The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-06 00:00:00

Just published, in royal lBmo., cloth, price 3s. ; and sent free
on receipt of a Post-office Order, for 3s. 6d.,
MANHOOD: the CAUSES of its PRE-
MATURE DECLINE, with Plain Directions for
ITS PERFECT RESTORATION; addressed to those suf-
fering frAm the destructive effects of Excessive Indulgence,
Solitary Habits, or Infection ; followed by Observations on the
TREATMENT of SYPHILIS, GONORRHCEA, GLEET,
&c. Illustrated with Cases, &c.
By J. L. CURTIS and COMPANY,
Consulting Surgeons, London.
Published by the Authors, and sold by Balliere, Medical
Bookseller to the Royal College of Surgeons, 219, Regent-
street ; 011ivier, 59, Pall Mall ; S•sange, 21, Paternoster-
row; Pattie, 4, Brydges-street, Strand; 8, D'Olier-street,
Dublin ; Duncan,ll4, High-street, Edinbergh; and to be had
of all Booksellers.
The Work which is now presented to the public is the result
of very extended experience in a class of diseases and affec-
tions, which for some unaccountable reason have been either
altogether overlooked, or treated with apathy, and almost in-
difference, by the ordinary practitioner. To enter into the
details of these affections, to point out their causes, and to
mark the terrific consequences, social, moral, and physical,
which are sure to follow from indulgence, in certain habits,
would be entirely out of place in an advertisement. We have
no hesitation, however, in saying that there is no member of
society, by whom the book will not be found interesting, whe-
ther we consider such person to hold the relation of a PA-
RENT, a PRECEPTOR, or a CLERGYMAN.
Messrs. CURTIS and CO. are to be consulted daily at their
residence, No. 7, Frith-street, Soho, from Ten till Three, and
Five till Eight in the Evening; and Country Patients are re-
quested to be as minnte as possible in the detail of their cases,
—as to the duration of the complaint, the symptoms, age, ge-
neral habits of living, and occupation in life of the party ; the
communication must be accompanied by the "usual Consulta-
tion Fee of I/.," without which no notice whatever can be
taken of their application ; and iu all uses, the most inviolable
secrecy may be relied on.

LITERATURE.
THE TORY BARONET, 3 Vols.
Bentley, London, 1841.
The title page of this novel will be pretty sure
to secure it a certai mof popularity,,for it is adroitly sui e o ie temper of the
times just now, when all classes of readers are
busily engaged in thinking and reading, and
wrangling about poll tics; so far, therefore, it maybe
considered a tolerably safe speculation ; but if its
literary merit be regarded, we tear it will dis-
appoint the expectations held out by its dexter-
ous title-page ; for instead of being a smart political
tale, filled with clever and knowing sketches,
illustrative of the characters of " Whigs, Tories,
and Radicals," it is, in truth, a very languid,
common-place affair, keeping up an interest only
by fits and starts, and abounding, even to satiety,
in details of a provincial election, and its bearing
on the fortunes of a Tory Baronet, Sir Edward
Clapperton—the hero of the narrative—in which
details we find nothing to redeem their exceed-
ingly hacknied nature. Nor is there anything
in the story to induce us to believe that the author
has any further acquaintance with politics, than
may be gleaned from an occasional perusal of
;he papers of the day. His allusions are
superficial to a degree; and his Whigs and
Tories, instead of being—as they really are—
people of " mark and likelihood," are mere
vague generalities. The only one of his person-
acres
who has the slightest pretensions to indi-
viduality, is Lord Swainton, a broken-down,
middle-aged Bath gambler, who commences his
acquaintaince with Sir Edward Clapperton in a
stage-coach, by doing him out of a dinner, on
the shallow, swindling pretence that he had left
his purse behind him! Now, though an English
Peer is quite as capable as any untitled indivi-
vidual of being a rogue, yet we contend that
this is not exactly the form in which his roguery
would develope itself; conventional habit alone
would restrain him from acting in this manner;
but, indeed, Lord Swainton throughout is not a
sketch from life, but a sort of fancy portrait, the
germ of which may be found in Kenny's
Jeremy Diddler, who, it may be remembered,
was in the habit of obtaining his breakfasts
and dinners pretty much in his Lordship's style.
It is but just to the author to add, that his third
volume, and the last half of his second, is a de-
cided improvement on the earlier portions of his
talc • and the whole would have been much more
readable, had the eternal, forced vivacity of Lord
Swainton's conversation been subjected to a se-
vere process of abridgement. To use his Lord-
ship's own favourite phrase, his pert, rambling
volubility " beggars description !"

