The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-05 00:00:00

YOUR CONSTANT READER.

STATUE TO NICOL° POUSSIN,
AT HIS BIRTHPLACE, IN NORMANDY.
Within these last few days, the Council-General of
the Eure has voted 1,000 francs for a statue to Ni-
cole Poussin, at Les Andelys, the native place of the
great painter, between Mantes and Rouen. After two
centuries and a half of forgetfulness in his birthplace,
the painter of the "Ahasuerus," the " Deluge," and the
" Seven Sacraments," is to rise up in stone.
In the year X. of the Revolution, the project for erect-
ing this monument to Poussin's memory was urged at
Andelys, but delays took' place one after another, and
even up to 1838, no stone had been laid of it. It is now
to be hoped, however, that more stedfast resolutions will
be carried into effect, and that this praiseworthy inten-
tion of immortalizing Poussin, amid his own town and
townsmen of Andelys, will be no longer delayed, but be
laudably fulfilled within the circle of another year.
At the present day there remain no traces, not even a
vestige, at Andelys, of the house which this great
painter inhabited. Only a few solitary apple-trees re-
main to mark and overshadow the place. Spring gives
them their green leaves, and covers them with white-
hued blossoms, which annually shed themselves over the
exact site, where the family hearth and altar of our
illustrious painter lived. The house has passed away,
but Poussin inherits an " eternal house" in the temple
of his own renown.
Poussin, in the days of his boyhood, had nevertheless
a happy village at Andelys to stray in. There was the
Abbey, founded by St. Clotilda, the wife of King Clovis,
for him to admire. None in the province equals it for
the beauty of its structure and its exquisite painted
windows. Often the young artist, no doubt, with the
excellent eye of the architect, stood before its chief por-
tal, which is formed of double ranges of columns, sup-
porting lofty and massy ornaments.
The history, too, of Andelys—the cradle of his
younger years—equally filled his mind with reminis-
cences the most chivalric. Here it was, on the very
ground his own foosteps trod, that the exploits of Philip
Augustus and Richard Lion-heart took place. But of
all the memorable events which charmed him most ap-
pertaining to this epoch, that doubtless pleased his spirit
the most, which attached to the tragic annals of the.
Chateau Gaillard, whose majestic remains had grown
grey in the vicinity. Even at this day its ruins are the
chief attraction of the traveller, and their picturesqueness
gives a finish to the scene, and invests it with peculiar
loveliness.
Nor was Poussin the first who gave a glory to
Andelys. Men had gone before him from these plea-
sant hamlets, whose names are still fresh to the
world. Andelys gave birth to the poet Henry,
who mad• the Norman lyre melodiously resoand,
and the choicest of whose works is the lay of Aristotle.
Again, there were also Robert de Bernouville, and Roger
D'Andely, whose songs the villagers still sing, and here,
too, was born Adrian Turnebus, the learned Grecian.
As regards Poussin, however, it must not here be dis-
guised that after his eighteenth year, when his fame was
scarcely on the dawn, Andelys never beheld him. At
that age, we are informed that he left his birthplace pri-
vily, and the remaining half century of his life was passed
among the palaces and statues of Rome.

PUNISHMENT OF A QUACK.—In the fourth
year of Edward VI., one Grig, a poulterer of Surrey,
taken for a prophet, in curing divers diseases by word
and prayer, and saying he woud not take money, &c.,
was, by the command of the Earl of Warwick and
other of the Council, set on a scaffold in the town of
Croydon, with a paper on his breast, whereon was writ-
ten his deceitful and hypocritical dealings ; and after
that, on the Bth of September, set on a pillory in South-
wark. Afterwards he was set on horseback, his face to
the horse's tail, the same tail in his hand as a bridle, a
collar about his neck, a whetstone on his breast, and
so led through the City of London, with ringing of
basins, and banished.

