need. On the scaf-
fold he said to Lacenaire—" Come, now is the time to show
courage. It is now your turn to imitate me !".

The late Town-clerk has not yet made his claim
for compensation. Rumour says, it will amount to 60,000!.
We wish he may get it ! What a dear little man Mr. Foster
is.—Liverpool Albion.
We hear that the expendii.ure of the defunct Cor-
poration, for the five years ending on the 31st of December
last, amounted, for legal and Parliam,:ntary business alone,
to the pretty little sum of 31,000/.—LiN-rpool
INCORPORATION OF THE BOROUOII OF LAM-
BETH.—Last night a numerous meeting of the electors of
Lambeth was held at the Elephant. and Castle, Newington,
to take into consideration the propriety of calling a public
meeting, preparatory to the adoption of measures for the
speedy incorporation of the borough of Lambeth. Mr.
Samuel Palmer was unanimously called to the clads. After
a long discussion, it was decided that the meeting should be
called for the 11th of Fehruary
EFFECTS OF MARRIAGE ON THE DURATION
or LirE.—Some very curious facts on this subject are
stated by Dr. Casper, in a paper of his lately published at
Berlin. It had been long ago vaguely asserted the bachelors
are less long-lived than married oen. Hufeland and De-
parcieux were of this opinion ; and Voltaire observed then
there were mere suicides among those 0.11-0 had not given
hostages to fortune than among those wlio had. Odier,
however, was the first who set on foot the inquiry with ex.:
attitude, and he found (Bibl. Britannique, ISI4) that in the
case of females, the mean duration of life, • for tho married
woman of 25, was above 36 years ; while for the uninarri d
it was but 301. At 30 there was a difference of fitor year.
""
in favour of the married ;.and at 35, two years, and ,50
It may be said, perhaps, that married females ought to be
considered as picked lives ; but, as Dr. Casper observes,this is far from being generally the case, especially
in the,
middle and upper classes of society : it is chiefly among
the lower orders, where a livelihood is procured by labour,
that importance is attached to the bodily health and vigour
of the female. With regard to men,
.‘ve gather from De-
parcieux's- and the Amsterdam tables, that the mortality of
those from 30 to 45 years of age is 27 per cent, for the
unmarried, while it is but 18 for the married ; and that for
still more more striking there are IS
tmhaerrtld
ibliaecnh.eloTrshow,lirfrearetltinciebecomes l
n of
ti
as age advances : at the age of 60, there are but
un-
married men alive for 48 married ; at 70, 11 bachelors for
t 27 married men ; and at SO, for the three bachelors who
may chance to be alive, there are 9 Benedicts. The same
' proportion very near holds good with respect to the female
,ex : 72 married women, for 'example, attain the age of 45,
while only 52 unmarried reach the same term of life. M.
Casper, in conclusion, considers the point 'as now incon-
testibly settled, that, in both
sexes, marriage Is conducive
to longevity,