NAVY SURGEONS.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

STR,—Your Journal of the 23d ult. contains an ac-
count of an interview which took place between a depu-
tation of Medical gentlemen and the Liberal candidates
for Marylebone, Sirs B. Hall and C. Napier. The latter
Gallant Officer, is reported to have stated, in reply to a
question from Mr. Simpson, that it was his opinion " that
Naval Assistant Surgeons ought to have a private cabin
for themselves, to read and pursue the study of their pro-
fession ;" he also stated that the mess in the gun-room
was as comfortable as that in the ward-room, and less
expensive, particularly since Mates had an increase of
rank. Sir Charles must, when making this reply, have
forgotten that in vastly the greater number of men-of-
war no " gun-room" exists, that such an apartment is
only to be found in three and two-deckers, and that in
every other class of ship, from the largest frigate down-
wards, the mess-place of the Assistant Surgeon is a dark,
dingy hole on the lower deck, called " the Midshipman's
berth," a wretched miserable place, the whole of which
is completely filled up by the mess-table, and into which
the light of day scarcely ever finds admittance, and this
is, in most men-of-war, the only place the Assistant Sur-
geon can call his own—if, indeed, he can call that his
own which he has in common with a set of mischievous
young monkeys, the future heroes of our navy, who spend
almost their whole time off duty in " skylarking."
What the gun-room mess maybe now, I cannot say ;
but I have served as a Naval Assistant Surgeon, and in
my time the Midshipman's mess could bear no compari-
son with that of the ward-room. I do believe that an
improvement has taken place since the period to which I
allude, but it is not alone the want of comfort in their
mess-place which has made the Naval Assistant Surgeons
dissatisfied with their position in the service—it is the
feeling of degradation inseparable from their situation
which has induced many of them to leave the service in
disgust, as was my case.
Will the Gallant Commodore say upon what principle
he would exclude the Assistant Surgeon from the ward-
room mess, and admit to it the boy Second Lieutenant of
Marines, whose pay is considerably less than that of the
former, and for whose appointment (until the recent re-
gulations regarding Marine Cadetships) no standard of
education was required ?
Again, supposing a party of troops embarked in a ship
of war, with a Regimental Assistant Surgeon, will the
Gallant Officer say why the military medical man should
mess in the ward-room, whilst his brother of the navy is
not allowed the same privilege ?
The Naval Medical Board requires from candidates
for Assistant Surgeoncies fully as high a standard of edu-
cation, general and professional, as does the Army Board,
and yet Inw widely different is the situation of the Army
Assistant from that of the Naval ?

I would beg leave, with very great respect for Sir
Charles Napier, to direct his attention to the the num-
bers of the United Service Journal for July, 1839, and
for the same month in the succeeding year, and to the
DuMin Medical Press of Sept. 9, 1840 ; he will find in
each of these a letter from me on the position of Naval
Assistant Surgeons ; and if the Gallant Officer will,
when he has a little "otium" after the turmoil of his
election (on the result of which I heartily congratulate
him), do me the honour to read them, I venture to say
that he will arrive at the conclusion that, as well as hav-
ing " a private cabin to themselves, to read and pursue
the study of their profession," Naval Assistant Surgeons
ought in every particular, as regards rank, pay, dress,
and messing, to be placed fully on an equality with their
more fortunate brethren of the Army.
Your very obedient servant,
MICHAEL °MEALY, M.D. and Surgeon ;
Late Assist. Surg., H.N.
Ennis, Ireland, July 1, 1811.

LAMENTABLE COAL PIT ACClDENT.—Yes-
terday at none, considerable excitement and alarm pervaded
the neighbourhood of Waterloo, Oldham, by the report that an
explosion of "fire-damp" (carburretted hydrogen gas) had
occurred in the coal pit of Messrs. Jones and Co. of that
place. The report proved too true, and we regret to learn
that three individuals were killed (one of them the overlooker
of the pit), three others dreadfully burned, and some others had
not been got out of the pit when our account left.—Manchester
Guardian.

ASHTON-UNDER-LYNE.—On Thursday after-
noon, at about three o'clock, a large body of the Tory blud-
geon-men, frantic at the return of Mr. Hindley, consisting of
navigators, and numbering nearly 800, advanced upon the
town from three or four public-houses in the Ashton road,
where they had been plied with large qnantiti,:s of liquor. On
entering the town, they attacked the police. office, which they
ransacked. They afterwards attacked the Town-hall inn, Mr.
Hindley's Committee-room, and broke the windows, and broke
into two rooms on the lower story, but were prevented from going
further by fourteen stout fellows, who gallantly kept them at
bay by a storm of stones and brickbats. The constables, with
a large body of workmen, then endeavoured to repel them,
when a regular engagement ensued. Not less than a thousand
men were fighting together. Two of the rascals were left on
the ground very seriously hurt, and many were wounded.
Thirty of them were captured and safely lodged in the cage,
whence they were transferred to the New Bailey, at 'Manchester.
FATAL ACCIDENT BY BATHING IN THE
RIVE IL T AmEs.—On Sunday morning, between six and seven
o'clock, a fatal accident occurred by bathing in the river
Thames, on the Surrey side, near the Red House, Battersea,
to Mr. James Dashwood, a young gentleman twenty-seven
years of age, residing at Chelsea, a clerk in the Customs. The
unfortunate gentleman, accompanied by a friend, was bathing,
when his friend swam off only a short distance—on turning
round he looked about him for Mr. D., but found he nntiapptly
had disappeared, having no doubt been suddenly seized with
cramp.
The Memorial Bordelais gives the following
instance of the imprudence of a too precipitate inter-
ment :--" The burial of a woman was going on a few
days ago at Cadillac, when the noise of the earth and
stones thrown upon the coffin, which had been al-
ready lowered into the grave, wakened her from a trance
into which she had fallen. Fortunately her cries were
heard in time to take her up, break open the coffin and
preserve her life for at least some time to come."