The Place du Palais de Justice was so crowded
yesterday morning with people anxious to witness the
disgusting sight of the exposition on the pillory of two
women, that the gendarmes who brought the culprits
had the greatest difficulty in making their way to the
post of shame. One of the women, named Merle, aged
43, was under sentence to six years' close confine-
ment, for forging a commercial bill ; the other, named
Pierre, aged 38, to hard labour for 28 years, for an
aggravated robbery. They were both much overcome
with their position, more particularly the former, who
vas obliged to be supported by a man in the cart which
brought them, to be carried up the steps to the plat-
form, and there seated in a chair, instead of standing
at the foot of the pillory, and to have a bottle of sal-
volatile applied frequently to her nose, to save her from
fainting. They both constantly kept their heads down
and their eyes shut. Upon the pillory were placarded
ten sentences on other criminals condemned by default.
A few days since a poor couple, lodging in the
Faubourg du Temple, having lost their only child,
wrapped the body in a winding-sheet, and laid it
out in their room till the undertakers should come
with the coffin. To provide for his daily wants the
poor father was obliged to go to his labour, while
the mother, who could not find the courage to remain
alone with her child's body, went to seek consolation
with a female friend in the house. After a while she
was called back by the arrival of the men with the
coffin, and went to see her child decently deposited
within it. To her grief and astonishment she found it
perfectly naked. The door of the room had been left
unfastened, some thieves had entered, and, finding no-
thing else to steal, had unwrapped the winding-sheet,
and carried it away !
THE SCOTCH BENCH.—We learn that the job
to which we alluded some time ago is now consummated.
The Lord President has resigned. 'Whether he is to
be succeeded by Mr. John Hope, or by the Lord Jus-
tice Clerk, we have not heard, but the former seems to
us the more probable. Mr. Hope entered advocate
in 1784, was raised to the Presidency in 1804, and must
now be nearly 80 years of age. He has been 37 years
on the bench, and it is no secret that he would have
retired five or six years ago, if, by the help of a Tory
Ministry, he had been able to secure the office either of
President or Justice Clerk for his son. His political,
friends have scarcely donned their official robes, when
his resignation is tendered, showing either his impa-
tience to be relieved of duties to which his strength was
inadequate, or his fear that the official existence of the
Tories may be of short duration.—Scotsman.—[Mr.
Hope, as our Contemporary styles the President of the
Court of Session, was not raised to the Presidency till
1811, when he was succeeded by the present Lord Jus-
tice Clerk. The office of President must be a sinecure,
when the duties can be performed by a man at such an
advanced age ; and the general belief is, that it is to be
given to another still less fit.]
A Royal Ordonnance has been issued relative to
the treatment of slaves in the French colonies. Art. 1
of the Ordonnance declares that in future no slave-owner
will be allowed to inflict upon a slave an imprisonment
of more than fifteen days consecutively, in the place of
confinement (salle de police) of his own habitation. Art.
2 states that at the expiration of that time, if the owner
considers that it would be attended with danger or in-
convenience to liberate the slave, he is to take him be-
fore the Justice of the Peace of the district, who is to
decide as to whether he shall be confined in the public
prison of discipline (atelier public de discipline), where,
however, he cannot be detained more than three months,
at the expiration of which he is to be sent back to his
master, unless the latter should apply to the Governor
of the colony for the infliction of the punishment provided
against slaves whose conduct is dangerous to tran-
quillity. In cases where the offence of the slave comes
within the jurisdiction of the criminal
to be placed at the disposal of the Procureurenalty
ofi
within a delay of three days. Art. 3 tribunals,
du he
n is
fixesd i a p
from 25f. to 500 f., to which may. be added
t
of from one to ten days, for all infraction
Ordon-
nance on the part of the masters. F of
pthriesonmen
sthhe,epoci thosenaltymay be I,ooof. These arc exclu-
fixedb
ytboeof. existing
sting aw
in the lower part
four o'clock, a fire broke out
half-past
ALARMING FlRE.—Yesterday moaning, at
of the
Horse public-house, Ken - t street, Borough, which entirely
premises of Mr.: Reynolds, landlord of the Black
consumed the house, stock, and furniture. The inmates
mere all in bed, and effected their escape in their night-
dresses.. It is unknown in what manner the fire originated.

en Saturday, whereby the maid-servant and footman b -
longing to one family, the engineer, and the stoker, were,
as I am informed by an eye-witness, literally smashed to
pieces, besides many others dangerously. wounded, arose
from there being two engines to the train, which ought
never, under any circumstances, 'to be allowed, either
both in front or one as a propeller. A moment's thought
must convince any one of the danger. If both are in
front, and the second is in the slightest degree quicker
than the other, it must naturally and inevitably push the
foremost off the rails, as was the case on Saturday; and
if one be used as a propeller, and the leader be checked
in any way, the carriages must be smashed between them.
If the train be too heavy for one engine, either divide it,
and let each part have an engine, following at a reason-
able time after; or, what would be preferable, let the
Company have a few engines of extra power to be used
as occasion may require.
I was a passenger in a train meeting that which had
the accident. It will scarcely be credited that our train,
and one which had arrived afterwards, were joined and
about to be despatched with two engines ! and would
have been so, but that a gentleman in the carriage with
me fortunately perceived it, and after remonstrating
with the superintendent, who would not alter it, saw one
of the Directors, who, after our protesting against pro-
ceeding with two engines, and telling him that he would
be considered responsible if any accident occurred in
consequence, had the trains divided, with an engine to each.
I write in the hope that through your means the atten-
tion of Government, the Directors of all railroads, and
the public may be called to this point, which will tend
much to lessen the danger of railroad travelling.
The use of two engines ought to be prohibited by Act
of Parliament ; but until that can be obtained it would
be wise if the Directors of all railroads would assure the
public that two engines shall never be used to one train.
I am, Sir, your's, J. F. B.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
Sir—Observing that in the melancholy accident on
Saturday last the passengers in the first carriage were
the only ones killed, which I recollect has generally been
the case in all railway accidents occasioned by the engine
getting off the line, it has led me to suggest, either that
the luggage of the passengers should be placed on one or
two luggage trucks between the engine and first carriage,
or else to have a break of some elastic material, say packs
of wool made almost the length awl breadth of one of
the carriages, so that the first concussion would be on it,
and not on the bones and heads of the poor passengers,
though, of course, they must feel, but in a less degree,
being at a greater distance from the engine than n
present.
Hoping this suggestion may tend to the public good
I am, Sir,